Romances

[Reinhardt]

Codexers in this thread - "fuck romances!" Codexers in cyberpunk thread - "Panam please sit on my face!!1"

 

[Tyrr]

You are some super warrior that suddendly turn into a limpwristed faggot when dealing with the other sex, it's painfull, ears and eyes start to bleed copiously.

Go play some Rance.

 

[Alrik]

Player initiated/choice based romances are generally trash due to (bad) writing, lack of relevance to character development or plot and/or being very gamey(press X to shag/get involved with). I'm often left wondering why an NPC is even interested in the character I'm playing as.

One of my fave romances in a game isn't player choice but is the core of the plot, and that's the one in the Plague Knight DLC for shovel knight in which

Spoiler

Plague Knight spends the game gathering ingredients to concoct a potion to win over Mona romantically but ends up realizing that he already had what it took within him and just needed to let it out.

So you're saying you'd prefer it if Rean just went with Alisa like the writers intended and left Sara on her path to alcoholic spinsterhood?

Spoiler

Yes, I recently fell for the Cold Steel meme. Enjoyed it immensely, not proud of it.

 

[Mexi]

Codexers in this thread - "fuck romances!" Codexers in cyberpunk thread - "Panam please sit on my face!!1"

The Codex needs to up its game. This bitch looks like Cyborg from MMGay.

 

[Valestein]

Player initiated/choice based romances are generally trash due to (bad) writing, lack of relevance to character development or plot and/or being very gamey(press X to shag/get involved with). I'm often left wondering why an NPC is even interested in the character I'm playing as.

One of my fave romances in a game isn't player choice but is the core of the plot, and that's the one in the Plague Knight DLC for shovel knight in which

Spoiler

Plague Knight spends the game gathering ingredients to concoct a potion to win over Mona romantically but ends up realizing that he already had what it took within him and just needed to let it out.

So you're saying you'd prefer it if Rean just went with Alisa like the writers intended and left Sara on her path to alcoholic spinsterhood?

Spoiler

Yes, I recently fell for the Cold Steel meme. Enjoyed it immensely, not proud of it.

We all know Sara is the canon love interest pal.

 

[Butter]

What a sad state of affairs when there's even any debate on this issue. Behead those who promote romance in RPGs.

 

[Alter Sack]

Until now no one mentioned the big black elephant in the room.

Romances even in real live are embarassing and awkward.

The case with romances is the same like with kids. Only one's own are never ugly. In this sense only one's own romances are bearable.

But which man in real life can really watch their aquaintances "romancing" without wanting to twist his eyes and puke into the next bin?

So the aim for romances should maybe not be to be realistic but more stylish and bearable.

A good example are the old Bond-movies with Sean Connery. The "romances" (if you want to call them that) had a certain style and were mostly bearable or funny to watch.

Were these "romances" realistic? No, definitely not. They were unrealistic and even chauvinistic (a plus in my opinion), but certainly fun to watch.

 

[Mexi]

What a sad state of affairs when there's even any debate on this issue. Behead those who promote romance in RPGs.

In reality, there is no debate (list of new games with romances: Pathfinder, Pillars 2, Cyberpunk...).

 

[overly excitable young man]

Seems like OP chose Angel.

 

[Multi-headed Cow]

Really, has any of you actually witnessed any videogame where they are well made?

I liked Annah in PST. IIRC (Been years since my last play) it's ambiguous enough if you pursue it if you're doing it to manipulate her or if you have feelings for her (Probably intentionally so you the player can decide yourself) and basically just culminates with self sacrifice from her and saying she loves you rather than TNO playing hide the zombie sausage mid-dungeon run while you're both covered in filth. Other than that I kinda struggle to think of any I particularly liked. I almost always end up following a romance path for laughs (One of the best was in DAO since that had animated sex scenes with your character so my hideous stone-faced dwarf was staring impassively at Morrigan as she rode him) and they almost always are bad. One somewhat surprising standout was in Dragon Age Inquisition, where I was playing my character as a selfish rogue (If everyone's gonna call me Jesus then I'll try to get all the money and power from it I can) and that actually cockblocked my romance attempt on the inquisitor chick, who ended up drinking herself into an angry stupor because she was disillusioned because my character was such a piece of shit. Both one of the very few times I failed a romance in a RPG and it was completely fitting, didn't expect it from DAI. DAI as a whole ended up being better than I expected both of Bioware in general at the time and after DA2, even though it is absolutely an action RPG.

 

[kris]

What a sad state of affairs when there's even any debate on this issue. Behead those who promote romance in RPGs.

In reality, there is no debate (list of new games with romances: Pathfinder, Pillars 2, Cyberpunk...).

But he had power there.

 

[Trojan_generic]

The best and most realistic was in Sid Meier's Pirates! - you must have a prestigious title (i.e. be rich) in order to even date the best booty. A bit along the same lines in M&B Warband.
No romances, no bullshit, you marry or you gtfo.
In both games, IIRC the ladies snitch for you if you marry them, so it's not totally useless (like it mostly is in real life).

 

[TheSoul]

I don't have a problem with including sex, and sometimes romances can be fine with actual characters (certain jrpgs, grim fandango, SH 2). There's three huge issues for a lot of games though.

1.) Most games have your character as a self-insert, so winning someone over is to do everything they say, never disagree with them, and give them free shit since you lack a personality of your own (just like in real life amirite?)

2.) The audience it attracts tends to have very low standards. It's always autists determined to argue over the company needing to include more gays and who is the canon pairing instead of gameplay. They also always think point 1 is well written, so it just means future games will lower the bar and cater to them.

3.) The writing's shit

 

[GrainWetski]

Codexers in this thread - "fuck romances!" Codexers in cyberpunk thread - "Panam please sit on my face!!1"

Some people only like tranny mutts. To each their own.

 

[Xelocix]

Romance in Mass Effect is especially bad, which I find funny since it's one of the things the series seems to get praised for the most.

Romance in ME1 is bland and robotic, with Liara being your only alternative option if you'd rather take cringing at awkward dialogue and voice acting over dying of boredom.

In ME2 there's almost no build-up to anything. In Tali and Garrus' case you both blurt out that you'd like to fuck eachother like the day after their loyalty mission and that's pretty much it. Both of their romance paths feel like what a 9th grader would hand you if you asked them to write the conversation leading up to a one-night stand.

The romance plot for every other ME2 character in ME3 can basically be boiled down to doing more bitch-work for them just so you can get a kiss on the cheek before they fuck-off again. You could always play the Citadel DLC if you want to get your dick wetter, but that's basically just a few hours of fanfiction-tier fanservice filled with as many cringe reddit one-liners as the devs could squeeze in.

Vetra's romance in ME:A felt ok at parts, but every other character in Andromeda (maybe aside from Jaal) made me want to die so I'm assuming their romances are abnormal horribly-written cringefests as well.

 

[Ol' Willy]

The Codex needs to up its game. This bitch looks like Cyborg from MMGay.

That's a nigger woman. Who wants to have anything at all with a nigger woman?

 

[Citizen]

Who wants to have anything at all with a nigger woman?

Straight men?

 

[Ol' Willy]

Straight men?

Racial hygiene is a thing, my friend, don't you forget that.

 

[KafkaBot]

Romances are a perfectly fine storytelling tool, and can even improve a story. I doubt too many people here wouldn't jump at the chance to have a more fleshed out romance with Fall-From-Grace, for instance.

It's just a pity most RPG writing is absolute horseshit, so most RPG romances read like something that came straight out of a Wattpad fanfic written by a horny virgin.

 

[deuxhero]

I've seen plenty of fiction ruined by romance (sub)plots, but I have never seen a work of fiction ruined by lack of romance.

 

[KafkaBot]

I've seen plenty of fiction ruined by romance (sub)plots, but I have never seen a work of fiction ruined by lack of romance.

It's quite difficult to find any single element that, if absent, would ruin a work of fiction. You can apply that to pretty much anything: fight scenes, long dialogues, friendships, political messages, a stream of consciousness narrative mode...

Poor execution of any storytelling tool, on the other hand, will easily disrupt the work and degrade its quality. The only reason we see this so often with romances is because it's an enormously popular storytelling element among general audiences, so writers often resort to it even if they dislike love stories or are just plain inadequate at weaving them properly.

Well-written love stories, however, can be utterly amazing. Some of the greatest literay classics of all time are love stories or have some sort of romance in them (Wuthering Heights, Dream of the Red Chamber, Romeo and Juliet, Doctor Zhivago, Dom Casmurro, The Devil to Pay in the Backlands, Madame Bovary).

On that last note, many of these tales portray romance as a complex, multifaceted human interaction that is far more difficult to handle than soap operas for retarded people would have one believe. Sadly, most RPG romances lean much closer to the latter than to the former.

 

[Falksi]

Romances have their place like any other form of relationship in an RPG. They're just rarely done very well unfortunately.

Morrigan's was great.

Spoiler

Fathering a demi-God with a morally grey witch, is not only a great way to end a game, but leaves a sequel open to all kinds of interesting threads. Just a shame they didn't use any of them.

Just reading this back, and it was such wasted potential.

How many games out there have you go and kill your own offspring? I can't think of many.

That would have been a brilliant setup for a sequel. With obvious C&C included which meant that you don't necessarily have to kill them, and the game structured so that the demi-God reveal comes after a few hours into the game during the first act, but the offspring one coming later in the second act to add some spice to the main quest.

To me there you have a brilliant 3 act foundation to build on, and with the right C&C all kinds of great outcomes from slaughtering your offspring and his mother, to tyrannically ruling the world with them, walking away and covering it all up so they live and carry out their deeds but you hide away safe, somehow managing to convert them to a good disposition etc.

Bioware you cunts. All that potential and you gave us a fucking bland city errand simulator. Twats.

 

[deuxhero]

I've seen plenty of fiction ruined by romance (sub)plots, but I have never seen a work of fiction ruined by lack of romance.

It's quite difficult to find any single element that, if absent, would ruin a work of fiction. You can apply that to pretty much anything: fight scenes, long dialogues, friendships, political messages, a stream of consciousness narrative mode...

Poor execution of any storytelling tool, on the other hand, will easily disrupt the work and degrade its quality. The only reason we see this so often with romances is because it's an enormously popular storytelling element among general audiences, so writers often resort to it even if they dislike love stories or are just plain inadequate at weaving them properly.

Well-written love stories, however, can be utterly amazing. Some of the greatest literay classics of all time are love stories or have some sort of romance in them (Wuthering Heights, Dream of the Red Chamber, Romeo and Juliet, Doctor Zhivago, Dom Casmurro, The Devil to Pay in the Backlands, Madame Bovary).

On that last note, many of these tales portray romance as a complex, multifaceted human interaction that is far more difficult to handle than soap operas for retarded people would have one believe. Sadly, most RPG romances lean much closer to the latter than to the former.

Yes, but while most anything being bad can sink a story, bad romance plots can nearly all be taken out of the story entirely (Star Wars prequels being the major exception, and that's mainly because they're a prequel) and leave the work better off for it while bad other stuff generally has to be replaced by good versions or the work becomes a disjointed mess.

 

[Ravielsk]

Romances in RPGs have to suck by virtue of being in a RPG. For a RPG to have a good romance it takes time, likable(because why else would you romance them?) and fleshed out characters and mainly some mechanic to conceptualize its development. The problem is that none of these three criteria can be really meet unless your RPG is explicitly about romance.

If the game(like most ever) is focused on resolving some life threatening problem, like a invasion from hell or something along those lines, then the most developed mechanics and content will be focused around said main plot and any romance options will inevitably be treated as a "sidequest" at best. This is how you get romances where its essentially "pick the right dialogue options" or "gibs me gifts(also colloquially known as prostitution)" because that is everything that could have been done with the available budget. To make a good romance in an RPG would require either insane budgets to essentially develop two games to be packaged as one or alternatively flipping the script to make the invasion from hell a sidequest and focus on the romance. But even then I doubt the results would be great as trying to turn something that fundamentally lacks a rigid universal structure into a game mechanic always end ups with somewhat questionable results.

 

[KafkaBot]

Romances in RPGs have to suck by virtue of being in a RPG. For a RPG to have a good romance it takes time, likable(because why else would you romance them?) and fleshed out characters and mainly some mechanic to conceptualize its development. The problem is that none of these three criteria can be really meet unless your RPG is explicitly about romance.

If the game(like most ever) is focused on resolving some life threatening problem, like a invasion from hell or something along those lines, then the most developed mechanics and content will be focused around said main plot and any romance options will inevitably be treated as a "sidequest" at best. This is how you get romances where its essentially "pick the right dialogue options" or "gibs me gifts(also colloquially known as prostitution)" because that is everything that could have been done with the available budget. To make a good romance in an RPG would require either insane budgets to essentially develop two games to be packaged as one or alternatively flipping the script to make the invasion from hell a sidequest and focus on the romance. But even then I doubt the results would be great as trying to turn something that fundamentally lacks a rigid universal structure into a game mechanic always end ups with somewhat questionable results.

You're likely right on the budget issue. This is probably also the reason why all the truly memorable romances I've seen in videogames were on VNs, which are as close to literature as this medium could possibily get.

That said, I do still believe it would be possible to create acceptable (not great) romances in a traditional RPG without resorting to making it explicitly about romance or procuring massive funding sources, since this is something that, for better or for worse, is 90% tied to the writing. The greatest obstacle, in my view, is the fact that most developers would probably find the necessary effort a waste of resources. The general public is pretty much satisfied with Bioware-level writing when it comes to this, after all.