Limitations

Source: Flickr

Or: How Much Are We Letting Reality Getting Into the Way When Designing Games?

Yes, by now Robert Yang's article about the gay plot in Dragon Age has made the rounds elsewhere, but I think the issue is important enough to warrant publishing it here as well.

So, Robert Yang mods Dragon Age so his male character can play out the romance plot with another male character, Alistair – something, which only can be done by modding the game, even though the dialogue is surprisingly gender neutral. All is perfect, until ...

From a narrative perspective, Alistair's crowning is also the culmination of so many threads in the game: the idea that blood binds people together, Alistair's neglected lineage, him leaving his Templar upbringing behind and finally taking on real responsibility, etc.

Plus, you're happy that your virtual boyfriend is the king. That's gotta mean all the lyrium potion you can drink, right?

... Until he breaks up with you for precisely that reason. A king needs to produce an heir, to continue the bloodline - and since you're supposedly a female Grey Warden also tainted with darkspawn blood, a child would never survive... But I'm not a female Elven warrior or a female Dwarf rogue. I'm a dude.

(Yeah, that "darkspawn taint" excuse? Bullshit. Hell, I've even used that line before.)

So instead, I read that moment differently - we're both dudes, so we would NEVER be able to have children together. I started panicking. I looked back over the 50 hours of choices that preceded this moment, stretching back to a month ago. Can I reload that save game from 20 hours ago? Maybe if I told him to get pissed off at his sister instead of forgiving her? What if I put a paralyze rune on his sword instead of that fire damage rune?

And that's when I realized: this relationship was doomed from the start, from my very first choice to inhabit a male player character. Even using mods or hacks would never change this crucial consequence of the story:

Alistair must have children, but I will never be able to provide him with one because I don't have a vagina.

When I realized that, I stopped playing for more than a month. I was so upset. I whined to my real-life boyfriend, "My virtual boyfriend broke up with me!" only to get dismissed with a wave of the hand.

This is interesting, because I was pondering many of the same problems presented here. Usually, I have the ideal that games are a form of escapism. As such, they should allow for more choice than society makes available: the player should be able to choose the gender of his or her avatar, and later on, be able to choose his romance object freely, regardless of sex and devoid of any consequences.

But what happens when the reproductive system comes into play? How far is one to go with bending the reality to ones dreams? Am I just letting babies appear out of thin air?

In the end, I guess, it will always remain a question of how far the reality is to be simulated in a game. Maybe it would be wise to stay true to the biological facts (homosexuality is natural, but will not produce any offspring) while disregarding the arbitrary taboos and sanctions society imposes on it.

As such, any game could be the vision of a better, fairer world.