12 replies to this topic

[minotaur_in_maze]

I got this idea from reading a romance idea by KatieKillz, just below.

I've never tried on the Girdle of Gender Change in game, so forgive me if this covers old ground, but...

How Does having <CHARNAME> zapped from male to female (or vice versa) affect the romances?

What might be amusing is to have <CHARNAME> changed by the gender thing and then have another (new) NPC show up and start wooing them. Not ONLY would <CHARNAME> possibly have to deal with their former (now same sex) romance interest, but would have to fend off the amorous advances of a New person who - unbeknownst to said newbe - shares (or shared) <CHARNAME>s former gender.

Better still, maybe experiment with having <CHARNAME> begin to have some feelings BACK in this egard (I mean, Hey, if one IS a new gender, and possibly Stuck that way...) leading to a choice as to whether to "go back" to their original gender (and maybe romance) or to stay and enjoy this new unfound love.

AND/OR - as this New NPC shows up After <CHARNAME> has been "Turned", and thus has no idea that they were originally more alike than average, does <CHARNAME> TELL them, thus risking losing them due to...what?...rectoflosal homophobia? How to put it? Some have issues with the trnas, or previously changed genders.

It could be an interesting romance/conflict/character study, and probably not much more work than your average NPC.

Opinions?

Edited by minotaur_in_maze, 21 August 2008 - 08:18 PM.

[lennon]

I got this idea from reading a romance idea by KatieKillz, just below.

I've never tried on the Girdle of Gender Change in game, so forgive me if this covers old ground, but...

How Does having <CHARNAME> zapped from male to female (or vice versa) affect the romances?

... stuff deleted ...

It could be an interesting romance/conflict/character study, and probably not much more work than your average NPC.

Opinions?

When close to finishing BG1, a long time ago, before Mods, I experimented with the Girdle of Gender changes. I had a female character I was considering importing to BG2, so I'd have a male character in BG2. For the record, I recreated a character with the same/similar attributes in the end and shadowkeepered the remaining differences. Also I wasn't able to consider them a continuation of the previous character; I found that BG2 took me to different places and my second bard became someone else.

So in vanilla BG1, it is implemented as a curse, and hence a spell effect and the CLUA gender variables remain unchanged. (IIRC). There was no romances so I can't comment on the impact. I don't think the party even commented, and the portrait didn't change.

The nature of the implementation means that the programming effort might be immense, since the cursed romances for each counterparty would need to be written, you raise interesting questions that I have oddly considered but it might be more interesting to write than play.

[vilkacis]

The game already contains the Edwin subplot, with Minsc hitting on "her". It would be difficult to pull something like this off without just repeating the whole Nether Scroll fiasco.

Also, identification is even easier in BG2 than it was in BG1, any mage can cast "remove curse" at those levels, and there are temples all over the place. So even if you did this, for most PCs, the gender swap probably won't happen at all and if it does, the effect wouldn't be around long enough to have any real effect. It's a lot of work for a very uncertain event.

This idea is more suited for fiction than modding, imo.

[minotaur_in_maze]

Perhaps it is.

Still, given the setting, almost ANYTHING is possible.

It t'was just a thot.

MiM

[jcompton]

By convention, romance NPC compatibility tends to be calculated either at the start of the game (Bioware NPCs) or upon NPC creation (some/most mod NPCs.) The scripts do not check over and over again for gender changes, so the romances will simply merrily continue (and your hypothetical new NPC which only shows up when the PC has been gender-changed--which happens almost never, by the way--would have to take this into account.)

I'm a little surprised nobody's ever published a mod with a subplot involving a not-kidding-around gender reassignment. But I suppose Edwin's having been played for laughs would tend to dissuade someone from trying to turn around and make it a serious issue.

[Ankhes]

Several times I've played a wild mage and had a wild surge transform my character into a man. It was so annoying because it happened several tiimes so yes I did a reload. I hate that. I never held the opposite gender for long so I don't know if it would affect the romances.

[Kellen]

Which brings the question: What happens when you put on the girdle after wild surging a gender change...

[Cal Jones]

Well, the Edwin romance deals with his gender change but there's no hot girl on girl action as, by the time he has his Nether scroll accident, he's still in the early stages of the relationship where he and the PC are more intent on insulting each other than swapping saliva.
Adding a sex change accident to an already commited relationship could be interesting, though no doubt the PC's love interest would be rather distressed (unless it's Solaufein, of course).

[Sammi Somara]

By convention, romance NPC compatibility tends to be calculated either at the start of the game (Bioware NPCs) or upon NPC creation (some/most mod NPCs.) The scripts do not check over and over again for gender changes, so the romances will simply merrily continue (and your hypothetical new NPC which only shows up when the PC has been gender-changed--which happens almost never, by the way--would have to take this into account.)

Not true--I played a Wild Mage in BGII and accidentally turned my character male. She turned back after we rested but the result was that the Aerie romance activated itself and she continued to make advances on my *female* PC. How does that work out if the compatibility is determined at the beginning of the game?

[Amaurea]

Sammi, that's a bug in the vanilla game. Aerie, and less frequently Jaheira, will have their romances start with female players. I once read why this happens, but I sure don't remember the specifics.

[berelinde]

If the female PC puts the Girlde on, Gavin's relationship will be suspended until the PC is female once more. If he puts it on, it will also go on hold until the belt is removed. Other NPC's react to it, and he says something about identity issuses. Dunno if anybody's ever bothered doing that to him, though.

What's funny about the Girdle is that if you leave it on too long, the avatar may reset to the original gender automatically, and then when it is removed, the character may appear to be of the opposite gender.

And yeah, just about once per game, either Aerie or Jaheira says something inappropriate to my female PC.