Romance in RPGs

[ThulsaDoomer]

A contentious topic in modern gaming is romance, which shouldn't surprise anyone given the current "organic" push to destroy all traditional meanings of the word. And when I refer to romance, I mean between man and woman, as God intended. Anyone who even tries to justify gay relationships is a ******.

With that out of the way, what are your thoughts on romance within RPGs? Does it have a place within the medium? If so, in what form should that be?

I'll provide my own thoughts here just to prove this isn't some bait topic and it's actually something I feel strongly about. Anyone who has read classical literature, or has read history, knows that romance is an integral element of being human. Women, in all their flawed ways, were not always the screeching modernist harpies they are now. At one point in time, they were lovable, obedient, and aloof. In the traditional sense of this concept, this meant courting a woman, securing the match, and building a family. While romance was never entirely realistic, nor was it ever accessible to everyone, it cemented the bonds between man and woman and reinforced in society their duties to one another. It was something to aspire towards. Yet also showed the danger of love, and when it can just as easily blind man to what is right.

Unfortunately, love, lust, and pleasure are also easy to manipulate. A good read on the subject is the book Libido Dominandi if anyone is curious about that. Now we see an intentional destruction of the traditional romance in RPGs. There is no courtship, there is no chase, no actual love. It's all shallow feelings, more based on lust than any noble ideals or hard lessons. There is nothing to take away from modern RPG romance. Companions fawn over you immediately, the choices are painfully obvious, and gender is merely a pretense. It's the paying for a ***** off the street for video games.

[Oyster Sauce]

The hero gets the girl.

[1998]

Should never exist...

[Jordy]

If it's part of the story and it's not forced in, fine. If it's a game mechanic, no thanks.

[rusty_shackleford]

ah yes time to give a gift of a mirror 20 times then get married

[DemoGraph]

ah yes time to give a gift of a mirror 20 times then get married

It's more traditional to buy a wife for 10 sheep or 5 camels.
(30 camels for a premium specimen, white skin, wide hips, etc.)

[Oyster Sauce]

What are some RPGs where you start married/in a relationship? The Witcher 1, uhhh Banishers

[rusty_shackleford]

What are some RPGs where you start married/in a relationship? The Witcher 1, uhhh Banishers

Planescape Torment, sorta

[Stack of Turtles]

What are some RPGs where you start married/in a relationship? The Witcher 1, uhhh Banishers

KCD2

[rusty_shackleford]

Divinity original sin, can't remember if it's implied at the start but your partner is your eternal lover, you two are always reborn and find each other or some such.
Larian really fell hard.

[Tweed]

You look slightly less grotesque than the others. Here, let me look up this guide so I know which buttons to push to make you like me so I can get +2 to my str later on when we kiss in Chapter 3.

[DemoGraph]

What are some RPGs where you start married/in a relationship? The Witcher 1, uhhh Banishers

I've tried to recall any game with a spouse or relationship at all.
Anachronox (dead secretary, probably doesn't count though?)
Rance (a whole harem; probably not a RPG though)
Psychonauts 2 (IIRC, Raz's crush gets kidnapped or something; not a RPG)

Also in Pathologic Bachelor begins the game in the house of his lover, though she probably doesn't count.

[Tadeusz]

With that out of the way, what are your thoughts on romance within RPGs? Does it have a place within the medium? If so, in what form should that be?

Romance works rather poorly with RPG mechanics. I personally don't care much about it in games and I think developers should be doing something else instead of it.
I can think of few games that made romance somewhat right - NWN2: Mask of the Betrayer and Persona 4. The first one has only one romanceable character that is deeply tied to the story and that's the reason it works. The second one has few romanceable characters and it is a choice along the progression of a relationship with them without prerequisites or some special reward so it is a purely roleplaying choice.

[1998]

What are some RPGs where you start married/in a relationship? The Witcher 1, uhhh Banishers

Fallout 4

[Meaty Clackers]

Depends on how storied the MC is, if he is well established a relationship can flush out his character. If he is a blank slate it feels like a ****** *** dating sim.

[NotAI]

PC should be able to romance every adult ingame NPC, ingame monster, and ingame object, obviously, duh. That means not just bears, but also dragons and mudcrabs and cool looking sets of armor and even fancy gilded chairs.

The game should generate using the best AI a procedural romance arc for whatever creature or thing the PC chooses to romance, complete with mo-cap looking animations at the end.

Imagine how much better and amazing the LOTR would be if Frodo could romance Gandalf when he first showed up, instead of going on the quest. It'd be like one of those JRPGs where you can skip the main quest and end the story in the tutorial. Cool.

Frodo should also have the option to romance Sauron and Sauron says yes and they get married. The story ends with this alternative secret ending. Animation of Frodo banging the floating giant eyeball.

Choices and consequences are important. This approach will also appeal to the most diverse audiences.

[Tweed]

This might be one of the rare cases where AI implementation could actually help, but romance in games is gay anyway.

[Val the Moofia Boss]

what are your thoughts on romance within RPGs? Does it have a place within the medium? If so, in what form should that be?

Romance goes hand in hand with fantasy, the fulfillment of having a family as well as being a powerful warrior and respected figure.

I prefer romances with choice, as you can better tailor the experience to the player along with the other customization options such as which characters you prefer to run with in your party, whether you use martial skills or magic, which factions you ally with, etc. I remember that Trails in the Sky spent several hours pushing the main Joshua x Estelle romance, but the game didn't sell me on it and I was rather frustrated given that the much more appealing Joshua x Kloe was right there. Fortunately the later Trails games let you pick your waifu.


A big peeve of mine with videogame (and most modern fictional) romances is that they rarely matriculate into marriage and having children. It seems to be focused on this secular thing about just schmoozing up to a women to kiss and have sex, with no deeper spiritual aspirations or intent to fulfill divine command. There are only a small handful of games that I can think of that matriculate and result in children, and fewer where you can choose your waifu too.

(I typed this out just responding to @ThulsaDoomer's first line before continuing further down his post. Glad to see other people share the same thoughts).

What are some RPGs where you start married/in a relationship? The Witcher 1, uhhh Banishers

• In Final Fantasy IV, Cecil has a lover (fiance? Feels like it is very close to matriculation) with Rosa.
• Final Fantasy XII: Ashe gets married in the prologue and the husband dies in the same opening FMV. She is a widower in the game.
• Final Fantasy XV: the game is about Noctis being escorted by his best friends to his wedding.
• Lost Odyssey: the protagonist is a widower as he is a long lived immortal, and the family he had died long before the game begins. Living forever in a fallen world is hell.

[Oyster Sauce]

A big peeve of mine with videogame (and most modern fictional) romances is that they rarely matriculate into marriage and having children.

[Valter]

Love minmaxing arranged marriages in Fire Emblem in order to fill my army with genetically superior ubermensch child soldiers

[Val the Moofia Boss]

Love minmaxing arranged marriages in Fire Emblem in order to fill my army with genetically superior ubermensch child soldiers

I never cared about minmaxxing, only shipped the pairs that I liked. But once you have your favorite pairs setup, the remaining options can get a little odd, like Hayato only having Kagero or Effie to choose from (doubt those latter two would be onboard with that realistically) as opposed to say Mozu or Hana.

[MrTwinkls]

Hook ups in games are prevalent. You can find it almost everywhere.
Some games have marriages. E.g. King's Bounty from 2008 where you can marry and have kids.
But organic romantic relationships which are not main plot related? Can't remember any truly good ones. The problem is they need time to sprout.
My opinion is you can make them feel right and not rushed only in a span of multiple games with the first one used for getting to know the character then the second one for developing attachment and feelings and the third for putting relationship through hardships and trials to reinforce it in the end.

[Tangerine]

Introducing romance into games was a mistake.

[UltraFan123]

If he is a blank slate it feels like a ****** *** dating sim.

This is also one of my main issues with a good chunk of modern media as well, not only videogames.

Instead of main characters that have their own personality and backstories, too many "heroes" these days are purposely made as generic and slop-like as possible simply so that the target audience can "self-insert" or whatever.

As far as I know, such thing is just a lazy cope out because the one making the story couldn't be bothered to make a compelling protagonist. And yeah I'm aware that Link from The Legend of Zelda is the poster boy of "blank protagonists" but he's the exception because the Zelda games were never that plot-heavy.

A big peeve of mine with videogame (and most modern fictional) romances is that they rarely matriculate into marriage and having children. It seems to be focused on this secular thing about just schmoozing up to a women to kiss and have sex, with no deeper spiritual aspirations or intent to fulfill divine command. There are only a small handful of games that I can think of that matriculate and result in children, and fewer where you can choose your waifu too.

The only exception to this that I'm aware of is some of the Harvest Moon games, which I guess that makes kinda sense for a "cozy farm life" simulator, but I would also like to see it expand in fantasy games that do romance properly.

[TKVNC]

There was no Musa romance, so what's the point?

[A Chinese opium den]

I like romancing a nice lass on my adventure, its the natural course of things. Its actually pretty hard to think of a good adventure that doesn't have any romance in it, for good reason.

[Monochrome]

what are your thoughts on romance within RPGs? Does it have a place within the medium? If so, in what form should that be?

[ThulsaDoomer]

With that out of the way, what are your thoughts on romance within RPGs? Does it have a place within the medium? If so, in what form should that be?

Romance works rather poorly with RPG mechanics. I personally don't care much about it in games and I think developers should be doing something else instead of it.
I can think of few games that made romance somewhat right - NWN2: Mask of the Betrayer and Persona 4. The first one has only one romanceable character that is deeply tied to the story and that's the reason it works. The second one has few romanceable characters and it is a choice along the progression of a relationship with them without prerequisites or some special reward so it is a purely roleplaying choice.

From what I gather then, is that preferred methods are based on the ability to choose your options and actually involving them with the plot to create some form of attachment. I feel this plays into an entirely different issue that a lot of game characters (protag or secondary) are vastly unlikable, as they are written by unlikable people. (or demons)

what are your thoughts on romance within RPGs? Does it have a place within the medium? If so, in what form should that be?

Romance goes hand in hand with fantasy, the fulfillment of having a family as well as being a powerful warrior and respected figure.

I prefer romances with choice, as you can better tailor the experience to the player along with the other customization options such as which characters you prefer to run with in your party, whether you use martial skills or magic, which factions you ally with, etc. I remember that Trails in the Sky spent several hours pushing the main Joshua x Estelle romance, but the game didn't sell me on it and I was rather frustrated given that the much more appealing Joshua x Kloe was right there. Fortunately the later Trails games let you pick your waifu.


A big peeve of mine with videogame (and most modern fictional) romances is that they rarely matriculate into marriage and having children. It seems to be focused on this secular thing about just schmoozing up to a women to kiss and have sex, with no deeper spiritual aspirations or intent to fulfill divine command. There are only a small handful of games that I can think of that matriculate and result in children, and fewer where you can choose your waifu too.

(I typed this out just responding to @ThulsaDoomer's first line before continuing further down his post. Glad to see other people share the same thoughts).

Yes, it was almost always in classical sword and sorcery. Or LOTR. Is Tolkien a *** for writing in a romance? I'm not saying it needs to be in every RPG, some really don't fit the mold. Of course, while I would like to see it included still, I'd rather not given women don't understand human emotion whatsoever and male feminist allies aren't much better. True Masculinity is already rare to see in modern gaming so I doubt romance is gonna improve whatsoever until the entire media industry collapses.

I like romancing a nice lass on my adventure, its the natural course of things. Its actually pretty hard to think of a good adventure that doesn't have any romance in it, for good reason.

I feel Bioware tainted it significantly to the point of no return. There's nothing inherently wrong about the concept, a lot of fantasy is a male power trip, and getting the girl is about as good as it gets for a hero. The problem is that fantasy has become a womans power trip, and turns out that **** is beyond ******** and not worth anyone's time.

[UltraFan123]

I feel this plays into an entirely different issue that a lot of game characters (protag or secondary) are vastly unlikable, as they are written by unlikable people. (or demons)

When you realize that a good chunk of the characters featured in modern AAA games are nothing more than the self-inserts of these very same unlikeable people, then everything begins to make sense.

[ThulsaDoomer]

I feel this plays into an entirely different issue that a lot of game characters (protag or secondary) are vastly unlikable, as they are written by unlikable people. (or demons)

When you realize that a good chunk of the characters featured in modern AAA games are nothing more than the self-inserts of these very same unlikeable people, then everything begins to make sense.

It's vexing how a lot of classical writers, especially of fantasy, were Christians. And suddenly in the last 20+ years, it's been destroyed by atheists. I'm terribly vexed. What could they mean by this?