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Originally Posted by GoldenSphinx

It's pseudo-intellectualism and polite homophobia. It's selfish straightness.


There are as many lgbt people that dislike playersexual characters as there are straight, just saying.

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Originally Posted by GoldenSphinx
The initial argument is dumb. I'm going to go ahead and translate the con argument against having NPC's available to anyone. Here goes: I'm straight and will get what I want regardless, and I'm a ittle annoyed that the character I like is available to someone else, or isn't straight like me.

There is nothing a straight person can be, think, or like a gay person couldn't. What exactly is the characterization that is so muddled because an NPC is available for everyone. Are they to declare their preferred sexual organ in conversation? What else changes about any character based on their sexuality? Are gay folks supposed to be stereotypes and have to hit all the gay flags or they're just badly drawn straight people?

This is a troll conversation. Even if we are only talking about dialogue relating to romance what would be different between gay and straight outside of pronouns. The basics: I like you. You're neat. You're hot. I want to spend time with you. I am interested in you as a person. Let's bang.

It's not: I straight like you. You're straight neat. You're gay hot. I want to spend time with lesbian you. I am interested in you as a bisexual person. Let's straight bang.

It's dumb. It's a dumb conversation. It's pseudo-intellectualism and polite homophobia. It's selfish straightness that says everything should be for me and reflect me or else there is something wrong with it.

I'm interested, do you think there's no difference between a game like what we've seen of Baldur's Gate 3 and a game like Dragon Age Inquisition? In this regard I mean. You also seem to conflate gender and sexuality, I play these games for as long as they have something to show me and that includes all of the above, as it were.

You're the first person to ever call me a troll....Thanks?

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Sozz #737250 21/11/20 02:53 AM
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Originally Posted by GoldenSphinx
The initial argument is dumb. I'm going to go ahead and translate the con argument against having NPC's available to anyone. Here goes: I'm straight and will get what I want regardless, and I'm a ittle annoyed that the character I like is available to someone else, or isn't straight like me.

Non-herosexual NPCs can and do include NPCs that are:
-straight and not available to my gay/lesbian character
-gay/lesbian and not available to my straight character
It doesn't have to be all "me me me." I want Alistair/Cullen/Solas to be straight, even if this prevents me from romancing them, because it defines them more as people. They have specific wants/desires/preferences, same as many people in real life.
I like that Sera is only romanceable by a female inquisitor for the same reason (again, even though this prevents my Male inquisitor from romancing her)

Yes, there is "nothing a straight person can be, think, or like a gay person couldn't" and games obviously shouldn't give gay characters offensive stereotypes. But added detail, especially about something as defining as sexuality, can often help make the NPC seem more real and relatable.

Their preferences can be shown in dialogue as who they remark on while traveling, how they respond to the other companion party banter, how they respond to the player's advances/actions, help flesh out their background, etc.
e.g., Wyll. @KillerRabbit says that devils "assume the gender they think is mostly likely to get the response they are after." If this is correct, Wyll should be more interested in women according to the rules of the universe. Making him herosexual (equally amenable to either gender PC) contradicts this story lore.
Now, if Wyll was willing to sleep with the player regardless of gender but was less aggressive about pursuing a romance with a male PC, that'd be fine.
Edit: Wyll's patron is a cambion. But my example stands as a theoretical

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Kadajko #737251 21/11/20 02:54 AM
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Originally Posted by Kadajko
Originally Posted by KillerRabbit

Also, someone might tell Wyll that devils don't have gender they just assume the gender they think is mostly likely to get the response they are after.


What does their real form look like then? They can assume any form they want? Not all devils can shapeshift? Also mizora is a cambion no?


You're right. I keep forgetting that cambions are the exception to most of the rules of hell.

The Tome of Foes doesn't specify what they look like normally:

Quote
To a devil, gender is insignificant. Devils can't create new
life through physical means; a new devil comes into being
only when a soul is corrupted or claimed in a bargain, and
the gender of the mortal that provided the soul is immate-
rial. Devils that represent themselves to mortals are likely
to adopt an appearance (including an apparent gender)
that conforms with what those mortals believe to be true.
Gender (and the assumptions that mortals make about it)
is just another tool for devils to use to get what they want.
Devils that are known to and named by mortals often
accept the gender assigned to them, but they aren't bound
by that label. Stories of the Lords of the Nine told by
mortals might speak of Glasya as Asmodeus's daughter
and Belial as Fierna's consort, but such expressions can't
encompass the complexities of the strange relationships
formed by beings of immortal evil.

Sozz #737252 21/11/20 02:58 AM
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Quote
THE BLESSED OF CORELLON
Ever changing, mirthful, and beautiful, the primal elves
could assume whatever sex they liked. When they bowed
to Lolth's influence and chose to fix their physical forms,
elves lost the ability to transform in this way. Yet occasion-
ally elves are born who are so androgynous that they are
proclaimed to be among the blessed of Corellon-living
symbols of the god's love and of the primal elves' original
fluid state of being. Many of Corellon's chief priests bear
this blessing.
The rarest of these blessed elves can change their sex
whenever they finish a long rest-a miracle celebrated by
elves of all sorts except drow. (The DM decides whether an
elf can manifest this miracle.) Dark elves find this ability
to be terrifying and characterize it as a curse, for it could
destabilize their entire society. lfCorellon's blessing mani-
fests in a drow, that elf usually flees to the surface world to
seek shelter among those dedicated to Corellon.

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Originally Posted by KillerRabbit
Quote
THE BLESSED OF CORELLON
Ever changing, mirthful, and beautiful, the primal elves
could assume whatever sex they liked. When they bowed
to Lolth's influence and chose to fix their physical forms,
elves lost the ability to transform in this way. Yet occasion-
ally elves are born who are so androgynous that they are
proclaimed to be among the blessed of Corellon-living
symbols of the god's love and of the primal elves' original
fluid state of being. Many of Corellon's chief priests bear
this blessing.
The rarest of these blessed elves can change their sex
whenever they finish a long rest-a miracle celebrated by
elves of all sorts except drow. (The DM decides whether an
elf can manifest this miracle.) Dark elves find this ability
to be terrifying and characterize it as a curse, for it could
destabilize their entire society. lfCorellon's blessing mani-
fests in a drow, that elf usually flees to the surface world to
seek shelter among those dedicated to Corellon.

if...if one puts on the Girdle...does the world end?

I'd love to see this added as a possible Custom MC

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It's a fantasy game. People should be able to romance whoever they want. I love DA, and the idea that there are characters that were explicitly gay, lesbian, and bisexual was nice except that they were stereotypes, Dorian was the flamboyant, sarcastic, drunken fop who had a story about family issues related to his sexuality, Sera couldn't be more lesbian if she tried. There characters wer mostly about their sexuality., but they were there so, cool, but it was MY game- why couldn't I romance the character I found most interesting or appealing? Even the DAI thing would be fine, but in most fantasy worlds you get one gay character if any, the world is somehow devoid of them, and it sucks when they do appear it has to be the same character every time.

It is a FANTASY ROLEPLAYING game. Why wouldn't you allow more people's fantasy and more people's roles. Sexuality doesn't even have to work the same way in that world. Sexuality isn't as simple as some would make it in our world. Fantasy. Roleplaying. Game.

mrfuji3 #737258 21/11/20 03:04 AM
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Originally Posted by mrfuji3
...Their preferences can be shown in dialogue as who they remark on while traveling, how they respond to the other companion party banter, how they respond to the player's advances/actions, help flesh out their background, etc.
e.g., Wyll. @KillerRabbit says that devils "assume the gender they think is mostly likely to get the response they are after." If this is correct, Wyll should be more interested in women according to the rules of the universe. Making him herosexual (equally amenable to either gender PC) contradicts this story lore.
Now, if Wyll was willing to sleep with the player regardless of gender but was less aggressive about pursuing a romance with a male PC, that'd be fine.
Edit: Wyll's patron is a cambion. But my example stands as a theoretical


All of this, if the game dealt with it, would make for exactly the type of thing I think is typically lacking from herosexual npc design. I hope it does come up during Wyl's story, especially if you're romancing him.

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Originally Posted by Sozz

if...if one puts on the Girdle...does the world end?

I'd love to see this added as a possible Custom MC


The quest to girdle Lloth! Drow society is instantly destroyed.

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Originally Posted by GoldenSphinx
It's a fantasy game. People should be able to romance whoever they want. I love DA, and the idea that there are characters that were explicitly gay, lesbian, and bisexual was nice except that they were stereotypes, Dorian was the flamboyant, sarcastic, drunken fop who had a story about family issues related to his sexuality, Sera couldn't be more lesbian if she tried. There characters wer mostly about their sexuality., but they were there so, cool, but it was MY game- why couldn't I romance the character I found most interesting or appealing? Even the DAI thing would be fine, but in most fantasy worlds you get one gay character if any, the world is somehow devoid of them, and it sucks when they do appear it has to be the same character every time.

It is a FANTASY ROLEPLAYING game. Why wouldn't you allow more people's fantasy and more people's roles. Sexuality doesn't even have to work the same way in that world. Sexuality isn't as simple as some would make it in our world. Fantasy. Roleplaying. Game.
I can agree with you that the characters in Inquisition could have been better written, the story as well, that game was rushed and it felt like it, but design-wise I feel like characters with less 'floating variables" are more interesting than ones written to encompass whatever fantasy you're after. What I think is more to the point is, is a character that is written to be Gay, Straight, Bisexual and Pansexual be convincingly any? To me it's playing a game, knowing that the game is more or less humoring me in these regards.

Sozz #737278 21/11/20 03:41 AM
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Characters need to feel like they are individuals for them to be interesting in a story. That's why the human NPC meme was created.

I don't care if Gale turned out to be the notorious bull buggering cat strangler of waterdeep. If sexuality is such a big deal why is it so hard to represent it? No two individuals are attracted to the exact same things sexual or otherwise. To represent this correctly surely wouldn't involve everyone having the exact same "one size fits all" sexual preference?

I mean Githyanki are basically egg laying celestial Nazis ffs. Can't imagine a halfling getting jiggy with a half-ork as they would need an arch-cleric to resurrect the poor halfling afterwards. I mean is romance as important as creating a strong bonded friendships?

Gale is in love with a female god but after a few beers he is eagar to whip out the poppers and lube. I mean sure why not but I am getting mixed signals here mate. We all do weird shit after a skinfull but I wouldn't wan't to poke your netherese magic prostate and end up blowing up half the FR. Even worse get weave sucked up your bum via the magic nether portal.

I mean objectively speaking sex and sexuality is hardly something to be taken that seriously is it? You wiggle about, make stupid sounds, pull silly faces before making a mess and falling a kip. This is basically uniform across all sexualities....I am aware of at least.

In short I think giving characters a "type" is better character development IF romance is such an important addition.

#737281 21/11/20 03:52 AM
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Originally Posted by Atlus
Originally Posted by Sozz
Originally Posted by Atlus
I think that this is a muddy topic that gaming doesn't deal with very well. Is it "consensual" to be able to talk a specific character into boning you by using walkthroughs/guides/etc and does it gamify sex? I don't particularly have the answer but I've had great discussions on it.
I've personally never understood how the question of consent comes up in these discussions, we're dealing with interactive fiction, everything happens subject to our willing disbelief and is help by the illusion of choice, that said I'm very much against the kind of writing you're talking about that treats relationships as very one sided, with rare exceptions in RPGs you are always the active participant in any interaction with your companions, and since the advent of "friendship points" a very unrealistc meta-game around relationshipping takes over from what should be something driven by roleplaying, you know like you would hope would be a big part in a (R)ole(P)laying (G)ame *sigh*


You just explained it to yourself: everything happens to our willing disbelief. It is interactive and some individuals think about sexual politics as they play their games. Some individuals don't find it believable that NPCs around you would want to have sex with you for various reasons, and the only one that brings them over the line is because you're the main character in the story (the only person that has agency due to being the player). This, again, depends on what game we're talking aboutn
I'm honestly not really sure what the rest of your post is saying but I'm going to try my best.
I don't know if I agree that a "call-response" type of interaction is active participation. It is what we are limited to due to the medium but the NPCs typically only interject their story once you've gotten enough relationship responses with them thus leading to a companion quest in which you complete to gain access to the sex scene/relationship or at specific points in the story. Very few games have random interjections where the character tries to parse out what type of person you are, we assume it happens over the course of the travels but we don't know that to be sure. The approval system is a way to truncate this but I don't believe it's effective and doesn't combat the game-yness of the situation. Your character takes the lead in 90% of interactions because, narrative and design wise, that's how it has to happen. To me, that's not anything even remotely like a relationship. It's not necessarily about the points, it's about the gameplay design that puts sex/companionship as a task list.

Essentially, role-playing games are about taking roles. Sometimes people like to put themselves into roles they'll never have in real life and their are complications that can internally spark from that. Some people like playing a different role than themselves. I don't limit how other people play due to my preference to how I like to play games and, as such, discussions like this are very valuable to me.
e.
Rest at ease you've understood me perfectly, I was just commenting on exactly the thing you're talking about here, how these approval systems that truncate relationships don't reflect how relationships work but do reflect a worrying side effect of romance as 'feature' in games. People take them for granted, they don't roleplay into one, they choose who they think they like most then just pump their points up to see the content, very "game-y" , very dull and not conducive to good story-telling by the player or the writer.

By making that point about how the player is the only active party in the relationship I was criticising it, it's something you expect because of the medium yes, but it also creates this same dynamic, like you said, where players hit checkpoints by spamming the NPC, the NPC is 'activated' (give you dialogue/quest), you continue their story.
Originally Posted by Atlus
Very few games have random interjections where the character tries to parse out what type of person you are
'Very few' is generous and fucking annoying, there needs to be a real NPC revolution in RPG games if they want to keep making stories about them being characters in their own right, as opposed to hangers-on to the PC.
Originally Posted by Atlus
Your character takes the lead in 90% of interactions because, narrative and design wise, that's how it has to happen
I'm not sure I agree that it has to be this way, playing with narrative control is something games haven't done, not something they can't do.

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Originally Posted by GoldenSphinx
The initial argument is dumb. I'm going to go ahead and translate the con argument against having NPC's available to anyone. Here goes: I'm straight and will get what I want regardless, and I'm a ittle annoyed that the character I like is available to someone else, or isn't straight like me.

There is nothing a straight person can be, think, or like a gay person couldn't. What exactly is the characterization that is so muddled because an NPC is available for everyone. Are they to declare their preferred sexual organ in conversation? What else changes about any character based on their sexuality? Are gay folks supposed to be stereotypes and have to hit all the gay flags or they're just badly drawn straight people?

This is a troll conversation. Even if we are only talking about dialogue relating to romance what would be different between gay and straight outside of pronouns. The basics: I like you. You're neat. You're hot. I want to spend time with you. I am interested in you as a person. Let's bang.

It's not: I straight like you. You're straight neat. You're gay hot. I want to spend time with lesbian you. I am interested in you as a bisexual person. Let's straight bang.

It's dumb. It's a dumb conversation. It's pseudo-intellectualism and polite homophobia. It's selfish straightness that says everything should be for me and reflect me or else there is something wrong with it.


I'm gay and I think that it's a great conversation, and I don't believe that there's anything either overtly or subtly homophobic about it.
I'm a little rusty on math, but if we PEMDAS this shit, I think that we cancel each other out and the conversation can move on productively.


I don't want to fall to bits 'cos of excess existential thought.

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Originally Posted by Firesnakearies
I much prefer the slightly credulity-straining conceit that we just happen to have met a bunch of bisexual people (which could happen, there are presumably at least thousands of them in Faerun, if not more), then the less ideal situation of people being disappointed that they cannot romance their favorite character while playing as their preferred gender.


I prefer having all companions able to romance a PC of any sex. For a simple reason : player freedom (described above).

But that doesn't make the companions bisexual in my eyes. Because multiverse.

In my mind, every time I start the game with a new PC, a new instance of the fictional world is created. In this instance, all companions happen to be interested in (at least) people of my PC's sex.
For instance, if I rolled a female PC, Gale is interested in females. If I rolled a male PC, Gale is interested in males. Unless the story explicitly portrays the NPC as bisexual, there is no need to assume that they are (they may still be, it's just not mentioned).

As a player I may play the game with PCs of various sexes, but each PC will see only one world, and this world will be consistent.

#737295 21/11/20 05:29 AM
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Originally Posted by Atlus
When I think of playersexual, I view it as the player and companions having a push-pull where I’m becoming more non-player character sexual and they more playersexual. By this I mean I have my preferences as well but it’s about my character’s relationship with his companions and if I feel like the characters make sense, I’ll follow the storyline. Sometimes it leads to romance (In DA:O: my character went from being challenged by morrigan to falling in love with her organically.) Sometimes it doesn’t work out and that’s okay.
This is the most coherent case for the herosexual dynamic I've seen made yet, it's what I would expect every character relationship to be like, playersexual or not, platonic or romantic...but it's not what we're getting,

I see herosexual npcs as being a fait accompli, they're designed to sex you, whoever you are, you're given the option of declining. There's no real back and forth, you don't start out in a platonic relationship (Shadowheart maybe?) which progresses through a few stages of compatibility testing that might tip into a romance, it's all about your player, you paid $60 to see romance by-gum, slam the dolls together!
This also means there can be no platonic relationship before a romantic one, because they're prefigured to be your romantic partner, it isn't until you've turned them down that they're set to 'friend', I think this is what people find offensive about how up front everyone's sexuality is, the party camp scenes are like mixers, everybody's fair game because that's what they're there to be, unlike in what I would consider a better scenario where that would come out of that back and forth, like in your examples.

Because I've seen threads on this, let me be clear, I have no problem with our characters indulging in a bit of casual 'relations', it just made the above all the more apparent when in one night everyone makes a pass at you like you're the Queen of Sheba selecting her harem for that night.

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I don’t think it is necessary to lock characters to a specific preference. I don’t see how that would objectively improve the writing. Having characters with a specific preference does allow you to tell specific stories about how that affected their backstory, but that doesn’t need to be part of the story in the first place.

Due to the nature of games there is going to be a finite about of content for each companion’s dialogue and backstory. The writers can fill up that finite space with some other compelling content. The trade off for the lack of specificity is an abundance of player choice, which is preferable for me. Why write separate stories for straight and gay relationships when they can write relationships that satisfy either type?

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"Rest at ease you've understood me perfectly, I was just commenting on exactly the thing you're talking about here, how these approval systems that truncate relationships don't reflect how relationships work but do reflect a worrying side effect of romance as 'feature' in games. People take them for granted, they don't roleplay into one, they choose who they think they like most then just pump their points up to see the content, very "game-y" , very dull and not conducive to good story-telling by the player or the writer."

That! I think that covers my view on this subject. Anything sexual that is forced on the player is always going to seem a bit well..forced. One of the many wonderful things about romancing/dating in real life is you are never quite sure who you will find/discover. That makes it interesting. Thats how I like my intimacy in RPG's. Keep it interesting by allowing nuaunce, ambiguity, wit. Saying that, I've not actually had any in game action as so far my attempts to woe shadowheart have so far failed to impress. I mean, how high do you have to stack the bodies to get some womens attention..


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Originally Posted by GoldenSphinx
It's a fantasy game. People should be able to romance whoever they want. I love DA, and the idea that there are characters that were explicitly gay, lesbian, and bisexual was nice except that they were stereotypes, Dorian was the flamboyant, sarcastic, drunken fop who had a story about family issues related to his sexuality, Sera couldn't be more lesbian if she tried. There characters wer mostly about their sexuality., but they were there so, cool, but it was MY game- why couldn't I romance the character I found most interesting or appealing? Even the DAI thing would be fine, but in most fantasy worlds you get one gay character if any, the world is somehow devoid of them, and it sucks when they do appear it has to be the same character every time.

It is a FANTASY ROLEPLAYING game. Why wouldn't you allow more people's fantasy and more people's roles. Sexuality doesn't even have to work the same way in that world. Sexuality isn't as simple as some would make it in our world. Fantasy. Roleplaying. Game.


Exactly!!! I LOVE the DA universe, but the writers deliberately wrote 'human' gender and sexuality biases into the games. BG:III is NOT set on earth, and (to my very rusty knowledge) there isn't any explicit canon in D&D to say that the world at large even HAS any of these hangups!

I wouldn't even say the companion characters are playersexual as I've managed with no effort on my part to get two of them actively disliking me. I'm not seeing any "I hate you so much I must kiss you" sentiment like we got in DA:2 for example.

There is a world of difference between "Playersexuality" and universal pansexuality in a fictional setting. This game comes across very much as the latter, and I'm here for it.

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Originally Posted by Sozz
I don't know what the general consensus on this is, it can also be a touchy subject because a large reason for its appearance in games seems to be a shortcut to add homosexual romances to a game, I'm interested in having all types of relationships represented (and playing them) but I think that much like anything else that makes your character less distinctive I think making all romances available to all characters detracts from their characterization.
Playersexuality is now a convention of modern RPGs so Larian has to stick with it or risk generating controversy. Hopefully some of the romance scenes will be humourous or non-sexual, how it should be with Minsc.

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https://external-preview.redd.it/oI...594aa10709b38a43845251d3da4de5b200336399

Fits here perfectly.
I think this small meme is the best example of "herossxual" (nice term) at its worst. If there is one good thing inquisition did, it's the handling of this topic. Aside from the fact it's just jarring that everyone in your party wants to bone you all the time, I think it just makes things weird. However, I do think that if developers want to give us strictly gay characters, "gay" shouldn't be their whole character arc


Larian's Biggest Oversight, what to do about it, and My personal review of BG3 EA
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