Are romances 100% open to both genders? [answered]

See, I have to be honest, as an old and cranky person who took a long time to feel comfortable labeling myself as "bisexual", I'm very annoyed by the idea that I would have to call myself pansexual in order to indicate that I am capable of being attracted to trans people of either gender.  It's unnecessary, in my opinion, rather than just saying that I like both men and women.  If I were to meet someone who identifies as trans or non-binary, and I were attracted to them, that would not suddenly make me "level up" to pansexuality, it just means that I like the people they are, and that's all.

On the topic at hand, my opinion has always been that I prefer all bisexual romance options because I think that unless we're getting a dating sim where the sexuality of these characters are a big part of the writing (and I'm pretty sure that ME:A is not going to be that), I don't see that the romances are worth limiting, when the characters aren't really all that deep anyway.  Maybe I'll be proven wrong this time, and I do understand why it's important to those who want LGBT representation though, so it's not something I'll argue passionately about, but right now, I feel like DA2 got romances more "right" for me than any other Bioware game.

I totally get you there... that's why I mentioned the debate over whether pan- and bi- sexuality are really separate. Just presenting the current definition. I do agree though that someone being capable of attraction toward a trans-person seems like an odd distinction. The fact that I would be cool with a relationship with a transman doesn't somehow make me a 'leveled up' version of straight, does it? Aren't I still straight? Or does it depend on how far in their transition and gender-queerness they are...? Where's the line, exactly...? Is there a label for someone who's into the opposite and non-binary genders, but not the same gender?   So yeah, this is where I agree that getting too distinct with labels is contrary to how people simply are and they can be as limiting as they can be convenient.

But yeah, back to our thread topic, I have mixed feelings about the whole player-sexuality deal. I can see it from both sides. I do think that's the best solution for making games fun (and ultimately that's what Bioware games are about, right? fun?) equally for everyone, since there's limited resources for this sort of thing. But I can appreciate the representation aspect of it. I've often said I don't mind a disproportionate number of bi (or, pan, if you prefer  ) people who happen to be love interests if it means more players are happy with their choices. If that means no 'straight representation' among LIs, so be it.

Out of curiosity - a question for our LGB players out there: Would you be okay with our love interests all being bi (openly or not, provided there's no erasure moments like with Anders) as long as there were non-romanceable, but openly gay or lesbian, major characters in the game? I'm not arguing for or against this, I'd just be curious as to your thoughts on it as a possible compromise. Because I personally wouldn't care if none of our LI characters were straight - but I also recognize that that might be my straight privilege talking, where LGB representation is still novel and rare so it matters more. To bring this back to the previous topic, as I said I appreciate romance options that I can interpret as being demi-sexual(ish). But it's far more important that I have the option to play a character like that than whether the character I romance is like me.

I really do not care about representation in the LI department, mostly because characters that are story relevant are straight or open to straight players. It is a lot more fair to make them bi or something along that spectrum. Of course there are problems with putting gay/lesbian/asexual or watever characters in NPCs only and non-LIs, it looks like they are of no importance.

To tell you the true the best approach is making all companions that are relevant to the story bi and the rest could be diverse.

I think people tend to forget this is an RPG. If you're hetero, or gay, it wouldn't kill you to play a character outside of your personal comfort zone. I'm a straight woman, and I've played lesbian and gay male characters before BECAUSE of the gender, sexuality, and race gating that Bioware does with their characters. And personally, I know a lot of people in the fandom love the representation they get. Such as how Josie and Solas can be interpreted as demi-sexual or Ace by members of the LGBT community. People might not like that characters they want aren't open to a character inside their comfort zone, but that's just tough titties. Why would you ONLY roleplay a character that is, essentially, you? Why would you not branch out and be creative? Make a character completely unique from yourself? They don't have to be completely different from you, of course, maybe they have a similar taste in music, fashion, or colors that you do. But it's a really interesting experience to see a world (or even a quest) from another character's eyes.

Dorian's quest involving his father was one I saw in a completely different light playing as a gay male character as opposed to a straight female character.

And honestly, Solas being straight and open only to elves did make sense. That didn't make his romance any less enjoyable (albeit heartbreaking).

The thing is, as writers we're told that our job is to make a world as immersive as possible. We have to think of our characters as individual people, not just fantasies we concocted. They're not very lifelike if we don't actually think of them as people. Concoct backstories, likes and dislikes, family, and even their own sexuality. A lack of any of these things and the character becomes more 2D and less believable. Which is what became the problem in DA2, and a lot of people realized that.

Do the RPG thing and play a character outside yourself. It doesn't have to be your gender or sexuality. That's the beautiful thing about RPGs. If you choose not to play a different gender to access the characters you want, then that is on you. Not BW.

It's funny when straight people are telling us to play a character outside of our comfort zone, as if we had not been doing that for a long time. It's like people getting up their arms every time we dare to ask for better representation. And if writers think of characters as individual people, why can't they just be gay? Are writer assuming that gay characters are somehow more concocted and therefore less believable? I still could not understand why Solas being straight makes more sense than him being bi.

I resent that these concerns about unbelievable characters are raised so often when minority gets or asks for their representation, by the majority, despite the fact that there are so many straight characters that are just as badly written. Well I guess people just don't like it when the status quo changes.

A big +1! My 1st (aka explorer) playthroughs are the ones where the pc is 'me'. Choice of LI, decisions. In the additional pts I play as a 'director+writer+actor+viewer'. When I play as a female character and romance a guy I don't feel gay. I like Garrus, but I don't think he's hot. But the whole Garrus romance is one of the best, because Jennifer Hale gives a 110% performance. Same thing with the Solas romance and I have to admit they may have been some manly tears at the end.  While I like the ME games I feel the DA line is 'better' because they offer more variety. The multiple races, the time lapse between games, the ~evolving world (dao wardens - big heroes!, dai wardens - what a dumb bunch). Even if the big choices are the same (and in most cases they are) picking another race, gender or a LI can make the whole experience different.

Yup that was the excuse, in reality they could have done it mostly because they have other bisexual characters already, so therms of representation it would be fine.

My problem with all the LI's being Bi has nothing to do with imbalance of representation. It actually doesn't bother me that straight women got 4LIs in DA:I (we had Dorian and Bull i.e. 2 options, if somebody had more it looks really selfish to be angry). It's creating characters for the fanservice. I have the same problem with those desperately wishing for a Quarian when 1) there are soooo few of them 2) a huge part of the reason many want a male Quarian is so he could be an LI. At some point it must begin to feel like characters are just there for fanservice.

I feel this is a part of why Dorian and Krem felt so forced to so many (myself included). Don't get me wrong, I like Dorian and Krem and I'm glad, in particular, that a trans character was so prominent and not played as a joke (see Serendipity). But the scene with his father, and Krem's out of nowhere explanation of his trangenderedness were really botched and completely failed what the writers were obviously hoping to achieve. Furthermore, DA:2 made every LI the same "level" of bisexual *1. They had no preference either way, they liked everyone equally. This is so stupid, I'm sorry. I think I'd be fine with all Bi LIs if they weren't completely 50/50. Like it might take a little more work if you were a man, just because he prefers women 80% of the time. But when they all have no preference either way, its obviously a cop out.  In doing so, they have 'sterilised' (I can't think of the correct word for this) them for public consumption (and sidelined gay men and lesbians at the same time).

*1 Yes, I know about Anders.  That still counts as far as I'm concerned, because it made no difference to the end result whether you were M! or F!Hawke.  It would have been better if 1) He told F!Hawke about Karl and 2) If the romance paths weren't identical.

I don't strictly have a preference for whether there are all-bi romances or delineated orientations. If I was forced to choose, I'd say the latter because there are more opportunities to write the odd character who has an interesting story like Dorian's (although of course it'd be strange and entirely awkward and wrong even to have everyone pontificate over their sexuality in order to somehow justify it - people are who they are).

One thing I'd particularly like to see is more incidental gay, lesbian and trans NPCs. DAI was actually okay-ish about this - with conversations that could be overheard where men were talking about their husbands or whatever. And of course, in ME3 there were plenty of women overheard talking about their asari partners, but I call fudge on that one because the asari were always a problematic species when it came to their role as lesbian/bisexual representation. What I'd love to see is gay and lesbian couples - actually gosh darn on screen at the same time - and it all just being a bit more commonplace.

In regards to what we know of and what we're speculating about for MEA so far, my main concern is that LGB (and T - but I'm doubtful ME will be the franchise to offer the first trans romanceable character, that will be DA) romances not be the ones 'relegated' to NPCs. Steve and Sam were really lovely people, and you could connect with them, but I agree with the poster above who said they didn't feel as worthwhile or as substantial as the squad romances. And part of that is down to the nature of role-playing - when we take squad mates with us into battle or on other missions, we build a little narrative in our heads: even though we might not have extensive (or even any) dialogue with them on those missions, it still adds up to the feeling of creating some kind of bond with them. Think of all the people who say "Garrus is my bro" and always take him on missions - part of that friendship is in the player's head and consists of the memory of all that time spent shooting together. That's obviously not going to happen with non-combat crew members and especially not with random NPCs.

I'm not saying it's not going to be possible to form deep relationships with non-squad characters - we know next to nothing so far and it might be really well done - but that there will always be an extra level of connection with those we can take everywhere with us, simply because they're the ones we're forming all these memories with and spending most time with, even when they don't have a lot to say.

So, I really hope that lesbian and gay LIs have been paid enough attention that there never feels a situation where they're not quite as good as the straight or even bi romances.

I'd also say - although I expect this won't be as important to some - I hope that there are human and alien options right across the spectrum, and that they all offer a deep and fulfilling arc. I'd hate to see that the only lesbian options are aliens, or the only gay options are human, for example.

All of this is a tall order, because it requires a lot of planning, writing, and - the dreaded word - resources to create a full range of deeply satisfying and engaging relationship options for all genders and orientations. Which is why I wouldn't be opposed to the all-bi method (bringing me neatly back to the original topic of this thread) if that was the only way to ensure no one ended up feeling that their representation was half-arsed. But as I stated right at the beginning of this wall of text, if possible then having a range of different well-written and substantial options available to people would be my preference.

I'm always open to everything and I romance the characters i like regardless of their sexual orientation. I'm straight but in DAI Dorian was my favorite so I romanced him. Why would i want to play myself in a game, that's boring to me.

Yeah, it's all about preferences. I always play a certain character that's like me but not completely and then i do other play-throughs that are more different to me. For me it's like writing a character and sometimes they are similar to me and sometimes not.