The Official Romance Thread

[Lephys]

Romantic wish fulfillment? Perhaps? Romantic actually-thought-out story aspects? I don't believe so.

[Cantousent]

For my part, Azarkon, I probably wouldn't go out of my way to search for CRPGs with romantic elements, but my real problem with them altogether is how they've unfolded in games I've played.

 

Anyhow, I figure this idea will get hammered, but I made a post about Choice and Consequence a while back, August 2012.  I'm going to take that basic post and present it here as a way to accommodate players who want to put themselves into the 'romance' side of the spectrum.  Since the idea is a spectrum of desired behavior by the player, he increasingly puts himself into romantic content.  He can also extract himself out slowly.  There will be specific plot points where the design team can shift the spectrum widely for a variety of reasons.  For example, you've engaged in romantic behavior and your main squeeze dies.  That's an opportunity to move yourself way the hell to the other side of the spectrum.

 

Ah, hell, I'll just post a link to the original post.  The main thrust, however, is that players don't just open up content for themselves.  They move the dialogue so that the open dialogue choices for the PC reflect the person you've created as the player.  It doesn't limit the player.  It allows the design team to make a more tailored experience.  Romantic/unsentimental.  There can be multiple spectrums in a game, but keep in mind that every spectrum will start to eat up resources.  For someone who likes the spectrum idea but hates romance, this still isn't a good option because he'd rather see one of those precious spectrum slots taken with something more appealing to his interests and desires.

 

http://forums.obsidian.net/topic/59862-choice-and-consequence-long-winded/?hl=spectrum

 

Keep in mind, folks got caught up on alignment, but that was just the example.  This could reflect comedy/serious, romantic/unsentimental, sane/insane, etc etc etc.

[Azarkon]

Romantic wish fulfillment? Perhaps? Romantic actually-thought-out story aspects? I don't believe so.

You have to learn to walk before you learn to run. I think the problem with a lot of the well-intentioned promancers in this thread is that they've set such a high bar for romantic content that developers are liable to run away from it than embrace it.

[Kal Adan]

Wait, lets break down the IE games, then, both because you're calling them out for being playable as something other than simple dungeon crawls, and because PoE is riding the IE games as inspiration/format from start to finish.

 

I am saying that IE games are playable as something other than simple dungeon crawls, because - in my experience - they were. It's as simple as that. It's not just me, either. The two the most fondly remembered games - by me and others - are Baldur's Gate II: Shadows of Amn and Planescape: Torment. Icewind Dale series do have their place in people's memory (the first game has great story), but aren't prime choices, because that spot is already occupied. You can try break down the IE games, but they were more than simply the sum of their parts. Of course, your mileage may vary.

 

Role Playing Game as a concept focuses more on player(s) as a character(s) and what said character(s) do. You can treat it like a dungeon crawler. It's absolutely possible. But the days of RPGs being used as synonim for dungeon crawler are long since past. In fact, I wouldn't be as much interested in the genre otherwise, because there are a lot of games with interesting combat mechanics. If I am here it's largely because RPGs offer me - or at least try - something more than that. I will enjoy tactical combat too, but for me it's a bonus to being able to role play a character through the course of the game.

 

I was obviously talking about modern Western culture; it isn't necessarily a condemnation; and it isn't limited to video games. Romantic 'wish fulfillment' is derided in contemporary Western pop culture wherever it appears - simply look at the Twilight flak - and especially by men. But its cousin - sexual 'wish fulfillment' - isn't. In lieu of romance, what we get in Western made-for-male-consumption pop media is instead porn and soft-porn - ie the parade of scantily clad females in films, tv shows, and games whose only purpose there is to provide various states of undress. At the same time, other figments of wish fulfillment - especially of the violent, heroic sort - are ingested without a shred of introspection. Teenagers today grow up on games eg GTA, CoD, and Madden NFL, which speak to their 'power fantasies'; but when it comes to romance, all they get are GTA shack-a-hos and Bioware 'SJW progressivism.' A lot of it comes down to the sort of hyper-masculine ideal that is, in my opinion, intrinsic to modern Western culture's social standard for males, but that's precisely what makes it so hard to see when you don't have a foil.

 

The purpose of my bringing this up is to think about why, after a bit of initial experimentation with romances in games, the video games industry in the US - and to a lesser degree in Europe - abandoned them altogether, while in Japan, for example, romantic wish fulfillment became a thriving industry for both male and female gamers. Promancers flock to RPG forums - and especially to Bioware's and Obsidian's - because interactive romantic content is basically only found in this increasingly marginalized genre, along with a handful of indie games. Yet, even among Western RPG developers, it is a dying art - as Gromnir has effectively argued. Bioware does a bang up job selling their romances, but in the end, even for them it's an afterthought.

 

I'm all for debating the pros and cons of having romance in games, but at the end of the day - is there simply an insurmountable cultural barrier to romantic wish fulfillment in the US and Europe, such that promancers are forced to coat their arguments in a veneer of aesthetic respectability lest they get laughed out of the room? For gamers in the West, 'dating sim' is the sort of phrase you don't want to touch with a ten-foot pole, even behind the protection of anonymity. Hell, I've met Persona fans who were positively horrified when I floated the idea that it was a dating sim. But isn't it just our cultural proclivity? And does it hurt us to admit it? That's what I figured out after all this to-and-fro about the 'objective' value of romances in games - they're no different, at the end of the day, from all the other types of wish fulfillment that make up gaming.

I don't think this is about cultural barrier. There is nothing to stand in a way of a romance, because romance is not viewed upon with scorn by our culture. Think about Tristane and Isolde or Romeo and Juliet. The dangerous tabu content lies past the romance's waters. In my opinion it's either lack of will to create really good romance (because there are more important aspects of production to be taken care of) OR inexperience with handling romance as a separate theme. It's hard to get right and where it's tackled the poor handling gets embedded into what people think true romance is, creating a vicious circle.

Edited March 4, 2015 by Kal Adan

[Azarkon]

 

 

For my part, Azarkon, I probably wouldn't go out of my way to search for CRPGs with romantic elements, but my real problem with them altogether is how they've unfolded in games I've played.

 

Anyhow, I figure this idea will get hammered, but I made a post about Choice and Consequence a while back, August 2012.  I'm going to take that basic post and present it here as a way to accommodate players who want to put themselves into the 'romance' side of the spectrum.  Since the idea is a spectrum of desired behavior by the player, he increasingly puts himself into romantic content.  He can also extract himself out slowly.  There will be specific plot points where the design team can shift the spectrum widely for a variety of reasons.  For example, you've engaged in romantic behavior and your main squeeze dies.  That's an opportunity to move yourself way the hell to the other side of the spectrum.

 

Ah, hell, I'll just post a link to the original post.  The main thrust, however, is that players don't just open up content for themselves.  They move the dialogue so that the open dialogue choices for the PC reflect the person you've created as the player.  It doesn't limit the player.  It allows the design team to make a more tailored experience.  Romantic/unsentimental.  There can be multiple spectrums in a game, but keep in mind that every spectrum will start to eat up resources.  For someone who likes the spectrum idea but hates romance, this still isn't a good option because he'd rather see one of those precious spectrum slots taken with something more appealing to his interests and desires.

 

http://forums.obsidian.net/topic/59862-choice-and-consequence-long-winded/?hl=spectrum

 

Keep in mind, folks got caught up on alignment, but that was just the example.  This could reflect comedy/serious, romantic/unsentimental, sane/insane, etc etc etc.

I don't oppose your idea, but at the same time, I don't think it's a matter of choice - ie 'bring it on!' vs. 'kill it with fire!' Badly executed romances are just bad, and it's the poor execution of romances that drives people to the other side. People who hate romances in video games weren't born that way. They were made that way by crappy execution, and I don't blame them, because the track record is terrible.

[TheGoatMan]

I would rather have well done Friendship/Rivalry/They hate my guts and are planing to kill me paths In the game instead of romances.

 

I like romances *gets hit with tomato* but they dont need to be in every game. 

[Azarkon]

I don't think this is about cultural barrier. There is nothing to stand in a way of a romance, because romance is not viewed upon with scorn by our culture. Think about Tristane and Isolde or Romeo and Juliet. The dangerous tabu content lies past the romance's waters. In my opinion it's either lack of will to create really good romance (because there are more important aspects of production to be taken care of) OR inexperience with handling romance as a separate theme. It's hard to get right and where it's tackled the poor handling gets embedded into what people think true romance is, creating a vicious circle.

 

The cultural problem isn't that we reject romance, but that we have a difficult time accepting romantic wish fulfillment as a valid indulgence. It's a problem of immersion, of becoming sufficiently emotionally invested in a video game character to actually enjoy interacting with him/her romantically. Such immersion is vital to effective romantic roleplaying, but is incredibly hard to achieve when you refuse - eg for cultural reasons - to become emotionally involved with a video game in that way.

 

Don't get me wrong, I'm not talking about 'Aerie is my eternal waifu I no longer care about 3D people' obsession, but rather a middle ground between it and the 'I play for teh lelz' crowd who's never going to be immersed to begin with. And I'm not asking for as much as you think - because the fact of the matter is, we DO get immersed in games, and we DO derive wish fulfillment from them. Otherwise, you won't see people becoming so emotionally invested in, say, Ellie in The Last of Us, and for that matter a World of Warcraft raid boss drop.

 

Provided that you accept this premise - that emotional investment is critical to the success of a romance - then the rest of this logic is straight forward.

 

The basis of an effective CRPG romance is a character that is endearing to you, and the basis of such a character is an aspect of wish fulfillment that appeals to you. Whether the developer subverts this aspect later - ie for thematic effects - there's no way to avoid it in the beginning, because in order for the player to even be drawn to that character in a romantic way, there has to be a raw attraction, and that attraction isn't cheap, especially not when you're trying to effect it through a computer screen with pixels. It's not enough to simply have a compelling character, because there's no excuse for forcing a romance track just to develop a compelling character. It's also not enough to just have a 'romantic story,' because the narrative fails when there is no investment - it feels empty and cheesy. It's further not enough to just have an attractive model, because that only inspires sexual attraction, which is cheap and fleeting when it's through the computer screen. There has to be a wish fulfillment aspect involved.

 

In fact, there's nothing unique about romance - as people have already said hundreds of times - outside the actual existence of romantic feelings, and it's inspiring those feelings without any hope of sexual fulfillment that is the hardest task for the game designer. Romantic feelings? For a video game character? Madness, but in fact, people fall in love with fictional characters all the time - from books, comic books, films, etc., and in lieu of interaction they write a lot of bad fanfiction. But just from the fact that I cringed while writing this post tells me that there is a deep-seated resistance against this sort of behavior, and that to the degree that the 'mainstream' gaming culture shares in this resistance, video game romances won't flourish.

Edited March 4, 2015 by Azarkon

[Kal Adan]

People cringe at Twillight - at least publicly - and it was still successful enough book to develop into three parts and get movie versions of the books. Fifty Shades of Grey is (was?) tabu and now it's out in the open. They even made a movie and more books. Look at this very forums even now: people are asking if it's true that romances are not in game. It says a lot about the popular demand for romances, even in video games.

 

If you don't think that a video game can invoke feelings (or that such feelings are stupid), then you simply didn't play good video games. Same goes for books or movies. I am not a big fan of anime or manga (I hate the art style), but they were made well enough to create emotional response. That's something. If it's possible for movies and comics, then it's possible for games. It only requires correct approach.

[Heijoushin]

I would rather have well done Friendship/Rivalry/They hate my guts and are planing to kill me paths In the game instead of romances.

 

I like romances *gets hit with tomato* but they dont need to be in every game. 

 

 

This! What the goatman says!

 

Instead of romance, can't we explore other human relationships? Relationships that are more suited to video games?

 

What does a romantic relationship in a video game really reward you with? Some cute dialogue? A black screen that represents sex? An NPC that hangs out in your home? (I'm looking at you Skyrim) 

 

On the other hand, a rivalry could be interesting! Based on your actions and dialogue choices, you could be rewarded with a bonus boss battle (rival challenging you to a dual) or something. That would fit a lot more smoothly into a cRPG.

 

 

People cringe at Twillight - at least publicly - and it was still successful enough book to develop into three parts and get movie versions of the books. Fifty Shades of Grey is (was?) tabu and now it's out in the open. They even made a movie and more books. Look at this very forums even now: people are asking if it's true that romances are not in game. It says a lot about the popular demand for romances, even in video games.

 

If you don't think that a video game can invoke feelings (or that such feelings are stupid), then you simply didn't play good video games. Same goes for books or movies. I am not a big fan of anime or manga (I hate the art style), but they were made well enough to create emotional response. That's something. If it's possible for movies and comics, then it's possible for games. It only requires correct approach.

 

The reason JRPGs are a lot better at romances are: they don't give the player much choice. The story is built in and you just go along with it. If you do it that way, then I think you can basically include an interesting romance story. Western RPGs try to give the player more choices and that's why they fail.

Edited March 4, 2015 by Heijoushin

[BruceVC]

 

I don't think this is about cultural barrier. There is nothing to stand in a way of a romance, because romance is not viewed upon with scorn by our culture. Think about Tristane and Isolde or Romeo and Juliet. The dangerous tabu content lies past the romance's waters. In my opinion it's either lack of will to create really good romance (because there are more important aspects of production to be taken care of) OR inexperience with handling romance as a separate theme. It's hard to get right and where it's tackled the poor handling gets embedded into what people think true romance is, creating a vicious circle.

 

The cultural problem isn't that we reject romance, but that we have a difficult time accepting romantic wish fulfillment as a valid indulgence. It's a problem of immersion, of becoming sufficiently emotionally invested in a video game character to actually enjoy interacting with him/her romantically. Such immersion is vital to effective romantic roleplaying, but is incredibly hard to achieve when you refuse - eg for cultural reasons - to become emotionally involved with a video game in that way.

 

Don't get me wrong, I'm not talking about 'Aerie is my eternal waifu I no longer care about 3D people' obsession, but rather a middle ground between it and the 'I play for teh lelz' crowd who's never going to be immersed to begin with. And I'm not asking for as much as you think - because the fact of the matter is, we DO get immersed in games, and we DO derive wish fulfillment from them. Otherwise, you won't see people becoming so emotionally invested in, say, Ellie in The Last of Us, and for that matter a World of Warcraft raid boss drop.

 

Provided that you accept this premise - that emotional investment is critical to the success of a romance - then the rest of this logic is straight forward.

 

The basis of an effective CRPG romance is a character that is endearing to you, and the basis of such a character is an aspect of wish fulfillment that appeals to you. Whether the developer subverts this aspect later - ie for thematic effects - there's no way to avoid it in the beginning, because in order for the player to even be drawn to that character in a romantic way, there has to be a raw attraction, and that attraction isn't cheap, especially not when you're trying to effect it through a computer screen with pixels. It's not enough to simply have a compelling character, because there's no excuse for forcing a romance track just to develop a compelling character. It's also not enough to just have a 'romantic story,' because the narrative fails when there is no investment - it feels empty and cheesy. It's further not enough to just have an attractive model, because that only inspires sexual attraction, which is cheap and fleeting when it's through the computer screen. There has to be a wish fulfillment aspect involved.

 

In fact, there's nothing unique about romance - as people have already said hundreds of times - outside the actual existence of romantic feelings, and it's inspiring those feelings without any hope of sexual fulfillment that is the hardest task for the game designer. Romantic feelings? For a video game character? Madness, but in fact, people fall in love with fictional characters all the time - from books, comic books, films, etc., and in lieu of interaction they write a lot of bad fanfiction. But just from the fact that I cringed while writing this post tells me that there is a deep-seated resistance against this sort of behavior, and that to the degree that the 'mainstream' gaming culture shares in this resistance, video game romances won't flourish.

 

 

Nah, I have no problem accepting Romance as a valid indulgence. I prefer to see it as a normal way of enhancing your interaction with party members. Its about realism and immersion. 

 

I have made my next  point so many times but I'll happily make it again. Its completely reasonable  and expected that if you are on this epic quest to save the world and everyday may be your last that you would develop a Romantic interest with someone in your party, especially if you are attracted to that person. Think about all the long nights spent around the campfire ruminating and reflecting on the ordeals of the day?

 

In fact I always argue that by not having a Romance arc its unrealistic to how people interact emotionally 

[BruceVC]

 

I would rather have well done Friendship/Rivalry/They hate my guts and are planing to kill me paths In the game instead of romances.

 

I like romances *gets hit with tomato* but they dont need to be in every game. 

 

 

 

The reason JRPGs are a lot better at romances are: they don't give the player much choice. The story is built in and you just go along with it. If you do it that way, then I think you can basically include an interesting romance story. Western RPGs try to give the player more choices and that's why they fail.

 

 

I have mentioned before that if Romance was mandatory as part of the narrative in a RPG then there would be obviously less resistance to the concept and we would see a more  realistic and mature interpretation of it in games, so I support the Japanese system of Romance

 

But that idea was shot down horribly on these forums...very few people supported it 

[Heijoushin]

 

 

The reason JRPGs are a lot better at romances are: they don't give the player much choice. The story is built in and you just go along with it. If you do it that way, then I think you can basically include an interesting romance story. Western RPGs try to give the player more choices and that's why they fail.

 

 

I have mentioned before that if Romance was mandatory as part of the narrative in a RPG then there would be obviously less resistance to the concept and we would see a more  realistic and mature interpretation of it in games, so I support the Japanese system of Romance

 

But that idea was shot down horribly on these forums...very few people supported it 

 

 

Hmmmm... it's not so much that it's mandatory in J-RPGs, it's just that they choose your partner for you (or you can choose from a very small selection) and then carefully script all the interactions. So you can't hit on every single woman in the game world. You can only go for childhood friend A, mysterious girl B, or large-breasted classmate C. And you can't choose how the romance plays out, you can only watch the sub-plot unfold.

 

And the sub-plots are often ridiculously stereotypical, but I think ridiculously stereotypical is better than unnatural and immersion breaking.

 

 

[BruceVC]

 

 

 

The reason JRPGs are a lot better at romances are: they don't give the player much choice. The story is built in and you just go along with it. If you do it that way, then I think you can basically include an interesting romance story. Western RPGs try to give the player more choices and that's why they fail.

 

 

I have mentioned before that if Romance was mandatory as part of the narrative in a RPG then there would be obviously less resistance to the concept and we would see a more  realistic and mature interpretation of it in games, so I support the Japanese system of Romance

 

But that idea was shot down horribly on these forums...very few people supported it 

 

 

Hmmmm... it's not so much that it's mandatory in J-RPGs, it's just that they choose your partner for you (or you can choose from a very small selection) and then carefully script all the interactions. So you can't hit on every single woman in the game world. You can only go for childhood friend A, mysterious girl B, or large-breasted classmate C. And you can't choose how the romance plays out, you can only watch the sub-plot unfold.

 

And the sub-plots are often ridiculously stereotypical, but I think ridiculously stereotypical is better than unnatural and immersion breaking.

 

 

 

 

Ah, okay. I see what you mean, I have never played a J-RPG before so I wasn't clear on what you meant. Thanks for explaining

[Stun]

I'm uhh... I'm not sure "storymancer" works, either, unless someone is mancing stories. 8P

Then, what is a romancer? Someone who's Mancing Ro's?

[Stun]

I have mentioned before that if Romance was mandatory as part of the narrative in a RPG then there would be obviously less resistance to the concept and we would see a more  realistic and mature interpretation of it in games, so I support the Japanese system of Romance

 

But that idea was shot down horribly on these forums...very few people supported it 

Well of course no sane person would support mandatory romances in an RPG. It would go against a core pillar of what makes an RPG in the first place: Choice. Never mind the fact that such a narrative would be condemned for being uncreative and cliché. Edited March 4, 2015 by Stun

[BruceVC]

 

I have mentioned before that if Romance was mandatory as part of the narrative in a RPG then there would be obviously less resistance to the concept and we would see a more  realistic and mature interpretation of it in games, so I support the Japanese system of Romance

 

But that idea was shot down horribly on these forums...very few people supported it 

Well of course no sane person would support mandatory romances in an RPG. It would go against a core pillar of what makes an RPG in the first place: Choice. Never mind the fact that such a narrative would be condemned for being uncreative and cliché.

 

 

Sure I understand how you may see it like that but yet you don't say that about many other mandatory  features in RPG like classes and spells ?

 

But anyway I am not so delusional to think mandatory Romance would be acceptable by some fans...it was just an idea if I was designing my own RPG 

[Diogenes]

The Nameless One has a mandatory romance with Ravel, its just not reciprocal.

[Valmy]

The Nameless One has a mandatory romance with Ravel, its just not reciprocal.

 

Well that is different.

[Valmy]

Sure I understand how you may see it like that but yet you don't say that about many other mandatory  features in RPG like classes and spells ?

 

But anyway I am not so delusional to think mandatory Romance would be acceptable by some fans...it was just an idea if I was designing my own RPG 

 

 

A really good romance would probably require it to be mandatory.  It would be the focus of the game.  I would not be opposed to this, but not for a PoE game.

Edited March 4, 2015 by Valmy

[Stun]

 

The Nameless One has a mandatory romance with Ravel, its just not reciprocal.

Well that is different.

 

Very. As in... it's not a romance at all.

 

There's no such thing as a non-reciprocal romance.

Edited March 4, 2015 by Stun

[Valmy]

There's no such thing as a non-reciprocal romance.

 

But there is such a thing as...whatever Ravel had going on.

[Diogenes]

At what point does a story about love become a love story?

[Stun]

Are we still talking about Planescape Torment?

[Diogenes]

Are we still talking about Planescape Torment?

 

Ravel and TNO's story is about love, yes. He charmed her into falling in love with him and she fell for him hard. Everything she has done, she did for him. She still loves him. Even as he lies to her, she loves him. Its horrible, abusive and unhealthy but its still a story about love. What people would do for love or how they would use love to get what they want. The same thing as with Deionarra really.

 

I'm not saying the whole game is about love. Though maybe it is, what can change the nature of a man? Torment is a story about stories. Some of those stories are love stories.

Edited March 4, 2015 by Diogenes

[BruceVC]

 

Are we still talking about Planescape Torment?

 

Ravel and TNO's story is about love, yes. He charmed her into falling in love with him and she fell for him hard. Everything she has done, she did for him. She still loves him. Even as he lies to her, she loves him. Its horrible, abusive and unhealthy but its still a story about love. What people would do for love or how they would use love to get what they want. The same thing as with Deionarra really.

 

I'm not saying the whole game is about love. Though maybe it is, what can change the nature of a man? Torment is a story about stories. Some of those stories are love stories.

 

 

I agree with that, you can easily  see how   Planescape had an obvious undercurrent of Romance that was inextricably linked to the narrative