There is a certain advantage to LI’s who flip depending on your preferences in games where romance can prove to be tricky. Like:
One game has 2 major LI’s, player-sexual or just bi, one of whom gender-flips and one has a set gender, female. So a PC who is interested in just men has only a single real, full-romance option, whilst a bi or female-inclined PC has 2. Fair? I think not. Especially if said option’s romantic route or just personality is not to your tastes.
Another game has 2 bisexual and one gay LI. Each of them has a set gender. Some PC’s definitely are going to have fewer options here.
Yet another game has romance options that lock you out for some other reason: faction, ideals, stats…
The list can go on. Point is, someone will always be missing something that a different player would be able to have. Which is unfortunate.
Ideally, I would have at least 2 people of my preferred gender to romance if I so choose - 2 fully-developed characters with unique personalities. And it doesn’t matter much to me how the writer achieves this.
BUT - and it is important - their gender, whatever it is, however fluid or constant gameplay-wise it is, must be reflected within the story. And I’m not just talking about pronouns and appearance descriptions. There are subtler nuances that are often missing when I compare characters with set and player-adjusting genders. I’d prefer those nuances to be present. Hence my inclination toward set options - when you write someone with a particular gender in mind, it shows. And it is good.
Generally “a man - a person of player’s prefered gender and sexuality - a woman” model seems like a win to me. The only problem here is to write the middle person in such a way that they won’t appear to be catering to everyone at once and losing in integrity as a result. And talented authors can pull this off, I believe.
A number of the games that have blown other people away do have genderflipping love interests. And speaking for myself, when I look at the CoG slate of games, I don’t find most of the characters who gender-flip to be “blank slate” or “generic.” Their character’s distinctiveness is just in other areas than their pronouns. (In games that do have generic characters, by the same token, I don’t find that it varies from the gendered to the genderflipping characters – they tend to all be generic, usually because the game is a plot-driven romp.)
While people do have strong tastes on this point, it’s worth recognizing them as tastes. Expect to blow some people away with your genderswapping love interests and not others.
The best gender flip I seen so far have been gold Eagle the man female version of the character has distinct different feel and differences in personality. Mech Ace does it great as Well! I daresay choice of robot does the best because the gender flip is actually two different people which I like.
I’ll second that. Evertree Inn’s genderflips, both of them, are the best I’ve seen in a CoG/HG game. Nevertheless, the flavor text in Evertree often differs depending on the gender of the RO, so there are small but meaningful gender-based differences in the writing.
I think on the whole it’s more satisfying if characters in the story seem like fully fleshed out people with their own preferences. Consider the following situations:
A: ROs can all be picked in any given playthrough, you just have to pick the right conversation option.
B: ROs can all be picked, but you have to have a high relationship score first.
C: Each RO has their own set of requirements or turnoffs
A can feel manipulative, and B can feel like you’re crafting the character’s choices just to unlock a relationship option. With C though, the NPC still seems like they have agency (they can reject the player-character for their own reasons), but it does mean that some players may be locked out of all romance options by their own choices.
In terms of gender flipped characters, what do people think needs to be different between versions of the same character? Often people here complain that gender-flipping creates an overly ‘generic’ effect, but there doesn’t seem to be an agreement on why this is.
@Eiwynn : but different in what way? Surely if you have a character that has had the exact same background/upbringing, is in the exact same circumstances and has the same basic personality, their base characteristics will be the same?
Like with Vin in my WiP, who can be male or female, I see them as being someone who’s passionate, impulsive, a bit of a show-off. That doesn’t seem to be something that would change.
There should be different scenes where the gender of the characters mattet. Several gender-flippable characters only have different scenes at their introduction and street that they share scenes without any difference.
That is why Evertree Inn (from @thomb) characters where a very good example of gender flippable characters. Because it has different scenes depending on the character gender.
A few examples:
if dandy = “Dandy”
You can’t help but follow the drops of water as they run from his jet-black hair down over his broad shoulders, his perfectly sculpted torso, and beyond to the small towel loosely hanging from his hips over his muscular thighs.
His lips curl into a smile as he surveys your ${body} physique appraisingly.
If dandy = “Daisy”
You can’t help but follow the drops of water as they run from her jet-black hair down her long neck, to the small towel that tightly grips her hourglass figure and leaves bare her long, slender legs.
Her lips curl into a smile as she surveys your ${body} physique appraisingly.
Once inside, ${dandy_he} gestures to ${dandy_his} bed as a place for you to sit and then walks into the adjoining washroom. From your position on the bed you can still see ${dandy_him} as ${dandy_he}
*if dandy = “Dandy”
runs a razor over his already smooth cheeks.
*if dandy = “Daisy”
adds the finishing touches to her makeup.
if dandy = “Dandy”
and start running all over your ${body} body. You delight at the touch of his talented fingers and then he lifts you up with his strong arms, kissing you more fervently and holding you against his hard, naked frame. Your hands rush over his bulging biceps, his muscular chest and then he throws you back down onto the bed.
“Perhaps this place is going to be more fun than I thought,” he grins as he pulls loose the string of your breeches.
if dandy = “Daisy”
and start running up your ${body} body, sending shivers down to your toes. You delight at her soft touch as she climbs onto the bed to straddle you. She leans back in, giving you a deep and sensual kiss, raising your hands to her perfect breasts. Then she breaks the kiss to sit up and looks down on you.
“Perhaps this place is better than I gave it credit for,” she winks, as she pulls loose the string of your breeches.
I assume the reason is that by doing so, you maximize the number of romances possible for those who would like to only romance a man or only a woman.
Had we but world enough, and time, sure I would like to see it all custom written, but flat out gender pronoun switching does do something, if only in a reader’s mind.
My feeling is that there is a small, but significant, value in expanding that range, even if the only difference is a change in pronoun. I don’t think anything is lost, if done well, and there is a small gain.
The potential pitfall could be a pull to write more generically than otherwise, of course.
@Urban: that seems like the differences are mostly in physical descriptions (which, yeah, fair enough, I do the same for gender switched characters). I was wondering more in terms of non-physical differences?
Yes, like @Gower says, genderswapping can be a way of balancing making sure every gender/sexuality of PC has an option without having to have a massive cast.
And I’m certainly not saying that a man or a woman with the same background wouldn’t have had some differences that might show up - the interesting question is what those are!
@Urban: I was counting those as physical differences due to that pretty much being the reason for the romance scenes being different
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