This is what I meant that you become a blank slate. People are assuming that the family storyline will continue where I nelieve that your wife and kid is dead before you leave the vault. If you think about it, Howard said that the baby is generated between the husband and wife, he never said that baby grows up.

I think the start is just a clever way to not only select a character but also to make it so that you lose everything, and try to be willing to move on.

Something tells me that the family story ends at the vault.

Ugh, not this again...

I don't want to be the Dragonborn! I don't want to be the Nerevarine! I don't want to be the Courier! I don't want to be the Vault 111 survivor!

Do you people also go onto the Bioware forums screaming "I don't want to be Commander Shephard saving the galaxy from the Reapers!" or "I don't want to be the Inquistor!"?

These might be open world games, but they are not sandbox games. They have a story to tell and telling that story does impose limitations on the world and on the character. Yes, sometimes allowing a homosixual couple is too hard, because it is incompatible with the story that they're trying to tell. Aspects of the opening sequence would have to be completely rewriten to even allow it. The way character creation and gender selection is currently set up, it wouldn't work to have same six couple. It would mean that your gender choice was made even before that all began. Could they change it? Sure they could. We also don't know, though, just how much of an impact that will all have on the rest of the story, though. Frankly, I have a hard time believing that they'd go through the trouble of making the baby look like a mix of the two parents just for the opening sequence.

So basically, they're telling a story. If that story doesn't fit with what you want, then don't play it. Go find a different game that does fit. I know I've made that choice a few times.

This will be added in mods, should be pretty simple but might mess up dialogues a few places. Like mother ask about the two most important men in her life. you will also get the fembot version and lots more.

I don't think what happens in the Vault stays in the Vault, considering you can visit your old house and robot, the alledged emphasis on emotional scenes, and the level of detail given in the intro it would appear that the family is, in all likelihood, the imputus of the main quest as much as Daddy Neeson leaving the Vault, getting shot in the head over a package, the water chip failing, and your home tribe on the brink of death.

Bethesda, nor arguments, can't rely on mods, it's selling a complete product here.

I was under the impression that the purpose of role-playing is to play someone that is NOT you. But some comments here seem to indicate that my impression is not correct, that it's somehow about identifying with the character you play and that this identification becomes the harder the further the char is away from your RL self? *scratches head*

You're gay? Fine.

You get to play a hetero father/mother on a 1950's cultural background (after exiting the vault it's clean slate mostly anyway). Great, a roleplaying opportunity!

That's what I think. In previous titles (and other games) I've played the opposite six, played non-hetero chars.

I don't see what the big deal is here.

You can fully play as a gay man or gay woman if you so choose. You are simply in a straight marriage likely due to 50s-style social pressure (or you guys are super-besties), like a great many gay people throughout history.

The intresting thing about the issue of representation is that the gamer community always acts like "hey it is not a big deal, so svck it up," when they can play something that is representative of them but you switch it around a boy oh boy does the rage start. Take the game RUST when you first play the game the game randomly assigns you a skin colour and apperance for your character and then assigns that skin colour and apperance to your steam account so you can NEVER change it. Suddenly all these white guys aren't being represented and oh the rage. Now they just get a tiny idea of what it is like to be unable to play something representative of themselves. Very telling.

As a straight white male i have lived a life of privilage when it comes to representation in games. I really don't know what it is like to not be represented in a video game, but at the same time I have zero fear of diversity of representation. I in fact beleive it creates better games. It gives us more chances to tell different stories in games and the gaming industry desperately needs this because they are becoming like hollywood in that they are just recycling the same old stories over and over. Diversity draws in more players ans more players means more sales. More sales means the industry grows. Larger industry means MORE GAMES! More games means more choice. Also with a larger industry comes more people able to break into the industry and that means a greater chance for innovation. An innovation means better games in the long run.

I think mods will be the solution here. Not a great solution but hopefully you can mod a same six marriage into the game so that people can role play something representative of themselves. The intresting thing is that if they needed the baby to be biologically connected to you then there are obvious same six solutions. If you are a woman you are the mother and you partner isn't Biologically connected to the baby. If you play as a man you are the sperm donor and someone was a surrogate. Poof biological connection solved for the player and the baby using realistic solutions for a same six couple wanting a baby.

If given any sort of freedom about my character, I can't immerse myself in a game unless playing as a homosixual(if sixuality is made a point) woman like myself.

Well fortunately, that option still exists. You just happen to be married to a man.

You have a very strange definition of lisbianism.

Similar to me is not me. Besides, imagine if the vast majority of every form of media you encounter (and the amount of interaction we have with various forms of media every day is staggering) shows someone who is not similar to you. Shows a way of life you don't inhabit. It's like your entire existence is roleplaying, envisaging yourself in a capacity that doesn't reflect you by default.

I imagine straight players most often roll straight characters, not always, but usually. They don't do this cuz they're rolling themselves into the game but there's a kind of rapport, a sense of connection playing a character that has some fundamental things in common with you. It allows you to inhabit their headspace to a greater and more comfortable degree. And for straight people this just... is. It has always been such. They are literally the norm. Completely and utterly pervasive, ubiquitous as the air we breathe. Which is why they so often don't get why it's so important to non-straight players to have that little bit of representation. You don't actively value your sight if you've always had it.

You realise that many homosixuals were forced to marry to stay hidden right?

The penalty was castration and therapy, or usually prison... Regardless it isn't the story lead writer wants.

Oh god please stop with this social justice crap. Comparing the outrage over that stuid system in Rust with what is happening in Fallout 4 is the good old "apples and oranges" comparison. If Bethesda wants us to play as a straight person it has a reason, and nobody here knows this reason and we will most likely only know the reason after the game is released, right now it is a non-issue.

I take it you've never heard of Eleanor Roosevelt, wife of President Teddy Roosevelt, and confirmed lisbian?

You do know that homosixuals have been in a great many hetero relationships and marriages throughout history. Heck it still happens even today: Tom Cruise, John Travolta, Portia De Rossi, all of whom have or had hetero relationships/marriages.

Now rewind 50-60 years and imagine the social pressures of that period.

I have a gay buddy who married a straight girl to get her a green card. They were best friends. They have been married 12 years and have two kids. The guy is still fully gay and yes he is permitted to have boyfriends.

The possibilities are not black and white, not a dichotomy.

But, one could say that this lisbian felt that she had to marry this man to please her parents, or have a child, or simply have a family. Maybe she had relationships with women on the side. Maybe her husband knew, maybe he didn't. But then the bombs drop, they go in the vault (as she's running to the vault, is she secretly worried sick about her girlfriend?). Then 200 years passes, she wakes up and sees her chance for freedom. Those 50s style pressures are lifted, the apocalypse becoming a blessing for those typically oppressed by 50s American culture.

Definitely some interesting perspectives to explore.

I dig this idea honestly. Now if only a dev could confirm the presence of some same six content even if it's just flirting/perks/fade-to-black stuff.

As someone who is incredibly skeptical of this game, and am far from what you describe, even I could defend this particular choice. Simply put, if the narrative they created demands that the protagonist was in a straight marriage, then it simply does. It's the same reason I couldn't play as anything other than a 19 year old kid in Fallout 3, or an experienced mailman in New Vegas. Because like it or not, these protagonists aren't 100% ours. We are given a massive amount of freedom to craft them how we want, sure, but at the end of the day, the circumstances they're in and the story that they follow come from some sort of past, as is the case of every game in this series so far.

If you look at it from a mechanic stand point, it would never work with two females or two males. That is the part in the story where you decide if you are a female or male. (Who knows if romance is going to be a part of the game. If so, I'm sure you can choose to switch teams, sort to speak, later down the broken, irriadiated road.)

With Fallout games, I always look forward to seeing how they incorporate the character customization screen and stat selection. Is anyone else going to have their husband or wife design the spouse? Sure, they are doomed from the start, but it really is a nice touch. If you aren't married or in a relationship, it's pretty neat to design your in game partner before their inevitable demise.

Interesting point I have to ponder. Thanks. I admit I find it hard to put myself in the shoes you describe, but not for lack of trying. And maybe I do the roleplaying a bit more consciously, as in: I aim to play someone else than me.

They weren't perks. They were dialogue options.

I hope the romance options are at least as varied and diverse as Skyrim. Okay, maybe not with cat-people, but gender-wise.

I aim to play someone else than me as well. I don't like being forced to play a character someone else decided for me. I don't mind a basic backstory, like being some random person who took a courier job, or being a kid in a vault with scientist dad, but determining my entire lifestyle, family, and possibly my profession as well (based on dialogue in the demo and leaked information that's been correct so far, the protagonist is a soldier)? That's too much for me.

Thank you for speaking my mind...You can either follow the story or not but to be all pissy because your sixuality isn't something represented in the protag is just laughable.

once you leave the vault come out of the closet, it's done you now have a gay protagonist.

The kid could be biological. The Fallout universe has a lot of advanced things going on, and it's already quite close to possible. Article from time: http://time.com/3748019/same-six-couples-biological-children/

* I believe marriage is between a man and woman.

Hopefully modern politics don't find their way into Fallout 4.

For the record if Fallout 4 becomes extremely LGBT like Dragon Age Inquisition, I will accept that. I'm not unreasonable. I will tolerate it, even though I'm tired of seeing it everywhere.

The only two genders are:

• BIOLOGICALLY BORN MALE
• BIOLOGICALLY BORN FEMALE
  

Bethesda, please don't give in to bizarre concepts that will break immersion. I don't want to be reminded of all the crap on TV.