The baby for a start, if it's a same six marriage(that's another issue) the child most likely isn't going to be of blood relation.The partners aren't going to be espoused presumably as well.

My point and the salient point in this debate is that Todd Howard proclaimed "player freedom is our absolute number one" as I've said that's not true for a profusion of reasons, such as skill/perk gates and karmic affiliations.You retorted that these elements act as 'nature' in an otherwise unfettered world, but we have to realize that Todd Howard is mother nature in this context and that elements such as backstory and a voiced protagonist are manipulations of the natural law (to overextend a metaphor).

It's also not the first time, we have had a prescribed backstory, many people have complained about this inclusion in Fallout 3 in regards to role playing.Is a wife and a child really that much more limiting than a deceased mother and an AWOL father (including his exploits of which span the mainquest)?

I disagree. Fallout is a beloved franchise as is The Elder Scrolls, and BGS games always strive to give you the freedom to be who you want. Sure, the developer can do whatever they want, but it doesn't mean it's a good move. If you have a bunch of loyal fans, you should do better.

The straight story will not be affected. As the point has been made many, many times: the differences between hetero/homo marriage are basically negligible from a plot perspective. There is no reason I can see that strict heterosixuality will add a deeper, more meaningful or even much easier to write story. The problem is immersion for a lot of people (paying customers mind you) passionate about the game and feel lied to about player choice being so important. I like the idea of some story for emotion, drama, etc. but heterosixual is in NO way required for this.

What people don't seem to like is resources being devoted to pander to a minority group that is supposedly so overly pandered to now. Now I agree that a lot of LGBT inclusion is just for political correctness, sales, "diversity" and is just not done very well, especially on TV. I'm not asking for this. I just think if the game requires a heterosixual relationship thrown in our face (which there would have been a very easy workaround earlier on), it is only fair for there to be homosixual options later. If they haven't implemented this already they are deserving of much criticism from gamers who want to play their game and pay for it. Your "design by committee" argument isn't very valid as it is HUGE team and group effort with a lot of writers, programmers, artists, etc. It is also an open-world exploration "do whatever you want" game. Seems a glaring oversight to not include homosixuality if their aspirations are as high as they say they are.

This is wrong. EVERY fallout PC had a backstory you couldn't change... So you never could be who you want in full.

I would say...Slighty agree? Im not really sure how I feel on this. Every character I make tends to mirror aspects of myself to varying degrees, and that includes sixuality. Might be refreshing to RP a character all the way straight, since nearly every character ive played has mirrored my own tastes in men and women. Personally its not that big of a deal to me, but I feel like the option should always be avaliable to us. However, its not as big of a deal as poeple claim. Ill be able to RP just fine as someone who is into women and women alone, there is a preference for total freedom, but im willing to give this whole bigger background thing a chance rather than condemning it because it is different than what I loved before.

Disagree.

I'm roleplaying a homophobic anti-liberal character, mainly because of threads on this topic. God damnit already.

1 How do we explain the baby with a homosixual couple without changing the story and the generated nature of the baby's appearance?

2 There's nothing to suggest that the player won't be able to explore their sixuality throughout the wasteland if such a promiscuity strikes them.Surely a good roleplayer can conceptualize of a lapsed heterosixual?It's platitudinous political correctness and an impoverished imagination from people that champion such creativity.

The most simplest of backstory of "there's people, now go save them". They never forced a certain sixual orientation for you to have.

1. Adopted baby and the generated nature can easily just be a random generation not based on the homosixual couple.

2. I am firm with my sixuality and always has been. My character would've NEVER gone the heterosixual route unless it's part of a job... So I'm just roleplaying around it myself that the wife is a wanted criminal and I am just an undercover agent who accidentally started a family with her while attempting to find proof to arrest her. (Which I kinda hate that I HAVE to roleplay around that but whatever).

FO4 doesn't do it too... You can be gay and be married with children.

Yes, player freedom is number 1. But I suspect the game doesn't *really* begin until after you leave the vault. We don't even know if the "wife" survives. So lets wait until the game is released?

Um... Having a mother and father isn't necessary YOUR STORY, is the thing. You can't control who your mother and father are like, so I don't give a flying muffin about how they were or what happened to them in Fallout 3. It was their story, afterall. However, in Fallout 4... Forcing me in having a heterosixual relationship? That's a completely another thing and a bad thing to do in a game about having freedom of doing what you want with your character... Because it forces your character into that role and possibly forces a "wife" and "child" character in the story that most likely would've NEVER happened with your character...

I would be completely fine with having a birth place and set parents but not a set family. I want to be able to make my own choices in that regard and not have a forced family which doesn't suit my character.

I forgot to say that for #2... I am a strong believer that sixuality is a thing you have from birth. You can't "explore it" or change it... Just figure out your own sixuality. So no matter what, if you do NOT roleplay around the whole beginning of Fallout 4, your character is forced to be heterosixual or bisixual.

Watch the E3 presentation. Thats how you choose your six... How the hell would it work if they were both dudes?

I disagree completely. And no, sixual equality does not play in. The fact is, there is only small percentage of people who identify as same-six couples. For the rest of us, it just gets in the way. Now, I understand that sounds rather harsh but let me explain. In Dragon Age, half the possible companions were bisixual or same-six exclusive. I would have no problem with this, except it would come up every other conversation and it wasted an entire dialogue slot. It also added a lot to the game's atmosphere. Unlike real life, I started to assume that every character I walked by was bisixual. This just destroyed immersion for me. I am not homophobic, I just find in my experience when you throw it in there it becomes too important. This isn't the sims, I'm not playing it so I can raise a family and have kids and express myself through my character. I'm here to kill Super Mutants, Ghouls, and other creatures as I scavenge through the wasteland collecting guns or mininukes (perhaps playing through a small emotional questline). If I find someone I think my character would like, I'll go ahead and pursue romance options to add a bit of immersion but it should remain a VERY small part of the game and when you throw sixuality into it, it overpowers the game and destroys its purpose. I think same-six couples should still be able to enjoy the game, and I think heterosixuals who want to arouse themselves by watching same-six intercourse don't need to do it in a video game.

Again, I'm fine with same-six couples but I don't want this game to fall in the same pit as Dragon Age where half the game is having six with your companions. That's just not the point of Fallout.

That all being said, if the game wants to introduce a couple homosixual companions (like arcade gannon), I would say go for it, as long as it remains a small part of the game. Changing the wife to a husband for your male character would break immersion and let me tell you why. The fallout universe roleplays as if a nuclear apocalypse happened in the 60s culture. There was not a single state in the 60s that allowed same-six couples to get married. In fact, the first one was in 2004 if I remember correctly.

That's pathetic.

Not everyone who is gay is married to the opposite six and thinks that it'd be a good character to roleplay.

That's like if the main character is only white and you tell black people "Well you can still be white, but black on the inside". It just doesn't work that way.

I've posted something like this before but I feel the need to say again: Having lived through the 50's and seen first hand the suburbia white-wash and the whole sickening leave it to beaver propaganda, I can tell you that being gay (a family member is gay) in the 50's was all about keeping a low profile. It was a different world back then. If you wish to play a gay character, then RP one and be glad that at least these days we can openly discuss this matter.

Don't know what the story is in game so we don't know the extent of any possible adjustments that might be required to satisfy those pushing for changes. Although I tend to sympathize, I'm not inclined to support any fundamental remake of the game for any reason, at this point. The time to address this was years ago, not now.

This thread, along with the predefined player character threads are pretty much the same. There needs to be a minimal amount of structure to tell a story. Roleplay with it. This isn't a simulation.

He didn't phrase it well. But if the story is that you married eachother to be eachothers beard, then it could work. You are just good friends that decided to have a kid together, because society isn't ready for open gay relationships. I am down with that.

Its amazing how easy it is to get the bigots on both sides to come out of the woodwork with things like this.

Here is a reality check for you. Demanding that a writer change a Fictional persons race, gender or sixuality just because you don't prove Is Just As Wrong as demanding that a school bar a student because YOU don't like the students Race six or sixual orientation.

Going around insisting that a company kowtow to whatever trivial demand we place on them will in the long run set us back because it makes ALL of us in the Gay-lisbian-Bisixual and transgender community look two faced at best.

For DECADES now hetro sixual men have been just fine playing Furrys Women lisbians, homosixuals, Crossdressers, Alien races that include hermaphrodites , multisixuals and there creators know what else and even household appliances, never mind characters that were combinations of the above, (and on top of that many of thoes characters have relationships with some random combination of the above list). Getting bent out of shape because you have to play a closeted homosixual with a beard for a roommate until you get to the vault just makes US look like a bunch of hypocritical damn fools AT BEST.

1. That changes the story, why didn't they conceive of their own? Were they infertile?Are we going to play as an infertile character?

This has the ability to shift the entire paradigm of their relationship.

Also we don't know if the generated aesthetic of the baby will have any significance on the story.

2. As I've said if having to roleplay a lapsed heterosixual is that difficult maybe roleplaying isn't for you...

Folks are taking this too seriously, this is just a fiction, a game, none of it is real. Get your shi3t together, and move along with your lives everyone.

Jonas Palmer (Vault 101)

I completely agree with you, though it has nothing to do with the topic at hand. This topic isn't about Bethesda's fictional character... It's about NOT allowing our own fictional character being the way we want him/her to be.

1. And this is why I am against having been married in the first place... It's too much of a bad thing that you can't allow player creation freedom without them being forced to roleplay around it... I'm just hoping that Bethesda was smart enough to at least let the our "wife/husband" die and be forgotten, at least. (I hope the child too honestly!). I don't want my character to be married at all from the start and if Fallout 4's story is all about your child/spouse... I am soooo going to hate it with a passion simply because it just flat-out ruins the freedom of roleplaying your own character but instead, feel more like roleplaying Bethesda's character...

2. Or I just like to roleplay as MY OWN characters rather than Bethesda's characters?