Anomen, Aerie, Jaheira, Viconia
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I haven't heard anything about the "old" romances in BG2EE so I thought I'd ask. Will they be open to more races or is this something that will stay as is? Is this something that can't be changed due to contract limitations?
If there is nothing in the way I'd really like these romances to open up for all races. As I see it it's a very non-invasive change and would only serve to make the game more enjoyable and complete.
If there is nothing in the way I'd really like these romances to open up for all races. As I see it it's a very non-invasive change and would only serve to make the game more enjoyable and complete.
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Having small touches like this makes the characters a bit more 'real'. It wouldn't seem surprising to me at all if some people thought it was weird etc. to be with people of a significantly different race.
That being said, having an additional romance option for shorties (or some subset of shorties) is hardly something I'd be against.
In more clear wording: Viconia not romancing an elf is as important a character trait as Viconia romancing a human is.
As I see it, romances are simply content. Each player should be able to enjoy it as he sees fit. To me it's like "what a let-down, I can't access this game content with my half-orc PC."
If the designers were making a point of "Jaheira isn't into half-orcs", they should at least have given me some dialogue content implying that.
Anyway, I think the loss far outweighs the benefit of the old romances simply ignoring some races (sexes too for that matter)
However, the "all genders" would require rewriting nearly all dialogues to change pronouns, and things like "my lady" or something. That alone makes this impossible.
Also gotta love it when people who are likely not in the LGBTQA-add-letters-as-required community and go "it's 2013, hetero-normativity is sooo outdated". Yeah, newsflash, sadly it isn't. While I admit that certain countries in Africa are likely not the most lucrative market for fantasy games, there are still countries with a death penalty on homosexuality. In 2013. Gay marriage is a huge issue in many western countries, too. There are currently 29 US states where you can legally be fired for being homosexual. There is Russia.
In other words: No, homophobia is not an issue of the past, sadly. And a game that includes or even puts heavy emphasis on same sex romance options does take a risk to alienate customers. I'm glad that BGEE takes this risk, but I would not like to see BG2EE go overboard with it. Shoving things in people's faces has never contributed to acceptance, and even if, it's not a RPG's place to do so. BGEE has made a statement, and that is more than one can expect from a game (compare other recent games that are still hung up on white straight gun-owning male protagonists).
(It is a completely different matter that I think it was handled poorly to make the evil character bisexual, instead of the neutral one, but at least Dorn isn't a manwhore, so it still goes against the main prejudice bisexuals have to deal with.)
Overhaul's new characters are not race-limited, and at least Dorn is open to both genders. Females now have at least three times as many romance options as vanilla BG2.
Is this going to make everyone happy? Probably not. But it's what they're legally able to do, and is a lot better than what was there originally.
I don't personally want that and are therefore content with the options in game.
Like irl people have preferences, so has NPC's
as for the homosexuality i'm fine either way, you have to think D&D is "medieval" times, life expectancy (for humans at least) wasn't very long and so having children was a large priority at the time, so same sex romances being impossible to have children and all weren't heard of. however that's not to say i dislike same sex romance to me it all boils down to the character i want to romance, if i like them ill romance them their sexual preferences don't matter to me personally so either way is fine and ill support BG2:EE and nag everyone i know to buy it just the same
@KidCarnival
"... most romancable NPCs don't have a reason or obvious statement about not liking dwarves/halflings/gnomes/half orcs. I also think this wouldn't require a rewriting; the NPCs address the charname by name, not by "human" or "elf". (If I remember correctly, only Viconia does this occassionaly.)"
I agree with you here. So IMO the notion that it's "part of their personality" is flawed. I also recognize the problem with making them all bi when some/all of them may address the PC in a gendered way.
"Also gotta love it when people who are likely not in the LGBTQA-add-letters-as-required community and go "it's 2013, hetero-normativity is sooo outdated". Yeah, newsflash, sadly it isn't."
@Lord_Tansheron just said that being inclusive to LGBT folks isn't accepted, which is basically what you said.
I don't know how you define "the community" but you can hardly tell who isn't part of it by a forum discussion. And I don't need to be part of a community to voice my opinion in the matter.
"Shoving things in people's faces has never contributed to acceptance, and even if, it's not a RPG's place to do so. BGEE has made a statement, and that is more than one can expect from a game (compare other recent games that are still hung up on white straight gun-owning male protagonists)."
I disagree with the first part and agree on the last part. Shoving things in people's face is one of the methods to combat neglection of minorities. I also think it is very much an RPGs place to do so when feasible and desired.
Games that continually portray white men with guns as protagonists deny the possibility of main characters who are non-white, female or gun-less. One solution is putting those minorities at the front.
I agree that BGEE has indeed made a statement. Still, there's more I'd love to see them do.
@Mrpenfold666
You mentioned that it's a medieval fantasy setting, so how can we possibly know what individual turn-ons people in the setting have. Just because our modern, western ideals dictate that human+elf=hot stuff and human+half-orc=yuck doesn't mean that's what everyone in Faerun thinks. Granted, the fluff on half-elves makes it clear that humans and elves turn each other on, but that doesn't mean individuals can't fall for half-orcs, halflings etc. Who knows what happens to your preferences when you live in a world full of fairytale creatures?
On the homosexuality; Ed Greenwood has mentioned that most people in the realms don't bother much. Anything goes, sort of.
That's all I have to say on the matter and I will probably not reply further in this thread as I'm not in the mood for this discussion. Thank you for your input. Good night!
You also say that you need dialogue and explicit statements in order for something to be presented, where I disagree. The actual game mechanics are able to tell as much about the characters as dialogue is, when used correctly. An easy non-romance example is Edwin, who acts pretentious and superior with no evidence to back it up, however his bonus spell slots are a great way of telling you he is powerful through the mechanics. The sex/race-restricted romance mechanics are a way of presenting the characters' preferences to you. ...I think they expect to figure it out for yourself? I've never run a Half-Orc and I would have guessed that just from the racial description.
BG does give the player the freedom to pick a non-male, non-white, non-gun wielding, non-straight and even non-human protagonist. It's the nature of RPGs, and frankly, that's enough. There is no need to change NPCs to bisexual to make every player happy. That's not possible anyway. Even if every single NPC was bisexual and would romance every race, someone would still be unhappy about the inability to romance the travel encounter ogre mage.
Also, my statement above meant - I'd be ok with opening the romance paths of NPCs for more races for the sake of variety. Not turn all NPCs into "one size fits all" solutions; just add a race option here and another there, so the shorties and half orcs have at least one option. (Which is taken care of by the new NPCs, who only consider gender and alignment, as far as I'm aware.)
About the LGBT_ community: It's frankly really easy to tell in such discussions. People who claim that homophobia is outdated or a non-issue, for instance, have likely never bothered with LGBT issues outside that discussion. If they had, they would know that it is very much still an issue. The statement made above says exactly that - yes, it is 2013 and no, it is still not a non-issue, so any game including non-straight characters will have to consider the risk of hurting their sales and reputation. No matter how much your dwarf chick wants to romance Nalia, or how open minded you think everyone should be, the big picture still says it's a risky move. And overdoing it and turning a game that is meant to be a fantasy roleplay into a flagship of LGBT rights won't work out.
Dragon Age is the best example for this, Dragon Age: Origins made the best romances i saw into an RPG. Morrigan romance is awesome, a truly bad girl, Alistair romance is very cool and Zevran romance is an homossexual romance that convince me of the NPCs sexuality option. Zevran IS bissexual, his story and personality reflect that.
If they removed the gender and race limitations they would have to rewrite most of the romance.
PS. all 3 female romantic interests are extremely racist elves.
I thought the exclamation mark gave it away but I guess not?
There are no boundaries. Everyone is Bi. If you want to be an Elf, then you're an Elf, man. That's your right, they can't stop you. I hope you remembered to export the Shadow Dragon Scale armour, because you're going to need some resistance to the acid...
That said, a world where everybody is bi-sexual and wants to jump your bones is alright with me.
Source: Am man, don't want Fabio. Z͟ac̢ha̴r҉y ͘Qu̶i̴nto ̴o͟r̷ Josh҉ ̢H̸ol̨lowa͡y̸,̶ o҉n̢ ͝th̀e ̡oţh̶er e͞y̵es̕t̕a͞lk̢..̶.
It's the reason why Viconia behaves this way too when your charname romance her in BG2 SoA, as a drow, she is trying not to give in to her true feelings to your charname, she tries to encourage your charname to reject her after your charname's first night in bed with her but if your charname persists, she gives up and your charname gets an opportunity to "sleep" with her again.
But any new NPCs romance options if the developers want to make that NPC
" Anybody's Anything " that is fine too
If you're familiar with the Game of Thrones/Song of Ice and Fire series, it's the main reason for (book 1/season 1 spoiler)
I've never thought of Viconia's romance to be particularly believable.