Edit: Also a game that uses tabu and controversial topics is The Cat Lady, but the story is so well done in that one that for me made it worth going through all the dread and bad feelings. It also has partner abuse, but only in a cutscene and not as a repeatable action triggered by the player. I think that someone wanting to dwelve into such topics in a game or story has to be very good at writing with a deep emotional understanding of the human psychology to hit the perfect balance of good vs bad feelings. It's very easy to make it unplayable. The Cat Lady is also a horror game by the way.
Yes I agree, there need to be an emotional understanding to write about those topics and it must be done very carefully. As well as consulting medical and psychological experts to check the appropriateness of the portrayal and possible impacts for an interactive story. Especially in a mainstream RPG, which isn't horror, it's problematic to throw in such topics in the way, it was done with BG3: Disconnected from the story and without player agency. Besides that: Overall, in the romance story, I think some of the possible answers for the players do not take any emotional level into account. In some places - for whatever reason - how a compassionate or sensitive character would react was completely ignored in the romance. A lack of emotionality and a lack of consistency in a story is fatal, if the story wants to touch upon the topic of "abuse" in an "interactive (")romance(")". Romance in quotes, because as Ametris rightly said, (sexual) abuse is not in the definition of romance. You said that "partner abuse" was seen in a cutscene in "The Cat Lady", also sexual abuse? Is there a scene anywhere in a game where the player character is sexually abused (non-con)? If someone knows one, I'd like to look it up.
Originally Posted by Ametris
Astarion losing his soul in the ritual is just pure misinformation.
Now I'll get back to what I wanted to ask, before Marielle posted that interesting lecture of Larian's romance feature lead, which gives a lot of insight. What does it mean to "lose the soul"? In general in DnD? Do and how do characters change after the loss of their soul? Are there examples? (Without referring to Astarion)
"I would, thank God, watch the universe perish without shedding a tear."
