Gay (lesbian) or bi & pressures of society

I think that sexual orientation is quite important part of ourselves. Many of you said that making everyone bi is more enjoyable because you can romance whoever you want but for me it’s too unrealistic to just ignore the fact that for example the R.O. in game mention that she/he was in relationships only with someone of opposite gender, but sadenly when MC (who is the same gender as R.O.) makes move on either of them and they simply fall in love.
Another problem (for me) is making R.O. whoes gender changes depending on our preference, it is a bad resolution for me because in most case the only difference between them is…gender.

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I see both sides, but I intentionally went with the “make everyone bi” approach in Community College Hero. Here’s my thought process…

It’s hard to say how much of a character’s personality is based on sexual orientation. Take Jenny for example, in Heroes Rise. Okay, she was snarky and loyal (and a lesbian). But how would she have been written differently if she was bi or straight? I’m guessing not at all. I guess my point is that unless an author is willing and able to write the NPC’s sexual orientation as a part of “who they are today,” I’m not sure that it adds anything for the purposes of these games, other than perhaps for a reader to say, “Hey that NPC is straight/bi/gay, just like me.” I suppose there is value there, although opinions would vary.

As a straight married guy old enough to be the father of many of our readers, I didn’t feel…what’s the word…qualified…to write characters whose sexuality defined them. I mean, you certainly don’t want to slip into the old tropes/stereotypes of how gay male or lesbian characters have been portrayed in movies and tv over the years.

Also, and perhaps most pragmatically, I figure most readers read our stories once or maybe twice before moving on to other distractions. I felt that people would be disappointed if a NPC character was “not available” to them, and the reader may feel “punished” for his/her sexual orientation choice, and that this may lead to bad reviews. On the other hand, I seriously doubt people would give bad reviews for something like “there are too many romantic options available to me!”

So I just went with a super progressive, “everyone is attracted to people based on personalities instead of gender” which is not realistic but it does give the reader the most choice.

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If you go with a Kinsey was right approach and a thoroughly liberalised society it might be more realistic then you think, though the numbers are apparently slightly different for men and women. The more interesting question would if a more liberalised and less patriarchal society would equalize the women’s numbers with the men, or if the difference is somehow innate. Anyway…enough people of both sexes are bisexual enough that it need not matter overmuch in escapist fiction, unless you, as the author, specifically want it to be an issue.
Also look at the shiny chart:
http://i1.wp.com/accidentalbear.com/wp-content/uploads/2012/06/Visualguide.png

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Well if they aren’t interested sexually could we at least get a BFF route?

There was an RPG in which you could give a marriage proposal to anyone you maxed the relationship meter on but one of them takes it as a proposal of “sworn brotherhood” instead of marriage.

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Liked because that image.

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I’d prefer an even mix. It feels weird when everyone accepts my characters advances regardless of gender.

I like set characters with set sexualities and genders. They feel a little more real to me that way, but honestly, I don’t mind some flexibility either.

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That is, incidentally, exactly what I did for Mecha Ace. Every single romance partner was available for every single player character and the primary restriction for a romance was personality compatibility, not sexual preference. With the story being set five hundred years in the future, I figured I could simply put my foot down and say “by this point, it’s pretty much accepted that sexual preference works on a spectrum instead of as a dichotomy, and you can safely assume that Asadi, Hawkins, Watanabe, and Weaver aren’t on the extreme edges of the Kinsey Scale.”

I may consider the same thing when I do the romances for the sequels to Kendrickstone, but that’s still in the planning board phase. In contrast, Guns of Infinity, being set in a considerably less enlightened society, whose sexual politics dominated by a hetero/homosexual dichotomy (or perhaps, better described as a heterosexual orthodoxy), most of the possible romances are “fixed” (though the fact that the main character is gender-locked might alleviate some of the headaches that come from that): your choices are straight and bisexual women, and gay and bisexual men, with every category but the “acceptable” one (straight women of the proper social class) as at least partially defined by the fear of discovery or scandal.

It really does depend on the setting you decide to write in and the story you want to tell.

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And you know what, despite having written that my preference is for all romance options all the time, I can accept that, just as I can accept gender locking in a story if that is the story the author wants to tell. It all depends on the story being well told.

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I generally prefer a great deal of realism in my own escapism. I don’t see them as mutually exclusive. I want the world/universe and the characters inhabiting it to be internally consistent. I want the story to feel real to me. I don’t want to continually have to struggle to suspend belief as the story jumps the shark continually. My personal preference is thus for characters with a fixed sex. Furthermore I tend to find that characters whose sex is flippable generally have blander, more androgenous personalities than those that don’t since they need to be written in such a way that they can be either male or female.

For whatever reason, flippable sexual orientation tends to be less of an issue. I’d prefer that characters stay true to their orientation, whatever it is, and it’s hardly realistic to make everyone bi. Nevertheless I’ve generally found that most writers have satisfactorily finessed this to the point where I don’t usually notice it affecting the story.

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Well, when it comes to romance options in games, I generally prefer them to have set sexualities - more realistic that way. I don’t exactly mind everyone being available though - it just doesn’t quite fele realisitic. But I guess you can invoke the ‘If It’s You, It’s Okay’ trope :stuck_out_tongue:

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As an author writing flippable characters, I just wanted to note that I see things the same way.

In keeping with my approach to interactive fiction (including D&D campaigns) the reader of Choice of Rebels is to some extent co-writing the gameworld, not just exploring a world whose background is entirely identical regardless of player choices.

When you choose your starting sex and orientation (itself of course an unrealistic “choice” to be given) you are also setting the gender of some other characters in the world. When you choose to be a noble or helot, you are likewise affecting other characters who not only interact differently with you but will have somewhat different backstories.

Once you’ve made the choice, the wave function collapses, as it were. The ROs who genderflip (and not all do) are not both genders; the ones who orientation-flip are not necessarily bi or pan.

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Yes, well, I find it more fun if your choice to save the kitty in the first box doesn’t necessarily result in another kitty in a totally unconnected box that you don’t know about dying. (Schrodinger’s Cat reference for those that don’t have a clue what I’m talking about.) I recognize that in the real world it’s impossible to save all the kitties, but I do have an aversion to the artificial and arbitrary connection of one entirely independent story event to another simply to force a reader into a situation. Arbitrary manipulation tends to tempt me to break the connection so that all the kitties I care about can live. Yay! :wink:

:innocent:

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Extra Credits had a good episode on ROs and player choice. It’s about 6 minutes.

I would love to see more CS games pull something like this off: romance that matters in a way that is integral to the story; sexuality that is more than incidental or cosmetic.

For NPCs, I have a slight preference for fixed gender and sexual orientation because those things are a part of who you are. Flipping a character’s gender or sexual orientation ought to be, in theory, kind of like swapping their religion for another religion. If you do it, you really should wind up with a different person.

On the other hand, as @HornHeadFan pointed out, most characters never get fleshed out to the point where we can actually see how their sexuality has contributed to their overall personality. That’s rarely necessary. But I still loved that Jenny’s identity was fixed. Being gay was part of who she was, and she wasn’t going to let me change that, even if I wanted to.

When I do get a chance to choose someone’s sexual orientation (usually the MC’s), I often wind up rolling a die. 1=straight, 2=gay, 3=bi, and so on. If it has no bearing on the story, it’s not a meaningful choice to me.

What matters to me are the relationships themselves. How do they help develop the characters? How do they add to the story? Are they going to challenge me as a player? I don’t care whether everyone (or anyone) is bi, so long as the choices are meaningful, and the characters feel real.

To be fair, there are a ton of CS games I haven’t played yet. Maybe some of them have pulled this off particularly well, and I will get to see how when I finally play them.

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As much as I liked Bioware’s Dragon Age and Mass Effect, I absolutely loved CDProjektRed’s The Witcher. The story is both deeper and tighter, and the world feels far more real. The choices you make are fewer, but they have far more effect on the story, and the long term relationships you establish are considerably deeper. The choice between Yennifer and Triss in the final installment of the trilogy tore me up inside like no other choice between romance interests in a game has done before.

Bioware tries to be all things to all people and tends to get overwhelmed by all the choices they give the player as a result. That cripples what they can do with the game because there are just too many different rabbit holes for them to nail down while advancing the story. So they all too often simply give up and wipe the slate clean as in the Dragon Age series when jumping from one installment to the next. Even in just one Dragon Age installment, there are always countless little continuity errors and little pieces of the plot that fall through the cracks that grate on those who care.

CDProjektRed on the other hand has focused on telling the best story possible for its audience even at the cost of limiting the player’s ability to define their own character. By limiting the customization choices they need to keep track of, they are able to concentrate more fully on weaving a superior, more poignant story that is largely free of inconsistencies as a result.

That said, The Witcher series has a smaller audience overall despite making that smaller audience much happier. The protagonist is a straight white male with a fixed appearance (although in the third installment you do get to play Geralt’s adopted daughter as well for a portion of the story). If you can get into that, great, if not, then you’ll probably prefer Dragon Age because it gives you the ability to tailor your character and his or her relationships the way you prefer. Nevertheless to me the relationships in Dragon Age come across as less interesting, less multi-dimensional, and less real.

Bioware’s fans regularly grumble about Bioware’s tendency to ignore their choices as Bioware continually stumbles in its efforts to carry the immense load it has created for itself. Yet even Bioware sticks to fixed genders, while they’ve increasingly moved towards making most of their romanceable characters bi.

Personally, I wish it were possible to combine the best of both approaches, but given the way Bioware, even with their huge team, seems to struggle at staying on top of all their options to the detriment of their stories, it just may not be financially feasible. I hear that CDProjektRed’s next RPG series will have a more customizable protagonist. It will be interesting to see if they can craft an equally tight and seemless story for that character as they did for Geralt in The Witcher.

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ri1 and ri5
You completely got my attention at ri 5. :innocent:
Beside of that - of my human and natural need to be able to romance the bolts out of anything electronic featuring a voice that is - …well as long as I can romance androgynous looking guys and ace girls, I’m happy.
Just never genderlock G/B romances if it means all the boys behave like thugs or virile studs. That’s all I need~that and ri5.

Now even if the MC is pansexual, unless they are nonbinary, the RI can’t just all align with them. Sexuality should be more than a meaningless option, I believe that it has the power to shape people mindset, appearence and ideals. So having all possible RI align with the MC would remove their interest altogether.

In fact, I would root for nonbinary options with choosable pronouns being a norm in inclusive games.

I personally feel that’s much more realist than all of the defined genders, even in real life.
That could writers more freedom to build complexe and interesting RI without going against what feels natural to the player.

Also, ace people? I guess you considered ace as bisexual and so, able to romance all five ri.
If not, well, you might gave to add an orientation between heterosexual and homosexual for the seven ri.

PS: I’m really sorry for the numerous edits… it seems that I have a slight a problem with reading the words I wrote myself. I try to avoid spamming the feed, but with long messages it’s a real struggle.