jcompton Posted July 31, 2006 Share Posted July 31, 2006 It has long, but incorrectly, been held that "if you sleep with Aerie in SOA, you ruin the romance." This isn't true, but the end of SOA romance/start conditions of TOB romance are so oddly constructed that many people simply thought this was the case. You might think about whether you want to address this. The major issue is that if you sleep with Aerie, her "omg we did it" speech the following morning is most likely (assuming most player behavior given all the erroneous reports of what happens) not to set AerieRomanceActive to 3, but simply to leave it at 1. Then when TOB starts up, the romance only continues if AerieRomanceActive is set to 2. There are in fact two ways in core SOA to get AerieRomanceActive to 2 and still sleep with her. - The first is to complete the HD romance triangle, - The second is to behave indifferently (!) by saying "If that's what you want, there is nothing I can do." when she wants to break up. At the end of that line, she will set to 2. BAERIE 377 is where to start looking to understand what's going on. The upshot is that professing love (No, Aerie! I love you!) or confusion (No, I don't understand! Why are you doing this?!) leave you at 1. In the flirt pack, I decided that this was all fairly silly, that the intended effect (what with the two other ways you could get Aerie to 2, one of which was just plain bizarre) seemed to be to impose a "cooling-off period" ala Viconia, not an actual romance end, and put in a set-to-2 for everything but the player responses which basically agree that she should go away. Don't know if you guys want to do anything about this behavior, but one way or another it seems like it should be Fixed, since leaving a RomanceActive at 1 at the end of a romance chain doesn't make any sense given how TOB expects the romance to pick up. Link to comment
CamDawg Posted August 3, 2006 Share Posted August 3, 2006 Leaving it at 1 is definitely incorrect, as the romance is over at the end of the talk--which means it should either be a value of 2 or 3. I think Jason's suppositions are correct and we should alter this to his recommendations. Feedback? Link to comment
cmorgan Posted August 3, 2006 Share Posted August 3, 2006 Seconded. Discussion before passing the motion... it is frustrating to say the "good-guy" response, only to have it be (again) the wrong one. We have enough of that in RL... Link to comment
berelinde Posted August 3, 2006 Share Posted August 3, 2006 I'm in favor of anything which bends the "nice girls don't do those things" stereotype. As a female, I find it offensive. I am going to stop myself here before I get into full rant mode and just say: Whatever makes the most sense. A guy shouldn't lose out on a relationship because he went along with Aerie's idea. She was the one who brought it up in the first place. If he behaves decently toward her after that, treats her with respect and compassion, and shows the propper devotion, he should not be made to feel like a sexual predator just because Aerie has second thoughts. Link to comment
Idobek Posted August 3, 2006 Share Posted August 3, 2006 If he behaves decently toward her after that, treats her with respect and compassion, and shows the propper devotion, he should not be made to feel like a sexual predator just because Aerie has second thoughts. This is a fantasy game after all. Link to comment
BigRob Posted August 4, 2006 Share Posted August 4, 2006 In part, I'd always considered that by choosing to sleep with Aerie, she'd found herself in an emotional place that scared her, particularly with the implications of who CHARNAME is and the nature of adventuring life. Still, I was always disappointed that there was no way back from that choice. I think at least the line professing love should allow a restart, though maybe leave the other as a romance killer, keeping in mind for Aerie's own sense of confusion. Link to comment
CamDawg Posted October 14, 2006 Share Posted October 14, 2006 Still, I was always disappointed that there was no way back from that choice. I think at least the line professing love should allow a restart, though maybe leave the other as a romance killer, keeping in mind for Aerie's own sense of confusion. Both of those choices lead to another decision: Aerie:I...I do love you, , and I hope you understand. If you would find it too hard... if you want me to go now... I will understand. The "Yes, I would prefer it if you left, Aerie." response will prompt her to leave and sets the romance variable to 3. The "No...please stay, Aerie." will keep her in the party and conclude the romance track--but it leaves the romance variable set to its 'in-progress' value of 1. This leads to silliness such as the both of you professing your love to one another, but not continuing the romance in ToB. This has been added for Beta 4. Link to comment
Anomaly Posted October 14, 2006 Share Posted October 14, 2006 I suppose the "No, please stay... Aerie" answer will now set the AerieRomanceActive to 2 ? Good to know that this silliness will be fixed at last. Link to comment
Smoketest Posted October 14, 2006 Share Posted October 14, 2006 Note that this problem only occurs if you aren't strong of character and you agree to sleep with Aerie just because she offers, which isn't necessarily the right thing to do. Of course most people can't see past the nose on their face when it comes to RL relationships, so I'm not surprised by what they do in the game. This is a fantasy game after all. That changes nothing. Fantasy games typically have real-life elements in them, including human relationships and all that goes with them. Fantasy games and stories are written by humans who have human history, so this shouldn't be surprising to anyone. If you have a pet animal and it could write fantasy stories, you'd probably have a hard time relating to them. The AD&D books themselves say that the game is modeled after medieval human history on Earth, with some fantasy elements thrown in. The only changes Aerie brings to the table are concerning the wedding arrangements, but that's no different than real life on Earth, where many different cultures go about this differently. Science Fiction is no different; a human story with science fiction elements blended in. Etc. Link to comment
berelinde Posted October 14, 2006 Share Posted October 14, 2006 Note that this problem only occurs if you aren't strong of character and you agree to sleep with Aerie just because she offers, which isn't necessarily the right thing to do. Maybe taking Aerie up on her offer isn't the wisest decision, but I don't think it has anything to do with strength of character unless the pc in question is breaking his own vow of chastity or something. Actually, it's more a test of who's read the spoilers. Link to comment
BigRob Posted October 15, 2006 Share Posted October 15, 2006 Still, I was always disappointed that there was no way back from that choice. I think at least the line professing love should allow a restart, though maybe leave the other as a romance killer, keeping in mind for Aerie's own sense of confusion. Both of those choices lead to another decision: Whoops, might help if I went back and actually checked the options before commenting. In terms of Aerie's breaking up with the PC after sleeping with him, I'd say it was still a believable reaction on her part. If you're not quite paying attention and don't know why she's asking to sleep with you, it seems a perfectly fine thing to do (after all, she does invite you to), even if it is a mistake. Link to comment
Recommended Posts
Archived
This topic is now archived and is closed to further replies.