Hi everyone. I am new to this forum. The question I have, though, has nothing to do with the forum.
I just downloaded Choice of the Vampire yesterday (after playing all of the free games!) I began, and
noticed that I was a guy. Is this just how the game goes, can you change something to be female, is
this just how the storyline is designed? Sorry for being so ignorant, but I just dunno!
One of the first questions of the game: do you bow or curtsey when meeting your dominus-to-be.
Oh, you see! I knew I was being dumb! Thanks so much, I never really got what that was implicating, but now it makes alot of sense. Again, I thank you!
CoG[excluding the user-content] never asks oturight xD I love that~
It’s not like we have a rule against it. Rather, we want the story to adapt to the reader as “naturally” as possible. Of course, sometimes a reader will misread or misunderstand…
Yes, and that is the best part of these games. After choosing the curtsey option ;), I have been playing a lot, and find myself thinking “Woa, it’s reading my mind…” (in which case it is no wonder I ended up in an asylum in paranoia)
Hey, anyone else actually think about this a good bit? I noticed when I was writing my game that I couldn’t help by feel like I should do something similar to the CoG games, where you never ask the gender, but simply ask something that tells you the gender. Found it really hard to do in a modern setting. I ended up going with a “men’s/women’s room” question, and I was just wondering if anyone else thought of a really great way to handle these sorts of things.
@Reaperoa: I’m struggling with this. My current plan is to have a form for the player character to fill out, since the game really starts with your first job.
The trouble is trying to be queer-positive in a setting that wouldn’t allow for anything but “male” or “female” on their work applications. I’ve currently put in the option to leave that section blank, but if anyone has any input on a better way to do this, it would be greatly appreciated.
Also, forms have a tendency to be pretty boring. I know I’m really impressed by unique, justified character creation processes.
For my game, I put in the question in context of the story… your main goal for Part 1 is finding your sister. So are you her brother or sister is how I set gender.
Also, this is a story and a game, so forcing someone to pick a gender (male, female, transgender) is just part of the process IF you want to use gender to flesh out the story. I tried not using it and found it a hindrance.
Personally I agree with JimD in that I try not to actually reference gender so much (mostly 'cause I hate double checking my variables, but end up complusivly doing so anyways). Of course, I got it a bit easier in writing a future based story and don’t really have to pay attention to gender rules. Really, I’m just glad I’m not trying to write this in German. 
On the other hand, there are some rather distinctive aliens in my setting, some with rather distinctive genders. One (sentient) species are sequential hermaphrodites (protandry), meaning they are born male and at some point become female. Their family units resemble clownfish or harems, and I’m exploreing a little how the cultures and mores of such a species would develop differently than humans. (The setting is being use for more than just the game, obviously).
@Kadael I don’t think forms are the *worst* way to handle such things (particularly if you have a lot of information to go over and want to get it done with quickly). I even contimplated it a bit (decided against it), but something I think that is important is to break it up. Adding a short segment where the character contimplates something that happend in his past (such as, a question of ‘What school did you attend?’ making them think about something that happened while they were in school) can really break the monatuny.
Most of my stories so far haven’t had a need to be gender specific, and I hope I don’t have to use genders for a long time to come. I prefer if the reader just fills the gender space in their minds. So I avoid it if I can. Of course with a story like Romance it’s almost impossible not to make gender a prominent part of the game.
When you meet your dominus/maker, you get a choice to bow or curtsy in greeting, that’s where you decide male or female.