What non-romanceable characters would you romance?

[Eternal]

This topic is my way to say Hi! and talk about something silly.

Digression

I adore game industry writers, artists and designers— they breathe life into characters, endowing them with personality, individuality, charisma and visual appeal. And hey, sometimes they turn out to be so cool that it’s hard not to get in love with them. You’re playing a game and then suddenly go like: “Wow. You, yes, you are definitely my romantic choice!” And it all goes well if the lore and the romance roster both support your choice. You’re happy and you can chat later with your friends, telling them your Liara, Yennefer, or Viconia team is the best— and just enjoy your romance adventure. But sometimes, sometimes it so happens that a character you like doesn’t have any romance story written for them. And it’s so sad! I know, I know, sometimes not being able to romance an NPC is explained by the story, but I still have to sigh and die-away every time I encounter that NPC.

Here are 8 NPCs who have broken my heart by their irreconcilability.

Lace Harding (Dragon Age III: Inquisition)

She’s an absolutely adorable dwarf, endowed with courage, kindness and curiosity. Harding will not stand aside when the world is in danger. She joined the Inquisition and became its irreplaceable and very useful member. I’m in love with her simple and inspiring backstory of a small dwarf-being who has never wanted to stay out of serious troubles. She drives me mad when she shows her natural embarrassment if the Inquisitor flirts with her. “Yes, keep going! We’ll be a great couple… What?! A couple of clicks on the heart icon, and that is all I can do? Oh no! My heart is definitely broken...


Dynaheir (Baldur’s Gate I, Baldur’s Gate: Siege of Dragonspear)

Dynaheir is slightly arrogant as a person, but she manages to always stay respectful to the main character (and Minsc and Boo, of course!) She’s smart and powerful. And have some mercy, Faerûn Gods— this voice! We all love Jennifer Hale, don’t we? Dynaheir is my usual go-to companion. I wanted to know more about her and travel with her in Shadows in Amn, but alas.


Shani (The Witcher III: Wild Hunt)

Yes, I know that romantic options regarding Shani are present in the Witcher games, but I’ve always been sad that this character is just a bright spark in Geralt's life. Shani feels, looks and behaves so real, alive and— human. Both main sorceresses are undeniably charismatic (my Geralt chooses Yennefer canonically), but it was during the holiday Geralt spent with Shani when I had the most fun. To my heart, it felt so close to experience some simple human happiness in such an unfriendly world of the Witcher. Triss and Yennefer are quite complicated personalities and Shani always felt as someone I can understand.


Claire (Cyberpunk 2077)

She's badass. A cool bartender, racer, and mechanic (I hated fast travel in that game and usually drove my bike, so we definitely had something to discuss, my V and Claire). Everyone knows the Free City of Night City is a city of broken hopes, essentially, it’s the city where everything ends with nothing, but even knowing that, the crushing emptiness that covered me after completing her vengeful quest felt so cold. I wanted to warm her up and warm myself, alas. I know, the timing for any romance was not fitting, given Claire’s background, but I didn't want Claire to be alone at that moment. I didn't want to be alone either. So when I got the keys to her car from her, I just stood there under the rain, looking at Night City. I was thinking about our non-aligned fates (and I know the quest resolution might differ, but that was the experience that I got and it touched my heart).


Cicero (The Elder Scrolls V: Skyrim)

When I first joined the Dark Brotherhood in Skyrim, the first question I had was “What the hell is going on here? What about all the dogmas and oaths to Sithis? Are you all crazy here?" I was infinitely outraged! And then he appeared— Cicero. Oh yeah! Completely crazy, dangerous and incredible! Wow! And, most importantly, we definitely shared the old view on how the rituals should be performed. Hey there, Cicero, look what I have: the Amulet of Mara! Let’s laugh together! No? But why??? Come on, Bethesda! This is simply outrageous!


Robert Lutece (BioShock Infinite)

In this visually impressive story-driven game, finding my love interest was something I expected the least. But oh my! Robert is an old-fashioned gentleman (not the most popular trend in current games)— and a freakin’ quantum physicist. Seriously, what else can you dream of?! Smart is the new sexy!!!


The Illusive Man (Mass Effect I-III)

Why are antagonists in games never romanceable?! The Illusive Man has everything to be a great character: charismatic, with clear motivation (controversial, of course, but understandable), impressive visual design, a mystery and an imperious aura. I'm in the Garrus team, but the Illusive Man is definitely hypnotizing me just like a snake is charming its prey.

A bonus for fun

Scott Ryder (Mass Effect: Andromeda)

Don't think badly of me, but I accidentally got into a silly situation. At the start of Mass Effect: Andromeda, you are given a choice between two main characters, the Ryder twins (a boy and a girl), and I chose the girl. But the game allows you to edit the appearance of both twins (as the second character plays part in the game’s story). I wish I didn’t do that… Without a second thought, I enthusiastically embarked on this creative process. And yes, Ryder’s appearance looked definitely good to me. Very good. Too good. I literally created a perfect guy. I'm not usually inclined to judge characters solely by their looks, but that day I was definitely on fire. While Scott was lying unconscious in the hospital (during the first chapter of the game), I regularly visited him to make sure he was okay. It was weird. But then, everything got even worse— he came to his senses and we began to interact (great, now he became a fully-fledged NPC who moves, speaks, feels, and expresses his opinion). I did not immediately understand my mistake. The realization came when I noticed that I had just refused to romance a few actual in-game companions and was running across the space station to my "brother" to check if there were any new dialogue options with him. Conclusion: if the character appearance editor is good, you know your tastes but do not think with your head, then you will be the loneliest Pathfinder in a new galaxy just like me.


Have you had any similar experience? Or am I taking fiction characters too seriously?

 

[mlnevese]

I could see a romance with the Illusive man as a way to fight his indoctrination. Considering it's Mass Effect it would probably end badly

 

[Eternal]

Regarding Keldorn, Dr Chakwas and Mordin, I can absolutely concur and understand you. All of them are charismatic.

Speaking about them, I also want to bring up another important detail related to the in-game romances: age of your romanceable NPCs. I'm not 18 years old either but I'm still a romantic dreamer and would really like to see older characters in lists of romanceable NPCs. A few games are friendlier in this regard, others provide only 1 grown-up option maximum, which can hardly be called a choice. One of the reasons that makes me pay attention to non-romanceable characters is that feeling when you examine your full adventuring team and realize that you’ve literally invaded a teenagers’ entertainment party. "Ok, now your caring Aunt Eternal will accompany you on a path to the big, big evil, and together we can kick it. Has everyone had some breakfast and brought your pajamas?"

This makes me really appreciate games like Mass Effect, where companions and friends are so diverse.

 

[Skatan]

Great topic!

I'm not the kind of person who actually get feelings for chars in games. Well, at least normally. I admit ME crawled under my skin in a way no other game has before nor after and Garrus is my buddy. But with this said, there are some characters that spring to mind where my in-game char definately would have wanted a romance;

Mazzy is the first one. She's the full package in a small package. You just gotta love her and all my dwarf characters in BG2 always have, hah!

Sagani in PoE is a second one. I think part of her appeal though is precisely that she wasn't available. Yes, I've got a thing for dwarves and usually play dwarf charnames myself.

I liked Rogue in CP2077 too. Old, seasoned but not bitter or cruel. I liked Claire too until the end of her quest line which took a less appealing turn.

Bastila in Kotor was cool too IIRC. I wanted to save her but since my charname was ultra-evil sith he cut her down in pieces. It was sad. Liked her character and story a lot.

Jeanette/Therese Voerman in Vampire the masquerade was such a unique character. I never finished the game but I remember she/them made an impression on me. Perhaps a bad example since I don't know if you can in the end. I think one of them died? Or maybe both. Heh, been too long.

 

[mlnevese]

My main problem with romance in RPGs is that often I'll start a romance with a character when I just wanted some friendship. Often because an option I saw as an educated comment or just kind is a romance trigger. I really think they should be marked somehow.

Dr. Chakwas is the most criminally underused NPC I ever met in an RPG. I kept expecting more to happen. If not a romance a more detailed friendship path.

 

[Eternal]

A familiar problem. I've had similar experiences on several occasions.

As I understand from a few articles I’ve read online about game design and authors’ tweets, any game writer is bound by the strict necessity to write a defined number of lines for character dialogues (additional lines require additional work of animators, voice actors, MoCap actors if they’re present, and all the technical crew: from sound designers to producer’s work). Two lines will definitely not ruin a game company, but there can be thousands of them in total throughout the game. It takes many man-hours, plus you have to add the costs for renting studios, matching schedules of invited specialists, etc., etc. To avoid this, game companies plan to limit the number of options from the beginning. And although players often think game writers are lazy to explain the lead to a romance in more detail, in fact on the contrary, one of the challenges for the writer is creating a compact but natural dialogue so that the player doesn’t feel constraints of the budget and development time. It's not an easy task, but yes, some creators definitely screw it up.

I have a theory about how this happens. I like to imagine a disheveled writer with a mug of coffee looking at the moon from his window and re-reading the NPC dialogue for the 20th time to make sure it works as it should. But the text has been tormenting the writer for so long that in his head he has already gone over all the options for how the protagonist and this NPC could get closer, and this greatly reduces the writer’s attention to detail. He has lived through the story many times already and simply does not notice that the trigger for the romance is something terribly banal, eg. the phrase "Would you like some tea?" “Definitely an obvious romantic option,” the writer nods to his laptop. "Definitely not obvious!" - players who simply offered tea to a friendly NPC respond.

In fact, this is an eternal polemic topic: is it better to have a dialogue wheel with bright icons emphasizing the meaning of your replies (so that it’s more difficult for the player to commit a mistake), or full-length response lines ensuring that you say exactly what is written in them (no surprises). Personally, I feel tight in both systems. Too much depends on whether the author succeeds in conveying the intended meaning correctly. Sometimes I get unexpected results when I choose replies as the protagonist. I would prefer to control not only the text but also the tone of my voice. This is especially relevant for neutral phrases. I can definitely intonate the same phrase in very different ways. I can pronounce the phrase "Would you like some tea?" in a friendly, indifferent manner, as if I poured some poison into the kettle five minutes before your arrival. Or I can pronounce it as excuse to rip your clothes apart, right here, right now. I'm not a game designer, so this might be a pretty bad idea, but something like coloring the options you select would help me personally. Well, you know, the pink text color would mean that I speak with my breath held, the blue would mean I am absolutely cold, the green would mean a friendly tone. (Gosh, people with a good artistic taste must get a heart attack just from imagining this chaotic rainbow in the UI. People with a good artistic taste, forgive me!)

 

[alice_ashpool]

Woljif <3

and Amiri.

 

[mlnevese]

That's interesting, I've never really taken into consideration what a game designer's perspective on this would be. I guess I just assumed a few lines more of dialogue to create a friendship path along with a romance, or to add an option for another character, couldn't be that difficult, but the way you explain it, it's a lot more complex than that.

I also have difficulties finding the right "tone", particularly if we're not even given the whole dialogue line to choose and only a short prompt instead. I don't know how many reloads I caused (and that's immersion-breaking in long dialogues!) because I clicked on something that sounded like the answer I wanted, but the exact phrasing or voice inflection were so different from what I had in mind that it caused a "Gah, no, I never meant to say that!" kind of reaction.
On the other hand, adding the emotion related to it, as you can do with the answers affecting your personal reputation in Pillars of Eternity, also feels unnatural to me, because I want the answer to "feel" right and not just pick something because it's labeled as "honest", "diplomatic" or "benevolent", if the words of that answer don't concur with my roleplaying idea.

The idea with the colored responses to mark the "tone" sounds interesting. Visual clues work better for me anyway.
And it would certainly be less distracting than talking like an Elcor, picking between:
(Neutral politeness/genuine friendliness/enthusiastic flirting/treacherous falsehood): "Would you like some tea?"

To be sincere I would expect the tea to melt my internal organs if the sentence was written like that

Now I have to imagine what an Elcor romance option would be like...