Romance - who needs it?

Permidion_Stark

There has been much debate about the sexual preferences of the three new NPCs that will be introduced in BG:EE and this got me wondering how important romance is to players of the game.

How much romance do you want in your life?

Radhamanthys

I really don't understand why every romancable female NPC should be an elf (or half-elf)! There are other races as well!!!

Tetraploid

I don't really feel that a game like BG needs romance, but if it's going to be there, at least give us something less infuriating than Anomen!

Jolanthus

I feel its an all or none deal.

Mortianna

Hey, after the Anomen romance, green slimes look pretty appealing.

Moomintroll

I don't miss it in BG but am glad it's there in BG2, it is superfluous.

Permidion_Stark

I don't care for the romances. I find them text-heavy, tedious and sometimes downright embarrassing.

Infern0

It's a role playing game, you are playing the role of a leader of a mixed gender party who are fighting side by side in life and death battles over a long period of time. It's only logical that romances would happen, if you don't want them to you have the option to blow them off.

I think they are a good part of the game, and am always happy for further options to explore.

Jalily

I need far more options before I'll have any options.

moody_mage

Permidion_Stark said:

I don't care for the romances. I find them text-heavy, tedious and sometimes downright embarrassing.

QFT. I'm not an elite type RP player so I am unconcerned by the RP value of these 'romances', even if I were the description Permidion gives is exactly how I view these clumsy attempts to inject romance into my game. I'm there to play the game. Likewise I'm not OCD enough to have to have completed every bit of content available to my character in the most favourable fashion.

I'd much rather resource and time were spent enhancing more worthy game play and story lines.

Brude

I enjoy the NPC interjections. I like the randomness of it. The romances add variety to the game world, because every time you play different dialogues trigger in different places. BG2 could have used a little more of that.

But as content, the romances -- particularly Bioware style romances -- are overplayed. This whole concept jumped the shark for me somewhere between KOTOR and DA:O and now I'm just tired of it.

I'm tired of tropes and sexist attitudes written by 40 year old guys who are expressing the emotional maturity of 15 year old boys.

I'm tired of trying to guess which obsequious dialogue option will allow me to continue this one single questline, and I'm tired of worrying that if I choose the wrong one, hours of work will immediately and irrevocably come to an end.

I'm in the majority in terms of gender and orientation, but I lost respect for developers who were, and continue to be, so shortsighted that they actually wrote game content that ignored a chunk of their audience. Sometimes you have to scratch your head and wonder if developers realize we're in the 21st century and that women, gay men, and minorities play video games, and that their money is the same color as mine.

And the more I think about any of those things, the more annoyed I get. I wish I could trade these "romances" for half a dozen randomly generated "FedEx" style quests and just be done with it.

I rolled my eyes when I read that Overhaul was integrating romance into BG1, which started Bioware's over reliance on NPC interactions as game content. I think it will feel out of place in this game, because while the original NPCs said some fun stuff, the actual interactions were few and far between.

And that was fine, even preferable to what came later.

ajwz

If a romance exists for a character, typically all the writing goes into that romance, so If you choose not to pursue it, the character is flat and unappealing.
I would be happy with no romance or some romance, since it seems to appeal to a lot of people. It CANNOT take over the game however.

NWN_babaYaga

In a war like situation you wouldnt romance anyone. Think about the siege of stalingrad... who the hell would have thought about romancing just for a second when your life depends on every little step you take? I realy wonder what you people think about Fearun regions. But we had that already, there are the ones who think it´s more a social sim like game as a evil filled world with 9 hells and demons that rip your guts out and eat them in front of your companions. I have so many examples why this world is not what you wish when you´re outthere to adventure in caves, tombs and strange dimensions ....

And think about Aerie when she starts to whine like a child right away at the arrival in the underdark... yeah, no other problems to think about huh

Ever saw a victim of a shark attack... now think what the average ogre is capable of doing to you as a human meat muncher:D

Permidion_Stark

NWN_babaYaga said:

In a war like situation you wouldnt romance anyone. Think about the siege of stalingrad... who the hell would have thought about romancing just for a second when your life depends on every little step you take?

Jude Law and Rachel Weisz?

Shin

With the addendum that I wouldn't mind more romanceable characters/orientations etc, as long as they are well written and created from the ground up with their romantic preferences in mind. I.e. not a DA2-like solution where everyone is available as a romantic interest and swings both ways.

As for romances in general, I would find BG2 a whole lot poorer for their exclusion. They generally serve to heighten immersion and add some depth to my character's relations with the rest of the party. This has always been an important point to me as I never viewed and never want to view the BG games merely as battle simulators or Diablo style loot adventures.

When it comes to character content, do the average non-romanceable NPC have more content than a romanceable NPC minus the romance, like @ajwz says? Personally I never thought so - the romances always seemed like extra content on top of the baseline. Especially in comparison to vanilla BG where the NPC writing was very limited.

In regards to warlike situations, I don't necessarily agree that you're unlikely to develop feelings for someone even if you're in the middle of a war - if anything, like @Infern0 mentioned, high-stress situations like that tend to bring the people caught up in it closer together. If you look at soldiers in actual wars, it's not uncommon for them to form bonds that last for the rest of their lives. If men and women (or for that matter, homosexual men and homosexual women) spent more time on the frontlines together, I wouldn't be surprised in the slightest if they ended up falling in love. It seems very human.

Heck, you don't even need all that much stress, just a little bit of isolation and a chance to get to know one another. Take 10 single men and 10 single women and lock them away for two months somewhere with only each other to talk to like in an average reality show, and I'd bet money that some of them would come out as couples.

Also, as @NWN_babaYaga says people view the game atmosphere in different ways. Personally I see the BG trilogy as an epic adventure or a lengthy journey rather than a war. My character is likely to spend a long time together with the party; fighting, walking, eating and sleeping beside them for months, and far from all of that time consists of doing battle. To my mind, the Forgotten Realms can be a dark and dangerous place, but also a beautiful and inspiring one. With the above in mind it would seem surprising if strong bonds like love didn't arise, all else being equal.

Moomintroll

@NWN_babaYaga The NPCs certainly seem to pick their moments when it comes to romance banters. I'd think that people in those kind of situations would take what they could get and find as much life as they could fine in a few precious moments. Whether or not that would entail talking about pretty looking hair or hiding in a thicket to knock boots, is another matter.

NWN_babaYaga

@Moomingtroll i agree that people in very hard moments need a little love/comfort or just some hope to move forward. I´m just against the thought that the adventurers life is more a walk-in-the-park as a daily-i-can-find-a-horrible-death way of life and that the monsters are just "stats" for you and not what they are if you port them into reallife.

And i dont get the reference of jude law... and i mean everything that makes faerun in which the BG trilogy takes place;)

ajwz

NWN_babaYaga said:

@Moomingtroll i agree that people in very hard moments need a little love/comfort or just some hope to move forward. I´m just against the thought that the adventurers life is more a walk-in-the-park as a daily-i-can-find-a-horrible-death way of life and that the monsters are just "stats" for you and not what they are if you port them into reallife.

This is a pretty good point. The characterisation that NPCs can just dismiss enemies as being just trash or unimprotant and unthreatening is so over used now, it ends up making the characters seem self aware that the are in a computer game.
Having said that, it's not a particularly good argument against romance as a whole, just lazy implementation of them.

Shin

One should also keep in mind that the game characters are products of the game world, and so an ogre or similar monster to them shouldn't be as alien and terrifying as it might be to a real-life human. The PC coming fresh out of Candlekeep is obviously much more hunted than hunter, but the seasoned party toward the later parts of BG is in my eyes a lot more likely to be a nightmare to a band of ogres than the other way around.

NWN_babaYaga

Very easy to force "fear" into the game when you turn it into a horrible gorefest that it actually is. But thats not what i realy want. I dont have anything against plausible moments of "romances" but the way they are at times seem out of place, just to unrealistic to me.

Shin

NWN_babaYaga said:

Very easy to force "fear" into the game when you turn it into a horrible gorefest that it actually is. But thats not what i realy want. I dont have anything against plausible moments of "romances" but the way they are at times seem out of place, just to unrealistic to me.

Well, the romances and the banter are obviously just snippets or representations of character interaction and doesn't/can't cover everything that is exchanged between the party members over the span of the BG saga, and I agree that the timing of those representations isn't always optimal. The way I see it though, it would be much more unrealistic to have no bonds forming between the characters at all.

waardenius

Whilst romance is in some instances capable of deepening the game experience, the result is on most cases just ridiculous. I fail to understand how the same people who can be extremely critical of other plot elements in movies or rpgs are prepared to chase, and demand access to, these Bioware-romances as if they were som holy grail. They definitly are not. With that said, I think the Viconia romance in SoA was alright.

The only romance that has actually added a lot to the gaming experience was one of the first implemented, namely that Jedi chick in KOTOR. It suited the Star Wars-thing, and I imagined my PC to be driven as much of the love for her as anything in his journey towards the dark side...

Jaxsbudgie

I'm not a huge advocate of romances in video games, but I think the romances in BG2 really help the player develop a bond with a particular NPC. I'm not sure Viconia would have such wide spread love (haha sounds like a crude euphemism!) and admiration if she wasn't a romance option. Plus her romance is second to none, unlike anything out there, and I think I've learnt to embrace the ending. Tragic characters have a lovely sense of preservation and romanticism about them, Ophelia from Halmet being a good example.

mjs

i don't mind them being there, after all if you don't want it you don't have to initiate it. you don't get an achievement for it or quest items (that are worth having). so mostly i find them inoffensive, but for me i'm here to kick-ass!

plus you couldn't have it for every NPC, it just wouldn't fit with their characters (keldorn, kivan, cernd spring to mind)

ekster

I voted for "I romance myself while playing BG. The game is that good." but I also wanted to pick "Everything should be romanceable: green slimes, carrion crawlers, the dead bodies you find in the sewers. Everything!"

It's a fantasy world. And if someone wishes to fantasize something, then by all means, they should be! Personally, I would've loved to romance Lilacor.

Best sword and companion ever.

Bercon

Quality over quantity. Romances add depth when they are well done.

Too descriptive poll choices are idiotic btw. BG2 got it right because of many reasons not because they happened to be divine spell casters.

Candramelekh

Romances were good idea when it came with BG, but today developers push it everywere, reducing pleasure from the game

Cheesebelly

Not needed, but it's nice having it.
Depends on how I role play, although nowadays the BG2 romances leave me a bit of a bitter taste in my mouth.

Aerie : Either you love her, or you literally tell her to shut up - the second one causing her to leave. Preferred option : backstab her.
Jaheira : If I wanted to romance a (relatively not good looking) woman who could easily be my grandmother, then I might as well go to a mental institute. She got over her husband's death too quickly - she smells of fakery to me, and therefore I hate her XD
Anomen : Oh, Anomen. Not even that bad generally speaking. Leaves you to bash your head on your keyboard more than once, but overall... not HORRIBLE.
Viconia : Perfect romance... crappy outcome. >.<

Let's wait for the new three entries, shall we?

Rexfaroensis

I don't think you need romances per se, but it's nice to have sort of goal, independent of your overall game progress, to work towards.

DA used the friendship scale (with the gifts and all). It was a silly scale, but I like the concept of building relations with your party via communication.

Permidion_Stark

Bercon said:

Too descriptive poll choices are idiotic btw.

If you don't like the choices you don't have to vote. This isn't Australia (btw).

neleothesze

I'm glad that so far this thread has been free of "if you want romance in your game, play a dating sim" kind of comments but @Permidion_Stark, all the poll options are heavily influenced by your personal preference. A simple: *No romance/BG1 amount; *BG2 amount; *more than BG2, would have been more impersonal and sound less like you are aiming at ridicule.

Personally, I believe that if I get to spend 1-2 years(ingame time) with a group of people, there's a lot of room for inter-personal relationships to develop into friendships, romances or rivalries; and not all of them have to be centered around my PC! In BG1 even more than BG2, you don't jump from one life-threatening situation to another. Sometimes you trudge through the wilderness for weeks (based on rest and travel times), sometimes you spend a week or two helping people out in some village or other. I want Alora to try and befriend Monty... I want Tiax to try and convert all the party members to worship Cyric... I'd like the game to be more of a fantasy novel than an IWD clone, where every recruitable character has a personality that shapes his comments and decisions... and that includes having *gasp* feelings.
If I wanted silent party members who wouldn't try to express their world view and sometimes argue, sometimes agree with me, I'd play IWD instead of BG1/BG2. Also, it's very improbable that travelling with a very charismatic leader NO one would feel even moderately attracted to him/her.

'Romance' is a very misleading term, hinting of flower bouquets and candlelit dinners. Those seem out of place for hardened adventurers on the road. But physical attraction or caring for a person with similar life goals is not. As I mentioned in romance banter thread romance can be portrayed as just someone having your back. In BG2 Jaheira is complaining about your leadership when Mazzy butts in and tells her to stop harping because you've been a good leader so far and you seem to know what you're doing. As I said there, I can see even someone like Dorn saying something like that. "Charname has proven to be a competent leader. Back down, Jaheira." "You are a fool, Anomen, to discount Charname's battle prowess." etc." Hell, I think even Edwin should feel insulted that someone else is questioning your leadership if he's decided you're good enough to be travelling with him and have earnt his respect.

A sort of friendship with benefits (physical and in terms of supporting your leadership), as much as people make fun of it today, makes sense in the context.

Why do you think there are so many companion and romance mods for games like Morrowind/Oblivion and Skyrim? (The Elder Scrolls 3,4,5) Because you spend an ungodly amount of time in the world and you want to feel connected. And, like it or not, for many of us, having a bunch of pixels saying they are happy to see Mr/Mrs Dunmer or have sharpened Mr/Mrs Dunmer's sword, helps keep the interest in the game.

*Some people stay invested by figuring out very complicated solo runs, no-death runs, no reload etc.
*Others are completionists who want to finish every quest in order to say they finished the game.
*And others like to discover every facet of the NPCs personalities. And yes, sometimes this involves looking at them from a romantic perspective, sometimes it involves putting Edwin and Dynaheir in a group, Xzar and Jaheira.

I genuinely don't understand why it bothers so many people that friendships and romances are added to RPGs and bring arguments like, if you want romance, look for it irl, or in dating sims... I haven't seen people saying, if you want enhanced combat AI, look for it in an action game, watch a war movie.

The developers won't allocate that many hours writing romances that your game will feel incomplete. Your enhanced combat AI won't suffer because someone wants to tell Dorn that he's a cool guy.