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[Allan Schumacher]

Sexual orientation is not something that appears during romance but curls up quietly in a corner and sleeps everywhere else.

Why not?

Even in relationships with no explicit romance, there's a plethora of subtle cues and actions that I think have a significant effect.

What types of effects? This might be becoming a bit to related to real life. If so, I'll shift the discussion to PMs then.

[Allan Schumacher]

someguy1231 wrote...

Cry me a river for those people. I'm firmly of the belief that an RPG should offer significant enough deviations in content that experiencing all of it would require at least two full playthroughs. I had to do three full playthroughs and a partial fourth of DA:O to unlock all achievements and see all content and endings, but you don't see me whining about it.

The romances in DA2 do NOT undermine the requirement for you to have multiple playthroughs in order to experience all of the content.

In fact, if seeing all of the romances through to their end, as it stands, would it not require you to still play DA2 at least once for every romanceable character?


I understand that you like mutually exclusive choice, and the romances in DA2 are.  You can't complete all of the romances in a single playthrough, even if they are all open.

[Allan Schumacher]

The same reasons we might treat an inanimate object we find compelling differently than from one we don't. We find something good and desirable, we want to preserve it and be exposed to it. We don't necessarily have to, but it's natural and justified to do so. We can't appreciate beauty without that appreciation inevitably bleeding into our actions.

As for a concrete example, that's a bit tricky since it's going to vary a great deal from person to person and going to be hard to pin down anyway. I think a decent example would be that I would probably be more patient with someone I'm attracted to than someone who I'm not.

Okay, I understand what you are saying. How does that relate, specifically, to the idea of how orientation is played out in something like DA2?

I understand, and agree, that the aspect of someone feeling attracted to someone affects their behaviour. I don't see why that attraction, however, would be any different if someone was gay/bisexual/heterosexual. It just changes the potential targets of the affection.

[Allan Schumacher]

A world in which a player's gender matters only increases immersiveness and strengthens suspension of disbelief for me

As I did with David, please explain why this is the case.

[Allan Schumacher]

As I've been saying, I believe that in an RPG the player should feel like they're part of the world, not that the world revolves around them. If the world blocks certain content and opens up other content to me due to my class or race, that makes the world resonate with me because it makes the choices I made at the character creation page matter. The same principle applies to my character's gender.

In what ways do you prefer gender to matter? (List all of them, preferably).

[Allan Schumacher]

-Weapons or armor that can only be worn/used by a certain gender due to magic/enchantments/etc.

I'm going to cherry pick this one as it's easier to relate for this question. Would you prefer to have the following, even if it didn't align with the setting?


I guess where I've also been going with this is that, you're not interested in simply being rejected, but specifically that being rejected was attributed to your choice of sex?

What are your thoughts on how DAO did it?

[Allan Schumacher]

Yes, that is correct. It lets me know that my choice of gender matters, and reminds me that the world doesn't revolve around me.

Juuuust to be clear (since I may not have been), even if the distinction goes against the setting, you'd still want it?

I thought DAO handled it fairly well. Good examples include being able to do the Dark Ritual with Morrigan if you're male, becoming Queen with Alistair if you're a noble human female, unique flirtatious options with some characters, and other various dialogue options.

How about the situation with the romances?

Would you prefer a situation like DA2 (where it's possible on any given playthrough to have one romance), or DAO (where you're actively denied the choice of even trying)?

[Allan Schumacher]

DAO, without a doubt. While I appreciated that DA2 tried to make romances feel less like a shallow multiple-choice test, I still preferred DAO's approach of giving LIs clearly-established sexualities and also accounting for confrontations between simultaneous LIs.

Framed differently: You prefer not being given the option to do something?

Note that this isn't rejection, this is the game fundamentally denying you a choice.

Modifié par Allan Schumacher, 30 juin 2013 - 10:03 .

[Allan Schumacher]

someguy1231 wrote...

Yes, provided the game makes it clear that the option would be there if my gender/class/origin/etc were different, and also provides some other option in its place, which would also be mutually exclusive.

Did DAO make it clear?  In other words, was it internal (within the game) or external (forums, or something similar) that let you know that, say, Alistair could not be romanced by a male character?

[Allan Schumacher]

Fair enough.


Would it then be safe to say that, provided alternative situations for your sex to provide some level of unique content, that something like the DA2 romanceable characters would be less of an issue?

[Allan Schumacher]

But did the game make this clear for you before you had to make the choice of your player character's gender?

I don't think that that matters for him (which is fine). He just likes the idea that the character he chose to create has some level of unique content.

In some cases, like in Vampire: Bloodlines, it doesn't really advertise that if you play a Tremere, that you'll get a unique player home (it can probably be inferred, for the Nosferatu, however).

[Allan Schumacher]

Shinian2 wrote...


Personlly I'd prefer the rejection route in that case.

Just like in ME3, as I understand it. As  a male Shep you can make a pass at Traynor but will be politely rejected. I assume the same thing goes with Femshep and Cortez?

The rejection route wasn't an option provided.  I was asking if a player would prefer to have the option to romance any of the romanceable NPCs on a given playthrough, or to simply not even have the option to initiate at all.

Modifié par Allan Schumacher, 30 juin 2013 - 08:07 .

[Allan Schumacher]

I would not say the two are unrelated; Alistair can only be romanced by a female PC because his preference for females is a part of his character. You are correct in that the actual romanced part is the most important.

That's how you can choose to see it. Or you can see it as Alistair choosing to push someone he loved out of the way. That he happened to love a female doesn't make the fact that it's a female the cause. If Alistair were bisexual or homosexual, I'd still expect him to do the same for a male, because he's sacrificing himself for someone he loves.

On the other hand, does it not bother you about how Anders' relationship with Karl is depicted is based on sex rather than being a static thing (or if it is static, why would Anders choose not to mention it?  If Hawke is considering Anders, him being a Mage would probably be a bigger hurdle than previous sexual partners).

It actually doesn't bother me.  I can understand the Unfortunate Implications it may insinuate, but for myself I recognize that those scenes happen in different universes, since the only carry over is purely meta.  Wouldn't, however, this situation be just the type of thing you are looking for (different content based on sex)?

I suppose you are correct.  I simply prefer for a game to not alter itself to fit my character.  I feel that different solutions should be available for different characters; this includes subtle things like sex to more obvious things like class.  For example, look to Fallout 2.  A Female PC is able to sleep with the slaver boss to drastically reduce
the amount of money required to buy a quest important slave.  This option isn't available to male PCs.  I do not have a problem with this because it allows for more varied playthroughs.  Is that desire wrong?

If a game dev wants to go that way, that's fine.  It's also a product from a different era (and a game in a different setting).  In New Vegas, they do the same with Benny.  They also do the same with Ranger Knight, except in this case, only if the player is a homosexual.

Thing is, if the slaver were gay, I'd suspect that suddenly there'd be problems.  Although Fallout was much more open with this sort of stuff than other games.

Modifié par Allan Schumacher, 30 juin 2013 - 08:08 .

[Allan Schumacher]

Why would it be a problem if the male Chosen One was allowed to seduce the slaver boss? While FO2 only had a trait related to attracting the opposite sex, New Vegas had Confirmed Bachelor (which is arguably worse, given that in addition to opening up new dialog, you do more damage to male enemies).

It'd be a "problem" only insofar as my general disdain towards humanity

Although it's optional, and the game itself was still pretty niche. I have zero issues with Black Isle/Obsidian doing stuff like that.

[David Gaider]

I see we're on this topic again. I  haven't read through the thread, but since it always goes through the same opinions anyhow everytime this topic comes up, I'll repost my thoughts from here.

"Less interesting to watch is some of the commentary on Anders’ sexuality. Quite frequently on our forums someone will come along with a rant on how they hated how “all the followers in DA2 were bisexual". Sometimes you’ll even get someone who counters that by saying, no, they weren’t bisexual… the same-gender romance options were gay and the opposite-gender romance options were straight, depending on your player character. Most of the ire seems to center on the fact that Anders not only flirts with you if you pick the nice response options after his plot (how ghastly of him) but that the only way to turn him down is perceived as being harsh… which I don’t really think it is, but the bigger crime is evidently that he doesn’t like it and you get 10 whole Rivalry points for doing so. This is, as near as I can tell, the equivalent of kicking him in the head (despite the fact that you can get Anders to max Friendship in Act 1 alone about twice over, if you’re keen to) and thus inexcusable.

Now, there are three things about this that bother me. One, the double standard. I suppose in the future we should just suck up the fact that men hitting on men causes a lot more squick than women hitting on women… because nobody brings up Isabela hitting on female players without being flirted with first, only Anders. And those are the only two romance characters who do it. We talked about it and thought, “Why not? Seems fair." The reactions have sometimes been pretty funny, but overall probably not worth the trouble.

Two, that the perception of sexuality evidently dictates the reality. If a male character comments that a woman is attractive, for instance, he must immediately say that he also finds men attractive or he is Straight Forever and any future attraction to men is a ret-con of his character. He has become someone else completely, like he’s had a personality transplant. Indeed, some of the comments make me wonder if this is how these people would respond to the same situation in real life… some friend of theirs who they always thought was straight tells them they slept with someone of the same gender and they go, “What? You’re like some completely different person! How can you be both straight and gay, it makes no sense!" Probably.

Which leads me to my third thing: while I get that some people might not like the discovery that those followers can potentially romance either gender (something you can really only discover on subsequent playthroughs or by reading about it), a lot of the things people post on the subject is… awkward. “It makes the characters inconsistent." Meaning that… bisexuality itself is indicative of inconsistency? Only people who can’t make up their minds are bisexual? “It’s unrealistic that everyone is bisexual!" Which ‘everyone’? Everyone in Thedas? Or are we talking four people in your party of folks who already exceptional in a large number of ways, two of which have no sexual past or preferences that they even discuss with you? “It just made them seem like they were all sexually available to me!" So… was it having three romance options for any PC gender, just like in Origins, that threw you off? Or does the idea of potentially sleeping with either gender just make them seem inherently wanton to you?

I mean, come on. I’m sure not everyone actually feels this way, or means to sound as if they do, but much of the commentary on the topic seems to say way more about the commenter than the topic.

While some people evidently didn’t like having their perceptions played with, it was indeed just their perception. We wrote the characters the exact same way, all that changed was what you were exposed to. Even, yes, Anders. He did not suddenly become bisexual in DA2 compared to Awakening. I wrote him in Awakening. I remember the
conversation when I first saw Anders’ planned appearance in the expansion.

"Huh. He looks a little gay."

"I don’t think you can use that as an adjective."

"I can if I mean homosexual."

"Really? Is it the hair? The earring?"

"I’m not sure, but he pings like an aircraft carrier."

We laughed about it, and while it didn’t really matter for Awakening since there were no romance plots there anyhow it was definitely on my mind when I wrote him. I found it a little odd when people suggested that him commenting on women but not men meant he was straight. Which is fine, perception being what it is, but it certainly wasn’t avoided. It wasn’t like it was anywhere but my head, anyhow. But that’s why I didn’t consider it a big deal when it came up as a possibility for DA2. As far as I was concerned, nothing about that side of him had even been established.

And, yes, authorial intention doesn’t count for much. People perceive what they will, and perhaps we should have gone further to establish that part of those characters more explicitly. I’m just not sure what lengths I’d want to go to just to make some people more comfortable with the idea… because, as I suggested above, I’m not sure all the reasons they’re expressing for that discomfort are actually genuine.

Personally, were we given the resources to have enough romances that we could have an even spread of sexualities across the party I’d be more than happy to have those sexualities be explicit… but if the idea otherwise is to restrict those interested in gay romances from having the same number of options as others, then no. Fairness and fun gameplay win out."



That's really all I have to say on the topic. Fans can and will speculate, but the decision regarding what we're doing with DAI followers was made a long time ago and our stance on the importance of inclusiveness has not changed.

Modifié par David Gaider, 03 juillet 2013 - 06:03 .

[David Gaider]

Gotholhorakh wrote...
Any character, belonging to any of us may view homosexuality in any way they like, from "mmmm lick my beard bro" to "ew GTFO *stab*", and it would be morally neutral for the human being to choose it for their PC, and morally neutral for the developer to offer it.

Not quite. There is an element of responsibility which we must assume-- just because a choice could conceivably be made doesn't mean we should provide it, no matter how "morally neutral" one might believe such choices to be. Certainly in the context of our world, such neutrality simply does not exist outside of a privileged viewpoint.

Insofar as homosexuality goes, I would never propose that players be forced into a position where they must react favorably to it-- not in a game where choice exists, anyhow-- but I'm also not going to offer an "ew GTFO *stab*" option, either. If someone's looking for that in the name of "roleplaying", they should probably look elsewhere.

[David Gaider]

Yeah, I think we're done here.