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Originally Posted by Sadurian
Yes, I wish some companions were just ... normal.

I'm excited by the prospect of a female dwarf companion, but .. a werewolf!? It's starting to look like Larian are lining up to start jumping sharks. Calm down guys. Some of us are happy with vanilla occasionally - the sprinkles should enhance and not overwhelm.


Well, in BG2 we had Cernd who was also a Werwolf. But yeah, I agree, it starts to look like a circus lol

I would LOVE to see more female companions, the two we have now are the same to me. Every time I talk to Shadowheart I am asking myself why I am not casting hex or her resting bitch face and eldrich blast her out of my party.

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Originally Posted by Sadurian
Yes, I wish some companions were just ... normal.

I'm excited by the prospect of a female dwarf companion, but .. a werewolf!? It's starting to look like Larian are lining up to start jumping sharks. Calm down guys. Some of us are happy with vanilla occasionally - the sprinkles should enhance and not overwhelm.


How about a dwarf female Werwolf?

Would they switch to normal size Werwolf or change in to some kind of chihuahua?!

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Originally Posted by Blade238
that Tiefling near the tollhouse.

Her delivery of her line when you suggest she join your party is top-notch. Second only to Gale's response when you incredulously accuse him of being a primed explosive.

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The "normal" of romances in RPGs seem to be a relationship where your NPC lover needs someone to lean to(at best being just socially awkward), or is in outright need of a savior/therapy, which IMO makes most RPG romances unethical or taxing relationships with lopsided power dynamics. Basically the uneven standard power dynamic is as follows: your companions are kinda doomed without your influence(or incredibly malleable by you) in their lives, while the PC can manage even without them.

I'd be happy with even one "easy" companion(romantic or otherwise) to whom having a relationship with doesn't feel like you're committing to suicidal levels of self harm by falling/caring for a literal/figurative homicidal parasite, or by becoming a 'parental figure'/psychotherapist and/or lover to someone in need of rescuing. Of the current characters only Lae'zel is (barely) passable in this regard.

Though I get the feeling Lae'zel is punished on a narrative level for so strongly voicing her viewpoint on how the group should resolve their predicament(hell, she's even given her her very own little "airship" she can ineffectively shout commands from after bossing us on the nautiloid), by being the companion most in need of rescuing/handling in cutscenes/events. It's also quite possible the caring she needs in act 1 is only a prelude to even more dependant relationship in later chapters. Given her hatred for the mind flayers, her persona and general harshness of giths, It wouldn't suprise me if she needed player guidance to stop her from suiciding, when we eventually reach the gith creche.

(In regard to previous comment about Lae'zel being hard to please, I don't think there's any mystery to pleasing her. I mean she's quite vocal about her desires and beliefs: Just don't be the savior of the weak who don't matter to her, don't submit to... well anyone else besides her, or side with the people she hates, don't treat her as a lesser being by impeding her or speaking for her, don't back down from fights and don't question the general awesomeness of the gith and their absolute nonsen... knowledge, or her personal superior prowess at everything.)


And then there's Shadowheart...

...while she seems sort of independent in a backstabby, sociopathic way, she just comes off as unwittingly suicidal due to her Shar worship coupled with her amateurish intrigue skills, her overwhelming need to love and be loved/accepted by others and the self-destructive nature of this love. Its especially sad to witness her affirming her misguided and self-harming, love/worship to Shar, whose love takes the form of unmaking, forgetting, erasing and exploiting others. Basically Shadowheart seems like a Viconia 2.0: unwittingly heading for the communal bonfire reserved for the pathological/evil scapegoats of society. While I suppose I can relate to Shadowheart, basically romancing her feels like you'll be charged with handling her on so many levels its just plain evil: Like you're taking on, not only the role of a lover, but also that of a psychotherapist/mentor/mother/father trying to teach her a less suicidal way to exist. But who knows, maybe the persona she is feeding us is "just" a lie and she is not so vulnerable she seems. I doubt it though.

Last edited by IdPreferNotTo; 13/10/20 04:07 PM.

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Having spent a lot of years wandering around The Sword Coast, I've yet to meet a 'nice' girl - long may it continue laugh


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Funny, but as one grows older, the desire for 'fast and hot' girls diminishes.

You soon realise that what you are looking for is a woman who you can talk to and who tolerates all those nasty little habits that you have accumulated over the decades. Now there's a feature of Companion Romances that is unlikely to see the light of day.

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Originally Posted by Warlocke
There will be more companions added to EA later.


Yea, but will they be good companions? I am afraid it will be more like toad girl than actual fun or aesthetically pleasing girls. I have no idea why toad girl was a thing, a girl that is not aesthetically pleasing and will cheat on you if you romance her because they do not believe in being tied to one person. Yea, that was a complete wasted character as a romance option and I can't see too many people picking her for that, let alone for a companion to hang out with.

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Originally Posted by IdPreferNotTo
The "normal" of romances in RPGs seem to be a relationship where your NPC lover needs someone to lean to(at best being just socially awkward), or is in outright need of a savior/therapy, which IMO makes most RPG romances unethical or taxing relationships with lopsided power dynamics. Basically the uneven standard power dynamic is as follows: your companions are kinda doomed without your influence(or incredibly malleable by you) in their lives, while the PC can manage even without them.

I'd be happy with even one "easy" companion(romantic or otherwise) to whom having a relationship with doesn't feel like you're committing to suicidal levels of self harm by falling/caring for a literal/figurative homicidal parasite, or by becoming a 'parental figure'/psychotherapist and/or lover to someone in need of rescuing. Of the current characters only Lae'zel is (barely) passable in this regard.

Though I get the feeling Lae'zel is punished on a narrative level for so strongly voicing her viewpoint on how the group should resolve their predicament(hell, she's even given her her very own little "airship" she can ineffectively shout commands from after bossing us on the nautiloid), by being the companion most in need of rescuing/handling in cutscenes/events. It's also quite possible the caring she needs in act 1 is only a prelude to even more dependant relationship in later chapters. Given her hatred for the mind flayers, her persona and general harshness of giths, It wouldn't suprise me if she needed player guidance to stop her from suiciding, when we eventually reach the gith creche.

(In regard to previous comment about Lae'zel being hard to please, I don't think there's any mystery to pleasing her. I mean she's quite vocal about her desires and beliefs: Just don't be the savior of the weak who don't matter to her, don't submit to... well anyone else besides her, or side with the people she hates, don't treat her as a lesser being by impeding her or speaking for her, don't back down from fights and don't question the general awesomeness of the gith and their absolute nonsen... knowledge, or her personal superior prowess at everything.)


And then there's Shadowheart...

...while she seems sort of independent in a backstabby, sociopathic way, she just comes off as unwittingly suicidal due to her Shar worship coupled with her amateurish intrigue skills, her overwhelming need to love and be loved/accepted by others and the self-destructive nature of this love. Its especially sad to witness her affirming her misguided and self-harming, love/worship to Shar, whose love takes the form of unmaking, forgetting, erasing and exploiting others. Basically Shadowheart seems like a Viconia 2.0: unwittingly heading for the communal bonfire reserved for the pathological/evil scapegoats of society. While I suppose I can relate to Shadowheart, basically romancing her feels like you'll be charged with handling her on so many levels its just plain evil: Like you're taking on, not only the role of a lover, but also that of a psychotherapist/mentor/mother/father trying to teach her a less suicidal way to exist. But who knows, maybe the persona she is feeding us is "just" a lie and she is not so vulnerable she seems. I doubt it though.


Plot twist on Shadowheart she is a Selunite double Agent, the artefact she has is something she stole from a shar temple and once you reach Baldursgate she gets mind wiped and restored and is the opposite from she "pretended" to be. Ta DA! such a twist!

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Originally Posted by Sadurian
Funny, but as one grows older, the desire for 'fast and hot' girls diminishes.

You soon realise that what you are looking for is a woman who you can talk to and who tolerates all those nasty little habits that you have accumulated over the decades. Now there's a feature of Companion Romances that is unlikely to see the light of day.


Not sure if your comment refers to mine, but 'fast and hot' wasn't what I was aiming at with "easy" in my comment, rather I'd also like a romance that dispenses with forcing you into the role of savior/mentor/toadie in romances. To me "fast and hot"(in computer games), translates into sex with zero intimacy and/or relationship with a partner that has serious lack of self-awareness about their wants and needs. The sex then plays out as such an empty or self-denying act, that the relationship is likely to turn out to be just another instructive/doomed romance filled with grueling/impossible emotional labor.


Originally Posted by xMardeRx
Originally Posted by IdPreferNotTo
The "normal" of romances in RPGs seem to be a relationship where your NPC lover needs someone to lean to(at best being just socially awkward), or is in outright need of a savior/therapy, which IMO makes most RPG romances unethical or taxing relationships with lopsided power dynamics. Basically the uneven standard power dynamic is as follows: your companions are kinda doomed without your influence(or incredibly malleable by you) in their lives, while the PC can manage even without them.

I'd be happy with even one "easy" companion(romantic or otherwise) to whom having a relationship with doesn't feel like you're committing to suicidal levels of self harm by falling/caring for a literal/figurative homicidal parasite, or by becoming a 'parental figure'/psychotherapist and/or lover to someone in need of rescuing. Of the current characters only Lae'zel is (barely) passable in this regard.

Though I get the feeling Lae'zel is punished on a narrative level for so strongly voicing her viewpoint on how the group should resolve their predicament(hell, she's even given her her very own little "airship" she can ineffectively shout commands from after bossing us on the nautiloid), by being the companion most in need of rescuing/handling in cutscenes/events. It's also quite possible the caring she needs in act 1 is only a prelude to even more dependant relationship in later chapters. Given her hatred for the mind flayers, her persona and general harshness of giths, It wouldn't suprise me if she needed player guidance to stop her from suiciding, when we eventually reach the gith creche.

(In regard to previous comment about Lae'zel being hard to please, I don't think there's any mystery to pleasing her. I mean she's quite vocal about her desires and beliefs: Just don't be the savior of the weak who don't matter to her, don't submit to... well anyone else besides her, or side with the people she hates, don't treat her as a lesser being by impeding her or speaking for her, don't back down from fights and don't question the general awesomeness of the gith and their absolute nonsen... knowledge, or her personal superior prowess at everything.)


And then there's Shadowheart...

...while she seems sort of independent in a backstabby, sociopathic way, she just comes off as unwittingly suicidal due to her Shar worship coupled with her amateurish intrigue skills, her overwhelming need to love and be loved/accepted by others and the self-destructive nature of this love. Its especially sad to witness her affirming her misguided and self-harming, love/worship to Shar, whose love takes the form of unmaking, forgetting, erasing and exploiting others. Basically Shadowheart seems like a Viconia 2.0: unwittingly heading for the communal bonfire reserved for the pathological/evil scapegoats of society. While I suppose I can relate to Shadowheart, basically romancing her feels like you'll be charged with handling her on so many levels its just plain evil: Like you're taking on, not only the role of a lover, but also that of a psychotherapist/mentor/mother/father trying to teach her a less suicidal way to exist. But who knows, maybe the persona she is feeding us is "just" a lie and she is not so vulnerable she seems. I doubt it though.


Plot twist on Shadowheart she is a Selunite double Agent, the artefact she has is something she stole from a shar temple and once you reach Baldursgate she gets mind wiped and restored and is the opposite from she "pretended" to be. Ta DA! such a twist!


Ehh... mindwipes are not at all what I was aiming for. Not interested in mocking the quality of writing in game or other forum posters either.


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Originally Posted by vometia
Originally Posted by Sadurian
I'd like to see a really nerdy human female wizard. Not an 'I'll kill you all with fire!', not 'I will unlock the Dark Secrets bwahahah!!', and not some brazen 'Let's make sexy illusions and roll about on Tenser's Floating waterbed'.

I want see a scholar, a mousy wizard who wears glasses and has ink stains on her sleeves. A companion who can be romanced but who you struggle to take beyond kissing and cuddling.

Now that would be a first in any RPG so far as I can see.

There was Merrill in Dragon Age 2: she was pretty much like that. Neither "I am teh pwn and will turn your intestines into a plague of frogs!" like Morrigan nor the stereotypical "I cast a spell and all my clothes fell off", just someone who was socially awkward, bookish and tended to obsess over inappropriate stuff.


Oh gods. You just reminded me of someone in the first few 3.5 campaigns I was in with the 'clothes fell off' comment.
One of my co-workers got me into D&D, and one of his regulars was a guy who, by all accounts, looked like a jock. He looked more at home in football gear than in D&D, but eh!

Turned out, he loved to play female characters. His characters were always large-chested, wasp-waisted, huge-thighed elf girls in skimpy clothing. And those characters had an annoying habit of losing clothing for any reason he could think of. He also tried to hit on male party members, allot, while ignoring how uncomfortable we were.

I'm kind of ashamed to say that I chased him away from the group (though no one in the group liked him. They just did not have the heart to push him out). Once I learned he did not like beast races, I started rolling beast races to hit on him after the campaigns moved to my apartment. He got sick of it and told me to stop (though he saw nothing wrong with his harassment of our characters), and I told him he did not have to show up; it was my apartment, after all.
He stopped showing up, with the message that as long as the games were hosted at my place, he would not be there.
...We never stopped hosting the games at my place, for the 4 years I lived there.

Last edited by Eguzky; 13/10/20 07:06 PM.
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I play female characters a lot, almost (but not quite) exclusively, in fact. I've quite often had 'the conversation' with other players who look askance at someone playing the opposite gender. In many cases, their experience has been similar to yours - seeing male-played female characters played as bimbos. Such players tend to do the rest of us a great disservice because for all the great and average role-players you see, it's the bad ones that really stick in the mind.

As for hitting on the other PCs; I tend to either play down any sexuality in the character or only role-play flirtation with players I know are comfortable with it. Luckily I have a really good group at present (well, we can't game due to Covid restrictions, but they are still 'my group').

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Everyone being mean about my Bae Shadowheart ... ;(

Jokes aside, I like her and have only just started my 2nd run with Lae'zel present, so I don't know how much I'll like her. She's not my type though, but maybe I just need to get used to the Githyanki look in general (also, at times being sort of jealous about that tiny nose, when at times it feels like my own takes up half my face :'D).

I am pretty sure there'll be more companions, and surely more female ones, too. Maybe even one that, for all you weirdos who find Shadowheart not aesthetically pleasing enough, will be a Bombshell kinda gal.



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Originally Posted by Usako

... for all you weirdos who find Shadowheart not aesthetically pleasing enough...




I am a girl and I find her absolutely freaking gorgeous. The thing I don't understand is her hairstyle design... It seems a bit off, and too... special? Also her front hair bangs dont move and seem like they are glued to her face, which is getting to my OCD. Otherwise she is an absolute beauty and I love her.
That said I do understand why people would want a more normal female LI. Out of the three dudes we got two are human (moderately normal) and one is a flamboyant elven vampire, out of the two girls one is a githyanki and another a half-elf priestess of an evil goddess.

Last edited by Arideya; 13/10/20 09:21 PM.

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I think both of the female companions in the EA are headed for a fall as part of their character arc and growth, or at least that's the way I would write both of those archetypes whether they were stamped on XX or XY flesh.

Lae'zel I see headed for a reckoning with her beloved créche and some sort of falling out, either her with them, or them in her eyes.

Shadowheart makes me think she is an abducted or indoctrinated Selûnite, perhaps even a 'chosen one' of that religion, and I think she already has her suspicions and we're going to watch that realization unfold and have the chance to nurture the change or convince her to deny it.

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Sorry gang, Lae'zel only has eyes for me, clearly...

Now lets knife fight about it at prom!

Shadowheart's bangs might cut you like a Roy Orbison song, but we all know the Astral plane is forever!
Gith gal's got the long game. That's why she kicks things off by making fun of your nose hehe

Honestly I'm pretty pleased so far. At least they aren't boring. I'm sure team Good will deliver something a bit more mundane to pursue.


ps. it would be cool if companions had a few alt looks to change things like hair style. I'm all for that







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I've never understood why people care about romance options in games like this. Maybe I'm just too old but I prefer my love interests to actually not be made of 1s and 0s. I wish there was an option to just disable any dialogue related to that stuff. It does nothing for me.

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Originally Posted by Osprey39
I've never understood why people care about romance options in games like this. Maybe I'm just too old but I prefer my love interests to actually not be made of 1s and 0s. I wish there was an option to just disable any dialogue related to that stuff. It does nothing for me.


Well, in RL I have recently been engaged to probably one of the best men in the world, so I am perfectly happy with my LI. But in games I love playing through romance paths with variety of characters (assholes included) because they are fun and provide content expansion such as plot points, storylines, conversations, situations, to the story. Some even add personal stakes and alternative solutions such as Morrigan in Dragon Age Origins. The two things are not mutually exclusive.

Last edited by Arideya; 14/10/20 12:14 AM.

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Originally Posted by Arideya
Originally Posted by Osprey39
I've never understood why people care about romance options in games like this. Maybe I'm just too old but I prefer my love interests to actually not be made of 1s and 0s. I wish there was an option to just disable any dialogue related to that stuff. It does nothing for me.


Well, in RL I have recently been engaged to probably one of the best men in the world, so I am perfectly happy with my LI. But in games I love playing through romance paths with variety of characters (assholes included) because they are fun and provide content expansion such as plot points, storylines, conversations, situations, to the story. Some even add personal stakes and alternative solutions such as Morrigan in Dragon Age Origins. The two things are not mutually exclusive.




That's fine. You do you. I was just saying that personally I'm not into it and I would turn it off if I could. Call it a dissenting opinion smile My own disdain for pretend romance arcs aside, I find it odd that these games seldom if ever include any friendship type relationship building with companion characters. I would be more interested in participating in sitting around the campfire drinking and poking fun at my buddies for how they almost got killed by a level 2 goblin earlier in the day. In my mind, that's more the type of banter that would go on. Maybe it's a guy thing smile I will say that generally when I am trying to save the world (or my own life in this case), my interest in bedding some comely wench kind of gets put on the back burner :P


Last edited by Osprey39; 14/10/20 01:28 AM.
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Originally Posted by Black_Elk
Sorry gang, Lae'zel only has eyes for me, clearly...

Now lets knife fight about it at prom!

Shadowheart's bangs might cut you like a Roy Orbison song, but we all know the Astral plane is forever!
Gith gal's got the long game. That's why she kicks things off by making fun of your nose hehe

Honestly I'm pretty pleased so far. At least they aren't boring. I'm sure team Good will deliver something a bit more mundane to pursue.


ps. it would be cool if companions had a few alt looks to change things like hair style. I'm all for that




lol


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