You are the only person who wants to talk about homosexuality on this forum yet you accuse everyone else of shoving sexuality down your throat. You are a hypocrite.
You say that Warhorse “hope it will be a huge hit” but deny that marketing has anything to do with it. If that was true then there would be no Kickstarter campaign to MARKET the game to the mass MARKET.
You are being watched. Keep the discussion civil please.
//MadSmejki
I suggest that we stick to the topic.
No need to be disrespectful to each other.
Homosexuality is only a matter of statistics (and as it is fuzzy it actualy is more than the famous 4% to some extend). However homosexuality was viewed as sodomy and as such was punished very very harshly (it was a more serious crime than murder basically). Therefore if we ever come with some LGBT themes in the game it will be handled authentically and people will hide it as much as they can. Also the outcomes or player’s options should respect the historical context. But this might be viewed as edgy and we could be accused of homophoby. So it is a very complicated topic and as such was not decided yet.
Also please keep the discussion civil and be respectful to each other.
Don’t use the Witcher as an argument dude, Geralt is well known for his weakness for women. There is no way to make him optionally gay in these games, even if the screenplay writer tried as hard as he could 
I love Sapkowski’s novels please, don’t spoil them to me Btw just started reading Sapkowski’s Hussites saga, very good read!
Yes, it’s unfortunate, but sometimes when homosexuals are treated badly in a game (like in the witcher) they get grief for making homosexuals look bad. Personally I think persecution of homosexuals is a good theme where it’s applicable. I’d personally be very glad to see it handled in an authentic way. Which is why this topic was created to find try and see if we can find out how a homosexual man would live. As an individual who doesn’t want to be alone who wants to find love.
Edit- To Neofrom (because we posted at nearly the same moment) I would never advocate making Geralt gay. We know him too well for that. There was a gay character in the game, but to avoid spoilers I’ll just say something bad happened to him. Which they did get a little grief for, but the reason I did use it as an argument is because saying “I hope you’re alright” shouldn’t be cause for a women to rip your cloths off and start going at you.
We don’t want to make Bioware-like sex-as-a-win-state romance simulator either. Sex, any sex, in the game will always be contextualized. And our contexts are:
I like what I’m hearing MadSmejki. I thank you for your responses.
It seems all well and good. I feel authenticity should win in this one. Dragon Age II’s Everyone Is Bi world actually did more to pull me out of it than make me feel like I was a part of it.
Also, there seem to be a lot of people that see the option and availability of homosexuality to be equivalent to homosexuality being forced upon them. In case anyone is wondering… it’s not.
Whoa whoa whoa there. Where did you got this information? That’s a complete nonsense. Of course they were allowed to marry.
Allright. Don’t get too passionate here guys. If it fits into the story or is useful for a quest, then everything is fine. I don’t want homosexuality to be forced into the game or thrown into the players face. If devs use this topic somewhere in the game, I’m sure they’ll do it appropriately for the setting and let us choose how to deal with the situation in many different ways.
Do you mean homophobes?
If memory serves, the devs have said there won’t be any romance options in the game, regardless of orientation so there is that.
I think a lot of this stuff depends on how much of an empty vessel Henry the Hero is, if he is fully fleshed out with his own personality and views that you act out and observe (like Geralt the Witcher) then he would, unfortunately probably be unenthusiastic about helping any homosexuals that he may come across as the period wasn’t massively forgiving towards LGBT folk. If he is meant as more of a projection of the player into the game (like The Heroes in The Eldar Scrolls Games or Shepard in Mass Effect) then give the players the chance to decide how they want to react to any situation.
It depends on what time period you were talking about. Before the Marian reforms, that is while the army consisted of Roman citizen militia, this obviously was not in place. However, during the principate one of the “first citizens” (i forgot which one) decided that the then professional soldiers were not allowed to marry (before their army contract ended) arguing that they would be too careful and hesitant to risk lives in a fight if they had families. I think there even is one saint who secretly married (christian) couples of which the husband was a soldier in active duty. I am not absolutely sure about it though. Also, the soldiers were allowed to sleep with prostitutes and could have sex with any other woman…they just were not allowed to marry her. I guess some of them were homosexual as well, but homosexuality was definitely not more common among soldiers than among other classes of society. However, ancient homosexuality was quite different from that of today. Mostly it was a relationship of a young boy (but not as young as to qualify it as pedophilia) and an older man. In Greece this was entirely acceptable (during the first Greco-Persian war, the unified Greek army held a beauty competition among the soldiers…something that could never happen in Rome…or probably anywhere or anytime else). In Rome it was tolerated but if you had publicly known homosexual relationships it could be for example used by your political opponents to make people vote against you. Romans considered homosexuality as somewhat a weakness similar to when a man dressed too extravagantly or used cosmetics, he seemed to them like what we call today a metrosexual and so did not seem like a decisive figure who should be trusted with an important office. But that is maybe what the other commenter meant by being dominant. Romans seemed to have had no problems with homosexuality per se, they just expected men to be manly. I guess that having a gay relationship and being a firm “tough guy” at the same time would cause your less political damage than being a flamboyant heterosexual metrosexual or simply a whimp. But this is just my guess. I am not sure about how female homosexuality was treated. I think it was not much of an issue as women could not hold political offices and so it had little consequences other than gossip.
By the way, I use the term “first citizen” because what we now call Emperors was actually called “princeps” which basically translates as such. The de facto emperors (at least in the early empire period … which is hence called principate) did not want to overly irritate the Senate by showing off their unlimited power. Everyone knew they had it, but publicly they pretended to be merely highest magistrates and that the republic is still alive and well. That was a sensible course of action to decrease the probability that a couple of guys stab you to death at the senate steps (Caesar did not attempt to make a facade and pretend that he was anything less than a lifelong dictator…also he started wearing purple - the colour of kings).
Kiwi, those comments are unnecessary.
As to homophilia in games I understand how many feel like it’s tacked on. In Mass Effect I feel they tried, but in the end it was not half as well written as the straight scenario, especially the female-female scenario. Yet, this thread is not discussing how tacked on homophilia is in games. And what I definitely do not like to see is the “games are targeted at straight males, so keep ur propaganda to yourself.” Those comments belong nowhere.
Now, to be on topic. Homophilia in the “dark ages” was not lightly accepted. Hence, Dark Ages, I suppose, though one can argue how long they have lasted. When it comes to being homophile in the 15th century, I believe it was well hidden. Open display of homosexuality was scorned, though I am not certain about Bohemia, I believe due to it being part of the Holy Roman Empire that homophiles did not have an easy time going about their sexuality.
It is important to notice that homoeroticism was quite common in the imperial armies. That is to say, younger recruits were sometimes victims of the seniority. There’s a difference here, however, homoeroticism and sexual intercourse between men was not necessarily a sign of homophilia. These men had lusts, and lacked ways to satisfy them. Escort girls and prostitutes were quite common, but not always available to everyone.
Apparently you can romance in this game, and most likely this will be in with the opposite sex. In my opinion they should add a few ways to romance the women. And one of them should indicate that you intend to marry to hide your homophilia from the public. Since this was quite common amongst men (and still is), I believe this would be an interesting twist to the romances and could possibly play out in various ways that could even put the player in danger.
On the other hand the possibility of male-male romance is rather difficult to fit into the story as so little is known as to how exactly homophiles sought out mutuals in their time (mostly due to the fact that few if any private memoirs or journals of a homophile exists).
To me it’s an interesting subject, and like I mentioned a story branch where the player decides to marry despite his sexuality could make for really interesting storyline (though it would take considerable dev time, and cost, so it depends on prioritisation). And honestly I could see this get a mod instead, where someone with more passion for it develop a much better story than the devs would be able to (factoring in their time-constraints).
Speaking of metrosexual vs. homosexual, I know a few homosexuals and none of them (well, one speaks a little funny, but still is far from the “TV gay”) are flamboyant exhibicionists who can’t wait to take part in a next gay pride parade wearing nothing but leather underpants and a police hat. It can be argued that such a parade is shoving something down your throat (no pun intended 
) as a “hetero parade” with similar dressed people going through a town but in man/woman pairs would. However, this hardly represents your average homosexual, rather an average exhibicionist.
Anyway, I think this has hardly anything to do with either the original topic or the game.
sorry, since when did warhorse say the character was gay? you mentioned unnecessarily tacked on in mass effect, yet you seem keen on the same in this game.
This goes back to the argument of “Are you playing the character or playing yourself as the character?” Personally, I would prefer to project myself upon the character, something every single white, heterosexual, christian person has had the luxury of doing for nearly every character in every game since the beginning. The point is, if this game is about playing a character, I don’t really care what race/creed/gender/sexuality he or she is. But if it about project myself onto the character, then I want a character that resembles me.
No one is asking you to play a gay character, though a game that really addressed a topic like that might help others understand just how frustrating it is to be told how our existence and the very core of our sexual identity is offensive to others even though it has no impact on their way of life.
the choices warhorse gives you in terms of control over npc relations, dialogs, etc is still up to warhorse. if they decide to make your gay, you’re gay, if they decide you’re straight, you’re straight. it makes no sense if you were to court a girl, that a dialog appears for both straight and gay options…unless they made you bisexual.
i think including these things is the definition of tacked on.
So here is what I’m thinking, homosexuality was rarely public in this games’ time period. but like MADARAS said it has also been around, no matter if you think that Homosexuality is real or not, mankind has been doing it forever and just like heterosexuals, both have been sleeping together for both mindless sex and deep relational reasons. I think we can have a homosexual character in the game somewhere even more than one, but only through deep trust and conversation would you ever learn about it. If the developer do decide to add relationships I do believe that finding a homosexual partner should be hard, because, well it was back in the day, but possible.
To summarize I don’t mind as long as it doesn’t break the realism, and I believe it is totally possible and realistic for the main character to run across a gay character.
I’m glad to see how the discussion has evolved since I’ve been gone.
I want to address your perception. #213
It would need to be a tactful pursuit by the development team for sure, but your thought that you need both gay or straight options in order to have a homosexual option is not necessarily needed.
There are two ways this can be done the first (and my personal favorite) is being able to choose personality traits for your character at the beginning of the game. This could include heterosexual (man like women) homosexual (man like man) or asexual (a person with no sexual attractions). On top of that I’d like to see traits like honest (you’re unwilling to lie to others or are a bad liar with the bonus effect being people trust you more easily) hydrophobic (afraid of water so swimming can be dangerous and you’re less effective in the rain) with plenty more personality traits a person can choose from. I think this would suit everyone’s needs on this front as well as add more flavor to any character created.
Or the second path you could choose is make it to where you won’t stumble on the options by accident. You might find a peeping tom watching a man bath. You speak to him and he freaks out. You could have options like trying to calm him down. With two of the options being (not in game terms) “I’m gay too(lie)” or “I’m gay too” with that option not being a lie. From there with one of the options out of 6 you could easily declare your character gay and open up dialogue related to that point for the future.
I’d just like to add the main reason for most people to view heterosexuality as “the standard” is due to society, not human nature.
We live in a society of compulsory heterosexuality - one’s sexuality is not chosen, but rather forced through society. Heterosexuality is viewed as the natural inclination or obligation by both sexes.
Humans are much more sexual than other species, and history has proven this - bisexuality lies in almost anyone, and history proves this. Greeks and Romans (to an extent) showed us the true nature of human sexuality: A “surprisingly” large amount of humans are bisexual, at least to a degree - while heterosexuality is required for reproduction, humans go beyond the purpose of reproduction when pursuing sex, everyone was doing it with everyone, no matter the gender.
Now the compulsory heterosexuality around 1400 was much stronger than it is today, so open bi- or homosexuality would not have been the smartest thing to do. I still believe it happened behind closed curtains - and much more often than people assume, especially in the church.
So, ultimately, as long as the matter is handled in a delicate and realistic way, go for it.
I don’t really care either way, as I don’t play a game for relationships you can form in it, but if it adds to the immersion of some, go for it.
