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[Maugrim]

OOC: I can't believe this hasn't been posted yet I don't see it...so apologies in advance if it's old news.


Extra Punctuation: Roleplaying Homosexual in Dragon Age 2

It was with some interest that I read that there were people complaining about there being too many gay people in Dragon Age 2, no doubt preceding their words with the phrase "I'm not homophobic, but." For all of Dragon Age 2's problems, that shouldn't be one of them. By my count, as a male protagonist, there are three girls you can mess around with, and only two boys who are up for sausage sandwiches. And it's easy enough to simply not pursue any saucy flirts with anyone you're not into. Are there men so insecure that they're offended by fictional gay men coming onto their fictional avatars? Surely at worst it's just a nice compliment and you can then politely set them straight, if that's not anunfortunate choice of words.

David Gaider's statement that the romances in DA2 are intended for "everyone" struck a chord with me, because I already intended to write a column about my personal experience with the romances in the game. I think David's statement goes deeper than he may have intended - any player of any sexuality can enjoy any of the romances in the game.

Yahtzee doesn't seem to be the type to like romances of any stripes so it was intersting to see him be so seemingly supportive.

Modifié par makenzieshepard, 06 avril 2011 - 12:15 .

[David Gaider]

That is the BEST thing I've read today. 

An incredible array of euphamisms for gay men in there, I have to admit.

It's also an excellent point. I've said before that our telemetry shows more people using this content than many assume-- and the only interpretation to draw from it is that there are more gay players than anyone believes or many people who are not gay themselves are perfectly willing to roleplay it in a game.

[David Gaider]

Demon Velsper wrote...
And this telemetry is from DA:O? The game that had an achievement/trophy for romancing all characters? I can tell you this much: had the game not required Zevran romance for 100% trophies you would have had at least one less male/male romance in your telemetry.

I don't doubt that's a part of it, and we're aware of that, but considering Zevran need not be romanced by a male character in order to get the achievement anyone who did so "unwillingly" has only themselves to blame.

I'm on record in other threads as supporting the full
range of romance options and permutations in gaming. I also feel that
in the case of Meril and fenris that the 'hawke-a sexual concept did not
(to me anyway) fit their personas. It came across as: 'wow hawk is
cool' I think i want to fumble around in our combat gear now', at
worsed. AT best it came across as been open to experamentation because
thay trust him/her.

I will say that one element of the reaction to this I find interesting is the idea that so many people believe a character's sexuality actually changes because their exposure to it changes.

Anders isn't any different a person in a game with a male PC or a female PC, for instance, yet some people seem to think that because he doesn't mention his relationship with Karl to a female player it must never have happened... and he is therefore 100% straight as opposed to being 100% gay if it is mentioned. While the point of that is indeed to leave it free for the player to interpret for themselves, the part I find interesting is the assumption that the characters' personalities are somehow written differently based on the circumstance. I suspect that says a lot about how some people actually think about sexuality, which is if anything an interesting behavior to observe in the community.

Also i'd be very interested in your thoughts
with regaurd to disablity and sexuality in games. sexuality and
disablity are widly considered taboo subjects. More so than orentation,
athough if you combine all three it would be really explosive!

I think the issue with disability in games is that it's hard to combine it with the fact that game characters need to be very mobile. And if you include ways to trivialize that disability in-game (ie. "he levitates all the time so the fact he can't walk is irrelevant") then it's no longer a disability but something between tokenism and a character quirk. Provided that can be worked around, I'd say it's a non-issue... so long as there is something to recommend the character as a character other than the fact they possess a disability. If not, then you're definitely venturing into tokenism territory... in which case you're going to look incredibly insensitive.

Modifié par David Gaider, 06 avril 2011 - 02:54 .

[David Gaider]

Addai67 wrote...
I imagine part of that is because you posted somewhere along the line, before it was confirmed they would all be available for both genders as romance options, that your least favorite approach would be to have all the LIs bisexual.  Maybe what you meant is to have them openly talking about bisexual history, or hitting on the PC.  But it ended up that there was a lot of debate on the forum about whether the LIs are actually all bisexual characters or whether their orientation changes subjectively based on the player.  The fact that Anders doesn't talk about his relationship with Karl to a female PC reinforces this ambiguity.

The ambiguity is there specifically for that purpose. The only weakness, speaking from my viewpoint as a writer, is that we need to focus on other things with the character... we can't really go into detail on their sexual history without sacrificing that ambiguity (or doing some heavy branching). It turned out, however, that this doesn't nearly need to be as big a part of a character's personality as one might think. I know, right? Go figure.

I'm simply saying that what I find interesting is how many people assume the sexuality is literally subjective... as in reality itself changes to accomodate the player... when the characters are in fact written to be no different. One always assumes that players live in a very self-centered universe, but it's interesting to see it taken to the extent where some people are upset at the perception of the characters as different people and calling it invalidating even when it's their own doing.

Anyhow. It's simply interesting.

Modifié par Luke Barrett, 06 avril 2011 - 05:45 .