Hello everyone 
I am currently working on an interactive story and struggling with finding the right balance between meaningful player choices and strong character development. Sometimes I feel that giving too many options makes the characters feel inconsistent, but limiting choices might reduce player engagement.
How do you approach creating impactful choices that still allow for deep; believable character arcs?
Any tips 
Hi crasy â
Welcome to the community.
From your post, I am assuming that you mean the protagonist or MC (main character) and not npc or companion characters.
The first step in this process for me is to decide how much of a âblank slateâ I want the MC to be.
Typical character creation customization is a wonderful way to make the connection between the reader and the protagonist. Most things like hair and eye color allow the reader to relate to the protagonist but still not constrict your central concept of who the MC is.
So, the real question to answer is what is essential to your character development that has to be in the story for your vision to be realized.
An example in my project is the fact that the MC has to be a seraph (angel). A cambion, fae, human, or even elven character would interfere with my development of the protagonist, so I do not allow the readers to choose their species.
Once you figure out the immutable necessities of your protagonist, your way forward should be both clearer and with direction inspired by the story you want to tell.
Edit â This is my process, and I am sure others will have their own to share. Keep in mind that each of us are unique, and there are many ways to approach the same issue, so, pick and choose what works for you.
Also there is a monthly writer support thread you might want to check out. Lots of interesting topics are discussed within them.
:o sounds cool. Do you have a thread about it here on the forum?
I love @Eiwynnâs answer.
Authorial intent and player agency will often come head to head against one another. Writing an IF is a balancing act in this regard. If you have a plot point that you must hit, it wouldnât be wise to count on players getting there on their own. Instead, you can allow players/MC to react or show how they feel about the events of the plot. The trick here, I think, is that if you take agency away you give it back in some other way.
As for personality and characterization, I lock certain traits and only let players choose for others. For that, having a personality framework helps a lot. I personally like the OCEAN model (aka Big 5) because itâs more manageable than something like the Myers-Briggs and less abstract than the Enneagram, but you can pick any that suits you. Then lock down the traits youâll use for characterization and even to develop a satisfactory character arc. Write choice options with the other traits so that players can customize the characterâs behaviour.
If you allow players to customize the character too much, this can make the character an uninteresting bland blank slate. However, if you take control of characterization, players might feel like they have no agency over their character and how they act. To find a good middle-ground, youâll have to lock in certain traits while giving up control over others.
Hii
An idea to implement is that you can limit player choices according to their previous consistency.
Like if for example (I donât know what type of mechanic youâre implementing but to give you an ideaâŠ) you have a:
excellent
good
average
bad
horrendous
behavior choices and you have the stat behavior that changes according to those. after some amount of them, you can limit the endpoints only if their previous choices also were skewing the stat towards that side.
Like you can only pick excellent choice if you have >=40, >=50 (or a pick of your choice) in behavior. Or some other combination of stats and or previous choices/behaviors.
So that way the character will develop towards the pattern that uses the most, and forces to keep the consistency.
Limiting options can still be shown to the player with *selectable_if That way youâll let the player know thereâs a different path to make and they donât have what is needed to go that way, and maybe in the best case encourage replayability.
Otherwise not limiting the choices can also be approached with creativity.
Using *if on a choice you can still have an excellent choice, but an excellent choice can have different meanings / developments if you have behavior =30 or =70.
If the player chooses to do the worst, doing the worst can be a different thing if you have been behaving like an angel than like a nightmare. Like stabbing someone vs insulting them.
That could mean the endpoints will have 2 outcomes each, so the total amount of choices will be about 7 at minimum (in this particular case) yet the player only sees 5.
This way solves both problems of not limiting choices and keeping the consistency at the expense of more work from you.
This is so very vague, itâs difficult to respond with anything that wonât be a bunch of empty buzzwords, or some specific example which may be about something thatâs completely not what you have on mind.
What do you mean by âcharacters feel inconsistentâ and âstrong character developmentâ?
A simple answer would be â by providing choices which (in)directly create and shape these very arcs. While also, mind you, providing choices that donât. If the player is supposed to be the making âmeaningful choicesâ for their character, then abstaining from having a âcharacter arcâ is also one.
Hi Adagio,
Thank you for showing interest in my game. I do not yet have a WiP thread for it.
Sorry.
. 
I think authors are often more afraid of giving the MC a character arc than they need to be. The more important part I think is to be upfront about what is unchangeable about the MC.
Games with more set protaganists can be really popular if done well. I see both The Golden Rose and I, the Forgotton One complimented for the characterization of their MCs. So I think the lesson from these games is that you can take away choice if your MC feels fleshed out wnough that the lack of choices doesnât feel like it takes away from their character.
As for actions your MC takes to advance the plot that arenât choices, I would be more mindful. Iâve seen this work, but Iâve also seen players get really upset if it doesnât fit their conception of the MC. In my game, I was really nervous about including a scene where MC just wandering off and getting lost because I thought Iâd get a lot of complaints from people whose MCs wouldnât do that. Instead I got really positive comments about it. But in that same chapter, there was another scene where MC was offered a deal by a very important person, and initially I wasnât going to have a choice to refuse, but as I was writing, it just wasnât working, and I had to add a choice to refuse the offer.
Those are both examples from my game, so they might not be helpful, and Iâm not a professional. I just thought having some examples might help.
The key, I think, is to make a choice and stick to it. Will you lose readers? Of course, yes. You will lose readers for every creative choice you make, including the choice to make IF, and not a linear novel. But you will also gain readers, provided you know how to clearly signify to the potential reader what it is they can expect from your story.
Eiwynn makes a very good point, too, which is that the fixed elements of the MCâs character arc can be drilled down to whatever is most essential for the story. For a story about a war, it might be essential for the MC to be a soldier, whereas for a court fantasy, they might need to be a noble or royal. A story about organized crime requires the player to do some illegal things, if not in the MCâs present, then certainly implied in their past.
Each of these choices will alienate some readers. Maybe those who prefer to solve problems with words, rather than fighting, or those who find upper-class protagonists unsympathetic. Maybe those who would never dream of doing something illegal, even if itâs just a story and not real life. But giving the MC a background, such as an occupation, a passion, or a family, also enriches them as a character and makes them more appealing.
I could write more, but I feel as though I would just be paraphrasing the same points, again and again.
I think, until you get to the point that youâre ready for other eyes on it, you are actually your best resource for this and regardless of when itâs released youâll always be the most important. Whatever you do, it has to be something youâre willing to write, so I would focus on the overall story you want to tell (including the story of your protagonist) and any branches in there, and the style of game you want to make - then take some mental distance, step back from being the storyteller, and think as a player. What kind of characters would you want to make? If you were playing as a specific character, how would it change the tone of what youâre reading? What choices would that character make? What kinds of different stories could that character have?
The stronger your vision for your game, the easier this question will be to answer for yourself because the character customization, stat system and player choices will live side by side with it, feeding into and making each other stronger.
These are, of course, all hypotheticals but as an example - letâs say you wanted to make a game about a doctor in an apocalypse with themes of loss and grief and the doctor PC being unable to stop those cycles, you probably wouldnât care to have a stat system that focuses on a million different combat stats because that distracts from the point and game youâre trying to make. You might have one or two combat skills and a few other stats that focus more on the emotions, personality, and medical abilities of the PC. And your story branches might follow a similar path. Maybe thereâs a tense situation that will split PCs on different paths where some of them become apathetic and others the exact opposite, and maybe thereâs some that stay the same.
Just an example. If you wanted something more gamey and less character driven, you could of course do that too, again it all just comes down to what you actually want to do and say. Like maybe you wanted to write a gamey sci-fi story about an intergalactic game of tag for the prize of a billion dollars, most of your stats and choices would probably be more so about the PCâs physical abilities and how they play the game and the PC may or may not have a character arc at all, depending on how you want the story to be.
TLDR; Thereâs not really a right, wrong or specific answer to give here. And there are no rules. The story branches, PC customization and development (if any), and the stat system (if any) live side by side with your overall vision so you can come up with any of them first but ideally they would all make sense together in the end. Also, best of wishes on your writing!
My best piece of advice is to think about not making it optional to have the character development stuff happen, but to put in choices for how the PC reacts to those events. My philosophy with these types of games is that they donât always have to be super open-ended and have a hundred different endings. There simply has to be a hundred different ways to get to a single ending. Both of those are just as impactful and interactive as the other, only in different ways.
Thereâs a fight scene in my main game, the take down of a murderer, that is extremely varied. About 15 or so ways (I think?) to finish it in, but no matter what way that is, it is always going to leave the PC traumatized in some way or another. The player does not get to pick if they get traumatized by almost getting killed. They are traumatized by almost getting killed. However, they will get to choose how they respond to that trauma. Will they freeze up? Will they lash out? Will they compartmentalize? Will they open up? Thatâs for them to decide. But no matter what, all of those choices will lead to some sort of character development.
TL;DR - Make story beats and character development static. Make how the PC reacts to those things variable.
Does the way PC reacts have any impact on the story? Does freezing up result in something else than lashing out, and i donât mean just a different paragraph of text which describes the reaction, that promptly gets forgotten.
(and no, abstracted %±3 to relationship with NPC doesnât really count as a real reaction, either)
I ask, because thereâs few things which can make the player come to believe theyâre on rails and nothing they do matter when, indeed, nothing they do actually matters nor affects their surroundings, as if the MC was in a bubble from which none of their âextremely varied reactionsâ make any difference or are even registered.
Iâve certainly seen complaints about being railroaded into reactions, yes, but i also donât recall anyone saying they would rather not be given control over the plot, if having control was actually provided. I have seen quite a few complaints about MC being roped into a âbut thou mustâ when they really, really rather wouldnât.
Personally, iâm not big on having âchoice of reactionâ if these reactions are all fake_choice with little to no actual effect attached. I can very well have internal monologue about the events on the story on my own, and odds that the writer/MC will get the exact thing iâm thinking are fairly low. Especially when these reactions are typically done by following the stereotypical âbe kind/be mean/be funny/âŠâ
I donât think it necessarily has too. In my experience, players seem to prefer having control over the MCâs reactions and internal thoughts/feelings than being able to control major narrative changes.
I think almost all of the complaints Iâve seen about railroading come from the narrative forcing the MC to feel a certain way rather than a lack of affect on the narrative. 
It could result in a unique scene with one of the characters, or make it so the PC does or doesnât get to do a certain task during a mission, etc. I think putting âThings that affect the storyâ into a small bucket of âthings that dictate where the story goesâ is an extremely dangerous precedent to put on these games.
To explain why I think what I typed above and link it to this, as a writer of one of these games, you have to think about scope. In my experience, a game either has a more set PC and varied endings/plot variations, or it has a very flexible PC and a more linear plot. It is an extremely rare case when a game has both of these and is more than 1.5-2 hours per playthrough. And then people complain about the gameâs length.
If someone is playing my game, and they complain they had to follow the Team Leaderâs orders and says they should be able to go rogue, Iâm going to tell them they probably are looking for a different game in that case. You have to follow their orders, because they are your superior and are in charge of the team, and thatâs your job. I might write in a choice that lets the player verbally object to it, but they will still end up doing it. Because if not, then I would need to essentially write two completely different games and I would never finish it because the changes in plot can be never-ending.
You have to have a cut off point in places and the PC has to do certain things in order for the story to proceed. Thatâs just the reality of things.
The way it reads to me is âyou can only have the balance between flexible PC and plot variation at 0:100, or 100:0 because you try doing 100:100 then itâs unmanageable.â And iâll generally agree with the last part of such assessment, but then this premise appears to ignore that doing 50:50 or any other sort of split is also an option.
The MC doesnât need to be only either rigid or very flexible. The plot similarly doesnât have to be either purely on rails or going in dozen different directions. This is also part of remembering/ thinking about scope.
This is⊠probably not good example. I mean, i understand the reasoning, but if thereâs one thing thatâs a big part of any potential military-oriented narrative, it is the balance between âjust following ordersâ and morals responsibilities which may conflict with such, and how involved individuals react when facing such conflicts. If the narrative game just sidesteps all this âbecause itâs extra work, so you mustâ, then iâd say itâs unfortunate design choice.
Thatâs true, however I was always taught if youâre going to do something, do it as well as you can. If you go 50:50 in both directions, you often end up with an end product that most people will review as âIt was pretty goodâ at best.
I will also point out, main plot divergence of any kind works even less with games that are going to be part of a series, because then the diverged plot either continues on the path originally set on which, again, would be vastly different, or the next game starts in the same spot with different flavor with how the first game ended, and then people would complain the choice at the end of the first game didnât matter.
This is the perfect example. Granted mine was talking more about, âgo investigate the crime sceneâ type of order, but we can run with this.
Say youâre playing a military game, and your commander gives you the order to shoot an unarmed informant that has previously sold out your unit. That is the main plot. Now, the PC has a choice: follow orders or shoot them, or donât follow orders and your commander shoots them. Because the plot requires that person to be dead for a political intrigue sub-plot where the PC gets arrested. Later in the courtroom, depending on that choice, you can either defend yourself by saying you were in fear for whatever threats the commander was slinging, and that if you didnât do it your life would be in immanent danger, or your defense is that the commander shot him and is saying youâre the one who did it.
This all leads to the same place. The person still ends up dead. The PC still gets arrested. The PC still goes to court. The things that change here are:
Also, scope isnât always the only reason to limit choices. It just happened to be the first reason I gave. Vision is another one. Maybe one of the main underlying themes of the game is meant to be overcoming the trauma and guilt of not having what it takes to stand up and do the right thing in combat. Perhaps the PC shooting that unarmed person is integral to what the author intends to get across. There are a lot of different reasons choices in these games can end up limited, and a lot of them probably end up being for the good of the story, at the end of the day.
I think the idea that putting all your eggs in single basket equals âdoing it wellâ is something that can be easily argued against. Itâs also pretty hard to prove when it comes to IF, since i canât really think of any title which indeed went all-in in single direction (completely railroading the plot or giving zero customization for MC) and achieved wide acclaim exactly thanks to this design decision. The ones which do skip âtoo muchâ on either tend to be criticized for it rather than praised.
(and with Sturgeonâs law in place, even âit was pretty goodâ is a solid achievement that relatively few titles end up getting. But thatâs another story)
Now please note, that what you describe is quite more involved than what you described initially: âI might write in a choice that lets the player verbally object to it, but they will still end up doing it [because itâs their job and so they must.]â
It also doesnât end up in the same place at all in the scope larger than immediate, if the MC can at the end of the events wind up found guilty or exonerated, based on their choice whether to actually follow the orders or disobey.
This is pretty tricky area. Generally, iâd say that a setup for this kind of exploration is something thatâs better as part of characterâs backstory (in which case the player can decide in advance if itâs a story they are interested in) otherwise the author might need to acknowledge that itâs better to bite the bullet and donât force the player into unavoidable situation just so their Vision can be realized. In the latter case, maybe simply write a plain book, where all that pesky playerâs agency wonât get into the way of delivering Very Deep Thoughts On the Matter.
I mainly just make a string of events and something wobbling around it. (You), the bartender, will have several days of bartending. You will track down something evil (and maybe misguided), and you will have to deal with the death of your master one way or the other - but you will do it in different manner and it will lead to different outcomes. I just keep in mind the basic event string - some things will always happen, but itâs up to PC how he will deal with them.
Putting it like that, I actually agree/concede that point. There obviously has to be a mix to an extent, however I donât agree that has to lead to completely different endings. However I will note, even with all the criticism it gets on the forum here, Wayhaven heavily stays in one lane regarding its plot. The deviations are, in the grand scheme of things, all flavor (or at least they have been thus far). The biggest deviations are the interpersonal relationship you can have throughout the game, which I would count as focusing on the characters. This being said, itâs probably one of, if not the, highest profit games theyâve ever put out.
Disclaimer: Iâm not a good person to come up with examples here because Wayhaven is pretty much the only series Iâve read from a mixture of both not having extra time and choosing to spend the little extra time I have doing other things. So my opinion on this specific point of giving examples of games should probably be taken with a grain of salt.
Thatâs the thing, they have a defense no matter what they pick. They can argue their way to innocence regardless of what they choose to do beforehand.
I completely disagree on this point. It should not be up to the author to cater to the whims of what every player may or may not want to explore in a story based on itâs premise. Letting the player choose how they react to situations, who they romance, and what theyâre good at skills wise is plenty of player agency to dictate how a story is told. The player does not need to control every aspect of how a story plays out for it to be a good CYOA game.
If a writer writes a game with themes about overcoming despair and tragedy in a grimdark setting, and a player complains that they canât have their character go off and kill innocent people for supplies or join the side of evil, thatâs on the player, not on the writer.
This doesnât make any sense to me. Any written work will be bound by the creatorâs vision because itâs quite literally their imagination, words, ideas, etc, on the page. Interactive fiction doesnât mean âlet me roleplay and do absolutely anything I wantâ. Itâs⊠Interactive. Fiction. Fiction implying thereâs a narrative. Interactive implying you have an effect on the narrative - but nowhere does it imply you can control it. Thatâs such an unrealistic expectation that wouldnât even necessarily lead to a better reader/player experience or to a better story. No matter what, youâll be put into some unavoidable situations because youâll always be confined by the narrative. Youâre reading someone elseâs story and theyâre letting you craft your own alongside it within their sandbox and scope.
Thatâs how it is because itâs an interactive narrative â not an interactive roleplay-fantasy-simulator. Sometimes I think thereâs a subset of IF players that could really be satisfied by looking into roleplay groups online or irl.