I know this subject has already cropped up so forgive me for starting it again. However, I'm new here and didn't get a chance to have a say. The design decisions relating to this seem a real shame so I really just wanted to add my bit. Sorry if others here think, 'Oh no, not this again'. It's worth noting though that if people think it's been talked about ad nauseum now, just you wait until full release if things stay as they are

So, I feel that good characterisaton should mean that characters have, well, their own characters. That's currently the case in all sorts of ways; social status, morality, ambitions, education etc, but when it comes to romance they really do seem like sexdolls. This is down to two main reasons and I think the solution to both is pretty straight forward; subtlety and player engagement.

Firstly, and this is easily the worst culprit, everyone tries to sleep with you...and they all decide to do so on the same night! What?! They don't even wait for the PC to show interest first, they just either ask outright or hint at it heavily. It's crazy. I know I put points into Charisma and bumped it to 14 but come on! I also realise they might feel like living today as if there's no tomorrow but it really stretches credulity.

Admittedly in Lae'zel's case it makes sense. She sees something she wants, she'll take it - or at least try to But that's the thing, isn't it? Does it make sense for the character? Shadowheart is a cleric of Shar and pretty secretive and slow to trust. Yes, you win her over a bit before celebration night but maybe she shouldn't be as quick to jump into bed with the PC as Lae'zel or the lascivious vampire?

Characters should be distinguishable from each other in romance as they are in other personality traits. In Mass Effect 2, you can sleep with Jack very quickly but it'll have repercussions whereas other characters will only do so near the end of the game or even, in the case of Tali, the sequel...not that it was necessarily planned ahead of time...

Secondly, everyone is bi-sexual. Before I go any further I want to make it clear that I have no issue with that in the practical sense. Not at all. They should indeed be bi-sexual so that all players get to role-play and live out a fantasy as they choose. However, as an interesting side-note, if everyone is bi, then it's an erasure of homosexuals and lesbians, not just heterosexuals.

To the point though; does it need to be signposted? Everyone being bi almost screams 'we're here to fulfill your fantasies' as much as the above point. It should be in the coding rather than explicitly out there when the player hasn't even asked, unless it makes sense for the character...say a particularly flirty one who likes to talk about previous conquests and such.

I know not all npcs will mention it but Wyll has a demon mistress in female form and Gale talks about Mystra as a 'she' and how he was (is) in love with her. Yet they both want you even if you're male. And that's just Act 1. It's possible Shadowheart might sleep with a female PC and in following acts reveal how she was in love with a man or maybe even had a husband. Who knows what's in store? Same kinda thing goes for the other companions we've been introduced to so far and those we might meet later.

So yeah, my suggestion is to let companions only mention their desire at the prompting of the player unless it really makes sense given the character in question. That would cut back a lot of this sexdoll obviousness straight away. Also, have companions reach the point where they'll 'go all the way' happen at different times. As things stand, they seem less real as personalities. The night of celebration feels more like a walk around Amsterdam's red light district, with your companions in the window fronts

PS: Speaking of the night of celebrations, why the hell does everyone know someone propositioned you? The tadpoles? Are they reading everyone's minds constantly? Or did Lae'zel, when she asked for sex, actually shout it at the top of her lungs as opposed to the way the voice actress sounded? When you turn them down, how come they don't seek company elsewhere if they're so randy? If they did, the PC would know about Gale sleeping with Shadowheart too, same way they know about me and Lae'zel. Oh wait, silly me, your companions would never sleep with each other because they need to stay pristine and available for the player's sexual needs in case the player wants them in later Acts...my bad!

Strange how they're all so open to every race, gender and color, yet still all seem monogamous, even getting jealous over each other. DAI made the companions have their own preferences and it never diminished the character. Having characters that simply wait for you to decide which one gets a turn tonight seems like the NPCs you find in the old dirty bar from other CRPGs.

Yeah, you make a good point and that's some of what I was trying to articulate in the last bit of my post.

As you seemingly suggest, some romance decisions should have repercussions. Maybe in the full game they will but I suspect that if I sleep with Lae'zel in Act 1 everyone will be waiting patiently for me in case I change my mind in later Acts, heh.

I can only hope the romances become fleshed out in the future acts. So far, the companions are trying hard to make you dislike them. But just like in the case of Wenduag from WOTR, only through an actual development was her romance one of the best in the game.

They aren't bisexual, they are playersexual. They are always attracted to the player regardless of all other qualifiers. As long as you have higher enough relationship with them, you can romance them.

To be clear, the companions are player-sexual, not bi-sexual. Each companion seems to have some sexual preferences about other NPCs, revealed through their history or dialogue or banter, but always wants to bang the PC.

If companions remain player-sexual, I think their sexual preferences should be at least mentioned. E.g., Wyll and Gale (mostly presented as straight) should, when flirting with a male PC, have some dialogue line similar to "I've never felt this way about a man before." Whereas Astarion (who flirts with all companions during banter) wouldn't have such a line. Companions should have a defined personality and desires that remain consistent within the game, and any deviation from that should be adequately explained or else it is jarring/unbelievable.

Alternatively, I'm fine with companions having set sexualities like in DAI. However, this requires there be a sufficient amount of companions. CP2077's companions massively failed because there was only 1 option for each gender-sexuality pair. BG3 would need a minimum of 8 companions. For each gender of companion, there'd be
1 straight
1 gay
2 bi
This would ensure that every PC has 6 available sex romance options--3 of each gender--which seems sufficient imo.

It's uncanny that you said that; I almost used Wenduag as an example but thought that not very many people here would know what I'm talking about!

When I saw the way companions are fully voiced in BG3 and how you get the animations and Mass Effect style interactions, I immediately wondered how it would have been if PWotR had the same thing...though good writing is always the most important thing, of course.

Anyway, go team Wendu! Maybe Lae'zel will be as good?

Based on the size of the camp and that several characters have already been hinted as more companions, this could easily be the case.

One can only hope

Sorry, I'm having a hard time understanding what you mean. Playersexual? When Gale says he's in love with a woman but also wants to have sex with a male player, then how is that not bi? I mean, the player has a sex, right? Or are you saying that he never usually is attracted to males but, in fact, just somehow manages to be attracted to a male player character? Seems highly improbable...and a lot like a sexdoll.

Also, if that is the case, shouldn't he mention it at least?

People seem to get stuck on the bi thing but I'm not trying to offend anyone...my other point was the main one and my suggestions kill two birds with one stone, thereby avoiding the sexdoll thing that lessens their character and credibility, imho.

The funny thing here is that we are seemingly in agreement.

We can say on this forum there's such a thing as 'playersexual' but that doesn't help with credibility for the in-game story and characters. Astarion being 'bi' seems about right, the way he behaves and such...not so much the others. Having Gale saying 'I've never felt this way about a man before' is better than nothing but still stretches things...and when/if more than one companion were to do so it would snap credibility completely, imho.

You yourself say 'any deviation from that should be adequately explained or else it is jarring/unbelievable.' and that's my whole point. Credibility is being unnecessarily diminished when there should be better and subtler ways to deal with this.

And that still wouldn't counteract the sexdoll nature of pretty much everyone wanting you. In my last playthrough I only paid attention to Lae'zel's approval but I was propositioned by several others.

The answer seems so simple to me. Let the player start romance options off, job done. In fact, I have an asexual friend who specifically dislikes being asked for sex/romance in games so it doesn't necessarily help people of that persuasion either when 3-5 people ask, unbidden, for sex in the same scene. Sex separately, of course

"Player" sexual is nothing but a meta term. All it does is describe the reasoning behind the decision to make all the companions bisexual.

Bisexual is, of course, the proper term, at least for anyone trying to roleplay and immerse in what's happening. Again, "playersexual" is just meta terminology that has nothing to do with immersion or roleplaying. There's no such thing in universe.

I honestly do not think anything needs to be done about this. Their sexuality is up to the player to decide and therefore does not require anything done about it, as it would serve no purpose other than take away from the player's own roleplay they're trying to create by shoehorning an insignificant detail such as that. Certainly having them say something like; "I never thought about being with a [gender]." would only further alienate that roleplay.

And to me, everyone wanting to be involved with someone on the night of the celebration isn't that weird.

• If you engaged and listened to every piece of dialogue with your companions, you'd know their motivations, desires and reasons.
• They're all telepathically connected through the tadpole and they do overhear your conversations with other companions. Yes, they're equally as intrigued as to what goes on around the camp.
• On the night of the celebration you've done an extraordinary feat where spirits are high and drinks are plenty. It makes sense to want to relax and indulge in such things on a special night.
• Lae'zel in particular is very turned on after the battle and will participate in carnal pleasure with or without you.
• If you kill the Tieflings though, Shadowheart rejects you and Wyll leaves.

I can provide in-depth reasoning as to why each and every companion finds you attractive that night as their reasoning and desires are quite obvious if you've participated in regular conversations with them.

Ah, I see.

Yes, I'm more concerned with the immersion and role-playing than a term meant to explain a practical decision by the designers that clashes with the characters identities.

I mean, I've often thought maybe companions should react differently to the player based on Charisma too. In some games you can use it as a dump stat and drop it to ludicrously low levels and yet everyone you meet is so easily seduced, heh. In fact, in some games the player's Charisma can have a dramatic effect on NPC's attitudes and often does...but romance-able companions? Never! That's sacrilege! Again, companions being signposted as being there for the player's fantasies regardless of whether it makes sense in-game.

Their sexuality is not up to the player when they expressly speak about sleeping with/being in love with people of the opposite sex to the PC and yet still want the PC too.

As for the night of celebration, I see where you're coming from but being able to rationalise it doesn't mean it's going to be believable for everyone, that it's going to feel right. No amount of explanation will make it make sense to me, I'm afraid.

I mean, I have an imagination, you know? I could make up reasons but I doubt many would believe them...and that's the thing about story-telling. It's about the percentage of people who will buy into it versus those who won't. Any plot point can have a reason but is it a good enough one, and if so, for how many people?

I could say that after years of keeping her secrets and being alone on the road with little memory of her past, Shadowheart finally allows herself to trust someone (you) and that, combined with the threat of turning into a Mindflayer and all the dangers recently faced, she decides to take comfort in your arms. But will you believe that? And will you believe she does that at the EXACT same time everyone else wants to jump in your bed? Not Gale's, not Wyll's, not Astarions...you and only you?

I think people take relationships at different speeds but that doesn't really happen here. It's unrealistic and increases the likelihood companions are seen as sexdolls.

As for the sexuality thing, like I said, that and the sexdoll thing could all be avoided by having romances started by the player. So simple from my perspective - such a little change. I don't need a power-fantasy where everyone wants to tear my clothes off on the same night and when it happened I laughed in disbelief. But that's just me.

You're right about this not being a new topic have some links. I would also like to say that whether or not a herosexual npc is bisexual or not is an issue that came up a few times, with regards to immersion and roleplaying.

yes
yes, at least imo

completely agree. And this would fix the following
since you'd likely only romance one companion in a single playthrough, so you wouldn't see "more than one companion" going seemingly against their background&personality-given preferences.

Not to put to fine a point on it, but why? If Tav is female, and gets in a romance with Shadowheart, she's a lesbian, not bi. If Tav's a male, and gets in the same relationship, she's straight. Saying "playersexual is meta" as a way to dismiss the argument, and then relying on meta information to say "they're bi" doesn't do much to support an argument.

I'm all for giving them each their own sexuality, I would prefer it. The problem is, someone is going to be slighted because they didn't get their preferred romance option. Origins had it's gay Alistair and lesbian Morrigan mods, with the hilariously hypocritical argument put forward by one use of the Alistair mod that "ya'll just need to accept people for who they are".

Agreed!

I do get what you're saying, and I think the ability to opt out of romance should be an option, but you realise that this is the game where we were promised fully rendered and animated sex scenes by the dev team? The over-sexed nature of our companions is 100% intended. No amount of explanation for their actions seems totally believable, because it's not meant to be, the characters aren't that deep.

Considering how easy it was to accidentally trip into romance in DOS2 just by not being an arsehole to everyone around you, and the overly-detailed descriptions of the various sexual encounters you can have throughout that game, making your companions a pack of horny bastards is on-brand for Larian. But, having said that, I've played multiple crpgs where the romance is initiated by the npc. Sometimes it's well written and built up over many encounters, other times it's Casavir the adulterer ambushing you on a castle wall the night before a siege, declaring his undying love for you and inviting you to smash, because... *checks notes* you're female and not a murderhobo. Truly a paladin of high standards.

As far as I recall, romance already is only started by the player.

• Lae'zel openly wants just sexual pleasure and doesn't matter with whom. If you reject her, she says she will find someone else to satisfy her. So it's not you in particular she wants, anyone will do.
• Astarion is drinking and in sort of a whatever mood, so he requires specific dialogue options to even suggest wanting to be intimate and if you say the wrong thing it's gone.
• Shadowheart is in high spirits, but somewhat shy and only indulges in the idea of intimacy if you ask her properly. She even considers the idea of a threesome with Lae'zel, but leaves it for another day as a possibility.
• Gale is completely uncertain whether he still has any feelings for Mystra or not, as he expresses through his conversations. This will most likely be influenced by the player's choices in the full game and who he ends up truly loving.

When I was playing around all of the possible outcomes, I chose to remain friendly and the conversations remained just friendly banter. So I didn't get the feeling like they're trying so hard to be intimate with me, in fact I had to try hard to be intimate with them... with the exception of Lae'zel, who is as straight as an arrow with her desires.

And yes, they mention after you've apparently chosen someone for intimacy that there might have been something between you, but as I said, they're the inquisitive type just being playful with ideas and thoughts... especially Astarion. And it's honestly not the first time they're poking their noses into your business. Shadowheart does it quite often in the camp with other conversations.

I personally found this thing amazing that they're not just poking their noses into my relationship, but also offering some interesting scenarios too. I was honestly impressed seeing so many different conversations depending on who I chose. To me that is not something that makes me question the story or consistency of the characters, but rather become impressed by how varied the story can become based on my choices.

Sorry to stick my oar in but, while I do actually agree with you when using the examples you've given, that isn't the case for Gale or even Wyll. As for Shadowheart, if she's romanced by a female pc but then later reveals she used to love a male then it all goes out the window again. Who knows what characters will say in later Acts?

So, I can't speak for JandK but I stick to my original suggestion. Make romance player initiated only. Better yet, don't have companions talk about previous loves except in vague terms. Example, 'I once loved someone more than my own life, until they betrayed for the Zhentarim'. Stuff like that.

People using the term playersexual (at least some of them anyway) are using it as a term to explain why everyone wants you (sexdolls), regardless of the characters declared or implied sexuality. People are saying that Gale may well be hetero, but when it comes to a male pc he makes an exception because Gale is playersexual. But I doubt that's a term the folk of Faerun would use...

Not exactly. While the player always is the final decider for whether sex happens or not (hopefully this continues to be the case throughout the game o.O), often the companions initiate romance by propositioning the player. And unfortunately, they can all decide to do it on the same night one after the other, which feels weird and super sex-gamey to play through.

Why should we want BG3 to be over-sexed, having fully rendered and animated (and often super cringey) sex scenes? Why do we need to concede that this is a good design decision on Larian's part?

At the very least, there should be the option to turn off sex scenes (fade to black or remove them entirely) in the game settings for e.g., youtube streamers, playing with friends or family, to be more ace-friendly, and just anyone who doesn't want them in their game but still wants to initiate a romance with a companion for any extra dialogue/etc.

I doubt they would as well, but the term isn't meant for them, it's meant for us, which is exactly what my argument is in that post. It's seeming like people are trying to have it both ways here, they want to use the meta to say they're bi, when they'll romance either Tav, but dismiss the meta when it's pointed out that they're only attracted to that particular Tav. Even with Gale, or Wyll. Especially Gale, given the nature of that relationship... As was pointed out in another post above, most of these relationships actually require you to pick the right dialog options to get some sexy time. If you pick those, then you are initiating the encounter. It's not hard to accidentally get someone interested in you, I had a girl over for a dinner date, where I cooked, and the next day, I got 47 text messages before lunch, while I was trying to climb really tall ladders, and install siding on a new house. I guess I picked the wrong dialog option, or did something else right...

Like I said, we can explain and reason things as suits our desires/beliefs.

Here, in your sentence, you say that they will suggest they were interested in the player. I found that all/several of them doing that at once was immersion breaking and de-valued them as characters. You chose to interpret it as inquisitive and playful...as is your right I might add I'm glad you like it!

However, how many will see it my way and how many your way? I have no idea, tbh. That will be one of the tests of how the romance side of this game will be received when fully released.

As I've said a few times, this potential negativity towards the romance could be avoided by simply letting the romances be more wholly initiated by the player. Maybe not in Astarion's and Lae'zel's case since it suits them, but for the others, I think it would work better.

When I went to Gale after accepting Lae'zel's offer, the last thing I expected was the Mystra loving mage to make a pass at me when all I wanted was a chat over a mug of ale...and then when I politely let Gale down, I didn't escape to go talk to someone else just to have them also express desire for me

I'm very curious to see how later romance-able companions are handled and whether they play hard to get or have stricter standards. I mean, I really didn't feel that my character had behaved towards the companions in such an amazing way as to warrant that much attention from so many. I'd even argue that Lae'zel and Astarion should be the only ones willing to sleep with the pc that early in the game, based on their character. But yeah, I might be in a minority.

Why are you putting words in my mouth? I never said that you should want it, or that it's good design. It is, however, the design that Larian has chosen, love it or hate it, and that's unlikely to change given that over-sexed games seem to be a trend with them.


Yes, an opt out feature should be added, as I said.

The real question is why should we have a problem if there is sex?

The game isn't oversexualized for having sex scenes, it's a minor part of the game, the characters and personal stories. And sex is the most natural thing in the world and the reason we as a human race still exist. It is also the pinnacle of love between two souls. People act as if sex is a vile hideous thing to witness, when actually it's mother nature at its core, especially when it involves two loving partners.

If someone is sensitive about it, first of all this is a mature game and as such comes with different varieties of mature content. Luckily for such people though there is a SKIP button and the scenes are completely avoidable. And anyone playing this around kids and such is highly irresponsible and entirely at fault. Just like people shouldn't watch R rated horror movies in front of kids. As for streamers... sex is allowed in games to be broadcasted as long as it's not the main focus of the stream.

Well, I didn't feel for one moment I'd led anyone on except Lae'zel because her approval was the only one I was focusing on but I guess some of the dialogue options will be interpreted differently by players, which is fair enough. Or maybe I just got 'lucky' with my choices. I mean, I guess some people could interpret 'being nice' as meaning you're up for a relationship but in this case it's like the IRL situation you gave happening to you from several people you recently met on the same day.

Speaking of which, thanks for that example, it gave me a chuckle!

Ah I see what you mean. To me it was quite interesting and something to explore even further, but I see how odd that might seem to someone else.

I completely understand why they did it, because they wanted to give the player the ultimate freedom of choice and to let the player know they don't have to choose just one. I think that there might be even a multi-romance in the game, since Shadowheart doesn't reject the idea of a threesome with Lae'zel, but rather leaves it as a possibility for another night. So perhaps that is why they all chime in at once, due to the fact that there might be a possibility of several companions romantically involved.

I think immersion vise regarding all of them expressing it at once, they could have made it so that companions talk to you in a friendly way after choosing a romance, but in order to learn they're a bit hurt and jealous, you'd actually have to pass a Wisdom check to peer into their thoughts. I think that would work better than the way it is now. Similar to how Shadowheart has a Wisdom check in which you find out she is attracted to you.

So lets say you chose Lae'zel. Now when you talk to a companion they're all friendly, but a bit reserved on their true thoughts. So then you get a choice to peer into their true thoughts with a Wisdom check in order to romance more than one companion at the same time, if the player decides to do so.

It's not hard, a smile at the right/wrong time, listening to what someone has to say, being polite. Hell, just being reliable can have them lining up, if you're in a position where you meet lots of random people at around the same time. We don't have any control over what someone else finds attractive. As I said previously, I'd prefer clearly defined preferences for the comps. I understand why a team may go this route though, having seen the backlash from both design choices. Someone will want to romance one of them, and find out that they're not set up for that particular character, and raise hell about it, throwing out all kinds of accusations. I've seen it.

Yeah, I was laughing while I typed it, because it's funny now. Then, however, I was like "gee, I hope she isn't going to go all Fatal Attraction on me...".

Defined comps would be my preference too and it would avoid one part of what I've complained about but I also understand the decision. Or at least I think I do. I mean, couldn't players choose sexuality in the character creation? How hard would that be to program? I wouldn't have a clue.

I remember playing Cyberpunk and there was a male character who invited me, in this case a male pc, to the top of a water tower or some such. Now, before I go further, I want to point out that my brother had completed the game by that time and he told me that there'd come a moment when a character was revealed, unexpectedly, to be gay.

So, this npc (River? Can't be arsed to google it, heh) and I are sharing a bottle of whiskey and chatting about life and whatnot. Then, out of the blue, the game asks me if I want to lean in for a kiss. I thought, 'Eh? I wasn't getting any vibes from the npc - oooh, this must be the moment my brother was talking about'. I reloaded after making a save doing the 'canon roleplay' and chose the option to see how it plays out but he momentarily freaks out and is not interested. It's all chill though and it works out fine. Now, several thoughts popped into my head.

1: Cool, he actually has his own personality, he's not just there to indulge me. I thought the same thing later on when I tried to romance a female character but she turned out to be a lesbian.

2: It was funny how my brother, presumably unused to the notion of romance-able npc's not being solely for player gratification, assumed he was gay automatically because the option was (seemingly) there.

3: I wondered how many player's enjoyment may have been spoiled because their romance never happened and how worthwhile it was to have the option, just for them to get turned down anyway.

I'm guessing that's the kind of thing you've seen people 'raising hell' about...ah, the life of game developer. Doesn't seem easy when it comes to these kind of design decisions but, like I said, would selecting this stuff at character creation really be that tough?

I think that's a great idea Not only does it help with immersion, it involves gameplay mechanics.

That's the kind of thinking behind the design decisions that should be going on. A bit of smoke and mirrors, a bit of subtlety. To me, things as they are now feel more like a sledgehammer.

Well, I'm not sure it will be - not with Lae'zel hanging around

I jest of course...

Player-sexual refers to design decision to make companions attracted to PC no matter what those characters preferences are. That spawns the very problem you described, where characters goes beyond what seems to be their written sexuality, just to not cut players off from romances they might want to pursue. That’s different from companions to be written as bi, like Takehu from Deadfire who expresses attraction both for PC but also NPC of different genders.

I have no idea how to salvage romances in BG3 - it has all traits I dislike. Party is just such an awkward moment with companions either telling you one by one they want a piece of you, or telling you they would want a piece of you if you pleased them a bit more. Come in, guys, we have UIs to communicate that stuff - we don’t need characters to tell us if we filled their romance bar or not.

Maybe I'm old-school, but I really dislike all this fluidity in NPC sexual preferences.
Nothing against any hetero, homo, bi, something-sexual but having NPC changing who they are to the core (sexuality isn't a superficial thing) is bad for different reasons, in my opinion:

1) Makes the game less believable, since in reality people don't change their sexual preferences to accommodate you;
2) Makes the NPC less defined and, for this, less memorable (even if only by a little). Memorable characters have well-defined characteristics; if those characteristics are fluid and can change on a whim, then the whole concept of the NPC starts to blurry.

And, last but not least:
3) It's good to be rejected, sometimes, it teaches you to deal with things. I will always remember, in ME: Andromeda (probably the only memorable thing of that game) I really wanted to romance the red-haired girl NPC from your crew. I tried my best but, in the end, she revealed to me that she prefered women and was not interested in me. I rejected all the other romances options for her and I was rejected in the end. And you know what? It was amazing. Finally, a well-defined character who doesn't try to accommodate me in every way possible. I just had to accept that not everyone is going to be interested in me (my character). A good lesson from a videogame, who would have thought!
This is also the reason why I really disliked the "washing" of current NPC personalities. People just seem unable to deal with the "NPC disapproves your actions" or "NPC isn't interested in you".

I know that, in the end, we are just talking about a minor aspect of the game, but these are my two cents. In my opinion is just better to have well-defined characters that may not be interested in you, regardless of your orientation, than to have all of them just ready to accommodate your every fantasy sacrificing who they are in the process.

Maybe it's just me ¯\_(ツ)_/¯

*sigh* see my signature

I don't think romances are the problem, I think the problem is that, regarding romances, the trend now is to accommodate everyone instead of writing a good storyline for said romances.

And this ends up in poorly characterised NPC who, in turn, are detrimental to the story as a whole.

Not to say that the main story is going to be bad *because* of this, but it certainly is going to be less good.

if my memory is right, I remember Astarion has the goodnight with Lae'zel.

I do not believe that is because Lae'zel's "intimate", it's Lae'zel's "intimidate".

the two words are too similar, but the meaning are quite different, isn't it?

yes, I think only few companions interesting in both male and female.

mostly, they only love the idea male or female, and sometimes race limit.

Man thats why I miss the old BG2 games...you had romance but not like the sex simulator that are games are aiming for now.
Hard sex in video game sells.
80% people in RPGs now mostly care for porn, what under pants their wear and if they can masturbate to a customized detailed character they made. Usually first mods for any RPG games...how to get everyone naked. lol I mean just look how popular is a recent thread on UNDERPANTS with boobies and how they changed it in the game with patch 8 ROFL.

In any case, romances in BG3 GO WAAAAAY TOO FAST. Its incredibly silly. But hey, for the masturbating daily gamer, I guess its a necessity in 2022??? When I was a teen in the 90s we had less convenient sources for that. And 56k dial-up wasn't really an option.

May come as a shock, but the modding part was already true back in the Neverwinter Nights / Morrowind days. As somewhat embarrased as I am to know what the NWN module called "A Dance with Rogues" is thanks to my forays onto RPGCodex, there's no denying its popularity in certain circles.

And it is worth noting that the better quality robe human female mages equip in BG1/2, the more pronounced the cleavage would get on the paperdoll. The nineties/early 2000s. And then there's Annah from P:T.

My main question regarding the romances is what would be the trigger for them and how they are going to be handled if you don't do the grove fight at all (there's nothing stopping you from that). It's certainly a strange choice to tie it narratively to the tiefling/goblin celebration at the moment.

I wonder upon game's full release, when we can pick origin characters, if I pick Lae'zel, how am I going to romance Shadowheart. I'm going to title Lae'zel "the true conqueror" if she success on SH

My guess is that they system isn't fully developed yet so the triggers and dialogues around it just are not in place and so the options are currently (or at least v7's) completely open. I doubt that when they are addressed this current scene at party will change quite a bit and so I think it's a bit early to say what improvements are needed. It's also possible that this scene is surreptitiously testing player choices to determine interest in each of the NPCs as potential romances with level of interest used to guide how much story to devote to fleshing out the romance tree for each NPC.

Anyway, I think at the very least well get something similar to Dragon Age Origins, or at least I hope so because those felt pretty natural.

I don't think there will be any difficulty in romancing her as Lae'zel.

I played as a good/nice Githyanki Barbarian and Shadowheart acts very confused when I save her on the ship. Says something like; "I never expected a Gith to help me. Why would you do such a thing?". And as the relationship develops, she mentions something in the lines of; "you've been a pleasant surprise and very reliable. I will have to rethink about what I thought I knew about Githyanki".

Same thing was with Sebille (elf) and Red Prince (lizard) in Divinity Original Sin 2. Sebille hates lizards with passion because of what they did to her and made her do, but she eventually brings her guard down and can be intimate just like any other character.

I also play gith, but as bard and wizard. She seems to be pretty nice to a gith Tav, but just instantly get to hate Lae'zel somehow. Maybe it was because she saw Laezel suggest Tav to leave SH in that chamber, so she held some grudge on her.

Making every romance player initiated seems just as artificial to me as the other way around. Make every relationship idiosyncratic to each character, instead of some meta-textual given, or tied to some bullshit approval system. It's 2022, does anyone still like approval bars and the dialogue choices built around them

Also it's 2022 you don't need to be embarrassed to know what A Dance with Rogues is

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…

I think its fine as is and think it's in line with Larian's philosophy to give players as much freedom of choice as possible.

Exactly.
Its an RPG game. Players should have as much choice as possible, and should be able to do whatever the heck they want.
I'm reminded of Dragon Age Inquisition romance, gender, and sexuality wars, and please... no more... Better to just keep options open for everyone, and if you don't like the character flirting with you just tell them you're not interested.

As for them coming on too fast. SH doesnt sleep with the MC, they just have a private conversation and share a kiss, which is perfectly in line with her character. For everyone it mostly fits their personalities. And for those that does not, well its still EA so they will probably improve it in the final game.

Sex and the Single Adventuress was a surprisingly well-made module, was inducted into the Neverwinter Vault Hall of Fame, and was so popular it even got a remake for NWN2.

but this is not the companions' characters.

just because the "convenience", the companions' characters are twisted to be bisexual?

you can not use "relationship" to hit all companions' romance.
but you should be able to bind one of them with tadpole or an unique artifact to open the romance that relationship system can not reach.

Just to be clear here... you're not happy with playersexual characters (not the same as bisexual, that's been covered plenty)... but you want to advocate for the players to be allowed to coercively rape their companions. That's an.... interesting position.

That is gross and creepy. So you basically want to strip your companions of free will and rape them? That is ok for you, but Player sexuality isn't?

I think whats needed is actual romances need to play out, music needs to change npcs need to interect share personal stories, like in bg2, aerie sharing her wings being cut of, jaheera sharing her emotions over her husbands death, the music changing slightly sadder, your pc comforting these npcs / or not, and your relationships changing because of it.

Atm you can have sex with someone depending on if you petted a dog and it tipped your relationship just right, its just stupid.

Its like non of the writers for larian have ever played the original baldur's gate.

Can we please have some emotion and meaning, let us feel attached to the characters.

Stop all the simping onlyfangs daddy hellsing meme crap and make something meaningful, that has emotion behind it

So, this thread has responses that run from Sexual Predator 101 to, "but we have to be married, and can't enjoy it". The more I think about it, as I sit here deciding what would be "safe" to say, the more I realize that, in this particular instance, I'd be perfectly fine with "hey, let's have a one night stand. No strings attached, just use me like you own me" kind of thing. I know that will be shocking for some people, especially the "but you're only playing a female character so you can watch her butt pixels" crowd, but those kinds of things actually happen out here in the real world.

I'd still prefer clearly defined sexuality, but as for a deep emotional bond? In this instance, it wouldn't matter all that much. Save it for the late game, like most other games with romances do. I mean, there is one notable exception, Morrigan from Dragon Age Origins, you can have her sex scene the first night in camp. I've actually done it. I didn't know it was going to happen when I did it, it just flowed organically from the dialog we'd been having. What's even better is that the line that triggers the scene "It's cold in my tent all alone" can be met with "get an extra blanket"...

I realise that people do have one night stands in real life, but I personally dont want real life from Baldur's gate I want high fantasy, and our interactions to feel meaningful , the world is full of instant gratification ( and thats ok for a evil root in bg3)

but as a player , I think we deserve music like this

and Depth and emotion to our characters, some could be one night stands like lazel.
but why is bg3 not tapping in to the npc reactions that bg2 has, whats the point of taking the baldur's gate name
if they dont want to capture any of the same feeling the original games tried to portray?
I personally think they should try recapture what bg2 tried to do.

I wonder if having two different systems would be more effective. One measuring Respect/Friendship, based on day to day conversations. Another measuring Affection, based on plot points that are heavily connected to each companion. Disagreement with another's choices and how you personally feel about them aren't always the same thing. I still think each companion should have preferences, but at any good party, between alcohol, the mood, passion and excitement, even shy wallflowers can be swept up in the moment.

Perhaps you should read the post you quoted again?

nah im good thanks. your happy for no deep bond , save it for later romance can come later, i personally think thats rushing, check out my first sentence "I realise that people do have one night stands in real life, but I personally dont want real life from Baldur's gate I want high fantasy"

hopefully this clears things up for you

Except that you aren't "good". You latched on to one part of the comment, and ignored the context in which it was offered because you don't want real life from your video game. That's great. It doesn't do or say anything about what I actually said, however. So, to be clear, in this party after the grove, I'm fine with a one night stand. It's cool that you don't want real life bleeding in to your video game, but that doesn't change the fact that these characters are supposed to be representing people, and while I would prefer that they have their own sexual identities, people will do these kinds of things, some more often than others.

So am I to understand that there are no one night stands in high fantasy? So, no brothels, no hookers walking the streets of Baldur's Gate, or any other cities? Just because you don't like it doesn't mean it doesn't, or can't, belong there. It's high fantasy, there's a good chance that it's more common than it is in real life.

I am good actually thanks, and you can understand what you want,
our companions are not hookers and dont work for brothels, I dont mind one night stands in the game, or even paying for prostitutes, I just dont think One night stands with our followers, fits the high fantasy feel, or even how a DM would run its table, with out it being really cringy.

seems your trying to break my argument down to its weakest parts to try and win something?
If you really dont understand im happy to explain further, but if your just trying to win some kind of argument with me, im not really interested, im happy for you to have your own opinion and it be right in your eyes, im not trying to convert you to my way of thinking i was just posting my opinion

So Gale and Wyll both decide to indulge in male-on-male hardcore f-action-to-the-max for one night because... prostitutes?

Wow. Two people that completely miss the point, in one exchange? Sadly, I addressed this in the very post you almost quoted here. Being ok with the "one night stand" vibe doesn't mean I'm ok with how the comp's sexuality is handled overall, even if I do understand why it's handled in this way. Unless we're only allowed to play a male Tav? Was there a "hotfix" today that changed that? Because if not, it's entirely possible that the Tav that you're so concerned about having "male on male action" with is, in fact, female. As to the flirts, I've seen worse behavior between straight men. Old bikers and construction workers aren't necessarily SFW, well, in an office setting...

the issue is that bisexual isn't so common, or yes, they are common, but just few(1% !? maybe) in the world.

but suddenly your companions are all bisexual, isn't this a nightmare for the companions' sexuality!??

I am sure there is something there for everyone.

My preference is to shun any and all advances and sleep during parties.

the issue is that the loyalty matter.

the cruel fact, the relationship doesn't mean loyalty.

despite the high relationship, even romance, the companions can betray or backstab you easily, because their ambition, desire(treasure), or succumb to other powerful beings(or gods).

that is why BG3 use "tadpole", "detect thoughts", "willpower check(because tadpole connection)" to see the companions' true thoughts(the loyalty) often.
isn't this a coercively rape other companions?
no, because they don't detect it or the npcs succumb to the tadpole's power.
and yes, if they discover your "detect thoughts" or "willpower check" failure.

why not the binding options?
the binding to a companion will be a "dire charm" permanent, but your player character also need pay huge price no matter success or not.

Let's leave the "binding of companions" to a separate thread than this, eh? I can only see this detracting from what else is being discussed here...

Sppoiler taggging the response to Stevelin, as it's getting off-topic.


==

Outside of that, it might benefit others to know that various shades of bisexuality are a hell of a lot more common than some seem to think in the real world... but also, outside of that, it's actually "The Norm" in the forgotten realms - FR may differ from many fantasy settings in this regard, but individuals being open to intimate relationships with people of any sex is the majority case there - and the realms is where this game is set. For all we know all of our companions are actively coded to be naturally bisexual anyway, and we'll later hear about earlier male-male flings that Wyll has had in his adventuring fame and glory life, and so on; we actually don't know yet... lots of people are just making the blind assumption that the characters are heterosexual be default, when we have literally nothing presented in game to assert this.

...and yet another that fails a comprehension check.

Although, I am going to have to see some links to wherever you're getting "suddenly bisexual" from. So, here's a hypothetical for you: We get Alfira as a comp, and you want to romance her on your male Tav, and find out that she's a lesbian. Are you:

A. going to accept that she's a lesbian, and go on;
B. Use your tadpole to manipulate her
C. Come to the forums to complain
D. Wait for the mod that changes her, so you can have the romance you want.

This is why they're written as they are for now. Whether I agree with it or not, which I've already made more than clear to those that read what I actually say, that's how they're done, and why they're done in this way. It's all good to disagree with it, I do, but I can also accept the logic behind the decision, whether I like it or not.

yes, I agree your talking.

to Niara :

m...I think the real important thing is that "do not take the evil path to the real world" because the evil path can turely ruin the world.

besides, because this is off the topic, I only say the final words. the binding can be "fate/stay night(R 18 famous game) " like or "fate/grand order", ...it's just for lawful, not evil.

so I am curious, many players play evil path(corrupt the worlds) and feel nothing. but thinking the binding is evil !??

thus, i never play "evil path" because it's corrupt.
I only play "grey path" or "good path", and I do think in specific conditions, the grey path or good path can lead to the true ending.

and your talking is that "enchanters" are evil natural.
but in the fact, enchanters are not, if the enchanters choose grey path or good path in BG3.
the only evil is that the player characters who choose evil path, though I think they know the difference of the game and the real life.

Speak of the devil Youtube just put this in front of me.A Dance with Rogues (a Neverwinter... romance... adventure)
I think I watched this guy's video on Baldur's Gate which probably helped.

What are the chances...1/400?

I think throughout the first act we have plenty of chances to flirt or give "hints" which characters we are interested in.

Aastarion does it himself and I think Shadowheart and Laezel have certain moments as well.
Even if the flirts fail (and they should so early in the game) at least that seems more organic at the celebration party when they come for the player.

Right now it just feels way too fast and too much at the same time.
Did Aastarion put a "kiss me I am horny" sign on our backs when we werent looking that the other characters started to proposition for cunnilingus?

And yeah Wenduag romance is by far the best romance i have seen in a rpg game.
It happens gradually, it evolves and actually changes the character dramatically throughout the entire story.
The only thing bad about it was there was not anymore of it.

Take notes larian.

Ha, good one!
Sorry, but that is just not true, neither statistically nor in my humble experience. I personally know around a thousand + people between 2 different countries I live in, and out of all of them none are "any shade of gray" as you put it. It's either one side or the other but none in between.

Back to the topic, I don't care whether all of the companions are playersexual/bisexual whatever, but I find it weird and annoying that they all have the hots for Tav at the same time... it's hard to believe that everyone of them is ready to throw themselves at the player the first chance they get. It could literally be the second night they spend together as a group. I mean, I know some like to move along fast, but that is lighting fast... hopefully Larian will pace the romance more appropriately.

You personally know around a thousand people on such a deep level that you, with confidence, can deem their true sexuality? I very much doubt that. I have people I spend time with everyday, that don't know my sexuality. It's not like I hide it either and ofc they assume they know but I bet few of them would be correct if I asked them straight out what they think I am. And reliable statistics are hard to get in such sensitive matters.

But, I agree with you that the romances should span over a longer bit of the story and my take is that the way it is now, is because Larian in their initial marketing, made a huge deal about the romances and resulting sex scenes so they felt that if those wouldn't been in the EA....

I said it countless times and will repeat it here ...
Im glad that someone finaly broke that stupid cliché (yes, i know Dragon Age Origins, or Inquisition did that aswell) that game romances have to be stretched over whooooooole game, where despite the fact that our characters litteraly risk their lives every minute in the world, they decided to "wait for that perfect moment". -_- Yes, very romantic ... and also very stupid.
Especialy in cases like Mass Effect 2, where catalisator of that romance scene is "that you starting your suicidal mission and may not come back" ... how exactly does that differ from litteraly any or every landing on un-civilised planet?

Nah, this makes perfect sense to me ...
World is dangerous, we like each other, there is opourtunity ... so why not?

---

But yes, it would be nice if NPCs would have their own sexual prefferences ...
Wich ties to my suggestion i was also repeating several times around here:

Followers should have 2 prefferences, gender and race ...
If our PC fits both, they should propose relationship (presuming we have enough approval ofc.)
If our PC fits one of them, they should not propose, and should get alterned dialogue in case we express our interest in them.
If our PC fits none of them, they should not propose, and should get again alterned dialogue, where they will be extremely surprised by the situation ... but can potentialy keep open mind to try it, in case Larian want all our characters to be romanceable no matter what we create.

I don't know who you think you're foolin' Larian, but there's no way Laezel is interested in my little gnome with his 8 strength and 8 charisma.

A couple things Larian should add to BG3 <(lol)romances(lol)> :

Penis size and shape editor. Let us pick the color too.
Hardcore one night stands; I mean the game is pretty much aiming for this it seems. Add dialogue options: lick, swallow, bite etc...
Party size foursomes.

I mean apart from the story/gameplay bits, this game is basically a masturbation simulator the rest of the time right?
There all Larian fans happy. And an extra couple millions in sells.

@JandK
Why not tho?

I mean Githyanki surely respect strong sides of powerfull Wizard ... and it can also be appealing for her that despite the fact that your Gnome *seems* like creature even stray cat would eat, he can handle himself.
I mean ... it would be reasonable if she would act surprised by this atraction ... and your Tav would probably need to make first move, since i aswell cant really imagine her offering herself so easily as she do now ...
But beyond that? It dont seem impossible.

They don't need to add this - it's already in the game. That's what Minthara's hook-up IS, after all... rendered cutscene with missing naughty bits and rock-hard, solid-object tits and all ^.^

But what about her hairstyle?

At least you’re ‘allowed’ joke about it here – I was promptly banned for 1 month from Steam for just asking the question: why do people want a date/masturbation simulator? Well, all right – specifically I’d addressed the question to the LGBT ‘community’ re: the whole straight-coded characters flipping their sexuality for one night.

Frankly, I was just curious, so I’ll ask it here again, because I simply don’t believe I’m trying to attack anyone by wondering what possible satisfaction could an LGBT person get from the contrivance?

It’s a basic question. I’m not saying take away the option. I’m just genuinely wondering how is it pleasing/entertaining. If Gale is constantly going on about banging the goddess (can’t remember the name), and IMO never really seemed like he was flirting with any lads on the team – is that kind of thing not a turn-off to LGBT people, or what am I getting wrong?

I can’t get my head around the ‘playersexual’ thing, because it’s trying to be so many things at once that not even James Joyce could make a convincing character out it. It just doesn’t happen in reality.

If I like a girl and get a bit of a ‘buzz’ off her, I’ll keep ‘poking’ (= conversation) to see if it goes somewhere – but if there’s even the slightest hint she’s not into it, I leave it be. Because who wants to be a creep?

That’s it. I don’t think about it again. Isn’t everyone else the same, whether you’re into the same sex or otherwise – don’t you just ‘leave it’ if the person isn’t into you? Because otherwise, you know, it’s kind of sociopathic to expect the person to ‘flip’.

Lastly – and I’m not trying to be controversial – I have, and still am, ‘propositioned’, in many different forms, by the same sex, because I work in an industry (IT) that happens to be somewhat top-heavy with such folk, for whatever reason. When you had to be physically in an office to work, 90% of those propositions were hell-on-earth level unrelenting, no matter how violently I made it clear that’s not my jam.

10% tend to be harmless – especially now that everything is remote. You’ll get them flirting with you, then you say you’ve a girlfriend and everything calms down.
It’s not all bad. But it can be. Very bad.

Anyways, maybe there’s no ‘easy’ answer to my question. But I write these things out of genuine intrigue, not shit-stirring (why would I care?). In my view of the world, it’s ok to flirt with people out of curiosity, but if they make it clear they’re not interested (whether you’re straight or LGBT), then you must leave that person alone to enjoy their view of life. You cannot ‘change’ them into something they are not.

And it can’t be fun to keep badgering them about something they’ll never do, hence making an enemy for life. There’s someone out there for everyone – if we just accept that and stop trying to chase the unachievable, then we’d all be good. IMO, playersexual is just encouraging the wrong kind of attitude to life: that everyone’s ‘game’. We’re not, and we should all be cool with that, and seek others who are ‘game’ – they’re out there too.

I'm not going to get to in detail to the real life comparisons here, but I do want to say that you aren't quite grasping what playersexuality in a game space is.

The characters aren't flipping or changing their sexual preference.

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.

Gale being interested in males that take his fancy is not contradicting anything - he hasn't spoken about any past male lovers, and his main previous love interest was Mystra - and frankly, if one of your previous lovers was a literal deity, it would be hard too bring up others instead - but absence of evidence is not evidence of absence, and you shouldn't assume it is. If I chat with someone about one of my female partners, does that mean I'm a lesbian? No. It doesn't. I may not have spoken about my deep and abiding love of cock as well, but that just means it hasn't come up (heh...). If that person assumes that I'm a lesbian, acts on that assumption, and later finds out I've got male partners too, are they right in accusing me of acting out of character (in real life...), or of 'flipping' my preferences? Fuck no they aren't... they made an assumption they should not have made, and that's entirely on them. If you make the assumption that his love of Mystra is the full definition of Gale's preferences, then that's on you; sadly in this game we don't have the capacity to ask the characters, so we just have to deal with their ham-fisted propositions for now, and yeah, it's pretty badly handled, but what it is not, as of yet, is self-contradicting.

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.

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.

As far as the game goes... you talk as though the characters continue to assail you with their interest once you turn them down. They don't. I'm not sure where you're getting that idea from, or why you're phrasing your language that way. They ask, you tell them you're not interested, and they leave it be, done. It never comes up again. There's nothing wrong with asking - people shouldn't be discouraged from asking if a person is interested, or treated like they've made some kind of offence or violation just for asking. If they don't ask, they can't be clear; making assumptions and relying on circumstantial tells to make your decisions is the worse behaviour, of the two.

Oh boy, another playersexuality thread!

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.)


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)

That our companions sexuality is retroactively created during our playthrough is not necessarily true Niara, it's a way of rationalizing the design choice.

That said, people have been conditioned by games not to expect NPCs to behave realistically with regards romance.

Also Konmehn, I don't think people look to video games to learn social skills, in fact related to the above, they're interested in less complicated exchanges. The problem to me of herosexual characters is that it's lazy, when it happens I see the game falling short of a character. Actually putting it in D&D, herosexual characters are a railroad. "You enter a chamber with two doors...but don't worry whichever you choose, it won't matter."

Pretty much agree with everything you add, MrFuji ^.^

The party night is absolutely an issue of poor writing design creating a visible problem that otherwise wouldn't really be one. - To add to your points, even the ones that you haven't drawn the attraction of ALSO snark at you for failing to do so - it jumps into the dialogue as soon as you address them, without any player prompting. It's pretty egregious.

In Wyll's case, regarding his tastes, you're right - Mizora's form most likely shows a strong preference from him (though it could be a strong preference of hers, if Wyll doesn't have a strong preference of his own), but at the same time ,and this may be uncharitable of me... that''s a degree of nuance and understanding of realms lore that I absolutely do NOT expect Larian to have. They just went "succubus sexy lady lol" and called it a day.


Absolutely agree here - if the spread of options is broad enough, characters with locked preferences becomes more feasible. My only thought there, and the reason I defend playersexuality here, is that we're not going to GET a spread of optional romance characters broad enough to support that.

Well said.

So many people (especially Larian) seem to misunderstand the very nature of role playing in role playing games. Every new game is a new world/universe/reality.

LZ in your game is not the same character as LZ in mine. Not the same as LZ in another playthrough of mine. Not the same as any other anywhere else.

And they are both willing to shag anything from Halfling or Gnome, over Hunam or Elf, to Dragonborn, Tiefling or Githyanki.

Call me purist, but that part seems much more disturbing than if they are gay or not. :-/
What kind of sick bastards would Faerunians be if they are turned up the same for well build Human, asweel as scaly bipedal Lizard?

You aren't wrong, truth be told - In many ways that is actually the more unusual aspect - the assumption that standards of attraction translate across species divide, when it's natural that they may not (not to say they never do or that it should be discouraged, just that it's entirely natural that it would be far less common, and decreasingly so the more physically different the species are).

Exactly ...
And this gets even worse since you are hit by your companions, instead other way around ... meaning they are not only willing to sleep with you no matter what you are ... they WANT to ... they feel desire towards anything that (as the old expression says in Czech) "have hole(or stick) and breaths". :-/

There is something seriously wrong with this world.

+1. With playersexuality it is fair to all, and everyone has options.

Not want to advertise myself ...
But there are better ways to achieve the same. :P

My little gnome is a known liar and thief. A fellow most cussed and untrustworthy.

In Githyanki eyes it means Cunning, Selfsuficient, and Resourcefull ... those are things they admire. :P

I don't know. Remember how Laezel says that "killing is good. It culls the weak. But theft would be paid for a thousand times over." <--something like that.

I always got the feeling that she didn't like liars and thieves.

She also has that line about Volo: "this man has no respect for the truth." <--or something like that. I'm going off memory.

...and I'm pretty sure she wants Arabella to be locked up for theft, lol.

“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.”

Just for clarity, I don’t think she is a Succubus- I *believe* it was mentioned somewhere that she is a cambion. Has it been determined/documented what she actually is?

Wyll specifically says she's a cambion when he finally comes clean. He says she revealed her true nature only after he accepted her offer.

That said, it's possible Wyll could be wrong.

And really, isn't it possible that Mizora is just the representative of whomever Wyll actually made the deal with? For instance, could Mizora not be representing the Raven Queen from the Shadowfell? I don't know; I'm not up on my Shadowfell lore enough to know if that's a possibility.

And yet her whole species "just take" whatever they want during their raids.
I would presume that there is difference between situation, when you steal something from her ... and when you just take it from litteraly anyone else ...
As for Arabella ... i wouldnt be surprised, if her actual sin in Lae'zel eyes was not stealing itself, but the fact that she let herself caught.

I would assume that raiding is considered different from being a sneakthief. Raiding is fine because you're facing the enemy up front, proving your superiority as opposed to using darkness or clever words to your own advantage, which I could see as being considered the actions of the weak. The difference between mugging and pickpocketing. If that's the case then I actually like that. It's a fun bit of nuance that the society, though evil, values a kind of honesty. Nothing groundbreaking, sure, but interesting to me at least.

Yeah, I agree. I think it's the sneakiness.

They are conquerors. They conquer and then take what they conquered.

I ‘grasp’ it very well, cheers. To put it in the most simplistic terms, it’s making every ‘fellow adventurer’ you come across somehow sexually malleable, based on the character you happened to choose. You say these characters can have different sexual identities based on each ‘game world/playthrough’ – except that’s not how games work, or can ever work given our current tech and writerly limitations.

The backstories for these characters remain static, no matter how you choose to fantasise about every game world being different – they aren’t, as that’s impossible. Gale remains straight-coded, as does Wyll, as others have pointed out.

No matter how many Tavs you roll, your companions’ chatter around their past is the same. Playersexual then becomes this phony, brittle thing because it can’t do what you’re saying: it can’t generate entirely new personas or backgrounds for these characters based on your preferences. So straight-coded Gale, who talks about shagging goddesses and gives no indication of being into men – at any point – remains so, no matter the fantasies of the PC.

So yes, no matter how you dress it up, when looked at impartially and without emotional language, Gale is written as straight and he does indeed ‘flip’ to being the opposite, for no apparent reason, at the party scene.

I very specifically said, if that’s something people actually like – go for broke. I’m also entitled to think it’s a bit daft, and to wonder where the satisfaction is in it.
The point I’m making – and others here have mentioned the same thing – is that given the very glaring phoniness of playersexual (as a result of writing, tech and dev time constraints), how is it in any way enjoyable? Nobody who wants this gimmick has answered that in a plain way, so it’s difficult to take seriously any argument for it as anything other than gratuitous wish-fulfillment.


I don’t share your confidence there at all. Are you male? Have you read anything I said about how straight men tend to react to being ‘propositioned’ by other men? It can invoke quite a reaction, let me tell you.

It doesn’t add up for me, because he never gives that impression – he just ‘flips’ because...because why? What’s the draw here for people who are into this?

All I’m going to get, I know, is emotive language as people who do want it dance around giving, no pun intended, a straight answer – but I’m afraid that’s never going to convince me, so we’ll have to just agree to disagree and move on.

I’d also like to say that this is, at its core, a RPG focused on turn-based battles – it has its work cut out for it just delivering on that promise, given the scale of the game. The dating-sim aspect will always be tacked-on and low-effort, because they’re only human and can only do so much. Personally speaking, I don’t see the appeal even outside of playersexual. By your own admission, the writing isn’t stellar – so what makes these characters so ‘sexy’ that anyone would desire them to begin with?

Even if they were all charismatic and fascinating people, they remain pixels – they remain fake. You can bring in your argument again about the ‘fantasy’ of it all, which is fine, but I merely expressed curiosity as to why people want the feature – yet all I get is cagey defensiveness.

If someone at least said, ‘Well, because of life circumstances I can’t date other humans in real life, so this provides an escapist substitute, even if it’s half-assed and not entirely convincing’ then I could buy into it. But maybe there’s some shyness there about being ‘judged’ – certainly, I don’t judge people on such matters.


I never said people go to the game to learn ‘social skills’. I did state that I don’t believe ‘playersexual’ is helping the problem of people not respecting other peoples’ boundaries. I’m not saying it’s going to erode the social fabric of the human race. But I wouldn’t want my impressionable young kid to be exposed to it, let’s put it that way.

What's going on here?

You've made some perfectly good points about playersexual characters being unrealistic, fostering bad roleplaying in players (the point I was making in the post) and being conducive to poor writing, without entering the territory of a moral panic. Kids will be, and have always been, exposed to everything, even video games they're technically not supposed to play, and now they have the internet. It's a fool's errand to second-guess these things in my experience. Not to mention it calls to mind the sporadic moral panics that occur around video games, whenever a generation feels the need to scapegoat some social ill on them.

The kids are alright

Nice to know your thoughts. My comment stands - let's leave it that.

I'm here to be your scapegoat anytime.

No idea what that means in the context of what you quoted and what I wrote, but cool stuff, my friend.

It means we can continue the conversation, because I seem to be on the other end of it, I can take on the role of scapegoat. Most people around here are happy with strawmen.

As for the draw behind making NPCs playersexual, people have literally already answered that in this very thread. We are not going to get a large number of companions, certainly not enough to satisfy everyone's preferences. Making your companions playersexual is a *compromise*. It allows anyone playing any race/gender combo to romance their choice of companion on any given playthrough.

In this particular case it's literally not possible to win. If the dev team make enough companions to satisfy everyone, then there will be (more) complaints that the party is not big enough, that that the team is trying to force replayability by piling up NPCs and not actual gameplay content. If the dev team give us a small number of companions with restricted race/gender preferences then there will be complaints that the options are too limited. So they went for the compromise.

I don't know about you, but I have never once played a romance game (or game with romance in it) and actually expected it be a realistic representation of real-life romance.

Serious and simple answers have been given, you've just ignored them.
Why should I repeat them again, and again, for someone whose ears are closed? Will you turn around and say "Oh, I see, I guess that does make some sense after all, I can see the justification at least, though I still don't agree, yeah."

Let me ask you instead: what sort of serious answer would you accept? If you consider yourself to be having rational discussion, then there must be a scenario where the answer you're seeking is acceptable to you, and would lead you to revise your position. So, in your mind, what sort of answer would do that? If No answer would do that, then you are not engaging in rational discussion.


I'll try one more time:

- Roleplaying games are generally about investment and emotional attachment to the characters presented in the course of the story.
- Romance and romance options are a natural part of this, and a common desire in such game spaces - it's not wish-fulfilment any more than playing a video game itself is wish-fulfilment. It's just a natural part of this fictional game space experience, and is highly desired by many.
- For in-game romances to be satisfying, players need to be able to choose to pursue characters that they, or their player character, find desirable To pursue. (this is a problem in the current game because most of our companions are horrible people that I wouldn't choose to bed in any circumstance... but for the sake of discussion, they are the options we currently have)
- For this to be done to an acceptable level, options need to exist for a broad spectrum of tastes, so that a majority of players who do wish to follow romance paths can find some romance option that suites the character they are playing, or their own tastes, depending on the player.
- Having only a few options, with restricted access, is thereby never satisfying to the audience that is interested in romance as apart of the emotional engagement with their roleplaying game.
- Having a broad spectrum of options that are each housed in individual characters requires a broad spectrum of companion characters to achieve - something that this game currently cannot, and will not, ever achieve. This is a problem faced by many games in the genre. They cannot pitch a broad enough spectrum to be satisfying.
- The alternative is to loosen the restrictions on the characters that you do have, making their personalities persuable by any player character; Rather than having to pitch a witty scholar archetype for males-who-like-males, and one for females-who-like-females, and one for males-who-like-females, and one for females-who-like-males, you now only have to pitch one female and one male option to achieve the same effect. If you're really cutting down the character options available, it means you only have to pitch one witty scholar archetype, and have them be pursuable by any player character who acts in a way they like. It's not a great fix, but it's a resource solution to a resource problem.

Is Larian's writing terrible? Yes, it is!
Is the party night badly handled? You bet it is!
Is the whole thing a right debacle? It certainly is right now!

Is the root of this problem in playerexual characters? No, it's not.


In the current writing, not much. I don't care for most of the companions at all. They're entirely undesirable to me, for the most part.


It's a thing called Roleplay - and emotional investment is part of it. Getting attached to characters, and allowing yourself to experience feelings for and about them, is a part of that... so naturally, romance is also often a desired part of that. There's no defensiveness here - your answer as to why people want romance in a game about roleplaying is that romance is a commonly desirable aspect of developing emotional investment in the characters of a story, especially when you are playing an active party in that story as one of them.


You are missing the point entirely. If you snoop around the forum you'll be aware of my own relationship status as I've mentioned where relevant here and there, where it's come up - this is fantasy, and fiction - it's not about real life, or being a surrogate for real life in any way.

Spoilering the rest since it's getting off topic:

Once again i have to disagree pointing towards my suggestion.

At the very least, all it would take would be to prepare 2 scenarios for any romance scene.
Ideal would be 3, but in order to make it as cheap as possible 2 would be sufficient.

Now repeating myself in short:
You set sexual prefferences for NPCs ... your character either fits them, or not.

Ideal scenario is Race + Gender, wich leads to 3 possible permutations:
- Either you fit both >> NPC wants you ... meaning it makes proposion, and the romance as we know it.
- Or you fit either >> NPC is willing to sleep with you ... meaning it DONT make proposion, but if you do, the romance as we know it.
- Or you fit neither >> NPC didnt even think about sleeping with you ... meaning it DONT make proposion, and the second scenario where the character YOU propose to spend night with is surprised with this situation ... but after short conversation finds out that they may not be fully against it
(this last part is there just to, if i may use your own words "allow anyone playing any race/gender combo and romance their choice of companion on any given playthrough")

And voila!
Its nice, its easy, with fresh scent of lemon!

I'm not a fan of characters changing their sexuality to suit the player. Also not a fan of being propositioned by the same sex without having encouraged the situation, so hopefully that's not a thing.

This is homophobic unless you're equally not a fan of being propositioned to by the opposite sex, and since you took the time to mention "the same sex," I have to assume this isn't true. No thank you. If you can't deal with a 2-second moment of uncomfortableness while playing a video game (and you should probably examine why you feel uncomfortable in such a situation), then a rated-M rpg with gore, sexual content, and general adult themes probably isn't for you.

IF BG3 is going to have companions proposition to you, then it should be irrespective of their sexuality. I don't think ALL companions should proposition to the player, but *some* of the more assertive companions doing so would be acceptable. And since BG3 already has all companions proposition to you, if they change it to only have hetero propositions...yikes.

Good grief, no need to get so wound up. Plenty of people don't enjoy being propositioned by someone who falls outside their preference (be it looks, gender, income, culture, etc.) - call it however you like, I care not. I would be totally fine if none of the characters made unwelcome advances.

While I agree that the quoted poster is in for a lot of disappointment, buzzwords need to be left out. Unless, of course, you mean that anyone that's bothered by hetero only advances is heterophobic?

I'm not a fan of the current implementation, but, I understand exactly why it's in game. One needs only look at games with fixed sexuality companions that support modding to see that characters will be modded to suit. I'm ok with that too, until someone starts throwing out buzzwords and catchphrases to justify it. Why can't it simply be "I wanted to romance them on a same sex character, instead of attempted character assassination?

It is ... but still its a valid opinion.

I dunno where you are from, but here in Czech i know many people who are allready tired how this new era of "forced tolerance" is suffocating everything ... in every single movie, series, story, game even comics ... you have to have at least one gay, one bi, one non-binary, one cultural and racial minority representatives ... everyone have to be presented, and there is often so many characters so you rarely see white heterosexual male that isnt bad guy of the story.
It gets ridiculous and its understandable that some people have enough of that ... then it takes little for them to be upset by the same topic ...

And if i may add, most people who mind it *i* know are gay themselves ... so no homophobic exuse apply there.

Agreed 100% ...
Shame they dont have any in this game, huh?

You say these characters can have different sexual identities based on each ‘game world/playthrough’ as imagined by the player.

What part of the above sentence from my previous response has misinterpreted what you wrote? It’s an exact synopsis of your case for this feature. You might want to re-examine your ‘someone whose ears are closed’ putdown in light of this.


I already answered that and you even quoted me in your response: ‘If someone at least said, ‘Well, because of life circumstances I can’t date other humans in real life, so this provides an escapist substitute, even if it’s half-assed and not entirely convincing’ then I could buy into it.’

For the umpteenth time, I am not arguing for playersexual’s removal – I do, however, find it to be very silly and unbelievable. Hysterically so, in fact. That’s merely my stance on it. If you have any confidence in your own stance, then you wouldn’t respond with such loaded language, calling the person you disagree with both deaf (ears closed) and incompetent (fail to grasp etc.).

It’s the equivalent of trying to bludgeon the individual into silence.

Let me paraphrase again my simple question on playersexual: where is the satisfaction in having, for example, straight-coded characters flip their sexuality for one shoe-horned-in section of dialogue?

Ie – wouldn’t LGBT people prefer to have a properly written LGBT-coded character, with a proper, believable ‘lead up’ to any potential romance? I’m simply fascinated, that’s all, that their expectations would be so low as to accept this ‘playersexual’ contrivance as a substitute. I cannot get my head around where that could be enjoyed by anyone. And you haven’t answered why it would be, except to state the below:


Yeah, and like I wrote – would it not be preferable to have this properly written as opposed to being the gimmick it is now? A gimmick that rewrites the character’s history – whether straight-coded or otherwise – up to that point.

Put another way, I wouldn’t want an LGBT-coded woman having her entire history overwritten for one section of dialogue just because I liked the look of her. I would get no satisfaction from such artifice, but I'm crazy like that, I guess.

The question is not directed exclusively at LGBT people – it’s directed at anyone who finds enjoyment in having a character, straight or otherwise, be something they clearly are not, for something that also clearly can’t be called a romance, even in the weakest possible definition of the word.

I believe it’s a mistake, because it strong-arms the writers into deforming the narratives of their creations, situationally, in a manner that completely undermines, at least for me, any fictional substance the story might have. It sticks out so badly, so cack-handedly, and makes the whole experience laughable – ‘Oh look, here we go again – a big event has just occurred and now every person who’s been following me wants to have sex’. I find that disturbing.

There are things in life I can never have, there are people in life that I can never have, and I personally like that: it seems sane, normal and believable to me. And while I don’t expect everyone to think as I do, you might want to consider there are people who do – and for them, likewise, this playersexual thing is baffling and nonsensical.

It can never be well-written, even if some genius tried to have a stab at it. Better off to have a mix of LGBT and straight characters, properly written as such, and let them all have the option to say ‘no’ if same-sex or even opposite-sex is not their thing.

Judy from Cyberpunk is an excellent example of this.

I would say...Yes, its up to the player.

There is not a single companion I would even consider being romantic with...so I politely answer flirty questions up to the point where they are not getting the hint, then end the dialogue as best I can.

I don't have a clue what sex in this game even looks like, nor do I care to.


If others enjoy it, then hey...knock your socks off.

I think you mean 'knock yourself out', knocking socks off is something else...or is it.

While expressed poorly, I've said before that I'd have preferred to see a middle-ground of solutions. With everyone being into everyone, it gets so untied with reality that I wouldn't think even those wanting representation feels represented; Or becomes a mockery of it. I think it'd be good for the game and its players to have some companions heavily preferring men, others women, and some going both ways. That's more tied with reality and thus is more believable. If everyone's into everyone, no one matters, in a way. If Wyll was mostly into women, yet I was really into him, I'd appreciate having both a bromance path and a harder to achieve romance path where Wyll's appreciation changes because of me, not because everyone's into everyone because inclusion. I think you can be inclusive *and* be within a believable reality as well.

That being said, the thread is really skirting closure; I don't want to shut it down but social politics gets really spicy really fast, so tread carefully and be respectful to eachother.

I think this person is confusing what I , a player, is attracted to, with what I've decide my Tav character is attracted to.

If I had my personal way, Halsin and Zevlor would be romance options. But it isn't about what I personally find attractive, it's about what my Tav wants. I would never consider a relationship with some like Asterion in real life, he's just not my type (maybe Shadow though, depends on how her character progresses), but I can make a Tav who wants to romance him.

This is always the way for me. I play game that has romance, chances are good that the person I most want to romance is unromanceable.

As for the realism, we've already covered that.

Personally I don't care at all about the "playersexual" companions.

You do make some good points, which are basically why I don't care. The entire "romance" option currently in BG3 is a joke and only there so Larian can throw sex scenes into the game and hopefully sell more copies. As you said, it would be a much less jarring and pleasant experience if Larian had taken the time to write each companion with varied/detailed romance options. It also would be fair bit of work to do since they would have to do every companion with options for every player's potential sexual preference. Instead we got the shallow compromise that we did.

I'm fine with the way it is. I would be fine with only some of the more dominant/assertive companions being as forward as all of them currently are. I would also be fine with removing the romance/sex options from the game entirely. This isn't a romance sim and quite frankly I don't find anything in this system romantic...just cheesy.

To Konmehn,

I think the part we're not seeing eye to eye on is the definition of what we're characterising as flipping of sexualities. From my perspective, they don't. From my perspective, in each individual instance of the world, each character that is romanceable has a set of preferences, and short of any in-universe, story-related events of conversations that deal with the possibility of those tastes changing or expanding, they are fixed and don't change, and are consistent throughout, within that specific world space.

I am not the sort of person who is going to judge and decide in advance what those preferences are based on external behaviour or mannerisms. No conscientious person ever should be. It may be because I am myself bisexual, but I don't buy into or read 'sexuality coding' in writing - if someone behaves and acts in a particular way externally, and that's something that's usually used in media to portray a particular sexuality, but they turn out to be open to more than that, I'm not put off and I don't care, because I didn't judge them to be that way to begin with. I strongly feel that no-one should, or at the very least they should not get worked up, put out or upset by discovering those assumptions to be incorrect... Making assumptions about someone's sexual preferences based on their external behaviour or way of talking is poor behaviour; it's othering and it can ultimately be harmful. Don't do it... or if you do make basic assumptions, as many people always will, be prepared to be mistaken about that, and don't get upset or worked up if you are - and most definitely don't blame or direct ire towards the person you made the assumption about.

So, as I see it, in each individual instance of the world, each romancable character's sexual preferences are consistent and fixed, short of actual story-driven shifts. We don't necessarily know all about them from the outset, but they don't magically change... we just learn more.

At a more macro level, the 'rules of the world space' including how various characters exist, are defined from the external perspective to create a world that is able to best cater to the player's experience.... and that means that, by happy coincidence, whichever character that they feel like their character might be interested in, will, conveniently, be at the minimum compatible with their tastes, and a romance attainable, provided the other elements of their character match up well enough. That's not flipping either, because it's defining something from the outset, in my mind - and I don't view the exact configuration of squishy bits that a person prefer to be an element that should have any real impact on the rest of their character or characterisation, short of dedicated story elements that relate to that, if such a thing is written. It shouldn't. You mention "rewriting the character's history" at one point - I'd really, very much, like you to give me an example of where the game currently rewrites any part of any character's history, based on your player character's sexy bits. It does not do that, at any point, ever, at least as far as I am aware. Tell me where you've seen this happen - and not where you've just made assumptions about the character that later turn out to be incorrect assumptions.

((There is also the distinct possibility that Larian characters aren't playersexual at all - They've literally just made them all openly bisexual, a fact that you may or may not discover, base don your interactions. Who knows? We certainly don't have any confirming evidence one way or the other yet.))

You asked what the satisfaction in it was, and you were given a detailed answer... I'm not sure how much more I can say when you just ask again. My previous post explains where the satisfaction in this is, and why it is relevant, in short bullet point form. If you won't address or respond to that (either by accepting it or objecting), I can't really continue trying to answer your repetition of the question.

Would I prefer to have the characters being far better written than they are right now? Of course I would. No-one's denying that... But from my perspective, playing a male character and flirting with Gale works fine.... it's not great, it could be better, but it's... fine, if that's the best we can hope for. I don't experience any dissonance in his character or characterisation, personally, with the fact that he's interested in bunking with me... I flirted with him during the weave scene and he seemed receptive, and that was a feeler - me checking if he was game, and being pleasantly surprised when he was. I was pleased to learn that he was open to males as well as females. It was not a problem. (Rag makes a good point, in that Lae'zel propositioning creatures that the githyanki usually consider slave races, like gnomes and halflings, created far more dissonance with me than any genital preference)

The romance as it is built in the game right now is laughably stupid, unimersive and generally terrible - the whole party scene where everyone wants a piece of you is a train wreck of poorly written, badly-handled design. I don't think there are many people who disagree with that. that's an issue of design and writing, though, and it's got nothing to do with all companions being romance capable for the player. Yes, absolutely, I, and most others interested in romance, I think, would much prefer a more organic progression with build ups that happen in varied and different ways for different characters, and which are better written to suit the tone and style of those characters.... and more pointedly, should provide some way for the player to flag to the game who they are interested in, without stepping on the toes of good characterisation.

You talk about characters being made to be something they are clearly not - once again, I'm just going to point out that your conception of this conflict is flawed: you are making assumptions about what you think or expect characters to be, and are taking issue with them when those assumptions turn out to be false. That's mostly on you (partially on the bad writing and design, sure, but mostly on the person making the assumptions and then being disconcerted when they assumed wrong), not the game.

No-one, I don't think, disagrees that the party scene right now is an abomination - It's awkward, uncomfortable and feels very out of place, for the most part. It's bad for any kind of immersion, and in generally it's a pretty rotten design. Having everyone come at you all at once, at the same time, to jump at your unfortunately wet cardboard, empty, soulless and undefined character who has felt mostly like a hanger-on to the story due to the writing design, is just silly. It really is. No-one's disputing that. that's not related to the characters all being applicable romance targets, though. What we have right now are not, for the most part, romances - if anything, Gale and Shadow come closest because they have the most personal scenes, the focus of which are potentials for interpersonal relationships, more than the other companions. They're also the most fiddly to trigger, which is an issue of poor design - though shadow's take priority over everyone else, making hers easier to track to track down... None of that is a detraction form having playersexual characters in the first place though, nor an argument against it.

As others have said, multiple times now, playersexual characters are not the most ideal situation - they aren't, I'm not disputing that. However, this is a fantasy rolepalying game, and for those interested in romance, the draw is being able to build a romance with a character that they, or their character, depending, would like to build a relationship with. An idea situation presents enough individual characters to meet a broad spectrum of character archetypes and personalities, such that odds are good for any given player finding a character that matches what they want and being able to pursue them. We don't have that situation, and we won't have that situation. What wee have and, all we will have, is an extremely limited and short roster of characters, and alongside that, we still have the goal of having a situation where most players interested in building a relationship with a character that matches what either they, or the character they are playing, is interested in, will have the opportunity and potential to do that. The only way to achieve that with such a short roster of available characters is if, by coincidental good fortune and convenience, it turns at that the character that any given player wishes to build a relationship with is also open to that prospect.

Games have tried it the other way, with locked sexualities and even locked racial preferences - the result was simply that some character combinations were left entirely in the lurch, and players who wished to build a relationship over the course of their game were simply given the shaft. It's not a satisfying way to design that aspect of the game if you can't provide a broad enough spread to ensure it works - and even if you try to do that, you end up having to compromise on the depth of characterisation and that each individual character is afforded. In many ways, it works better with a shorter roster of characters, who can each then be given much deeper, fuller and more fleshed out characterisation and personality, and their personal sexuality does not need to be a relevant aspect of that. It can be, yes, but it don't need to be, if making it so would cause dissonance. Others have spoken in detail about other writing tools you can use in this situation - you can have characters with established limited sexualities, and still leave a potential for romance open through dialogue and conversation, effectively lamp-shading their normal limitations and why they might consider testing the waters with you, in a way that they normally would not be inclined to, and so on... and that Can be written well and convincingly. I'll requote Composer here, though I think Rag has expounded on ways of doing this too, at various points, as have I in other threads, and probably others I'm forgetting:


This is a writing tool for having defined, or semi-defined sexualities for characters, while still avoiding hard lock-outs, and it can be a very good solution, if done well.

I've also played games with relationship locks and exclusions and generally, I just find them awkward or dissatisfying. The last one I played presented only one character with whom I wanted to build a relationship - I didn't really think of anyone else that way, and this character was the only one I genuinely liked spending time with, talking to, and was the only one I really wanted to become intimate with. I did not enjoy being locked out from them. I don't care if it's not realistic; I'm playing a video game, one of the elements of which is character romance. I did not find it to be a satisfying or enjoyable experience or outcome, and so the game *failed*, for me.

End of the day, I don't think anyone is disputing that right now, the way Larian are handling 'romance', is pretty bad, and pretty dissatisfying.

A deliberate mix of metaphors made in the spur of the moment that seemed appropriate to a "sex doll" thread.

Like this.

I would be surprised if Larian keeps the romance at the current level of finish.

The whole "playersexual" argument is simply broken. Why should romance be treated any differently than any other aspect of the game and need to cover every possible combination? I see the "I want gale to be gay" as equivalent as "I want gale to have rainbow coloured fairy wings".

If you really need it then mod it.

The immersion is as strong as the character backstory, and I agree with OP: having a bunch of sexdoll-companions is not remotely realistic. And yes, maybe with the exception of Astarion, it feels awkward to be randomly asked out by gale simply because you initiated dialog: I am not proficient in same-sex relationship but I am pretty sure it is borderline offensive to assume it would go like this.

To a minimum companion preferences (genders and race) should be hardcoded with different friendship trigger (is shadowheart really into gnomes?) and progression should feel different. Also the romance opener should at a minimum be flagged if we stick with the currently odd "everyone is a bi sexdoll" setup, so the player can actually choose not to have all of his party bi.

Amusingly, of all the many things that we don't actually have concrete evidence for or about, one of the things which we do know, for absolute, undeniable and incontrovertible certainty, is that Gale is not gay, and that there is no circumstance of the game where he will ever be gay. ^.^

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I think a large percentage of people involved in these discussions have at one time or another agreed that Players need a way to flag to the game what their intentions are; not specifically that your character needs to be the one to initiate romance with other companions, but that the Player should be the one to initiate to the game, or in some way tell the game what they want, before it takes matters into its own hands and throws every companion you've ever met at your bedroll all at once.

Indeed like Gale seems like a cool friend for me to have along but that friendship gets kind of wierd when i remember that he tried to fuck me and was very disappointed that I didn't swing that way.

🤣

It would have been interesting if he was trying to get Shadowheart in his bedroll since he was kind if flirting with her from very early on.
And if Player wants shadowheart too it would make for some fun conversations.

When the player is Shadowheart it might make for some fun conversations. Playing as these people is still a big unknown to me, I know some of it has been mined and modded, but it's limited, especially when it comes to origin-to-origin conversations. A lot of this generic stuff won't make as much sense with more realized characters.