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It’s interesting, I have gone on my own little journey about romanceable NPCs getting together if the PC doesn’t romance them. I started off being strongly positive about them because I felt that it was a way of showing NPCs having agency outside of the PC (which I think I mentioned in the other thread @Havenstone linked to). That was part of why I did it in a couple of my games and I am happy with it in general because I think it fit the atmosphere.

With other projects I’ve become less enthusiastic about spending the effort on it though. Partly because of realising how many people have strong feelings about it in the other direction, and partly because I’ve been leaning towards other ways of showing NPC agency (shared/conflicting values, rivalries, friendships, personal goals, them dealing with problems in their life etc). And… partly because it is a lot of branching and effort - it is always fiddly tracking who’s with who under what circumstances. Though I love making obscure paths that few people will see, in some cases I feel more interested in making those paths something other than NPC-NPC romance.

I will likely go in the other direction again in the future, depending on what works for the project, but for Honor Bound I have really enjoyed focusing on developing NPC-NPC friendships and other kinds of relationship rather than them getting together romantically.

All that said, I do still disagree that NPC-NPC romances represent authors considering that relationship a secret “canon” or OTP. (Speaking for myself, at least - I don’t consider any branches canon, whatever they are, because they’re not seen by every player on every playthrough.) I totally understand not wanting to feel like a third wheel though!

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I don’t care if people call me toxic, I’m 100% against the idea of ROs dating anyone other than MC.

When I romance someone in a game, I want our relationship to feel special, like we are meant to be with each other. It might sound silly, but it is fiction - I don’t want something boring and ‘realistic’, I want something epic and dramatic instead. If RO could easily fall in love with someone else from our circle of friends/acquaintance/colleagues, was our relationship really that special to begin with? I don’t think so.

If we’re talking about how ROs finding other partners is realistic, think about this: usually, unromanced ROs start relationship with other characters only after MC is already locked-in with their chosen RO. It’s not very realistic, is it? Realistically, if the MC is extremely shy, or for whatever reason they hesitated too long before opening up about their feelings for RO, they could simply miss their chance and RO has already started a relationship with other character. That would be realism, but also very depressing - I personally don’t want it in my escapism.

Perhaps unromanced ROs will meet someone in the future, after the game events are completed and it ends. In that case, good for them, but I don’t want to see any of that. :stuck_out_tongue_closed_eyes:

This is actually a great point. People who don’t have dating life are not lesser than people who do. ROs that don’t date anyone else after MC didn’t choose them could still be very interesting and important characters while staying single for the rest of the story.

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I think part of the push back against npcs getting together naturally is that sometimes their romantic dialogue and interactions with each other feel better than their romantic dialogue with the MC. There’s also a sort of “feel bad” if the couple gets together in every iteration of the story except for the one where you romance one of them, just because it feels like you, as the MC, is breaking up a couple.

Not a choicescript example, but in Dragon Age Inquisition, I could never really bring myself to romance Iron Bull or Dorian because their background romance with each other feels more natural and I’d feel bad for breaking them up.

From a more selfish point of view, I can kind of see why readers might be sort of possessive of their ROs. Its sort of a trend in choicescript games that romances are sort of depicted as “once-in-a-lifetime” in a true love sort of way. Sometimes even including literal soulmates. A lot of choicescript games also veer into wish fulfillment, and even if the MC suffers horribly during the story, their RO is still the one person that accepts them.

For some people, the fantasy of being special might be broken by the idea that they (as their MC) is replaceable. Like its not actually a true love/soulmates if the RO can just turn around and act the same way with someone else, if the MC isn’t romancing them.

I don’t really care if ROs romance someone else, but I can def see where people are coming from.

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I definitely agree. It might feel like that, as some have said, but I really doubt many (if any) authors would intend this :thinking:

Ohhh you know, maybe the whole thing just once again, like many topics here, come down to escapism vs realism? Some topics people prefer realism (usually because it increases their immersion) and for some topics people prefer escapism (because it is more enjoyable).

Mmm! Yes—I’ve seen this from quite a few players! Humans are creatures of emotions so It’s not so strange we can’t shrug off what’s “canon” or not once we know of some alternative that stick in our mind.

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Bahaha yes plz not in front of me tho :rofl:

Tbh I was playing a game/wip recently and got really invested in a RO just to see that they could end up with an NPC.

This has pretty much turned me off wanting to have my MC romance said RO even tho they were my favourite RO initially. Like my mc would rather choose someone else than feel like second best to another character m, especially since the npc who is romanced is already pretty close to the RO.

They’ve had sm time for the RO and npc to get together…don’t suddenly decide to do it as soon as the mc makes an appearance and rub it in their face lmao.

Also I don’t self-insert but I don’t like as a player/reader of books/games to see my choices feel like they don’t matter? If RO got with someone else then did they truly love my mc? Were they loyal? Can I rely on them to help me stop an upcoming war haha

But yeah mainly TL;DR I feel like it’s MC’s story not NPC’s story. If the author truly wants RO/NPC together then don’t make said RO an option for us to choose lol

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The worst thing in DAI is to be a gay Inquisitor: not some, but all of your romance options rode off into the sunset together. :rofl: As a person who played as a gay Inquisitor I know this pain personally (though I chose my Inqy’s happiness over theirs.)

It’s possible. I love romances to be realistic in the way they progress, for example: people get to know each other, they develop romantic feelings, they start dating, they have disagreements/arguments, etc, etc. But the very fact that they fell in love with each other must feel special, like it’s a destiny, you know what I mean? @dreamofeden explained that feeling better than I did.

Yeah, get a room, you two! Or more precisely, a different book/game. :joy:

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The worst thing is when the condition of romance with some RO is poly. Otherwise that RO will choose other RO instead of MC…

Gosh. Am I demanding so much when I want a character marked as romantic option for myself? :expressionless: Recently I found wip that I really like in terms of plot and writing style, but the author is a fan of complicated, “realistic” relationships and there is actually no RO that has romance easy to start. I have to play without the romance (which is a bit sad because I find some ROs attractive) or give up reading.

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Tbh this is exactly why I cut Mary Morstan from my game. I think the whole ‘actual canon’ aspect would be too real there :smile:

I personally don’t mind ROxNPC, in theory. But I have played a few games where I didn’t not enjoy the execution. The worst one was a romance where staying on the romance route was based partly on a random element, and if you get unlucky… you walk into the RO cheating on the MC :woman_facepalming: If the intention was to cause strong emotions, it worked lol. I believe I rage quit the game and started a different playthrough staying far away from that RO :upside_down_face:

Can I ask—is there any circumstances where ROxNPC romance is acceptable to you? whether that is an RO who only flirts with NPCs but doesn’t take it farther (or maybe it’s only before MC and RO get together), or perhaps there’s only a vague “they married /found love” in the epilogue, or a variation on the execution?

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Wait, so they’re okay with being a couple with other RO, but not with MC?! I understand if the condition was that the relationship is only possible as a poly between all three of them, and not between only two of them. But the fact that RO+RO pairing is fine while RO+MC pairing is not, is ridiculous. No, thank you, I’d rather not be anyone’s secondary choice.

And for that I (and probably other likeminded people), are very grateful. Watson belongs only to Sherlock! :smiling_imp:

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Because this RO is already in love with another RO. So if I wanted romance with them, I’d have to agree to poly.

I’m not flirting with them, I always choose options that suggest MC sees them as a friend (or doesn’t even like them) , I don’t mind if they find a partner at some point in the story. It doesn’t even have to be in epilogue. Example - the two characters are friends and knew each other before the game started. If I don’t choose one of them as RO for MC, they will develop romantic feelings for each other. That’s fine.

However, if there’s flirty RO and that’s their important personality trait, I don’t mind when they flirt with other people (tho, only at the beginning, before falling in love stage).

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One of the worst romances like this in Pathfinder: Kingmaker. There is only one male RO for male PC but he is already in relationship with other female character. So you can choose later to break them up or agree to be poly with two of them. But if you break them up, in the final chapter the other character of the pair the one you do not romance will die and there is no way to save her.

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Monkeys paw. The player only gets one ro who they are actually soul mates with and the other hates you with all their guts due to feeling forced into it and ultimately develops into a two way abusive relationship due to your insistence on it and their insistence on being free.

But yeah, I find soulmates bleh, I’ve been around wa too many people who stuck around despite having no good reason too. And like, being a homewrecker is fun. Nvm it’s usually not at that stage in books. If I want a character obsessed with me I’m expecting like a good healthy dose of trauma.

Although now that I think about it a romance where the other character already had a soul mate and would sometimes call you by their (the other) name even though they hate it or don’t know them yet would be fun.

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I don’t see the issue.

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@Doriana-Gray

This is better than having the RO-NPC match happen with no conflict, but… really… why the hell is the author going to put so much time and effort into a side story that is inconsequential to the player’s experience? I’d rather have authors put more time in care into the romances for the MC and less time worrying about matching other ROs up with someone to make the story “richer” (when, for me, it makes it worse). And giving the other couple the same issues as the MC and RO doesn’t really solve anything–it just shows that any Joe Schmoe could step into the MC’s place and “replace” whatever it is that they bring to the RO’s life. In which case, I’ll still be locked into one route so I don’t have to deal with that shit.

I spend too much time designing MCs for a game to waste good names and character builds on a RO who is just going to wind up with someone else onscreen, so to speak. If there’s RO-RO (or RO-NPC) action going on, I’m just sticking to one RO (whichever one draws me the most), one run, and I’m done with the game.

I’m contrary as hell… I think this gives too much power to the MC, to be able to dictate who gets with whom. Give that power to the player with a choice at the beginning to bow out of RO romances with others, and it’s fine. I draw a line between the player and the MC–so me being able to toggle it at the beginning of the game doesn’t put my MC in a situation to arrange romances for others. The only exception is if it’s somehow story related, like the Tina/Adr romance in Wayhaven, which is just sick due to the spying angle.

@HannahPS

I like these ways of showing NPC agency.

And this is a huge reason why the whole situation irks me. As a player, I get nothing from it, and I end up limited in the game because I’ll only pick one RO for the game. Throw in the fact that most romances in these games are–well, let’s go with subpar and shall as descriptors–and all I see is a wasted opportunity for authors to provide players with better romances for the MC. So it seems like, in many ways, they’re choosing to dedicate more time to giving those NPCs a good story while my MC gets a wham, bam, thank you-ma’am, you get a kiss at the end romance. Which is highly unsatisfying.

While I think this offers the same issues as in the previous paragraph, I would at least be more interested in seeing it.

I know. We had this discussion on another thread somewhere, and I get that not all authors intend it to be canon or a OTP between two unromanced ROs or an unromanced RO and a NPC. It still feels that way, however. I mean, if the RO is going to end up with someone else and there’s absolutely nothing special about them being with the MC, why the hell should I bother playing the route? Especially if they get insta-love with no tween angst bullshit with the NPC. If my MC is getting nothing but misery and being dicked around until the end, and I know the other RO gets insta-love, why the hell would I want to torment them with tween angst? Hell, when I see that, all I think is that I’d rather play the character that doesn’t have to suffer endlessly.

@Nemureru_Mori

:100:

That is my feeling, exactly. The romances should be something that is a pleasure in the game. For depressing games, it should be the one bright, shining spot in an otherwise dark MC existence (see ItFO, where the romances leave you, and the MC, feeling warm despite all the death and misery). For non-depressing games, it should still be something fun. And light, if that’s what the MC and player chooses. Let the masochists have their path to an angsty horrible route where the MC and RO don’t end up together until the end, but give the rest of us a path to that warm cushy feeling faster, if we want it, instead of making us wait until the end to have a kiss/fuck/smile. That’s not a romance to me. It’s fucking boring and infuriating.

Ditto. One thing I wouldn’t mind, simply because I like breaking the fourth wall sometimes and giving a nod to the player, is to add a “romance” for the unromanced RO(s) offscreen and let the player pick the name of the one they’re romancing. I played around with that while tinkering with Wayhaven’s code and found it amusing to have my M-mancer talking with Nate about an off-screen character who is getting his interest and he refuses to admit it–and I put in a choice to name the character. It was actually kind of fun that way, since I entered the name of my N-mancer…

All of this, yes. And I don’t see the point in me wasting time making a character for a RO path where it’s already been decided what happens with them.

In that other thread, it seemed that most authors don’t intend that. It still feels that way, however, due to the above stated reasons.

This is likely a good explanation of it. I prefer escapism–to a point. If things get too ludicrous, I start getting ornery. If my MC is forced to behave like an UwU tween angst machine with big, sad slow-blinking eyes, I get even more ornery. Is it too much to as for escapism with characters that don’t act like dipshits and actually have normal human communication? Because you know what’s hot? Communication. And wild sex, but some communication is needed for that, too…

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Yeah see that’s where I can kind of give a little bit of leeway bc in regards to your story it’s based on a world that already has characters if you will.

So whereas it’s very customisable and a well written story, IF Mary did pop up that wouldn’t be too annoying for me bc I know the lore haha. I mean you could just go full on bbc Sherlock and make her a traitor lmaooo but I feel like that wouldn’t add much.

Also my mc Sherlock wants Watson all to herself :smiling_imp:

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Yeah, it has been interesting seeing this sort of perspective from you and others, as it’s not something I had considered that much and it’s helped me think more about it from that point of view.

I think on the other thread someone (maybe you! Apologies if I’m remembering wrong) said that romance doesn’t have to be the most important way of showing NPCs having full lives and relationships and I thought about that a lot. When I sat down and was really honest with myself about how I felt when playing IF with lots of characters, or party-based RPGs etc, I found that I personally enjoyed it most when characters built friendships or rivalries with each other or discovered some common ground, etc. I wasn’t as excited when there were romanceable NPCs having romances with each other.

Again I do think it varies from game to game. When I worked on a dating-show dating sim, it would have been silly not to give some screen time to other characters’ romances and romance drama. But when I was outlining Honor Bound I was like… “You know what, if the MC isn’t there to make romance happen, the romanceable NPCs either don’t feel like they’re in a state of mind to start romances with each other, or they’re not compatible in the scope of the game and there’s a ton of other stuff going on. Either way I’d rather spend the screen time and effort on other things.” Except my mental monologue is much less eloquent.

Haha, I think for me UwU slow-blinks are not quite my kind of escapism, or at least it is a hard sell for me to want to escape to it! I am into characters suffering but for different reasons than bad communication :laughing:

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I think the difference is, in a game where relationships are casual or just growing, it makes a lot more sense.

In Royal Affairs in particular, I didn’t really mind the secondary ROs getting paired up because it sort of felt right for the tone of the story. Its a time when people are exploring and figuring themselves out; some of them are looking for love for the first time. Even though it could end in an engagement, it didn’t feel like it would be wrong if, in another universe, the MC didn’t show interest and they found love somewhere else. Its towards the “normal” end of love, where both parties clearly care for eachother deeply, but it has a stable foundation, built up over time. You feel the progression, but you also feel that they’ll have to put in effort to maintain that level of bliss in a relationship.

The problem with most choicescript games, is that they really go all in for the true love/soulmates/love at first sight. Its pretty romantic and makes for great feelings when you read it. The problem with it is that it doesn’t feel as fuzzy when you know that, in another universe, they would feel equally towards someone else. Most of the force (for the lack of a better term) behind the romance is the sort of fairy tale “one true love” aspect where everything is predicated on a special bond. If the bond in any way feels less special, the romance has a lot less backing it.

TLDR: Romances where you build up your relationship from friends/acquaintances and gradually develop romantic feelings are easier to imagine that RO dating another. Romances that progress very quickly or use a variation of the “soulmates” or “perfect love” trope make it harder since they rely on your MC being “special”.

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I feel this on a molecular level, especially if they’re exes and have a bunch of unresolved tension(both emotional and sexual). I adore the Night Market, the author is a beautiful writer and I hope for her continued success. But the way she wrote the poly relationships specifically between the two Ros is incredibly intense and has so much history. I’m kinda just standing and thinking, the hell is my MC even doing here??? I rather them get together than my MC butting in, cause the chemistry they have together far exceeds what they have with MC.

It’s made even worse because I understand due to branching and coding stuff, you gotta give MC limited personality options. So you got these two well developed and defined personality having characters get together then you got, well yourself.

I don’t know how to describe the feeling but I can only say l feel rather uncomfortable.

I’m just rambling, pardon me

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That makes a ton of sense and helps some things fit together better in my head. Thank you!

I can definitely see if the tone of a romance is that they’re designated as soulmates, or if it’s very “you’re the only one who could make me feel this way”, that it would raise an eyebrow to see the same character going for someone else even in another “universe”. I can see it being distracting thinking “is NPC X saying those things to that character too? Are they soulmates in this universe then or are we still soulmates but NPC X has an unrequited love for me that they may or may not have expressed?” … while wanting to concentrate on enjoying whatever romance one is currently playing.

This makes a lot of sense too - I haven’t played very much of the game in question myself but I can see how it can generally feel like a pair of characters have more richness/depth/texture if they have a long history than the MC does with either. I have thought a lot about how I might want to write a polyamorous relationship where there is already romance or a history of romance between the other characters (somewhat sparked by discussions about Their Majesties’ Pleasure, and others) and have never quite come up with an idea that fits with what I’d want to do. Maybe one day!

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I’m sure I’ve said that somewhere. I can’t remember if it was in that thread or elsewhere. But I do see it that way.

Agreed. There are some settings where it not only makes sense, it doesn’t make sense not to have that dynamic in the game. Like if every character got hit with a curse that made them pair up–it’d be a given that others pair off. The question is, how much of that do you show? If you show much of it and it’s a game, then I’d probably avoid the game. If it’s there but in the background, then I wouldn’t care.

I definitely don’t like characters suffering from bad communication. Or other forced angsty crap. I’m not even big on suffering unless it’s story related (ItFO, for example), but even then I need some ray of hope or it just drags me down. For romances, I don’t mind personal issues, as long as it makes sense and is not dragged out. I loved Blaise in Creme, because the enemies to love thing really worked, and he was just so interesting. I do wish we had seen more of him, though!

I think it also has some to do with how the ROs related to each other before. In a lot of instances, you have this group of friends/team members who have been working together or hanging out forever, but they’ve never dated or hooked up with each other. Then, along comes a MC and–all of a sudden, out of the blue, if the MC picks RO1, now RO3 and RO4 are in love. That’s another reason why I end up feeling like it’s an author’s intent to make them an OTP or canon. If they weren’t together before my MC stumbled along, why are they doing it now other than the author making it happen for “reasons”?

If it’s not a group where everyone has known each other for a long time, it makes more sense, but it still is too squicky for me as a player. I don’t want a MC I create blocking off whatever happy ending that RO gets simply because I wanted to play the route. I also don’t want it being in my head as the player that my MC will always be second/third/fourth choice, because then I’m not going to enjoy it, even if my MC is oblivious.

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