Well, if you’ve got that few, it might become a problem. If, for example, the gay romances are far harder to get than the straight romances, then no, that wouldn’t be fair. Especially if there are only two options.
I haven’t posted here before (mainly because as long as I get my gay romances, I don’t mind if I’ve been asked about it in advance), but one thing I though I should mention is that here in Britain, job applications will quite often ask about sexuality (along with race, religion, and other similar topics. It’s supposed to be for HR purposes only, is completely optional, and shouldn’t be seen by the interviewers (although one does wonder ), but I certainly wouldn’t be surprised to see such a question in an application form.
Ahh, I see! As of right now I have 12 recruitable characters, 7 of whom are romanceable. I would say each orientation/gender gets one easier option, and one that takes more work. So one of the gay male ROs is down to form a relationship pretty quickly, whereas the other one takes much longer to cultivate (your responses can turn him off more easily than the other guy). Similarly, one of the straight male ROs won’t be open for a romance unless you take every opportunity you can to earn his trust, whereas the other one is much more open and can fall in love with you faster. It repeats like that for each type of romance, so hopefully it evens out?[quote=“ParrotWatcher, post:21, topic:26404”]
Well, if you’ve got that few, it might become a problem. If, for example, the gay romances are far harder to get than the straight romances, then no, that wouldn’t be fair. Especially if there are only two options.
I haven’t posted here before (mainly because as long as I get my gay romances, I don’t mind if I’ve been asked about it in advance), but one thing I though I should mention is that here in Britain, job applications will quite often ask about sexuality (along with race, religion, and other similar topics. It’s supposed to be for HR purposes only, is completely optional, and shouldn’t be seen by the interviewers (although one does wonder ), but I certainly wouldn’t be surprised to see such a question in an application form.
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Also, I had no idea! That’s a crazy concept to me (I live in the US). Maybe we actually do that here, too, and I just haven’t been seeing the right job applications haha. Thanks for the interesting insight!
I read through a lot of this thread and think you all are spot on! And I learned a bit also. This forum has truly opened my eyes to true inclusion. I am not writing a romance game, but there is romancing in it. I find setting your MC character’s gender preference so that other characters react to you a certain way not akin to real life. I’ve gone up to a woman and flirted with her only to realize she is a lesbian, and we still talked longer, but just not romance talk ha ha. Anyhow, and it may be more complicated, but i think the best solution is setting the characters preferences and you navigating those preferences how you see fit. By making characters sensitive to gender differences you create the world we all strive for… acceptance; however, not a world free of a little embarrassment. You may also be pleasantly surprised by a character’s preferences. After-all, non of these preferences come in a single package. Well done with this thread!
I prefer it be defined. Even if the game asks your preference but still makes all the romances available regardless, I find it preferable. Sexual orientation is an important part of a lot of people’s identity. When the question or option never shows up, I feel as if the game is treating me as bisexual by default.
Don’t mind characters having set genders, but personally I’m not a fan of them having locked sexualites. I’m only speaking for myself here, but I can never romance straight male characters in CoGs/HGs because, well, I spent far too long in the closet to play as a woman attracted to men you know? Again, that’s just my personal experience, but it is kind of a shame when I wanna see what a certain character’s romance route is like, but I just cant because I’m uncomfortable playing that way.
I’m gonna have to disagree that it doesn’t feel plausible. I mean, first of all, if I can imagine a world with elves and magical powers, I can imagine a world where most of the people I interact with aren’t straight. Second of all, at least in my experience, it’s really not that rare people who aren’t cis or straight, to have mostly friends that aren’t cis or straight. I’m reminded of that one post where someone said something like “came out as bi to my friend group a couple years ago, just found out that every single one of us is in some way part of the LGBTQ+ community lol”
I would also like to add that in a fantasy world where social norms are different there could be a lot more bisexuals who are out of the closet xd In fact I think straight people would be shocked to discover how many bisexuals they know. We are not an “out and proud” bunch.
Personally, I find a perfect mix of sexualities and even amount of genders in a group to be more unrealistic than bisexuality. How often do you meet perfectly diverse groups? Exactly, but it’s fiction so you suspend your disbelief a little
Additionally, if you don’t make everyone or most of you love interests bisexual you might be tempted to add characters for the sake of giving the player someone to romance or an alternative to the romance they might not like. You end up with at minimum 2 gay character, 2 bisexual, 4 straight. And hopefully all of them will fit into the story and get equal amount of screentime.
I myself am not weirded out by being asked straight-up what gender I’m interested in, but it does tend to work better when it flows more organically. And it’s usually used to set the gender of potential ROs, which makes sense.
However, it’s entirely do-able to not ask, and not use the term at all - the on-hiatus Guenevere didn’t use the term, and Choice of Robots didn’t ask. In particular, in settings that aren’t modern Earth, it’s entirely possible that the world doesn’t have “sexual orientation” as an identity at all - in our world, classifying people by sexual orientation was first proposed (to the best of my knowledge) in the 19th century.
Please pardon my very slight tangent, but Jean has made it clear as recently as nine months ago that she still intends to work on Guenevere, it is just far slower than she’d like due to real life circumstances. I think she would prefer if you refer to the game as on a hiatus versus cancellation, at least until she officially cancels it herself or more time has gone by since her last update. I know it seems like a small thing, but oftentimes when people just assume you’ve given up, it starts feeling like you really should.
Well, that’s not how it works irl right? (imo) In my perception, we are always figuring out this sort of stuff about ourselves as we meet new people and form opinions on them. There’s no telling if or when you will have a change of heart and feel attracted by someone you normally wouldn’t. I have had such experience in the past, both with real and imaginary people. (Side-glances Garrus Vakarian)
If you want players to be able to choose the gender of ROs at the start of the game, then I guess it’s perfectly okay to ask at that point. But otherwise, just let things flow naturally? Maybe ask players if they are comfortable being flirted with, but I (personally) wouldn’t block initiative from the player’s side due to… Predetermined settings. If that makes sense.
Uh, no, this may be true for some people, but there are many, many straight people who are never attracted to the same gender, gay people who are never attracted to the other gender, and asexual people who never experience primary sexual attraction towards anyone. And for people whose sexuality isn’t fluid, it’s really annoying to have people insist that everyone’s is.
Okay? I said it’s my perception of it, as in, it’s what I experience, which is the only 100% accurate description I can give on anything. Thought it would be helpful, and I’m not at any moment saying that everyone else works by the same rules. Just saying what would work from my view point.
The important thing, in both cases, is not to push it. Give people options they are confortable with. I’ve given some of mine, for whatever they are worth.
So for me, I’ve actually really enjoyed stories that set gender and sexual preference up right at the beginning(but that’s mostly due to things in my personal life) as it allows me to fully set down who I am in the world of this story with no real ambiguous terms.
However I will say that I really enjoyed the setup for the sexuality question in an (seemingly) abandoned project called Power Grab where you can noncommittally flirt with several options of both genders in the early parts of the game, or choose not to, and the question comes when having to deal with a very forward and rambunctious child you meet in the story. Still, I’m not sure that’s the best option, but I liked it anyways.s
I personally don’t see the point, unless you’re intending to use it to determine the sexes for your ROs—and even then, you could just ask what sexes you want, rather than use the player’s sexuality—or if your ROs themselves have set sexualities.
But if neither of those things is true, why do you need to keep players from flirting with anyone they want?
Depends on the structure. Sometimes the romance starts budding early enough that you need to know early who is a viable option for you (or what gender to set every RO too in some cases, in which case yeah, it needs to b before you meet them). It can be tricky to work it in though. It needs to go with the flow for the story. One of my favorites was in Ironheart where the question that prompts it is a pop-up ad for a fake hookup website.
Sometimes it works more organically to have it be clarified later. There’s one WIP called Kingdoms and Empires I follow, and you start very young, so you don’t decide until you hit puberty. Sometimes if some or all LIs are of a predetermined gender it makes sense to ask who you have feelings for on an individual basis.
I think it can be used very effectively in flavoring text. I want to see the world through my character’s eyes. Describing an NPC a little differently based on whether my PC is attracted to that person’s gender can contribute to a more immersive experience
Also, as an asexual, I’ve almost always had the option of not pursuing a love interest in a game, or not pursuing a physical relationship with my love interest, but I’ll never forget the first time I saw an actual option to play an asexual character. Not only did it mean a lot to me as an individual (which is cool, but I don’t consider validating me to be the author’s job), it made the character feel different to me. It was the first time I really felt I was playing an asexual character rather than just playing a character who didn’t happen to have a love interest. There’s something powerful in the act of making a choice.
I’m in a similar boat (in fact, NSFW scenes often scare me off from doing the romances). Often, I don’t really bother with any romances but sometimes there’s a character that I’m like “they and my mc would be FANTASTIC together”.
Hopefully this won’t offend, but may I ask what the difference was? I mean, was it in the writing itself (e.g., MC’s POV describing things in a way that makes it clear there’s no physical attraction or something similar) or in how the NPCs responded to the MC?
My friend and I are working on a game where the MC can enter an asexual romantic relationship if they so choose, but neither of us is certain how to make it feel right for those who feel no sexual attraction to anyone without turning it too clinical and unemotional. We want to get it right, because the relationships, romantic or not and physical or not, are one of the main points of the game.
Also, do you think it beneficial to distinguish between degrees of asexuality, if that’s the correct term. What I mean is, letting the MC make it clear that they are asexual but like romance, asexual and aromantic, or asexual but willing to get physical for their partner’s sake. How to do this isn’t a problem, since the MC is going to be around telepathic individuals at the beginning of the game and the MC’s state at the beginning doesn’t allow them to have mental walls against that kind of thing.
Does it make a difference if a fade-to-black option is presented in the description of the game, so you know up front you can avoid anything NSFW?
Part of the difference for me was purely psychological: for the first time, I was inhabiting a character that the author had explicitly invited me to picture as asexual. I knew I wasn’t going to be forced to swim upstream at any point. And then, pragmatically, an author who includes asexuality as an option has presumably put at least some effort into making sure players who choose that option still get a good story, so skipping romance doesn’t have to mean missing out on meaningful relationships that lend the story real emotional weight.
As for distinguishing between different varieties of asexuality, yes, that is absolutely beneficial. Too many games offer the option to be aro-ace and that’s it. I’m not aromantic or sex-repulsed; I’ve been married to an allosexual man for ten years. I like reading about romance. I even enjoy reading about sex, especially when there’s more of a focus on the emotional experience than the physical. I love it when I can play through a romance that feels like the way I’d want a relationship to progress in real life. And - just as I regularly enjoy playing characters whose sexual and romantic desires are nothing like mine (I just got through playing Brimstone Manor with a main character so horny I’m surprised my phone didn’t burst into flames right there in my hand) - I’d like to think that there are some allosexual readers out there trying an asexual character on for size, and I’d like them to come away from that experience with a better understanding of who we really are.
If you’re really committed to including a well-written asexual character option in your game, please feel free to DM me and ask me anything. I’m not easily offended, so as long as you don’t ask if I’m literally a fungus, it’s all good.
), but I certainly wouldn’t be surprised to see such a question in an application form.
Good luck with the game.
<----- not me