Discourse: Playersexual romance options vs set sexuality

I think it's honestly better to view it through the lens of it being a game design tool moreso than a philosophical debate. If you want to emphasize player choice and freedom, playersexual. If you want to emphasize characterization and worldbuilding, set sexuality.
If you're going to incorporate dating sim components into your game, it's generally better to lean towards playersexual. Otherwise, you run into a sort of zugzwang where you can
a) lock romance options to het (e.g. Persona) and alienate queer people, even worse when you don't have a gender option which also alienates 50% of said hets, or
b) have set sexuality and allow some queer relationships with certain characters (e.g. Fire Emblem: Three Houses) but have people annoyed about the arbitrariness of it, especially when there are no characters that cannot be romanced in a heterosexual way but limited queer options.
I think there's space for set sexuality, especially in linear, narrative-driven RPGs (e.g. Final Fantasy, Undertale, Zelda). Set sexuality really works when you want to emphasize relationships between characters that the protagonist/player character is not party to (e.g.

) Furthermore, set sexuality, when there is a romance mechanic, best works when you establish a boundary between player and character.
Ultimately, it's a choice of what you want to grant to the player, as well as the distance between the player and the protagonist. If you want to let the player choose between characters to romance in the game, and that's an aspect that is a design component within the game, you're usually better off sticking to playersexual, unless you want to take a hyperrealistic angle to it. If you don't want to incorporate that aspect into your game, there's genuinely no need, stick to set sexuality. If you want to establish the protagonist as a character that exists outside of the player embodying them, lean towards set sexuality.
I honestly am just tired of romance being attached as a weird afterthought to certain RPGs. It's sterile when it's not handled with a modicum of care, and it definitely cements the whole unease-inducing 'escapist power fantasy' vibe you get in RPGs that take this approach alongside emphasizing openness. If you're gonna let me date, let me date. If not, why bother?
- there is no reason why I should not be able to date Yusuke Kitagawa
- Someone needs to make a rogue like dating game and that person is me.
  
  That sounds like a great idea

Now I feel weird because the discussions here are great, in depth, and nuanced, but the way I feel about this is kinda boring and uncomplicated? Am I missing something?
If I'm playing a customized character that I made, I prefer characters to be playersexual, allowing custom relationships to match my custom character.
If I'm playing as a written character and experiencing a set story, it is better for all characters to be written well, and have realistic sexualities, as part of the story presented.
As far as representation goes, I think both can have problems, but neither are inextricably problematic.

basically i want good queer characters whose queerness isn't ignorable and is a notable facet of their lives. i think playersexual characters are often a copout, where they write a heterosexual character and then let them date the mc, but if they're textually bi or pan or ace or something than it's fine by me. just make sure they aren't consistently het except for the mc i hate that shit
like i see people talking fire emblem. dorothea is into women! it's very simple to make the playersexual thing work, just have good writing
- I actually can't even remember the last time a video game character was actually bi or pan rather than just player sexual and that sucks.
  
  as mentioned, fire emblem three houses! dorothea openly talks about being into women and is constantly flirting with them, and has an ending where she's explicitly in a relationship with another women that isn't the player character (and who the player character can't romance as a woman, but can as a man. it's definitely not perfect!) similar things for plenty of other characters, as laid out by orannis62, where queerness is a part of the world and different places and people have different relationships with it. adrestia seems to be much more chill about it, given dorothea can openly say she's looking to marry a woman and monica's whole deal, whereas faerghus is incredibly restrictive and several characters in it are implied to be queer but repressing or closeted because of social pressures
  this is the kind of thing i want more of in games, to acknowledge how characters' queerness affects them and how their environments shape their queerness. and i don't necessarily want every game to do this. in a perfect world there would be some stardew valleys as well, where it's just everyone is bi and that's not a big deal it just means you can choose to date anyone who's dateable, and it wouldn't matter because there would be plenty of games that seriously think about it.
- 3 Houses is also interesting in that, like, you can make a solid case that Ingrid is gay but is restricted by her society's expectations for what it means to be a crested noble, especially a woman crested noble. The subtext with Felix and Sylvain is also pretty strong and along the same lines, as with why Gilbert left his family. Then there's Hubert and his devotion to a queer woman who wants to tear down the system causing people to repress like this.
  There's a lot of writing just under the surface that has interesting things to say about queerness and what it means to dismantle the systems that suppress it that I wish had been much more explicit.
  
  yeah! it's not all explicit, but they make enough stuff explicit that i definitely believe the rest is intentional. i wish they had actually dug a little deeper though, it might have made a lot of the discussion around the game more related to the actual events of it and it would have definitely made me happier as a player

I just want to be gay with Garrus and lesbian with Tali
- The power of modding, makes anything possible. 😎

In Wrath of the Righteous, the one female love interest only available to male PCs is a flesh-eating serial killer, which should be the standard for romancable heterosexual characters.
- Based

BG3 but every character has a lil bi flag badge

Surely I'm not the only one who finds "romance" options in games to be profoundly weird, though? I feel like the game-y mechanics do not rub up well against what is meant to be a relationship...
- Not every game does them well. Bioware is famous for them, but honestly i think only DA Origins ever did it well of the ones I've played. It had some extremely game-y mechanics, it just had better writing to go with it.
- Haha "rub up"
  
  Kind that gives you rugburn, makes you regret.

I like both for different reasons. If it's important to a character's design and story or if the devs want to represent a specific identity, fixed is obviously the way. If it's not, then playersexual is fine I guess. In the case of a playersexual character though, people should feel free to project their identities—after all, they're working with what is pretty much an open canvas. A character might be playersexual in the broad sense, but that doesn't mean I can't interpret them as a lesbian, for example.
I also think that if what you're aiming for is realism, NPC identities should reflect that in various ways. Getting rejected by Panam (straight) in Cyberpunk 2077 only to recover and go on to date Judy (lesbian) added a lot of depth to my Vi.

Every character should be Bi-winning if you play a woman and gay if you play a man. Just to really piss off the Gamers.

In a perfect world where more game writers weren't annoying dipshits who see writing gay or even bi characters as beneath them, romance options with defined sexualities would be no issue.
In this world I have been burned one too many times playing a game with romance options where the heterosexual romance options are with the characters who are plot relevant and have the most content and the gay and bi options are the side characters who have less content, sometimes explicitly because they're the ones who can get killed off for fun (THIS IS ABOUT YOU BIOWARE I AM SPECIFICALLY TALKING ABOUT YOU, YOU PIECE OF SHIT HACK FRAUDS FUCK YOU)
yeah no, just give me playersexual characters every time, even in ths cases where the devs make it clear they were written with straight relationships as the implied default (Stardew Valley....)
- (THIS IS ABOUT YOU BIOWARE I AM SPECIFICALLY TALKING ABOUT YOU, YOU PIECE OF SHIT HACK FRAUDS FUCK YOU)
  i remember they did it right with jade empire, and even included male bisexuality and throuples. then they got scared of fox news and cut gay carth from mass effect
  
  They've still done it as recently as Mass Effect Andromeda, the original gay male options were a choice between either a genuinely HORRENDOUS side character storyline and a cool side character with no content.
  They only added in a gay male romance with a plot relevant character in a god damn update patch.
  
  Jade Empire deserved a sequel so fucking bad.
- straight relationships as the implied default (Stardew Valley....)
  Well, there's at least one way to solve that problem...
- Can you expand on SDV feeling like het was the default even though you have the option of not being? I never personally got that feeling so Im curious.
  
  It's more that the NPCs themselves don't have a lot of mentions of being attracted to people of the same gender, especially compared to the reverse. The game acknowledges your relationship with them (ie you can be a gay/bi awakening in some cases), but not so much when it comes to the NPCs as individuals.
  Like yeah Leah does have acknowledgement, but at the same time the game does that trick where her ex changes gender depending on the player's gender. ...Okay that's probably because you can punch her ex but I still have mixed feelings about it since I'm not sure there's acknowledgement that she's bi if you're playing a dude, but I might be wrong.

I agree that characters with deliberate and well-written sexualities would be ideal, but on the other hand “bisexual chaos world” also sounds pretty rad. Is it possible to have both?
- Technically BG3 is that. On some forum like 15 years ago, Ed Greenwood said that bisexuality is the default in the Forgotten Realms setting.
  
  The problem with accepting word of god is that also means that people bang their siblings all the time in this world too

Either can be good, I did like how in DA:I you can flirt with Cassandra as a woman and she awkwardly takes you aside after a while to tell you that she is in fact straight (and crushed my heart forever
) the same with Dorian, though he's the aggressive flirt in that case.
Then in Mass Effect it just doesnt really even make sense, honestly. Like you're completely different species, in some cases you cant even kiss properly for fear of allergic reactions and you're still stuck on some arbitrary gender binary romances? Live a little, goddamn.

I think this problem exists primarily in the shadow of games historically being written mostly by and for straight men. Games that break this trend, like Baldur's Gate 3, are right now remarkable for it, but once this is the norm the problems of both choices mostly disappear.
But while we are stuck in the present with everyone being bi, I wouldn't mind the characters actually saying "I am bisexual" once in a while.

In games where PC has a well defined personality and is distinct from the player it makes sense to have their sexuality fixed as part of the story, but in open ended RPGs that try to give the player as much choice as possible and blur the distinction between the player and the character, a set sexuality just comes across as lazy writing. I can set myself up as a fire-breathing lizard person with the highest cheekbones in history but the male characters are totally claws-off? That's dumb.
- I don’t understand your reasoning here. Are you arguing that the player character should be flexible if it’s an RPG? If so I agree. But if you’re arguing that all NPCs should be flexible just because you get to be a flexible, fantastical character, I don’t understand that logic. The character is YOU, other characters should have their own preferences. I don’t see how it’s lazy to add restrictions to other characters instead of letting everyone be potentially attracted to you
  I largely don’t care about which design is present, but I find the arguments against fixed sexualities to be unconvincing.
- I agree with this. If the character is the sum of the choices that you make, then you should decide the sexuality.

It depends on the goal of the game and the narrative it is trying to portray. It the character in the game is supposed to be a representation of the player in the game world, then it's only fair for the player to decide their own sexuality. If the character is a set character in the game with their own narrative/backstory, they should have their own sexuality and the player should not be able to change it. This requires competent writing though, which is rare in video games.
As for the NPCs which the player can romance, again that depends on how in depth and good the writing is. If the writing and lore is shallow, just let the NPCs be bisexual or pansexual and let the player romance who they want. If there is in depth narrative, good writing and worldbuilding with regards to NPCs, they should have a set sexuality that the player must respect.
- just let the NPCs be bisexual or pansexual and let the player romance who they want.
  i think this is a slightly incorrect way to look at it if we describe character attributes within the diegesis, which i think we usually do. a playersexual character might be straight or gay depending on the player's gender choice but for the fictional world, the woman who talks about her ex girlfriend if you play a woman and has a different line about her ex boyfriend if you play a man isn't necessarily bi as far as the story or the other characters are concerned.
  Hell, you could do the opposite and have an anti-playersexual character so that the story is about being a supportive friend and clearly not about pursing romance.
  An alternate universe JohnBrownNote who loves what i'm not into doesn't change my orientation.

Hot Take maybe; Player-sexuality as the norm is probably inevitable as more of these games tend towards adding mixed and diverse gender options. No developer wants to be the one deciding what combinations of body types, genders, pronouns, voices etc etc falls under 'available to lesbian romance option' or 'available to straight male flirting'.
That said, my preference is still set sexuality. Especially the more grounded a setting. Judy from Cyberpunk (recency bias am I right) for example likely wouldn't feel as real a character to me without the history of messy lesbian situation-ships thing she has going on.
- That said, my preference is still set sexuality. Especially the more grounded a setting. Judy from Cyberpunk (recency bias am I right) for example likely wouldn't feel as real a character to me without the history of messy lesbian situation-ships thing she has going on.
  she could be bi if the PC is male and still be a lesbian if the PC isn't and the distinction matters. the world where you picked the other gender in character creation doesn't exist during the game so i don't understand why it should affect the narrative (unless the writers are cowards, of course. can't really say "change a thing" and expect nothing else to ripple from that on the dev side)

I remember making a thread about this a year ago.
Honestly, even with the common pitfalls, I would still take specific sexualities over playersexual characters. Playersexual absolutely never feels authentic at all, it feels hollow and like I am just headcanoning the relationship. For me to feel like queer representation is done right, I honestly want it to reflect what actual lived experiences of queer people are, and that does include the fact that not everyone that I could be romantically attracted to will ever be able to reciprocate that feeling. It feels that much better when you actually do find someone who can. Why have I found VNs where gay people clearly outnumber the straights at least two-to-one (and where somehow homophobia still exists despite that???), that somehow still represent that experience better than the average video game? I can understand people wanting escapism and do somewhat enjoy having the extra selection from playersexual setups (I would be devastated if Halsin was strictly straight), but like, sometimes I just want an experience that is more relatable and cathartic. I'm also quite certain that most cishet game writers would probably assume playersexual is the default preference or the safer option so I feel comfortable pushing for characters having defined sexualities in hopes of getting a few games that do it well.
- I kind of agree, but also don’t at all? I think playersexual is pretty much the best way to do it if you’re appealing to as many people as possible, but a game made by some people of one sexuality for the same sexuality is always going to be better than a game made to appeal to everyone.
  Of course it’s hollow, because it ignores the numerous intricacies of gender and sexuality when you just write based on a generic protagonist who could be literally anything. This doesn’t stop at gender, writing everything the same regardless of the player’s species or class or background has the same issues.
  I don’t think this means it’s worthless or that stories can’t be told with playersexual or wide ranging games, just that games that want to explore a specific experience will always explore that specific experience better than Skyrim: The Mass Effect Quest for the Five Rings

I haven't played a lot of really newer games so maybe things have changed, but in my experience playersexual romance options end up feeling like a straight person with a straight romance that's been genericized so any gender can be subbed in. Maybe the ideal would be having the dialogue and the way things play out depend on the player's gender? Although at that point I guess that crosses over into making all romance options explicitly bi/pan.

Tali was cute and gating her romance path behind the inferior male Shepard was not okay.
- For real. Cassandra from Dragon Age, too.... ಥ_ಥ

I personally think it's essential to have sexuality as a hard feature because it's a necessary component of writing properly developed characters.
I'm sorry but if everyone is a bisexual you are limiting yourself to the type of characters that you can write, because there are certain characters that just will not be bisexual. Or if you did make the white conservative cis male orthodox christian bisexual you are damn well going to have to write a lot of complexity into that character to square the circle. You are including many conflicting ideologies in that character and explaining them or representing the character's own torment with their conflicting sexuality vs ideology becomes a necessary part of the writing.
Features of characters force you into writing directions because a character having x but also y means either a, b or c but definitely not d. If you understand what I mean.
Your world and writing depth takes a necessary hit if you do this. What you end up with is a game that is unashamedly lgbt, I'm not complaining about that because I do love me some games that are just blatantly full of gay, but it's not all I want all the time.

If we’re going to be dunking on playersexual, I do think we have to come to terms with the fact that character creation in general is kind of a trade off for writing quality, and that having a more generic experience is kind of the price you pay for a truly customizable character
I’m tempted to say it’s kind of a toss up of which is better when the character is customizable. Set sexuality is probably better there when it can be done without too much effort, but playersexual just makes sense and can probably be done well. When the character is preset, of course it should be a set sexuality, because the player character itself is already set. There’s no reason not to plan for it at that point.

On top of all the very good points everyone else made in the thread, i want to throw my additional 2 cents in:
One of the reasons that playersexuality is so common is that straight players can pick their preference and then never see any of those icky queer people in their game at all (because in most games the amount of romance-able men is usually 1 and they won't hit on you if you don't go looking for it), whereas everyone else gets to "press the gay button to enable gay content".
The idea that making everyone bi is how BG3 cracked the code is misleading, BG3 allowed you to romance a crapload of men, and a lot of them hit on you incessantly, which is what gamers (that otherwise love playersexual games) hated. That was not playersexuality being good, that was just Larian giving you choice. In most playersexual games you still get stuck with the one sad gay male option and the five lesbian options that are just repurposed straight romances. Because 1) oh, gay men, ew, and 2) wow, lesbians, awooga. So, if what you care about is gay men, then in practice either option kinda sucks, and in principle playersexuality as done by non-cowards is mostly ok, i guess, because nobody can bring themselves to write more than the one gay man.
- Just wanted to say Dragon Age 2 really did this first (as in before BG3), Anders was getting it bad for you no matter what.

- agree, i'm horny af and i've never liked romance in games. i can just look at porn or use my imagination or something instead of playing through poorly written stiffly animated 'romantic' dialogue scenes to unlock a poorly animated cgi softcore sequence, or i could even read an actually good book instead of some rushed consumer product with the barest hint of a plot that mostly exists to justify gameplay systems and tick trope boxes.
  
  I think this mindset is based on the fact that Bioware romances are kindy hacky (idk, i dont mind them, but i get it). The mention of softcore scenes, which dont exist in what i said in reply to Bassword, kinda gives that away because those dont exist in SDV for example.
- Idk i think "its been bad so far, so that means we should just not do it" isnt necissarily fair. I dont even agree that its been bad so far. The events with the romance options in SDV are very cute. The support skits in Fire Emblem Awakening are to me too.

I don't like playersexuality, because I prefer my gay and bi characters to actually have experience with (and reference their experiences with) homophobia, which is something that every gay and bi person ive ever met has had in common. A love story between gay characters that has absolutely nothing to do with homophobia is just a straight love story with one of the characters' genders swapped
- I get where youre coming from, but what if its a fantasy world where queerphobia doesnt exist? Seems nice for queer people to engage in some escapism where being queer isnt suffering.
  
  "its a fantasy world where those prejudices dont exist" just feels like a copout to me. lazy writing. i guess in theory there could be stories written by gay people as escapism about worlds where those prejudices dont exist, but ive never encountered one
- I feel the same way. I love Karlach and all but I like my lesbian romances to resonate with my experiences.
  I do get why people like playersexuality though because it does often feel like it's that or basically no options. Like in Fire Emblem 3 Houses, I can either have like 20 straight options or 3 lesbian options, one of which isn't available in 2 of 3 (or 3 of 4, depending how you count) routes. My actual preference is characters having actual sexualities with comparable options for all, but failing that I'll take playersexuality

Set sexuality is my initial preference. Games that handle this topic like Skyrim and Baldur’s Gate 3 don’t really have a lot to say about specific sexualities queer experiences, because they don’t want to alienate/make the player feel left out. One of the tweets mentions dragon age which is where I felt seen and heard for the first time. Another comment mentions it but in a game with well defined characters who have queer identities I can understand and want there to be restrictions. To say otherwise would be inauthentic to the story you’re trying to tell.

This is one of the few times when the gamers are right and we should just make it playersexual. I play games to do an escapism. I don't want to have every gay romance be an in-depth exploration of trauma and oppression in a hetero-dominant world. I want to go on gay adventures with my polycule of wacky characters, not be constantly reminded why my own life sucks as well.
You can remove the exploration of sexuality in their routes but then you have literally no reason for them to have set sexualities in the first place. It doesn't really come up in the story or have a reason beyond making you choose a different gender next go-around.
Of course if the game is designed to be an exploration of sexuality then that's different.
- I don't want to have every gay romance be an in-depth exploration of trauma and oppression in a hetero-dominant world. I want to go on gay adventures with my polycule of wacky characters, not be constantly reminded why my own life sucks as well.
  I don’t see why everything has to be traumatic and dark. Or why it has to be an “exploration” of sexuality. Some people are just gay or straight or pan or whatever and don’t think too deeply about their preferences.
  You (a man) hire bank robber to be your partner on heist -> you casually express romantic interest -> put on some rizz -> he becomes your lover and partner in crime
  And that’s it. Not every queer character has to be some battered person. It’s definitely not reflective of reality in some areas of the world, but like you said… escapism. Plus it is reality for other people around the world.
  Games like Stardew Valley (and recently Corral Island, or something like that?) have some of the most diverse cast of characters set in a rural farm setting lol. Name me a place where Arabs, Indians, Hispanics, East Asians, and white, rural people get along in an isolated, small farming community. I don’t think it does exist. Maybe it is alienating to see such an idealistic portrayal of your inclusion in a world/community that in reality would hate you, but at the same time, not everything has to be revived around those topics.
  
  I don’t see why everything has to be traumatic and dark. Or why it has to be an “exploration” of sexuality
  See the very next line I wrote in my comment where I addressed this.
  You can remove the exploration of sexuality in their routes but then you have literally no reason for them to have set sexualities in the first place. It doesn't really come up in the story or have a reason beyond making you choose a different gender next go-around.
  
  It is funny that you bring up Stardew though since the romance options in that are playersexual. Its actually a good example of that working well.

i don't want to see what male g*mers (or devs) would do with canonically lesbain characters. theres no way that ends well in anything non-indie
- Didn't they mod a lesbian character in cyberpunk to be bi or something?
  
  Yeah, and the straight girl to be bi as well, not sure about the dudes
- Sadly that's already a thing, not to mention the dumpster-fire in response to Tracer being gay.
  .
  Still, I like both options in games. DD2 had everyone bisexual just for ease of play, but I do like a fleshed-out story where sexuality and kink runs a gamut.
- Yeah Parvati was very well recieved. Good example of what i mention in my post of writing charachters with a set sexuality who arent romance options for the player.

Whatever we decide here you are all clearly gamers and you should be ashamed

As a queer polyam person, I want the game to be playersexual, and I want the game to allow me to romance everyone in the same playthrough. Doesn't matter what character I'm playing let me romance everyone all of the time thank you.
- The first item on the bitinerary is making everyone
  and
  in videogames.
  
  Why stop at videogames

The answer is it depends on the game IMO. A game where you play a defined, scripted character like The Witcher ? I guess the criticism could make sense (even then I don't think it matters much).
A game like BG3 / most cRPGs where you create the character from scratch entirely ? anything goes IMO, it's your character, you decide its sexuality.
- it's your character, you decide its sexuality.
  That's not really the issue at hand, the issue is the sexuality of all the characters you didn't create. In a playersexual game, none of them have sexualities. If you decide your character's sexuality then your character is the only character with a sexuality in the universe

No romance options because romance in games is cringe
- But... I want to make girls love other girls :(
  Also ngl its cringe af and heteronormative but the matchmaking in recent Fire Embelms is fun.

Video game design should be centred around making capital G Gamers mad. Therefore, the every romanceable character must be gay. Thems the rules.
- "True communism can only be achieved once politics has been shoved in every gamers' throat" - Lenin

playersexual should be the default because the people taking the default option probably don't have anything to say about anything and the relationships are side-content to some main quest in a game that is about strategy and/or dexterity challenges. mass effect was broadly not elevated by having set orientations. New vegas was but they wrote better and had something to say about the BoS.
if you're doing something purposeful with with the relationships then you should make actual decisions about them, and can do powerful things with your narrative about whatever experiences you're depicting. I don't think anyone anywhere seriously says you shouldn't.
saint's row 4 has by far the best in-game relationships in a game that isn't a dating sim or primarily focused on those relationships.
- playersexual should be the default because the people taking the default option probably don't have anything to say about anything and the relationships are side-content to some main quest in a game that is about strategy and/or dexterity challenges. mass effect was broadly not elevated by having set orientations. New vegas was but they wrote better and had something to say about the BoS.
  This is a much better argument than anything I’ve made on this thread. Replying because this should be boosted.

Depends on the game. If there's only a handful of romance options playersexual design allows your character a range of options, but if there's a wide range of characters to romance having set sexualities allows them to have more detailed personalities and preferences.
I general though, I prefer neither - I don't mind the romance in most of the games I've played, but don't usually find it particularly adds anything important.

It'd be fun (and angering the gamers) and realistic if there were more romance paths, dialogue options, etc. for certain characters that end up with them saying "no, not interested" - for example
- P3 is also interesting because

Stardew Valley is one of my favorite games, but I don't like that befriending each of the romanceable characters inevitably leads to romance. At the very least, you should have some choice about if you want to smooch them before you give them so many shiny rocks and your smooch stat exceeds the smooch threshold.
- theres a platonic option mod
  
  There's also a mod that lets you marry all of them which is more my jam.
- Huh? You have to give them flowers to actually get any romantic events though, unless I'm mistaken.

Open world games have now annoyed me because everything needs to be opened ended, and most of their fans get upset at “shoving politics” or whatever nonsense. I get it’s a game, but if it has a narrative and not just some Mario jumping on a goomba, then why can’t it have fixed outcomes and characters? Who gives a shit if it’s an interactive medium? Fixed stories have been around since the beginning of games and now all of a sudden it’s bad because you can’t say x or do y in a couple games.
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.
Why can’t a character be uninterested in you unless you’re a different gender? I don’t understand why we have to remove them from the dating pool just because they’ll never date you lol. How is having restricted romance options due to your gender any different than being redistricted romance/endings due to your in game choices, or being restricted items and abilities due to your class?
It’s kind of pointless to add “artificial intelligence” to your game if none of these characters have intelligence and their world revolves around you.
With that being said, I don’t mind mods that change their sexuality to whatever. It doesn’t bother me. People have been doing non-canonical sexuality shipping since forever.
- Thats not what i meant. I meant that i prefer romance options be playersexual for player choice reasons, so if you want an NPC or party member to be monosexual for some narrative you want to explore, then just dont have them be a romance option regardless of the PC's gender. Have them romance another NPC and have a sidequest where the PC sets it up for example.
  Obviously an NPC can be not interested in the PC for any reason yeah. Nor every charachter needs to be romanceable anyway, obv.
  And all of this only applies to open ended WRPGs anyway. And games like Stardew. Linear games like Final Fantasy are a totally different story.
  
  Nor every charachter needs to be romanceable anyway, obv.
  I know. I’m only referring to those who are options.
  > Thats not what i meant. I meant that i prefer romance options be playersexual for player choice reasons, so if you want an NPC or party member to be monosexual for some narrative you want to explore, then just dont have them be a romance option regardless of the PC's gender.
  ~~Isn’t this the same as removing a character from the dating pool just because they don’t like you? Choosing your gender is a player choice.~~
  I guess we should step back a little. I’m confused by OOP’s referring to “characters” and not specifying which, and this part of your post
  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
  When you say “playersexual preference”, are you just referring to your character or everyone else? Because if you’re saying your PC should be a self insert with whatever sexuality you decide at any moment and that other characters with the respective sexuality should be an option, I absolutely agree (most of the time, unless it’s not an RPG).
  If you’re suggesting that every romance option be available to your character and have no preferences to your gender, then I disagree.
  For example, it’s appropriate that you cannot choose Nathan Drake’s or Celeste’s gender and sexuality. But it would be strange if Baulder’s Gate restricts your player character to one sexuality. Is this what you’re thinking?

Not to sound like a broken record, but there's one character in Genshin Impact that has a fixed sexuality. I don't know if I want to spoil it. Compared to the rest of the characters, who are all "playersexual", at least as playersexual as you can get in a children's game, her fixed sexuality was a welcome change.

I think the first tweet is the kind of argument that sounds good at first but falls apart the more you think about it. Sexuality can be a big part of a character, but it isn't always. I think making such a sweeping statement is quite ignorant, actually.

Unless the tone of the game is designed to have high heights and heart-crushing pits of despair replicating the experience of asking someone out who is not also gay does not seem like a good design goal.
Basically, unless you’re actually using it as a theme stay the fuck away from it. It actually kind of grosses me out that people want to just yeet fixed sexualities in there without thinking about the reasons WHY people have them IRL. Like, the fuck, do you want to model straight men creeping on lesbians in your game? You better be treating that with the gravity it actually implies if you are, you’re not getting a fluffy dating side game if you do that. Edit: I don’t think this point is really relevant lmao, and is mostly inflammatory. Ignore it
From the perspective of the player, it’s always going to feel absolutely unfair, which sure, you can go for and can be extremely good in a game where that makes sense, but it opens you up to issues like making a queer-coded character on accident and then having characters complain about them not being romanceable as a queer person.
Also, if I can play the gay card, it feels extremely uncomfortable to make characters of set sexualities in pretty much any game, because I don’t trust G*mer developers to handle it well with non-binary identities. It sure would be “fun” to be rejected by a lesbian character or a straight man because I chose the wrong character facial hair option or something, despite designing my character as a woman.
If you remove “gendered” options (like choosing from a male or female gender in character creation) from character creation, in fact, this entire concept is just silly. You would have to basically design physical attraction preferences for every romanceable character. And while “player freedom” is of course not the MOST important thing, most people don’t want to log on to a game to do a romance with the NPC they have the hots for, only to be rejected for choosing the wrong hairstyle, or being the wrong playable species. That could be fun but you’d have to basically design the game around those themes, you couldn’t just slap that on a story with romance and assume players would feel ok with it.
I would only trust a team of entirely queer people to write a game with fixed sexual identities and a proper character creation system that includes non-binary people at the same time, and even then, only if it’s being done with an actual purpose in mind and not just because they need to ~~maintain an extremely strict gender and sexuality binary~~ give what would end up being really shitty representation.
Any game where players are given binary gender choices, I suppose fixed sexualities are acceptable, but FUCK that shit in any game with a proper character creation system (as in, without dumb binary gender options), specifically in the ring of romance. If a character isn’t dateable they should always have a fixed sexuality (or unmentioned I guess, but it seems like an important character trait).
Edit 2: Actually, I think having set sexualities with non-binary player characters could work if you turned it around for the non-binary characters and give the player the option to choose whether they would or would not date straight people, gay people, etc. That way they could choose themselves what experience would represent their character the most accurately. Depending on the flavor of the choice you could make it possible for the player character to make exceptions on people they’ll date because the setting could be an actual in character choice of who they’ll date, or not if the setting is just there to determine how you want other characters to be attracted to them (or not).

let people do their own thing, set sexuality is rigid definitions that do not truly define the spectrum

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.

Playersexual makes more sense, just make it your own headcannon that your character is gay/straight/bi/whatever. In any case it's not like there are any dialogues where the character explicitly proclaims "I AM BISEXUAL" or anything, just make the character whatever you want in your head.

I want a game set in the roman empire with authentic Roman sexuality. Actually I thought about this more, I probably don't. It would just be intresting to see sexuality organized against the western consensus

i think it gets at the deeper conflict between player gratification and considered storytelling. erotica and wish fulfillment are great, but there are other kinds of stories too.
but then again i don't really play Bioware games or dating sims in general, so it's moot to me.

It seems to me that the bottom tweet about having few options for specific sexual encounters is true and what I'd lean into. I didn't play BG3, but the plot appeared to me without an emphasis on romance. Which is to say why would you want a fleshed out discourse on sexuality from game devs and D&D writers? It seems like modding would give you more fidelity to have specific sexual intentions. I imagine the romance subplot is supposed to be cheap and hollow the same way Doom Guy's backstory is cheap and hollow.
Similarly, I have a hang up about main character syndrome and how killing humans doesn't feel good, but if I had to manage my character's mental well being and they would tap out when it became too much in a hack n slash it'd be annoying.
I have a hard time imagining good interpersonal dynamics without doing a VN or an N(ovel) or an animation. Perhaps if you had an AI 5 years in the future you could interact organically with characters who aren't a cheap caricature without sacrificing the focus of the gameplay.

There should only be “romance” options in porn games.
- Yeah lets make video games sterile, loveless, and sexless thats the solution.
  Cant let artists try to explore a part of life because some but not all of the attempts at it so far have been clumsy, hacky, or undercooked.
  Sorry im just tired of getting this answer. Its not the question i asked. And this answer just feels anti-art.
  
  i usually don't like to do the le
  or thing of being like "this!" but you covered this so well and I have nothing to add but that i agree so much that an upbear isn't enough.
  
  Video games aren’t art.
- Why do you feel that way?
  
  Because the “romance” shouldnt be part of the mechanics in non porn games and it shouldn’t be part of the fantastical conceit in non porn games.
  Which of these is cool and okay outside of porn:
  I was able to make someone love me because i manipulated them according to the rules.
  this game is different from real life not because I’m able to chop through three sentient beings heads in a row or conjure mystical fire, but because I’m lovable.
  Neither is acceptable.

I think we should lock up Fire Emblem avatars and throw away the key. If they're not practicing eugenics, they're marrying children or their subordinates. Sometimes all three at once. It's time we bring back the glory days of ace Ike.
- When i played Awakening I didnt care about minmaxing I just set my avatar up with best girl Tiki and then played matchmaker with the other pairings, explored the supports as far as I could with everyone and decided which were cutest from that. The matchmaker stuff was legit fun for me. Cared more about that then my avatar lol.
  Though who to marry Nowi off to was a bit troubling...
  
  I see that your army didn't have galeforce on every character then haha
  Nowi gets to sit on the bench until she learns to put a shirt on.