Gay Characters

[Gamescook]

Can we have gay characters in Wasteland 2? When I was thinking about buying Fallout: New Vegas, one of the tipping points for me was that NV included gay characters that weren't exclusively horrible people. I'm serious when I say that even basic inclusion like that has some power over when I open my wallet for a new game. I would buy Wasteland 2 for sure if it had gay characters in it.

BN EDIT: THIS THREAD IS ONLY ABOUT HOMOSEXUALITY IN WASTELAND 2. It is not to be about the inclusion of romance, which has a separate thread, and try not to derail it into a BioWare discussion either.

[Aiydee]

Interesting question.

Have to take into consideration, a significant number of people don't want romance in the game. Now, this by extension could lead to "No relationships. Gay, straight or everything in between".

I don't see why WL2 couldn't have gay/lesbian/tran/inter or whatever. However, I think it's "As long as it makes sense in the game". It shouldn't market itself on having a particular group in there, or we may as well say that the game MUST have someone (Arbitrary but obvious examples follow) black, jewish, disabled/handicapped, rich, poor, homeless and well the list goes on and on and on. May as well demand an Aussie in there.. After all, we need someone to wrestle the mutant crocs.

So, yes, agree that gay characters have as much a place in Wasteland as anyone else, just as long as it's not rubber stamped in there to say "We got gays".

Dave

[Drool]

Can't say as I ever give much thought to the sexuality of my characters. It's not a dating sim.

[Gamma]

Can we have gay characters in Wasteland 2? When I was thinking about buying Fallout: New Vegas, one of the tipping points for me was that NV included gay characters that weren't exclusively horrible people. I'm serious when I say that even basic inclusion like that has some power over when I open my wallet for a new game. I would buy Wasteland 2 for sure if it had gay characters in it.

We already HAD this conversation (infamous LGBTQ topic, it's deleted now), please do not start a new one. Create new threads only for major game features, if you have minor ones, just head on to the "Wishlist" topic.

[Gamescook]

My last thread was "infamous"? I honestly had no clue! I only posted the question and forgot to look for any replies for the last few weeks until now! Didn't mean to cause a ruckus if that was the case.

Anyway, not asking for a dating sim here, I just want to see a videogame that would show super passive heterosexual relationships (A woman wants your help finding her husband. Find him and you get an atomic gun she made as a reward.) also show, say, another woman who wants you to find her girlfriend or partner in the same kind of generic sidequest. That's it, that's all. Really, REALLY don't want trouble or trolling here. I'm just a gamer here excited for Wasteland 2 like anyone else is, asking if this is a thing that can be done.

[luckz]

For all I care the entire cast can be transgender Buddhists in wheelchairs, but please leave out any 'romantic conversation options'. Else it'd be BioThesda's Nuclear Mass IV: Nude Blue Aliens.

[Azriel]

For all I care the entire cast can be transgender Buddhists in wheelchairs, but please leave out any 'romantic conversation options'. Else it'd be BioThesda's Nuclear Mass IV: Nude Blue Aliens.

Your priorities are..um..interesting. I actually like romances as long as they are optional, it ads flavor to the game and gives your character something to live for besides just existing. As for the gay question, as long as it fits and is believable(like the example above) or at least has that 80's wacky justification. Like an old corny scifi of lesbian women gangs capturing men to turn into slaves and needed to reproduce. However, please don't pull a bioware where EVERY character is bisexual without rhyme or reason.

[sea]

The issue for me isn't whether a game has gay characters or not, it's how those characters are presented. The fact is that sexuality is not relevant in 99.9% of situations, and yet when you have a gay character in a game, the developers feel the need to denote that character as explicitly gay, usually through some sort of random "my partner" reference that's shoehorned in solely so the character can say "I'm not straight!!11!1"

I mean, among gay people you know, how many walk around going "by the way, I'm gay" in random conversation or with complete strangers? Now, how often do you think that happens when even basic survival is a struggle and people have more pressing concerns to think about than sexual orientation? People simply do not act like that unless it happens to be relevant, and it almost never is.

You want to imagine every 1/10 people are gay in Wasteland 2, fine. You can pretend your whole party is LGBT if you want. But Wasteland is a) not a game featuring Emotionally Engaging(TM) characters, and b) not really an appropriate venue for discussion of sexuality.

[luckz]

However, please don't pull a bioware where EVERY character is bisexual without rhyme or reason.

Wasn't the great thing about Bioware that you got 'evil' points for not wanting to sleep with a character of the same gender? (I didn't play that stuff, friends told me about it)

[Gamescook]

However, please don't pull a bioware where EVERY character is bisexual without rhyme or reason.

Wasn't the great thing about Bioware that you got 'evil' points for not wanting to sleep with a character of the same gender? (I didn't play that stuff, friends told me about it)

No, can't say I recall a point in any BIoware game I've played where you got renegade or rival personality points for choosing not to sleep with a character of the same sex. I think your friend may have been mistaken.

[Gennadios]

Sure, gay characters. plz no "relationships" unless it's the Fallout 2 style sleeping with a mob bosses wife (EDIT: Or maybe the mob boss if the player wants to swing that way) or the occasional hooker.

[Woolfe]

Meh, if sex is included, then it should be included. So long as it doesn't affect the way the game plays, I'm good with it.

[Azriel]

Sure, gay characters. plz no "relationships" unless it's the Fallout 2 style sleeping with a mob bosses wife (EDIT: Or maybe the mob boss if the player wants to swing that way) or the occasional hooker.

Slightly off topic, but yea, I like that sex can be used as a social situation. You could accept sex as payment to help a wifes husband get out of prison, or do the mob bosses wife (which the mob boss could find out), or the shotgun wedding if the farmer found you with his daughter, you could even become a porn star,etc. It would be fun to have those types of situations in wasteland.

[Smash]

I don't see how you can't assume that every 2nd character is ghey if you want. Sexuality isn't worn on everyone's sleeve and the only way to make it obvious is to make characters 'flaming' which I think isn't being partivularly constructive.

[venceremos]

Nobody is talking about making characters act gay just for gayness' sake.

The simple fact is this: gay people exist and they should be a part of the Wasteland world. They should not tell you they're gay the moment they meet you, but the fact that they exist can be easily woven into the world without seeming forced. As a previous poster said: if there's a quest where a woman asks you to save her boyfriend, there could just as easily be a quest where she asks you to save her girlfriend. Nothing else needs to be said.

The reason why some people desire this is often because they do not feel represented. Seeing acknowledgment of the very *existence* of LGBT-people gives them a warm feeling, me included. It's also no coincidence that visibility has been the cornerstone of the LGBT-movement since its inception.

So, long story short: I would also like to see the existence of LGBT-people acknowledged in Wasteland 2. It would make the game more special for me. This acknowledgment need not be in your face or merry and pink; the gay characters of Wasteland could just as well be blamed for the catastrophe by the in-game ultra religious and killed on sight. In fact, I have to say I'd like to see them noted amongst the persecuted. It makes for a good story. The Wasteland is harsh and full of injustice, there's no reason why gay people should be spared.

A longer story short: if the sexuality of people is ever of note in Wasteland 2 (and a simple "please help my husband!" spoken by a woman in a quest already means it is), please find a way to include LGBT-people into the game in a similar fashion.

[Conall]

as long as sexuality is not arbitrarily included without context, I don't think anyone can with a straight face (no pun intended) argue against the including of LGBT characters should it make sense in the story. Personally I think sexual prejudice could be an interesting subtext in the wasteland just as so many other issues are. Would the wasteland have its own 'gay village' like so many major cities do today?

[Orko]

I would like to see charakter diversity. That doesn't stop at gay NPC. The ppl in a world should always reflect socity in some kind of matter. And since Sexuality is a big theme in every society the point of having gay/transexual or plain old hetro charakters in a gaming world add to it's believability.

That said i don't want charakters to be too over the top, all the time. We don't need many over the top charakters. But at the same time some memorable over the top charakters are often a high point of exploring a world. But also to let those charakters stand out we need "normal" charakters too.
So i see no problem in integrating some kind of nice "normal" gay cupple here and there, in the gaming world. Maybe even an lesbian Amazon Village that robs the children of the neigboring village.
or a transsexual brothel.

[stonetoes]

The issue of romances massively derailed the last thread on this topic. I don't know what the time limit is for editing posts or thread titles, but I'd recommend that the OP do so if possible in order to specify that that's not what we're talking about here.

A lot of people don't seem to understand that including a diverse cast isn't the same as wanting same-sex romance, or romance of any sort. It shouldn't need to be said, but the last thread showed it unfortunately does.

On a more positive note, I thought this was a great recommendation for a well-written gay character: http://gawker.com/5889672/barack-obama-says-omar-was-the-best-wire-character-of-all-time

I've never actually seen the wire and don't know the character, but a recommendation from the POTUS has to count for something right?

My own favourite gblt characters of recent times were Arcade Gannon and Veronica from Fallout: New Vegas. I'm a sucker for witty dialogue and both characters had this in spades, though in very different ways.

It's been quite a while since I played, so here's a few Arcade quotes from the Fallout wikia:
When being recruited by a character with a very low INT stat: "I can help you out, but you can't do anything stu-- ... I mean, you can't... help bad people."
"The Strip's not a bad place if you love terrible things and people."
When set to Passive in combat: "I'm hardly a whirlwind of death when left to my own devices, but all right."
"Don't mind me. I'm just voicing my thoughts so they don't burrow out of my skull in a fit of abject despondency."

And Veronica:
"Great! Thanks. Thank you. I will encourage people to name their non-ugly children after you. Seriously."
"Sorry about that. Just because I love them doesn't mean some of them aren't assholes."
"You're making me carry the heavy stuff, aren't you?
"Probably would've died of natural causes eventually anyway."

I would've included Alistair from from Dragon Age on this list, but as it turned out he wasn't gay after all, he just didn't jump in the sack with my super-hot female character the first time she asked. Now there's some unusual characterisation for ya.



Oh, for anyone who cares, the word "tranny" came up a lot in the last thread, used by people who were probably well-meaning, but it's considered a slur by people who are transgender. I'm not gonna die on that cross, but take note inXile!

[Drool]

Would the wasteland have its own 'gay village' like so many major cities do today?

I think people will be more worried about surviving than living in a LGBT positive community. That's the sort of thing people worry about when things like food, water, shelter, and not being eaten by radioactive mutants are no longer concerns.

Can it be included? Well, sure. Does it need to be? Not in the slightest. Looking at the original, the only person with affirmed sexuality is Mayor Pedros and the Junkmaster, as they're married. And while you're likely to run into Mayor Pedros, it's very easy to completely skip the Savage Village. In other words, the original could have completely eliminated relationships without really changing anything.

And if you wanted to interpret things this way, you could say Ellen is bisexual since she'll flirt with you and give you her room key regardless of gender.

[dariuszp]

No this again. Add gay characters just for the sake of having gay characters in game is just pathetic. ME 3 was like that. They add gay engineer or something like that. Guy was so stupid that I just pray for a chance to let him die somewhere (and finally - he did !).
And more to that "nice gays" ? Like they cannot be evil or rude or something ? This just remind me "How I met your mother". They add brother for one of main characters that is gay. And gues what. Guy was thinking he is straight so he drunk, cheat, lie and he was total wreck. Once he turned gay - expensive suits, savoir vivre and stuff. So cheap and stupid...

Anyway - adding homosexual characters is OK as loong as THIS MAKE SANSE. Throwin at us gay people like Bioware do is just lame.