DA 4 Romances! New info for real this time!!! Zom-bangin'?

For some romances that would be ideal, though I do think some romances if it fits the character should only have Option 1 or Option 2. Maybe an option to be more explicit or ambiguous with those options. For example even though I don't like sex scenes, some character's romances wouldn't work without it like for example Morrigan. 

That's really only true of Morrigan if you consider the dark ritual.

Offhand, I can't think of any other situation where sex is really required, and that dark ritual business was a pretty unique one-off.

For Sebastian they could just eliminate the possibility of a sex scene.

You have a point with Isabela although she, too, was kind of a one-off. And I think there's a valid point to be made about whether Isabela could fall for someone whose ugly she's never bumped.

So - it might not work for every LI they'd ever design, but could probably work for most of them, no?

I'm not sure why you think my idea would be so resource-intensive. The idea put forth by Dirk would be, since it sets 3 distinct statuses of the relationship, whereas mine essentially makes sex scenes skippable and gives you a fade-out.

Yeah, see, I would opt to not have conversations that specifically reference sex, just the romantic relationship.

But if they're going to write and record such conversations, they could set a flag for whether the player chose the sex scene, and then not play those conversations for those who chose to avoid the sex scene.

I dunno. It just strikes me as a way to provide more options at minimum cost.

KISA = Knight in Shining Armor

I don't understand why we keep talking about "dark fantasy" as though that's something to strive for in the first place, but if I particularly wanted to see women treated like property, I could turn on the news.

Seriously. For fuck's sake. Geez.

What? So far as we know, our ancestors lived like that for the better parts of hundreds of thousands of years. I happen to like history. There's a lot to learn about yourself and society there.

I like to imagine how people have thought about the world throughout the ages, the kinds of conditions they endured under, the kinds of dangers and risks and pressures they faced just going about life, so I can feel properly grateful and realistic about what we are today. Which is why I think an RPG actually exploring those themes instead of dancing around them would be cool. It's not like anyone would be oppressed in the making of the damn game.

And I'm not American. And quite thankful for it. I'm more partial to a stylish sixpence to hide Grandad's hair genes than silly red caps with inane slogans.  

On the contrary, I think making and supporting speculative fiction that posits an alternative, that dares to claim that things could be OTHERWISE, is far more constructive, and interesting, than creating a game that indulges men who wish they could literally purchase women like cattle.

I also think the term "dark" has been abused into utter meaninglessness. Whenever anybody uses it, all they really mean is that it appeals to their personal taste. As for being "recognizably true to reality and humanity", well, you have a pretty low opinion of humanity.

Many people might say, for instance, that the netflix show, The Dragon Prince, is NOT "dark", and thus is of low quality. Most likely because it features child protagonists, and dares to imagine a world where women, people of colour, people with disabilities, queer people, and people who fit into two or more of these categories simultaneously, can be generals, mighty wizards, and even royalty. Also probably because it dares to assert, as its central premise, that bigotry can be overcome, if only the effort is made.

There is plenty of "dark" in the show. Bigotry, betrayal and deceit, assassination, and a form of magic that requires its practitioners to not just draw blood, but to kill, for any and every spell, no matter how minor. But because these things are happening to children and minorites, some will say that it somehow ceases to be dark or compelling television, and instead becomes poorly-written SJW pandering. Or thay because women are respected and not routinely raped, that it is unrealistic or absurd.

I think it is absurd to claim that humanity HAD to turn out the way it did, that we could never have been any different, that our world could never have been any different. Bigotry and hate aren't innate to humanity. They are learned behaviours. And media, particularly speculative fiction, can speak just as much to our reality and humanity by showing us alternate paths and daring us to do better, as it can by leveraging the worst parts of us for cheap entertainment value.

Where on earth did you get the idea that this was for population control?

It would be pretty anachronistic actually, lots of ancient societies were pretty chill about taking care of unwanted pregnancies. Even ones we might now consider to be extremely pious, like the Puritans in the US.

The hangups around that mostly started when doctors wanted to take over some of midwives’ market share, so they pushed for “safety regulations” on everything related to pregnancy, so more of that stuff would have to be pushed into hospitals. That discussion ended up sparking off discussions in fundamentalist religious communities, and it turned out to be such an effective wedge issue that the debate exists to this day.

Just because something is dark doesn’t make it realistic. And in this particular case, it would frame the situation in a really disingenuous way, as if this whole debate is some inevitable phase of all early societies rather than being a recent, and pretty cynical, political invention.