Gay Characters

[Drool]

If you had a female character with Cherchez La Femme, you could follow a dialogue tree that revealed she's bisexual (at least when drunk).

[ffordesoon]

I'm pretty sure Cass was straight.

Bi, or at least "girl straight". She mentions taking a roll in the hay with both women and men a couple of times.

EDIT: Aaaaand Drool beat me to it.

[Chibi Kami]

Wanting gay characters... Let's look at this another way: do you really want to notice?
It's like when they announced Sazh in Final Fantasy 13; everyone was all "Oh look, a black character, how progressive." It wasn't progressive at all, actually--adding an ethnic character for the sake of adding an ethnic character isn't progressive. However, Sazh stood out as a well written character with a good sense of humor and a good personality. He keeps a baby bird in his hair, that's how cool he is. That he was black was incredibly minor and not at all defining of his character.

Similarly, from the gay angle, in Fallout New Vegas, Arcade Gannon happened to be gay and Veronica Santangelo happened to be a lesbian. Both characters were so well written that their homosexuality was a tertiary trait.

Good characters with the traits of a minority group are not seen as members of a minority group. They are seen as good characters. Writing a character around the traits of a minority group makes for a member of a minority group, not a good character.

[LornMarkus]

Okay, that was a pretty damn long read. And yes, my first post on this forum is in this particular thread: it is a matter of considerable interest to me and you can take that as you will.

To sum up so far, the thread has gone back and forth on various issues surrounding the idea, some inflammatory, many outrageous and a decent amount of trolling. Here's the important bit I've gleaned that is what the devs should really take from the thread:

What those of us with an interest in this subject matter would like to see is some degree of presence in the game. As little as the possibility of randomly encountering a character who will ask you if you've seen their (same-sex partner) somewhere out there in the wastes because they became separated on the trek, to (an) actual quest line(s) that explore the issue and give players insight into what it means to be a homosexual living in the wasteland, man's inhumanity to man for inconsequential differences, the triumph of love over adversity, the depths of (self) destruction and/or depravity that a person can be pushed to by the loss of a loved one, what persistent and unrelenting persecution can do to unhinge a person or whatever other themes they may care to explore.

We are not demanding a mandatory quota of gay characters, nor that there must be a gay party member, or romantic simulation or animated sex scenes or anything else.

Thank you for your time.

[Nephilim]

People are gay in the real world so people will be gay in the wasteland. Whether or not you are going to meet them and find out doesn't matter to me.

[Oktobermensch]

People are gay in the real world so people will be gay in the wasteland. Whether or not you are going to meet them and find out doesn't matter to me.

Pretty much this. If they are there or not is largely irrelevant. Its not the main part of the game after all, and their inclusion or lack of should not affect the game in ay way.

[Imbunche]

I'm pretty sure Cass was straight.

Mostly, but if you get her drunk...well.....

[sajber]

I find this Google Moderator idea relevant for this!

http://goo.gl/mod/ITby

[AgentTate]

He keeps a baby bird in his hair, that's how cool he is. That he was black was incredibly minor and not at all defining of his character.

I'm for gay characters; main or otherwise doesn't matter to me.

On to your statement: I bet if you were actually in the presence of a person that keeps a baby bird in his hair, you would NOT think they were cool. Probably crazy. Likely smells funny. Where does that baby bird shit? I certainly don't see any on his shoulders. It's gotta be in there somewhere... just saying... .

Wasn't fond of FF13's writing or characters, to the point that I will probably never buy another FF game. Last three were complete drek.

[ffordesoon]

Well, I thought FFXII had some pretty neat ideas, and probably would've been great if Square Enix's board of directors hadn't driven Yasumi Matsuno bonkers halfway through development.

Agreed on the others, though. And the MMOs, which really shouldn't have even happened and don't count.

I'd try to make an on-topic comment as well, but I don't think I have anything else to say about this. My position is clear.

[Gamelore]

Reminded of the technicians inside buildings in the original C&C. Entertaining ...for me to kill.

j/k*

*not really.

[Grampybone]

If this becomes a gay fest, with every male character hitting on me, this game goes in a trash bin, right next to DA2.

I really don't see why do people get so obsessed with intertwining gay into the fabric of everything that exists in this world. Can we please have a game that doesn't care if someone is gay or not? I am utterly sick of supposed gay characters that do nothing but talk how gay they are and how nobody understands them and how all they want is love. FUCK OFF.

[Gamescook]

If this becomes a gay fest, with every male character hitting on me, this game goes in a trash bin, right next to DA2.

I really don't see why do people get so obsessed with intertwining gay into the fabric of everything that exists in this world. Can we please have a game that doesn't care if someone is gay or not? I am utterly sick of supposed gay characters that do nothing but talk how gay they are and how nobody understands them and how all they want is love. FUCK OFF.

Ooh, Grumpybone is grumpy! If you threw away DA2 just because one gay character basically winked at you, you've got some problems. Throw the game away for it's sloppy gameplay and rushed, slapped together design, but not for it having acknowledged that gay people exist. Maybe now you know what it feels like for a gay gamer to play games where 99.9% of human heroes are made obviously and mandatorily straight? It grates after a while.

[Grampybone]

In DA2 every single male NPC in the party is gay or bi. Every one. And they all initiate grotesque conversations without me doing anything to insinuate I'm interested. If that game is your fine example of gay in video games, I feel sorry for you and your cause. (DA:O was fine, you tell Zevran to piss off and he won't bother you for the rest of the game)

Problem with gay is that many like to talk strictly about them being gay, and nothing else. That is annoying.
If devs decided to put gay characters in the game, I PRAY they don't make it a focal point. Go use a parade to glorify your life choice. Leave this video game out of it. It should not be used as a protest billboard "GAY IS OK!". WE GET IT, it is ok, but please leave us alone to enjoy the game.

Straight equivalent of DAO2 gay characters would be Johnny Bravo, who just talks about women and tries to hit on them all the time.

[pseudonymous]

Include homosexuals and homosexual prostitutes, but also include homophobic characters and explore the antagonistic relationship between the two groups.

[pseudonymous]

If you had a female character with Cherchez La Femme, you could follow a dialogue tree that revealed she's bisexual (at least when drunk).

I always took that line as Cass trying to pull her foot out of her mouth after saying something potentially offensive.

[ffordesoon]

In DA2 every single male NPC in the party is gay or bi. Every one. And they all initiate grotesque conversations without me doing anything to insinuate I'm interested. If that game is your fine example of gay in video games, I feel sorry for you and your cause. (DA:O was fine, you tell Zevran to piss off and he won't bother you for the rest of the game)

Problem with gay is that many like to talk strictly about them being gay, and nothing else. That is annoying.
If devs decided to put gay characters in the game, I PRAY they don't make it a focal point. Go use a parade to glorify your life choice. Leave this video game out of it. It should not be used as a protest billboard "GAY IS OK!". WE GET IT, it is ok, but please leave us alone to enjoy the game.

Straight equivalent of DAO2 gay characters would be Johnny Bravo, who just talks about women and tries to hit on them all the time.

I played DA2. I basically hated it. You're still wrong. Unless another dude asking you politely if you're interested in him once ever in a forty-plus hour game is "grotesque" to you, in which case I sadly can't believe you're anything but a homophobe. The only way you could unlock any subsequent gay discussion is if you chose to pursue a dude romantically in the game. Which, you know, would kind of invalidate your whole argument.

I remember some discussions of sex in the game. They were all initiated by and discussed by women, and a lot of them were about women boning dudes. If that's your definition of "gay", that's a pretty weird definition.

[Grampybone]

In DA2 every single male NPC in the party is gay or bi. Every one. And they all initiate grotesque conversations without me doing anything to insinuate I'm interested. If that game is your fine example of gay in video games, I feel sorry for you and your cause. (DA:O was fine, you tell Zevran to piss off and he won't bother you for the rest of the game)

Problem with gay is that many like to talk strictly about them being gay, and nothing else. That is annoying.
If devs decided to put gay characters in the game, I PRAY they don't make it a focal point. Go use a parade to glorify your life choice. Leave this video game out of it. It should not be used as a protest billboard "GAY IS OK!". WE GET IT, it is ok, but please leave us alone to enjoy the game.

Straight equivalent of DAO2 gay characters would be Johnny Bravo, who just talks about women and tries to hit on them all the time.

I played DA2. I basically hated it. You're still wrong. Unless another dude asking you politely if you're interested in him once ever in a forty-plus hour game is "grotesque" to you, in which case I sadly can't believe you're anything but a homophobe. The only way you could unlock any subsequent gay discussion is if you chose to pursue a dude romantically in the game. Which, you know, would kind of invalidate your whole argument.

This is incorrect. They try to initiate it every so often and if you don't chose the most negative response you end up in a relationship with him. Like the very first time I chose to commend my male companion on a battle well fought and the next thing he was telling me all about his yearns for my body.
I'm not saying female characters are any better, Isabella is a grotesque creature in her own right.

[rakenan]

This is incorrect. They try to initiate it every so often and if you don't chose the most negative response you end up in a relationship with him. Like the very first time I chose to commend my male companion on a battle well fought and the next thing he was telling me all about his yearns for my body.
I'm not saying female characters are any better, Isabella is a grotesque creature in her own right.

Hopefully there won't be any romance subplots in Wasteland 2 to begin with, which will take care of the vast majority of situations in which you learn about another character's sexual orientation. I would frankly prefer not to be going into the kind of depth of knowledge about my teammates in W2 that I did in Fallout games, because having multiple PC's makes that really *REALLY* awkward, at least if you think about it at all. I can see in a Bioware game with a single PC and a bunch of recruitable sidekicks how the sidekicks would open up to your amazingly heroic (or villainous) PC when you turned the unnatural charisma which almost all Bioware PC's have on them.

This isn't a Bioware game. We're not-quite-a-handful of marginally trained soldiers sent out on a mission by the Desert Rangers. Our followers work with us because we share some goal, or we did something to earn their service, or maybe we just paid them. Whatever it is, they are not entranced into the orbit of some great hero of destiny and compelled to tell us their deepest secrets, or even anything at all about aspects of their lives which should be private. I don't go around telling my boss whether I'm homosexual or not. It's none of his business. It wouldn't be his business even if he asked me directly, and it's even less his business since he hasn't. My sexual orientation is and should be a matter of supreme unconcern for him, just as any recruitable characters' sexual orientations should be toward my team in Wasteland 2.

I deal with dozens if not hundreds of people every single day. On average, zero of them do anything to let me know their sexual orientation, by word or deed. It is in no way unrealistic for this pattern to hold in a videogame, unless said videogame has some plot where their sexual orientation matters.

[Drool]

I'm not saying female characters are any better, Isabella is a grotesque creature in her own right.

So... you want good writing. Got it. Not sure what this has to do with gay characters.