Because they are telling a story as well and that story requires this particular backstory. You do not have to like the situation and if this is such a show stopper, simply do not buy the game. THAT is the real life choice you have in this situation.

Can't tell if this is sarcasm or not, but it is certainly an example of why the word "immersion" makes my stomach churn every time it's used...

Was sarcasm, lifted directly from OP.

While im pretty vocal about this topic, i feel my suggestion is the best "role play" option for you.

If u were gay in the 1950's there is a good chance you would have a wife and kid for appearances if nothing else.

Selecting your gender by switching between two different characters standing before a mirror wouldn't work too well if both characters were the same gender.

Hah, yeah it will be a bit strange, unless you could just flip through gender of the person looking at the mirror. Hmm, there might be a mod for that a little big after release, you can count on it.

Because they want to tell a story.

Why do they want to tell a story, if writing is their weak point - is beyond me.

I would prefer a blank sleight start - like they do in The Elder Scrolls games.

I agree with you completely, the OP literally said "imagine if you were forced to marry the opposite six at the beginning of the game" and I assume he meant to say "same six" since that would make FAR more sense in context, so I did why he asked and posted my thoughts on it. I'm a huge proponent of equal rights and representation, so cool down, man.

I agree that being married (to a woman) is somewhat more limiting for roleplaying than being a courier or having a dad, but I think you have to look at the pre-war part like this is who my character used to be...then when you emerge from the vault you decide this is who my character is now.

Blank Slate? Why do I always start out as a prisoner? Either I'm forced to be a crook or unlucky enough to be wrongfully convicted.

Best move would be to make your own game and tell your own story. On the other hand, you can play the game and craft your own story with the choices your make. Every story starts with a scaffolding to be built on.

It's all good, bro.

However, even though I want to rebute some things said, I agree with most of the responses I've gotten. It's a set backstory, which I might not like because of it's character restrictions, but it makes sense in such a setting, and I can find a way to RP around it and then romance a same-six companion. I enjoyed this discussion overall.

Yes, you can be anyone with that start.

Well, the only reason I can think of is that Bethesda wanted to feature the capability of the game to generate a baby based on the mother and father that you create. Although, I won't say that's enough of a reason to justify not offering the option to change the gender of your spouse and make a randomly generated baby who would have been adopted by the couple, for example.

In the end though, yes they are attempting to tell a story. If the baby being genetically related to both parents is necessary to that story, then it's nothing to fault the creators for. Either way, someone could create a mod to allow the main character's spouse to be the same six.

I will stop responding to off-topic posts. To get back on track, I appreciate all the feedback and interesting ideas about how to RP a closed gay character in a post 1950's homophobic enviroment, finally finding freedom in the apocalypse. It's like using the character restriction to inspire your backstory, and it's really dammn cool!

Have you watched Mad Men? There's a character (Sal Romano) who I think gives a pretty good idea of how things must have been like. Mind you his story does not have a happy ending at all but that kinda says something by itself doesn't it?

I'm gonna roll my eventual guy as either someone who wanted to live a normal, unassuming life and so squeezed himself into a role he didn't fit or as someone massively ambitious (I haven't decided ambitious in what sense yet though) but who needed the appearance of normalcy to get ahead. One's definitely more of an [censored] than the other but both see the destruction of the old world with a sort of guilty bittersweetness, obviously it's awful but hey, at least no one cares if you smoke pipe now.

Well, this started out as a decent and productive conversation, but the last couple of pages have quickly devolved into a perfect example of why we can't seem to have nice productive conversations about these topics on here.

Maybe after I get done with the house-work and put my son to bed for the night I'll feel like cleaning out all the off-topic political debate and straight-out inappropriate comments, flaming, and trolling and going through and handing out suspensions for the more egregious infractions. But for the moment I'm just going to lock the thread before it gets worse.

There is a concept in tabletop roleplaying, borrowed from improv, of "yes and." Where in these contexts instead of refusing a setup because you feel the character would lack motivation, instead looking at it from the perspective of deciding to accept the setup and then creating the motivation for the character that would fit - using the restrictions to inspire.

Something like 30 posts have been wished into the corn-field as off-topic or inflammatory (I mean seriously guys - did I actually remove a post about Caitlyn Jenner from a videogame forum? In what world do I live in where that's going to be even remotely on-topic???) The OP has come to a resolution, and I worry if I re-open the thread that it's going to spiral downward again anyway - at which point it would feel kind of like entrapment. So I'm going to leave the thread closed.