Remind me, Jazz Age - that’s not the story about a character in the prohibition era trying to become a big name on Broadway, is it?
Yes, it is.
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Yeah, I remembered the scene you were talking about. That’s just one of a few times where the game completely brushes off whatever you set for your character’s moral stance in order to keep you stuck in the various drama points. I can think of two others:
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My character found alcohol to be abhorrent. Still wound up working at a speakeasy with next to zero argument. (But that I can forgive, because the game lets you act as an informant for the RO who works at the FBI.)
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I played my character to have a backwards mindset about unions (hey, it fits with the period the story’s set in, unions took a long time to really gain any momentum among the population). In fact, when asked, she told the pro-union RO right to her face that she felt that unions were pointless. Still kept getting invited to pro-union events by said RO, in spite of having made it clear that it’s basically impossible for them to work together.
There are other incidents, I just remember those two immediately at the moment. Honestly, there were a lot of things the game did that made me not super impressed with it - I wound up hooking up with the FBI agent and selling the speakeasy up the river more out of spite than my original character motivation of, “my character is law-abiding to a fault, thinks booze is gross, disagrees with being forced to work for a criminal organization, and is more than happy to be a mole for the FBI if it means her shot at Broadway doesn’t get compromised.” (As you can see, my character fits the period of the drama VERY well.)
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I think my experience is because I tried to play as a character that was law-abiding out of principle, but didn’t necessarily morally agree with the laws he was following. Which made just being in the speakeasy incredibly awkward, because he opposed it but not for the reasons one would normally expect. Like, I wasn’t out there trying to shut it down, I just really didn’t want any involvement in it and none of my decisions were ever what I wanted.
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In all honesty, the way you get caught up in the booze business seemed a bit limp-wristed, at least to me. The game’s blurb made it sound like a much more dramatic affair, but in gameplay it’s just, “the first person you meet gets you a job at a speakeasy and your character has no option to even try and say no even if you morally object,” which made me sit back like, “wait, that’s it?”
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Yeah, it felt like “this is the D&D story hook, except we’re not gonna tell you that so your character concept is bad for this campaign”
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I have such mixed feelings about Jazz Age. The setting feels brilliantly alive, the run-ins with actual historical figures are delightful, and I really enjoyed the Broadway bits. I thought there were actually many places where the author incorporated stats checks and the consequences of previous choices very naturally into the story, which just makes it all the more disappointing how much is forced or glossed over.
It annoyed me that my character wasn’t allowed to throw in completely with Lila’s cause or (especially) John’s, regardless of their personal moral standards, and I really didn’t enjoy the feeling that they were both being forced on me as potential love interests. The blurb text claims you can be gay, straight, or bi, but it’s a lot better if you go in with the mindset that you’re playing an orientation-locked bisexual character, because you end up having sexual and romantic tension with both ROs no matter how much you do to make it clear you’re interested in only one.
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That reminds me of another mechanic I hate (which isn’t that one; it just made me think of it). I hate when orientation select is tied to a specific character. There are many times when I’m about to click on an option that says “~No I’m not interested in this person at all” and then at the last second I realize… Oh, this is orientation select, and that’s the aro/ace option.
(I also hate both 1) aro/ace option being the same and 2) that option locking out romance routes, but it seems authors have a really hard time making the option meaningful without it being a lockout option in games that don’t have sexual content)
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It’s a bummer, yeah, because prohibition era America is a whole wealth of potential story that people just don’t ever try and tap into anymore, so the one and only story we have so far that does not taking the ball and running with it just feels… frustrating, honestly. I wanted to like it, but I couldn’t, because I was waiting for a big blowup between FBI and criminal in regards to Lila’s speakeasy, and it just never happened. There’s no hanging threat for picking one side over another - Lila doesn’t try and have you bumped off or made, in any other way, incapable of talking in order to protect her business if she catches you in the act of selling her out, John’s bosses don’t have you locked up for the rest of your earthly days if he catches you pitching in with Lila. Both sides just get hurt feelings, and that’s the worst of it. If you side with John, the speakeasy goes down without a fight. If you side with Lila, the big drama is talking John down from being such a hardass about alcohol, like the FBI just doesn’t exist as an entity beyond this one agent with a troubled history. It was not that simple in the actual times, I know that for certain.
And as for the Broadway stuff, there is, again, very little drama of any sort between pro-union actors and the bigwigs who are anti-union to maintain the status quo. Once again, picking one side causes the other to back down with a whimper. Sure, you might screw over your odds on Broadway if you play your cards wrong, but that’s it, and it’s an optional story beat anyhow, so if you’re not expressly trying to make it in the acting world, who wins or loses hardly matters anyhow.
That’s, I think, my biggest issue with Jazz Age - it doesn’t throw any real haymakers. It pulls its punches, regarding a topic that was very incensed for its time, for… no real good reason, that I can see.
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Yeah, right? Like, the most prominent example I have there is Zeus’ Dilemma - when you meet M(or, in my case) in that story, they’re used as the springboard point to establish sexuality, with the options being in the range of, “dear god this person is hot” (Ta-da! Now you’re into [insert sexuality here]!), “Meh, maybe if their gender was flipped I might be interested” (Welp, guess you swing for the opposing team now), to “Who cares, I don’t like people anyhow.” (Full ace/aro, you got it chief, which annoys the hell out of me every single time.)
Like, I get that it’s the bog standard way of doing it, and authors want to be creative, but please just give me the orientation selector as it is, no frills. That’s one decision that I want to be sure I’m making correctly, and honestly, the idea that my character decides their orientation by mulling over a piece of eye candy just breaks character for me too many times for me to be comfortable with - my characters do not judge appearances. They are personality first, looks second, every single time. It makes no sense for them to decide if they’re gay, straight, or somewhere else entirely by ogling someone’s butt.
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As an aromantic person I definitely notice looks first, I just tend not to think the person they selected is attractive at all. Or, even worse, they’re straight up not described at all. Worst of the worst, they’re described as “attractive”… first of all, how do you know what I think is attractive?, and second, why are you asking me whether I’m attracted to them or not if you just said they’re attractive?
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Or, they pick the one character out of the lineup who has the crappiest personality of the bunch, which is the one I always roll my eyes at. That’s another reason I don’t like orientation being tied to an RO, because nine time out of ten, I hate the RO you chose, so my inclination is to decide “no thanks,” and then I have to stop myself because I realize that I might be about to lock myself out of romance routes.
Basically what you initially said, more or less!
(Incidentally, I remember us both weighing in on the ace/aro thread that Eiwynn made not too long ago, and I recall us both agreeing on many of the same talking points, so this conversation was doomed to go full-circle. 
)
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I also had to stop myself from deliberately picking aromantic, even though I am, because uh yeah I still want a relationship even if flowers and romantic candlelit dinners aren’t going to change my level of attraction to someone.
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I’ve seen cases when orientation selection was brought up with a specific character where one of the options was something like “Although I’m attracted to women, she’s not really my type.”
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That’s actually one of the options in ZD, I think, or I might be mixing it up with another story that does that, I dunno.
Usually, I just rationalize the picking of such options as saying ‘I’m attracted to the fact that they are whatever gender(s) (or lack thereof, if agender, not that I’ve ever seen an explicitly agender RO) they are, but not necessarily any other part of them.’
I think it works as a justification. Different traits in the same individual can cause a combination of attraction, repulsion and indifference.
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That’s true, especially if you experience multiple types of attraction (sexual, romantic, platonic). I… don’t, so that rarely actually happens. Especially for someone I just met. But even for myself I could definitely see that for an RO who is physically attractive to me, but has lots of piercings, since I don’t really like piercings.
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I really hate unclear choices, like there’s a discussion going on, I get a bunch of reply options and when I pick one, it’s completely different from how it was presented to me. It often end up with a seemingly nice choice turning out to be an insult or worst once you see the full response and vice versa.
I also hate when you have to basically think EXACTLY like the author to understand which option correspond to which stat, I love Samurai of Hyuga but it happens a lot in it for exemple. Same when it come to being punished for ‘choosing wrong’ when there’s basically no way you could have known what the game wanted.
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1 when the best character in the book isn’t a romance option
2 personality stats and choices, cause no way in hell am I gonna agree with every one of them. Goes double if those stats change the story, cause while i greatly appreciate that kind of detail it’s just annoying when my character becomes super cynical when I was just being practical
3 not having saving and loading. One mistake in your run 80% of the way through the game? Sorry but you gotta go alllll the way back to the beginning. Love the authors here who add even basic versions of those systems 
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My very first post on this forum, I brought up this issue, and how my favorite stories just outright tell you which stat is being checked - not because it doesn’t break immersion. It does. Really bad. But because at least I know what I’m getting myself into.
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