What's your feelings regarding unwanted flirty characters?

I don’t care about flirty characters trying to manipulate the MC. It seems like it’s what someone would do irl. However, I would perhaps like an option(s) to call them out on their BS.

Edit: I don’t think your bad at making polls :joy:

As long as we can call them out on it, it could add realism. But you need to give the player some agency over it, otherwise it’s a potentially risky situation, we must be able to tell them to stop.

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It can be good if it’s handled well (there’s the sticking point). I thought Anders in DA2 was fine, but it pissed off straight dudes who can’t handle being approached by another man.

Bobby in The Wayhaven Chronicles is the unwanted type for me (I did pick to have them be an ex). So they use flirting against my MC in an attempt to get her off guard and get the scoop on supernatural goings on. SHE hates it, but I think Bobby is a fun minor antagonist :woman_shrugging:

As long as they are not a continuing nuisance (unless you intend them to be and allow the MC ways of handling it) I do like it. I like NPCs to show a little initiative. They should seem like fully fleshed characters with motivations of their own, and that can include flirting with the MC or other characters.

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It depends on a number of things. How aggressive they are about it, why the author decided to include it and how the player can react to it.

For example, I would be fine with it if it was just harmless and lighthearted comments from a character that uses that sort of personality trait as a defense mechanism of sorts and the MC gets to tell them off or avoid them.

I wouldn’t enjoy it if the character was acting like some borderline stalker where you seriously worry about what might happen if you left your MC alone with them, the author thinks that sort of behavior is somehow cute rather than scary and the MC has to passively accept their behavior (or is even forced to like it).

It’s really about that combination too, it’s fine to me if the character is a creepy stalker so long as the author is aware of it, treats the subject with respect and is trying to make a point with it.

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It’s been a while since I’ve played DA2, and when I do, I go all flirt all the time, but does Anders repeatedly go after you if you say no?

Because for me it’s a whole different ball game. If a character makes a pass at you when it’s outside of your MC’s orientation and you say no, that’s one thing, and IMO shouldn’t be a problem; if it’s someone repeatedly going after you when your MC said no, that’s when I would get skeeved out OOC!

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I’m pretty sure he stops flirting after you say no, but there’s a (very minor) approval hit for turning him down, which was also part of the negative reaction to it (not to minimize the straight dude panic, which I believe is Very Much a Thing).

In general, I enjoy both playing and interacting with flirty characters, but, regardless of orientation, I want the option to say no, and I want that no to be respected. (I do really enjoy friendly flirting though! Bonus points for conversations, like, “Are you okay with this? I don’t actually mean anything by it, and will stop if it makes you uncomfortable.” )

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It’s only an approval “hit” if you want to 100% friend him. Which is easy to do anyway if you are siding with mages. If you’re siding against mages you are probably fine with getting rivalry points with Anders. There’s also a conversation choice to gain friendship points but not start the romance, but I’m not sure if people knew that because it did have a gold heart in the little guidance circle.

Anyway, it’s one conversation, and even if you get unwanted rival points it’s not hard to build up friendship and make it up. IIRC it’s fairly early too, in Act I.

I have bigger beef with Anders and his approval point distribution than that one flirt scene, honestly. I’ve never done it, but just knowing you can get approval from him for selling Fenris back into slavery :face_with_raised_eyebrow:

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Wow, rolling in here just to say the next time I play DA2 I’m full on punching Anders in the face.

And not with my mouth or anything weird >:(

I don’t want to drag this thread into discussing Anders as a character specifically, but even keeping in mind that it’s easy to build up past it, it still says some negative things about the character if a polite rejection (or, as polite as the game will allow at least) sets off a tangible “I like you less” notification. In real life there’s nuances to these things, and yeah a rejection of advances will generally not immediately improve a relationship with a person, but in a simplified and game-ified type of relationship it’s not unwarranted if that makes folks uncomfortable. Which in general comes back around to the “if I reject a character they should take it gracefully, or be portrayed as an asshole for not doing so” idea

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Words to apply to characters and words to apply to real life as well.

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