this post was submitted on 24 Aug 2023
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Baldur's Gate 3

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Baldur’s Gate 3 is a story-rich, party-based RPG set in the universe of Dungeons & Dragons, where your choices shape a tale of fellowship and betrayal, survival and sacrifice, and the lure of absolute power. (Website)

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Hearing what it was like to write, shoot, and animate 'Baldur's Gate 3' definitely explains why the romances and intimate moments feel so real.

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[–] The_Terrible_Humbaba@slrpnk.net 23 points 1 year ago* (last edited 1 year ago) (11 children)

I personally don't think the mechanics work that well or are very well thought out. This mainly due to 4 factors which, all together, just make the romances seem really forced, as well as annoying and unbearable sometimes. With maybe 1 exception that I know of out of the 9 companions:

  • All companions are bisexual

  • All companions are attracted to the player

  • When attracted to the player they will all actively make a move on the player, instead of waiting for the player to chose to hit on one of them

  • The dialogue trees are way too heavy on romance, to the point that sometimes the only friendly options seem way too intimate and even flirty.

Just 2 of those would be fine, maybe 3, but 4 really pushes it.

Part of what I mean by friendly options seeming way too intimate, is that instead of the game giving you friendly and obviously romantic options, it often seems to compress all of that into just one option (or just one way that the character acts) which skirts the line between friendly and flirty so as to try and retain plausible deniability ("I'm not interested in that character") while still giving you a way to role-play the romance ("That was clearly flirting/an intimate romantic moment").

Don't even get me started on Gale. His affinity was over 80 before Act I was over, and at one point I had four dialogue options out of which only one didn't seem flirty (the one I chose). Then, after he said we were friends, I had three choices "I want to be more than friends / We're not friends / That depends, what do you like about me?". Out of those, the third one is the one I went with, but even that seems a bit flirty to me. Then later he says he needs to talk to me "urgently", so my character goes to him, sits quite close to him in a way I would consider intimate and more than friendly, and he then professes his love for me.

Other than Gale: Shadowheart was quite easy to romance; Lae'zel said she liked my sweat or something; Wyll I've definitely had more-than-friendly conversations with; Astarion, simply due to his personality, has been hitting on the entire time despite me barely using him*. Halsin I don't use, Minthara is FUBAR, and I think Jaheira cannot be romanced. Karlach might be the only one I've used that hasn't hit on me yet.

*And I wouldn't even mind Astarian's personality if it wasn't for everything else.

[–] UnknownCircle@kbin.social 7 points 1 year ago

As someone who is generally a fan of your first 2 points, the latter two really get to me sometimes. I like the characters being forward, but if I indicate that I'm not interested I'd like them to kinda back off. Sometimes I don't even talk to certain companions because all their dialogue options are veiled flirtations. I'd like some characters to be friends and others to be romance options.

Gale is just a straight menace, every single interaction feels romance adjacent. Halsin keeps hinting at it, not nearly at the level of Gale but definitely is a constant undertone. Shadowheart was on my multi-romance train but, I decided to go forward with Laezel so I had to cut that one off. So Shadowheart is firmly in the friendly companion camp now.

Karlach, Astarion, Wyll, and Shadowheart are my mostly not too flirty companions. Astarion in particular has been great, I think I pissed him off in the early game with all my good choices so he just acts like a good friend. Which I appreciate.

I honestly didn't realize that affinity would activate romance mode for everyone. I just didn't want to piss some characters off and make them leave the party because they hated my character. Also didn't want to miss any affinity related (non-romance) quests.

Also shoutout to the biggest bro, my non-companion, Dame Aylin. She's the bro that I want my other friend companions to be.

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