Using Baldurs Gate as a bad example of something and then using Mass Effect:Andromeda as a good example in the same video, has to be one of Yahtzees' ballsiest moves, ever.

I don't mind the sex scenes or their existence, but I wholly agree about the frustrating lack of "but no can't we REALLY just be friends? not as a way out of a romantic relationship, but like can we go get drinks in a pub or something and enjoy each others' company?" For a game with so MANY dialogue options, it does seem far too often that you ultimately come down to "Take your pants off" or "Ew get away." Why is that.

From Larian's patch notes today: "During Gale's spell-teaching scene, you now have the option to picture a future with Gale that falls somewhere in between kissing him and kicking him in the head."

I remember having a weirdly lacking set of options with Gale. He was talking about how nice it feels to have someone he can confide in, and I think the line it led to was essentially 'I've come to see you as a friend, and I hope you consider me as one too'. My options were essentially 'I see you as more than a friend', 'No I don't see you as a friend', and 'I hate you'. Why couldn't I just reciprocate his heartfelt but platonic statement with one of equal sentiment? I didn't want to lead him on nor hurt his feelings, but those were the only choices I had. Very strange.

If Baldur's Gate wanted REAL D&D-style "Around the Campfire" stuff, the game should forcefully pause itself for twenty minutes, talk about 1960s TV for a while, and have everyone blame eachother for their dice rolls.

They really took your feedback to heart and quickly addressed it. From today's patch notes: -During Gale’s spell-teaching scene, you now have the option to picture a future with Gale that falls somewhere in between kissing him and kicking him in the head.

Mr Sockey is the best. Such an upstanding and earnest citizen!

Weirdly enough, in Mass effect I end up liking the non-Romance party members more because it never feels like letting them down when you have to say “No I don’t want to go to the bedroom with you”. For example, as male Shepard you can’t romance Garrus and I ended up liking him way more than a lot of other people on my crew, I was just content being friends with him, I didn’t need to bang him to finish our relationship, we just chilled out and shot bottles together. Same with Wrex, no matter what gender you pick you can’t romance him and he becomes a good friend to you, he’s just someone you know you can rely on.

The most interesting part is how people are managing to seduce Lae’zel within three minutes of starting the game

Man, I would love to just chat shit with my party. I loved that bit in Andromeda with the whole squad watching a movie. Most human feeling part of the whole game. Laezel and the rest of the NPCs are really interesting but it would be incredible to just interact.

I think it's a very salient point that dialogue trees show a lot even if the choices are or aren't selected. Point in case in the very same game, the Dark Urge. Even if you don't select the super murdery options, the fact that they're constantly there might as well serve as a set of intrusive thoughts to plague your curiosity. You are always keenly aware that you could slip at any moment into bloodshed on a whim.

I got disinterested when Lae'zel wouldnt break my pelvis

Andromeda was surprisingly full of such wholesome hangout moments. In the original trilogy we only got that with Citadel DLC. In Andromeda it kinda became mandatory part for each companion. Jaal introduces Ryder to his family Drakk and Ryder get in bar brawl, and later Ryder sorta becomes godparent to Kesh's firstborn Cracking open a cold one with Liam and later having a football match with colonists Cora invites you for almost ceremonial founding of her garden Ventra mountain climbing Pebee floating around in 0G And of course the movie night Some of these can turn into the beginning of romance route, but that's optional. Hanging out is the important part. Andromeda released in a sorry state, but it's not irredeemably bad. It more than makes up for it's flaws with enough upsides

I wanted to bromance the wizard not romance him. Damn you Larian for not giving me that option.

I think the issue is these games try to offer you the ability to do anything. With more and more options you can do but then there is always a point where you can't do something you want to. So you go deeper and deeper into immersion but then are suddenly dragged out of it because no one considered you might want to do THIS exact thing.

Saints Row IV's parody of this kind of mechanic ("Hey, Kinzie. Wanna @#$%?" "Let's do this...!") was one of the funniest things in the game.

To add to "Romance seems to be the expectation", I was romancing Shadowheart and being good friends with Gale. I entertained his requests and was a good, supportive friend along the way, but I never made a conscious choice to flirt with him. So it was a bit jarring and quite funny when, after confirming my relationship with Shadowheart, he confronted me all weepy about how he thought we had a thing going but that he wouldn't begrudge me for choosing someone else. It really felt like the game can't tell just being friendly with someone and wanting to have an intimate relationship.

The main issue with the BG3 relationships is that the approval system itself is fundamentally flawed. It basically acts like “approval rating” = “relationship status”. Each companion having their own threshold at what point THEY will approach you for a romantic relationship. Regardless if you tried to avoid the “romantic” dialogue options or are already in a relationship with another companion. A great example for this happened to me during my second playthrough (spoilerfree): I decided to start a romance with Karlach. A little bit further into the game there is something very important happening for her. An incredibly wholesome and immersive moment for the both of you. So I finish off our business in that area to get ready for a long rest (during which character moments start playing out). I rest… cutscene starts (me expecting Karlach)… tension builds annnnnnnd… Another (male) character is prancing around in front of me asking me for a dance. And btw. said character stood right next to me an Karlach during the important moment. I had also barely talked to that character. He just reached his romance threshold. Sure I simply turned him down but it turned one of the best moments I had with the relationship system into an absolute joke. The system just doesn’t care about your choices because it’s barebones implementation doesn’t allow for it. It acts like “fuck everyone” is the most immersive and entertaining way to play. It may be for some. Thats fine. But give the player more agency on who they engage in a romantic relationship with (including flirting).

According to Larian, the idea behind the sex scenes happening fairly early on is precisely to avoid the idea of romance in an RPG being "pulling all the correct levers to get a knobbing scene". Basically they're getting it out of the way quickly, so it ceases to be the "goal" of romance as it is in most RPGs, and instead allows to focus on the actual bond between characters. Whether or not that approach achieves its goal is a different matter, but at least they were willing to experiment with it.

It would be nice if there were friendship endings to the romances. Yeah, if you tell them you aren't interested you stay friends, but I would have liked to see some kind of end-of-game "I'm glad I met you" culmination all the same. That said... regarding not feeling close enough to the characters, part of this is clearly because Yahtzee isn't that far in the game yet. These relationships start with lust and grow into love. The companion I romanced completely stopped all physical intimacy beyond the occasional smooch for a good chunk of the game because he realized it was unhealthy and he needed to work some things out about himself. And I know Yahtz isn't a fan of the whole "it gets good if you wait 10 more hours" thing, but I think if you're playing a game the size of BG3, you have to expect the payoff for a game-length character arc to come slowly. The lust is the beginning, not the end.

"During Gale's [scene mentioned in the Escapist Video], you now have the option to picture a future with Gale that falls somewhere in between kissing him and kicking him in the head." - Larian, Patch 1. Apparently, they listened.

From what ive seen in the community, Karlach seems to be the most popular romance, and i think because it hits on the opposite of what's discussed here. There's like a buildup and a payoff where you learn a lot about her.

Astarion's romance in BG3 gets into some really interesting stuff about relationships where one party has super complicated associations with sex and intimacy and it really is in everyone's best interests to not get naked each other right away. (And yes the Naked Having does happen first because of reasons, but once Astarion opens up more about his specific traumas there's a lot more nuance to it)

SPOLIER ALERT!!: While you can have sex with her, Karlach's (best girl) romance arc ends with the two of you going on a nice date together, where you imageine your shared future, even though Karlach knows she only has days to live. It was simultaneously heartbreaking and heartwarming, and I think it's a really good example of how a romance in games can be about, and end with, more than just sex.

The new patch addressed the issue with Gale's dialogue! > During Gale's spell-teaching scene, you now have the option to picture a future with Gale that falls somewhere in between kissing him and kicking him in the head.

The devs talked about this in one of their panels. For characters like Lae'zel (and too many others in my opinion), sex is just something fun that they like to do, and it's not meant to be the final relationship goal. Having a partner who starts out as rude and basically has sex because what else is there to do, slowly open up, telling you about their fears, and learning to be kind through your influence is much more of a personal glimpse into their character and the relationship you have with them.

Laezel is just that. Early sex because she wanted to fuck. Not meant to be taken as emotional pay off. But, Katlach is a different story imo. After 50 hours of having her in my party, finally getting to say you love her and watching her giddiness is so heart warming and feels like one of the more genuine emotions I've seen in a game. Edit: my wording was poor, her beginning of her story is just about sex and her trying to grasp what her true feelings are.

The lizard lady’s romance begins purely with unfulfilling carnality, and ends with her growing as a character and seeing the main character as an equal, to protect and be protected by, foregoing her loyalties to her peoples traditions.

The problem is you can get good friendship building with characters but only after hard rejecting them romantically. So building up your relationship is building to romance which can only then transfer to friendship by hitting the brakes hard rather than building up friendships from the get go. And while Bioware games all have this issue the fact that some of your party members are never interested and some have sexualities other than pansexual, there were still always people in your party you could just build up a friendship with from the start. In baldurs gate 3 that's only possible by gaining approval slowly enough that you're already locked in with someone by the time the person you want to be friends with starts liking you as a person at all which for me only really happened with karlach which made that the only naturally building friendship I had with anyone.

I get where you're coming from, but i can't completely agree. Starting with "fun" then forming a connection is, for some people, the usual way to go about things. And that's what happens with Lae'zel, first cold hearted funtimes for the kicks. Then you get to know her as a person, later.

I think shadowheart has the best romance. It is slow and well put together. But very much you can just be friends.

Well, now I know there's a potential romance with the Emperor and I can't sleep at night peacefully.

Based on the couch scene, if Yahtzee ever tells you he wants to Netflix and chill...maybe he really means just hang out quietly on the couch and watch movies.

The Escapist producers: "How many sexual puns you can squeeze into this EP?" Mort...err... Yahtz: "Yes"

The scene where you fuck comes so early and the fact that in game boning is usually criminally unsexy makes me think that it isnt the end goal of the romance.

The platonic friendship you can form with the Red Prince in DOS2 is quite possibly my favorite in gaming

I hope Yahtzee lives to be 100 years old and still critiques games til his final breathe

I say again. Tales of Symphonia had some of the best relationship building. Didn't result in hanky panky, but did result in immense character growth.

Hearing Yahtzee say “bite down on this wooden spoon baby I’m going in dry” made me physically reel and collapse in laughter fucking hell.

Maybe this was added in an update, but last time I got Gale’s scene there was the option to imagine spending time together as friends. The team has also updated options for companions to allow for platonic hugs. That said, I did find there was no way to turn down Wyll’s dance scene in a way that doesn’t either seem really rude or a big tease. Which really sucked that the scene even triggered when I had chosen no flirty options. Now Astarion out of all of them has the best “let’s be just friends” option. To the point that many fans think the best way to know his character is platonically. Too bad I never want to be just friends (I don’t have a problem!)

It can get a bit grating when you have to constantly fend off advances in dialogue trees, that's true. Many NPCs are aggressively player-sexual. And just by virtue of coming along. It does lose its magic when characters are always offering themselves. It's like "What, you TOO!? All of you? Really?"

I appreciate Yahtzee always finding reasons to bring up Prince of Persia: The Sands of Time.

I think with Lae'Zel (and maybe Astarion, I haven't seen much of his content), the pay-off is actually her confessing her love for you and then demanding you beat the shit out of her to prove you're worthy of being her mate (and then taking you anyway if you lose). Because I believe originally she says (or implies) that it's just sex for her and you shouldn't get attached.

I can't wait for Yahtzee to introduce Mr. Socky into his books as Dr. Diablerie's right hand man

Lae Zel's romance is quick sex cause she's the type of character that doesn't care about sex. When you actually do the ROMANCE part of her, the character's story becomes great. I actually think Lae Zel's romance is one of the best.

The difference between games like Mass Effect and The WItcher and a game like BG3 is that the former games have a preset identity to them. Shepard's going to Shepard and Geralt's going to Geralt. However, we have a blank slate in BG3 that has to be as adaptive as possible to cater to many different identities players want to cast on them. I don't think its really fair to compare the two. But I do agree that there should be more gray area responses between the scales of "Let's shag" and "I wanna kill your cat."

your point on the dialogue trees is spot on I feel. A good while ago now I purchased the first 2 Mass Effect games from my Local game store to see what I'd missed out on, and found the "Romance" Mechanics in ME1 very frustrating. While I was for sure having my Sheppard pursuing Liara, I also played him how I think a leader should be. Meaning he listened to every crew member, and was invested enough in their backgrounds to try and either help them work through their issues or at the very least let them feel safe under his lead. Color me surprised when the human crew member I can't remember the name of was feeling especially down and I tried to have him comfort her with a dialogue option that said something like "You're more amazing/beautiful than you realize." and Sheppard immediately put on the I'm sexually interested face and said "You are the most beautiful woman I've ever seen." The whole time I thought I was building a big brother/good boss relationship but apparently that amounts to hours spent flirting. And 30 minutes later I had to deal with the awkward forced confrontation scene between both women. And all I could think was "I was actively flirting with one of you. The other I was just trying to comfort." So I spent a huge chunk of ME2 making sure not to say too many nice things to my crew, less they all start confusing Niceness and Kindness as romantic interest.

I honestly think that Yahtz is in the minority in thinking that all the dialogue options are something the character thinks and/or acknowledges as options. I certainly don't have a million options every time I open my mouth, and I am fairly scatterbrained myself.

I've got the reverse experience (am still in early act 2 mind you): my Tav got hooked up with Astarion and by some point, first Karlach noticed and commented on it, then Lae'zel told him (my Tav) she doesn't want meat someone else is already poking lol. Even bloody Withers piped up about my Tav and his BOSOM-FRIEND Astarion at one point haha. I was actually shocked at how good the game is at developing a relationship and organically making the world react to it, it's quite amazing. Which is also why as much as I respect Yahtzee's opinions, I have to disagree hard on the romance in Baldur's Gate 3. The subject gets as deep as you want it to be, not everything gets served to you on a plate and you need to pay attention to understand things, behaviours etc. Like shagging Astarion is easy, but getting the bloke to actually trust Tav? To develop *feelings*? Now that's the challenge, that's the payoff. Not everything starts and ends with sex alone and Yahtzee failing to look past that is somewhat disappointing. I want no spoilers, so might still come to eat my own words after I complete the game, but from what I saw until now the interpersonal relationships are being handled - and developed - in a truly stellar way. The writing is complex, the voice acting is phenomenal, the animations (at least aside from smutty scenes, there, I agree!) during conversations bring it all together and it all just feels.. real. As much as a dialogue-tree based conversation can, at the very least.

This isn't actually starting a genuine romantic relationship with Lae'Zel, though, to her this is just casual fun with someone she kiiiiind of respects, and later events in her storyline make that very clear. (Most of the other companions are either the same way, more open to physical relationships at first until you truly gain their trust, or the exact opposite and leave it at purely romantic gestures until laaate in the story, usually after a major milestone in their personal storyline.)

To be fair me Andromeda had some neat scenes with the romances as an example vetra going climbing, eating her cooking, divinity also did a neat thing with sebille by letting you heal her scars and when she teaches you a song

On the point of out-of-character dialogue trees, I find it really jarring when I've been just generally nice to someone like Wyll and he suddenly wants to do the funky tango, especially when the only character that I've previously shown any romantic interest dialogue-wise is Karlach. I get that it's easiest for the devs (programmatically and socially) if all companions are playersexual, but I like restrictions because it fleshes them out. Having a preference (or lack thereof) for a certain type of partner adds another dimension to their character and also lessens the number of unwanted booty calls I have to reject.

I think there's an in universe explanation for fantasy rpg adventuerers always being DTF in that they have a dangerous line of work and know they might be dead tomorrow, so take the "yolo" option if the opportunity comes up

I broadly agree, especially because literally everyone will flirt with you, but I would say that there is definitely plenty of the middle ground for the various characters. Lae’Zel initially also makes it very clear that she’s in it for the sex and not for any actual feelings. But those options to have a close non-romantic relationship is definitely there with basically everyone.

Lae'zel's relationship arc is specifically about her going from cold and uninvested beyond personal satisfaction, to actually caring about a person. That's kinda the point. I'm playing a dragonborn in one campaign, and early on she makes a comment about you having "dimmunitive scales," but then later down the line actually speaks respectfully of your draconic heritage (tying in to the Githyanki and their connection with dragons). She's got some neat development throughout the story. Very much an instance of "you get out what you put in." You can easily drop any further development with her character after that initial encounter, and essentially be on the same page as her at the beginning of the story. Drop the fling, carry on. No big deal. The interesting stuff comes later though.

As for the new point added at 7:00 , I've seen a few games use tags or icons to communicate whether a piece of dialogue is coded as flirty, or some other tone indicators too in more complex systems... And one possibility for fleshing that out further in potential future games could be selecting the tags you want to use? Like, when the tone would affect the meaning of a line of dialogue, giving you the ability to select it.

Larian probably listened to you this week. It's a small thing but a thing. "During Gale's spell-teaching scene, you now have the option to picture a future with Gale that falls somewhere in between kissing him and kicking him in the head."

Funnily enough, if you do choose not to romance any of the characters, Withers will talk to you at some point chastising you for not having attempted it.

I will say, in BG3, there's a LOT more, right from the release (heh) than say, mass effect, as there's more to each romance in the game than the act 1 stuff. Lae'Zel (Lizard one) has a lot of overall changes to her as a character, vampire boy reveals his past, etc. Doesn't change the fact that it's more of a cheeky bonus thing with typical "This is a video game" issues, but hey. Also, if you want the "Sitting on a couch and talking" type romance, Karlach. That's all. Overall, having played ME1/2/3, witcher, etc. I'd say in some ways BG3 is a lot more interesting when it comes to the romance, and especially when you get later in the game (act 2/3) and shit really starts hitting the fan, the urge to save-scum or just spam save before ANY interaction starts hitting hard, spoilers below: My first Chara ended up sticking with Angry frog lady, after passing through the creche' and that story arc, and continuing down that path, she starts losing some of the superiority complex and even actually lets a smile slip here and there. On my 2nd/3rd go round with different chars now, but if ALL of the companions Arc's are anything like hers, it's basically the equivalent character growth of the companions from ME1/2/3 across all the games, but in a SINGLE game (Karlach, for instance, is basically the "Tali" of BG3, and her arc covers all 3 acts and gets a little dark at times, since you can't touch her to begin with and just have to talk or get creative to even try anything before finding the metal bits and the smithy to help with that) In the end, TL:DR, I don't think the romances themselves really hurt the game at all if you're the type to get into the characters stories, since unlike playing tabletop with friends you don't really know much about them at the start. The payoff is certainly "Racy" in a sense, but adult content in games is practically Passe' at this point. Yeah, the act 1 scenes are "Abrupt" but at that point y'all still assume you're probably screwed anyways, A2/A3 is where things start settling in and the future looks possible for you, before that potentially gets crushed, depending on your choices.

I wonder if Yahtzee would enjoy well written hentai games.

If there was going to be pixelation, why in god's name did you leave the mindflayer scene intact? That was more horrifying than most of the sex acts.

I never read the options in dialogue trees as character thoughts, i feel like theyre designed for the player, the "lets be friends" "lets bone" and "i hate your guts" options all exist in the same window for the benefit of the player, not to show things that crossed the characters mind in that situation, but to provide options for roleplaying the character you want to be in that situation, but also give options for other players I do agree that there probably couldve been more in-between answers and less extremes in a lot of the dialogue and also overall slowed down the pace of "i just met you like two days ago on an alien space ship and youre already stalker obsessed with my loins"

I loved Movie Night in Andromeda! It was rather long-winded to eventually get to it but hanging out means a lot more to me than the kissing bits.

"I'm Garrus Vakarian and this is now my favorite spot on the Citadel!" Is anything more needed to say about why platonic scenes are amazing? Side note: if you don't miss that shot, you're a bad person.

I think the overall problem is that games think that relationship building is inevitably leading towards romance. Like, the endgame of anyone trying to get to know someone else in a deeper capacity than just friends is to knob them. And this is just incredibly reductive of actual human relationships.

VERY happy to see Mr. Socky wasn't a one-off.

YES the dialog trees!! Exactly that! I have never been less immersed than when endingtron 2000 offered it's two options "Be good and destroy the thing" or "Be evil and use the thing". That's it. That's the game. These are your two choices. It's 200 hour cookie clicker with some additional steps. LOCK ME OUT OF THE OPTIONS I AM CLEARLY NOT INTERESTED IN. In given playthrough ;DDD

Astarion will turn you down quite viciously actually. Viciously funny that is.

In my experience, all the companions are super thirsty and don't give a fuck. They just keep trying to start romances no matter if they know I'm in one already, and only when I'm trying to sleep.

my problem with it is that you are either romancing them or they have nothing to do with you, acquaintence or romance, no inbetween. Can't be just friends.

I really think "mr socky"section deserves credit. I remember way back when Yhatzee would have the "disagreeing mock voice" thing be dumb and annoying as everyone else did, making self contradictory statements and whatnot. But lately, the points raised by the "disagreeing mock voice" have been good faith portrayals of disagreeing points that are not "dumb and annoying" but just something he disagrees with even if its a well made critique of it. It shows intellectual classiness.

Saw a video recently that basically said "of course they're putting out fast, they have like two days to live and they might as well do all the things they want to" and that does kinda make sense.

DOS2 prepared me for this. I thought I was making friends with Fane until the screen faded to black and cut to the morning after. Completely blind sided me that what I thought were friendly comments were actually romance options. So yeah, I'd be all up for more friends only options in CRPGs

This game was made by dnd nets for dnd nerds. Not understanding relationships is par for the course

I like how he damns BioWare but then ME was very specific that you were only allowed one romance at a time and you got great character send-offs in ME3 both with the Citadel DLC and at various points: sniper rifle skeet in the Citadel Presidium with Garrus (whether you romanced or not plus you have the option to give him the win); chuckling at Wrex's sore...um...legs; drinking Ashley under the table (whether romanced or not); etc.

I will say i do agree with the general sentiment of this video, though I do think it is present to some degree in Baldur’s Gate 3. While I think there is often a lack of affectionate but still platonic dialogue options, they are often present. For example, Some of the characters have romantic cutscenes that still trigger but are platonic in tone if you’re not romancing them. I got one of these for Gale, and it was one of my favorite moments in the game. still, the point does stand. I do wish there were more group scenes like sitting around a campfire telling stories, or something. Despite the fact that we’re supposed to all be good friends, it can definitely feel like all the companions have really interesting relationships with you, but barely know each other. This is especially true if you settle on a team composition and don’t frequently swap out party members in order to hear everyone’s banter, which is how I think most people will probably play.

I'm 100% over romance options in RPGs. Almost every time I've played a game with a romance "option" it came across as artificial and unwarranted. The first one was ME2 IIRC, where I had just recruited a dude, and the first time I went to talk to him on the ship, he's asking to get into my pants, and when I turned him down because I had no interest in romancing anyone, he stopped talking to me about anything other than what he was required to for the plot. I had the exact same experience with Lae'zel, it was just BOOM, all of a sudden she starts talking about how the stink of my body turns her on. I had a similar encounter with Astarion on the first character I ran, where after an incredibly short time adventuring with him, he's suggesting we go for a roll in the hay, and of course since I wasn't really interested in that part of the game, I had to then turn him down. It really ruins the relationship building with the companions, when you have to preempt every dialog option with a consideration for whether this will turn them into a raging sack of hormones. The only game I've played that had decent romance stuff was CP77, and even then it was pretty much only Judy. Panam was okay, but the relationship between the player and Judy felt so much more natural than what you get in so many other games, where it seems more like a matter of "push button receive bacon" than developing a relationship with someone, and growing to care for them. Hell, in BG3 I've felt far more attached to Karlach because I was able to give her a hug... That is a vastly more believable and memorable relationship than any of the other "romances" that have popped up in the game for me so far, and amazingly she's not itching to get my trousers off.

I had, somehow, accidentally friend-zoned myself with Karlach without realising it. Met her too late once a romance opportunity went by or something. So later in the game when i get the prompts to flirt with her, she'd brush it off in a kinda piss-taking but light hearted jab kinda way. Ultimately she became my characters friend that she could be a bit more open around, but with a strong sense of personal boundaries and specific relationships. That made me like her far more than the other characters that were basically throwing themselves at me, fawning over everything i said, then being perfectly ok with being rejected - as it felt like they just had no individual identity outside "be what the player wants you to be".

I mean if you think about it. Everyone is under the impression that they are going to die(turn into squids) in a matter of days. And they are all fairly attractive single adults. Wouldn't you want to get rocks off before you lose them, and not get to distracted to much by not having proper time to date?

"It's valid to criticize optional content because work had to go into it that could've been spent on something else." Thank you. Always hated people who try to defend something by saying, "That's optional, you don't HAVE to do it, so, any and all complaints about it are completely worthless".

Though I agree for the largest part of this, I find it a bit silly to equal 'seeing the dialogue option' to 'this crossed my character's mind'. IMO, that's a game mechanic necessity, and easily divorced from the story being told. I'd see choosing or not choosing such an option as a choice to have it cross your character's mind to begin with. That said, there were definitely some moments where I felt the options were inadequate.

Totally agree on the awkwardness of both the animation and sex/romance/friendship dynamic. I also resent the notion that I should just skip it if I don't like it - but I *want* to like the romancing! I want it to be good and interesting and be a good payoff for getting emotionally invested.

He briefly touched on this at the end, but I still love how Disco Elysium used dialogue trees to illustrate intrusive thoughts.

The other possibility is that the devs themselves don't actually understand how platonic and non-sexual relationships work or should be initiated in context of the game. It's got to be one extreme or the other, anything else is boring or uninteresting. That's also why I don't allow any sexual escapades at my own table beyond actual couples who are physically at the table that who also their characters to be in a physical relationship, and even then anything physical beyond public interaction happens "off-screen". Too many incels I've ran for in the past want to treat the game like it's their own personal sex chat and every NPC that remotely catches their fancy is just a potential lay. That, I don't allow. I treat the in-game world and PCs like real-life. You can do whatever you want to do within reason. You want to shank some dude in an alley for coin, sure... but if you get caught in a lawful settlement, you can probably expect to get hanged for murder. You want to spend all night boozing and whoring in the pub? Sure thing, but expect some major penalties the next day when you wake up with a hangover in the gutter and the possibility that someone has ran off with all your money and gear while you were in a drunken stupor. If you want to start up a reasonably realistic relationship with an NPC that you have some connection to beyond wanting a one-night-stand or a prostitute, then sure... I'll let you do that, insofar as having a presumed romantic relationship with them, and let you pursue that mostly off-screen, and that NPC will then react to you appropriately when interacting with them after that. I am not, however, as a DM, going to be your alternative to calling a sex hotline for the evening. Do that on your own sad time and leave me and the other players out of it.

I played a dating sim that asks you to declare early who you are interested in romancing. The trade off for taking you out of character and breaking the 4th wall is that for the rest of the game the romance develops organically, and the supporting cast act more naturally. I liked that versus not breaking the 4th wall but then feeling like you're one dialog choice away from banging everyone just because you were nice to them as the game goes on.

I like the idea about how the most fulfilling scenes tend to be ones like from the citadel DLC in mass effect that don't have sex in them, but what I really like about BG3 is that it doesn't shy away from sex or use it as the "You've maxed out this character, now they're done" option. I think its dope that you can just have sex like, you know, a person would and then still have a normal relationship with them after and it not be the capstone of your relationship

I guess I just do more roleplaying? I've been struggling to get those scenes in my playthrough. I'm picking the options that I want my character to live with and that means sometimes they like my actions and sometimes not and so they might like me like a party leader but not in the other kind of way. I wish think he needs to play through the whole thing. Lae'zel's ark is fascinating in my playthrough. It's gone from you are mine to use, to can you teach me to cuddle. Which I did not expect but I very much appreciate.

Not that this changes the full critique, it is worth noting that with the romancing being so polorized between shag and hate (especially with Gale) Larian apparently also agree as they started adding dialogue to have a more middle approach so you can be friends without benefits 😅 (patch day today, hooray)

Absolutely yes to all of this. Also, why does rejecting the character by saying you prefer to just be friends lower how much they approve of you? It's especially dumb since they want to bang you after talking to them like three times, no real friendship building required. I got pushed from good relations with Shadowheart to ambilvalent 'cause I just wanted to have a nice friendly drink with her and not kiss her 😭

More fun movie-night scenes, please!

I'm in act 3 and literally never got any flirtatious dialogue options until I helped Shadowheart complete her lifelong ambition in act 2. Still not had anything beyond some mild flirtation from her though. Lae'Zel and I are absolute besties but she's never so much as shown a casual interest in anything more even as I maxed out my approval with her by doing everything she's suggested to this point. Karlach feels like the writers completely forgot she even exists, so she's had no new dialogue since act 1 when I fixed up her knackered heart a bit (in the medical sense, not the romantic one), Minthara is the only one in my party who seems like she might be up for it, if Larian hadn't acknowledged all her datamined dialogue and quests are currently bugged ingame. And every other possible companion is dead by my hand. One of them for pulling a knife on me, one for pulling a sword on Karlach, one from getting eaten by shadow monsters when we took out the magic keeping the first big bad alive, so I won't know if they might have been down for it or not.

All the talk about preferences, after bemoaning Lae'zel being quick to want to get a bonk on. That's who she is, sex first. That's her character, her preference for romance. As for more friendship options, yeah it'd be nice, but I turned Karlach down and she now acts like my best bro. I didn't seize the moment for Gale or Wyll, and they didn't get pissy about it. So, it seems fine to me? As for the notion that BG3 might not be successful on it's own merits, but rather timing, that's one hell of a take to have. There's plenty of games in the genre, yet this one blew up but it *has* to just be fortuitous timing? If anything's fortuitous timing it's the game releasing for youtubers to have something to churn content on before Starfield.

Before I watch Imma place a bet with myself that Yahtz brings up sands of time Edit: yep, called it

Have you seen those sex% speedruns? They are reaching sub 2:00

I remember in Planescape Torment getting emotionally attached to each of my party members and their stories. Granted that game was designed to be far less open ended than other RPGs, but that's the peak of companion writing for me at this point.

Echoing the sentiment that ads between the final gag and outro music take all the sting out of the final gag.

I think they could've gone deeper sure, but sounds like you're just equating sex as a payoff to love, when sometimes sex is just sex, and they DEFINITELY made that apparent in this game. I 100% agree though that I'd love to see more fulfilling platonic options and arcs across all RPGs. Sure a lot of games technically give you the option, but then a lot of times it feels awkward after because it feels like only one of the two people talking are ok with that arrangement.

I've always seen dialogue choices as a 4th wall break that lets you inject your own will and that they're all mutually exclusive in the context of the universe. I never considered they are all in fact concurrent thoughts circling around the protagonists head and you're simply picking which one of them to say. Suddenly the way FFXIV does dialogue choices makes a hell of a lot more sense and why it always did feel more like flavoring.

This reminds me when i play the previous Baldurs Gate and a character which her husband just died was making googly eyes to mine, i couldnt say anything of the "sorry i like you as a friend and i dont feel comfortable getting it up with someone who's partner just died and also I knew personally". So the only thing i could do is to kick her out temporarily, which the characters also took it personally like i was evicting them from my life. Ironically, the second Baldurs Gate was made by Bioware and this started the trend of romances

It's some of the best romance we've seen in RPGs... So I don't understand where all the hate is coming from. Does no one remember Dragon Age: Inquisition? Or are gamers convinced that relationships are actually based around gifting someone you like the same item over and over again until you fill up an experience bar? If you have an issue with video game romances being one dimensional, that's fine. But that's more of a commentary on the gaming industry as a whole and less of a reflection of Baldur's Gate 3, specifically.