I’m slightly against the trend of RO’s being gender-changeable and playersexual, unless the tone is a more “lighthearted dating sim” or the RO in question is a genderfluid shapeshifter/god/whatever. It can be done well, with enough flavour text but it rarely is.
And I really dislike having to call a character A or C when discussing them 
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I feel like everyone now is adding poly-romance to their stories, and I don’t like it.
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I’m really interested in what you don’t enjoy about it, do you think you could expand on that? (I’m curious, and also thinking about how I’m going to handle such things in future projects)
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I cant speak for the other person, but my big…break with that is it seems like an in-between that never really feels properly addressed. Im strictly monogomous, mind, so take what i say with a grain of salt, but a lot of the poly options I’ve noticed generally begin without any discussion about it, only hitting romantic triggers for two separate characters until they merge into that poly route which feels…slimy?
And what I mean by in-between is that it feels like this odd halfway point between that idyllic fantasy relationship, and the more fantastical harem-esque relationships you see in popular media. I like both equally, I love my wayhavens and choice romances and I would love to see more of that harem-esque stuff, too, but the poly option feels like it lacks some of that initial…I dislike the word, but the initial “mess” that poly requires to work.
Am I making sense?
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As someone who includes poly in some of their work, I agree with the conversation before hand as it helps to show the other characters opinion on the matter, and that they don’t automatically just agree with whatever Mc wants.
I made a poll back then and this was the results
As for the conversation itself here’s a sneak
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I don’t like characters bending over backwards to let me know they’re okay with nonmonogamy when I’ve never asked and never showed interest in another character. Maybe let me initiate that discussion if I choose to play a poly route? Or have some characters who are poly and some who aren’t? (I’m not usually a big fan of gender-variable, playersexual characters in the first place, although it can be done well. I prefer characters with fixed and well-defined identities that have shaped and been shaped by the rest of their lives, the way real people are.) At the very least, if a character expresses a willingness to share me with another partner, at least give me the option to say “No, you’re the only person I want to be with, and I need to know that I’m the only person you’re going to be with.” And if they agree to that, let them never bring it up again. For some of us, monogamy isn’t a cultural imposition, it’s part of who we are. I don’t say everyone has to feel this way - in fact, I’ve played nonmonogamous characters in games before and enjoyed it - but the more I can personally relate to my character and the more invested I am in the romance, the more of a turnoff it is. A love interest who tells me repeatedly that he doesn’t care if I sleep with other people doesn’t make me feel respected, it makes me feel that he doesn’t understand me at all, and certainly doesn’t want me the way I want to be wanted.
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Wait, this happens? I’ve never seen it when I didn’t have decent-to-high romance points with both characters.
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Trouble is that the hero’s alternative is usually to just defend society as is, and people don’t like that much.
Last part I get. Otherwise I don’t really get the issue? It’s a divisive trope but I don’t understand it. It doesn’t really impact the writing either way.
In my opinion, after reading I don’t how many WIPs and games it tends to impact characterization. I just don’t enjoy the process of choosing a character’s gender for them, they should have their own gender and their own preferences just like people do.
It’s a personal issue not really the issue.
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I would argue it could very well affect the writing, and the character. How someone identifies or was raised as can affect who they are as a person, what their interests are, their personality, how they respond to situations, etc.
It also makes characters (in my opinion) feel shallow and less developed than characters who are fully developed and locked into who they are.
Honestly unless gender roles are a part of the plot, I don’t see how it can be an issue. People of any gender can fit any role.
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It’s not about the roles in the story, it’s about making characters lifelike.
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I do think making them genderlocked is more problematic tbh. Firstly since it means a greater tendency for the ROs to be more genderstereotypical than what is the case with gender-selectable ROs, like male ROs being warriors and tough and bold and/or abrasive and female ROs more often being the “face” or even the healer and taking the softer/more soothing approach. I’m aware that it’s not always done that way, but it’s done that way often enough that I’m wary about COGs an particularly HGs which use that approach. I think that when using gender-locked ROs there’s a greater temptation to lean into how you think a man or woman “should” be or into the male or female RO you think people want, instead of experimenting more. There’s also a stronger tendency to lock or at least partly lock gender non-conforming female ROs to particular kind of MCs, so that for instance if your MC is not a warrior kind of character that particular RO becomes much more difficult or even impossible to romance. As someone who likes female ROs that are warrior types and/or gendernonconforming and dislikes playing warrior MCs, I think that is sad. I also think that we need more female and male ROs that go against stereotypes and what is “normal”, so as to expand people’s conceptions about how a man or woman can be. Gender selectable ROs allow us to do that more easily, since they can use anything from a “typical” man or woman to a more androgynous kind of character or a character who aren’t defined by traits defined as male or female and turn that character into male or female depending on the reader/player
There’s also the fact that, particularly in HGs, the gender of ROs are often skewed towards one gender( like in The Golden Rose,The Dragon and the Djinni and The Soul Stone War) and even when they aren’t, the ROs of one gender might be given much more screen time than the other(also The Soul Stone War). When you have gender selectable ROs, you avoid such imbalance. So I’d say that although gender-locked ROs can be done well, it far too often isn’t.
I see that some people argue that gender-locked ROs feel more real and “deep” than gender-selectable ones, but that’s not my experience at all. Jolly Good-Cakes and ale, for instance, use two gender-selectable ROs and two gender-locked ROs and I the two gender-selectable ROs there, Fitzie and Vy/Vyv certainly don’t feel any less “deep” or real to me than the two others and I think there’s few people who’d argue otherwise. Similarly, while Crème de la Crème uses gender-selectable ROs, Stronghold uses gender-locked ones, but I’d still say that the ROs in Crème de la Crème feel at least as real and “deep” to me as the ROs in Stronghold. Of course YMMV when it comes to what characters that feel the most real, but i think I’m far from alone in feeling this way.
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How does not being gender locked make them feel less real?
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My guess is that real people don’t get their genders decided by others and then change up on the fly in response to that demand. Both approaches to characters have their strengths and drawbacks I suppose.
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I like characters who feel like people, and in my experience, characters who have been written to be all things to all players very seldom feel like people to me. I like ROs who feel as if they have lives and priorities and interests outside of the romance, and it’s hard to get that feeling when everything about them is customized to cater to my preferences.
And it seems to me that gender-variable/playersexual characters actually work against celebrating the diversity of human identities. I am a woman. I don’t come close to fitting any real-world stereotype; I’m as far from being a girly girl as I am from being a tomboy, as far from being a happy homemaker as I am from being a corporate ball-buster. I’m asexual and have a disability that significantly impacts my life, so I haven’t had all, or even most, of the experiences “every” woman has. And yet … I don’t believe I’m the same person I would have been if I were male. A version of me who experiences primary sexual attraction wouldn’t be me at all. Variable-gender playersexuals can sometimes come across a bit like Mr. Potato Head: you can give him a face, but that doesn’t mean it’s really his face. He’s just a big hollow brown plastic shell with holes all over.
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Well sure, but the version you play with afterwards is not any less well written.
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It’s all very subjective. All in all, it depends on how the story is written. A lot hinges on the writer, and how he manages the drawbacks of his style and how he capitalises on his strengths. At the end of the day though, there’s also the readers’ preferences…
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I think ROs with a set gender and/or sexuality have their place when the author has specific priorities in mind, like writing gendered experiences or what it’s like to navigate dating as an aromantic person (for example). If a gender-selectable RO feels more like a paper doll, it seems to me that it’s because of flawed writing rather than the gender option. Maybe their backgrounds and core personality don’t come across as well-defined, or they’re not given a good balance of “masculine” and “feminine” traits, or something else.
With gender-selectable ROs, if they come from certain professions, picking the gender that is more typically seen in that profession can come across as reinforcing gender roles, yes. But that doesn’t apply if you pick a different gender so I don’t think that’s a problem.
The way I see it, we have no shortage of masculine men or feminine women in media, but overtly feminine men or masculine women are still quite rare. Some people do act in ways that would be stereotypical… if they were the opposite gender. I guess it’s a consequence of gender roles (slowly) breaking down and becoming more blurred in modern society, so some girls grow up idolising masculine male role models, and vice versa with boys. Sure it’s rare but those people exist, and there will probably be more of them in the future.
This is why I really appreciate games that let you select individual characters’ gender, despite the multireplace nightmare it probably is lol @_@
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The one thing I actually like about gender-variable characters is that it relieves authors of the burden of consciously subverting gender roles. Not every author has this problem, and I’m certainly not in favor of reinforcing most gender roles. What I dislike is when authors are so afraid of reinforcing gender roles, or being accused of doing so, that they bend over backwards subverting them in every way possible. “Every woman is a badass” isn’t really an improvement over “Every woman is a nurturer.” Gender-variable characters can be defined purely by their personalities in ways characters with defined gender too often can’t be. But I won’t feel we’re where we need to be until someone can create a woman character who is gentle and timid and no one sees that as stereotypical or normative, but rather a reflection of the fact that gentle, timid people exist and some of them are women. Ditto for an ambitious, stoic man or any other stereotype.
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