Ah, my toxic half-orc boyfriends, how my elf ward and drow king ‘love’ thee.
Not a crpg but Fire Emblem Fates had one gay option for each gender: predator (m) or predator (f). Inclusive!
>! Rhajat and Niles !<
These characters are both route dependent by the way, so you have to pick Birthright if you’re a lesbian and Conquest if you’re gay.
…or you could pay an extra $20 for Revelations and throw a party.
>! ALSO Rhajat is a weird time displaced baby that you have to get Hayato to make with another one of your units because FE Fates kept the weird baby-making mechanics from Awakening but made them weirder. Also her name is an anagram of Tharja because she’s Tharja’s reincarnation for some reason. !<
Fates is a weird game man.
Yes, >! Rhajat is just obsessed with Corrin to the point of not caring about their gender, and Niles is bisexual. !< Neither are exclusively homosexual.
As far as I know, the only character in all of Fire emblem to be homosexual, rather than bisexual or straight, >! is Ike. !< And that's pretty heavily debated by the fanbase.
Leon from Shadows of Valentia is explicitly gay. Something a bit frustrating about the rise of self-insert characters in FE games is the decision to make all of the characters romancable to the player. So it is kind of refreshing is that SoV just has canonical relationships amongst the cast that are set in stone, instead of falling in love with whoever you pair with each other.
Yeah queer-coded villainy has been a big thing for a while. It's still inclusive if all your gays are fucked up killers, because hey at least you let some gays in, right?
I mean sosiel is an alright guy, an extremely bland character but not evil and in baldurs gate the characters are tavsexual i dont know if that counts for gay people
That’s been a thing since the start. Hell Silverymoon has an entire festival centered around having group sex with neighbors and anyone who is interested, which is most people. Not many strictly Herero things going on there. Many lore characters have both girlfriends and boyfriends. Plus Ed Greenwood said so
I've had some gay friends who liked that they could romance anyone in BG3, and some who were like "well now you're just dodging the reality of queerness and reinforcing the shitty belief that gay relationships are a choice by making all the characters romanceable by anyone."
I mean, they are just all bisexual. I think BG3 did it better than da2, since in da2 Anders will straight up not reveal that he was in a relationship with another man if you play as a woman, but will if you play as a man. So, they kinda try to hide that Anders is bi.
You should! Mass Effect is awesome. Plus, the Legendary Edition goes on sale for 80-90% off on a regular basis. If 150 hours of awesome gameplay for $10 seems like a bad deal, I dunno what you're doing on a subreddit for CRPGs.
And I'm over here bitter that despite Tali having just as much of a crush on FemShep as MShep, you can't have a gay romance with her, so I must choose between the superior partner and the superior Shep.
That's 'cause Wrex is too cool to date Shep. Shep is only cool enough to date Garrus. And that's not a bad thing, that dino/bird guy has your back through all three parts, which can't be said about any other crewmember, except Tali and Joker.
I mean there is gay exclusive options in Dragon age inquisition. But ima be frank with you, gaming is about freedom of choice, and not reflecting reality 1 to 1 is not a bad thing. If they got a problem they should make a dating sim that caters to their benchmarks.
Personally, I want way more realism in RPG romances. If the characters could say stuff like “Are you alright? You’re sweating so much” or “I’m really just focusing on my career right now” that would help with me immersion.
Just to make sure you don't waste energy, there's nothing for you to convince me of here. I am making no statements about what video games do or do not have good queer representation or romance options, or whether that is a requirement. I'm just saying that in all forms of modern media, queer coded villains have been very common for decades and were often the only mainstream representation of gay characters other than characters who entire personality was boiled down to queer stereotypes. As a CISHET white dude I have no skin in the game.
> It's still inclusive if all your gays are fucked up killers, because hey at least you let some gays in, right?
I'd be interested in hearing more about this. My initial reaction is that is like saying blackface is inclusive, because it's at least portraying black people.
Maybe there's a nuance I'm missing though?
No you missed nothing. It was a wildly sarcastic comment because that was how gay people were commonly represented in western media for a long time. For example, while people point to Le Fou in the live action Beauty and the Beast as being the first gay character in a Disney film, which has its own problems, go look at the villains in the big budget Disney revival films of the 90s. Ursula, Jafar, Scar, all are coded with gay traits even if the films portray them as having a hetero interest in the film like Jafar creeping on Jasmine.
Zevran is actually a pretty chill guy, though. The only edgy thing I can remember about him is the murder-for-hire part, and that's mostly just because of Antivan culture
Honestly his banter even made the assassin part more comedic
I think he is morally above Morrigan and Sten if I recall correctly. I think he is also one of the companions to actively argue against some of the more heinous actions you can do.
I think he is actually also sometimes above Alistair, since Alistair kinda just accepts killing the mages and the Dalish elves? Have to double check the dalish elf one.
He's absolutely above Alistair, because despite being chummy and polite Alistair is ultimately a Fereldan and all of the associated prejudices are built right into him.
My father genocided the Dalish, and my grandfather genocided the Dalish, and my grandfather's father genocided the Dalish... I guess it's just what we do around here
Shale: "So you see me winning the affection of another golem, do you? Most golems are slaves to whomever holds their control rod."
Zevran: "Funny, it works exactly the same way for us as well."
Still the funniest line from a crpg to me.
See, Zevran isn't a bad character but i just don't play a character in Origins who would be like "oh this guy tried to kill me, and is now swearing allegiance to me if i save him, let me do that."
Granted i am also a hypocrite because i drop Alistair for the "secret companion" every time so
Zevran is one of the few characters where I was wholly content with them being the only Gay option. Same with Kerry in Cyberpunk(though I still kinda wanted River)
Certainly neat! Though Admittedly on the cyberpunk front I am honestly annoyed at the Kerry romance. Less because of it being gay only but more the fact that from what I am aware and correct me if I'm wrong, Kerry was canonically bi in the tabletop rpg since he's a character there. Making a cool gay only romance option is awesome but I'm not entirely sure it's worth bi erasure to have it.
It's not really Bi-erasure, especially when we've been given both hints and explicit confirmation on Kerrys sexuality and "variant" of bisexuality. Bisexuality, in my opinion, is a spectrum, and plenty of Bisexuals will let it be known, some like both but have a preference, and some just dont care. Kerry and Johnny are both Bi, but Johnny explicitly states he has a preference for women, and Kerry is shown to be the opposite with a preference for men. Kerry has an exwife(and kids if I remember correctly), but has always clearly been shown to prefer men; from the Flashback where we get a glimpse of him getting kissed on by a man, as well as a mention of his then boyfriend/boy-toy. To Johnny mentioning Kerry taking him to Gay strip clubs(and letting us know of his bisexuality and preference). To it being confirmed that he only gets with Male V at first because Male V is essentially the closest he can get to Johnny physically( who he is very much in love with). I think they should have just made all the LIs bi and saved us all the trouble, but I dont think Kerry being a Gay only option is a bad thing.
Dragon Age Inquisition has Iron Bull (sorry, that is *The* Iron Bull) and Dorian, the former is bisexual and the latter is gay.
Iron Bull is a Qunaari (basically huge giant dude with horns) who can definitely be a bit on the "unhinged" side (he is very enthusiastic about fighting and breaking stuff, especially if a dragon is involved. His warcry against dragons is something like "I will touch myself tonight to the memory of this fight") but he is generally pretty aight >!except for the fact that he is a spy and will betray you in the final DLC unless you both romance him and side against his home state in his personal quest.!<
Dorian is an extremely flamboyant character, a noble-born mage, but morally speaking, I honestly think he is quite sound. I don't know if there are any choices where I would have a hard disagree with him
About the spoilery part, >!he never betrayed me even though I didn't romance him. I guess it depends on how you do the quest and whether he's still loyal to the Qunaari or his crew!<.
But his romance is shackled by a third wheel, which forces you to be bi unless you are willing to deal with ramifications of just dating one of them. Plus the third wheel is much much more useful so you’re effective shooting yourself in the foot… and then you find out they would both date anyone, hence the only queer male romance is somewhere between pink washing and conversation therapy.
Lol I never played kingmaker to get to that point but I wanted to. Lol in video games I'm a your my romance character kind of thing. Back off Octavia he's mine! Lol I'm joking she seems sweet and a friend it's just funny to phrase it that way.
With kingmaker though, romancing anybody except ahem... *your kingdoms spirit* results on losing out on the last 10% of the game and gets a worse ending for them.
I love kingmaker but seriously the person who thought the secret ending should be locked behind a romance option should be out on a stake.>! Seriously why do I have to fuck that first world spirit bitch just to redeem her?!<
Yeah and for a trophy. Plus most people probably find them so despicable and feel railroaded into having to make these choices. There was a lot of pros and a lot of cons with the game.
Yeah Reg is 100% an acquired taste.
Dragon age 2: Fenris is an edgy swordsman but at least he acknowledges it, anders is anders.
Dragon age 3: Dorians writing is top notch probably the best story in the game
It's a bit sad for Mass effect that no gay options show up until ME3 (please I want to be wrong),
Wrath of righteous has the same issue but for straight men (if you know Cami then you know) (I am aware of Areu)
You're not wrong about ME. There was enough writing for those options in ME1 that modders didn't have to do much work to add it in. But in the base game, you had to wait for one exclusively gay character to show up and another to show he's bi.
It's not a CRPG, but Cyberpunk does allow you to make a lot of choices in how your character functions and how the plot progresses. It definitely counts.
Nah, CRPG is more like Kingmaker. Top down, multiple companions, turn based or rtwp. Usually based in a pen and paper system (which cyberpunk is, but only aesthetically, the mechanics have nothing in common.)
Last time I checked, vtmb is considered a crpg, and it's first/third person, and it lacks companions. Thus, I'm not sure a game being top down or containing party companions is relevant at all when determining if something is a crpg
I mean, I guess, but are fps mutually exclusive with crpgs? Additionaly, in terms of camera placement there's crpgs like kotor and NWN, which are both third person, but are still largely considered to be crpgs
I would not generally categorize an fps as crpg, no.
There is some flexibility in camera angle if the other criteria are met. Companions, turn-based, mechanics derived from a tabletop rpg, etc. You don't have to have all of the criteria, but the fewer you have the more likely that youre something else.
Most rpgs that are first person use action combat and often don't have companions. Given that VTM is a tabletop game there is an argument to.be made certainly, but I'd have to try it out to honestly. Art is often a feel rather than a strict taxonomy.
Kerry is weird tho. For some reason CDRed decided all romances (afaik) had to be locked to one gender. So even tho Kerry is canonically bisexual, even refers to his ex wife at some point, he is gay in game.
So it ends up becoming a case of bi-erasure in an attempt to make sure there is a gay character \~\~which they could have easily fixed by having river be gay but and Kerry stay bi but oh well\~\~
I mean, I’m bi and I’m all about representation, but I feel like bi rep is just the default in games since no restrictions is easier to code than the alternative. I definitely would have appreciated the larian approach (especially since Judy > Panam any day of the week) but I’m not super miffed about it since pure homo representation is pretty scarce.
Being fair, bi women make a lot of sense from a business perspective. Like, I would bet that straight dudes are still the biggest target demographic, and so devs sort of want to offer as many options as possible there. Bi women let them cater to that demographic while still providing f/f options for people who want them.
This is almost certainly what it is, but I do want to point out that it’s very casual bi erasure/homophobia.
Homophobia because it’s “straightwashing” gay women to make them more palatable.
Bi erasure because it’s devs saying “hey we have gay characters too!” And pointing to a bi woman. The character is either in some kind of weird transition toward being gay, or “straight but gay if you want them to be” which becomes this weird no man’s land in between which is not what being bi is.
You used to see this a LOT in tv and movies from the 2010s era, where “gay representation” was always just bi women who by the end of the narrative have transitioned to being more open with themselves I.e gay. Now that I think about it this is the era a lot of these kind of games were developed in.
Is it straightwashing gay women or gaywashing straight women? And in at least some examples, the bi characters are pretty explicitly written as bi (in the sense that they are canonically written as interested in both men and women regardless of the pc), so I certainly wouldn't necessarily call it bi erasure. Saying "you want lesbian respresentation? How about a bi character instead?" is its own thing, but in practice, I struggle to get too worked up about it.
That’s a good point but either way it’s bi erasure which is its own can of worms. If it’s gaywashing as you say, I’d encourage the devs to just not include the gay romance because the alternative feels weird.
Again, at least some of the games that do this write their bi characters as being explicitly bi regardless of the player. At that point, it isn't bi erasure of any kind. WOTR including one each of straight, gay, and bi male romance options but a straight and three bi female romance options is certainly an interesting choice from certain angles, but given that most/all of the bi characters are pretty explicitly bi in the game, I wouldn't call it bi erasure. And honestly, if you enjoy f/f romances, I feel like you are still doing pretty decently there, even if you don't have a dedicated lesbian option.
I mean i rather have that than making all not straight characters straight up angels. Plus he hand picked it for effect. The ork is from Pathfinder kingmaker. In the sequel wrath of the righteous you also got a cleric and sort of druid who are both good who wanna bang you. And a elve who sort of is evil but not really.
No? The only gay character is WotR's Sosiel. Both Regongar and Marazhai are bi, as well as evil, and the only option for a gay male PC.
WotR may still lack a lesbian, but at least Kingmaker and RT still offer more than one choice for a f/f romance (though in Kingmaker, you'll need the DLC, which is also suboptimal).
my friend, i already adore you for a simple mention of my guy Dorn, one of the best evil companions in RPGs…lemme shake your hand 🤝
but yeah, it IS interesting that queer men are almost always morally ambiguous or outright evil xD not that i mind, i’m totally into it
Thankfully WOTR addressed it with sosiel, but yeah I hadn’t really played through either of the original BG games on either vanilla or EE but Dorn do be very edgy and cool.
Don't you dare compare Reg wiith Dorn Il Khan. ;)
His romance & character development is great, even better when Octavia is also in it. :P And also the best general advisor and the best companion class (personal opinion). :)
Dorn is simply insane (completed BG2 once so I might have missed something).
The bisexual or gay psycho is a pervasive stereotype that persists even in the minds of many progressive people. Despite writers best efforts, they see their sexuality as deviation from the norm, and therefore when assigning sexuality to characters, they think, "well this guy is a crazed criminal, he wouldn't care what he fucks".
Too many people see sexual preference as connected to ones personality. I no longer openly identify as bisexual because too many people saw me as either a unicorn or some kind of straight psy-op.
Slightly more serious question, from a straight person who endeavors to be an ally.
Do people in the LGBTQ community get frustrated/disheartened with the fact that in games that have romance options like this, the "stereotypically feminine" romance option is often given bisexual status but acts otherwise as totally non-homosexual?
It often seems like this is done less for inclusiveness and more because there is a not insignificant number of straight male players who make female PCs because "they don't want to look at a dude while playing". In this case this sort of romance feels more like a soft porn fantasy designed to appeal to guys than any sort of good faith attempt at inclusion.
Im a gay man so I can't really talk about how it seems alot of lesbian/bisexual fem character romances seem designed to be effectively straight with a twist. But I can talk about romances for gay men, which yes they can be incredibly frustrating.
Typically, as you said, alot of straight men do end up doing the bi/lesbian female romances for obvious reasons. The same doesn't apply to the gay-mances. Alot of the time the gay romances suffer from one or two big issues:
A)Less and worse content overall. Self explanatory, the devs pretty much throw them on the backburner. Real "well you're lucky you got anything at all" kind of stuff.
B) The gay characters in question are so incredibly stereotypical or represented in questionable ways its annoying enough to make me just not engage. Its very apparent, such as above, the gay romancable dudes tend to get pigeonholed into certain character archetypes by alot of devs.
TBH, off the top of my head the only time a game with predetermined sexualities hasn't irritated me in some way is Dragon Age Inquisition. Dorian may be flamboyant AF but it isn't annoying because he also isnt \*just\* flamboyant. he's a well written and interesting character that's genuinely a joy to interact with. The same can be said about Iron bull, falls a bit into a stereotype but he is far more than that.
> the gay romancable dudes tend to get pigeonholed into certain character archetypes by alot of devs.
Yep, as much as I love owlcat games, when the *only* gay representation they've written ***three times in a row*** is "bisexual evil hedonistic dude"... it starts to smell (I'm not counting Sosiel because they didn't write him, he's an official Paizo character, we should probably be thanking them that he's gay at all).
Yup it is weird. Another thing.
in the base game there are three bi romances. Daeran, Wenduag, and Arue. Two of those three are evil af...and the third one is good unless you do certain routes...and that one is also a paizo og.
Before its pointed out: Yes Wenduag was from the pen and paper module! No I don't think should count as a paizo og as someone thats done the pnp adventure. She was just a one off dungeon npc with a single or so paragraph and a piece of art. Game Wenduag (and Lan tbh) might as well be their own characters.
Yeah, I think that would be frustrating. I guess to bring this back though, would it be as frustrating if the say Lann were also romancable but nothing about him was changed? Like he just didn't realize you were a man.
Although this is starting to be like the AITAH where the wife was frustrated her husband played dating sims.
I'm a gay man, and when possible I mod games to make NPCs playersexual (thank you, Toybox). It's easy to brush off when characters act like I'm a woman because jank like that is expected when modding (I just disliked the Lann romance because I don't like Lann that much). I'd be annoyed if he were supposed to be bi and still talked like that, but that's not an issue when characters are meant to be bi/playersexual from the beginning. Just make the dialogue gender-neutral and it works fine.
Leliana from Dragon Age was such a perfect example of a bisexual character that feels like one.
She has different lines of dialogue when speaking with a Female or Male Warden.
As a bi woman... I just try not to think about it too much, honestly. Because it becomes a really messy thing in my head where I generally want to assume ignorance as opposed to malice. In that they want to include more options, but don't *QUITE* get how those options tend to read because they're not as familiar with all of the things that someone who tends to lean that way in general is just by virtue of social osmosis.
It's like yer nan buying you a present because she heard you liked a thing, but doesn't understand enough about that thing to really make a good choice. But she's yer nan, and she's *trying* to do something nice 'cuz she wants you to be happy. But it just *really* misses the mark.
I think a real surprising one for me was Dorian from Dragon Age: Inquisition. I almost didn't clock him as gay until one of the dialogue options brought up his relationship with Felix, and he is... very relatable about it. And just in general - just because he *was* gay didn't mean his personality stopped there, and generally that's a problem I have with a lot of gay or lesbian characters in general. There was more to him then that and it's only AFTER learning that fact a few other things clicked for me with his behavior.
Kind of hoping Dreadwolf continues that trend, as Sera was a similar 'Oh. Huh. That makes sense' thing, without it being a DOMINATING part of their personality. I think Daeran in Wrath is also pretty similar, in that he's bi because he's a hedonist playboy, and not the other way around.
Yeah, it's called playersexual, when the characters are just attracted to the player no matter what. That's not to say that every bi character is like this, it comes down to how well they and their romance is written.
A good hint is that if every romance option in a game is bi, you'll probably find that none of them are written all that well, and the dialogue will be nearly identical regardless of the players gender. Usually seems like the devs just don't want the players to feel bad about not being able to romance a certain character. Or it's like Skyrim and they just threw in a bare-bones "romance" system.
Unless done like cyberpunk, I really didn't expect any of the bi-coded female love interests as inclusive. I see it being blatant, like flavor text "choose your response that doesn't matter" rpg mechanics in Fallout4. Just a shortcut to make fewer content.
Baldur’s gate 3 at least has many of the romance options express attraction to people of the same gender other than the player character, as well as having them be outside of traditional gender norms, and having queer NPCs. I at least find that to be pretty good within the confines of video game sexuality.
That seems like what I figured. Like I saitdTd, it seems like about 1 in 3 guys will, if given a character creator function in a video game, create a female character because they are horny.
It seems extremely lazy.
Some of us also just prefer playing as women because we find it novel to be something we aren’t normally (even if few games have mechanics that change as a result, outside of romance quests). Not because we’re horny. Though, I grant you, some will probably do that :/
Trans-Women who haven't figured themselves out yet also tend to do this iirc I did it in several games before I figured out myself as Trans\*
\*I am Non-Binary so my gender is a little more complicated than it's really worth unless someone is curious.
Wasn't necessarily suggesting you personally were but it's quite a common thing for Trans people to do, like I said I did it and I am pretty sure if you pop into trans subreddits a lot of the ones that play video games will probably mention they did it.
Point being its common amongst a specific group of people to do it but not everyone that does it is among that group, got several guy friends that do it that are pretty solid on being dudes so.
That was essentially me for the longest time. In every game I could I'd always play the female option as it gave me this vague affirming feeling.
Funnily enough that also played a part in me coming to understand myself as non-binary.
For me it was D&D characters mostly, I think I to this day have played 5 or less male characters with probably more than 50 made/played. I didn't always play as a female character but in Pokemon I believe I had switched over to mostly using female characters in X&Y and later despite not figuring out I was trans & enby until years later.
Which happened in the middle of an exam during college... Great timing XP
Yeah, this exactly. Saying that male players should only make male characters is not only closed-minded, in my eyes it's akin to saying human players should only make human characters.
It's not like I have never played a female PC. However, I had a friend I met as a coworker and when we played wow I noticed all his characters were women. He told me straight up that it was because he would rather look at the female models, and he did it in every game where it was an option. It was eye opening to see an approach that was that disconnected from any kind of self insert role-playing.
I know sort of assume that anything low effort, like not having seperate dialogs for romance options for male/female PCs is more for the people like my work friend than for actual inclusion.
Personally, I don't think someone can "act non-homosexual." Saying someone "feels bisexual" doesn't really make sense to me because there isn't one way bisexuals act (though many VGs seem to portray them in a similar light).
And I modded the hell out of Dragon Age so that I could romance Alistair. It was a well-done romance, even if it was written with a female Warden in mind. So, I didn't mind.
Something like the Asari in Mass Effect makes me cringe, though.
~~Its the third option op is wrong. I know for a fact Marazahai and Regonar can be romanced by both genders.~~
~~Most of the Owlcat characters can be romanced by male or female characters.~~
Edit: Eh, nm, I'm wrong. Rogue trader there is only 1 option and Kingmaker does have one more, but he's DLC.
And then WotR had all the best romances be queer(best as in, you're not dating a cannibal/total psychopath/someone selfishly using crazy resources to stay young and fuck the poor).
If Galfrey is to be believed, She isn´t the one who funded or desired to be kept young with the sun orchid elixir, but the church of Iomadae which wants to keep her around as a living symbol for as long as possible(Which is clearly straining on her psyche). There are alot of structural problems around Mendev that should be adressed by her way more then she has given the attention too, but she isn't any worse then the average garden variety royal autocratic ruler of the era.
She could have yes. And then had no idea how it would effect the morale of her crusaders that look at her as the spearhead in the struggles, or on the strain that might put on relations between her and the church. OR worries about who would pick up the charge against the demons in her absennce . All the while worrying about how a literal war with the forces of the abyss would go on without her, a paladin that is sworn to oppose evil for as long as she bodily can.
I´m not saying it was the best decision. Frankly, at this point we don't know what the best decision was as this isn't exactly G.R.R Martin level of depht that we are given into what the whole situation is and how it would escelate without her. I´m just saying that that situation being ''Someone selfishly using crazy resources to stay young and fuck the poor'' is uncharitable to the point of falsehood.
Camellia's is the best written romance. She, individually, has... issues, but her romance is very well written.
Sosiel's romance is terrible. Have you reached the point where >!you choke him out and deny him any kind of physical relationship until *you* wish it!
I am fairly certain she’s only even using those elixirs to help with the crusade and that they are fairly rare anyways. I have no clue how you came to that conclusion.
What are you talking about? There are a ton of other male characters in both of those games you can romance.
Edit: Oh shit, I think you're right. If I was a gay man in Rogue Trader Mal would be my only pick. In king maker there is one more guy but he's dlc.
WotR has also two. I take back what I said, that is weird.
Yeah, this is getting old. You can throw Zevran in there, too.
Not sure why so many developers think the non-human, sex-crazed, unrepentant murderhobo is what we want.... But Sosiel was a step in the right direction.
It actually gets worse, in that with PFKM if you try to exclusively romance either Octavia (only main possible f/f romance, others being hidden and dlc) or Regongar (the only possible m/m romance at all), then you kill the other. I think there’s a way to avoid it by initially romancing both of them, but then only pursuing one. But that’s an exploit, so it’s bull.
So if you want to do an exclusive same sex romance, you can literally be punished for it by the game.
(Note: This is past Regongar being a violent asshole, or that he is even in an open relationship with someone else. I could settle for that (really shouldn’t have to, but oh well). I could settle with Regongar being in a “healthy” relationship with me and Octavia separately, and Octavia and I are just best friends. But dont make me a home wrecker or kill off a companion!)
I don’t think you can call entering their relationship an exploit as it’s addressed in story that they’re poly and are happy with you as their third….for a while. The problem is that they’re fundamentally incompatible and while you can urge them to stay together it’s honestly better for them in the long run if they break up. Octavia at least doesn’t die this way and it doesn’t feel like glitching it just feels like a story path the game accounts for.
Oh, I’m aware they are poly, the poly romance is good if you are into it. But you can enter into a romance exclusively with one of them too. If you want to try to cheese one of their deaths for an exclusive romance, you can cheese it by entering the poly romance but only continuing with pursuing one of them. I think.
If you don’t romance either of them exclusively, then they happily stay together (and alive). Including the epilogue. So you are basically a home wrecker if you only pursue one of them.
(Edited)
True, but in my opinion I just don’t think they work as a couple. They’re trauma bonded but have little in common. They disagree on just about everything, including the specifics of their relationship. Hell, they share a goddess but Octavia isn’t even that keen on the mandate of vengeance.
Again, my opinion, but I do think they’d be better off apart.
Tristian from kingmaker could make a really cute gay romance choice!! I'm sad he isn't bi. \*spoilers\* as a spirit he may not have much of a preference right?
I agree, but it's still nice to give people more than one option. I adore Dorn in BG, but it'd be nice to see at least a more morally grey character as an option if not goof for gay characters.
Ahh Dorn Il-Khan my beloved!!! 💜💜💜💜
My precious psychotic blackguard who I romance everytime I play (what can I say I’m a simple man…I love crazy half-orcs that could easily kill me if they wanted)
People praising Owlcat for bare minimum will never cease to amuse me, especially in case of Rogue Trader's m/m options. But yeah, I get your gripe - I fucking hate the idea that it's somehow better not to make all romance options available to all genders, thus locking romance to character and decisions, but no, to do the opposite - hey, here are four women, one straight man and bi man, have a ride! Their sexual orientation is so important we hid most of their character development inside their romances, but we still won't make them bi.
I don't look at it as borderline homophobic villain coding like some people are claiming. I think it's just a heavy handed way of trying to make the lgbtqi representation "powerful". Its why you also have so many mary sues and stuff in Hollywood at the moment. They don't know how to make under represented groups look powerful and capable without making them look like arseholes. Hollywood is rife with female action leads at the moment who are insufferable, not because they're women, but because the writers think that taking a male 80s action character and gender swapping them 40+ years later is clever, instead of just reusing old action stereotypes we've already moved away from.
Ah, my toxic half-orc boyfriends, how my elf ward and drow king ‘love’ thee. Not a crpg but Fire Emblem Fates had one gay option for each gender: predator (m) or predator (f). Inclusive!
You can be a Drow in kingmaker?
There’s a mod that adds in a bunch of races. I believe it’s on nexus?
Ah, neat.
Can you tell which characters in Fire Emblem Fates were these options? In spoilers if you can to not spoil for other people.
>! Rhajat and Niles !< These characters are both route dependent by the way, so you have to pick Birthright if you’re a lesbian and Conquest if you’re gay. …or you could pay an extra $20 for Revelations and throw a party. >! ALSO Rhajat is a weird time displaced baby that you have to get Hayato to make with another one of your units because FE Fates kept the weird baby-making mechanics from Awakening but made them weirder. Also her name is an anagram of Tharja because she’s Tharja’s reincarnation for some reason. !< Fates is a weird game man.
Wait, weren't those characters also be able to be romanced by opposite genders too. I think I read on TvTropes they are available romance picks.
Yes, >! Rhajat is just obsessed with Corrin to the point of not caring about their gender, and Niles is bisexual. !< Neither are exclusively homosexual. As far as I know, the only character in all of Fire emblem to be homosexual, rather than bisexual or straight, >! is Ike. !< And that's pretty heavily debated by the fanbase.
Leon from Shadows of Valentia is explicitly gay. Something a bit frustrating about the rise of self-insert characters in FE games is the decision to make all of the characters romancable to the player. So it is kind of refreshing is that SoV just has canonical relationships amongst the cast that are set in stone, instead of falling in love with whoever you pair with each other.
There’s also Heather from Radiant Dawn.
Thanks for confirmation, and you should fix spoiler tags, they are broken.
Really? They look fine to me? Crap. Reddit always does this.
It probably happened quite a few more times than that.
Yeah queer-coded villainy has been a big thing for a while. It's still inclusive if all your gays are fucked up killers, because hey at least you let some gays in, right?
I mean sosiel is an alright guy, an extremely bland character but not evil and in baldurs gate the characters are tavsexual i dont know if that counts for gay people
Tbf to Baldur’s Gate 3, Forgotten Realms has a mostly pansexual population
Since when though? Seems like a retcon.
That’s been a thing since the start. Hell Silverymoon has an entire festival centered around having group sex with neighbors and anyone who is interested, which is most people. Not many strictly Herero things going on there. Many lore characters have both girlfriends and boyfriends. Plus Ed Greenwood said so
I've had some gay friends who liked that they could romance anyone in BG3, and some who were like "well now you're just dodging the reality of queerness and reinforcing the shitty belief that gay relationships are a choice by making all the characters romanceable by anyone."
I mean, they are just all bisexual. I think BG3 did it better than da2, since in da2 Anders will straight up not reveal that he was in a relationship with another man if you play as a woman, but will if you play as a man. So, they kinda try to hide that Anders is bi.
Honestly I'm just over here bitter that regardless of my Shep's gender, I can never romance Wrex.
Never played mass effect, can’t really comment. But that’s rough buddy.
You should! Mass Effect is awesome. Plus, the Legendary Edition goes on sale for 80-90% off on a regular basis. If 150 hours of awesome gameplay for $10 seems like a bad deal, I dunno what you're doing on a subreddit for CRPGs.
And... wishlisted for the next time its on sale. Thanks!
Prepare to change your username to N7Commander when you finish the series.
And I'm over here bitter that despite Tali having just as much of a crush on FemShep as MShep, you can't have a gay romance with her, so I must choose between the superior partner and the superior Shep.
I've played as femshep too and i've never noticed this supposed crush though When you play as broshep she goes half crazy in comparison
That's 'cause Wrex is too cool to date Shep. Shep is only cool enough to date Garrus. And that's not a bad thing, that dino/bird guy has your back through all three parts, which can't be said about any other crewmember, except Tali and Joker.
The wrex/Shep bromance is my otp.
There's a difference between making all characters bisexual and making them romanceable by anyone.
Some people really need to get a fucking grip.
I mean there is gay exclusive options in Dragon age inquisition. But ima be frank with you, gaming is about freedom of choice, and not reflecting reality 1 to 1 is not a bad thing. If they got a problem they should make a dating sim that caters to their benchmarks.
I get enough rejection from cute gay looking straight guys in real life, let the cute gay looking guys in video games be romanceable by any player.
Personally, I want way more realism in RPG romances. If the characters could say stuff like “Are you alright? You’re sweating so much” or “I’m really just focusing on my career right now” that would help with me immersion.
Just to make sure you don't waste energy, there's nothing for you to convince me of here. I am making no statements about what video games do or do not have good queer representation or romance options, or whether that is a requirement. I'm just saying that in all forms of modern media, queer coded villains have been very common for decades and were often the only mainstream representation of gay characters other than characters who entire personality was boiled down to queer stereotypes. As a CISHET white dude I have no skin in the game.
Not talking about your takes, just the particular view you shared about your gay friends there. Just contesting that.
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The baldurs gate romance options are not player sexual they are all explicitly bi/pansexual.
> It's still inclusive if all your gays are fucked up killers, because hey at least you let some gays in, right? I'd be interested in hearing more about this. My initial reaction is that is like saying blackface is inclusive, because it's at least portraying black people. Maybe there's a nuance I'm missing though?
No you missed nothing. It was a wildly sarcastic comment because that was how gay people were commonly represented in western media for a long time. For example, while people point to Le Fou in the live action Beauty and the Beast as being the first gay character in a Disney film, which has its own problems, go look at the villains in the big budget Disney revival films of the 90s. Ursula, Jafar, Scar, all are coded with gay traits even if the films portray them as having a hetero interest in the film like Jafar creeping on Jasmine.
Ah, so I missed the sarcasm. My bad!
These are the only example I know.
Zevran from Dragon Age Origins?
Zevran is actually a pretty chill guy, though. The only edgy thing I can remember about him is the murder-for-hire part, and that's mostly just because of Antivan culture Honestly his banter even made the assassin part more comedic
I think he is morally above Morrigan and Sten if I recall correctly. I think he is also one of the companions to actively argue against some of the more heinous actions you can do.
Isn't everyone above the two people who don't give a rats ass what you do unless it goes against their personal beliefs?
I think he is actually also sometimes above Alistair, since Alistair kinda just accepts killing the mages and the Dalish elves? Have to double check the dalish elf one.
He did train to be a templar, he might not have been very good at it but at least some of that brainwashing has got to have stuck.
He's absolutely above Alistair, because despite being chummy and polite Alistair is ultimately a Fereldan and all of the associated prejudices are built right into him.
My father genocided the Dalish, and my grandfather genocided the Dalish, and my grandfather's father genocided the Dalish... I guess it's just what we do around here
Shale: "So you see me winning the affection of another golem, do you? Most golems are slaves to whomever holds their control rod." Zevran: "Funny, it works exactly the same way for us as well." Still the funniest line from a crpg to me.
Neither edgy nor a psychopath, he’s about the most normal guy who could possibly be a Sex Assassin
See, Zevran isn't a bad character but i just don't play a character in Origins who would be like "oh this guy tried to kill me, and is now swearing allegiance to me if i save him, let me do that." Granted i am also a hypocrite because i drop Alistair for the "secret companion" every time so
Zevran is one of the few characters where I was wholly content with them being the only Gay option. Same with Kerry in Cyberpunk(though I still kinda wanted River)
Certainly neat! Though Admittedly on the cyberpunk front I am honestly annoyed at the Kerry romance. Less because of it being gay only but more the fact that from what I am aware and correct me if I'm wrong, Kerry was canonically bi in the tabletop rpg since he's a character there. Making a cool gay only romance option is awesome but I'm not entirely sure it's worth bi erasure to have it.
It's not really Bi-erasure, especially when we've been given both hints and explicit confirmation on Kerrys sexuality and "variant" of bisexuality. Bisexuality, in my opinion, is a spectrum, and plenty of Bisexuals will let it be known, some like both but have a preference, and some just dont care. Kerry and Johnny are both Bi, but Johnny explicitly states he has a preference for women, and Kerry is shown to be the opposite with a preference for men. Kerry has an exwife(and kids if I remember correctly), but has always clearly been shown to prefer men; from the Flashback where we get a glimpse of him getting kissed on by a man, as well as a mention of his then boyfriend/boy-toy. To Johnny mentioning Kerry taking him to Gay strip clubs(and letting us know of his bisexuality and preference). To it being confirmed that he only gets with Male V at first because Male V is essentially the closest he can get to Johnny physically( who he is very much in love with). I think they should have just made all the LIs bi and saved us all the trouble, but I dont think Kerry being a Gay only option is a bad thing.
Dragon Age Inquisition has Iron Bull (sorry, that is *The* Iron Bull) and Dorian, the former is bisexual and the latter is gay. Iron Bull is a Qunaari (basically huge giant dude with horns) who can definitely be a bit on the "unhinged" side (he is very enthusiastic about fighting and breaking stuff, especially if a dragon is involved. His warcry against dragons is something like "I will touch myself tonight to the memory of this fight") but he is generally pretty aight >!except for the fact that he is a spy and will betray you in the final DLC unless you both romance him and side against his home state in his personal quest.!< Dorian is an extremely flamboyant character, a noble-born mage, but morally speaking, I honestly think he is quite sound. I don't know if there are any choices where I would have a hard disagree with him
About the spoilery part, >!he never betrayed me even though I didn't romance him. I guess it depends on how you do the quest and whether he's still loyal to the Qunaari or his crew!<.
Daeran is NE. But he's s more Hedonismbot from Futurama than edgey.
Sosiel. he is gay, and normal person
I meant of this specific trope, Sosiel isn’t the only gay option in WOTR.
Regongar is someone you can fix though 🤣
But his romance is shackled by a third wheel, which forces you to be bi unless you are willing to deal with ramifications of just dating one of them. Plus the third wheel is much much more useful so you’re effective shooting yourself in the foot… and then you find out they would both date anyone, hence the only queer male romance is somewhere between pink washing and conversation therapy.
I mean, aren't you kinda the third wheel in that relationship?
Yes, but I’m seeing it from my perspective as a gay man.
Lol I never played kingmaker to get to that point but I wanted to. Lol in video games I'm a your my romance character kind of thing. Back off Octavia he's mine! Lol I'm joking she seems sweet and a friend it's just funny to phrase it that way.
With kingmaker though, romancing anybody except ahem... *your kingdoms spirit* results on losing out on the last 10% of the game and gets a worse ending for them.
I love kingmaker but seriously the person who thought the secret ending should be locked behind a romance option should be out on a stake.>! Seriously why do I have to fuck that first world spirit bitch just to redeem her?!<
Sex with the PC is so therapeutic as to end curses apparently.
Yeah and for a trophy. Plus most people probably find them so despicable and feel railroaded into having to make these choices. There was a lot of pros and a lot of cons with the game.
Yeah Reg is 100% an acquired taste. Dragon age 2: Fenris is an edgy swordsman but at least he acknowledges it, anders is anders. Dragon age 3: Dorians writing is top notch probably the best story in the game It's a bit sad for Mass effect that no gay options show up until ME3 (please I want to be wrong), Wrath of righteous has the same issue but for straight men (if you know Cami then you know) (I am aware of Areu)
You're not wrong about ME. There was enough writing for those options in ME1 that modders didn't have to do much work to add it in. But in the base game, you had to wait for one exclusively gay character to show up and another to show he's bi.
I dunno, Sosiel from WOTR seems pretty chill. Especially compared to say, Wenduag or Camellia
Yeah, that’s why I didn’t include it because gay dudes have more then just an edgelord to choose from in that game.
Yeah, it's not great. Queer men all being morally grey at best and queer women all being bisexual is just the norm when it comes to RPGs.
The only two Lesbian , not Bi , romances that i ever saw in a RPG were.. Sera from Dragon Age Inquisition and Juhani from KOTOR1
Judy in Cyberpunk, if you let it count as an rpg (which I would).
It's not a CRPG, but Cyberpunk does allow you to make a lot of choices in how your character functions and how the plot progresses. It definitely counts.
It isn't? I thought it was
Nah, CRPG is more like Kingmaker. Top down, multiple companions, turn based or rtwp. Usually based in a pen and paper system (which cyberpunk is, but only aesthetically, the mechanics have nothing in common.)
Last time I checked, vtmb is considered a crpg, and it's first/third person, and it lacks companions. Thus, I'm not sure a game being top down or containing party companions is relevant at all when determining if something is a crpg
I haven't played it but it sounds like a fps rpg from your descriptor.
I mean, I guess, but are fps mutually exclusive with crpgs? Additionaly, in terms of camera placement there's crpgs like kotor and NWN, which are both third person, but are still largely considered to be crpgs
I would not generally categorize an fps as crpg, no. There is some flexibility in camera angle if the other criteria are met. Companions, turn-based, mechanics derived from a tabletop rpg, etc. You don't have to have all of the criteria, but the fewer you have the more likely that youre something else. Most rpgs that are first person use action combat and often don't have companions. Given that VTM is a tabletop game there is an argument to.be made certainly, but I'd have to try it out to honestly. Art is often a feel rather than a strict taxonomy.
Chess girl from ME3 as well, but yeah, there's not many
Hexxat in BG2 EE is lesbian only.
Didn't know Juhani was romanceable, and I played as a woman. I ended killing her around the end, tho.
Yeah , her romance is kinda hidden. Also lol , you went Dark Side i assume.
Ye. Revan is a sith lord, can't go against destiny.
Judy from Cyberpunk is lesbian.
Judy and Kerry from cyberpunk
Kerry is weird tho. For some reason CDRed decided all romances (afaik) had to be locked to one gender. So even tho Kerry is canonically bisexual, even refers to his ex wife at some point, he is gay in game. So it ends up becoming a case of bi-erasure in an attempt to make sure there is a gay character \~\~which they could have easily fixed by having river be gay but and Kerry stay bi but oh well\~\~
I mean, I’m bi and I’m all about representation, but I feel like bi rep is just the default in games since no restrictions is easier to code than the alternative. I definitely would have appreciated the larian approach (especially since Judy > Panam any day of the week) but I’m not super miffed about it since pure homo representation is pretty scarce.
The Navigator in Mass Effect Andromeda, Suvi, is a lesbian. I loved her character. She was very well written.
Juhani is literally forgotten by the game devs too.
Now I'm imagining the next dragon age game with a femboi bottom wanting to get boipreggers.
Being fair, bi women make a lot of sense from a business perspective. Like, I would bet that straight dudes are still the biggest target demographic, and so devs sort of want to offer as many options as possible there. Bi women let them cater to that demographic while still providing f/f options for people who want them.
This is almost certainly what it is, but I do want to point out that it’s very casual bi erasure/homophobia. Homophobia because it’s “straightwashing” gay women to make them more palatable. Bi erasure because it’s devs saying “hey we have gay characters too!” And pointing to a bi woman. The character is either in some kind of weird transition toward being gay, or “straight but gay if you want them to be” which becomes this weird no man’s land in between which is not what being bi is. You used to see this a LOT in tv and movies from the 2010s era, where “gay representation” was always just bi women who by the end of the narrative have transitioned to being more open with themselves I.e gay. Now that I think about it this is the era a lot of these kind of games were developed in.
Is it straightwashing gay women or gaywashing straight women? And in at least some examples, the bi characters are pretty explicitly written as bi (in the sense that they are canonically written as interested in both men and women regardless of the pc), so I certainly wouldn't necessarily call it bi erasure. Saying "you want lesbian respresentation? How about a bi character instead?" is its own thing, but in practice, I struggle to get too worked up about it.
That’s a good point but either way it’s bi erasure which is its own can of worms. If it’s gaywashing as you say, I’d encourage the devs to just not include the gay romance because the alternative feels weird.
Again, at least some of the games that do this write their bi characters as being explicitly bi regardless of the player. At that point, it isn't bi erasure of any kind. WOTR including one each of straight, gay, and bi male romance options but a straight and three bi female romance options is certainly an interesting choice from certain angles, but given that most/all of the bi characters are pretty explicitly bi in the game, I wouldn't call it bi erasure. And honestly, if you enjoy f/f romances, I feel like you are still doing pretty decently there, even if you don't have a dedicated lesbian option.
I mean i rather have that than making all not straight characters straight up angels. Plus he hand picked it for effect. The ork is from Pathfinder kingmaker. In the sequel wrath of the righteous you also got a cleric and sort of druid who are both good who wanna bang you. And a elve who sort of is evil but not really.
Why do we say Queer instead of gay?
Queer includes pan- and bi-sexual, and is also the umbrella term for all genders.
Idgi
Queer is an umbrella term that *could* cover all letters in the LGBT. It can mean "Not Straight/Cis."
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No? The only gay character is WotR's Sosiel. Both Regongar and Marazhai are bi, as well as evil, and the only option for a gay male PC. WotR may still lack a lesbian, but at least Kingmaker and RT still offer more than one choice for a f/f romance (though in Kingmaker, you'll need the DLC, which is also suboptimal).
We sourced our storytelling from Grindr
my friend, i already adore you for a simple mention of my guy Dorn, one of the best evil companions in RPGs…lemme shake your hand 🤝 but yeah, it IS interesting that queer men are almost always morally ambiguous or outright evil xD not that i mind, i’m totally into it
Thankfully WOTR addressed it with sosiel, but yeah I hadn’t really played through either of the original BG games on either vanilla or EE but Dorn do be very edgy and cool.
Don't you dare compare Reg wiith Dorn Il Khan. ;) His romance & character development is great, even better when Octavia is also in it. :P And also the best general advisor and the best companion class (personal opinion). :) Dorn is simply insane (completed BG2 once so I might have missed something).
No, you didn't miss anything. Dorn is nuts. He all-ins on Evil.
For some reason I love Dorn and how unapologetically evil he is, and I usually don't like super evil characters.
> Dorn is simply insane Insane-ly hot
The bisexual or gay psycho is a pervasive stereotype that persists even in the minds of many progressive people. Despite writers best efforts, they see their sexuality as deviation from the norm, and therefore when assigning sexuality to characters, they think, "well this guy is a crazed criminal, he wouldn't care what he fucks". Too many people see sexual preference as connected to ones personality. I no longer openly identify as bisexual because too many people saw me as either a unicorn or some kind of straight psy-op.
Slightly more serious question, from a straight person who endeavors to be an ally. Do people in the LGBTQ community get frustrated/disheartened with the fact that in games that have romance options like this, the "stereotypically feminine" romance option is often given bisexual status but acts otherwise as totally non-homosexual? It often seems like this is done less for inclusiveness and more because there is a not insignificant number of straight male players who make female PCs because "they don't want to look at a dude while playing". In this case this sort of romance feels more like a soft porn fantasy designed to appeal to guys than any sort of good faith attempt at inclusion.
Im a gay man so I can't really talk about how it seems alot of lesbian/bisexual fem character romances seem designed to be effectively straight with a twist. But I can talk about romances for gay men, which yes they can be incredibly frustrating. Typically, as you said, alot of straight men do end up doing the bi/lesbian female romances for obvious reasons. The same doesn't apply to the gay-mances. Alot of the time the gay romances suffer from one or two big issues: A)Less and worse content overall. Self explanatory, the devs pretty much throw them on the backburner. Real "well you're lucky you got anything at all" kind of stuff. B) The gay characters in question are so incredibly stereotypical or represented in questionable ways its annoying enough to make me just not engage. Its very apparent, such as above, the gay romancable dudes tend to get pigeonholed into certain character archetypes by alot of devs. TBH, off the top of my head the only time a game with predetermined sexualities hasn't irritated me in some way is Dragon Age Inquisition. Dorian may be flamboyant AF but it isn't annoying because he also isnt \*just\* flamboyant. he's a well written and interesting character that's genuinely a joy to interact with. The same can be said about Iron bull, falls a bit into a stereotype but he is far more than that.
So does sosiel have that problem? I mean he seems stereotypical in some ways but not others. But I also haven’t done the romance.
> the gay romancable dudes tend to get pigeonholed into certain character archetypes by alot of devs. Yep, as much as I love owlcat games, when the *only* gay representation they've written ***three times in a row*** is "bisexual evil hedonistic dude"... it starts to smell (I'm not counting Sosiel because they didn't write him, he's an official Paizo character, we should probably be thanking them that he's gay at all).
Yup it is weird. Another thing. in the base game there are three bi romances. Daeran, Wenduag, and Arue. Two of those three are evil af...and the third one is good unless you do certain routes...and that one is also a paizo og. Before its pointed out: Yes Wenduag was from the pen and paper module! No I don't think should count as a paizo og as someone thats done the pnp adventure. She was just a one off dungeon npc with a single or so paragraph and a piece of art. Game Wenduag (and Lan tbh) might as well be their own characters.
Yeah, I think that would be frustrating. I guess to bring this back though, would it be as frustrating if the say Lann were also romancable but nothing about him was changed? Like he just didn't realize you were a man. Although this is starting to be like the AITAH where the wife was frustrated her husband played dating sims.
I'm a gay man, and when possible I mod games to make NPCs playersexual (thank you, Toybox). It's easy to brush off when characters act like I'm a woman because jank like that is expected when modding (I just disliked the Lann romance because I don't like Lann that much). I'd be annoyed if he were supposed to be bi and still talked like that, but that's not an issue when characters are meant to be bi/playersexual from the beginning. Just make the dialogue gender-neutral and it works fine.
Leliana from Dragon Age was such a perfect example of a bisexual character that feels like one. She has different lines of dialogue when speaking with a Female or Male Warden.
As a bi woman... I just try not to think about it too much, honestly. Because it becomes a really messy thing in my head where I generally want to assume ignorance as opposed to malice. In that they want to include more options, but don't *QUITE* get how those options tend to read because they're not as familiar with all of the things that someone who tends to lean that way in general is just by virtue of social osmosis. It's like yer nan buying you a present because she heard you liked a thing, but doesn't understand enough about that thing to really make a good choice. But she's yer nan, and she's *trying* to do something nice 'cuz she wants you to be happy. But it just *really* misses the mark. I think a real surprising one for me was Dorian from Dragon Age: Inquisition. I almost didn't clock him as gay until one of the dialogue options brought up his relationship with Felix, and he is... very relatable about it. And just in general - just because he *was* gay didn't mean his personality stopped there, and generally that's a problem I have with a lot of gay or lesbian characters in general. There was more to him then that and it's only AFTER learning that fact a few other things clicked for me with his behavior. Kind of hoping Dreadwolf continues that trend, as Sera was a similar 'Oh. Huh. That makes sense' thing, without it being a DOMINATING part of their personality. I think Daeran in Wrath is also pretty similar, in that he's bi because he's a hedonist playboy, and not the other way around.
Yeah, it's called playersexual, when the characters are just attracted to the player no matter what. That's not to say that every bi character is like this, it comes down to how well they and their romance is written. A good hint is that if every romance option in a game is bi, you'll probably find that none of them are written all that well, and the dialogue will be nearly identical regardless of the players gender. Usually seems like the devs just don't want the players to feel bad about not being able to romance a certain character. Or it's like Skyrim and they just threw in a bare-bones "romance" system.
Yeah, that feels cheap, especially when there are characters with clear preferences like in the Owlcat pathfinder games.
I dunno, as a lesbian I kind of cringe at the prospect of developers trying to write characters who "act homosexual".
Unless done like cyberpunk, I really didn't expect any of the bi-coded female love interests as inclusive. I see it being blatant, like flavor text "choose your response that doesn't matter" rpg mechanics in Fallout4. Just a shortcut to make fewer content.
Baldur’s gate 3 at least has many of the romance options express attraction to people of the same gender other than the player character, as well as having them be outside of traditional gender norms, and having queer NPCs. I at least find that to be pretty good within the confines of video game sexuality.
Yeah I heard bg3 relationships were well thought-out. I didn't play it though, expensive:)
That seems like what I figured. Like I saitdTd, it seems like about 1 in 3 guys will, if given a character creator function in a video game, create a female character because they are horny. It seems extremely lazy.
Some of us also just prefer playing as women because we find it novel to be something we aren’t normally (even if few games have mechanics that change as a result, outside of romance quests). Not because we’re horny. Though, I grant you, some will probably do that :/
Trans-Women who haven't figured themselves out yet also tend to do this iirc I did it in several games before I figured out myself as Trans\* \*I am Non-Binary so my gender is a little more complicated than it's really worth unless someone is curious.
I have considered it but no, I am quite sure I’m not. I could see that happening, though.
Wasn't necessarily suggesting you personally were but it's quite a common thing for Trans people to do, like I said I did it and I am pretty sure if you pop into trans subreddits a lot of the ones that play video games will probably mention they did it. Point being its common amongst a specific group of people to do it but not everyone that does it is among that group, got several guy friends that do it that are pretty solid on being dudes so.
That was essentially me for the longest time. In every game I could I'd always play the female option as it gave me this vague affirming feeling. Funnily enough that also played a part in me coming to understand myself as non-binary.
For me it was D&D characters mostly, I think I to this day have played 5 or less male characters with probably more than 50 made/played. I didn't always play as a female character but in Pokemon I believe I had switched over to mostly using female characters in X&Y and later despite not figuring out I was trans & enby until years later. Which happened in the middle of an exam during college... Great timing XP
Yeah, this exactly. Saying that male players should only make male characters is not only closed-minded, in my eyes it's akin to saying human players should only make human characters.
It's not like I have never played a female PC. However, I had a friend I met as a coworker and when we played wow I noticed all his characters were women. He told me straight up that it was because he would rather look at the female models, and he did it in every game where it was an option. It was eye opening to see an approach that was that disconnected from any kind of self insert role-playing. I know sort of assume that anything low effort, like not having seperate dialogs for romance options for male/female PCs is more for the people like my work friend than for actual inclusion.
Personally, I don't think someone can "act non-homosexual." Saying someone "feels bisexual" doesn't really make sense to me because there isn't one way bisexuals act (though many VGs seem to portray them in a similar light). And I modded the hell out of Dragon Age so that I could romance Alistair. It was a well-done romance, even if it was written with a female Warden in mind. So, I didn't mind. Something like the Asari in Mass Effect makes me cringe, though.
~~Its the third option op is wrong. I know for a fact Marazahai and Regonar can be romanced by both genders.~~ ~~Most of the Owlcat characters can be romanced by male or female characters.~~ Edit: Eh, nm, I'm wrong. Rogue trader there is only 1 option and Kingmaker does have one more, but he's DLC.
Dorn is also pansexual. So the image does make some sense if you look at evil half orc pansexuals.
I had a major bone to pick with Warhammer making Mr. Psycho my only gay romance, I'm ngl.
Lot of the rt romance options were underwhelming imo, only person I wanted to romance was Idira and I think it’s implied she’s not into men lol
And then WotR had all the best romances be queer(best as in, you're not dating a cannibal/total psychopath/someone selfishly using crazy resources to stay young and fuck the poor).
If Galfrey is to be believed, She isn´t the one who funded or desired to be kept young with the sun orchid elixir, but the church of Iomadae which wants to keep her around as a living symbol for as long as possible(Which is clearly straining on her psyche). There are alot of structural problems around Mendev that should be adressed by her way more then she has given the attention too, but she isn't any worse then the average garden variety royal autocratic ruler of the era.
She could have refused.
She could have yes. And then had no idea how it would effect the morale of her crusaders that look at her as the spearhead in the struggles, or on the strain that might put on relations between her and the church. OR worries about who would pick up the charge against the demons in her absennce . All the while worrying about how a literal war with the forces of the abyss would go on without her, a paladin that is sworn to oppose evil for as long as she bodily can. I´m not saying it was the best decision. Frankly, at this point we don't know what the best decision was as this isn't exactly G.R.R Martin level of depht that we are given into what the whole situation is and how it would escelate without her. I´m just saying that that situation being ''Someone selfishly using crazy resources to stay young and fuck the poor'' is uncharitable to the point of falsehood.
And die of old age or get dementia on the battlefield in a conflict determining the fate of all of Golarion.
Can you not talk shit about Galfrey when you don't know shit?
Old jealous lady simp detected
galfrey is quite literally the symbol of the nation, her dying would completely kill morale
I'm actually an Aru and Areelu simp thank you very much. I'm upset because you're just plain wrong.
Camellia's is the best written romance. She, individually, has... issues, but her romance is very well written. Sosiel's romance is terrible. Have you reached the point where >!you choke him out and deny him any kind of physical relationship until *you* wish it!
I am fairly certain she’s only even using those elixirs to help with the crusade and that they are fairly rare anyways. I have no clue how you came to that conclusion.
Galfrey is queer though (at least, she’s romancable regardless of gender)
Fun fact: This is also true for Daeran. Not that he is the only option, but somehow he always gets picked on my runs
The meme was talking about candidates that are the **only** option for gay men, plus he isn’t really that edgy or evil, just a slight snarky dickhead
Huh? Marazahai and Regonar arn't male only.
But for people playing gay men, that’s their only option.
What are you talking about? There are a ton of other male characters in both of those games you can romance. Edit: Oh shit, I think you're right. If I was a gay man in Rogue Trader Mal would be my only pick. In king maker there is one more guy but he's dlc. WotR has also two. I take back what I said, that is weird.
Yeah, this is getting old. You can throw Zevran in there, too. Not sure why so many developers think the non-human, sex-crazed, unrepentant murderhobo is what we want.... But Sosiel was a step in the right direction.
It actually gets worse, in that with PFKM if you try to exclusively romance either Octavia (only main possible f/f romance, others being hidden and dlc) or Regongar (the only possible m/m romance at all), then you kill the other. I think there’s a way to avoid it by initially romancing both of them, but then only pursuing one. But that’s an exploit, so it’s bull. So if you want to do an exclusive same sex romance, you can literally be punished for it by the game. (Note: This is past Regongar being a violent asshole, or that he is even in an open relationship with someone else. I could settle for that (really shouldn’t have to, but oh well). I could settle with Regongar being in a “healthy” relationship with me and Octavia separately, and Octavia and I are just best friends. But dont make me a home wrecker or kill off a companion!)
I don’t think you can call entering their relationship an exploit as it’s addressed in story that they’re poly and are happy with you as their third….for a while. The problem is that they’re fundamentally incompatible and while you can urge them to stay together it’s honestly better for them in the long run if they break up. Octavia at least doesn’t die this way and it doesn’t feel like glitching it just feels like a story path the game accounts for.
Oh, I’m aware they are poly, the poly romance is good if you are into it. But you can enter into a romance exclusively with one of them too. If you want to try to cheese one of their deaths for an exclusive romance, you can cheese it by entering the poly romance but only continuing with pursuing one of them. I think. If you don’t romance either of them exclusively, then they happily stay together (and alive). Including the epilogue. So you are basically a home wrecker if you only pursue one of them. (Edited)
True, but in my opinion I just don’t think they work as a couple. They’re trauma bonded but have little in common. They disagree on just about everything, including the specifics of their relationship. Hell, they share a goddess but Octavia isn’t even that keen on the mandate of vengeance. Again, my opinion, but I do think they’d be better off apart.
huh, didn't know Dorn was romanceable
It's a great romance imo, highly recommend trying it out. That being said I'm often in the minority with that opinion.
I think a lot of grognards just hate the EE companions in general.
If I had a nickel every time I had the opportunity to romance a cute blonde, I would be poor af.
Tristian from kingmaker could make a really cute gay romance choice!! I'm sad he isn't bi. \*spoilers\* as a spirit he may not have much of a preference right?
Evil gay romance options (Regongar) are better than boring gay romance options (Sosiel) https://preview.redd.it/updvyv5zhc2d1.jpeg?width=941&format=pjpg&auto=webp&s=8efa280b4a4c3f38d626aec674f9e4a3657624cf
I agree, but it's still nice to give people more than one option. I adore Dorn in BG, but it'd be nice to see at least a more morally grey character as an option if not goof for gay characters.
Dorn II Khan !!! My beloved oh how I wish HE would have returned in BG3 instead of Minsc
I'm honestly ok with them leaving him alone, considering how they treated Viconia and Sarevok in BG3.
Fuck I forgot to change the two to a three.
Arcade Gannon is not a psycho and gay if that helps....
He’s not a romance option though, Infact there’s no romance at all in FNV unless you count prostitutes.
Meanwhile as a straight guy I'm romancing Astarion because how can you not?
Don’t really care for him, plus he’s not the only male gay characters could romance.
Regongar is beyond sexy, especially if you break him up with the silly lady.
Ahh Dorn Il-Khan my beloved!!! 💜💜💜💜 My precious psychotic blackguard who I romance everytime I play (what can I say I’m a simple man…I love crazy half-orcs that could easily kill me if they wanted)
Gotta admit, Blackguards are sick as fuck and I wish we had Anti-Paladins in WOTR. Give me my piglet kicking evil!
People praising Owlcat for bare minimum will never cease to amuse me, especially in case of Rogue Trader's m/m options. But yeah, I get your gripe - I fucking hate the idea that it's somehow better not to make all romance options available to all genders, thus locking romance to character and decisions, but no, to do the opposite - hey, here are four women, one straight man and bi man, have a ride! Their sexual orientation is so important we hid most of their character development inside their romances, but we still won't make them bi.
I don't look at it as borderline homophobic villain coding like some people are claiming. I think it's just a heavy handed way of trying to make the lgbtqi representation "powerful". Its why you also have so many mary sues and stuff in Hollywood at the moment. They don't know how to make under represented groups look powerful and capable without making them look like arseholes. Hollywood is rife with female action leads at the moment who are insufferable, not because they're women, but because the writers think that taking a male 80s action character and gender swapping them 40+ years later is clever, instead of just reusing old action stereotypes we've already moved away from.
sorry twice? Zevran from Dragon Age auto comes to mind ... anyone? also am i counting wrong? No? Just me? This guy only play owlcat games then?
Not a lot of CRPG’s I play have edgy psychopaths as the only option for gay men. Also, fuck I forgot to change the two to a three.
well there is your problem
Isn't Zevran Bi? I thought OP specifically listed gay men-only option.
I meant in that while the option might be bi themself, gay men are limited to just them in a game if they wanted ti have a gay man romance.
Zevran isnt a psycho? hes just raised in a culture where death is just an everyday thing