Larian Studios Forums Divinity General Discussion Divinity needs to learn from BG3 Romance Problems

It's far too easy in Baldur’s Gate 3 to end up going down a romance path with another character without ever knowing that’s what you are doing. and that is really problematic. It's a problem with a lot of dialogue, not just romantic, because you can't tell the tone of an option based on text. Was I making a joke, or is this supposed to be flirty, am I being nice to a friend, or will am I trying to get in their paints? All these characters are adults, there is nothing wrong with having someone go 'hay, are you interested in more than just friendship? because I'm cool either way.' and just giving the player a choice here.

There are several problems with how romance is approached in BG3, but the worst is that it makes people feel out of control. The central theme that makes games stand out from every other media type is control, and with this we don’t have it. This can throw people out of the moment, especially as in several of the ‘romance paths’ there are no easy ways to let the person down. Its like, you were building a friendship and looking for lore in their past, but suddenly you have to be a total asshole because the game thought you were trying to get in there pants. When you weren’t.

In some cases this is much worse. While its antidotal I’ve heard several people say how uncomfortable Wyll’s ‘romantic dance’ scene makes them sense it caught them totally off guard, and as they were playing themselves they didn’t feel comfortable being an asshole or going through with the scene. For women who’ve personally experienced men assuming that just because they’ve been nice they deserve sex, this is a nasty part of the real world they don’t want in their games. Or at least, many of them don’t.

For me, its been really bizarre, as I’m Ace. As an Asexual person I’m nearly always blindsided by the romance in this game. And while I’m not bothered by sex like some, I often had no intention of dealing pursuing a romantic relationship with anyone. While such aggressive behavior from a character like Lae’zel, having that happen from everyone is clearly far too much.

All this could be made much more appropriate by simply doing one thing, giving us clear dialogue choices clear. This way we don’t stumble onto an option we don’t want. More than that though, characters like Lae’zel could be made much more approachable by giving her a friendship/romance option that is clearly marked so that we can learn about the character without having to pursue a relationship we don’t want.

Personally I kind of like Lae’zel being the start of the relationship, but not only is it not for everyone, I’ve heard of multiple people who don’t want to play BG3 simply because all the romance options happen all the time. It makes people uncomfortable and turns them off. So it would be great for Divinity to give the player more control over the nature of their romance.

I've noticed the problem, but hadn't really thought of it as a big deal until I encountered a youtube video that talks about it, and directly calls out BG3, so I thought I'd post this here as a warning/letting people know what's going on. I don't know if I can post links, but the video is called 'How Romance Paths in Games Fail Asexual Players (And How to Fix It)' by Darkteatime. I'm a bit frustrated with myself that I didn't think to say anything until I saw someone else voicing a complaint I've heard thrown about, so I hope other people who've had the same complaint with the game speak up.

I'm also personally frustrated with games that gate content behind building a romantic relationship with certain characters, I think mass effect and dragons age largely did this right, as you don't have to have a romantic or sexual relationship with your companions to dig into their character or learn about them as a person and they clearly mark the dialogue options that go down that path.

I guess the point here is just to let people know what is going on and hopefully see Divinity be the best that it can be.

I completely disagree with this. Game and its characters do not need to sugar coat NPC/PC relationships and make you feel good about yourself all the time. Absolute control makes for a power fantasy rather than a lIving world. Characters should be disappointed, should be blunt, should argue AND they should also be cool about things and be kind and nice. They are called NPCs for a reason, they are non playable character and their reactions should not be managed based on how players feel about things. I am pro-personality when it comes to NPCs.

This also goes for their sexual preference, and in this regard, I agree. Having all characters like you regardless of sex and race as well as having all characters acting on their feelings makes them all bland.

There's 2 main issues at work here:

1) There is no nuance between "Friend" and "Romantic Partner".

It's incredibly hard to maintain a platonic friendship without any romantic advances because there's no tangible line of specifying you're interested in someone or not. By default just being nice to someone ends up with you on the romance path, unless you're specifically aware of which dialogue options trigger things (Even then it surmounts to you having to turn them down at some point)

2) Relationships are shallow.

This applies to both friendships and romance, but is more egregious for romance.

The act of developing a relationship is simply "Do things X character likes" and eventually you'll just be BFF's/lovers. Heck, you don't even need to talk to them ever or even have them in the party (Thanks to BG3's psychic companions, they can fall madly in lust with you with absolutely 0 interaction).

Which is really silly and leads to the situations in BG3 that irked a lot of people, which is companions coming onto their character from out of the blue. Since this act of pursual was triggered simply by doing enough general things they liked - Again, irregardless of if they were in the party or were being interacted with.

Now, as for solutions to such issues:

1) Provide more dialogue options and make it more evident when options are flirtatious or simply being friendly.

This doesn't necessarily have to be direct professions of love right out of the gate. But there should be obvious signs that differentiate "Getting to know a friend" and "Trying to woo a romantic partner". Really, there'd be different levels of "Forwardness" to which characters will react differently based on their personality (As well as overall relationship level)

2) Improve on the very basic and very outdated relationship model.

We need to do away with the simple "Like-o-meter" whereby characters just gain favour from doing basic things like "Do something they like" or "Give them a gift" and then instantly fall in love with you once it reaches 100%.

There needs to be systems that are more nuanced in how characters react. With more things that can influence how a character views you. Such as how often you talk to them, how much you converse with them, whether you bring them along in your party, the priority you put on interacting with them (I.e. They'll like it if they're the first person you talk to when you get to camp and start to resent you if they're the last person in your rounds of talking to everyone) etc.

Also, it should be made so that positive feelings don't necessarily equate to romance. Allowing you to become BFF's with someone without having to dance around constant romance requests. Of course, this would be very complex to do well without simply making it based on a "I want to romance you" dialogue option... Though even that basic implementation would be far better than current systems (That's how awful they are)

It should feel more organic and more like you're going out of your way to get closer to a character. Rather than just ticking checkboxes to fill a relationship bar (Of course, it will always boil down to essentially this. The key is to mask it with complexity so it's less obvious)

I wouldn't say that real-life romance is exactly free of these bugs, but I can remember a couple of instances in the game - not at all just romancing - where I misunderstood dialogue options, e.g. thought I was making a joke/being ironic or didn't get a reference. And then everybody disliked it and friendly NPCs turned hostile. Not to turn everybody into HK-47s from KotOR, but with some options a hint like [THREAT], [SARCASM], or in this case [ROMANCE] would surely be nice. The Wyll proposal in the Shadow-Cursed mountain camp did seem out of place, but to me this was Wyll being Wyll. At least in my game, he had this thing for acting on sketchy infos (Karlach, Ansur...), letting good intentions override common sense (Mizora,...) and having really bad timing - worst of all organising a big party to celebrate becoming the Blade of Avernus on the eve of the final battle.

I have little complaints about the romancing system in BG3. I never really felt pressured. One thing that annoyed me was that the PC can't play "hard to get" apparently. I think it's with Shadowheart at some point. You can immediately say yes, or choose something like "yes, but not now, but later", but that last remark finishes it. There is no later. So that was a response was misleading.

To be fair, I also wouldn't date someone who said, "Not now, but later." If someone I'm interested in can't give me a 100% yes, it's a no.

I think it's better when the characters have their own agency and personality. Some being more forward and taking the initiative while others need to be wooed. I think BG3 has a good mix of themes and pace in terms of the romances. The one thing I would remove is the approval based system which leads to immediate attraction as soon as you hit a benchmark and replace it with something that feels more organic and less like a game mechanism. In BG3 it was very easy to gain high approval simply by being interested in the companions' story and helping them progress to learn more about them, which lead to that feeling that they were all just lining up to get with the PC as high approval often lead to immediate romantic interest. I would put it behind hidden triggers that are unique to each character, some like flirting and forwardness, others like courage, kindness or quiet confidence and if you want to romance someone you have to learn what they respond well to through dialogue, not by some number that pops up on your screen. There is also some areas where they could polish the interactions and try to ensure that the characters can read the room a bit better. It is ok if a few misunderstandings happen every now and then, that can be interesting and fun, but they should feel believable.

This would all be greatly helped by having more platonic routes as many have already requested. If getting to know the characters and becoming close to them didn't necessarily have to lead to a romantic attraction, the romantic pursuits would feel more special.

It wasn't literally that phrase, of course. I don't remember the exact phrasing, but the first answer in the list was like "Hell yea", the second felt to me like "I'm interested but give me some more time". I didn't expect that to cause the door slam shut.

This sounds a lot like a watered down version of romance in real life. There’s even a song by a German pop band about how easy it is to step over that line unintentionally with someone you’ve known for all your life.

Adding nuance to that would make it even harder to understand.

To the second point: I also misunderstood some dialogue options (what my character meant with them), and getting a better indication of that may be nice, but I don’t think you should be able to control how the other character interprets what you said. Though it may be useful to show when there is disagreement on the interpretation (e.g. your character acting surprised when the reaction does not match the intention).

Yeah, dont get me started on realism in BG3 romances.

For example if men pulled what Gale pulls in this night scene with other men, they would get beaten up. A LOT.





First of all, awesome OP !

Yes the romances in BG3 suck BIG TIME. I'm not surprised some people wont play the game just because of the obnoxious romances.

As I've said before, they should give us the option to disable romances. I would immediately enable that and never turn it off again.

Personally I always romance Karlach ASAP - not because I want to, but simply to shut everybody else up. There is nothing I like about that romance, but she's the by far most likeable of the female options. Admittedly a very low bar, considering the other two are essentially pure evil.

But realistically I play Halfling and the most I would maybe romance is Gnome, but really typically another Halfling. And yes, I also sometimes play Half Woodelf. Then thats less of an issue. Those are the only two races I really play.

I also always play female now. Mainly because female faces are better. But also for example because then Gale's scene isnt as over the top uber creepy if you are female. Still creepy and invasive, just not as much.

I also dont like that everyone is bisexual. Realistic would be one bisexual, one homosexual. Then again, given how narrow the choices are, and how the game forces me to play females, its a good thing that Karlach is bisexual and I can romance her as a female.





Very well said, too.

Bioware games tried to solve this "problem" and it was worse, so I hope Larian doesn't "learn" from this.

About Bioware, the Aerie romance is still by far the best game romance I've seen anywhere.

Lots of dialogues, interesting developments, it was just really well written and interesting and had a satisfying ending, too.

The Jaheira and Viconia romances are most likely also really good, but Jaheira is frankly just annoying me, and Viconia as an evil character is just too much of a hassle. Would have loved to get a helmet of opposite alignment in BG2 unfortunately that one just doesnt exist there (the BG1 addon had one, at the end of Durlags dungeon).

You can change Viconia's alignment if you romance her. Doesn't happen until Throne of Bhaal, so you have to wait a while, but it can definitely be done without the helmet. Unfortunately there is no way to stop Jahera from being an annoying nag.

i always like the Mazzy romance story best but that doesn't involve the player character so not sure it counts for this thread

I am well aware that you can, however you still have to handle her being evil for all of SoA and large parts of ToB. Parts in which for example your reputation may not exceed 18, or Viconia will leave (like all evil characters).

I remember first time I played Baldurs Gate, I simply disabled AI all the time so I could have Edwin in party with reputation 20. Not sure if that even works anymore with the EEs.

I understand the OP.

I love romantic threads in crpgs. But there are very hard to master.
For BG3:
+ They are playercentric, and do not hard limit you due to gender, alignment, race (or species).
+ Some of them are connected to significant character development.
- They are triggerhappy, easy to start or stop a romance by an "innocent" reply.
- They may dive fast into the "sex" bit and after that handle character development dialogs. A bit like a hippy camp in the 60s.

I remember Aerie and Viconia from BG2. Long and rewarding threads. Especially being able to overcome the alignment difference with Viconia.
The best romance handling in my opinion would be to combine the best parts of BG2, BG3 and Mass Effect.

Hard pass. Playercentric kills the whole romance value. No relationship past friendship feels earned. Definitely the worst design choice in the romance aspect.

I'd much rather have no romance at all than playercentric romance.

There is a very good chance they'll double down on playercentric romance, since they aim for agency and it is an easy misconception that agency equals power fantasy.

So you want romances between NPCs ?

That always play out the exact same way ?

Having romances between NPC's would be very interesting. It would help flesh out characters. Giving them some level of independence, rather than them only ever forming a connection with the PC. This could also go along with other relationships between NPC's too, having certain NPC's become besties or rivals based on their inherent personalities with this leading to various interactions and consequences (I.e. Rivals not being able to be in the same party and/or potentially leaving if you form a relationship with a rival)

They wouldn't always play out the same way either.

As you'd have differences based on if you personally romanced one of the NPC's. Or depending on if you recruited certain NPC's or not.

Heck, you could even go further and have NPC romances dependent on player actions too (I.e. If you have 2 NPC's in your party or sat in camp together they can get closer. But if they're constantly separated they are less likely to form a relationship)

There's a lot of potential outside NPC's being exclusively interested in the PC.

I'm sorry, but that sounds like fluff and decoration, not actual gameplay content.

You literally ask us to passively view someone elses romance.

A mere "by the way, we two are together now" would suffice for me in that scenario.

Because player romances aren't fluff and decoration?

What gameplay content do they provide? A low effort sex scene? The ability to initiate an awkward kiss scene?

Meanwhile, I suggested things that could actually impact gameplay (Rivalries that make certain companion set ups not possible)


I mean, it's up to you if you want to sit there and expressly watch their romance progress.

Beyond that, there might be some dialogue changes in the likes of expressing concern if someone is being put into a dangerous situation (Including stuff like the altered barks that happen in BG3 when a character goes down when the player has high affection), some subtle changes like their tents in camp moving to be together.

Nothing that necessitates detracting from the general gameplay, but that still provides a nod to the fact that companions are in fact, people who do people things like form connections (With entities outside of the player).

Which would also highlight the fact that IF the player successfully initiates a romance with them, it's because the player managed to grow close enough to them in order for it to happen. Rather than BG3 where it's just assumed that every companion will automatically be lusting for the PC and no-one but the PC (Despite Wyll's, terrible, attempts to woo Lae'zel and Shadowheart in dialogues when roaming around together in a party)

Well, I want to be able to choose who of the team I like most and gradually deepening that relation. Not the rush start as in BG3, but slowly like in BG2.

In a real world setting, if you are isolated with a mixed (young) group and experience rather demanding situations together, romance will pop up, so will drama, break ups and new partner combinations. You will learn more about each other and how to work effectively together with your recent ex, because you have to. If you have experienced it you know, even so, I do think the BG3 rush is the most realistic depiction I have seen in a game. But it is not how I would prefer it handled in a game.

There was also Lae'zel who would hook up with someone else at the tiefling party if rejected and Shadowheart who will confess to having lustful thoughts about Halsin once or twice, or more. But the latter led to death threats towards the writer, so though I personally would really enjoy some more dynamics, drama and conflict within the companion relationships, maybe the gaming community isn't mature enough for it.

I'm so conflicted with this.

I actually agree with both of ya'll in different respects. Personally I think there's nothing more fulfilling than fulfilling the power fantasy in an RPG. I just like to have to work for it. But by the time the RPG is wrapping up there is some serious entertainment value from the game adhering and rewarding all your effort, work, strategy, character building, and exploration to result in a well developed power fantasy.

With that said... yes NPC's should have their own goals and ideas. I think it's perfectly natural for you to "befriend" someone in an RPG that you don't particularly like, or that you disagree with, because you either need them for plot or you simply need their help to solve a situation. Friction causes drama, and drama always makes an epic tale (or game) even more fun that it would be without it.

As far as romances... I love romances in RPG's. But my issues with romances start to arise when you have games like Dragon Age: Inquisition where the only romance options for the straight male player were masculine butchy, unattractive women. I can enjoy unattractive companions, I just don't want to romance them. It's a real shame when someone who typically likes romance in stories has to go out of their way to avoid it in a game with romance options because the options provided were not appealing in the least. This is the reason why I can't shame the way Larian handled BG3 romances. For me, I see player freedom in it. And in many ways, when crafting a good RPG player freedom is an important part of satisfying that players view of the RPG... and that goes doubly for romance.

I guess I believe romance options should definitely be available in deep narrative driven RPG's like this, but it never feels good when the person you fall for can't be romanced in the game. If you interact with enough people it happens enough in real life I don't need it to be happening in my fantasy adventure.

The crux is the scope of the power.

A typical RPG is about you, the protagonist, working to overcome insurmountable odds and become the hero.

While a power trip is you, the protagonist, being a Mary Sue and being literally unstoppable and having complete control over everything.

Essentially, it's like the difference between beating a difficult boss to get some really nice loot and using console commands to just spawn it in your inventory.

Both lead to your character having the powerful loot. But one is earned the other is given.


Having NPC's with their own personalities is great.

The main concern with the original quote is more so the inability to actually differentiate your own personal goals with interactions.

It happens a lot in RPG's where any dialogue option that is in anyway positive is taken to mean "Romance" and the only options to not pursue a romance are "Be a massive jerkface".

So if you are talking to some NPC to find out more information about them or the world... If they're not a romance option then it's fine, you can talk to them all day without issue and develop a friendship. If they are a romance option, you either get locked into a romance with them or you don't get to talk to them at all.

Whereas the ideal would be for there to be options for platonic relationships alongside options for romantic ones. While having the option to turn down advances without being a colossal jerk (As even if you try to be platonic, NPC's can still fall for you due to other actions)


The ever present concern is player freedom vs character building.

Playersexual NPC's provide the most player freedom as someone is free to romance anyone they wish regardless of their character.

However, such a thing can detract from the character's personality.

Of course, one does have to consider how much of a person's personality is their sexuality? Your average Twitter user it's their entire personality, but for sane people it's barely a mention.

I see what you're saying here and agree it can use some work. I had the issue in BG3 where Gale was trying to "teach magic" to me and the moment I said yes things got 1000% gay. I mean that's cool if that's what you're going for and I'm glad it's there for people that want it, but for me it went from 0mph to 1000mph and from straight to gay very very quickly. One second I'm asking him about the girl he's in love with, the next second he's standing uncomfortably close to me and looking deep into my eyes.

That whole scene always bothered me because of how jarring it felt. I suppose the kind of lame way Bioware used to do it with a heart next to the message would at least warn you not to click it. But I'm not so sure I want icons displaying next to dialog choices. But yea, either way relationships both platonic and not can always use more time to simmer, more options to lead it, and more options to back off or put the petal to the metal.


Agreed. Unfortunately I don't think there's a right or wrong answer here.

I think it's mostly in the hands of the devs on how they want to handle it and it definitely has an effect on the way the relationships feel to the player but I guess it comes down to choosing the right design for the right game.

Why yes Gale is a huge creep and would get beaten up a lot if he tried such things in reallife.

It also makes no sense. The guy just said he's in love with Mystra. So why is he suddenly hitting on my protagonist ?!?!?!?!!??

If he's "hitting on you", then that's because you were having a fnatasy of kissing him and allowed him to see that thought , right ?
And even then, he refuses to go any step further along that path as long as his orb is unstable, unwilling to endange you.

Um.

I have no clue why you think someone whos first statement about Gale is "he's a huge creep" would ever romance Gale.

I literally dont want to know how that romance goes, thank you very much.

Btw even if he wasnt such a creep, I'm a straight dude, I dont care about romances with any male charaters.

And how is the game script supposed to magically know the sexuality of the player?

This goes both ways, the female characters tries to romance the player character as well, even if the player is a straight female or gay male. So by that standard, everyone is a creep.

The game handles it by simply giving you the option to reject them. I don't know what you expect from the game unless you are willing to take a survey and register your sexuality before the game even begins.

It doesn't need to know the sexuality of the player.

It just needs to be more clear about what dialogue options are alluding to.

There's a vast difference between a bro just showing you how cool magic is and him whispering sweet nothings into your ear as you think about kissing him.

Yet the dialogue option with Gale doesn't really make it clear.

It's just "Hey do you wanna see some cool magic?" and then it's suddenly all intimate.

More clarity with dialogue options (And more fleshed out alternate states of platonic and romantic relationships) means you can more accurately move forward in your intended way, without accidentally ploughing into the romance option unawares.

This is a relevant point in general, but the example of Gale is not a good reflection of the issue. When it comes to Gale you do have very clear dialogue options, two of the options allude to thinking about kissing and holding hands and the others are either platonic or downright rude. It does not jump into anything intimate unless you choose one of the obvious romantic options, so you can't really complain that Gale responds with romantic interest when you have been showing him thoughts about being intimate with him.

If you want to highlight the issue then Karlach -"I want to ride you until you see stars"- or Laezel -"I want to taste your sweat"- are far clearer examples since they will jump at you with those lines no matter what you have said to them before. Gale has one of the most clearly signalled platonic or romantic paths out of all the companions, yet he gets thrown around as the example of the person who can't read the room while Lae'zel and Karlach (and Minthara) somehow gets a free pass.

Disclaimer: If you only played the early release of the game, Gale's romance flags were bugged, causing him to act as if you were in a romantic relationship even if you had turned him down or never initiated anything romantic. This was cleared up in the patches, so the issue no longer exists. Obviously Larian should take care that such bugs do not happen when it comes to romance as it is clearly not intended to play out that way.

I don't know about Minsc, but for all the other male companions, there are mods to turn them female.

I also want to add that receiving unwanted attention or being icked out isn't the most horrible experience you can ever be subjected to. We are talking about video game NPCs, you can reject them, ignore them or even completely avoid them and kill them if you are so inclined.

I may have a real adverse attitude towards Halsin, on a personal level he gives me the worst ick and I never liked his inclusion as a companion. Annoying as it may be that I can't even reject him from joining the party and that he then inevitably comes on to my character because I spoke to him once, I just reject him and send him back to his corner in camp to whittle his ducks in peace. It is less than 1 minute of dialogue out of a 50+ hour long game.

And I also need to recognize that someone might have the same feelings towards Lae'zel, Karlach, Minthara or Astarion (though in the case of Minthara, if you don't like her, why did you go through all that trouble to recruit her?) who will also come on to the player character on their own initiative without the player making the first move. And in those cases, I like that, as it creates a realistic variety of how different relationship starts and fits the different personalities of the companions. And I'd rather suffer through a few lines of unwanted attention from Halsin than having all those unique and interesting interactions replaced with a simple romance button that the player has to push first which takes me right out of the immersion and makes it into a simple and obvious game mechanic.

You cant kill Gale.

You can leave him to his doom when you first meet him. But thats the last chance you get to kill him.

I mean OK, you can get him to -50 approval, attack the grove, etc. So you can get rid of him.

Cant kill him, though.

You can also tell him to leave after he reveals his "condition" right ? I never chose that option, but I assumed that he would leave if you told him to.

Thats was one of the "etc".