Greeny wrote:o v e n wrote:This is usually true with all romance options - your character has to be trained up and make the right dialogue choices to initiate a romance - if the player did not want to romance a certain character they simply would not choose those dialogue options.
This is generally true that it's usually this way.
Although, this brings up a point that I think is still kind of on-topic (but slightly tangential). I think that's it's pretty wrong to handle it this way, queer character or otherwise. Essentially, by always taking the power away from the love interests, we're devaluating them as characters, as individuals with a personality and choices of their own. Why shouldn't they be allowed to fall in love with the protagonist, regardless of whether or not the player wants to go down that route? Isn't the archetypical love-triangle a staple of the romance genre? In that sense, far too many "romance" VN's fail to actually deliver on any romance-related drama, instead opting to be pure wish fulfillment (in my opinion).
And on the other side, in essence, I think that always putting the "player character" in a position of power reinforces dangerous ideas, regardless of the genders in question.
If a queer character flirting with the protagonist (acting as the player's avatar) makes the player uncomfortable, why can't that be played as a plot point? Give the protagonist the option of responding in an awkward manner, and you only give the player more oppertunity to relate to them, as well as raising questions that give the reader food for thought.
edits: wth, typos, go away
Hmmm. I suppose, with that line of thought, dating sims in general are harmful? Wish-fulfillment, sure. Nothing wrong with that. But it's only devaluing a character if, say, every dialogue choice the player chose would lead to a romance no matter what. As if the protagonist was the be-all-end-all of romance partners no matter how badly they spoke or behaved. Good romance sims give the option of failure and a goal to work towards - perhaps the sporty character requires a strength attribute to be a certain level, or that class president won't give the protag the time of day until all their grades are high - stat grinding and whatnot AND choosing the RIGHT things to say and gifts and going on the proper dates and all that.
I'm not so sure about reinforcing dangerous ideas by letting the player pick and choose their own romance options. Seems like that's kind of the point of any game wherein you build up an avatar and choose to take them down whichever path - I mean, the evil options in games like Black and White and Fable don't reinforce dangerous ideas of power, so why should dating sim games be seen as such? As for romance-able characters taking it upon themselves to initiate romance dialogue - I'm not saying players are going to go EEEEW and run away if the side-characters were more uh, independent, or that we can't even try to fix homophobia or gender inequality WITH THE POWER OF EQUAL-OPPORTUNITY WISH FULFILLMENT; I'm just saying that doesn't seem to be the usual modus operandi of a dating sim. Where's the challenge if the love interest is going to fall for the protag with little to no effort on the player's part?
Or are we talking about dragon age again. (GDI, ANDERS, YOU AND YOUR CAAAAAT) Because then, yeah, yes, sure, the romance wasn't the point of the game (unless the player wanted it to be) and gameplay and story suffered not at all if a player chose not to romance anybody or to turn anders down or to even try and initiate romance with Aveline only to fail outright by way of the character just Not Being Into Hawke, which was refreshing and realistic and bravo Bioware on all fronts A+.
