I think it’s honestly better to view it through the lens of it being a game design tool moreso than a philosophical debate. If you want to emphasize player choice and freedom, playersexual. If you want to emphasize characterization and worldbuilding, set sexuality.

If you’re going to incorporate dating sim components into your game, it’s generally better to lean towards playersexual. Otherwise, you run into a sort of zugzwang where you can
a) lock romance options to het (e.g. Persona) and alienate queer people, even worse when you don’t have a gender option which also alienates 50% of said hets, or
b) have set sexuality and allow some queer relationships with certain characters (e.g. Fire Emblem: Three Houses) but have people annoyed about the arbitrariness of it, especially when there are no characters that cannot be romanced in a heterosexual way but limited queer options.

I think there’s space for set sexuality, especially in linear, narrative-driven RPGs (e.g. Final Fantasy, Undertale, Zelda). Set sexuality really works when you want to emphasize relationships between characters that the protagonist/player character is not party to (e.g. ) Furthermore, set sexuality, when there is a romance mechanic, best works when you establish a boundary between player and character.

Ultimately, it’s a choice of what you want to grant to the player, as well as the distance between the player and the protagonist. If you want to let the player choose between characters to romance in the game, and that’s an aspect that is a design component within the game, you’re usually better off sticking to playersexual, unless you want to take a hyperrealistic angle to it. If you don’t want to incorporate that aspect into your game, there’s genuinely no need, stick to set sexuality. If you want to establish the protagonist as a character that exists outside of the player embodying them, lean towards set sexuality.

I honestly am just tired of romance being attached as a weird afterthought to certain RPGs. It’s sterile when it’s not handled with a modicum of care, and it definitely cements the whole unease-inducing ‘escapist power fantasy’ vibe you get in RPGs that take this approach alongside emphasizing openness. If you’re gonna let me date, let me date. If not, why bother?

Now I feel weird because the discussions here are great, in depth, and nuanced, but the way I feel about this is kinda boring and uncomplicated? Am I missing something?

If I’m playing a customized character that I made, I prefer characters to be playersexual, allowing custom relationships to match my custom character.

If I’m playing as a written character and experiencing a set story, it is better for all characters to be written well, and have realistic sexualities, as part of the story presented.

As far as representation goes, I think both can have problems, but neither are inextricably problematic.

basically i want good queer characters whose queerness isn’t ignorable and is a notable facet of their lives. i think playersexual characters are often a copout, where they write a heterosexual character and then let them date the mc, but if they’re textually bi or pan or ace or something than it’s fine by me. just make sure they aren’t consistently het except for the mc i hate that shit

like i see people talking fire emblem. dorothea is into women! it’s very simple to make the playersexual thing work, just have good writing

I just want to be gay with Garrus and lesbian with Tali

In Wrath of the Righteous, the one female love interest only available to male PCs is a flesh-eating serial killer, which should be the standard for romancable heterosexual characters.

BG3 but every character has a lil bi flag badge

Surely I’m not the only one who finds “romance” options in games to be profoundly weird, though? I feel like the game-y mechanics do not rub up well against what is meant to be a relationship…

I like both for different reasons. If it’s important to a character’s design and story or if the devs want to represent a specific identity, fixed is obviously the way. If it’s not, then playersexual is fine I guess. In the case of a playersexual character though, people should feel free to project their identities—after all, they’re working with what is pretty much an open canvas. A character might be playersexual in the broad sense, but that doesn’t mean I can’t interpret them as a lesbian, for example.

I also think that if what you’re aiming for is realism, NPC identities should reflect that in various ways. Getting rejected by Panam (straight) in Cyberpunk 2077 only to recover and go on to date Judy (lesbian) added a lot of depth to my Vi.

Every character should be Bi-winning if you play a woman and gay if you play a man. Just to really piss off the Gamers.

In a perfect world where more game writers weren’t annoying dipshits who see writing gay or even bi characters as beneath them, romance options with defined sexualities would be no issue.

In this world I have been burned one too many times playing a game with romance options where the heterosexual romance options are with the characters who are plot relevant and have the most content and the gay and bi options are the side characters who have less content, sometimes explicitly because they’re the ones who can get killed off for fun (THIS IS ABOUT YOU BIOWARE I AM SPECIFICALLY TALKING ABOUT YOU, YOU PIECE OF SHIT HACK FRAUDS FUCK YOU)

yeah no, just give me playersexual characters every time, even in ths cases where the devs make it clear they were written with straight relationships as the implied default (Stardew Valley…)

I agree that characters with deliberate and well-written sexualities would be ideal, but on the other hand “bisexual chaos world” also sounds pretty rad. Is it possible to have both?

I think this problem exists primarily in the shadow of games historically being written mostly by and for straight men. Games that break this trend, like Baldur’s Gate 3, are right now remarkable for it, but once this is the norm the problems of both choices mostly disappear.

But while we are stuck in the present with everyone being bi, I wouldn’t mind the characters actually saying “I am bisexual” once in a while.

Either can be good, I did like how in DA:I you can flirt with Cassandra as a woman and she awkwardly takes you aside after a while to tell you that she is in fact straight (and crushed my heart forever ) the same with Dorian, though he’s the aggressive flirt in that case.

Then in Mass Effect it just doesnt really even make sense, honestly. Like you’re completely different species, in some cases you cant even kiss properly for fear of allergic reactions and you’re still stuck on some arbitrary gender binary romances? Live a little, goddamn.

Hot Take maybe; Player-sexuality as the norm is probably inevitable as more of these games tend towards adding mixed and diverse gender options. No developer wants to be the one deciding what combinations of body types, genders, pronouns, voices etc etc falls under ‘available to lesbian romance option’ or ‘available to straight male flirting’.

That said, my preference is still set sexuality. Especially the more grounded a setting. Judy from Cyberpunk (recency bias am I right) for example likely wouldn’t feel as real a character to me without the history of messy lesbian situation-ships thing she has going on.

It depends on the goal of the game and the narrative it is trying to portray. It the character in the game is supposed to be a representation of the player in the game world, then it’s only fair for the player to decide their own sexuality. If the character is a set character in the game with their own narrative/backstory, they should have their own sexuality and the player should not be able to change it. This requires competent writing though, which is rare in video games.

As for the NPCs which the player can romance, again that depends on how in depth and good the writing is. If the writing and lore is shallow, just let the NPCs be bisexual or pansexual and let the player romance who they want. If there is in depth narrative, good writing and worldbuilding with regards to NPCs, they should have a set sexuality that the player must respect.

In games where PC has a well defined personality and is distinct from the player it makes sense to have their sexuality fixed as part of the story, but in open ended RPGs that try to give the player as much choice as possible and blur the distinction between the player and the character, a set sexuality just comes across as lazy writing. I can set myself up as a fire-breathing lizard person with the highest cheekbones in history but the male characters are totally claws-off? That’s dumb.