Being in an IF

Ok. I totally understand you guys. Thanks for giving me perspective!

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Off the top of my head I can think of a few games/authors who have put fans in their games, to varying levels of involvement (on a scale of “just tell me what name to use” to “completely designing the character”)–some (I assume most) of it is just done at the author’s discretion but I know in the past the company has had authors auction off designing/naming NPCs in future games for charity. I think the most recent occurrence was in 2016

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I went through the blog recently and yes, 2016 seems right. Don’t remember which games it was for.

If you mean like in contest cameos like they used to do to books and tv-shows, probably.

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I suppose I could see it being interesting, but auctioning off content for money seems like it would be something to run by staff, before adding it to your Patreon. Just to be on the safe side.

Maybe as minor side characters? I don’t personally self-insert in the majority of games (Grim&I being an exception. That one was a bit of a personal journey), so I can handle that disconnect. :woman_shrugging:

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I fully agree, but the auction I was referring to was run by CoG proper

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I was actually specifically referring to the mentions of Patreon and contests in the op :slight_smile:

Sorry for any confusion!

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Dunno bout putting people in stories like that chief, since I personally am a sarcastic asshole, so depending on the story I was in I could quite easily ruin the flow. Same as if someone very happy and sweet were to be put into a grimdark story, probably confuse peeps a little.

If it was just having one sentence or background characters named after you though that would be fine.

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I can imagine that it wouldn’t turn out well even if “we” would have just a brief appearance in the game. If someone or their OC would be put in a game bc they won a contest or something then that could be done well (just look at Sifer from ZE:SH and how upset people were when they found out that she can’t be saved), but if it’s something forced on the author then I can imagine that they wouldn’t be so passionate about writing the readers character than their own which they already have planned for their story.

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You guys are right…it was a fleeting thought, though not very well thought out on my part. Thanks for your posts, it really helped me appreciate the writers and all they do, even more :heart: cheers!

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On the general note though:

Personally I would love to see a full list of what characters in which games are the fan-named ones.

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@MeltingPenguins

Ashley, Austin, Lakota and Victor in UnNatural are based off fan suggestions early on in it’s inception.

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I’ll do it. Send me your preferred fantasy race and your preferred method of getting killed.

I’d be an elf who gets the gout.

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@will Elf is my jam…death by mud wrestling :stuck_out_tongue_winking_eye:

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Okay now I’m curious…

I put a friend who helped me immensely during the development of Street Jam named @Talyrion in it as a reward on top of being in the beta test and received no complaints of broken immersion or anything.

I’m more than willing to do that with anyone who contributes enough to any of my other games like Spacehouse Rock or Become Mortal. Or as has been suggested, people who become Patrons, just ask or message me.

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Mark what race and how you want your self-insert character to meet their end! The poll records who answers what, so I’ll just cross reference it.

There are three polls (two for your demise) because of all the options. Read through them all and be paralysed by indecision!

Race:

  • Human
  • Elf
  • Dwarf
  • Halfling (i.e. the Not Hobbits)
  • Half-Orc
  • Half-Dragon
  • Half-Demon
  • Crowfolk

0 voters

Demise:

  • Old age
  • Stabbed by a vagrant for your delicious pie
  • Toasted and eaten by a dragon
  • Trampled by horses
  • Trampled by orcs
  • Brain aneurysm
  • Shot in the face with a ballista
  • Cut in half by an ogre with a fishing line
  • Drowned
  • Tripped and fell on your face
  • Heart attack
  • Cancer of the lungs, liver, throat, stomach, and skin
  • Slipped and fell off a cliff
  • Rammed to death by an angry sheep
  • Turned into a zombie by a wizard who accidentally cast the wrong spell to cure your leprosy
  • Asphyxiated by magical vines
  • Stabbed one thousand, four hundred and thirty-five times by an angry pixie with a toothpick
  • Turned to stone by a snake-haired monster woman
  • Turned to stone for fun, as an experiment, and forgot to activate the spell to turn you back
  • Poisoned by an apple meant for a lonely princess

0 voters

And if you don’t like any of those, here’s more:

  • Rolled off the wrong side of the bed and landed on a building block toy
  • Drank too much, passed out, and never woke up
  • Crushed by a dead giant owl after watching it fight a giant moth for an hour
  • Gout
  • Malaria
  • Flesh-Eating Bacteria
  • Smited by a bolt of lightning from a god for wearing the wrong type of fabric on a Thursday
  • Drew the short straw to try out that mysterious new mushroom
  • Insulted a warlock’s mother and got your arms turned into legs and your legs turned into arms and your face turned upside down
  • Spontaneous combustion
  • Impaled by an icicle chucked by a yeti
  • Beaten to death by a blind ogre who thought you were a gazelle
  • Roasted by goblins on a spit
  • Collapsed from exhaustion after defeating one hundred and one savage orc warriors in single combat one after the other
  • Moose

0 voters

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You have extra left bracket on the final poll tag. Noicely done.

shouldn’t will’s polls be in their own thread?

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A bit of advice to people who want to be added to their favourite games. Be mindful of your request and how it fits into the author’s world.

For example if your favourite game is set in a world where everyone are mages and can control a single element. Don’t ask for your character to control two elements.

An author will be less willing to add a broken character than a well thought out character that fits the world like a glove.

When I let people make suggestions I ask for a name, age a bit of a background, any notable skills. Then I take that information and expand it into the world letting it grow into the UnNaturalverse.

The suggestions for Ashley, Austin, Lakota and Victor were simple, well thought out and fitted nicely within the world I was writing so it was more easy for them to be incorporated and grow into the characters they are today.

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