For straight players who ENJOYS romance, do you ever play thru the gay romance?

[Buyung Kilat]

I have only recently pondered this. Romance is a pivotal part of my RPG experience. Literally, how many characters I create in a game, depends on how many romance options there are. It's not because I'm a horny deviant, I'm married. But I feel like they complete the story. Even some of the most testosterone-driven movies have romance in them. Of course, it helps that in WotR's case, the girls are generally attractive. The experience harkens me back to the Mass Effect trilogy, where most of the girls are smoking hot, except that tattoed witch.

Anyway, I was discussing the game with a friend of mine who is openly bisexual, and who is also an RPG enthusiast but who has yet to play this game. I told him about this dilemma I was having in one of my playthroughs where I was romancing Sosiel as a Lich and about the two hard and evil decisions I had to make in Act 5, and I asked for his opinion. He raised his eyebrow at me in surprise, and he was like, how can you be romancing a gay character since you're straight? I was like, why not? He is a gentle soul, he likes to paint, and he is loyal to a fault (Maybe I am a little gay, I dunno lol). The point is, his romance is incredibly engaging if not tragic.

Then he is like, it just doesn't make any sense because I can never relate. Ok, our conversation kind of pissed me off a little bit after a while, hehe. I mean, I romanced that ♥♥♥♥♥♥♥ psycho, Camellia (even though she is hot), and I find that romance to be more unrelatable than any gay romance I've ever played through in any game. Yet, I stuck with it to the end anyway.

My question to fellow gamers out there who are into romance in their games: do you give gay romance a try? This is not a question of whether you are homophobic or not, but as my friend said if you don't, is it because you agree with his assessment that you just don't find them relatable?

[Mr Fred]

Pretty much exactly that, though for what its worth I've done lesbian romance when I'm playing a female character so its really a matter of not being interested in men at all and getting double the amount of boobs in games with scene in them like Mass Effect you mentioned earlier.

[Immortal Reaver]

I only romance women. So yes, but for lesbian only romances (like Samantha Traynor in ME3).

Only exceptions to romancing women only so far, is Alistar in Dragon Age Origins, as I really liked his comedic lines, and going for Queen ending (I started few others but never finished them, I think I never went past like first scene or so).

[Yannir]

Well, it's never my first choice. If there's male-male sex scenes in the game, like there is in BG3, I likely never will. I guess on some subconscious level I always insert myself in sex scenes in place of the male and when the other person isn't of my gender of attraction, the whole scene just brushes me the wrong way and I get physically anxious. It's an involuntary reaction and I don't mean offense to anyone.

With lesbian scenes this insertion doesn't happen. Looking at them invokes a sense of voyerism instead.

As for WotR, I haven't done any gay romances but I have only done one romance in general anyway. On my Aeon-run I figured my main character just wasn't romantically inclined, being all about the law and order. On my Azata-run I obviously romanced Arue. It just fits and my character happened to be male.

My current playthroughs are on female characters. My Lich is apparently romancing Daeran while keeping Lann on the friendzone. My Demon is still early enough that none of the romance dialogue has triggered yet. I might go with Wendu. And yes, I have a thing for femme fatales.

As for straight people not being able to relate with a gay romance? I don't think that's true. People are people first, and sexual orientation is just an aspect of it. Same goes for gender. I have had friends of every combination of gender and sexual orientation you can think of, and the individual personality is always their most defining aspect. Stereotyping is stupid.

[Star Sage]

I did it with Sosiel, mostly because he sprang that picnic scene on me, and I couldn't say no to someone going to THAT extreme for me, it was adorable, and I wanted to see where it would go from there, in a playthru where I'd been romancing no one in particular, and hadn't really shown interest in him.

That said, they fixed that flag error/made it easier to let him down earlier, same with Lann for females, so you are now more in control of who to romance in this one, which is nice.

[jaxnight2]

Only if I really like the character. Same for playing as a chick. When mass effect 2 made Garrus a romance I went and played through one again as a chick so we could work on our calibrations together. And as towards gay romances that stole me the most recent would be Astarion.

[Soul]

Im a straight guy.... but I like playing female characters.... mainly because I dont wanna hear and stare at the male character for hours on end... most the time I do end up having lesbian romancing with my female character.... unless there is just some character that really shines out better than others.... like dragon age inquisition's THE IRON BULL.... lol...

so I guess in this case where would that fit in?.... a guy playing as a female character romancing another female character?.... or a guy playing a female character romancing a male character?.... according to your friend's response.... straight guys should only be allowed to play as straight guys and romance females...

but its pretty much your friend just being a jerk..... in games your not playing "yourself"... your playing a character and shaping their story... pretty sure you probably never called them a hypocrite for playing a straight or gay character in video games.... afterall ppl who are bi tend to categorize themselves as being different from straight and gay...

[zombygunner]

Yes i hump all the players if it gives me levels or gear or just helps me get there story line over with. Thats why its in the game. Im a straight man but ill bang an bear if i must lol. Never give up

[Jean-Maurice Nya]

In video games romances are pretty badly written and irrealistic, so it's usually not that interesting.
But I've roleplayed gzy character on pen&paper as well as in live action. It's no problem, role-playing is about acting a certain way. And gay romances are pretty much the same as straight ones, the sexual part is the only difference. So it's not an issue to roleplay a gay character for a straight individual.

[Chuddly]

The only game I found that didn't have super cringe, avoid-at-all-costs romance was Dragon Age Origins, I had an awesome game where I played a selfish, not quite evil but very not good character and it was great. Then he had his redemption arc when he found love with the witch character... But I was probably 14-15 when I played that, it's probably cringe now.
I wouldn't due gay romance because that's sickening.

[reidj062]

Originally posted by Buyung Kilat:

I have only recently pondered this. Romance is a pivotal part of my RPG experience. Literally, how many characters I create in a game, depends on how many romance options there are. It's not because I'm a horny deviant, I'm married. But I feel like they complete the story. Even some of the most testosterone-driven movies have romance in them. Of course, it helps that in WotR's case, the girls are generally attractive. The experience harkens me back to the Mass Effect trilogy, where most of the girls are smoking hot, except that tattoed witch.

Anyway, I was discussing the game with a friend of mine who is openly bisexual, and who is also an RPG enthusiast but who has yet to play this game. I told him about this dilemma I was having in one of my playthroughs where I was romancing Sosiel as a Lich and about the two hard and evil decisions I had to make in Act 5, and I asked for his opinion. He raised his eyebrow at me in surprise, and he was like, how can you be romancing a gay character since you're straight? I was like, why not? He is a gentle soul, he likes to paint, and he is loyal to a fault (Maybe I am a little gay, I dunno lol). The point is, his romance is incredibly engaging if not tragic.

Then he is like, it just doesn't make any sense because I can never relate. Ok, our conversation kind of pissed me off a little bit after a while, hehe. I mean, I romanced that ♥♥♥♥♥♥♥ psycho, Camellia (even though she is hot), and I find that romance to be more unrelatable than any gay romance I've ever played through in any game. Yet, I stuck with it to the end anyway.

My question to fellow gamers out there who are into romance in their games: do you give gay romance a try? This is not a question of whether you are homophobic or not, but as my friend said if you don't, is it because you agree with his assessment that you just don't find them relatable?

I mean, I'm no Casanova, but it doesn't take much social awareness to realize that most of the romance in video games is terrible. It generally works like this: you do nice things for NPC, they offer you their body. It's terribly inauthentic regardless of your sexuality.

WOTR and Kingmaker have the added distinction that you can end up with characters unable to understand you did a nice thing because you're a nice person and now they're heartbroken because clearly you led them on. Then you have to steer them away with a baseball bat. When I take a quest in Witcher I know what I'm signing up for.

I did enjoy learning that you can romance Sosiel as a lich, despite him stating in his first quest how much he hates necromancers.

I don't do the gay romances, no.

[ooloi]

It's called "role-playing" and only someone lacking in essential empathy cannot at least imagine any given relationship. And not all committed relationships are created equal either; I know couples who have been married for decades who don't have significant sex drives and don't have sex, but they show affection and intimacy and share things and are quite happy. And the game doesn't show sex happening anyway, so who cares? I actually used toybox to turn off jealously and allow multiple romances at once so I get to explore the dialogue and options for each mythic pathway on every run through.

My characters aren't me; they're characters and all of them are different.

[Swordman_Red]

Originally posted by zombygunner:

Yes i hump all the players if it gives me levels or gear or just helps me get there story line over with. Thats why its in the game. Im a straight man but ill bang an bear if i must lol. Never give up

Ah yes, lootsexual. I can respect that inclination.

[Yoinkyz]

is this heresy?

[uwfsam2000]

As a straight male, I personally have zero issues being wooed by Daeran. He's a charmer and cracks me up.

[Wirewing]

I don't play with self inserts so, while I don't mind if it happens in games, I do occasionally remark out loud to my immediate area how gay it is.