Though Baldur’s Gate 3, based on the historically unsexy Dungeons & Dragons franchise, is not a sex game, the tacit understanding among fans and onlookers is that its robust romance options make up some of its best parts. There’s no shame in playing BG3 more for the romance than the mind flayers—though those look like they can fuck, too, what with all the tentacles—and there are several fantasy role-playing games that have similar elements. I can recommend seven of them.
Regrettably, there exist few RPGs, table-top or otherwise, that handle their NSFW elements with as much heated precision as BG3. Many mainstream fantasy games, like God of War, seem to overemphasize a straight man’s perspective by mostly just allowing “romance” with topless, desperate women, and indie NSFW games like Knightly Passions likewise appeal to a stereotypical male gaze with…overenthusiastic body proportions.
So, the following seven games, whether video and tabletop, can’t be perfect replacements for BG3’s multidisciplinary romance—which is queer-inclusive, non-traditional, open to fetishes, also to vanilla stuff—but they should satisfy a similar craving for high-fantasy action sweetened by moments of slow release.
