Gay Representation in ChoiceScript games?

Whilst I understand why it could be easier to write a character for the author if their sexuality was set, and I understand why someone would do it, I don’t know why the OP prefers it over MC-dependent sexuality as a reader, rather than just complaining about people who are written badly because their character has no real personality.

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shrugs

That’s a matter of preference, I suppose. And there are a lot of complaints about specific characters in other threads already, so I’m not sure if there would be any reason to make a separate thread for that.

Ah, OK. I suppose that’s a fair point. If that’s what the guy wants, so be it.

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There’s also the point of whether a character IS just a “tool”, an object to be romanced, or ought to be treated as if they have their own life and agency. It’s an idea that’s been spreading in the dating sim/romance game community. When you’re writing a character, the more you go out of your way to treat them like a person, with their own preferences and choices and interests, the more lifelike the interaction with them becomes. To understand more about this theory, see: virtual girlfriends and real cake, as was the case in Hate Plus.

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Actually, as I think I stated in the opening post, I am quite torn between the two. MC-sexuality does, yes, let me romance whoever I want (which is good), but the characters in question aren’t really gay (I mean, they’re gay when I play, sure, but when a straight person plays, they’re straight, unless they’re explicitly bi/pansexual, that is), which means that, rather ironically, these games quite often have pretty low representation for actual gay characters.

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I’m not in favour of allowing for straight people to avoid all gay content. I don’t like that they can just pretend that everybody is straight. I don’t like that it can just be erased.

It’s also one of the reasons I’m not a fan of choosing your sexuality and that then preventing characters you’re not interested in from making moves upon you. I prefer it if you can just turn them down and say you’re not interested.

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So in my view, there are a few ways to actually have gay representation in games, all of which I think have been proposed earlier in the thread, but to recap:

One solution that has nothing to do with romance: simply having unromanceable gay side characters (whose orientations are therefore immune to the problem of MC-sexuality because they are unromanceable) would be a form of representation. People playing straight MCs would not be able to avoid the gay content this way.

Another would be to have same-sex ROs who are not romanced by the MC hook up with each other. This might not completely fix the problem, especially if both ROs are otherwise MC-sexual (they might still be bisexual - or even straight in other playthroughs). But again, it is a form of representation for same-sex relationships that players with straight MCs could not avoid.

Last but not least, it doesn’t have to be all or nothing for the ROs. You don’t need a cast entirely composed of MC-sexual ROs, or one with only set orientations for each RO. You can mix that up. For example, if you have 4 planned ROs, 3 can be some variety of MC-sexual or true bisexual/pansexual and 1 truly gay. Everyone could still have 2 options depending on their MC’s orientation - except for one of the straight MCs, who will only have one RO, but that doesn’t matter too much does it? They are not excluded entirely, and as people here have previously stated, so many other games cater primarily to straight MCs.
So for example, you can have a cast as follows:

  • 1 lesbian,
  • 1 female MC-sexual,
  • 1 male MC-sexual, and
  • 1 other male MC-sexual.

In this scenario, everyone has 2 options except for the straight male MC, who only has one. If you think it’s a problem to have only one option for the straight male MC, then you can either add another RO, or flip the gender of one of the male ROs to the opposite gender than that of the MC’s, and that would solve that. Of course, it would definitely be better to make the MC-sexual characters true bisexuals or pansexuals (or even one who thinks they’re straight, but gets seduced by a same-sex MC anyway). This solution isn’t ideal, but it’s much better than just making everyone MC-sexual, and offers more real gay representation. And again, straight MCs would not be able to avoid the gay content.

And as @FairyGodfeather astutely pointed out, if you don’t ask the MC’s orientation at the start (or if the answer to that question has no bearing on how the ROs react to the MC) then a straight MC could still be hit on by a RO of their gender, and thus would not be shielded from the gay content (and who knows, they might even go for the same-sex romance after all!)

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I don’t want being hit for anyone. I found it terribly done. I felt like harassed , because no author used a light flirting attempt. No all try to sexual attack me in random moments. And I don’t want any character forcefully launched at me like a rapist. I already give two Cog examples but Now a Bioware time. Dragon age 2 I was all great in my house when Isabella i never flirt with almost launched me to my bed in a passion attack. Then Anders try to kiss me Merril flirt with me afterwards i seen someone slain my mother and created a zombie husk with her and other woman… Sorry I don’t try actively to romance anyone of them I was with Fenris. And they acted so pissed when I said NO GO . So i really don’t want felt sexuàl attacked by any NPC. If there were something subtle like in real life I am ok. But all games that implemented it always tryed to forced me into romances.

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Anders in DA2 irritated me to no end since there was no “Hey guy I want to be your friend but I’m not interested” He is the only one to get pissed if you say no. I’m all for a “Hey girl lets get together…” “sorry, I’m only into girls” “oh ok” situation, like I said before with Guenevere I became 100% loyal to Arthur because he was cool with my “Sorry, I am only into other girls”. Obviously this approach is meant not just for lesbians but anyone not interested in a character.

I don’t want to stifle an author’s vision, one of the big reasons I don’t have my own work here is because while I might be able to write a romance for lesbian characters I don’t feel I can honestly do justice for everyone else and I would hate for anyone to think I was excluding them. So I get an author being unable to write me a love story, that’s fine, I would just like to know ahead of time that I’m not going to get what I want. If that means in the description outright saying “This is male only MC” or “This is only straight RO” or whatever fine. Outside of that I personally find having orientation being an option that happens quickly to be comforting to me, knowing I am getting into a story that I can identify with the character. There are a few things that my memory stretches back to and my name, being a girl and finding girls attractive happen to be 3 things that I knew as far back as the memory goes so having selections for those are ok to me.

I don’t want people to get me wrong thinking I don’t feel the options for assigning orientation upon meeting an NPC isn’t good or anything, I just feel better personally if its right away (unless in the description that yes, I can be with another woman)

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My first ever game on these forums, the one that won the first year of the CS Comp, contained a protagonist who identified as a lesbian.

Write the game you want to write. Write the game that interests you. Just say in your first post, that your protagonist is female, that she’s only attracted to other women, and you’ve no plans to change that, and don’t want to discuss it. If you do that, then we mods will have your back if anyone tries to argue the point.

There are games on the forums, and in the Hosted Games that are locked male, that are locked heterosexual, so I definitely don’t see the problem with writing the game that interests you.

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A game like that could be awesome if you give me options to definition my personality beyond the you are lesbian. I am hetero but I like role playing other feelings for my characters. I want could say Yes Mc is lesbian but she is much more. A badass poisoner or a soldier a shy nurse o whatever in between. And please not force characters trying to romance us by force.

I understand that, I pulled out an old WIP as a point of games that forced you to play straight the other night. My issue is that I will feel guilty excluding anyone intentionally or not. I’m a really huge Nicholas Sparks fan and always after I think to myself “it would have been nice if she had fallen for another woman”, The stories are still beautiful to a sappy romantic like myself, but I feel a kind of disconnect afterward as opposed to movies that feature lesbian characters.

I want to include others as much as I wish to be included, I support people being whomever they are, for instance one of my besties is a gay male, and I love him to pieces, but I’m not sure if I wrote a story that I could do justice in his eyes with writing a male/male romance…its just too foreign to me, its not that I object, its just I don’t have personal experience.

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I’m of the opinion that you’re be writing for a very much under-served audience, one that just doesn’t have access to the same sorts of stories, that rarely has the luxury of being included. You’d be writing for others like yourself, who want stories that fully immerse them.

I think it’s different writing a game for people who have like a zillion other games which they can play a protagonist like themselves, and writing a game for those that have maybe a handful. You don’t have to write a story for everybody.

No media really satisfies everyone. Different people like different things.

Write a sappy romantic story about the love between women, if that’s what interests you. If you’re super worried about inclusivity throw in a token male NPC that can also be romanced, but only if you actively pursue him.

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Awww now you’re making me cry! :cry:

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Surely you mean:

If you’re super worried about inclusivity throw in a token male NPC who turns out to be gay if you actively pursue him.

:grin:

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Well for you ParrotWatcher my story would certainly have a gay male, and he would be awesomeness! :smiley:

Edit AND MAIN to the story :stuck_out_tongue:

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@ParrotWatcher bringing out the best in people. :smile_cat:

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Aww sorry!

I’d just much rather read you writing about something you know about, something that matters to you, because I can guarantee you there’ll be others it matters to too. Those sorts of stories are important, and we won’t get them, if we don’t write them.

AHAHA! So much better!!!

I always wanted that young adult story, of the protagonist who’s caught between her love of two men, and trying to pick between them! Which shall it be, the sexy dark brooding one, or her formerly awkward but now handsome best friend that’s always been there for her? Will it be the bad boy, or the nice guy! Who shall she choose? But she’s so undecided! She’ll end up breaking one of their hearts!

Only for her to discover the two of them have got together with her being completely oblivious to it.

I’ve seen those sorts of love triangles before where one character’s gay. But it usually goes heroine pines after gay guy, gay guy pines after straight guy, straight guy loves and ends up with heroine. I’d like to see it end differently.

Okay whenever I write that story it always ends differently. It’s what totally torpedoed one of my last attempts at writing a game. I’d a female protagonist because I was wanting to do the Cinderella thing. For male romantic interests she’d a choice between the very proper aloof Prince and the roguish adventurer who’d been her best friend!

The guys were meant to strongly dislike each other. I mean everyone else disliked the Prince, because they saw him as arrogant and stuck up. The Adventurer was all, nope! I don’t hate him! AGHH!!! I just couldn’t write a rivalry between them, they refused to cooperate. They refused to fight over the female protagonist.

And it completely torpedoed this game I’d been writing. And I ended up much preferring their story, but it wasn’t really something I could make a game out of.

Grumble.

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You can always make a story out of the life of a cute prince (or any cute guy really, but a politics element is almost always and additional draw for me), maybe the arrogance is a shell he needs to protect himself as he tries to navigate his way through the deadly decadent court? Or maybe he just has horrible parents who punish him terribly if he doesn’t act “proper”.
Of course if you did decide to make the prince the protagonist, maybe he is just unfairly seen as “arrogant” no matter what the player does, since in politics there’s ultimately no pleasing everybody and the ones you don’t pander to are going to grumble.
Then again I just love deconstructing the “prince charming” trope and archetype. :wink:

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And if he’s got a dashing bandit boyfriend, even better.

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