57019 réponses à ce sujet

[kromify]

Teagan would have been a nice romance to have (simply as a better example than seb). Drama is wonderful but it doesn't have to derive from the LI's internal conflicts: external forces can be just as goodand means you are allowed a normal(ish) partner.

since this is the anders thread wouldn't it be cool if we had to rescue him from the gallows before he became tranq'd, or save him from crazy blood mages who couldn't locate a sib... oh wait.

[Arquen]

"I didn't think I was the damsel in distress type...." -- Oh, but you ARE my dear Anders. You so are...

[LT123]

Arquen wrote...

"I didn't think I was the damsel in distress type...." -- Oh, but you ARE my dear Anders. You so are...

Too bad Carver or Bethany has to die in the Deep Roads to get that dialogue. Awww.

It is pretty funny though.

Modifié par LT123, 09 septembre 2011 - 04:29 .

[Sherbet Lemon]

My Dear Anders Thread:

I have a question, well mostly just a clarification.  I'm finally working on my Andersmance, a rivalry one at that though she will most definitely side with the mages because she'll want to rescue Bethany and most of the time she side with the Templars to keep them away from her family.  Long story short:

1.  I have to flirt with Anders once before Dissent to initiate romance, correct?  My character Swaine's like ubervirtuous (well, sort of...it's complicated)  so she doesn't flirt willy-nily.

2.  Swaine's kind of a weirdo and might want to end the relationship at the Gallows in Act 3 (I don't know quite yet though, I'll see what she does when I get there ).  Can you do that in a rivalry?  I know I saw a video of it in Friendship (I think) on youtube.
 Have some love and cookies and kittens!  Thankee kindly and good day!  <3

[LT123]

Village Idiot wrote...

My Dear Anders Thread:

I have a question, well mostly just a clarification.  I'm finally working on my Andersmance, a rivalry one at that though she will most definitely side with the mages because she'll want to rescue Bethany and most of the time she side with the Templars to keep them away from her family.  Long story short:

1.  I have to flirt with Anders once before Dissent to initiate romance, correct?  My character Swaine's like ubervirtuous (well, sort of...it's complicated)  so she doesn't flirt willy-nily.

2.  Swaine's kind of a weirdo and might want to end the relationship at the Gallows in Act 3 (I don't know quite yet though, I'll see what she does when I get there ).  Can you do that in a rivalry?  I know I saw a video of it in Friendship (I think) on youtube.
 Have some love and cookies and kittens!  Thankee kindly and good day!  <3

No idea on 1. 2) Are you siding with the mages or templars? His speech is the same if you side with the mages-it makes no difference whether he's friended or rivaled (Bah!), so I'm fairly certain you can break up if you do that. On templar-siding rivalrymance, I don't know. Anders is so mentally screwed up at that point. Give me a minute and I'll load my game and check.

Edit: You can't break up at the Gallows on a templar-siding rivalmance. The worst you can do is tell him to stop complaining with the aggressive option.  This is probably because Anders makes it clear that he will either a) die in the battle or kill himself later because he can't live with himself.

There's your cheerful thought for the day.

Modifié par LT123, 09 septembre 2011 - 05:11 .

[Sherbet Lemon]

LT123 wrote...

No idea on 1. 2) Are you siding with the mages or templars? His speech is the same if you side with the mages-it makes no difference whether he's friended or rivaled (Bah!), so I'm fairly certain you can break up if you do that. On templar-siding rivalrymance, I don't know. Anders is so mentally screwed up at that point. Give me a minute and I'll load my game and check.

Edit: You can't. The worst you can do is tell him to stop complaining with the aggressive option, and even that one still gets you the "I will always love you" line and the kiss.

Hey, thanks for checking!  She's going to side with Mages, actually so I think that will work then!

[CulturalGeekGirl]

highcastle wrote...

CulturalGeekGirl wrote...

I understand how drama works. The thing is, with video game romances I... sort of disagree.

With video game romances, the romance doesn't have to carry the story 100%, and you can provide several different romance options. So you could, theoretically, try something completely cliche-breaking just to... see if it worked for people.

I'm always seeing writers say "well, you clearly don't want the same things in a fictional romance as you'd want in a non-fictional romance. It always has to follow that same arc of denial and incompatibility." Why? Has anyone ever actually tried it the other way, properly? I actually often find myself more interested in the "backup" couple in some stories... the ones who are allowed to be good together.

Sometimes when I'm at writers' panels for video games, I feel like they're too slavishly devoted to conventional hollywood or fictional story structure. Don't you understand... we don't have to do that! We're not movies! We can include a bizarre unconventional freak romance that is cute and stable, and see if anyone bites. Even a relatively cheap 20 million dollar movie can't do that! 

Now, I understand drama sometimes. I like me a good Cullen and Amell story. But based on the absolutely huge number of people who chose princess Cousland just because they heard that it resulted in the most drama-free ending... maybe people are ready for a romance that isn't conventionally dramatic.

BioWare RPGs tell stories that adhere to time-tested narrative devices. This isn't about copying Hollywood style, it's about sticking with what works in fiction. And that's all fiction. Literature, comic books, film, television, and--yes--video games. The only thing that sets us apart from the other mediums is interactivity.  I for one am not convinced that means our medium doesn't jibe with traditional narrative structure. Now, we could get into a discussion about how interactivity could potentially change the way the stories are being told, but that's a different topic. This issue seems to be what the story is to begin with.

I hear quite a bit from people who say "We just want a normal romance." The problem with normal, all-fluff-all-the-time is that it gets boring. Fast. Even though we might crave it in our real lives, it has very little place in fiction. A traditional story arc is built on rising tension. Things keep getting worse and worse and worse until it reaches the point where everything snaps. And while the romance plot is not the central plot of the game, it's still a plot and should adhere to that basic set-up. Why? Because rising action compels us to move forward. We're driven by a desire to see if things work out or to watch them fall apart.

Now, I'm not advocating that all stories become trite and formulaic. What I am saying is that certain conventions work. While I'm a huge fan of break-the-mold postmodernism, even the most out-there stuff I read and watch still contains dramatic tension. A plot that was all fluff, where the characters got what they want all the time and never had to fight for it or deal with disappointment or loss, is a plot that's just not very interesting. 

Besides, doesn't fighting for love and sacrificing for it make it that much more worthwhile? Doesn't it make the love interest that much more desirable because they're so hard to have and keep? Thinkg of game mechanics for a moment. When something is given to us at the outset with little to no effort on our part, how much do we care about it? But when we win it after fighting a dragon or beating that really tough boss fight, the reward is that much sweeter. In that regard, BioWare writes ideal romances for the video game medium. Instead of winning the love interests through traditional boss fights, we win them by overcoming personal and emotional hurdles. And sometimes we lose them in the same way.

I guess what I'm saying is: I for one don't think a non-dramatic romance can work in any fictional medium. At least I wouldn't be interested, anyway.

See, this is a perfect example of exactly what the problem is: you don't find this particular idea interesting, so you think nobody else will. So nobody ever gives it a decent try, except by accident, and then when that accident pays off they just say "oh but we could never do this on purpose. That last time was just a fluke." But then it happens again. And again. And again. I can't believe that the affection we feel for Garrus and Varric (wow, those names are really similar when I type them) is a fluke, rather I believe they tap into some unexplored need that a large number of people have, romance with them is something that people genuinely want to experience in a game.

Games can do things that don't work in books and movies not because the storytelling is so fundamentally different, but because of one of the fundamental strengths of the medium: options. If you go to a movie, that movie has all its romances set in stone. You can't say "oh, I want to see When in Rome, but make it about two boys!" You can, however, have the Anders romance be about two boys, if you want to, so that even though most gamers aren't terribly interested in a romance between two boys, they can offer the option. That's where the increased freedom comes in. In a game with four and a half romances, or in a game like ME2 with seven and three quarters romances, why can't one of them be different? That's really what I'm asking for: the occasional romance with a well-written best friend character. Yes I know I already have Garrus, and there's a strong reason why his is my favorite romance, even though there are other LIs who I like better in and of themselves: because the chemistry of Garrus's romance is beautiful and simple and has very little drama. And Guess what? Garrus was the most popular romance for female Shepard in ME2. Clearly there's an audience for this.

You say "Now, we could get into a discussion about how interactivity could potentially change the way the stories are being told, but that's a different topic. This issue seems to be what the story is to begin with." That's not the issue at all. It isn't the issue because when it comes to Bioware games and romance, variety already exists. I agree that most of the romances should be traditional angst arcs blah blah blah. I definitely believe that, probably 70-80%+ of them should be like that. The thing is, there's absolutely no reason that having those stories be like that would preclude another story from going a slightly different way. None whatsoever. You can tell one story and also tell another story. You can tell exactly the story you want told, Highcastle, and also tell the story that I want told, and they never have to touch. So I'm not talking about changing the way the story you want to play is told, and I'm not even really talking about interactivity "potentially" changing how story is told. I'm saying that it has already been changed. The idea of an RPG without a set love interest already exists. The idea of a game with several canon love interests with vastly different stories already exists. A game where you can romance your best friend and the only "drama" is that he's kind of awkward already exists! It's called the Mass Effect series, and it is amazing. Seriously, it's like the best game I've ever played.

The reason I say games can be different is that they are the only media where it's possible to use the tried and true dramatic techniques while simultaneously spending a small portion of your resources on trying something different... without any detriment whatsoever to the people who want the tried and true techniques! 

My go-to hypothetical is this: what if the resources for the Sebastian romance had been used for a Varric romance instead? Would that really have been such a huge risk? 

Here's why I think it works in Mass Effect (and would work in Dragon Age): the story has a conflict beyond the romance. You can experience a full arc without having a romance at all. I have a Shepard or two who do just that. In a movie where the main focus is the romance, you have to have all the usual stupid... which is probably why I hate 70% of romantic comedies. Shepard is already torn up about the fact that she died and now she's working for these crazy people and she has to save the unvierse again and nobody trusts her... and along comes the one person who trusts her implicitly, no matter what she does or says or decides. He doesn't have a dead wife, he's not stressed about the fact that he's your subordinate, he's not worried he'll hurt you, he doesn't have some kind of crazy amnesia thing, he's not sworn to chastity, he's just there; he's your rock. He's my rock regardless of whether or not I romance him, just like Varric, and Hawke honestly has a harder time than Shep, in a lot of ways.

Stuff happens to Hawke, no matter what. He loses (or semi-loses) a sibling no matter what, he loses his mother no matter what, Kirkwall descends into chaos and he has to flee, no matter what. That's drama enough. Sure it's fun to do it with a beautifully broken man who you lack the skills to fix trailing along beside you, but it'd be a different journey with a pair of strong arms and a gentle laugh to fall back on. Different but not, for me, any less interesting.

If I were to write a Varric romance, I'd do the dialogue choices a bit differently. In all the main romances, dialogues are about facing the other person's issues, and pushing them toward dealing with those issues in a certain way. With Varric, I'd make it about Hawke, because Varric always makes it about Hawke. It would be up to the player whether they want this to be a fluffy "Us against this crazy town" double act, or whether they want to have Hawke tell Varric that sometimes she has problems of her own, and have Varric be the one who soaks up Hawke's drama, like Hawke does for all the other LIs. This is similar to the one thing in the ME Jacob romance that everone thinks is awesome, even people who don't like Jacob: he's the one LI that asks Shepard how she's actually feeling, and she can choose to actually tell someone else about her problems for once. It's an interesting moment, and one that I think Varric could handle infinitely more interestingly than Jacob... because he has a real reason to ask. He could couch it in terms of wanting to know her motivation, and explore her inner conflict, but it's really because he loves her. For me, that's interesting, even if it isn't angsty.

I love fictonal romances that are about mutal support during a time of crisis, or discovering strength in each other. This is why I fall in love with pretty much every boy that Pratchett ever writes... a lot of his romances are "boy meets girl, boy and girl realize they're probably quite good together, boy and girl resolve to survive all the bullcrap they're about to be put through, hopefully functional enough to be together in the end." The drama comes from the bullcrap they're about to be put through. Or, even better, sometimes the story starts with them wanting to be together but not having the emotional maturity to do so. As they go through crap, they develop that emotional maturity, and then get together. It's lovely.

If you think Schmendrick and Molly Grue don't work, Scott Free and Big Barda, Wash and Zoe, Haruka and Michiru, Isabella and Fenris, that's fine, I think all those romances exist in fiction, work well, and can be as meaningful and memorable as the other relationships they happen to share the spotlight with. In all of those romances, the fight in their fight to stay together is a fight against the outside world... the "man versus nature" version of a relationship struggle. And that's what Shep and Garrus, or Hawke and Varric could have too: the stumbling point isn't your man's issues, or your own (unless you want to RP it that way), rather it's the fact that everyone is always trying to murder you.

Modifié par CulturalGeekGirl, 09 septembre 2011 - 08:28 .

[AndreaDraco]

berelinde wrote...


By pyromaniac03

Beautiful!

[highcastle]

CulturalGeekGirl wrote...

See, this is a perfect example of exactly what the problem is: you don't find this particular idea interesting, so you think nobody else will. So nobody ever gives it a decent try, except by accident, and then when that accident pays off they just say "oh but we could never do this on purpose. That last time was just a fluke." But then it happens again. And again. And again. I can't believe that the affection we feel for Garrus and Varric (wow, those names are really similar when I type them) is a fluke, rather I believe they tap into some unexplored need that a large number of people have, romance with them is something that people genuinely want to experience in a game.

I can't respond to every point right now because I'm off to school and don't have the time. But I want to at least address this one. People have tried to write romances without conflict before. Look at a lot of Mary Sue or self-insert fanfics, for instance. You don't see it very often in professionally published materal because it's not interesting. That's not my opinion alone. That's been the consensus of readers and literary critics for a long time. Like, going back to Aristotle and The Poetics long time. There should be some manner of conflict.

There's no use bringing Varric into this because he's not a love interest. His relationship lacks friction with Hawke because the role he fills is that of a loyal sidekick. People might clamor for him as a romance option, but because it's never been implemented, we really can't use him as an example of a no-drama romance. He's not a romance at all.

I personally haven't played the Garrus romance. I've watched clips of it on YT, though. The difference here is not that there's no drama, but that much of the conflict comes from external forces. Cerberus and the Reapers provide a bigger threat to Shepard than emotional issues at the moment. That allows the writers to use these external plot devices to keep the romantic pair at arm's length or even separated (a la the ME1 love interests). In DA2, the threat is much smaller. The game's scope is restricted to Hawke's life and his personal connections, not to saving the galaxy or even the world. This means the conflict has to come from within--both within Hawke and within his love interests. If there's nothing keeping them apart or keeping them from being fully committed--such as the Reapers and Cerberus in ME2--then there's no rising tension to keep players involved with the story or interested in moving forward.

Again, this is not just opinion. This is how narratives work. You need conflict to drive the story.

[ladyofpayne]

www.youtube.com/watch 
The best kiss ever.

[CulturalGeekGirl]

highcastle wrote...

CulturalGeekGirl wrote...

See, this is a perfect example of exactly what the problem is: you don't find this particular idea interesting, so you think nobody else will. So nobody ever gives it a decent try, except by accident, and then when that accident pays off they just say "oh but we could never do this on purpose. That last time was just a fluke." But then it happens again. And again. And again. I can't believe that the affection we feel for Garrus and Varric (wow, those names are really similar when I type them) is a fluke, rather I believe they tap into some unexplored need that a large number of people have, romance with them is something that people genuinely want to experience in a game.

I can't respond to every point right now because I'm off to school and don't have the time. But I want to at least address this one. People have tried to write romances without conflict before. Look at a lot of Mary Sue or self-insert fanfics, for instance. You don't see it very often in professionally published materal because it's not interesting. That's not my opinion alone. That's been the consensus of readers and literary critics for a long time. Like, going back to Aristotle and The Poetics long time. There should be some manner of conflict.

There's no use bringing Varric into this because he's not a love interest. His relationship lacks friction with Hawke because the role he fills is that of a loyal sidekick. People might clamor for him as a romance option, but because it's never been implemented, we really can't use him as an example of a no-drama romance. He's not a romance at all.

I personally haven't played the Garrus romance. I've watched clips of it on YT, though. The difference here is not that there's no drama, but that much of the conflict comes from external forces. Cerberus and the Reapers provide a bigger threat to Shepard than emotional issues at the moment. That allows the writers to use these external plot devices to keep the romantic pair at arm's length or even separated (a la the ME1 love interests). In DA2, the threat is much smaller. The game's scope is restricted to Hawke's life and his personal connections, not to saving the galaxy or even the world. This means the conflict has to come from within--both within Hawke and within his love interests. If there's nothing keeping them apart or keeping them from being fully committed--such as the Reapers and Cerberus in ME2--then there's no rising tension to keep players involved with the story or interested in moving forward.

Again, this is not just opinion. This is how narratives work. You need conflict to drive the story.

Bah, editing this to try to be a bit less upset.

This post pretty much proves you've misunderstood everything I've said, which may be my fault for being insufficiently clear. I've given several literary examples in this thread of relationships where the conflict is external rather than internal, and it should be pretty clear that that's what I'm referring to. I rarely get angry, but if you don't have time to  read carefully, perhaps you could refrain from comparing something to a Mary Sue? Blarg, sorry to sound so upset, that just... Mary Sue is rather overused as a cudgel these days, an easy way to dismiss any work you dislike. I hate true Mary Sues as much as the next person, but not everything is a Sue.

My argument is NOT that a story with no conflict is interesting. I've never thought that and I thought I'd gone out of my way to state it directly. Rather, my argument is and always has been that the romantic relationship specifically does not have to be the main source of conflict in a story. Starting from there, someone like Varric could be a LI without changing anything about his character. The original argument was that he could not, that you'd have to change him into someone who had some internal reason not to be with Hawke in order to make him an LI, due to the constraints of structure.

I am not, and nobody here is arguing for a story without some kind fo a conflict. That's a complete straw man.

My argument was that someone stable and supportive like Varric could be written as a LI in a Bioware game without giving him some personality flaw that makes him pull away from Hawke. This is possible because, like with Garrus, the conflicts outside the romance are sufficient to create the conflict necessary to sustain interest.

When people say "I just want a normal romance" they aren't saying they want a story with no problems. Rather, they're usually saying that the non-romance plot already provides enough conflict, and they'd be interested in seeing a story in which two sane people support each other to make it through a conflict, rather than one where there's a conflict which is worsened by your significant other being really angsty or crazy.

Modifié par CulturalGeekGirl, 09 septembre 2011 - 04:25 .

[Collider]

I have to agree that Garrus is an example of a romance with no real major conflicts yet is quite popular. Although I would also wager that a lot if not most of that has to do with Garrus himself rather then the specific content of his romance.

I also think that there are two sides for this issue. The Dragon AGe 2 writers seem to want lots of drama in their romance. Merrill and possibly Isabela (haven't done Isabela's romance yet) don't seem to have quite as much compared to the other two, but it's still there. So if a dramatic love story is what they're going for in DA2, would Varric really fit that? Would outside conflict be enough to fill the drama standard that the other romances have? Perhaps not.

That said, I don't like the idea that relatively drama-free romances (meaning, drama from the romance rather than outside) would necessarily be boring. Mary Sues romances are boring because the characters are boring and the dynamic between the characters are superficial. However, Bioware games tend to have decent characters (or at least not terrible) so it doesn't seem very applicable.

I also think there's a difference between a romance and a love story.

[CulturalGeekGirl]

Collider wrote...

I have to agree that Garrus is an example of a romance with no real major conflicts yet is quite popular. Although I would also wager that a lot if not most of that has to do with Garrus himself rather then the specific content of his romance.

This is very true. It also makes a point it seems I've been failing to make.

The original thread that raises this issue said something like this: look at Garrus and Varric. It seems like every time Bioware creates a best friend character, everyone ends up wanting to romance them. So why not have someone write a best friend character without telling them it'll be a romance, and then have them add in the romance at the end, changing the character as little as possible. A BW writer responded that it would be impossible to have a romance with Varric without changing him. That's what breaks my brain.

I often feel like Garrus and Varric have the ability to be so brotastic and awesome and unique because they were written without  having to fit into the very narrow confines that Bioware seems to have created to contain their LIs. You can create something awesome within those confines, too, but I don't see why they must be so incredibly narrow.

Ok, one more edit, then back to work: I don't even think that every awesome and attractive character should be a romance. I actually like it when an awesome character isn't attracted to the main character, for whatever reason. I think it adds pathos. I don't even necessarily think that Varric needed to be a love interest (though I would have greatly enjoyed that). What I object to is the idea that a character like Varric has no place as a romance, without major revisions to who he is fundamentally.

Modifié par CulturalGeekGirl, 09 septembre 2011 - 05:17 .

[highcastle]

CulturalGeekGirl wrote...

highcastle wrote...

CulturalGeekGirl wrote...

See, this is a perfect example of exactly what the problem is: you don't find this particular idea interesting, so you think nobody else will. So nobody ever gives it a decent try, except by accident, and then when that accident pays off they just say "oh but we could never do this on purpose. That last time was just a fluke." But then it happens again. And again. And again. I can't believe that the affection we feel for Garrus and Varric (wow, those names are really similar when I type them) is a fluke, rather I believe they tap into some unexplored need that a large number of people have, romance with them is something that people genuinely want to experience in a game.

I can't respond to every point right now because I'm off to school and don't have the time. But I want to at least address this one. People have tried to write romances without conflict before. Look at a lot of Mary Sue or self-insert fanfics, for instance. You don't see it very often in professionally published materal because it's not interesting. That's not my opinion alone. That's been the consensus of readers and literary critics for a long time. Like, going back to Aristotle and The Poetics long time. There should be some manner of conflict.

There's no use bringing Varric into this because he's not a love interest. His relationship lacks friction with Hawke because the role he fills is that of a loyal sidekick. People might clamor for him as a romance option, but because it's never been implemented, we really can't use him as an example of a no-drama romance. He's not a romance at all.

I personally haven't played the Garrus romance. I've watched clips of it on YT, though. The difference here is not that there's no drama, but that much of the conflict comes from external forces. Cerberus and the Reapers provide a bigger threat to Shepard than emotional issues at the moment. That allows the writers to use these external plot devices to keep the romantic pair at arm's length or even separated (a la the ME1 love interests). In DA2, the threat is much smaller. The game's scope is restricted to Hawke's life and his personal connections, not to saving the galaxy or even the world. This means the conflict has to come from within--both within Hawke and within his love interests. If there's nothing keeping them apart or keeping them from being fully committed--such as the Reapers and Cerberus in ME2--then there's no rising tension to keep players involved with the story or interested in moving forward.

Again, this is not just opinion. This is how narratives work. You need conflict to drive the story.

Bah, editing this to try to be a bit less upset.

This post pretty much proves you've misunderstood everything I've said, which may be my fault for being insufficiently clear. I've given several literary examples in this thread of relationships where the conflict is external rather than internal, and it should be pretty clear that that's what I'm referring to. I rarely get angry, but if you don't have time to  read carefully, perhaps you could refrain from comparing something to a Mary Sue? Blarg, sorry to sound so upset, that just... Mary Sue is rather overused as a cudgel these days, an easy way to dismiss any work you dislike. I hate true Mary Sues as much as the next person, but not everything is a Sue.

My argument is NOT that a story with no conflict is interesting. I've never thought that and I thought I'd gone out of my way to state it directly. Rather, my argument is and always has been that the romantic relationship specifically does not have to be the main source of conflict in a story. Starting from there, someone like Varric could be a LI without changing anything about his character. The original argument was that he could not, that you'd have to change him into someone who had some internal reason not to be with Hawke in order to make him an LI, due to the constraints of structure.

I am not, and nobody here is arguing for a story without some kind fo a conflict. That's a complete straw man.

My argument was that someone stable and supportive like Varric could be written as a LI in a Bioware game without giving him some personality flaw that makes him pull away from Hawke. This is possible because, like with Garrus, the conflicts outside the romance are sufficient to create the conflict necessary to sustain interest.

When people say "I just want a normal romance" they aren't saying they want a story with no problems. Rather, they're usually saying that the non-romance plot already provides enough conflict, and they'd be interested in seeing a story in which two sane people support each other to make it through a conflict, rather than one where there's a conflict which is worsened by your significant other being really angsty or crazy.

I apologize if I misinterpreted. However, I think you're missing my main point here. There's a difference between a game like DA2 and one like ME2 or even DAO. You say thre are conflicts outside the romance sufficient to create enough conflict to sustain interest, but I disagree on some level. See, DA2 is a character-driven game while ME2 is plot-driven.

Plot driven narratives are more like action films. There's an identifiable bad guy, a goal to stop them, and obstacles in the way. ME2 and DAO both fit that bill. The romances could be a bit lighter in tone and still create a sense of tension. In DA2, however, the story is more about who Hawke is as a person. This is more akin to literary fiction or a drama film. Hence the reason why there's so much focus on the quiet moments between the action scenes: Hawke dealing with the death of his mother and the loss of his siblings, etc. There's also a greater focus than ever on the love interests. They have so much more banter about their romances, more characters comment on the relationship, and two of the love interests can even move in. All of it's designed to elicit a specific emotional response. Why? Because that's how DA2's story moves forward, via character interactions rather than boss fights.

Thus, I have to disagree that there are enough external conflicts for a light and fluffy romance to work. I don't think there are. It's not that type of narrative. The game is about who Hawke is as a person and how his life basically falls apart in a lot of ways. To give him one area of his life which is nice and normal and has no tension would cheapen the impact of his other losses.

So yes, there are narratives where a romance like Garrus' would work. This just isn't one of them.

[SurelyForth]

@highcastle

While I understand why you feel the way you do, I think that more people would have enjoyed DA2 if there was an area of Hawke's life that wasn't total ****. Or if they had the choice to partake in a relationship with someone obviously normal instead of being offered four flavors of varying strength inadvisable to choose from. And it would not take away from your appreciation of the game in any way shape or form, because you could still choose the abomination and all that anguish. I think THAT'S what CGG wants. Just like the main LIs being available for every Hawke, this would be additional and optional content that would only effect the people who choose to partake of it.

And I strenuously disagree that ALL of Hawke's life sucking needs to be a thing, or that even a normal relationship (I don't think "light and fluffy" is a serious consideration) can't have its moments of character driven tension. It just doesn't have to be devastating personal woe, because not everyone is into that all the time.

Modifié par SurelyForth, 09 septembre 2011 - 07:49 .

[CulturalGeekGirl]

One of my favorite drama films in the last few years... I hesitate to call it a romance or a romantic comedy, even though it primarily focuses on the relationship between two people... was called Away We Go. It was about a married couple traveling the country, trying to find a place to raise their kid, a place they could really call home. Just reading the summary of that movie on wikipedia makes me tear up a bit. It was a well-done, decently regarded comedic drama with a couple who were inherently compatible and in love the entire time. The conflict was subtle and quiet too... two people trying to find where they belonged in the world.

I'm saying that it's entirely possible to have an interesting relationship with a fully-functioning human being in a character-driven story: it just puts the spotlight on whichever character is going through more emotional stress.

If Hawke didn't lose a sibling (or at least sort of lose/fail them in some way) and a parent, if Hawke didn't go through a bunch of personal changes, it would be much more difficult for me to make this argument. That's the great thing about Hawke's story: it inherently contains enough progression for Hawke that it would be possible to write a romance that is about the issues Hawke is dealing with. It would have to be a lot subtler though.

The Anders relationship is many things, but one thing that it is not is subtle. The influence it has on Hawke is clear: either it helps to radicalize Hawke, or leaves him feeling betrayed at the end, or both. A Varric relationship would be more about making the player think critically about themselves, or their own Hawke.

Light and Dark aren't the terms that I believe define the differences between these two kinds of relationships. Maybe "noisy versus quiet" is better. Even that doesn't really address the matter of focus. For me, the idea is more about whether the relationship focuses on dealing with someone else's issues or Hawke's. Anders makes Hawke deal with Anders. Fenris makes Hawke deal with Fenris's problems. Varric could make Hawke deal with Hawke. All the other LIs are about how you feel about them, about helping or affecting them in some way, about dealing with what they do to you. A relationship with Varric would be much, much subtler: it would be about Varric helping Hawke process the internal changes Hawke is going through as a result of losing her family, rising in status, yet feeling helpless to really make a solid difference in Kirkwall. I think it could completely ameliorate a great deal of the dislike of Hawke as well, giving players the ability to express their frustration with their lack of influence over the world, and giving us a trusted voice offering good explanations as to why that might be.

Right now the relationship conversations are couched in this structure:

LI: I have many problems!
Hawke: Offers some way of thinking about or dealing with those problems
LI: I guess that helps some, but woe is still me.

In my proposed Varric-mance, the relationship convos would take on this structure:

Varric: So Hawke, how do you feel about what's just happened to you?
Hawke: (can either brush it off or express some short statement about her emotional status)
Varric: Makes an affectionate joke, offers insight into Hawke's situation, based on Hawke's reaction.

The current relationships are about giving the LI a safe place to take down their walls. Varric's would be about giving Hawke a safe place where she doesn't have to be the strong one, and can take her walls down, if she so chooses. A small minority of players might choose to play a jokey, brush off Hawke who is always cheerful, but that would be their choice. The main purpose of a Varric romance would be to put the focus on Hawke as a character, rather than on one of the companions.

[Skadi_the_Evil_Elf]

Hell, I wouldn't care if the ditched actual romances all together. So long as there is still ample opportunities for one night stands, brief but ill fated love affairs, flings, and endless demented sexual encounters at brothels.

I mean, I was seriously disappointed with the Blooming Rose. For shame. Not a nug, whip, scarecrow, or tranny dwarf in sight. Pheh.

[berelinde]

Don't get me started.

There was a time when I was all about the sex. Seriously. But now? Forget it! Do you want the romantic content of your game to be nothing but

Cross-dresssing dwarf: Hey, sugar.
PC: I'd hit that.
Cross-dressing dwarf: 40 silver
PC: (zipper sound)

C'mon! And that was actually 75% more dialogue than they had in a typical Blooming Rose Encounter!

No, I hope they keep doing romances, and what's more, I hope they continue to emphasize the emotional aspect of it over the physical bumpin' uglies, because really, they just don't write bumpin' uglies all that well.

[CulturalGeekGirl]

Oh man, I have a huge post brewing in me on fanfiction vs. professionally written erotica, and the inherent value of leaving the steamy bits up to the ficcers. Maybe someday I'll be brave enough to write it.

[berelinde]

CulturalGeekGirl wrote...

Oh man, I have a huge post brewing in me on fanfiction vs. professionally written erotica, and the inherent value of leaving the steamy bits up to the ficcers. Maybe someday I'll be brave enough to write it.

No, you're probably right. In a mainstream game setting, there's no really good way to work "tumulescent orbs" into conversation.

Seriously, though, I do know what you mean. If it's going into a game/novel/film/etc, it needs to meet certain standards. Understood. And just as seriously, it is possible to write mature fanfic without it turning into Celebrian. I know there's a lot of carp out there, but there are a lot of talented writers doing fanfic as well.

[CulturalGeekGirl]

It's not just that. To write a short and hopefully not too embarrassing summary, a while ago I attended a conference where a well-regarded writer of romance novels was talking about how to write romance novels that would be commercially successful. One of the pieces of advice was about the types of activities that should be included.

She said she didn't just write about stuff she personally liked... rather she either included simply fairly generic and universal acts, or felt she had to throw in just about everything.

Fic seems to work in the opposite way: it's quite often people writing about things they very specifically find interesting, tailored to almost microscopically specific tastes. Because of that, and because there are a thousand Anders stories written to a thousand different tastes, there's an assurance that pretty much everyone will find what they're looking for somewhere.

If you're writing for a mass market, you have to go either shallow or broad to ensure you appeal to a wide enough audience. With fic there's no need to ensure that you can appeal to ten thousand people, so there's more freedom to appeal very strongly to a smaller number.

[berelinde]

Aha, gotcha. But I would still argue that the best of one is not consistently dissimilar to the best of another. No matter who the reader is or who the characters involved are, there will be some common ground. A scene will invoke emotions that are part of the general human condition. Not so focused on the details, more on what's going on in the various characters' heads. Something may make the reader cringe and say "Oh, Maker, I remember being that awkward." Or "Yes, that's exactly how I felt when I found out that my sister was sleeping with my boyfriend." Or at least, that's what I hope would happen.

These conferences must be interesting. It would be enlightening to discuss the theory of writing rather than just trying to scrape together half an hour to just sit down and do some. As an aside, I was hired one time to give a lecture on medieval castle life to a group of romance writers. The questions were interesting. What would people wear to bed, what did they do about elimination before modern plumbing, how much privacy could people expect, what kind of bed linens did people use, type and color of undergarments, that kind of thing. I probably learned as much from the questions as they did.

[Addai]

highcastle wrote...

Thus, I have to disagree that there are enough external conflicts for a light and fluffy romance to work. I don't think there are. It's not that type of narrative. The game is about who Hawke is as a person and how his life basically falls apart in a lot of ways. To give him one area of his life which is nice and normal and has no tension would cheapen the impact of his other losses.

So yes, there are narratives where a romance like Garrus' would work. This just isn't one of them.

And goes overboard into melodrama, IMO.

I would have enjoyed the story a lot more had it been dialed down more than a few notches.  Varric is an awesome character, he- like Garrus- is from a different cultural background than the PC which is built-in tension (if not "OMG we can't be together because..." tension), and personally, I'd hit that hairy dwarf like the hammer of Thor.  This is one case where I think the talented writers made a misjudgement.

[maxernst]

CulturalGeekGirl wrote...

highcastle wrote...

CulturalGeekGirl wrote...

BioWare RPGs tell stories that adhere to time-tested narrative devices. This isn't about copying Hollywood style, it's about sticking with what works in fiction. And that's all fiction. Literature, comic books, film, television, and--yes--video games. The only thing that sets us apart from the other mediums is interactivity.  I for one am not convinced that means our medium doesn't jibe with traditional narrative structure. Now, we could get into a discussion about how interactivity could potentially change the way the stories are being told, but that's a different topic. This issue seems to be what the story is to begin with.

Games can do things that don't work in books and movies not because the storytelling is so fundamentally different, but because of one of the fundamental strengths of the medium: options. If you go to a movie, that movie has all its romances set in stone. You can't say "oh, I want to see When in Rome, but make it about two boys!" You can, however, have the Anders romance be about two boys, if you want to, so that even though most gamers aren't terribly interested in a romance between two boys, they can offer the option. That's where the increased freedom comes in. In a game with four and a half romances, or in a game like ME2 with seven and three quarters romances, why can't one of them be different? That's really what I'm asking for: the occasional romance with a well-written best friend character. Yes I know I already have Garrus, and there's a strong reason why his is my favorite romance, even though there are other LIs who I like better in and of themselves: because the chemistry of Garrus's romance is beautiful and simple and has very little drama. And Guess what? Garrus was the most popular romance for female Shepard in ME2. Clearly there's an audience for this.

If you think Schmendrick and Molly Grue don't work, Scott Free and Big Barda, Wash and Zoe, Haruka and Michiru, Isabella and Fenris, that's fine, I think all those romances exist in fiction, work well, and can be as meaningful and memorable as the other relationships they happen to share the spotlight with. In all of those romances, the fight in their fight to stay together is a fight against the outside world... the "man versus nature" version of a relationship struggle. And that's what Shep and Garrus, or Hawke and Varric could have too: the stumbling point isn't your man's issues, or your own (unless you want to RP it that way), rather it's the fact that everyone is always trying to murder you.

I have to agree with CGG here.  The fact that you have options does make a difference in what kinds of narratives are satisfying.  If I were writing the events of DA:O as a novel, there's no way I would choose a Dark Ritual ending because it's inconclusive and lacks a dramatic finish.  It's bland--which is why my DA:O fanfic is post-blight.  Pretty much any other ending is full of dramatic possibilities. But when I'm playing a game, the best ending is the one in which my choices make the most sense for my character.  Whether it would work as another form of narrative doesn't matter, because it's solely for my enjoyment; it's my personal story.  I didn't romance any of the characters in DA2 because I couldn't imagine why my character would have any desire to--well, maybe Isabela, but she ran off on me at the end of Act 2.  He didn't like Anders or Fenris, and didn't trust Merrill.  Varric would have been someone I could see him being attracted to.

And I agree also that conflict is essential in a romantic relationship, if that's the focus of the story, because all stories need conflict.  But there's plenty of conflict in any Bioware RPG, regardless of how the romances play out.
Plus, gotta love you for the Peter S. Beagle reference.  I adore his writing.

Modifié par maxernst, 10 septembre 2011 - 02:17 .

[AndreaDraco]

Amondra wrote...

 

I missed it! Hilarious!