feel free to write about absolutely anything. if u limit yourself it wont be as good imo
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I enjoy stories that reference include relevant references to the real world; it gives the story something that sets it apart with other stories.
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As long as you put a warning/disclaimer at the beginning to warn people it should be o.k.
See Books of the Samurai for good examples.
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I moved the discussion over here, as the most recent place we talked about crossing a line where CoG and/or various forum members would favor censorship.
Personally, I donât think any topic should be out of bounds â but a writer who picks up a sensitive subject and writes on it badly can expect criticism, and deserves it.
Iâd welcome a good story about Islamism and terrorism. There are plenty of pitfalls around the topic; two of the most obvious ones are glorifying terror (if you write Choice of al Qaeda) and demonizing Islam/Muslims (if you write Choice of the Islamofascist).
If I thought your draft story had fallen into one (or both!) of those pitfalls, Iâd point it out and suggest how it might be fixed. If after some tries it seemed unsalvageable, Iâd encourage you to scrap it and try another project, i.e. to self-censor rather than put a story out there that feeds one or more major toxic trends in modern culture. I believe in free speech, but also that we should encourage each other to be responsible speakers.
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This might be a little weird but I actually often like to roleplay in RPGs and COGs as tragic/serious villian protagonists. (Iâm not tragically villianous in real life, donât worry. Iâm comically evil. Like a Saturday morning cartoon villian or a campy Bond villian.)
Unless the game itself is inherently silly or light-hearted, like the Fable series, I never play as âFOR THE EVULZ LOLOLâ characters in RPGs. Theyâre always tragically flawed or broken in some way.
Which brings me to this:
My favourite RPG for being evil is definitely KOTOR II. Why?
Because the game doesnât hesitate to tell me what a bastard I am throughout, which since Iâm playing as a tragically evil character, adds to the experience. Kreia cruelly calling my highly volatile character out for wiping out the last of the Jedi is probably one of my favourite moments in any video game.
Thinking about that once I mentioned to a friend how I prefer the older Bioware games because you can be evil and thereâs actual consequences for it. Companions leave or attack you, there were âevil endingsâ etc.
My friend pointed out theyâve supposedly ditched black and white âGood and Evilâ choices and instead went for a more âcomplexâ moral ambiguity in recent games. And while thatâs all well and good in theory, in practice I find you can still be an absolute bastard in recent Bioware games. Itâs just itâs not really punished anymore and youâre railroaded into being seen as a hero.
You can commit genocide, murder innocent people for no reason, commit crimes willy and generally just be a complete murderous, trigger happy psychopath in Mass Effect and at the end everyone will still think youâre a great hero to be looked up to and admired instead of a war criminal who needs imprisonment.
Even if an extreme Renegade Shepardâs actions are tolerated by the top brass because of their Spectre status and vital role in the fight against the Reapers, they should be reviled by everyone else as the rabid dogs on a very loose leash that they are.
The Dragon Age series does it better in that companions will actually call you out for being a bastard but at the same time youâll still be treated like a flawless superhero by everyone else. Mass Effect companions at worst will lightly chastise you for wiping out an alien race or gunning down an innocent civilian if youâre lucky.
tl;dr; games with choices absolutely should have consequences for immoral actions. Itâs a warped fictional universe where a war criminal can be hailed as a hero. Itâs justified in a dark setting where itâs supposed to be warped (Dragon Age, which ironically actually does have mild consequences for being a dick.) but in more optimistic settings like Mass Effect it comes across as jarring.
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Im going to jump out of the whole line here I guess⌠but maybe⌠not being able to get all the love interest? I mean, I know it sounds dumb, like, why having a love interest if you wont get her/him in the end? Well, we really arent that of a cassanova, at least, Im not. I would like to see in some stories the possibilities of loving a female character in my case, and having her loving someone else instead. Or refusing us. Yeah, its good when you start to flirt, then go out and then you are a couple, but when you replay and the same happens with every other love interest⌠looks less possible. It would look also like imposing a love interest to the reader, but I dont know, it would be something refreshing I guess. Just my oppinion 
I dunno if Mass Effect is all that optimistic. I mean youâre basically facing the galaxy equivalent of doomsday throughout the entire trilogy.
Like I can still see Shepardâs government looking in the other direction no matter how much of a dick he was (especially if heâs putting humans first), though Iâd agree that there should have been a lot of times where certain companions should have been leaving his side for various reasons. A lot of it was inconsistent writing as well.
For example Ashley hilariously tends to get a lot of flak for being a âspace racistâ. Try traveling with her AND Wrex. Ashley ends up coming off like an alien lover. Seriously, on my first play through I didnât even know Ashley was supposed be some racist, since Wrex was pretty much taking the role of the âmore aggressive party memberâ going on rants about genociding the Rachni and such, while Ashley was saying stuff like âOh I wouldnât be able to sleep at night making a decision like that!â or not even agreeing with the whole Terra First movement.
Would have been nice to have some consistency with the characters.
My problem with a lot of games in general is they go way too light on the whole âdarksideâ path. Iâm not necessarily just talking about the consequences of evil actions either Iâm talking that you never really get the option to do anything really all that evil or if you do, it doesnât matter since the writing is either so bad, you donât care about the characters (Just one of my problem with most new bioware games) or it doesnât matter since the setting is grim.
For example some of the Fallout games (Well at least 1,2 and New Vegas) have some of the better evil choices, the whole world is pretty crapsack so you doing just âone more evil thingâ doesnât really matter in the scheme of things. Though granted I donât mind that though since itâs at least somewhat consistent and there usually is still a minor consequence of you just locking yourself out from being friends with a certain faction or you have bounty hunters perpetually after you.
Arguably the only one still today where I actually could only do an evil playthrough once was Planescape Torment. Shoving Morte back into the Pillar of Skulls, selling Dakkon into slavery to half demon, killing Annah, etc. Yeah could only do that once.
Blowing up Megaton and the BOS in Fallout 3 or having Alister executed and killing Liliana in DA 1, yeah I did that on just about every playthrough. Lol.
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Brighter would probably be the better word. Sure, the galaxyâs about to be horribly consumed by Roboshoggoths but besides that galaxyâs dominated by a variety of well-meaning peaceful government. Iâd consider it a fairly optimistic and pleasant setting if it wasnât for the omnicidal god-like robots.
In stark contrast, alot of people in say, the 40k universe would probably find being conquered by Necrons to be the same shit as usual. The Imperium of Man being what it is, being ruled by Robo-Necromancers could actually be an improvement.
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I was directed to this thread for a conversation I started in another thread. Iâve blurred potentially triggering content.
A recently-left-unfinished WIP (the name of which I wonât mention due to the content) had the player control a psychopathic serial killer MC who tortured and killed three people to build up enough courage to kill their abusive mother. The game never presents the MCâs actions as moral or just, and we are never meant to believe that they are a good person. However, the game recently added a sex scene with an RO where the MC gaslights and manipulates the RO into non-consensual sex.
I raised the point that this is likely a violation of CoGâs content standards, and also brought up that the content had no warning in the main post. Another poster respectfully disagreed and said that the content in question was not portrayed as good in the context of the MC doing many terrible things, and that the author had made several posts indicating such content would be in the game. Other posts were (respectfully) made regarding the subject, but this is the summary of the important points.
The greater conversation here is whether an MC should be allowed to have the choice to participate in non-consensual sex with another RO if the context of the story portrays the MC as a terrible person that the player canât sympathize with, and if such a portrayal is a violation of CoGâs content standards. To be clear, I believe such an option shouldnât be allowed and that it is a violation despite the context. I simply want to hear opinions from other community members and see what we deem acceptable.
(Also this goes without saying, but please be respectful and sensitive when discussing this because this content can be especially triggering for many.)
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I believe that the context of a decision is always important. I donât think rape should be depicted positively, which I think should go without saying. I do think however that limiting artistic expression is harmful to the quality of their work.
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I personally have less problems with someone writing about the non-consensual sex, but I do have a problem thinking about why anybody should want to choose this as an option.
I happen to read in several texts, what some players wanted for options, and there were several, which made me think, why someone would want such an option to be available. As I am writing my own game, I am not sure, which options should be included, because the player want to play like that kind of MC or how much is to much. I personally would not pick such options, but I like to play nice chars, because I donât like harming even written people^^ (Yeah I am strange). But since bad, is always bad for me, I find it even harder to decide, what of to much(for me) is to much for everyone. At the moment I only plan for the player to play rude or manipulative ( in a way to get free drinks or someone to like the MC).
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Going by whatâs ben said in the regard to the game at hand, the reason was more on the âI, the author, want this in, despite my testers saying itâs a bad ideaâ.
âlimitingâ artistic impression is not the same as saying âcâmon, dude, you mainly do this sh*t for attention at all costs, cut it outâ
generally speaking, 9.5 out of 10 cases people who justify writing/creating such content, defending it against the advice and request of other people as âbut it is MY visionâ or âI see nothing wrong with itâ are, frankly, asstwats
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One justification brought up commonly is the âitâs realisticâ spiel.
To which I say âIs it realistic in your setting? What about good things happening? why are they so sparse? Good things happen too, why are they deemed unrealistic?â
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Frankly sexual assault being used in fiction should be handled incredibly lightly. This is even more important in interactive fiction, where the player has a firsthand seat in what happens.
I get wanting to tell whatever story you want, but something this significant should simply be avoided for IF.
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Just gonna throw in my two bits, in relation to artistic vision and authorial intent. Reading through a thread yesterday which re-directed me here, the author of MMM was pushing quite frequently how edgy and dark the story was, claiming that itâd be the darkest CSG ever and whatnot, which is⌠strange. I havenât played MMM but to me it sounds like a slasher fic above anything else. Relying on audience shock factor over having an actually dark narrative. In that regard, forcing the audience into sexual assault certainly is shocking, but Iâd argue it falls short of dark. The audience isnât given choice, to whether or not they can justify such an action to themselves, theyâre just forced to. Its like being forced to eat a food you donât like, itâs disgusting, youâll feel gross about it, but ultimately itâs not your fault, that lies on whoever forced you to eat the food, you arenât accountable. Compare that to something like Fallen Hero, where the audience gets to choose whether or not they commit things like murder, and is held accountable for their actions
TL;DR: the author seemed to want a dark and edgy story, and while itâs certainly not shy on edgy, it wholly misses the dark mark
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Iâm going to repost my words from about 11 months ago, regarding an author/developer using rape as a choice in If game design:
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To be clear, this scene is the MCâs, and by extension, the playerâs choice to engage in correct? As in⌠I would have to pick the option (mind you I havenât played MMM in quite a while) to go to that specific scene, correct?
The few times I have played through the demo, Iâve never pursued any of the romance options mainly because itâs jarring IMO to pursue a romance if youâre playing as this psychopathic serial killer whoâs sole mission is to kill their abusive mother.
Back to the thread topic: I think that leaving the option there for the player to pursue is the authorâs right, in that this is his game, and that probably by the time this scene happens players would be well aware that this isnât going to be nice candle light dinner with roses scattered everywhere, considering the previous content (Iâm assuming that this scene happens after the MC has tortured and killed several NPCs already; correct me if Iâm wrong - I havenât played the demo in months).
Within the context of the game - in that it is graphically violate from the get-go and so establishes quite clearly what kind of game itâs going to be -, I think that itâs the ultimately authorâs decision of whether or not they include rape, and by extension, allow the MC to be the rapist. I believe that the necessarily precautions - warnings, being put into the Adult category, etc. - should be taken beforehand.
In short, Iâm deferring to what RETowers and the rest of the forum mods have done in response to this event, Mainly because (1) I donât think I have a dog in this fight because MMM wasnât interesting to me and (2) because Iâm an asexual so the likelihood that I would even initiate a romance, moreso in MMMâs setting, is nonexistent.
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