Larian Studios Forums Baldur's Gate III Baldur's Gate III - Suggestions & Feedback More reasonable romance options.

I disagree. If you are playing your character in a coherent way, and making choices that you feel your character would make, and that's what you do (it's what I do), then there will be characters that won't have a bar of you, no matter how much you want them to. It will happen, though, because you, as your character made choices - not because of some per-determined external factor that you had no control over. Sometimes you don't get what you want, and can't have what you want... but in terms of game romance, that should only ever be because of choices you yourself make... things you valued more, or didn't value enough, when it came down to it.

I disagree. In any individual play through, they are one and only one of those things, and they are so with consistency and solid reality. When looked at as being their entire branching tree of a character, above the game and over-arching it, then they are all of those things, not none of them. They are not, however, all of those things simultaneously. What matters, is the individual instances, and what matters within them is that they are consistent, believable, and written in a way that meshes well with the rest of their character, and doesn't jar against it.

Not necessarily (other factors may also influence them), but for sake of discussion, generally yes - it is the player's choices that matter most. This steps past the bounds of the discussion about romance and intimacy, as it is about the very concept of characterisation in a video game based on player choices. Well written video game characters are not less distinct or less defined because of the way in which they necessarily exist, not at all; again, what it comes down to is the individual instances, and their consistency within each, independent of each other. How they engage in romance is one aspect of this, but only one of very many.

Again, I must disagree. In many things... so many things, in life and in games, that is the case. In terms of player-pursued romance, in the space of a fantasy video game played for enjoyment... no, it's not. Not to me, at least. It's also not a problem for good characterisation... unless you're going to say that no character, anywhere, in any way, can ever have good characterisation, in a game based around player choice... and you're not saying that, I don't believe. We're talking about character who make their own choices within a world... they can only be written with so much detail in a game space, but they still functionally make their own decisions. Whether the decision is about how much they'll order at the bar, whether they'll side with you at the heart of ultimate evil, whether they'll feel compelled to rat you out to the guards or whether they'll visit you in your bedroom at night... these are all decision that NPCs make, but are all necessarily influenced in their decision by the variable factor in their universe – the choosing player. If anything at all is written as a decision an NPC could make that could go more than one way, in any circumstance, then it is a decision that is ultimately influenced by the player, by literal definition of the medium in which the character exists. So, unless you're saying that it's impossible to have good characterisation in a video game that revolves around player choice, at all, for anything... then it's very much not an inherent problem for the sphere of inter-character romance.

Arbitrary hard-locks outside of your control do not need to exist in that sphere, and they benefits no-one for them to do so. They do not make for interesting, compelling or engaging story-telling, they just make for frustration and disappointment, and add nothing of actual value to the game play experience. In nearly all other aspects of the game, such situations can absolutely create interesting and engaging story development. In the sphere of player-pursued romance, no, it doesn't.

If a character is romance-capable in such a game, then they should be romance capable – and that means that as you step out of character creation, you can at least know that if you find a romance-capable character that you like, that it will at least be *possible*. Beyond that, nothing is certain or guaranteed - if the character you are playing is not the sort of person they'd want, then you will fail, but you will fail because of your own decisions and actions, and that is how it should be.

I disagree... You aren't being handed what you want - the Dm is making something possible, because you're interested in it. They're not giving it to you automatically no matter what you do. You know that it's possible, nothing more - anything beyond that you've got to work out, and if you aren't the kind of person they want, then that's just too bad for you - you fail, or you miss out, or you don't get what you want... not because the Dm let you chase something that was impossible from the outset, which would be bad story-telling, but because of choices you made, and the things upon which you placed value. That, to me, is far more meaningful than being told: "yeeeah, but you're a halfling, so, nope, tough... I made this neat NPC, and you care about him a lot, and you've gotten to know him, and you also seem pretty darn compatible in your views and tastes, as it turns out... but I decided before you sat down that he won't look at halflings as intimate-capable beings, so, you're just SoL. Sucks to be you. Guess you should have been an elf, lol, that would have been hot." Being told THAT by our video-game Dm has no story-telling value, whatsoever, and is just bad design... and it will always be bad design and poor choice... In my opinion, at least.