The Official Romance Thread

[Jasta11]

 

I don't see why not.

 

It's a way for two characters to develop a relationship.

Sure.  But they actually have to develop a relationship.  And this is where the whole thing usually falls apart.

Take DA:I.  It takes a great deal of pain developing the idea that your relationship with these various crazy people is as the second coming of their personal savior, their boss, leader and the key to saving the world.  But on the side you can repeatedly sexually harass them until they give in and have sex.  And this is the pinnacle of CRPG romance.

 

Or take BG2.  You can either get a whining crying teenage ex-slave pregnant, or randomly marry a horrible woman seeking to replace her recently mutilated dead husband after a matter of days. Or be 'edgy' with the S&M dark elf stereotype.

 

Yeah. Pass.

 

 

Great thing romances are optional, then.

 

If you don't like them, pass. I don't like the concept of Orlans, I'm not going to play as one. I don't like the concept of permadeath, I'm not going to enable it. I dislike maces as a weapon, I'm not going to use one unless absolutely required. So on and so forth. All of these things are content that the devs put in the game and that cost time and money to implement, yet that I don't like and won't use. That does not mean it was wasted at all. Simply that it's not for me.

 

Not liking romance in games is one thing, that's perfectly fine. But saying that it shouldn't be in the game, or should absolutely have to justify its existence by being great, because you don't like it is a bit of a silly, dead-end argument, to me at least. 

 

I mean, of course romances should be well written. Everything in the game should be well written. it's why many of us have backed or bought an Obsidian game before it's even released, because as writers they are heads and shoulders above the rest of the industry, no?. But I don't understand this need for romances to be either the Best Romance Ever or a complete waste of space. Badly written fantasy is dime a dozen these days, doesn't mean Obsidian require stellar writing to justify regarding elves or dragons to put them in the game.

[Yellow Rabbit]

Looks like the main problem romance threads keep inheriting from each other is lack of definitions. What's a videogame romance, exactly? It sounds so confusing when people seem to be mutually agreed about romances being a Bioware-style dialogue mini-game and then suddenly start bringing in Planescape: Torment as example of a romances well made. Single Facepalm.jpg is just not enough to comment on that.

 

I'm fairly sure PoE gonna have some romantic content in a broad sense, if not involving PC, in quests, motives and whatnot. It's difficult to avoid entirely and there's actually nothing wrong about it. What devs refused to do is to invent romances as a part of game mechanics which so many Bioware fans consider a given when they talk about romance in an RPG.

 

 

 

My honest opinion on behalf of trolling: people who invented Mass Effect version of "romantic subplots" definitely need to be killed and thus kept as far away from game development as possible, period.

 

[Fredward]

 

My honest opinion on behalf of trolling: people who invented Mass Effect version of "romantic subplots" definitely need to be killed and thus kept as far away from game development as possible, period.

 

 

 

Can it be your honest opinion if it's on behalf of trolling? I DON'T KNOW WHETHER TO BE OFFENDED.

 

STOP PLAYING WITH MY EMOTIONS.

[Fiaryn]

A caveat to my general distaste for romances in videogames:

 

I think where the concept really falls apart is when it's tied to a game like this. What I mean is, I'm not sure it's really even possible to create a believable romance that doesn't feel like cheap wish fulfillment when one participant in said relationship is completely under my control in words, deeds, everything. Games where the actual characterization is out of my hands tend to feel more natural, because the writer isn't having to account for the million things I could do. Which, naturally, they can't. Your interactions with the character tend to occur in this sort of down time vacuum whereas your actions out in the game world proper have minimal impact on the progression of the 'romance'.

 

It's a hard thing to put into words.

Edited March 26, 2015 by Fiaryn

[yaggaz]

 

As per the last installment.

 

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.

 

 

I'd rather dev time be spent on Adventuring/Questing content than Romance worthlessness.

[yaggaz]

 

This is what it boils down to:

 

Chris Avellone can write.

 

Chris Avellone gets paid to do what he does.

 

Chris Avellone does not want to write romance.

 

SNIP

I'm glad Chris can do exactly what Chris wants, or maybe he just knows him limitations and chooses not to push them.

 

 

I have never seen a writing limitation of Chris.  I played Planescape Torment, and the romances in that game make the ones in Dragon Age seem like the rancid scribbling of pre-tween girls who are on acid trying to write "romance"

[Longknife]

Longknife, I've already mentioned in my previous posts why and how romance should be done.  Go read them.  Especially read the one where I discuss the relationship of Dak'kon with TNO in Planescape:Torment.  It's not romantic, obviously, but I use it to illustrate a point that you've missed.  Or perhaps just avoided.

 

Also, pro-romance attitudes are not a minority among the community of any RPG I've ever played.  If the option for romance is there, most players will take it.

 

I wish you'd stop trotting out the "Obsidian devs hate romance!" bromide, since they already have mentioned they have nothing against romance per se, it was simply a question of time allocation during development.

 

As far as hyperbole... you might want to check yourself on that one.

 

 

The thing about any examples listed is I'm not familiar with them so I do have to go actually make an effort to look at them, which takes time.

 

As for them not being against it per se, I would stress the "per se." The thing is it's crystal clear they do not consider it a valuable use of their time to implement it, and as I've stated before, it's very very difficult to argue for romance when it's clear a good chunk of the community opposes it while nobody would be opposed to "more quests" or "more races" or the like.

  I would also agree with the sentiment "people would use it if it were there" and that "I see no interest in woo'ing someone who's designed to fall in love with me." Great example: The Lost in Binding of Isaac. The Lost is an absolutely horrible character that dies if he takes a single point of damage. He's purely there for the sake of challenge, and anyone whose played the Lost can tell you he's really pushing it as far as "challenging and fun" vs. "stupid and aggrivating" goes. And yet he gets played a lot. Why? Because he's there and because he has unlocks. That people would use the feature if it were included, I attribute more to the completionist attitude gamers have.

 

There's two options: make romance tie into gameplay to validate it as a concept, or make it completely optional. The former has the issue of "forcing" people to get involved with it when they don't like it, the latter runs the risk of being so out in left field that it just feels misplaced. It's akin to all the people who were like "why is there Sims in my Skyrim" when Hearthfire was released for it; it just seems random, out of place, and doesn't appeal to half of the community, because if they wanted a house building life sim, they'd buy such a game. If you try to include everything in your game, you end up lacking in everything.

 

 

 

  So again, it's as simple as the developers quite reasonably deeming this not being worthy of their time. And again with my counter-question: why are you people so insistent romance HAS to be included when you have not even encountered Pillars of Eternity's story elements yet? You cannot even say if the story elements they've included are superior or inferior to the romances you like. This is exactly as I said before where I cannot possibly fathom why you would insist on being served the same exact thing you've seen before, because for all my love of New Vegas, if given the option between getting a New Vegas 2.0 where similar story elements are used or a new type of take on war in the Fallout series, I would choose the latter, because I do not know if the latter would be even better than New Vegas and I wanna find out. I wanna experience new thoughts, ideas and expressions, not the same one ad infinitum.

 

  It's very easy to sit here and say "it can be done," it's not so easy to actually be managing the game and trying to figure out what should and should be included. I still find it incredibly....bold and short-sighted to sit here and campaign for more of the same when we do not even know what story elements Obsidian chose to focus on over romance. Broaden your horizons a bit.

[Sable Phoenix]

If you haven't even played the games that actually have the good romances you say don't exist, then you're debating from a position of ignorance.

 

Either that or you've just skipped my posts completely and don't want to take the time to go back, read them, and engage the points I raise there, which means you are debating from a position of willful ignorance and just don't care what anyone else has to say on the subject.  Who needs to broaden their horizons, again?

 

Until you do, I don't find you worth engaging in any further discussion, especially with your snide and condescending tone.

[kalniel]

What an interesting topic! I was going to just chime in with 'what I think' but the discussion, particularly early in the thread, is far more nuanced that I expected. Just dropping what I want, or stating how the situation is w.r.t. PoE is unsatisfactory for the level of maturity shown. So I'll attempt a more fleshed out discussion point.

 

One aspect of RPGs that I like is that of immersion and having empathy with the characters involved - be that the player character, or a sidekick, or even in some notable games, the villain. Like a good novel, such characterisation stands out and in many cases leads me to think 'wow, I enjoyed the way this character made me feel'. And it does come down to feelings/emotion - ultimately empathy isn't just understanding the actions of someone, it's taking on board their feelings that motivate them to take their actions.

 

In that light, romance is 'just' another emotion. If a character can be written well enough to express needs, hatred, fear, why not also fondness, affection, desire?

 

The problem IMHO comes with that strange place that (interactive) games reside in w.r.t. the forth wall. We are not simply reading a book or watching a play, but partaking in it. Suddenly it is not just enough for us to receive the emotions of other characters, but we need to be able to interact with them as well, and this is one of the biggest challenges facing games - when we give a character the instruction to fight a monster we leave it up to the dice rolls and animations to determine the outcome and keep us clued into what is happening. When it comes to having our characters communicate emotionally in their world it's almost impossible to do other than present a discrete list of preset options.

 

Think about it. In almost all games you will have more options for how to fight a battle than you would for expressing your characters emotions, especially in a way that can then be responded to.

 

It's this that makes romance (and indeed any forth wall crossing emotion) so hard in computer games. I think romance can work incredibly well when a game is telling the story of a character - the nameless one and Deionarra is a good example, or indeed romances between NPCs. But where you have a freeform player character who inhabits the role the player wants to take, we just don't have the emotion-expressing/receiving tool kit to make them work well at the moment.

[Endrosz]

...

In that light, romance is 'just' another emotion. If a character can be written well enough to express needs, hatred, fear, why not also fondness, affection, desire?

....

 

I'm sure there will be plenty of writing showcasing those emotional ranges within NPCs, some even coming from your companions. Just not in a dating sim minigame format, but as regular conversation. Chit-chat. Talkie.

[soedenone]

 

...

In that light, romance is 'just' another emotion. If a character can be written well enough to express needs, hatred, fear, why not also fondness, affection, desire?

....

 

I'm sure there will be plenty of writing showcasing those emotional ranges within NPCs, some even coming from your companions. Just not in a dating sim minigame format, but as regular conversation. Chit-chat. Talkie.

 

Did you even read the rest of the post? Honest question.

 

I personally think that poorly done romance (as it just about always the case) serves as a detriment to the game and my immersion, rather than enhance it in any fashion.

 

I think Obsidian could create incredible romance options, but in order for them to work as intended, they would have to put a lot of ressources into them, and frankly that, to me, is not even close to being worth it - particularly for a small budget title such as this one.

[Isi1dur]

I'm all for some romance options if they are optional, written and implemented properly, which i'm fairly certain that Obsidian could pull off without much of a problem considering the talent they have at their disposal.

 

As was mentioned already in the discussion, it would add an additional layer of immersion to the game and enhance the overall role playing experience in my opinion, it worked well in Torment as it did in Baldur's Gate, even in the modern RPG's such are the Bioware ones and the Witcher series they add more to the game then they take away, although admittedly the Bioware crew has become a bit notorious (to put it mildly) with their take on the matter in recent times.

 

So bring it on in the future expansions as far as i am concerned.

[Legbiter]

I'm all for some romance options if they are optional, written and implemented properly, which i'm fairly certain that Obsidian could pull off without much of a problem considering the talent they have at their disposal.

 

As was mentioned already in the discussion, it would add an additional layer of immersion to the game and enhance the overall role playing experience in my opinion, it worked well in Torment as it did in Baldur's Gate, even in the modern RPG's such are the Bioware ones and the Witcher series they add more to the game then they take away, although admittedly the Bioware crew has become a bit notorious (to put it mildly) with their take on the matter in recent times.

 

So bring it on in the future expansions as far as i am concerned.

 

 

The cost to the PoE fandom would be unbearable.... 

[KingsGambit]

I don't doubt that the game can and will tell a compelling, personal and epic story as it stands, but I think the lack of romances is a detriment. One of the fondest things I remember from BG2 was the potential romances. They added replayability, they fleshed out both the PC and the NPC companions, showing their personalities and having to *try*. Their inclusion is part of what made characters like Jaheira, Aeria and Viconia so memorable. They had their own personalities and preferences and the PC had to role-play to type to stand any chance.

I'm excited about the game, no question, but disappointed that something so important was missed out. I'm really hoping that there will be a toolset in the weeks/months ahead and that some intrepid fans can fix what I consider Obsidian's oversight/mistake.

[Fiaryn]

I don't doubt that the game can and will tell a compelling, personal and epic story as it stands, but I think the lack of romances is a detriment. One of the fondest things I remember from BG2 was the potential romances. They added replayability, they fleshed out both the PC and the NPC companions, showing their personalities and having to *try*. Their inclusion is part of what made characters like Jaheira, Aeria and Viconia so memorable. They had their own personalities and preferences and the PC had to role-play to type to stand any chance.

I'm excited about the game, no question, but disappointed that something so important was missed out. I'm really hoping that there will be a toolset in the weeks/months ahead and that some intrepid fans can fix what I consider Obsidian's oversight/mistake.

 

Lets not go all revisionist history here. The interactions with Jaheira, Viconia, and Aerie are pretty brain dead. You typically have four or five responses to their romantic overtures. All of them except one will be obviously 'wrong', in that they're assholish or dismissive for no real reason. It's like a minigame to discover if you have even the slightest modicum of social awareness, not so much a triumph of roleplaying.

[SeekDWay]

I just wish there would be some flirting with companions, I never really considered a full fledged romance possible in a game, but some flirting is just normal human interaction. I'm not just talking about NPC-PC interaction here, having a family person in the party is something I really enjoy. Sex? I don't give a **** about that but this is not supposed to be a PG-13 game anyways. For instance the Viconia romance had some very nice moments, so did Jaheira's. I just hope that PoE companions don't turn out to be just plot dumps that don't have any kind of evolving relationship to each other.

 

I'm tired of the evergoing bachelor's party.

 

EDIT: I agree with Fiaryn, most interactions with party members in BG had only 1 "choice".

Edited March 26, 2015 by SeekDWay

[Longknife]

If you haven't even played the games that actually have the good romances you say don't exist, then you're debating from a position of ignorance.

 

Either that or you've just skipped my posts completely and don't want to take the time to go back, read them, and engage the points I raise there, which means you are debating from a position of willful ignorance and just don't care what anyone else has to say on the subject.  Who needs to broaden their horizons, again?

 

Until you do, I don't find you worth engaging in any further discussion, especially with your snide and condescending tone.

 

 

You are essentially claiming that because I haven't played your personal favorite, I have never encountered "romances done right," and the idea that maybe I just find romances in video games to be cheesy and off-putting is not even considered by you to be a possibility. Likewise if you're arguing that your singular example is the only instance of "romances done right," then clearly there's a problem and your example is an anomaly one would not normally expect from romances.

 

 

This will also be the third time my question has been blatantly dodged as you seem to want to conveniently absolve yourself of any responsibility to answer it from here on out.

 

 

 

As I've said before: yes this is ultimately a debate of opinions, but unless you can logically explain to Obsidian why romances are so neccesary, I see no worth in longing for it. And unless you can reasonably reinforce your opinion and shoot down any criticisms or counter-arguments, then yes, I do presume it means it's a bad opinion. I've still not gotten any responses to anything I've said about convincing the devs to include it, or how it's impossible for you or anyone pro-romance to say that they truly prefer romance over the actual subplots we'll be receiving, and thus it ultimately feels like people demanding more of the same without even TRYING something new. (which is exactly what this is)

[Fiaryn]

One of the few times I've seen actually genuine "choice" and persuasiveness successfully implemented in dialogue, in a real sense, was in Arcanum: Of Steamworks and Magicka Obscura. The conversations with the King of the Dwarves and the Bedaakan Chieftain are verbal minefields in which what in other games would be the obviously correct choices don't cut it. Cheap emotional appeals are insufficient. You have to actually understand their cultural frameworks and appeal to them on their terms.

[Jerik321]

@Longknife: I actually agree with I personally like the romances in bioware because I feel they were integrated into the game much better recently. If you romance Sera as a female elf mage in inquisition, the companions pick up on it, Solas bringing up the elf thing and Dorian does the same with the mage thing.

Edited March 26, 2015 by Jerik321

[Cantousent]

Nice to see that the Romance debate can outlast the release date.  If they can treat it properly, I would hope that they delve more into relationships and broaden them out over the series.  That's assuming that there will be at least a few PoE games and that there's some stability in the cast o' characters.

[LeBurns]

Honestly I wouldn't mind just being able to give and receive a few flirty lines. The rest I can do in my head.

[Cantousent]

Honestly I wouldn't mind just being able to give and receive a few flirty lines. The rest I can do in my head.

Yeah, I would like that so much more than all out romances!

[Arsene Lupin]

I've noticed a lot of very... passionate... and frequently infuriating discussion of "romance" in Pillars of Eternity. Specifically people arguing that the omission is a net positive, or a net negative.

 

Many people seem to associate romance only with the recent slew of Bioware RPGs, that emphasize player-empowerment to such an extreme degree that many players found themselves turned off to the concept of in-game romances altogether.

 

The one time I sunk into one such discussion, I pointed out my "ideal" system for party interaction:

 

Ideally, I envision a game where over time, via dialog trees, you can build a relationship with all of your party members--and that relationship is slowly defined over time into one of many options. IE, you could become friends, rivals, lovers, or simply maintain a professional "co-worker"-like relationship.

 

But that's a really difficult ideal to realize.

 

So then I had another thought: what if the best way to handle romances is not to do a romance at all? IE, to have nothing explicitly romantic? I would point to the two more recent Persona games as a good example of this. Using various conversations spread throughout the game, players could develop a relationship with an NPC, but the nature of that relationship is sufficiently vague that the player can decide its nature for his or herself.

[Bryy]

Many people seem to associate romance only with the recent slew of Bioware RPGs, that emphasize player-empowerment to such an extreme degree that many players found themselves turned off to the concept of in-game romances altogether.

The Tali romance scene in Mass Effect 2 was just extremely pervy and abusive.

[bucketman86]

I disagree, I thought the romance with Tali was super cute! And in Persona 4 theres a point where a girl explicitly asks you if she can be your girlfriend. Of course they also have it so if you have multiple girlfriends (at least in Golden) theres a scene where you run into the others when on a date and its not fun for you.