528 replies to this topic

[Longinus]

Well, the gaming industry, especially the RPG industry is dominated by heterosexual men. That's why the main characters in most Japanese RPGs are male; that's why 3 romances were written for male gamers in Baldur's Gate 2. The facts are indisputable.

As for Imoen, who can say? She's certainly homosexual in the official novel and whether or not this has any relation to her original character is still questionable.

I feel as though most posters here want Imoen to be bisexual because:

1. Men just love bisexual women.

2. No group of people is offended or made to feel left out of the whole experience.

3. Modders don't want to seem bigoted.

Very few female NPC romance mods, if any, cater for guys exclusively. And why not? Gender specific romances magnify the specific bond more.

However, an Imoen relationship/romance holds no interest for me.

[Theodur]

As for Imoen, who can say? She's certainly homosexual in the official novel and whether or not this has any relation to her original character is still questionable.

Eh, I was dragged to these boards from The Attic by Dorotea's Longer Road mod, but I have discoverd several interesting mod ideas here... ok, just a little, sarcastic statement to the comment above (no offense intended, Longinus, me friendly guy:)) -

I pity those poor folks who have read that unpalatable verbiage, that someone dared to adapt as a *official novel*... it's as official as any of the fanfic's that has been posted on The Attic, at least in my book - if someone is going to use that *book* (sorry, but I cannot really refer to it as a *book*) as a reference for the NPC personalization, well then... *ahem*... good luck, but that will be one mod that I personally will frown upon

Abdel... sheesh... I digested about ten pages before throwing up in a major way. Lucky me - my friends advised me not to continue reading it as it can cause irreversible brain damage.

Without dwelving deep into the Imoen's sexuality issue, I would just like to remind that most of the human population, just as in modern world would be heterosexually orientated. So, if we do not have a strong clue that Imoen is indeed homo or bi-sexually orientated, statistically it is a very large chance that she is heterosexual. To assume her being homo or bi, just because nothing in the game proves that she is not, just doesn't an argument make, if you ask me...

[Littiz]

"Statistically" speaking, she's in minority anyway, thanks to being Bhaalspawn

This actually *lowers* the chances for Imoen to be part of another minority group.
...unless the events are conditionally dependant, of course.
If you prove this (with the wanted dependancy) you've proven your point, otherwise you've proven the... opposite.
Good luck B)

[Littiz]

How do you know that her being hetero wasn't my point?^^ Ok, here's one - statistic does not apply to fantasy world, and to gods/demi-gods in particular

You could apply statistics to the gamers' fantasies

Anyway, statistics *work* as long as they're mortal...
See, death itself proves the importance of statistics.
Death is considered the only sure event in life (along with taxes ), yet it's not GUARANTEED at all.
It's only... a "probable" event. So damn likely that everyone dies in the end.
So damn regular are the chances that the body will do mistakes in its regeneration/repair activities, that we're all aging at the same rate.
So...
Uh well sorry sorry I'll stop here

[Quitch]

This actually *lowers* the chances for Imoen to be part of another minority group.

That's a pile of rubbish. If you flip a coin and get a head, that doesn't mean you're less likely to get a head on the next toss.

[Littiz]

-EDITED (previous written in hurry and unjustifiably too harshly)

I know well how the probability is computed for tossing coins.
P(a|b)=P(a), each toss is independent from the previous (b is the of the previous, say), so you're right.
(of course in the parallel I'd be considering the whole event "chain of tosses" not a single toss...)

I was considering the role of an entity known -in the appropriate literature- as Evidence.
In particular I was referring to a concept known in Artificial Intelligence as Diagnostic Reasonment.
This states that if you have many possible INDEPENDENT causes for an event, and you KNOW that a cause is indeed verified (so it suffices for generating the event), this reduces -for all the other possible causes- their chances to actually be CONCURRENT causes of the event itself.
(example before: Event-> to be part of some minority group. Possible Causes ->"joining" minority group X,Y, Z...)
This is a result that can be found through the "propagation of evidence".

I had too study statistic a bit, and I admit I have considered sometimes some results as parodoxes.
Like the famous Icy Roads example, where knowing that a car had an accident, makes you guess that an accident is MORE likely to happen for another car... you can infer from the first that the road is more likely to be icy than it was when you didn't know about any accident, and thus another accident becomes more probable than usual, being more likely for the road to be icy!
Actually all of this is confusing, 'cause things change as you change the point of view and the representation of the problem: for the same principle I used before, the chance for another accident would be lower!
I don't think you can say any of these is wrong, both are used with good results to implement probabilistic networks, yet the first in this case agrees with our experience of "similar facts usually not happening in clusters, when independant from each other".
So you see how I was applying this to the debated case

Sorry for the out of topic once again

[Mikka]

There are people's sexuality that is set in stone, and there are people that are not. There are many many cases of people who all of a sudden just didn't feel attracted to the gender they used to. This is more often then not event based (being emotionally or physically hurt by that gender), but sometimes people's interests just change.

I consider myself straight- I have been happily with one man for years. However, if he was female, I probably would have considered myself gay. For me, the attraction to his personality is the greatest thing- it wouldn't have mattered if he was female, I would have still felt the same.

There are other people like that in the world, however, a lot more aren't. There are a lot of straight people who have tried to feel attraction for the same sex and failed, and a lot of homosexual people who have tried to feel attraction for the opposite sex and failed. And there are a lot who have succeeded.

I tend to think a character is bisexual until proven otherwise (this is more then likely because I was brought up in Japanese multimedia, which tends to smudge the lines between genders more then not, and was surrounded by people who had bisexual or homosexual leanings). I suppose you could consider that true- but you could also consider a character straight until proven otherwise, or a character homosexual until proven otherwise. What are they more likely to be? I don't know.
You could roll a dice- 1 and 2 are bisexual, 3 and 4 are straight, and 5 and 6 are homosexual, or something like that. Is that 'fair'? Or should it be more like 1 is bisexual, 2 is homosexual, and all the rest is straight? I would vote for the first way- as that would give Imoen the best amount of crediance to her character- but some people might believe because in their mind, most of the world is straight, thus most characters should be straight. That's really not fair, though- not only is Faerun a fantasy world, there is no evidence in any of the three ways for her. The most 'evidence' is the 'official novels', and personally, I would rather deny their existance then anything else.



Littiz, I don't get your point.
Let's say... someone either likes dogs or cats, someone likes water or doesn't, and someone likes skating compared to biking.
So we throw a coin.
That person likes cats.
That person likes water.
There is still a fifty percent chance that they like biking, though.
And still a fifty percent chance that they like skating.
Now, if you take a person, it's less likely that she'll be a cat-loving, water-liking, skater-liking person then not.
But that doesn't mean that it's less likely that she'll like either skating or biking.

Heads or tails- heads she's a Bhaalspawn, tails she's not.
(Heads).
Heads or tails- heads she has pink hair, tails she doesn't.
(Heads).
Now, there's still a fifty percent chance that she could lean either way, if you want to be fair to her.
It's not less likely for her to be gay because she's a Bhaalspawn and has pink hair, there's still the fifty percent. It's just less likely if you take two people for one to be a pink haired gay Bhaalspawn then not.

Just because here in America it's less likely for someone to be gay or bisexual then not (which could be debated- no nationwide servey has been done, and there are quite a few people who lie about their sexuality due to fear of proxecution) doesn't mean it's the same way on Faerun and Toril. It could be either way. There's no official information, thus we can only assume.

There's no evidence, no hints, no nothing. It all comes down to opinions, correct? And that's something I would rather not get an arguement about, so I'll just disappear in to the woodworks now. ^^

[Riona]

There are people's sexuality that is set in stone, and there are people that are not. There are many many cases of people who all of a sudden just didn't feel attracted to the gender they used to. This is more often then not event based (being emotionally or physically hurt by that gender), but sometimes people's interests just change.

That may be true in some cases. Ultimately, I guess it just comes down to what the mod maker wants to do with the character--if she plans to make *a* romance with Imoen in the mod, and wants anyone to be able to romance her, the easiest thing to do would likely be to make her bisexual. Or...

1) She romances a male, and in the player's mind she is "straight".

2) She romances a female and therefore is a lesbian for that game.

As I said before, though, I'm not sure having the PC romance her would be the best thing for her anyway, but obviously some people are adamant that this is not so.

[Mikka]

I'm not fond of CHARNAME romancing her, either, truth be told. ALthough I personally don't consider Bhaalspawn's siblings, obviously Imoen does. Although she loves CHARNAME, she loves them like a brother or sister, not as a lover. I just can't see anything coming out of it.

An idea might be that she likes the same gender as CHARNAME does. She is her own person, but perhaps being at Candlekeep gossiping about CHARNAME's crushes might have influenced her. Of course, it might have not. But it's an idea.

[Riona]

I'm not fond of CHARNAME romancing her, either, truth be told. ALthough I personally don't consider Bhaalspawn's siblings, obviously Imoen does. Although she loves CHARNAME, she loves them like a brother or sister, not as a lover. I just can't see anything coming out of it.

I feel very much the same way, Mikka. A romance with Imoen would just seem weird to me.

I wish I could at least talk to her more, though...unfortunately, the only things she really talks to you about are her Bhaalspawn powers and dreams, when I am really more interested in talking with her about more mundane things.

[Quitch]

For those of you interested in the "more mundane things" there is a Friendship Talk Ideas topic for you to chip in what you'd like to talk to her about.

I see no reason why being a Bhaalspawn would affect your sexual preference, unless you think a desire for bloodshed spills over into carnal desire.

[Theodur]

Err, not to sound utterly stuuupid, but I was actually looking forward to this mod, since I though that Imoen will not be romanceable... was I wrong to think so? Heh, add another vote for a non-romanceable Imoen from me... siblings or no - they were raised as such, that alone makes the idea of romancing her queasy. For me at least.

[Littiz]

Two things.

First,
the probability issue.
Mikka, you're right, but you're considering the example following the one of the coin.
You're studying an event while it *evolves*... what happened before the last toss is referred to as context.
The chances for the *next* toss are given by the conditional probability, which in this case equals the a priori probability, being the next event independent from the context.
The way I was putting the problem, I was considering the a posteriori probabilities (that is, you observe a concluded event or serie of events), while knowing the result, and that one of the causes for that result is actually verified.
The latter information is NOT called context but evidence. You're now studying the likelihood of a cause, having already a sufficient one verified.
Giving the fact that you're observing a posteriori, the reasonment is called Diagnostical.
Actually the probabilities change. I'm not the one who says it, I'm only reporting it.
If you want, you may find "forced" the application of the reasonment to this case, this can be debatable!
But I didn't really want to enter this, for...

...Second,
I realize I have to point out the tone of my intervents... I wanted to joke a little with all who posted here (me included!!!) with the intent to bend things to every possible side with every possible argument.
If I wanted just to confute KaPe's argument logically, I would have simply used Quitch's argument itself.
The two events are, for what we know, unrelated. This is enough to negate KaPe's point.
Instead I even bended the argument to the other side, and then replied again with an exercise of "futile inconcludent retoric" about the value of statistics and mortality
Actually I didn't intend to defend my first statement at all costs 'cause it was basically a joke, but I did defend it after Quitch's harsh comment (annoyed me a bit..), 'cause after all I know it *is* defendable.
I think if you re-read my posts it should be clear now... well sorry my humorism can be really cryptic at times

It was my way of saying that this thread has exhausted its role I think... let's just leave Imoen to Quitch and wait.
I didn't want to add more arguments for a side or for the other one.

[Riona]

For those of you interested in the "more mundane things" there is a Friendship Talk Ideas topic for you to chip in what you'd like to talk to her about.

I see no reason why being a Bhaalspawn would affect your sexual preference, unless you think a desire for bloodshed spills over into carnal desire.

--Alright, I shall check that thread out.

--For that matter, I really don't see the logic of the argument that she is more likely to be in the sexual minority (lesbian, or bisexual) simply because she is already an unusual person among most people.