Homosexual Romances?

[YuriKitten]

It may be that the mod already allows it, but as far as I could tell from reading about the mod, the romance part only allows males to romance the girls and girls to romance the guys, yes? Is there any way to change that so that my character (a female, like me) can romance a female NPC?

[berelinde]

Short of changing the code, no, I'm afraid not. Even if you did remove the gender checks from the romances, the NPC in question would still treat you like a man.

[YuriKitten]

Short of changing the code, no, I'm afraid not. Even if you did remove the gender checks from the romances, the NPC in question would still treat you like a man.

 

I've had to deal with that in other games where that was the only option. It's better than nothing...but not what I'd prefer. If there's no other way, is it possible to remove the gender checks and how would I do that?

 

Is there a particular reason why the mod was made with only heterosexual romance options? =\

[berelinde]

Domi wrote Dynaheir and Shar-Teel, and Kulyok wrote Branwen. I wouldn't presume to speak for them, but if I had to guess, I would say that they wrote the romances they wanted to write.

 

Many writers and many modders are not comfortable writing romances at all, and many that *do* take that step write about the familiar. Would you be comfortable wriiting a romance for a heterosexual NPC, or would you rather write one that you could relate to better?

 

Some modders do venture into unknown territory eventually. Domi went on to write the brilliantly executed Jaemal romance in IWD2 NPC, so it's possible for a modder to overcome the reluctance to write about the unfamiliar and still produce quality work, but many modders are reluctant to take that chance. I'm beginning to write a romance for a male NPC (Sand) that will be available to both males and females, and I admit that I'm approaching it with some trepidation. Can I do it without resorting to cliches? I don't know, but I intend to find out.

 

Which NPC are you interested in romancing? If it's Dynaheir or Shar-Teel, I'm fairly sure that Domi wouldn't mind me telling you which script blocks to change before installation. If it's Branwen, it would be better if you asked Kulyok yourself.

[YuriKitten]

Would you be comfortable writing a romance for a heterosexual NPC, or would you rather write one that you could relate to better?

 

Well, being a writer myself (and one looking to publish romance novels), I've never really shied away from writing heterosexual and homosexual romances in the stories I write. But I can understand shying away from some topics.

 

Dynaheir's probably the NPC that interests me most out of BG1. Is it possible to make the changes after installation or would I need to uninstall the mod, make the changes, then re-install?

[Kaeloree]

Hey Yurikitten, write a romance and I might just code it for you.

[berelinde]

First of all, you will need to uninstall the mod to have your changes take effect. You will also need to have not met Dynaheir.

 

Open up the mod folder, and find the file with the path

 

bg1npc/phase3/dyrom/baf/p#dyrom.baf

 

Open p#dyrom.baf with any text editor.

 

Find this block of script:

/* Set Romance Match */
IF %BGT_VAR%
Global("X#DynahMatch","GLOBAL",0)
InParty(Myself)
GlobalGT("X#DyFriendTalk","GLOBAL",1)
Gender(Player1,MALE)
!Global("P#BranwenRomanceActive","GLOBAL",2)
!Alignment(Player1,MASK_EVIL)
!Alignment(Player1,CHAOTIC_NEUTRAL)
OR(4)
Race(Player1,HUMAN)
Race(Player1,ELF)
Race(Player1,HALF_ELF)
Race(Player1,HALFORC)
ReputationGT(Player1,10)
CheckStatGT(Player1,9,INT)
CheckStatGT(Player1,9,WIS)
THEN
RESPONSE #100
SetGlobal("X#DynahMatch","GLOBAL",1)
END

Make it look like this:

/* Set Romance Match */
IF %BGT_VAR%
Global("X#DynahMatch","GLOBAL",0)
InParty(Myself)
GlobalGT("X#DyFriendTalk","GLOBAL",1)
!Global("P#BranwenRomanceActive","GLOBAL",2)
!Alignment(Player1,MASK_EVIL)
!Alignment(Player1,CHAOTIC_NEUTRAL)
OR(4)
Race(Player1,HUMAN)
Race(Player1,ELF)
Race(Player1,HALF_ELF)
Race(Player1,HALFORC)
ReputationGT(Player1,10)
CheckStatGT(Player1,9,INT)
CheckStatGT(Player1,9,WIS)
THEN
RESPONSE #100
SetGlobal("X#DynahMatch","GLOBAL",1)
END

Save it and install BG1 NPC.

 

Don't blame me for any bugs that happen later, please. I don't *think* Dynaheir checks later to make sure your gender hasn't changed, but I can't be sure.

[BelgarathMTH]

I know a way to make homosexual romances possible.

 

Start a game as a male if you are lesbian, or as a female if you are a gay man.

 

Then, use Shadowkeeper to change your avatar to the other gender, and your voice and all other appearance factors.

 

This is not a perfect solution. Your spellcasting voice (Vitae Mortis Carne!) will still be in the wrong octave. And most of the dialogues will not quite make sense.

 

Expect to be referred to constantly as "my lady" and asked how you feel about bearing children and told what a beautiful woman you are if you are a gay man.

 

Expect to be referred to constantly as "my lord" and told how handsome and muscular you are if you are a lesbian.

 

Also, males will be referred to as "she, her", and females as "he, him" a lot.

 

Any gay person knows that we do not talk to each other in our flirtations and romances in quite the same way as straight people do. The only way to get a realistic gay romance in a game is to have a gay romance written by a gay person who knows what they are doing. (The only one I know of that may qualify is Nathaniel, but I've never been able to play a game with him because his program is too buggy and stutter-prone.)

 

But if you're really into camping, drag, and cross-gender references, my solution might work for you.

[Creepin]

First of all, you will need to uninstall the mod to have your changes take effect...

I'm pretty sure much easier way for a non-modder would be to simply change related variable, X#DynahMatch in your example, by CLUAConsole.

 

Then, use Shadowkeeper to change your avatar to the other gender, and your voice and all other appearance factors.

There will be less things to change if he starts with a character he want to play and then change it's gender. However, result of this method will be much more awkward compared to berelinde's as it will affect all interaction with NPCs, not only with that romancible one.

[-JR-]

Given the considerably higher ratio of heterosexuals to homosexuals, I see no unfair prejudices whatsoever in having exclusively straight romances when there's only a few of them like in this project.

 

Give the Shadows of Amn mods a shot. There's a bunch of homosexual content, due in part to the greater number of player-made NPCs and the size of the RE mod.

[Domi]

We were working on providing a huge amount of content back when we made this mod. It took us years to put it together and make it work. For myself personally, it is not shying away. I loved working on Jaemal, and I always thought I'd do a lesbian romance one day. Er... back in the time when I actually er... you know. Wrote. Modded.

 

I see modding as a form of fan-fiction, and I do not like loading an existing character with any aspect that was not stated relatively clearly in the game. I firmly believe that a successful bisexual, gay or lesbian character neesds to be concieved and written as such from the start, so it finds the reflection in all of his or her dialogues, interactions and romances. When you take an existing character and start playing with the sexuality, you will inevitably run into people who go "Hurray, I always knew it!" and another group of people who will tell you that you shat into the very depth of their soul by twisting their favorite character ("Hey, Jahiera would never, EVER, EVER, EVER be unhappy with Khalid because she realized she is a lesbian!") Back in the day outraged critiques on much more minor characterization issues set the mod on the brink on shutting down a couple of times. I am just glad we survived to face critique for not covering 100% of the play-field

 

And the other thing, hugely important, is the protagonist's gender in the dialogue. In BG1 in particular, I enjoy how being a different gender affects the story of the game, because of the Antagonist (okay, am I spoiling anyone, or can I just call him by name?) In Dynaheir's romance, that hidden conflict, the comparison between the two was something I enjoyed imagining and attempted to infuse into the dialogues. Gods, let me not go and look at those dialogues now and feel like a huge fool for talking about 'inspirations' and 'themes' and all that.

 

Anyway. What an individual player does with the module on his or her machine is no concern of mine. I dunno about nowadays, but you probably can still open the D-files in the text editor and work your way through the texts re-working the references to My Lord and My Hero & reinstall the mod and it will recompile and apply your changes.

 

I'd be interested to hear how Dyna's romance played out for a lesbian player trying to swap the gender check, is it as strongly male protagonist oriented as I think it is. I think you might actually have a lot of fun slapping Coran down for a while. He is just such an easy target.

[Acleacius]

Gender(Player1,MALE)

Would it be possible to Comment this statement out instead of deleting it?

 

Looking at the header....

/* Set Romance Match */

...could I just use // or */ in front of the line?

 

Thanks for any tips.

[jastey]

Yes, commenting out by // is possible, too.