Dragon Age Romance Questions Answered
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From my perspective, I'd much rather write a romance about a character that is conflicted and/or in crisis than one that is well-adjusted and has the potential for a nice, stable relationship. While the latter may be aesthetically appreciated, I think it is the former that will be more memorable. We are, after all, talking about a romance that is typically proving itself amidst drastic circumstances-- not with pleasant dinner dates and trips home to meet the folks. I think the better characters are the ones where you have something to react to, negatively or not.
As I've said elsewhere, people can say what they like, but the most successful characters are really the ones that are hated as much as they are loved. Aribeth stands out. Even Aerie had her strong proponents as much as her passionate detractors ("oh she's just so WHINY!"). Carth still gets brought up time and again, with vigor. I consider that a much better reaction than "it was nice".
I do get the comments on romance characters that need you to solve all their problems, however-- to a point. We tend to find those who are strong more admirable, after all. I think, however, that there is really also something to be said for most people about being needed by someone. It may be a fine line between that and treating you as a crutch, and some folks will automatically roll their eyes the moment a character asks for their opinion. Can't be helped, probably.
Personally, I'd still rather take the risk and push the character to the extremes. I want you to remember who these people are years from now when you're complaining about them on a forum, instead of referring to "what's-his-name in DA". As for the other stuff, I guess you'll have to wait and see if I've learned anything.
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Quote: Posted 04/22/08 18:47 (GMT) by Radisshu
Besides Gann, unlike Anomen, has fans as well.
As was pointed out, Anomen does have his fans-- those who actually completed the romance, typically. I was very happy with how Anomen's romance turned out. If it suffered from anything, it was that his initial non-romance dialogue (written before he was even chosen as a romance, unfortunately) painted him as a bit of an arrogant chauvinist and the fact that it was the only option (and therefore somehow "unfair").
Incidentally, if you're trying to convince me of anything, hitting on Anomen isn't the way to do it. I had to spend a lot of time on the old forums defending him against some ridiculously venemous attacks and thus it's a bit of a sore point for me. If you don't give a whoot what a think, however, then by all means.
Quote: Posted 04/22/08 18:25 (GMT) by Melirinda
It was my impression that wide majority of Carth's haters where males, while the female audience who was actually romancing him was almost universally pleased?
I would agree with that, sure. The opposite is true for Bastila, as both she and Carth suffered from the fact that both genders got their romance dialogue-- minus the actual romance part for the same gender. Which means that players of the same gender got the "I don't trust you" part without the eventual warming-up bit (as well as none of the playful teasing bits). Hence the effort to have actual friendship tracks in DA.
My point on Carth was that he was an example of a character that people felt strongly about. As a writer, such a reaction is positive no matter the details-- there were people who went on and on at one point raving about Aribeth, and I really wonder if they were aware that we would watch that sort of reaction and think "wow, that character was really successful!" Sure, universal acclaim would be even better, but since THAT is never going to happen I'll take love/hate over "meh" any day.
In other words, I would much rather have characters that do completely idiotic things, are sycophantic or hopeless in their idiosyncracies or over-the-top like HK-47 or Deekin as opposed to those who are well-written but otherwise completely unmemorable. You as an RPG connoisseur might roll your eyes and think that means that I don't value quality-- but that's not it at all. Quite the opposite, in fact, as these goals are not what I would consider to be mutually exclusive.
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Quote: Posted 04/23/08 04:50 (GMT) by Lumenadducere
I have a question to the ladies that've played through the Carth romance: did any of you play as a male NPC and go through Carth's dialogs? If so, did you notice a difference? Because I think that one of the biggest reasons a lot of men dislike Carth while women like him is due to the different way he treats each gender. Women get to have some light-hearted and flirtatious dialog with him, whereas men just get the backstory and his reluctance to trust and...well, that's pretty much it. Hence the constant complaints about him being a whiner and annoying.
I'd like to see male romanceable characters that can actually befriend and get along with male PCs, and same for females with female romanceable NPCs. I agree that the Carth romance was well-done, but it was a little surprising the first time I played as a female to see that Carth was almost an entirely different person. IIRC as a male there wasn't really any dialog with Carth that indicated friendship other than the token "I don't talk about this with most people" whereas with the female PCs by the time you got to that point you'd had several enjoyable little quips showing friendship and/or interest.
(Edit: Just noticed that I_B mentioned this as being one of the bad aspects of most romances - that so much of the character was locked in the romance. In case you can't tell, I agree)
I brought up this point specifically, in fact. I'd written the Bastila and Carth romance paths when it was identified that someone who was playing a PC of the same gender had no one-on-one dialogue with them per se... so, lacking the time to write something seperate, it was decided to simply allow that player to follow their romance dialogue up to the point where they would start becoming romantic and stop there.
Thing is, yes, there was a lot of character locked up in the rest of that dialogue. And the fact that Carth was rather funny and even a bit Han Solo-ish was lost on most male players-- sadly, really, because who doesn't want Han Solo for a pal?
The problem, I suppose, is when a character is brought into the game solely as "the romanceable character". This would work fine if we didn't allow for the player to play different genders, but we do. Hindsight is always great this way.
Thankfully in DA we don't have this problem. Yay! I mean, sure, I suspect that the players who romance a particular character will see more depth in that character than someone who is just a friend, but the friendship track is there. It's like having a Carth who you can joke around with and have him say at some point "you know, you're not that bad to hang around with. You kick ***. I'm totally recommending you to the next person who needs to crash-land on a hostile planet with a complete stranger, I mean that." Cue the manly back slap and awkward silence that ensues.
Or a Bastila that says, "I'm still totally going to turn Dark Side on you, but I just wanted to say-- I *love* those shoes. Where did you get them? You have such nice taste, I'm so jealous."
Just sayin'. I'm interested in eventually seeing whether the effort pays off or whether it's a case of diminishing returns. It'll be kind of a test, really.
