When Owlcat revealed that their only male bisexual love interest is Marazhai, I groaned so hard my chair cracked. I will romance him, I like crazy boys, but for fuck’s sake, it’s Warhammer. Orientation doesn’t matter in grim da(nk)rkness of future.
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My preference is for set sexuality only b/c in my experience, it comes out as better narrative design and writing. Player-sexuality romances more often than not just aren’t strongly written to the point of being amorphous and generic. However, Ana seems to indicate that she’ll be writing some amount of bespoke romance plotting based on the gender match-up, which strikes me as an eyebrow-raising amount of work. However Book One itself was an eyebrow-raising amount of work, and she pulled that off brilliantly so if she’s determined to do this, I’ll trust that she’s capable of doing this.
About the only thing that I’d note for Ana is, in invoking Baldur’s Gate III, to remember that game had a significant writing staff and a large team covering the other parts of the production (particularly QA). I don’t want to discourage her from this course if she’s intent on it, but if she’s going to go this route she should investigate tools to help implement, track, and debug this labyrinth of variable game states that she’s about to construct. She’ll need them for her own sanity if nothing else, and there are good tools out there for indie devs.
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Oh in that context I agree! I mean more of… in Tumblr posts and in Patreon content, Ana made a big deal out of Vallen not ‘getting’ romance. It was the whole reason she was initially not an RO, because as Ana described it she just didn’t really get it and she had no interest in it. That to me screamed more aroace than anything in the book itself. I agree that she’s absolutely sus as shit, haha.
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In terms of writing BG3 cast isn’t playersexual, though. They’re bi and they express interest in both genders, even if in some cases it’s not as obvious (compare Astarion to Wyll, for example, poor boy got shafted by the writing team and I actually liked him in Act 1!) as in others.
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I think this is important. In Book 1 we barely know them, they barely have one scene; there is no romance. We only know of their sexualities because the author decided to share with us her creative process. It’s like if she had answered an ask about something, then changed her mind while writing Book 2 and people tried to hold her accountable for it. Every writer changes so many things while they write a novel/game. Characters surprise you constantly.
And especially in IFs, where the One Main Concern is having choices, allowing players to have more choices without taking from others seems optimal and should be a win for all.
Ana said the romances will still change depending on your gender, as we have seen with Hadrian and Alessa. You will still be acknowledged. You being a woman who romances a woman will STILL matter. For both the MC and Neia.
She just wrote an update saying she would make the extra effort, go the extra mile to give us more choices, more romance, to give more chances to everyone to romance the RO they love and people are getting mad at her… Come on…
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Technically, Neia has two scenes. There’s the one where she murders the other dude and leaves you to take the blame (after trying to murder you), and the flashback where she’s hunting you to checks notes murder you. I think the Pirate also has two scenes, with one right at the end?
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I meant scenes where you interact with them, my bad 
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What you’re talking about is still a significant amount of writing and testing to iterate into good reading and playing. It was a lot for the BG3 team, and it will be a tremendous amount for a single dev. Ana talks about how the romance part is in parallel to the plotline but doesn’t really impact it, which she feels frees her up to broaden the possibilities. If that’s where her passion is, she should go for it. The Muse is the Muse. As the romances develop in Golden Rose, though, I would suggest that she’ll find this becomes less true. The more she layers in, the more that the romances and storylines by necessity of narrative will become more woven together, and there will be a manifold increase in effort and iteration required to make the plotting, dialogue, and choices crackle like they need to for the player for both the romance and overall story to be effective. This can be done, but it’s going to be a lot of writing/revising and a ton of QA.
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But in Baldur’s Gate 3 it was mainly the issue of rigging scenes and pronouns in case of translations to gendered languages (like Russian, in which I’ve played). I don’t remember Astarion ever treating me differently in any way when I romanced him as a man, and from what I’ve seen there are no significant gender-based scenes or even mentions.
To be honest, I think gender variables in romance can also be done in a fairly painless manner. It’s just the matter of multireplace tedium, ambition and desire to write constant *if man, then goto “maleversionofromancescene”.
I am going to address things in a different order than posted, I hope you do not mind.
A design decision of this caliber, in my opinion, should remain in the purview of the author/developer. Both the range of vision for the project and the range of understanding or experience is truly theirs and should not be questioned.
@JBento – Joao, this part responds to you as well:
Neia, as a lesbian, was noted by myself and other lesbians who read this story as being lesbian.
This is what representation is for and when a group that is normally marginalized, dismissed and typically underrepresented has representation in a story or game, it means they are being validated and accepted.
When a character with a lesbian orientation is changed, rewritten or revamped to lose that orientation, it can be easily seen as cancelling those she represents … even erasing them.
It has nothing to do with orientation impacting the overall narrative and gameplay. It has everything to do with author/developer intent.
For example: Here Anathema states:
This is a clear signaling of intent that orientation (different dynamics depending on gender) matters for these characters.
Is it really? Is this so immutable that it can’t be changed due to who the character is, or is this Malin’s decision that made Chen so?
I would put forth it was the author’s choice, which is why Anathema’s choice with Neia is of importance. If Anathema put her foot down and said that Neia’s lesbian orientation is woven into her experiences, would there be the same outcry that there was for Chen?
I do not think so.
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As a quick aside, who’re the other Rogue Trade ROs? Argenta’s the hot one, but she’s a Sister of Battle and therefore almost assuredly a fanatical psychotic headcase, so I presume Heydari is one as well? Also, is there character creation/stats info yet? Maybe DM me, so we don’t make Eiwynn mad for off-topic’ing. XD
I think your comment rings even more true now.
I personally support the author in their vision.
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Ana’s intent isn’t to hurt anyone, clearly. On the contrary, she wants more players to enjoy the story. Seems quite uncalled for to say that.
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Hein-what-s-the-rest-of-his-name for straight women, Marazhai for both women and men, Cassia for men, Jae for men and women, Yrliet for both men and women, but her romance is described as “platonic”. Yeah, I lol’ed after that reveal.
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I never claimed her intent was anything other. I fear you read too much into what I actually said.
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Bisexuals get erased as well, to be honest. As a bi woman, I never truly belonged to the community of LGBT people and was often indirectly (and at times directly) shunned by people that, like me, loved women. Neia’s sexuality was confirmed only in an ask I’d have to comb the blog for and to be honest, I’m very against sexuality confirmed in side materials or blogs. Say it in the game or don’t say it at all if you have a clear opportunity to do so and aren’t censored. I should not comb through the entire blog to get the revelation that wow, Neia is lesbian.
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I am in agreement with this. Well said.
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Oh! Cute girl! I like girls! Girls good. Gib more women. 
Aaaand that is the extent of my thought process when it comes to romance options in literally anything. lmao
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Based, to be honest. Girls are pretty, after all.
First of all, I want to congratulate Ana on this bold decision.
I enjoyed the Golden Rose quite a lot, and I cannot wait for the second book.
Now regarding this new situation. First of all, I believe that Anna is free to do whatever she wants with her own work. But in this case she gave an explanation that made a lot of sense, and that I’m truly grateful for.
I see a lot of entitled comments on this thread. It’s okay to have an opinion and a preference, that’s valid and acceptable, but a lot of you are making a big deal of something so small and harmless as is letting the ROs be player sexual.
Let me say this. If all you care in a IF is some “representation” or "I want X character to be token (select gender/sexual preference) you may want to go outside, let the wind touch your skin, and allow yourself to touch some grass.
It wouldn’t hurt -Given how TGR its good literature- to be a tad grateful and supportive of Ana’s works. And not shit on it, with situations that didn’t happen yet, or IF conspiracy theories.
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