This discourse was going around twitter today apparently and im curious takes from here.
Which is it for you?
For me i prefer playersexuality. I want to be able to romance any romance option regardless of my charachters gender. I dont want to be stuck with only Arcade Gannon if i want to do m/m
I agree that sexuality can be important to a charachter. But if you wanna do that, seems like the charachter can just not be a romance option.
That said. In RPGs devs can do what they want. You want a charachter to be monosexual and a romance option, have at it. (Unless theyre all straight, then fuck you).
I do kinda hate what The Sims did by adding monosexuality. Felt like such a virtue signal that made the game less fun. All Sims being pansexual was always more fun for me. Especially since i usually play that game as a pansexual slut. Unless i decide my player Sim is mono, but thats on the player’s end.
Monosexual townies in the Sims should at least be optional (is it? Idk havent played Sims 4 since this update).
If I have to choose, I’ve found that romances that aren’t “playersexual” are generally better written. In the same vein, romances where the player character has more preset traits than the standard amorphous blob you’re supposed to project yourself onto are also generally better written.
I’d rather my games don’t all try to do the same thing though.
I agree that sexuality can be important to a charachter. But if you wanna do that, seems like the charachter can just not be a romance option.
🙄
I just meant that as in a way to tell a queer story without interfering with player choice. Like isnt Parvati in the Outer Worlds queer without being a romance option? And highly lauded for it?
Why should we be restricted to telling queer stories in that fashion though? Your post just comes off as entitled.
without interfering with player choice
I’m going to need a bigger eye roll emoji.
The world doesn’t have to revolve around the player. If you’re going to add set sexualities, it makes sense to just go all the way and say they’re just not interested in the player regardless of if they’re a gender they would be attracted to or not. I would trust that approach far more with handling non-binary identities, at least.
it makes sense to just go all the way
Except if you want to tell a story involving the player in a romance? This isn’t a reasonable substitute at all.
I’d like more games that did reject the player. Frankly, I think the average gamer could use being exposed to rejection and shown that it’s not the end of the world.
But, like, for actual, real gay people, being rejected by someone because they’re straight CAN be the end of the world. Like not even as a bit, it has probably gotten gay people killed before.
Sure, rejection is a cool design idea, but this specifically doesn’t seem like a great experience to replicate, and is probably the worst and most heart wrenching way to implement rejection. Just have them romanceable and then reject the player no matter what they do later on, because the player isn’t their type or whatever. Just make them think the player is too trait game protagonists always are because of how they are designed.
