The Official Romance Thread

[Blarghagh]

Previous topic closed for length. Previous popular topics have included dissection of Josh's claim in an interview that if Obsidian were to do romances, they would want to do them right and that a good romance takes time they did not have for PoE.

 

As before, here are the rules:

 

Romance in PoE Thread Rules

 

- This thread is for people who wish to actually discuss the roleplaying merits of romances (or lack thereof) in regards to Pillars of Eternity. You can lament or celebrate that they are not included, argue why the game would have been better or worse, give examples from games that did it well or did it poorly, talk about modding efforts to add it in, or discuss how it might be included in future expansions or installments and anything related to those subjects, etc.

 

- Anyone posting simply to make fun of or abuse people who like or dislike romance or to point out how often this topic has been done before will find their posts deleted. If the thread goes off-topic or gets very hostile, it will get pruned.

 

- Other romance threads will either be deleted or merged into this one.

 

Knock yourselves out.

[Yellow Rabbit]

Out of curiosity, what does term "romance" include? The word is just so... indefinite. Does flirting count? And casual sex, not necessarily with one of the companions? What about constant brain****ing, like the one that made me want to strangle half of the female cnpcs in BG2? Or does it have to end up in marriage?

Some of those might be not so difficult to implement as long as they don't try to emulate love. That is, imho, almost impossible to do properly (i.e. without player feeling forced) with one side predefined from top to toes and the other supposed to be YOU. Tastes do differ, and everyone have their own opinions of what the heck love is, so it would require a really LOT of options and female writer.

 

A little tl;dr follows, almost off topic and just for fun, so I hid it under spoiler

 

 

Some time ago I was lurking around on the board dedicated to literature in fantastic/fantasy/sci-fi genres. Just the place where people talk about books, or present their own attempts in word weaving and discuss it. Once in a little while, several months usually, administration of that board runs contest where everyone can enter, get set of certain conditions and try to write a novel according to those. Conditions are usually some item, concept or situation around which plot must be built.

And so a newbie called Chess-man came in one of this contests. Before conditions' distribution even began he was saying: "I'm so excited about all that wonderful love stories participants will present!"

"And what if none of us will feel like writing about love?" someone asked.

"What do you mean 'write not about love'?! EVERY story must be about love! Well, you might write about money or revenge, but that's a cliche. I expect no such things here." Chess-man replied.

"And... this is it? Love, money or revenge? No other things to write about?"

"Yep, that's it. There are no other things one could write a novel about whatsoever. Didn't you know that before?"

Following discussion was really fun but, sadly, ended up in several warns and one fat banhammer from moder's side.

And the guy wasn't even a troll!

 

My point is, are there really no other interesting kinds of huma... errr... intelligent creatures' relationship that could be fleshed out in a game except for romantic? I wouldn't want to believe that.

 

 

 

And again, I apologize for mistakes I might've made in writing, English isn't my first language.

[BruceVC]

Out of curiosity, what does term "romance" include? The word is just so... indefinite. Does flirting count? And casual sex, not necessarily with one of the companions? What about constant brain****ing, like the one that made me want to strangle half of the female cnpcs in BG2? Or does it have to end up in marriage?

Some of those might be not so difficult to implement as long as they don't try to emulate love. That is, imho, almost impossible to do properly (i.e. without player feeling forced) with one side predefined from top to toes and the other supposed to be YOU. Tastes do differ, and everyone have their own opinions of what the heck love is, so it would require a really LOT of options and female writer.

 

A little tl;dr follows, almost off topic and just for fun, so I hid it under spoiler

 

 

Some time ago I was lurking around on the board dedicated to literature in fantastic/fantasy/sci-fi genres. Just the place where people talk about books, or present their own attempts in word weaving and discuss it. Once in a little while, several months usually, administration of that board runs contest where everyone can enter, get set of certain conditions and try to write a novel according to those. Conditions are usually some item, concept or situation around which plot must be built.

And so a newbie called Chess-man came in one of this contests. Before conditions' distribution even began he was saying: "I'm so excited about all that wonderful love stories participants will present!"

"And what if none of us will feel like writing about love?" someone asked.

"What do you mean 'write not about love'?! EVERY story must be about love! Well, you might write about money or revenge, but that's a cliche. I expect no such things here." Chess-man replied.

"And... this is it? Love, money or revenge? No other things to write about?"

"Yep, that's it. There are no other things one could write a novel about whatsoever. Didn't you know that before?"

Following discussion was really fun but, sadly, ended up in several warns and one fat banhammer from moder's side.

And the guy wasn't even a troll!

 

My point is, are there really no other interesting kinds of huma... errr... intelligent creatures' relationship that could be fleshed out in a game except for romantic? I wouldn't want to believe that.

 

 

 

And again, I apologize for mistakes I might've made in writing, English isn't my first language.

All Romance means in the context of RPG is where you have dialogue options and interaction with party members that leads to a non-platonic relationship, and normally a sexual relationship is the outcome

[Marcvs Caesar]

All Romance means in the context of RPG is where you have dialogue options and interaction with party members that leads to a non-platonic relationship, and normally a sexual relationship is the outcome

 

A platonic romance wouldn't be so bad either. One in which the love interest acts cold towards you or wants to kill you out of pure love would also be quite interesting. Imagine the possibilities!

Edited December 2, 2014 by Marcvs Caesar

[Blarghagh]

Darth Sion had shades of that if you played a female character in KotOR II.

[Marcvs Caesar]

Darth Sion had shades of that if you played a female character in KotOR II.

 

Interesting, I never played as a female character so I wasn't aware of that. Perhaps Obsidian will a make something similar in the future. A love interest, who's most likely Aumaua, loves the payer so much that he/she wants to eat you. Imagine the love interest's intentions mistaken by the player for sexual innuendo, only to bite you in the ass later... literally.   You must do this Obsidian! As a self-appointed democratically appointed representative for the community, I, and therefore we, demand this!

Edited December 2, 2014 by Marcvs Caesar

[Ayree]

I am very glad that romance is not an option. It's not that I don't want people to have more options, but I am, quite frankly, cynical about romance in RPGs.

 

I reckon that Bioware did that to me; after DA:O and ME1, they put more and more emphasis on "romance" and got a strange fixation with "inclusivity"- more developer time was spent making, what I consider to be, exceptionally bad writing to develop what amounted to little more than ****-buddies- the characters seemed to be primarily there for you to lust over, and were not interesting in the slightest (though, I must admit, I did lust after Fenris in DA2. But he was an incredibly bad character, and seemed to belong in a slashfic written by a 13 year old. It's just that I've a thing for.. well, I digress).

 

And I mention "inclusivity" because of the options; the characters were not there to be interesting or to add to the story, but were a checklist; "we need an X person, a Y person, a Z person, and a Q person". This checklist mentality essentially made the characters about their sexuality (or "gender identity", which my actual (as opposed to attention-seeking) trans friend will tell you, does not define their personality beyond adding to a pile of "things I gotta deal with". She's got an actual personality beyond "I was porn with a **** but I'm not a dude").

 

And then there were the adds for the latest DA game, and dear god.. It seemed that the game turned into a dating sim for the tumblr crowd. I shall speak no more on Bioware's latest actions.

 

But why did I speak of this at all? It's because it's what I fear will happen when you include "romance" beyond the tacky, useless, silly thing that Skyrim did. I strongly believe that including romance will either alienate a certain group of people, who will scream their hearts out over what sorts of romance options there are (hello checklist), or will start to influence further game development to turn further titles into dating sims, with more and more emphasis on romance, and less emphasis on things which I consider interesting.

 

But my cynicism goes further; I have absolutely no faith in any developer to write a romance sub-plot which I'd care for. I expect it to be either completely uninteresting, or, worse, detrimental to the overall game. 

 

But, cynicism/paranoia/pessimism aside, there's also the concern about character writing; there's a limited development budget, and a limited amount of effort than can be spent on character development. And the more time spent on an NPCs sex life, the less time is spent on actually making that character interesting. To simplify it grossly, if there are 100 lines of dialogue with a character, I'd rather have none of them about the character's sex life (and there are other topics I'd most likely be uninterested in, but this thread deals with romance and not an NPC's mum's hair accessories) and all of them about the character's personality, behavior and believes, so that there's more interesting dialogue in total.

 

And a last point, and this is even more of a personal taste than the rest of the thread; actually being romantically interested in an NPC seems rather disturbing to me. I understand finding the graphics/voice sexually arousing, or otherwise stimulating, but for the player to have actual feelings for lines of code seems bizarre even to me. But that is probably an arbitrary line, as I find it completely normal to, as an example, get angry when an NPC gets mistreated (in my Mount & Blade game, I have made it my mission to hunt down and capture a lord that intended to take one of my peasants into sexual slavery. I swore colourfully at the computer when he did that).

 

To sum up, I am glad that there's no romance option, because I firmly believe that nothing good could come from such a feature. I'd rather the devs include a number of prostitutes for people to enjoy, if such is their desire.

[Lephys]

Out of curiosity, what does term "romance" include? The word is just so... indefinite. Does flirting count? And casual sex, not necessarily with one of the companions? What about constant brain****ing, like the one that made me want to strangle half of the female cnpcs in BG2? Or does it have to end up in marriage?

I think it just is indefinite. I mean, that's like asking what friendship means, or rivalry. I think romance encompasses pretty much anything that involves two (or more, I suppose?) people seeking a love-related connection on any level. Now, what love is or isn't (just chemicals, something else, etc.), and whether or not any given instance of romance is long enough, or ends right, or has sex in it, or is good or not, etc.... that's kind of up in the air.

 

That's the thing. These games typically represent romance, on a technical level, but it's not just one specific formula that you either follow or don't. How you do it matters, just as with any other character interactions or story or quest writing.

[Yellow Rabbit]

I think it just is indefinite. I mean, that's like asking what friendship means, or rivalry. I think romance encompasses pretty much anything that involves two (or more, I suppose?) people seeking a love-related connection on any level. Now, what love is or isn't (just chemicals, something else, etc.), and whether or not any given instance of romance is long enough, or ends right, or has sex in it, or is good or not, etc.... that's kind of up in the air.

 

That's the thing. These games typically represent romance, on a technical level, but it's not just one specific formula that you either follow or don't. How you do it matters, just as with any other character interactions or story or quest writing.

Sorry, my bad. Didn't put question well enough. I'm aware of what romance means. Well, kind of aware, anyway. Thing I wanted to know is what needs to be put in the game for romance cravers to say "okay, I got what I wanted"? How much romantic options is sufficient? Because narrative design, especially in rpg, has only so much means to express things like that, and doing it right is hell of a work.

 

I've played all bioware games except for DA series, and if bioware puts special emphasis on romances and supposed to be the best out there in this regard (are they, really?)... Well, then no one ever made a good romance in rpg. Maybe because it's really hard. I'd say leave that to modders.

 

Personally I would be content if devs would just put a few brothels here and there and cut off with that. And I know (have seen in previous thread) that I'm not only one with this opinion.

 

But, cynicism/paranoia/pessimism aside, there's also the concern about character writing; there's a limited development budget, and a limited amount of effort than can be spent on character development. And the more time spent on an NPCs sex life, the less time is spent on actually making that character interesting. To simplify it grossly, if there are 100 lines of dialogue with a character, I'd rather have none of them about the character's sex life (and there are other topics I'd most likely be uninterested in, but this thread deals with romance and not an NPC's mum's hair accessories) and all of them about the character's personality, behavior and believes, so that there's more interesting dialogue in total.

 

And a last point, and this is even more of a personal taste than the rest of the thread; actually being romantically interested in an NPC seems rather disturbing to me. I understand finding the graphics/voice sexually arousing, or otherwise stimulating, but for the player to have actual feelings for lines of code seems bizarre even to me. But that is probably an arbitrary line, as I find it completely normal to, as an example, get angry when an NPC gets mistreated (in my Mount & Blade game, I have made it my mission to hunt down and capture a lord that intended to take one of my peasants into sexual slavery. I swore colourfully at the computer when he did that).

 

To sum up, I am glad that there's no romance option, because I firmly believe that nothing good could come from such a feature. I'd rather the devs include a number of prostitutes for people to enjoy, if such is their desire.

Well, on two of your last points. In AAA grade games, in which Bioware specializes lately, need of full voiceovering puts a very strict limit on amount of text. Remove voiceover - and good writer can write a lot of dialogues in relatively short time. Just don't ask what Bioware did to all the good writers they're supposed to have (doped with neuroleptics? Broke all fingers except one with heavy hammer?). Thing is, write at least one good character with romantic options is possible. Just... not worth an effort, as I see it.

 

And about romantic involvement with npc... Hey, YOU're not supposed to be romanticaly involved with npc! Your character supposed to! You're roleplaying him/her, remember? Just imagine yourself on his/her place, and everything will be okay. As far as you don't apply his/her imagined involvements to yourself in real world.

 

I'm wholeheartedly agree with your overall point, though.

Edited December 3, 2014 by Yellow Rabbit

[Endrosz]

But my cynicism goes further; I have absolutely no faith in any developer to write a romance sub-plot which I'd care for. I expect it to be either completely uninteresting, or, worse, detrimental to the overall game.

 

...

 

To sum up, I am glad that there's no romance option, because I firmly believe that nothing good could come from such a feature. I'd rather the devs include a number of prostitutes for people to enjoy, if such is their desire.

 

Your jadedness reminded me of my own. But in the back of my mind there's a secret wish involving video game romance.

 

Pat Rothfuss is the New York Times best-selling author of the The Name of the Wind and it's sequels. Rothfuss's prose was praised for many things, including his portrayal of the romantic and/or sexual life of the protagonist, Kvothe. The Penny Arcade creators both like Rothfuss's works, and as usual in their line of work, they made some friendly mockery of Kvothe's adventures. They're on very good terms with Rothfuss, BTW, he's now a regular at the PAX theatrical DnD game sessions.

 

Rothfuss was a stretch goal in the T:ToN Kickstarter, and is/will be writing a companion for the game  (IIRC he will write The Toy). By now he's probably transitioned into dialogue-choice based video game writing, which can be difficult at first if you were a "normal" writer before (it was difficult for Nathan Long when he started on Wasteland 2, for example).

 

Now, the reason why I'm talking about Rothfuss is obvious: I want a PROPER video game romance. Choice-driven, deep, conflicted, multiple endings, not just "you **** him/her or you turn him/her down". I'm not really into video games romances, I just want see ONE that is done right. And IMO Rothfuss is one of the very few people who can do it right. I would like to see him become not just a stretch goal, but a regular team member on an RPG dev team, tasked with -- not exclusively, mind you -- writing a good romance that can be held up as an example for others to follow.

 

[Ayree]

I reply with but a single point: imagine the outcry of a certain loud-mouthed group if there was romance in the game, but not romance that completed their checklist. I, for one, would rather avoid that, for a number of reasons.

[BruceVC]

I reply with but a single point: imagine the outcry of a certain loud-mouthed group if there was romance in the game, but not romance that completed their checklist. I, for one, would rather avoid that, for a number of reasons.

 

You seem to have an issue with gay Romance options  in any particular game...or am I misunderstanding you ?

[Endrosz]

I reply with but a single point: imagine the outcry of a certain loud-mouthed group if there was romance in the game, but not romance that completed their checklist. I, for one, would rather avoid that, for a number of reasons.

 

Short answer: Who cares?

 

Longer version: It's BioWare who painted themselves into that creepy corner. It's them who whipped their fanbase into a romantic frenzy (ahaha), and advertised themselves as the company who does socially progressive romances. Other RPG makers, like Larian or Obsidian or Bethesda are not known as such. When people play their games, they don't expect such content. For example, Mask of the Betrayer has 5 full companions, among them one romanceable straight male and one romanceable straight female. Did anyone complain about "lack of inclusivity" or "very few romanceable NPCs" when reviewing MotB? No, because there were no such expectations in the first place.

 

What you say is only true in the context of BioWare. They are boiling in their own special hellish cauldron, where they provided the cauldron, the firewood, and even the flint and tinder. Thankfully, the rest of the industry is not like that.

[Elerond]

 

I reply with but a single point: imagine the outcry of a certain loud-mouthed group if there was romance in the game, but not romance that completed their checklist. I, for one, would rather avoid that, for a number of reasons.

 

 Mask of the Betrayer has 5 full companions, among them one romanceable straight male and one romanceable straight female. Did anyone complain about "lack of inclusivity" or "very few romanceable NPCs" when reviewing MotB? No, because there were no such expectations in the first place.

 

I know that there were people (including myself) that complained about it, because we hoped more options and ability define our characters better.

 

I would also point out that there was no inclusive romances in Bioware's game in that time either, if you don't count romance option with Juhani in Kotor, which was bugged and most people don't even no that it exist and that female characters had possibility to unlock romance path with Silk Fox in Jade Empire, which some don't even accept to be real romance path.

 

It was people that complained lack of such options in their previous games that convinced Bioware add two character's that were romance-able by both female and male player characters. Which was prove to be success in degree that Bioware didn't excepted, which you can see from romance options in Mass Effect and Mass Effect 2 and how they changed things to Mass Effect 3.

 

Did you know that Fallout 2 by Black Isle studios which key members founded Obsidian Entertainment in later date was first game that featured same-sex marriage and it was in form that player character could marry (or more accurately be forced to marry) same-sex npc. And that Obsidian originally planed that Gannayev-of-Dreams could be romanced by both genders in Mask of the Betrayer ("we wanted to make Gann in Mask of the Betrayer a bi-sexual, for example, because that felt true to how he perceived love"), but male romance option was removed because of request from Wizards of the Coast.

[Endrosz]

I grant you that exception, and possibly a few others who missed those things. But please show me any journalist review (who are keen to point out such issues), gamer blog review etc. who mentions that. I don't remember any. I didn't become a discussed issue, as far as I can tell.

 

About Fallout 2:

 

Oh yes, I remember the redneck boy and girl in Modoc. It was one of my favorite moments of Fallout 2. It's a darkly humorous prank that is the trademark of the Fallout universe: hey, surprise, when you awake the next morning after having sex, there's her daddy, now comes the shotgun wedding! (To keep with the redneck theme) There is only one possible further development of that relationship: divorcing him/her. No more dialog, no reactivity, no party contribution (they don't have skills and don't level up), and they are not mentioned in the ending slides. It's hardly a defining moment of the Fallout 2 experience, and it didn't change Black Isle's public perception to a "romance-telling and/socially progressive studio".

 

On the other hand, BioWare consciously built up its reputation as such, step by step. While DA:I was in the making, the whole romance thing was all over the place in the interviews, tweets by devs, con panels, etc. Romance options are now tenets of their games' narrative design. Like this:

 

 

Lead writer for the Dragon Age series David Gaider made the comments during BioWare’s GaymerX2 panel last week titled Building a Better Romance. He explained that since there were only four character romances in Dragon Age II, they were all bisexual because the team wanted to make sure every player had some type of choice.

[Ayree]

 

I reply with but a single point: imagine the outcry of a certain loud-mouthed group if there was romance in the game, but not romance that completed their checklist. I, for one, would rather avoid that, for a number of reasons.

 

You seem to have an issue with gay Romance options  in any particular game...or am I misunderstanding you ?

 

I'm actually gay (well.. mostly), so my issue is that they're neither done well, nor do I see them as constructive.

 

 

 

 

 

I reply with but a single point: imagine the outcry of a certain loud-mouthed group if there was romance in the game, but not romance that completed their checklist. I, for one, would rather avoid that, for a number of reasons.

 

 Mask of the Betrayer has 5 full companions, among them one romanceable straight male and one romanceable straight female. Did anyone complain about "lack of inclusivity" or "very few romanceable NPCs" when reviewing MotB? No, because there were no such expectations in the first place.

 

I know that there were people (including myself) that complained about it, because we hoped more options and ability define our characters better.

...

 

It was people that complained lack of such options in their previous games that convinced Bioware add two character's that were romance-able by both female and male player characters. Which was prove to be success in degree that Bioware didn't excepted, which you can see from romance options in Mass Effect and Mass Effect 2 and how they changed things to Mass Effect 3.

 

And see what that got us. This is (a part) of why I'm against any romance option to begin with- people will complain, and want more, and demand diversity for the sake of diversity (a sickening thought, to me; it's a checkbox mentality that drives a frenzied mob of.. the kind of people I'd rather not see infest more media than they already have), and then people who did not like the core RPG mechanics, or the story, will flock to that game as a dating sim, and will push the development to make it more of a dating sim.

 

My fears may be influenced by a /pol/ way of thinking to an extent, but it is recent history. Perhaps Obsidian would prove to be more resilient, but I, for one, would rather not see that risk taken, especially seeing as a romance option would bring so little when compared to the potential risk to future development (and I've not even mentioned what certain review sites would do- and how it'd influence the abominable metacritic- if the romance options did not fully fill out their checklist).

 

I repeat that this is a can of worms- if not a Pandora's box- that should remain closed, sealed, and forgotten.

Edited December 3, 2014 by Ayree

[Stun]

A platonic romance wouldn't be so bad either.

There's no such thing as a 'platonic romance'. The term is an oxymoron. It's like saying: "This water is dry"

 

 

One in which the love interest acts cold towards you or wants to kill you out of pure love would also be quite interesting. Imagine the possibilities!

See, neither of these examples is platonic. Once someone acts "cold" towards you or "loves" you, you've exited platonic and entered into the deeper emotions of things. As for those ideas themselves being placed in an RPG, it can certainly be done, but, like just about all video game romances, they will come off as half-assed unless they're the main plot of the game itself. And if you make a friggin ROMANCE be an RPG's main plot...ugh. No thanks. That's what Harlequin novels and daytime soap operas are for.

Edited December 3, 2014 by Stun

[Lephys]

Sorry, my bad. Didn't put question well enough. I'm aware of what romance means. Well, kind of aware, anyway. Thing I wanted to know is what needs to be put in the game for romance cravers to say "okay, I got what I wanted"? How much romantic options is sufficient? Because narrative design, especially in rpg, has only so much means to express things like that, and doing it right is hell of a work.

No worries. If I'm not sure, I tend to take things literally, and just go from there. You're right that it's a pretty good amount of work.

 

Personally I would be content if devs would just put a few brothels here and there and cut off with that. And I know (have seen in previous thread) that I'm not only one with this opinion.

 

 

See, I don't really have a problem with that. The way I see it, though, is that, with anything, I'd much rather have the "this interaction actually involves significant choices that relate to the narrative in a significant way" version, rather than "this is just for funsies and kind of never matters."

 

For me, it honestly isn't even that big of a deal that a romance, in and of itself, be some incredible, passionate love story that moves me to my very core. I don't think that's its role in the midst of a game that isn't exclusively built around the theme of romance. It's more that, as a character interaction, it's another option to be had. And, like any other character interaction, I don't want it to be plastic and lifeless, and I don't want it to make story happenings feel lackluster in relation to the characters.

 

It's all really just character development. When someone's in trouble, I want to feel like I kind of understand that virtual person, so that I'm not just going "Oh noes, I don't wanna lose my tanky dude!", or, in the case of romance, "Oh noes, that was my favorite plaything at the brothel!".

 

I want to be able to be motivated by my inter-character developments to make further choices in tough situations, etc. It's that simple for me. So, if there's romance-ability, I'd honestly much rather see it be sex-less and such, and actual impactful on the progression of the story based on my character's choices and such, than have it focus so hard on JUST how friggin' epic of a romance it is between those two characters without anything else.

 

I think this is the problem with most video game romances. They just focus way too hard on themselves, and not enough on the rest of the game. It's no different from a stronghold, in a way. If a stronghold just turned into "Stronghold Manager 2K14," and didn't really support the rest of the game, then it would be kind of silly.

 

I haven't gotten all the way through DA:I yet, so I haven't seen a ton of the romance writing and such, but I think the main issue, so far, with that is that the options still kind of feel like they might as well say "(Romance this person)," like it's just a verb you do to people at random points in time, and not a relationship you develop over time. Honestly, I'd be less troubled by the Bioware romance options if they were serially just aptly-placed like... one-night-stand options. You know, just "Hey, the world might be ending. We're both smexy. Wanna have some fun tonight before we all maybe die?"

 

That's about how casual they feel, though, but the result is supposed to be that you're furthering some deep relationship with the character. *shrug*

 

I will say, one of the characters I attempted to just begin to pursue -- while my character's dialogue option was strangely abrupt/jarring -- actually responded pretty realistically with a "I can't believe you even just asked that"-toned laugh, and a "don't be silly," basically.

[Elerond]

 

There's no such thing as a 'platonic romance'. The term is an oxymoron. It's like saying: "This water is dry"

 

 

 

http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Dry_water

 

 

Edited December 3, 2014 by Elerond

[Lephys]

http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Dry_water

 

 

LOLCANO!

[Ieo]

The ****, you guys need to keep all the previous thread links in the opening post.

 

http://forums.obsidian.net/topic/60404-merged-gods-save-us-another-romance-thread/page-1

 

http://forums.obsidian.net/topic/60688-romance-in-project-eternity-how-important-how-much

 

http://forums.obsidian.net/topic/61515-romance-and-friendship

 

http://forums.obsidian.net/topic/61683-the-official-pe-relationshipromance-thread

 

http://forums.obsidian.net/topic/61676-the-unofficial-pe-relationshipromance-thread

 

http://forums.obsidian.net/topic/61768-unofficial-pe-relationshipromance-thread-pt2

 

http://forums.obsidian.net/topic/61886-unofficial-pe-relationshipromance-thread-pt-3

 

http://forums.obsidian.net/topic/62215-relationshipromance-thread-iv

 

http://forums.obsidian.net/topic/64084-romance-marriage-pregnancy-and-having-children

 

etc.

 

It's all an eternal circle-war anyway.

[Yellow Rabbit]

For me, it honestly isn't even that big of a deal that a romance, in and of itself, be some incredible, passionate love story that moves me to my very core. I don't think that's its role in the midst of a game that isn't exclusively built around the theme of romance. It's more that, as a character interaction, it's another option to be had. And, like any other character interaction, I don't want it to be plastic and lifeless, and I don't want it to make story happenings feel lackluster in relation to the characters.

This.

 

Romances in real life are natural thing, there's no going away from that. You meet person, come to like her/him, talk, flirt, etc. I'm consciously casting away love stories since never took part in one.

 

In a game even simpliest romance gonna require a dozens of options on each step in order to give player choice and feel natural. And I find surreal case where companion abruptly stops in the middle of a dungeon without even wiping from face blood of that big ugly ogre and bluntly goes forward like: "You know what? We travel together for so long (actually just met in previous village) and I came to like you. Whaddya say?" That's how plainly written game scripts tend to work and implementing even that might cost noticeable time. Cases where you need constantly harass someone with talking attempts, repeating the same things dozens of times in order to know more about him/her and supposedly boost your relationships seems to me unnatural too. Well, not unnatural. Annoying.

 

So, that's my problem with romances, immersion breaking. I know it's not an issue of romances per se, it's an issue of their implementation and writing, but I've never seen that done right. Not a single time. Maybe I just missed right games?

 

Btw, immersion breaking is the reason why I even mentioned brothels in the first place. All that crap about need of sex being simple biological fact and unbeliveability of the world where no-one-even-thinks-about-that (yes, I'm hurt by vanilla TES series beyond repair ). Connecting that with romances is a matter of stereotype.

[Tibs]

My thought is that romance certainly has a place in storytelling. This is not to say every tale's plot should entail a romantic interest, but having same would open potentials that would be missed by some of us. That said, literature and related arts benefit from discipline, structure, and natural limitations. A Sonnet, for example, or Haiku, are exemplary of this principle. In Pillars of Eternity the designer is the storyteller. It is for the storyteller to craft the plot and furnishings.

 

I am quite invested in storycraft. Ultimately there are two ways at least to approach the question. On the one hand options are good. On the other there is merit to limiting options, especially when the number of options actually gets in the way of the story you are trying to tell.

 

I makes sense to me to provide for, yet for now leave out, the romantic complications. Then later, when the game is robust and has had time to mature, perhaps provide the feature whole and complete as a purchasable module, one among hopefully many.

Edited December 4, 2014 by Tibs

[Marcvs Caesar]

There's no such thing as a 'platonic romance'. The term is an oxymoron. It's like saying: "This water is dry".

 

I was thinking of "romance" more as an in-game mechanic.

 

One in which the love interest acts cold towards you or wants to kill you out of pure love would also be quite interesting. Imagine the possibilities!

1. See, neither of these examples is platonic. 2. Once someone acts "cold" towards you or "loves" you, you've exited platonic and entered into the deeper emotions of things.

 

As for those ideas themselves being placed in an RPG, it can certainly be done, but, like just about all video game romances, they will come off as half-assed unless they're the main plot of the game itself. And if you make a friggin ROMANCE be an RPG's main plot...ugh. No thanks. That's what Harlequin novels and daytime soap operas are for.

 

 

1. I never said they were. 2. Fascinating, I wasn't aware/ sarcasm. I see you never heard the terms "tsundere" and "yandere", I was hoping someone would notice but oh well. Anyway, it was a joke.

 

I've already posted my opinion on this topic:

 

I've only romanced two (or three) fictitional characters in my whole gaming life: Viconia Deviir from Baldur's Gate II and Morrigan from Dragon Age Origins (along with Fall-from-grace from Planescape: Torment if you can even consider that a romance). And personally I do consider, without a doubt, that it contributed more to making my role-playing experience more memorable.

 

However there are more important aspects in a role-playing game other than such a minor mechanic like romance. Although enjoyable, the lack of it won't take away from the game in the slightest, besides I doubt I'll find characters I like enough to romance any time soon (if not never) such as the ones I mentioned.

Edited December 4, 2014 by Marcvs Caesar

[500MetricTonnes]

My issue with romances, at least as they are presented in BioWare games, is that they are ultimately based on what your character says, not what your character does. In a game like Mass Effect, romances essentially come down to this:

 

NPC: You can talk to me five times!

 

NPC: Say the right thing four times, and I'll love you forever!

 

Consider the Tali/Shepard ( )* romance from ME2. I can play Shepard as a pure Renegade, which means he acts in a manner that is downright sociopathic. But if I say the right things to her in dialogue, she falls in love with me, even if my character has committed cold-blooded murder right in front of her. At least in Baldur's Gate II, if I started committing random acts of murder or performing evil actions, it will end romances with certain party members.

 

And on that note, I found that the BG2 romances allowed me to further define my character somewhat. A Bhaalspawn who engages in a romance with Aerie or Jaheira, for instance, is probably going to quite different in personality and goals from a Bhaalspawn who pursues Viconia. Contrast this with later BioWare games, where it doesn't matter who your character is just, just hit the "flirt" option on the dialogue wheel and away you go! It's shallow and pandering.

 

So if PE is to feature a romance arc, it ought to follow the BG2 model, or the KotOR2 model, where attraction is merely hinted at or implied. But all things considered, given that the developers have a finite amount of time to work on the game, I'd rather they focus on something more important than romance.

 

*recovering Talimancer here

Edited December 4, 2014 by 500MetricTonnes