[ SECRET POST #6017 ]

[case]

⌈ Secret Post #6017 ⌋

Warning: Some secrets are NOT worksafe and may contain SPOILERS.


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Notes:

Secrets Left to Post: 01 pages, 23 secrets from Secret Submission Post #860.
Secrets Not Posted: [ 0 - broken links ], [ 0 - not!secrets ], [ 0 - not!fandom ], [ 0 - too big ], [ 0 - repeat ].
Current Secret Submissions Post: here.
Suggestions, comments, and concerns should go here.

Comments

[(Anonymous)]

I love it when characters are bi/pan but I also appreciate it when characters are monosexual. I like it when NPCs have personalities and sometimes that means the developers make choices. But maybe I'm a little softer on the topic because I can so easily switch my character's gender in the games I play.

[(Anonymous)]

I can't play these kinds of characters as a gender that doesn't match mine. I can handle characters that are already fully fleshed out at the start of the game, but DA protagonists are way too blank and encourage too much self inserting. I tried once with Origins and couldn't even make halfway through Ostagar.

Also, asides from Dorian who's gay almost to the point of parody, none of the Dragon Age LI's sexualities affect their personalities. The only reason said sexualities exist is to save on voice lines.

[(Anonymous)]

I haven't played DA. I cant comment about its characters so im just thinking in general.

Or specifically about about a game where a male characters angst is that his species has a short lifespan due to a curse. He has a ton of trauma about his mom giving birth to his brothers and them either dying immediately or in utero. he wants to have kids and a family and love but he is terrified of passing on this curse. If he hooked up with a dude that wouldn't be a plot point.

Another npc is a sweet Lil cinnamonbun of a guy exclusively romancable by guys. If the pc doesn't go for him he'll fall for another npc. I think this is good because otherwise the only explicitly queer rep would be an evil depraved-bisexual type. (Who is my favorite, but still.)

Another is a lady who has been throughly sexualy harrased

[(Anonymous)]

I mean... sure, those are particular cases but let's not pretend that writers HAVE to give character's backstories that hinge strongly on their sexuality.

[(Anonymous)]

Whoops, sorry I got cut off and then distracted. The lady who was sexually harassed by men in her training camp so she left, changed jobs, and told all those jerks to fuck off. But she's still attracted only to men. Thus conflict! As a male PC you can romance her by by setting yourself apart from the jerks but still being the sort of squishy romantic she wants. It's kind of a tightrope and I remember loving it.

There are other reasons to lock a romance behind certain traits, mainly replay-ability, but it can also inform world building as well as character building.

So there's 3 instances where a character's specific sexuality helps create story.
Do they *have* to give them such traits? No. But they don't *have* to be fleshed out characters, they can be the sort of thin, stereotypical NPCs you seem to dislike about DA.

I guess ideally, in my perfect world, the majority of romanceable NPCs would be open to any gender but have other preferences. Lets see characters who only want to date a specific species or character type or magic user or ethnicity. Let's lock a romance behind hair color. Make an elf who's only interested in half-elves and a wizard who will NEVER bump pretties with a charisma based caster. Make all the gnomes and dwarves datable inside their height range is what I'm saying. Give NPCs reasons to turn me down besides not putting enough friendship tokens in yet.

[(Anonymous)]

Several of the romances in DA were in fact race locked because they couldn't figure out/couldn't be arsed to figure out the logistics of animating/programming the same cookie cutter romance scenes with drwaves (too short) and Qunari (too tall).

[(Anonymous)]

Your perfect world sounds like the ultimate dick move against the players. So I could slay dragons, gain confidence of rulers and accomplish all kinds of epic deeds regardless of who my character is, but if I want to have a romance I'd have to make a very specific character? Why even have options if you can't pick them? Why let players customize a character when that'll screw them over later in the game?

Dangling romance options in front of the players only to lock them behind bullshit is idiotic. Especially when everything else in the game is accomplishable regardless of gender/race/what-have-you.