Oh boy, another playersexuality thread!
Originally Posted by Niara
The characters aren't flipping or changing their sexual preference. [snipped]
If you play a female PC, then the setting for the world is that it is full of people, and those people have many and varied preferences. Some will like one thing, some will like another, and most (this is canonically stated, in fact - the prevailing sexual orientation in the forgotten realms is bisexuality) will not actually gauge whether they have the potential to be interested in someone or not by that person's genital configuration.

If your female chooses to pursue a romance with shadowheart, then by happy coincidence, shadowheart is open to the idea of sharing intimacy with another woman - and this is the important bit - And she always was, in this version of the world space.

If you play a male character and pursue a romance with Gale, then by happy circumstance, Gale is, in fact, not adverse to interactions with another male - and unless they decide to write in dialogue and further conversation to talk about it being a new experiment for him, then he literally always was bisexual the entire time, in this version of the world space.

Nothing is being changed or flipped - this is just the world as it exists in this specific version of the game that you are playing in... and if it is a well-written world and story, then it will be believable and consistent.

Right now, we know that Gale and Wyll like women; this does not say anything about their tastes in men, and if a person feels that there is some contradiction here it is only because they made an assumption that they didn't have any right to make in the first place.

An issue currently is The Party Night, when possibly all companions (maybe not Wyll?) proposition you. While it is perfectly believable that a single party member who propositions you (or who you go after) happens to have the appropriate sexuality, the fact that they all happen to have the appropriate sexuality (and all go after you this night, and and are personally attracted to Tav) is something that stresses the imagination. I think people would take *much* less offense at Larian making companions playersexual if companion "romances" were spread throughout the game and/or the player had to initiate them.

This is exacerbated by the fact that the companions DO mention past romances and certain party banters *only* reinforce those sexual indications. E.g, Astarion flirts with everyone - he's clearly shown to be bi. Gale, however, talks about a past romance with a godess and rejects Astarion's flirting with him. Sure, he's not shown to be unattracted to all men, but his lack of shown interest in /history with men compared to Astarion's outspoken preferences is distinct. Wyll is in love with a succubus, and since succubi can change genders (and probably would, in order to aid seductions. In fact, incubi and succubi may be the same, just in their different changed form) this implies that Wyll at the very lest *prefers* women over men.

The world existing in such a state that *multiple* companions only talk about past heterosexual romances AND yet happen to be attracted to (male) Tav is the unlikely part, not the fact that a single companion happens to be attracted to Tav's gender. Plus the fact that the companions all initiate simultaneously and then are snarky if you choose someone else makes it feel extra bad, like you're being punished for not being into them. This issue would be solved if less of them came on to you; one way to do it is to have certain companions have sexual preferences (or at least, require that the player initiate.)


Originally Posted by Niara
That aside, and Larian's dubious writing quality non-withstanding, the kinds of squishy bits that a person likes to play with most in the bedroom should not, generally, be a defining element of their personality and characterisation. If them liking all parts, or different parts to what was first expected, somehow unmakes, debilitates or destroys their character, then the character should probably be scrapped and rewritten anyway, because that's not the sort of thing that a character should be built around.
I agree that characters shouldn't be defined by their sexuality. But that doesn't mean that sexuality can't add to characterization. It is A character trait after all. To provide an example, Cassandra in DAI. The conversation with her when a female PC flirts with her too much and she now has to reject the PC does add to her character.

So maybe saying that companion sexuality IS a trait in itself is too strongly worded. But it certainly provides the opportunity for characterization. And BG3 currently completely and utterly ignores any possibly characterization that can be gained from companion sexual preferences (cough cough Larian's writing)

tl;dr: It'd be nice if some of the following happened:
- companions alluded to past sexualities or made more obvious mention of their attraction to Tav before The Night
- companions who didn't typically go for [gender] romances made some mention of it when romancing/being romanced by Tav and/or
- some companions had set sexualities, which was then used for opportunities for characterization/development. (note, this requires 8+ PCs to have a good spread of gender-sexuality spread)