This discourse was going around twitter today apparently and im curious takes from here.
Which is it for you?
For me i prefer playersexuality. I want to be able to romance any romance option regardless of my charachters gender. I dont want to be stuck with only Arcade Gannon if i want to do m/m
I agree that sexuality can be important to a charachter. But if you wanna do that, seems like the charachter can just not be a romance option.
That said. In RPGs devs can do what they want. You want a charachter to be monosexual and a romance option, have at it. (Unless theyre all straight, then fuck you).
I do kinda hate what The Sims did by adding monosexuality. Felt like such a virtue signal that made the game less fun. All Sims being pansexual was always more fun for me. Especially since i usually play that game as a pansexual slut. Unless i decide my player Sim is mono, but thats on the player’s end.
Monosexual townies in the Sims should at least be optional (is it? Idk havent played Sims 4 since this update).
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.