OP, you should post this on the BG3 subreddit – if the ensuing reaction doesn’t incapacitate you with PTSD, let us know how it went. BG3 subreddit is the audience I feel Larian is largely going for with this ‘playersexual’ slant, and woe betide any who suggest it should be modified to appear, let’s be honest, truer to ‘real life’.

My guess – and this is completely subjective – is it’s targeted mainly towards a very young/teenage audience. People just starting to get into relationships, or people who’ve never had relationships, and it acts as a kind of easy-win wish-fulfilment. Just beat up a few gnolls and everyone’s throwing themselves at you to the point they’ll even switch sexual orientation.

Of course there are grown-ass adults who for some reason enjoy this too, but then there’s also a whole ‘romance’ novel market – though that does tend to be based on some sane principals of human behaviour: the opposite of playersexual, basically.

It has become a pivotal part of the modern RPG product, so it’s here to stay. I also, way back, expressed derision for what I still feel is an absurd set of contrivances – but now I’ve just stopped caring. Possibly because the entire BG3 story isn’t my cup of tea, so what’s another bit of nonsense in the mix?

I do think there’s something vaguely unhealthy about it, but hardly enough to warp the minds of ‘impressionable youngsters’ who might believe everyone’s playsexual in real life too.

That said, I definitely think being straight has influenced my own narratives and interactions so significantly that only in the la-la land of gaming fiction could something like this fly. So it largely depends on if you care about these characters having any kind of personal autonomy. I would, in most other fiction. In this? Heh…