Happy Cake Day! You get fictional cake, which is a lie. But it’s a HAPPY lie.
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It’s a fictional lie though, so wouldn’t that make it a truth?
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No, it’s not a double negative, it’s double positive lie, making it a square lie. Which fits. No cake is so square.
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Just found out about this - here’s hoping for a smooth ride! Creme de la creme was incredible! I hope Royal Affairs will be its own monster while carrying the torch from CdlC!
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Thank you so much for the well wishes! I’m really happy to be making more games in the setting and exploring different aspects of it. Royal Affairs has taken a while (I started it just after the start of the pandemic…) but I hope it’ll be worth the wait!
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Hey well you’re the one who should get the thanks here for blessing us with another one 
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Allow me to preface this with a bit of praise:
I like your writing. I find it enjoyable to read. It’s competently written and flows very nicely.
My problem with it is mostly the feeling of tokenism and dissonance it invokes. (Alongside a few choices where I was forced to act counter to my chosen character. But those happen in a lot of these types of games so I don’t mind overmuch.)
Why would a bunch of aristocrats so concerned with family lines and tradition allow their designated heirs into marriages what are guaranteed to never continue their lineage?
It’s (slightly) more forgivable in a high fantasy story where you can just handwave things away by citing “magic”
Don’t mistake this for being against same sex relationships, but a kingdom encouraging (or potentially forcing, since my random genders ended up with the two royal families discussing two males getting married to form an alliance. I mean, come on) their crown prince and princess into a situation which ends their line makes absolutely no sense from a logical standpoint in or out of the universe.
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In some real-world societies (Rome comes to mind) adopted children were considered little or no different than blood-related children when it came to lineage, marriage, etc. within the context of noble, even imperial families. So the concept has actual historical precedent, and I think it makes even more sense in a setting where homosexual relationships are accepted without qualms.
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Maybe it’s a more enlightened society where people can appoint successors they actually feel would do the job well instead of necessarily betting on their own flesh and blood being up to it. There is more to lineage than simply resulting from the union of two particular individuals’ gametes.
As someone else has already said, this is not far from the actual situation that existed in places like Rome (and I would like that post twice if I could).
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Thank you for the kind comments!
In Westerlind culture two cis male aristocrats aren’t in “marriages guaranteed not to continue their lineage” because their tradition looks like being very concerned about length of recorded lineages and ensuring everyone’s inheritances are all in place legally, but not so concerned about genetic material. That felt right to me as a logical conclusion in a universe without either sexism or LGBT+ discrimination but which has its own prejudices. Prince Oliver marrying a cis male prince wouldn’t raise eyebrows - it would be considered a good match. Him marrying a cis man who’s a working-class greengrocer would.
It’s not something that I go into a ton ingame because I wanted it to be relatively unremarked-upon - in universe they wouldn’t consider it notable, because it’s a social norm.
Please let me know where you find points where none of the choices fit your character in Royal Affairs (or Noblesse Oblige if you’ve played that too)! It’s really helpful and choice wording can often easily be tweaked to make it cover more bases - or if needed, an additional choice can be added.
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Why would 2 cis men be getting married, thats like a guarantee of inheritances being thrown into question.
And the out of character things were just minor moments where the choices presented didn’t happen to cover whatever skill i had maximized and one or two times where I was still railroaded into acting a certain way no matter my previous choice. Like I said, they don’t really matter enough to be bothered about since they didn’t break anything.
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Because they want to and/or it’s socially advantageous! Inheritances work the same way they do in some countries in our world where same-sex marriage and families are legal. A gamete donor or surrogate isn’t considered an additional parent legally (in some cases people would co parent but that’s not covered in the law - this varies in non-Westerlin countries); the parent couple get put on the birth certificate and pass down their inheritance to the child unless there’s some kind of drama or legal complication that means they don’t.
Culture and social norms reinforced over thousands of years in Westerlin mean that there isn’t the worry about “who someone’s biological father is” that there are in a lot of cultures in our world. The important thing is that people A and B are recorded as parents of child C. Which will have its own challenges, but not related to which genetics child C has or who exactly gave birth to them.
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So
Westerlin has fought a ton of civil wars is what you’re saying
Because that’s the only outcome from the disenfranchisement of birth children in favor of chosen successors that I could see
Because I can only imagine something like
“Hey your dad is the prince of the kingdom because we slept together even though he’s married to this other guy and they don’t love each other but they adopted this random nobody kid so basically suck it, you get nothing because I’m married to this blacksmith so he’s legally your dad, not the prince.”
Or
“The king liked visiting brothels and nailing peasant girls and now there’s a bunch of angry people demanding the King take responsibility”
Would only ever end up starting a bunch of civil wars and peasant rebellions
Honestly your explanation just has me more confused
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Those scenarios don’t seem to have much relation to the disenfranchisement of birth children - they sound like things that could happen even when birth children/order are prioritised, no matter what laws about inheritance existed, re children born out of wedlock or abandoned. They’d be the product of bad actors in an unfair system of monarchy and aristocracy where people in charge get away with exploiting those lower in the hierarchy. I’m not saying Westerlin is fair by any means! The monarchy is a horrible system, the aristocratic setup is classist, barely anyone can vote, powerful people get away with a lot of bad stuff.
In Creme there are rumblings about imprisonment of people trying to change things; in Royal Affairs a bunch of people are trying to bring more power to non-aristocrats. It’s not a country where things have always been peaceful, nor is it particularly stable in Royal Affairs no matter how much the characters would like to think it is. Just because there’s no sexism, homophobia or transphobia, it’s not intended to be some sort of utopia - nor is everyone in-universe happy with the status quo.
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Westerlin seems to operate under an idea of ‘family as an institution’ rather than, ‘family as direct bloodline lineage’. Under the former, the importance in on institutional integrity, so it’s important that the family institution has continuity, not that the heir apparent has bloodline claim. People inherit because they were raised by the “right family”, not because they were conceived and birthed by the “right bodies”.
Those scenarios describe the circumstances of bastards. Bastards do not inherit anything unless given legal rights, regardless of the system. Bloodline priority systems would say their blood is polluted by non-noble blood. Institutional systems would regard them as not being raised by the right family.
A more fitting example would be an older blood child being disinherited in favor of a younger adopted child. But disinheritance also happens in bloodline systems; the only difference in our bloodline focused world is maybe the adopted child’s claim, but in a world without that focus, i.e. Westlin, that would even be a question, because institutional integrity would cover it. The adoptee was raised by the right the institution.
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Historically, the Roman Republic and Empire had a rich tradition of adopting both blood and non-blood related individuals into a household. This was keenly used in the Empire as the method of succession rather than by the more commonly known primogeniture of later Medieval Europe. Adoption did not prevent ill-equipped individuals from becoming Emperor, but it did provide much more control than primogeniture ever did.
To me, it makes for an interesting world if this Roman tradition was carried forward and utilized in a modern setting where LGBTQ rights and people are common and a normal part of the social fabric. It can make sense and be immersive, and definitely is not an inherently anarchic method of succession. After all, there was nothing that stopped second, third, or later born children from desiring the throne that the first born had inherited and plotting to ensure it could be theirs, either through war and rebellion, assassination, or social disgrace.
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I just read the demo and can’t stop replaying! I really love the characters, especially precious precious Asher 
It really is a challenge for me to stop coming back to them in other ROs’ playthrough (childhood friends to lovers and bodyguard crush are my biggest kyrptonite it seems).
I noticed something, though. When I pick options that would make people more at ease with Asher (involved them more in conversations or entertained them) I got this;
meanwhile, when I chose the opposite;
I feel like the reaction is reversed? Or was it intentional?
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Thank you so much for the lovely comments, I’m so glad you’re enjoying! That does look like I inadvertently swapped - I’ll have a look and get that fixed for the next update.
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So sorry I left this for such a while - I saw it when you first posted and then completely missed it. Thank you very much for your thoughts!
Accepting population means that the population is generally happy and contented. Traditional means that they’re keen to stay with the status quo, so the combination would mean that they might reject more activism and democratic movements. In general an Accepting population is keen on the royal family whereas a less Accepting population might be more against them as an institution (though they might still like the MC personally).
Citizen Popularity represents how the average Westerlind citizen feels about the main character. Royal Popularity represents how the royal family and household feels about them - so your mother, Fabien, Josiane, Oliver, and Asher’s parents plus any extended family. So you could end up being very popular with the ordinary people, but not popular with your family - or the other way around - for various reasons.
The characters’ opposed stats are aspects of themselves that will shift in different directions through the course of the game. They can also end up in different situations depending on the plot, but how they respond and their attitude/manner/personality may be affected by these stats.
Javi’s Dutiful/Individualistic represents their attitude towards their responsibilities and family pressures - they can vary on how much of their individuality they’re willing to sacrifice for their royal duties.
Dominique’s Dependent/Determined represents how much drive they have, and how much they’re willing to act for themselves rather than relying on others.
Asher’s Bold/Diffident represents how much they’ll stand up for themselves and speak up. High Diffident means that they will be quieter, less likely to buck tradition or pressure, and will keep their head down.
Hyacinthe’s Technical/Instinctive represents how much they listen to their gut feeling vs relying on technique and strategy - whether that’s about their dance style or how they deal with social situations.
Trevelyan’s against the system/within the sytem refers to their activism and place in politics - whether they are in a place of rejecting the system or wanting to try to work within it to make it better.
Beaumont’s Nostalgic/Forward-Looking trait represents how they feel about their past and how they relate to the future - will they move ahead and potentially reject some aspects they’ve been holding onto, or keep them in their mind?
Thank you for your patience in waiting for this reply!
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OMG, you skipped best girl Beaumont, HOW COULD YOU?!
(as a side note, I have no idea why Beaumont’s meter has been moving the way it has in my playthrough, but it’s going in the exact opposite direction I wanted it to)
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