The Sharmat

They also mentioned something about the 6 man party not precluding "temporary companions". Guest party members for certain quests? That could add some diversity.

Their next RPG will be set in the Prince of Nothing Universe.

Evolution isn't enough?

The poll wasn't for "Should there be romances or not?" The poll was asking "Those in favor of romances: under what conditions, if any, would you be willing to lose them as a feature?"

Also done in KOTOR 2. With Visas, again, in fact.

All for weird monsters (Love Morrowind's) as long as they mesh together ecologically. At least on a shallow level.

A nongender race, done well, could be interesting if it fit the setting. Including a nongendered race simply to have a nongendered race doesn't sound promising though. And the Asari are not a nongendered race. The in universe sophistry aside, they're an all female race created specifically for titillation. A blue version of Star Trek's green Orion women. The developers even admitted as much. I really don't think that's what the OP is looking for.

If it's within a geographic area in the setting that makes it very unlikely that you're black...then yes, why not? Even accepting the above, there are far more people of various races in the world than transgendered individuals. When you go to lengths to support such a vanishingly small percentage of the population it starts getting hard to justify choosing that one over many myriad other underrepresented rare demographics.

If you voted 'no' you said you wouldn't sacrifice romances even if they drained that many resources. You misread the poll. EDIT: In fact I'm seeing people that said they're against romances being in the game voting in the poll, despite the fact that the question was only polling people that were pro romance. I guess I suck at wording things.

No means that you'd like romances to occur even if for some reason they drained that many resources.

You can romance Visas and then make her kill herself in KOTOR 2. Does that count?

I don't like your options. Why can't we have magical STDs?

The world is predominantly heterosexual/"cisgendered".

I'm still waiting for Morrigan's God Baby to murder everything, Bioware. Get on this. I didn't spawn the Dunwich Horror for nothing.

So you're not against it on principle, just against the largely lackluster attempts so far? EDIT: Nikolo summed up absolutely everything I don't want in an in-game romance. (Well, except the unrequited/doomed part. I agree that would be cool.)

I wasn't asking for "We'll bang, ok?" I was suggesting something on par with the romances I cited. Only under player control. Although something more trivial is fine to as long as a more trivial amount of resources is assigned to it. Edit: Tale, yeah that would be a nice spin too. Think Visas was supposed to be creepy in that way, though. Lady has issues.

Torment's renders were ridiculous for absolutely every female character though. Well, except maybe Ravel.

How so? Even in a game where you play a 'predefined' character, like Torment's Nameless One, you're choosing all his responses and thus deciding what kind of role he plays in the plot and what sort of personality he has.

My point is that there's no reason a romance couldn't deeply affect the plot. What does it matter if it involves the PC instead of some NPCs or being purely in the background? Just because it hasn't been done that way doesn't mean it can't be. Of course having everyone romanceable and trying to force in some critical plot turn based on a potential romance with all of them would be a disaster.

Deionarra. Ravel. Absolutely vital to the crux of the entire plot. Only love could be so cruel. Why the segregation between character interaction beyond the player's control and character interaction within it?

A role playing game *telling* anyone to play a role kind of defeats the purpose. You're supposed to choose your own. Otherwise it's not roleplaying.

Internet discussions are pretty horrifying, yeah. If it's souring you on things that much I'd just stop looking at these threads.

This is not supported by science. As I recall there is evidence supporting epigenetic influence on each during natal development.

All of the above. And they aren't mutually exclusive. I do multiple playthroughs of good RPGs, and while I like to RP as different characters, usually one of them amounts to "what would I do if I was in this position."

I'd do this, but I can only have three questions in the poll at a time.