Gender-locking ROs, gender flipping, and importance of gender in relationships

Game Development Writing and Content
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I will piggyback on your comment. :pig:

I just have one gender-flippable character in my WIP, and I just had two gender-flippable characters in Zip!, and in both cases, I viewed the amount of work implementing even that admittedly modest amount of code as fairly significant. However, it was necessary because in those stories there are very limited romanceable options, and so those options needed to be available to everyone regardless of gender or orientation.

I don’t think I actually wrote any content that changed (i.e. no changes in clothing, mannerisms, etc) but still just keeping all the pronoun variables organized in my head, and doing all of those @ sentences {She runs/he runs/they run} significantly slowed my pacing in those sections. I admit to breathing a sigh of relief when those scenes would end and I could move on to scenes where I could get back into a smoother writing flow. I’m thinking of writing a romance next year but honestly the thought of page after page of inserting code every sentence or two seems overwhelming.

With my Community College Hero series, I’ve always been too attached to the characters as fully-formed humans to relinquish to the player any control over who those characters are, whether it’s gender, ethnicity, personality, etc.

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I suppose this is coming from someone’s perspective who’s first game started out with those variables in pretty much every sentence, but if it’s any consolation, when you’re writing in that code in every scene, eventually your brain just starts thinking of the code as those pronouns. Sometimes immediately after writing, if I message someone on discord, I’ll actually start to type ${NPCGender1} instead of he/she LOL It truly becomes second nature so you don’t lose as much flow.

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Honestly I prefer gender-locked ROs. Seems to help with the characterization process better for my brain. Also, while it is totally unrelated to what I think about this issue at all, in my observations, it seems like gender-locked ROs have more smut content for those who are wondering.

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I don’t like gender-locked ROs. In 9 out of 10 games with locked ROs there is not an RO I like, making for an unsatisfying experience. I generally just don’t play games with gender-locks anymore. I don’t understand the “deeper characterization” argument either. Aside from specific biological functions, I’m unaware of a personality trait that is exclusive to any gender (I’m an old-school “gender is a construct” person). So unless/until there are intimate scenes dealing with specific body parts or bearing children, I just don’t see how it makes a difference aside from locking out a lot of players. This goes triple for sexuality-locked ROs. I play for escapism/fantasy, if I want to be rejected by a straight person I can just go outside :joy:.

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I thought this is a really good point that deserved another mention, but I’m gonna come at it in a different way - I definitely think whether or not gender-locking or sexuality-locking a character allows for better characterisation depends on what the author’s doing with that information, in the story. If gender/sexuality is not a big part of the character’s narrative arc, then I couldn’t agree more with @MadAdam: I’m uncomfortable with the idea that certain personality traits or behaviours are exclusive to gender.

That said, if gender/sexuality is a huge part of the story, i.e. really affects the character’s in-story or in-game experiences, then I think there is a case to be made that fixing a character’s gender or sexuality allows the writer to directly address how these factors make the characters who they are - or write this into the story in a more meaningful way, and thereby add richness to the character. E.g. being a woman in sports, being a queer person in sports, I think those could legitimately change your experience.

I think for the most part though, unless ^this is the case, I wouldn’t want characters to be gender/sexuality-locked simply 'cause the author wrote them with certain genders/sexualities in mind. Also this:

HAHAHA!

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Personally, since I almost never play a self-insert and I enjoy replaying games (sometimes many times) from different perspectives, I prefer gender-locked ROs. For some reason, even though it doesn’t bother me at all to play the exact same game as a deeply religious perfectionist lesbian elf one time and a perpetually horny heteroflexible male slacker half-orc a few weeks later - in fact, trying on different character perspectives is part of the fun for me - it does grate somewhat to step back into the same world and find the other characters aren’t quite the way I remember them. Although it’s interesting to observe how my own subjective responses to a set personality and backstory may differ based on whether it belongs to a man or a woman, it breaks the immersion for me when I keep having to remind myself, “Oh yeah, so-and-so’s a man this time.”

But I also recognize that if I did play self-inserts, and in particular if I didn’t usually replay games, it would be a real bummer if the character I personally found most appealing wasn’t attracted to people like me. I mean, that was pretty much the story of my life up until I met my husband, it’s not something I’m chomping at the bit to relive over and over, and it doesn’t generally make for the most interesting storytelling either. So I definitely understand why some people prefer gender-flippable ROs, and I wouldn’t want to take that away from them. Perhaps the best solution is for writers to do what suits their own vision and the needs of the story, which will presumably result in there being plenty of games of both sorts. And if it weren’t too complex, maybe some writers would consider letting the player make the decision to go with the writer’s default gender (and possibly orientation) for each character or make them all romanceable by the player, with the understanding that if you choose the former, some characters may be off limits.

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This is why I dislike it when games set RO gender based on the MC’s sexuality, especially since it usually leads to very gender-imbalanced casts if the MC is straight or gay. If a RO is gender-selectable, there should be an option for the player to pick their gender independantly of picking the MC’s sexuality. After all, the MC usually romances one character at a time, and it’s not necessary for all the other ROs to match the MC’s sexuality.

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I like gender locked NPCS because that means they perfectly fit in the story if you choose them yourself it could be turn out odd

And I lieke to create my Mc the way I want… Why?
If you play a male Mc who is a King or somethingim in if he can have fun with everyone but in the end the RO must Fit with the story so if this means the MC Can’t have any relationship you want it’s absolutely finde by me because if you don’t have your romance and this romance is against any rule the author give for his world… Well it’s absolutely no win seriously the RO option should always benefit the characters and the story so if an NPCS only purpose is to be like your father or friend so be it and npcs gender lock is perfectly fine by me because I don’t want to choose every gender one by one … To be hones I’m absolutely lazy when I have the button make very Npc female/male then I press one of it and boom… The experience is spoiled… So please choose for me just let the male be males, the female be female

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Interesting thought that character are created either male or female and then just get switched around. Is that a thing? I normally think of the character First and then If I decide against switching I decide the gender which can take a while, but sometimes there is a character who just feels a certain way and that is a character that can not be switched but that might just be me, because I do not think that character has much to do with being Male, female or non-binary.

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Wayhaven is pretty much the go-to reference whenever CoG romance is discussed, and all the ROs are gender-switchable without any detriment to their characterisation. There’s literally nothing that stops making sense in either version of the Bravos.

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some games let the player choose the Gender …u have a NPC named eric or something And he is acting like a male the whole game but if the player choose every npc is female because it was the first option… well it could be strange

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I was reading from the top and just stopped reading. I feel so offended. I’m so mad. I guess certain you will just say my pride got hurt, but this is so rude. You could just say sorry that I assumed stuff about heterosexual. However, you just laugh and find this funny that heterosexual is offended by your comment. You want respect, but you don’t want to respect heterosexuals.

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What? :thinking:

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one of the most memorably off-putting things I’ve encountered in a Choicescript game was when I played a game as my go-to MC, a gay man, and saw the option to have feelings for one of the (only two) male ROs was greyed out. I was like, ‘okay… prob have to increase that stat if I want to romance him later on, cool’ just for this character’s romance content to keep appearing greyed out later on. At that point, I’d been grinding building a relationship so that’s when I realized this was supposed to indicate that the RO was straight. I just remember how ugly and unsatisfying that realization was. Like jfc if it’s that important for the dude to be straight, either don’t provide the option at all or, idk–are writers that afraid of The Conversation after a queer person admits feelings for a straight person? Too afraid of homophobes to write it, or too afraid of queer backlash in case we don’t like how it’s written? I am talking about character-driven games, especially ones written like novels. that weirdness could have been a single short scene or simply disabling the choice for a male PC, period–if it’s that important for the dude to be straight :roll_eyes: just lock it! don’t wave the lock in my face, wth :joy::joy:

i found that implementation so, so weird and uncomfortable. i interpret greyed out options as like… teasers, you know? incentives to circle around and play again, make different choices, play a different protagonist, etc etc. a heads up from the writer that i missed out on something i probably want to check out later. it’s one of my fave things you can convey with code in this script. so seeing that done with a romance option’s gender preference was like… ew. i think that’s the most succinct way of summarizing my feelings on it tbh :joy:

on the topic of flipping genders, my game has two gender-flippable binary ROs and one non-binary RO who is like… expression-swappable…? Originally the two flippable binary love interests were a boy (Rohan) and a girl (Vivian), but I didn’t like that players who like girls would only have two options. (ok sapphics i was literally, specifically thinking about sapphics ngl :rofl::rofl:) So Rohan became Rupan/Rohan… but I’d already become enamored with the idea of a male version of Vivian and that character is now Vivian/Vincent.

Anyway, why do I say any of that? To point out that while my initial reason for making gender-swappable romance options was logistics and player experience, the main reason was because I wanted to. I couldn’t resist making both of them swappable because the opposite binary versions of these characters genuinely intrigue me in their differences and similarities. I get some people do it to be inclusive–which is good, to make myself clear–but it so often rings hollow to me, like they were reaching for a quota. And with other writers, it seems like some ROs are gender-swappable for the pure fact of it increasing your potential readership–our money works the same, or whatever the phrase is. My personal opinion as a queer reader, though, is I don’t wanna read someone’s obligatory gay romance routes :joy: not anymore than they wanted to write them, at least.

If someone feels like they have to be inclusive, I’ve got a news flash for ya: you do not. No one is making you. You have just come to the correct conclusion that less people will read your interactive fiction if it is more exclusive than inclusive.

And ofc, anyone can make calculations and writing decisions based on that. That’s a writer’s prerogative and the smarter move. But if you don’t actually want to make a gender-swappable RO… I feel like you shouldn’t. just my opinion lol at a cook-off, if i gotta choose between a burger made by someone who loves making burgers vs. someone who’s only on the grill cause they were pressured into it… it’s not a perfect analogy, but i think i’ve made my point :laughing:

*edit: @The_Lady_Luck when people’s reading preferences do not match up with your fiction sales, that is not punishment. that is literally the free market :joy:

i love how some people who feel burdened by an audience’s hope for inclusivity in their creative work (which just… blatantly implies that people are interested in what you’ve written otherwise) often feel entitled to our money just for including us under duress… but also feel entitled to our money even if they don’t, like :woozy_face: bruh? sorry, but us marginalized have finally gotten accustomed to having options? so :man_shrugging:t5: just do you and i’ll spend my money on the cool shit where i get to play as my queer self and my queer MCs. we can all coexist without either of us pretending we’re getting crucified over this

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I have literally seen this being framed as readers ‘punishing’ the author, and forcing them to change their story, which is such an entitled way to look at it.
As if they are entitled to everyone’s attention, and some readers having limits on what they want to read/play, that doesn’t fit their game, is unfair to them.

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I don’t have a problem with ROs being a set gender. The exception being if there are more male than female ROs, or if a ‘special’ RO (say, the villain) is set to be male because then I feel like I’ll get the short end of the stick since I’m not interested in romancing dudes.

Now ROs being gender-locked in the sense that I can only romance them if my MC is a certain gender I do have a problem with and I probably won’t play a game where that is the case. I want to pick who fits my MC’s story best, not the one chick that happens to be into women.

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I don’t have a problem with either gender-locked ROs or gender-flippable ROs. I also don’t have a problem with orientation-locked ROs, as long as there’s a sufficient range to include options for everyone. However, I will only select M or NB ROs. I don’t even always read the descriptions for F ROs. Though I generally don’t even play games that don’t have multiple options per gender.

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In my WIP I did exactly what you said. I locked the villain character as male, and the BFF character as female - which are not equivalent archetypes at all. Thank you for pointing that out so I don’t make that mistake.

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I’ve been deleting and writing responses trying to respond to this without going overboard. I’m probably still going to piss people off. Sorry in advance for the wall of text.
When it comes to gender, I don’t see an issue with gender lock if there is a reason for it. Whether it be due to locking sexuality (which I want to touch on later) or if your story has a gendered societal structures within your story that make it necessary.
With gender flippable, I think the main issue would be “gender for all”. Gender flipping as a device for RO customization for MC preferences is perfectly fine so long as the characters are written well. Best way to do it is write them personality based vs gender based; ie, avoid “men think, act, speak like this” and “women think, act, speak like this” which perpetuates gender stereotypes that walk drunkenly on toxicity traits. Someone mentioned BioWare, and I think in this regard they really shine because MCs didn’t feel like you were playing a man if you were playing a woman or vice versa. You can play them and you feel the character. Gender flippable ROs should ideally be like that. The issue is with the “gender for all”, which is rough for people who are bisexual because it becomes limiting to them. Having individual sets allows for them to find which ROs they are comfortable with having male or female without limiting anyone else. Honestly individual set genders is probably the best option as it lets people settle into their own space in your story. Is it realistic? No. But you could also add “randomization” for ROs for those if you want to maintain that balance of “reality”. Comes down to how much work you want to put in.
As for sexuality locks and balances, if an author chooses to lock a sexuality in, I think it needs to be for a reason, same as gender. Sexuality is a core thing for an individual. Regardless of the sexuality being discussed it can bring different layers to stories and depending on how it’s addressed, add more depth to your characters if explored. Especially if there are issues you as an author feel need a space to have it addressed. I just think if you have made a conscious decision to lock a character’s sexuality you should keep it locked. Inclusion is nice, but I will put this as an absolute, treating sexuality like it’s a flip switch and changing it because of reader pressure is disgusting and gross. Whether you’re making a gay person straight/bi or a straight person gay/bi or having an ace character pushed to make them straight/gay/bi/etc so readers can pursue someone they are interested. Equally gross because it perpetuates a thought that people’s sexuality can be changed with enough pressure. Do not do this under the banner of inclusion. All sexualities are valid and should be respected, not pressured to change once set. If you feel you need more X representation rather than force conversioning your character, add X as a new element. Or go have a nice adventure in that character choosing to explore it rather than making it a switch flip change. If you aren’t sure how to address these things, aren’t comfortable with it, or dont want the challenge just don’t lock the sexuality and stick to the safety of playersexual.

To the people who said hetero erasure isn’t a thing, sure it’s not and they do have an abundance of hetero representation, but trying to coerce sexuality changes IS a thing. Even for heteros. It’s sick watching people trying to flip someone’s sexuality. Whether it be a real person or a fictional one because people think their desires are justification enough for conversion and thus feel it’s okay to pressure authors for change. Sincerely an ace person who is tired of watching readers and authors in this tango.

That being said, there are a lot of authors that need to do more research into the variety of sexuality spectrums when they do move out of playersexual. There is so much inaccuracy on the ace spectrum and with bisexuality and pansexuality often getting thrown in as interchangeable and the same thing that it’s a bit sad. Inclusion is nice, but accurate representation is important.

However, at the end of the day, as an author you need to do what best suites the story and the vision you have of your characters. The MC is the player’s controlled (relatively speaking) choice within an author’s story sandbox.

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I’ve read the majority of this thread, I think, but can you tell me if that’s said somewhere here or if these are things you’ve read elsewhere in IF discussion? I don’t participate in fandoms, so I have no idea what that kind of demand looks like from people, but I’d like to. Reader entitlement, especially like that, is gross no matter who the demographic is or what the intent might be.