As the mods are constantly intervening in other threads about the way sexuality is handled in BG3 once playersexuality is brought up because it apparently derails discussion about the way sexuality is handled in BG3 for some reason, here a thread dedicated to this topic as by their request.
What is playersexuality?
Playersexuality means that all companions will always be attracted to your PC, no matter their race, sex and gender.
Why I think its bad.
It cheapens the companions and makes them, when it comes to their sexuality, an ambiguous limbo. The sexuality of a person does affect his personality and behaviour around others. By leaving this undefined it leaves a gaping hole in the personality of companions and complicates writing their story.
Examples for that are Wyll and Gale. Their backstory already establishes that they are attracted to woman. So depending on the gender of the main character they are either Bi or Hetero. Yet as it ultimately can't be defined to allow for playersexuality it can never be referenced at all. Wyll openly flirts with basically every female companion in the party and when he talks about his past he also hints at his successes with the ladies.
But despite never mentioning anything with other men we still have to believe that he is Bi when playing male characters. If Wyll had a defined sexuality, either Bi or Hetero, all this awkwardness would be avoided and his dialogue and backstory which fit his romance options a lot better.
Another example of playersexuality gone bad is Shadowheart. Her dialogue makes it abundantly clear that she has no love for Githyanki or Selune, at least in Act 1. Yet she has no problem with hooking up with a Githyanki cleric of Selune player character as a consequence of playersexuality.
This commitment to playersexuality also presents another problem as it prevents some storytelling options as you can't have a companion which is not willing to have sex with the player. So no married person who wants to get back to their family or devoted character with among other things a vow of celibacy. And neither can any story reference their sexuality directly.
With such obvious disadvantages, why is Larian using playersexuality? In short time/money.
With playersexuality they did not need to write different dialogue for romanceable and non romanceable player characters (or leave non romanceable PCs with a lot less interactions with the companions as Larian made sex a big part of it). And they can get away with less companions if they want to offer a "romance" choice for every combination.
And they don't have to deal with some thirsting twitter users complaining that they can't have sex with their favorite companion because of not fitting sexuality.
This also leads back into the general impression of horniness and overdone sexuality in BG3. As now everyone is a romance option you also have "romance" dialogue with everyone and them also hitting on you. Especially as Larian seemed to think that having sex with a companion apparently is one of the primary goals when talking to them in the first place and also the reason why there is no general friendship path.
For a much better implementation look at the Pathfinder games (Kingmaker and Wrath).
There companions have determined sexuality, hetero, homo, bi and not interested in romance at all and non of it feels out of place and fits their characters while allowing the story to also reference their sexuality when it makes sense without awkwardly trying to leave it ambiguous.
Last edited by Ixal; 13/08/23 10:58 AM.
