Larian Studios Forums Baldur's Gate III Baldur's Gate III - Suggestions & Feedback Romance is the Wrong reason

Didn't you know that round these here parts opinions are FACTS?

You could always use the chat option of "NO" and stop the romance right then and there. Just like every other RPG out their with dialogue choices where you can stop the romance before it starts.

Come to think about it just like IRL, or have I completely missed the toggle somewhere down the line?

You shouldn't have to fend off "weird sex cult" companion advances. For me personally, if a companion randomly says why he/she wants or doesn't want to bed my PC, it already sours the party dynamics/companion interaction. There wouldn't be a problem if romance was 100% player-initiated. (Or preferably if there was a toggle to block all romantic interactions in the party.)

Sex sells. They want all the thirsty teens to masturbate at their pixels. Then they go on reddit and say "look look friends, boobies!" and more of those kids will want to buy the game.
For some reason they also think that having every single companion, be they male or female and independent of race want to have sex with you makes them deep and interesting while in fact it just makes them all shallow and boring.

For someone who is essentially trying to call other people immature the way that you talk about sex isn't exactly the height of maturity.
Did it occur to you that people may find sexuality in games fun?
Not everyone is only interested in violence.
And I dunno but I don't think that '' boobies '' are even a big deal, it truly baffles me that female nipples are still controversial there's no logical reason behind it other than you've been conditioned into viewing them as super sexual.

Also funny how I never see people being so critical of games like MK11 where the violence and gore is ramped up to 11 too, but *gasp* the existence of sex or womens bodies in a video game that's the issue.
Sure, '' sex sells ''.
So does violence, what's your point?
I am pretty sure teenagers are more interested in violence too at least that was my experience growing up, most teens cared more about edgy ninjas cutting each others heads off.
I remember, because I was different.
Your attitude is funnily enough closer to the attitude and mentality that actual teenagers have towards sex and nudity.

Oh and reddit, LOL!
Reddit is a sex-negative cesspool...
It's impossible to post art or anything that involves even mild amounts of cleavage without the whole comment section being people ranting about it.

And no sex doesn't inherently make something deep and interesting, but it also doesn't make it shallow and boring.
That's.... A very shallow and boring take lol.

I have no issues with romance in RPGs if its done well, nor with sex scenes, but the important bit there is, "if it is done well." What I mean by this is, the advances by the characters need to feel "natural" for that character. The companions (like real people) should have sexual preferences and if a player falls outside of those preferences, it should be comparatively more difficult for a romance to occur than otherwise would be true. The original Baldur's Gate games did this very well incidentally, where Viconia for example would not romance an elf PC. Obviously, some people are more carefree about sex than others, but if a character is meant to be more carefree about sex, then it should come across in their character and the way romances in BG 3 are currently implemented just doesn't feel this way. I think the cutscenes in BG 3, are not actually the issue at all, the different companions clearly do have different preferences within them, the problem is, how you get there feels like its really poorly implemented and rather than feeling like a relationship which is being developed it feels like all the characters are player sexual. This to me, makes the characters much more shallow than they could otherwise be.

I don't think that anyone is saying that it shouldn't be done well.
I've criticized how the game just had all of the companions wanting to sleep with me suddenly at camp, but I also think that they're unfinished currently.
In regards to the sexual preferences thing I actually had that thought first as well but I think that ultimately it's about sorta making your own canon and having choices.
If you play as a heterosexual man for example and don't pursue Gale then your experience will essentially be that he's heterosexual especially with his other romance subplot. The issue is that like I said I think that it's unfinished currently and there's an inbetween missing.
Making everyone bi gameplay-wise does make some sense and opens the game up a lot.
But yeah, only character I pursued was Shadowheart but then everyone wanted to sleep with me because I was... Polite to them?
Yeah I don't think that's intended in the finished product.

I kinda do take a bit of an issue with the excessively high standards in regards to sex or anything sexual in game, but meanwhile no one ( or almost no one ) has any problem with gratuitous violence and gore.
So much of the violence and violent decisions can ultimately be said to be very shallow and being there for the sake of being there.

I also don't think that someone being carefree about sex is necessarily something that needs to be very clear in their personality.
A lot of people irl are very modest on the surface but then have multiple sexual partners and have sex very regularly vise versa.
Lae'Zel for example could really go either way but then you have people assuming that Shadowheart is literally some sexual sadist because she's a bit flirty at times.
Those assumptions to me are quite shallow too, it's why you have so many people who think that women '' are asking for it '' based on how they dress.

Just wanted to remind you all of a relatively minor spoiler from Dragon Age Origins - Morrigan jumps in bed with you really early on. Just wanted to put it out there

Leliana also wants the Player Character the very moment she sees you

That's true, but it's also story related.
I actually thought that this part of her and how it played into her character and lore was very well-written.
She also stops sleeping with you at some point which is worth pointing out, the sex itself was never part of her romance subplot.


It did become a bit of a meme, but I also think that's precisely because people at large are kinda immature in their views on sex and never look beyond the actual act in and of itself.
Doesn't help that they basically turned sex into some kind of a weird comedy in Inquisition.

And how in this game it's not story related? I think you actually hit the nail in the hand in your second paragraph. People are kinda conflating sex with romance here imo

It was (in my opinion) fairly well done though and felt like it fit her character, which is what I mean. There is nothing wrong with it, provided it fits the character. The journey should match the destination.

I haven't romanced either and I haven't even got flirting from them. It was always player-initiated. Only Zevran was generally dirty-minded, but it was just one character that was characterized this way. (And I'm not even sure he acted flirty towards the PC unless romanced).

The most weird part about BG3 romances is definitely that every single character decides they want to bang you at the exact same time. It's definitely ridiculous. The best part is Githgirl if you haven't got enough approval for getting dirty with her, she will be all "A PITY YOU DON'T GET TO HAVE SEX WITH ME, FISHSTICK, WHICH YOU OBVIOUSLY WANTED, DESPITE NOT HAVING HAD A SINGLE CHEMISTRY MOMENT WITH ME SO FAR" without warning.

Maybe Minara was psionically making everybody in the camp really horny or something.

There there. Some of us sided with tieflings and druids. Come to think of it, maybe Halsin spiced the drinks with D&D equivalent of viagra.

In some ways she's Oranges' equivalent of ME's Liara, though the latter is much more pushy. After lecturing you about asari not being sex-obsessed, that is.

My biggest giggle in Origins was playing a 'sex with anyone' Mod version where my female PC inevitably got seduced by Morrigan (now there was a girl who could have used stronger knicker elastic), and subsequently became the father of Morrigan's child.

Magic, you see. It's all done by magic.

Just an aside - in my case anyway, romancing Shadowheart was pointless. A caveat - hetero cis male here - so there's that. A kiss, some regrets the next day - meh.