Limited Romance Options in Choice of Games

[ParrotWatcher]

@Fiogan

Far from the pool is a woman standing against the hotel’s railing. She must be freezing; she’s wearing a tiny white bikini that probably affords less warmth than the long, dark hair trailing down her back.

She turns around, looking at you with vivid blue eyes. Contacts? Probably. Her fingernails are lilac, and so long that they look dangerous. Typing must be a pain. She itches her leg.

Raising the half-filled martini glass in her other hand, she breaks the silence. Her red lipstick, you notice, is smeared all over the rim of the glass.

As a gay guy, I find this description far more fitting, too.

[Carlos.R]

@ParrotWatcher

She itches her leg

Is itches correct here?
I would say “She scratches her leg.”
The implication is that she scratched it because it itched.

[DreamingGames]

@TSSL

@DreamingGames

If a character identifies as gay or straight and is with and non binary person they are essentially saying they do not acknowledge the non binary identity.

Ah, people have enough variety that I don’t think you can really say that as an absolute for all such cases. People can mean different things when they self-identify their sexual orientations, so you might have, say, one woman who’s attracted to other women and nonbinary people who still considers herself mainly lesbian, and you might have another who considers herself bi.

In real life non-binary gender identities are a lot more complicated in a choice game, but since ninety percent of the games doesn’t go into the details of it and doesn’t even get into the difference between identity, presentation of gender (or lack there of) and biology, I feel pretty confident in saying that it would be an implicit erasure in these games.

There is a distinctive difference between real life and a story, stories can’t reflect the contradictions of real life, an in the case about it was a pretty clear example of the game implicit (and accidentially) asking, but what gender are you more.

[idonotlikeusernames]

@TSSL

I’m not attracted to women. I’m not going to find her lips scintillating.

Oh yeah, and the whole drawing attention to her body thing is not likely to be particularly effective, either

If you really want to include these kinds of descriptions, one technique that you may want to use is to actually have a choice for the main character’s sexual orientation, so that when describing female characters in such situations, you will include the attraction bits only for someone who’s into women that way,

Yeah, I’ve got to agree with this I don’t look at women like this either and my brain doesn’t process female looks as such.

@TSSL

and likewise for male characters. This is how Zombie Exodus: Safe Haven works, for example.

Yeah, for example my gay protagonist would look at cute guys the same way the stereotypical heterosexual male hero would look at the women. So while women’s eyes can’t pierce his soul those of a cute guy very well could.

@ParrotWatcher

As a gay guy, I find this description far more fitting, too.

Indeed comes close to how many of us actually look at women.

[GoldenSilver]

@Fiogan

Ace-ified, with a dose of sardonic tonic

This was hilarious. Poor girl lol! Not sure how cold Miami is though.

@TSSL

I’m not attracted to women. I’m not going to find her lips scintillating.

Maybe I still overdid it, yeah. The vibrant and scintillating I used as synonyms for colorful, I wasn’t intending to make them have a more seductive meaning. The pierce one however was kinda too much.

@TSSL

If you really want to include these kinds of descriptions, one technique that you may want to use is to actually have a choice for the main character’s sexual orientation, so that when describing female characters in such situations, you will include the attraction bits only for someone who’s into women that way, and likewise for male characters. This is how Zombie Exodus: Safe Haven works, for example.

Ah yes that’s how I was planning to set it, but for players like @Fiogan they may be interested in women romantically but have no interest in sexual attraction, so setting it up this way would not cover it for everyone.

@Fiogan

I do understand about having to mess about with the *if checks, but on the other hand, I think that kind of thing can be sort of fun from the narrator’s point of view.

I think a better way to make it all work would be to have an option when you are approaching like “take a better look at her”, or “I’m more interested about asking her about x…” or something like that, and provide her introduction depending on the option the player selected, the one I posted above being for someone who is attracted to girls and wants to take a better look I suppose.

Thanks for the differing opinions on this everyone, it’s nice to see that sometimes people will have several differing views, making you think on other ways to approach it. I’ll try to think on a better way to cover this for everyone.

[Cari-san]

@PristineManiac4
Your suggestion is that all ROs should be player sexual? And not caring about the MCs personality?
If that’s so then I just can’t agree with you.
MaybeI would be okay with all RO’s being player sexual. But that also when the ROs number is limited (like 4 or 3 characters). If there are more ROs like around 10 or so then I don’t see shy there couldn’t be some gay etc. characters. With so many ROs the author can afford can make the game more realisting and make certain ROs unavailable for some MCs. The only thing I would expect in that case is equality so that no one feels like they have less chances just bc they pick a certain gender (I know this might not be all that realistic but this is where they fact that this is a game not RL comes into play).
Now about personality, I’m perfectly okay if an RO dumps my MC bc their personality can’t be acceptable for them. Imagine it from their perspective: for example: if you are naturally tending for peacefull solutions then would you pick someone who solves their problems with violance and doesn’t change their ways even after you talk to them? Like everyone has some standarts. As I see it if the ROs would accept every personalities then they would lose their own personality. And don’t tell me you don’t prefer a character who has a personality over a character who is only created for the purpose of being an RO.

[ParrotWatcher]

@Cari-san

(I know this might not be all that realistic but this is where they fact that this is a game not RL comes into play)

I think this is often a problem; too many people restrict the non-straight romances because “realism”, but ignore the fact that the game makes things inherently unrealistic. Everything you can do in a game is something that has been programmed in (unless it’s a bug…), even if it would be within the bounds of realism, and that’s especially true in Choice games. This isn’t a bad thing, obviously, but it does mean that “realism” can’t be used to defend anything.

@Cari-san

Imagine it from their perspective: for example: if you are naturally tending for peacefull solutions then would you pick someone who solves their problems with violance and doesn’t change their ways even after you talk to them?

I actually recall seeing a thread on the forum a good while back which was complaining that one of the ROs from Psy High (I think) would dump the MC if they didn’t refuse to kill anyone. I tried to explain that it was perfectly in-character for their nice guy/girl-next-door personality, but the commenter seemed to feel that they were somehow “cheated” out of the romance by having an NPC act in character…

[lovinglydull]

There was a short-lived VN project of mine, which turned into an even more short-lived COG conversion. One of the NPCs had a relationship variable, like the rest of the main cast, but there was a twist: no matter how highly regarded you were in his eyes, he would treat you merely as a friend or respected rival. In both iterations, he was designed to both be fairly attractive, and to frrquently interact with the MC. And in both, he makes it quite clear he isn’t interested in any romantic relationships for a long list of understandable reasons.

Every other principal cast member, including two who were ostensibly opposed to the protagonist, was romanceable.

Was it cheating my readers that he was unavailable? Maybe. I feel like it’s less of a cheat when you still provide meaningful interaction with a character without it having to be driven by sexual or romantic attraction, but that’s solely my opinion.

[PristineManiac4]

Well I was having a problem limiting romances more so when a reader likes a certain character and can’t romance them because the NPC is gay or straight not because I want to be able to romance ten people in ten different playthroughs. I feel that a few users are misinterpreting my original point, which was that being rejected sucks. Rejection and disappointment is a part of life and makes the game realistic but disappointment isn’t what I’m trying to feel when taking the time to read these interactive books.

As for the personality your comment and others are helping me understand that personality is not just something you can just ignore as multiple stats are based off of what you want your personality to be. As I said in a previous post, a normal sane person would clearly not want to romance a psychopath who murders everybody in their path. At the same time though, it sucks not being allowed to be with someone just because I didn’t decide to raise my persuasion stat enough in the beginning of the game. It ruins my playthrough having to worry about changing my character’s stats so it’s similiar to who I want to romance and I feel it adds unnecessary stress that ruins the whole experience for me personally.

I also feel that not person dislikes romancing someone else who has a different personality than them. There are plenty of circumstances where good girls or guys fall for he bad boy or girl/ vice versa. I don’t feel that a character’s personality is taken away just because they date a reader who isn’t exactly similar to them.

[TSSL]

@ParrotWatcher

As a gay guy, I find this description far more fitting, too.

As a gay guy who still often finds women pretty (in a nonsexy way) I would probably fall somewhere between the two
I might notice the hair being nice, and think that the lilac nails are rather nifty, and the eyes nice to look at However, if I picked up on her trying to hit on me I would probably try to indicate that that’s not really wanted

I guess this just goes to show that people are varied

@DreamingGames

In real life non-binary gender identities are a lot more complicated in a choice game, but since ninety percent of the games doesn’t go into the details of it and doesn’t even get into the difference between identity, presentation of gender (or lack there of) and biology, I feel pretty confident in saying that it would be an implicit erasure in these games.

There is a distinctive difference between real life and a story, stories can’t reflect the contradictions of real life, an in the case about it was a pretty clear example of the game implicit (and accidentially) asking, but what gender are you more.

Oh, yeah, I’d agree on that particular example. I’d also agree that all of these identity interactions are way more complicated in life than could be represented in a choice game, since life is filled with exceptions (someone who’s 99% into one gender but finds themself drawn toward someone else doesn’t invalidate their primary orientation) and complications. (For example, I was acquainted with a couple consisting of a lesbian and a trans man… I didn’t know them well enough to go into details about how this worked, and it really wouldn’t be my place to say that she couldn’t still be a lesbian… but I also would very much think that having a lesbian RO go for a trans man MC in a choice game would be invalidating because the game wouldn’t be able to incorporate whatever complexities went into those real person relationships )

I’m more suggesting that it can work to have, on a case-by-case basis, a gay male RO who likes only males, one who likes males+NB but not female MCs, and likewise with orientations, such that nonbinary main characters have a similar amount of romance options, while more orientations get to be represented. Because the definitions of sexual orientations can (within reason) mean different things to different people.

(Also interested in how one would go about framing options for nonbinary identities that are still male- or female-of-center, but I’ll post about that in the trans thread…)

@GoldenSilver

The vibrant and scintillating I used as synonyms for colorful, I wasn’t intending to make them have a more seductive meaning.

I think the thing here is that “scintillating” is still a verb that implies a reaction from someone else; if something is scintillating, it means that it scintillates someone… so someone who isn’t scintillated by women wouldn’t find them scintillating. Vibrant doesn’t really have this effect, because something can just be vibrant. I wouldn’t feel weird about the use of the word vibrant itself.

@GoldenSilver

Ah yes that’s how I was planning to set it, but for players like @Fiogan they may be interested in women romantically but have no interest in sexual attraction, so setting it up this way would not cover it for everyone.

The way Zombie Exodus: Safe Haven sets it up, you can also choose to be asexual, in which case these sorts of descriptions aren’t coming up, but you can still choose various romantic options. So you could do that

(I think most games work fine without including such attraction-based descriptions at all, but if you do want them in there, this is what I would recommend.)

[GoldenSilver]

@TSSL

I think the thing here is that “scintillating” is still a verb that implies a reaction from someone else; if something is scintillating, it means that it scintillates someone… so someone who isn’t scintillated by women wouldn’t find them scintillating. Vibrant doesn’t really have this effect, because something can just be vibrant. I wouldn’t feel weird about the use of the word vibrant itself.

Understood. English is not my native language so sometimes I don’t know if a word may have additional meaning. A lot of times I try look for synonyms because I dislike repeating the same words too often.

The use of those terms on that scene is because at first when you see her from behind all you see is the black hair and the white bikini, that’s why I mention that the sunset saturates the scene. When she turns around she bombards you with “color” as an additional meaning that she matches or surpasses the beauty presented by the sunset. However after vibrant I ran out of synonyms so I picked scintillating lol.

@TSSL

The way Zombie Exodus: Safe Haven sets it up, you can also choose to be asexual, in which case these sorts of descriptions aren’t coming up, but you can still choose various romantic options. So you could do that

(I think most games work fine without including such attraction-based descriptions at all, but if you do want them in there, this is what I would recommend.)

Hmm where exactly was that handled? I remember that you could say you were not very interested in setting up the account on the dating website. But since I did not choose that option I do not know the difference.

[Fiogan]

@GoldenSilver

Ah yes that’s how I was planning to set it, but for players like @Fiogan they may be interested in women romantically but have no interest in sexual attraction, so setting it up this way would not cover it for everyone.

To clarify: I was speaking as someone who is on both the ace (asexual) and aro (aromantic) spectrum, so really the sample I wrote up was meant to be from a perspective of someone who is not interested in either.

If I had been attempting to rewrite that particular passage through a romantic lens, I’d probably leave in the sunsets and some of the other details—and lean heavily on my fabulous beta testers, which I have to do for anything involving ‘hotness’ or romance, anyway.

The latter actually tends to get an even bigger eye roll from me than the former, because it’s all just sort of baffling to me. I confess, I treat writing romance sort of the way I treat writing business copy: ‘Look how SHINY it all is! Woooo shiny!’ with exactly as much personal investment, haha.

[TSSL]

@GoldenSilver

Understood. English is not my native language so sometimes I don’t know if a word may have additional meaning. A lot of times I try look for synonyms because I dislike repeating the same words too often.

The use of those terms on that scene is because at first when you see her from behind all you see is the black hair and the white bikini, that’s why I mention that the sunset saturates the scene. When she turns around she bombards you with “color” as an additional meaning that she matches or surpasses the beauty presented by the sunset. However after vibrant I ran out of synonyms so I picked scintillating lol.

Hmm, okay, if you’re looking for more “vibrant”-type words that don’t necessarily imply attraction to someone… well, “vivid”… “bright” for certain types of colors, “deep” for certain other colors (that could work to describe eyes, or you could say like deep-colored), “rich” can be applied to a color to mean it’s quite strong and aesthetic, “lustrous” could work if something has a bit of a sheen… these all have various different specific implications, but these are some possibilities

@GoldenSilver

Hmm where exactly was that handled? I remember that you could say you were not very interested in setting up the account on the dating website. But since I did not choose that option I do not know the difference.

When setting up the dating profile, during the part where it asks “I am interested in…” you can choose “Males”, “Females”, “Males and Females”, or “I have no interest in sexual relationships but answer to finish the survey.” That last choice sets the character as asexual… later on, attraction descriptions for characters will check gender preference and if you are asexual. But if you’re asexual, that doesn’t prevent you from getting romances going either.

[Darakkuu_Nobelu]

Yeah, good point with DAII. That game had alot of problems, but I still think that it had one of the best companion relationships dynamic system to day.

[Cari-san]

Hmm, I don’t remember of even having the option to kill anyone in Psy High. The only thing I remember ROs dumping you for is if you try to romance multiple ROs and they found out about eachother or Taylor/idk what’s the male counterparts name is if you try to convince them too much to accept super powered people. Or Heiley(that’s the newspaper girls name, right? I admit it’s been a while since I played that game) if you ruin the play which her brother directes.
Anyway it seems to me that it’s a fact that no matter how hard an author ties they can’t please everyone. My oppinion is that it’s just plain stupid to expect from an NPC to act out of character just for the sake of romance.
About the other than they straight thing I don’t think I could say anything more than I already did about that so I’ll just leave it at that.

[Cari-san]

Again reagarding to the straigh/gay etc. thing I already said all I want to say and I don’t want to start another forum argument so I’ll just leave it to that. Also once again an author can’t please everyone, they either either make every character player sexual then people come complaining about realism or represenation or something like that or they make some “limoted ROs” gay/lesbian etc character then people will complain about the same thing you do; not being able to have a chance with the RO they are interested in.

About personality: There can be maches with big differences. But I’m pretty sure you too can imagine a characteristic, habit etc. for what they wouldn’t date someone even if they are clearly interested in you.
I know it kinda sucks to be rejected by a character who seems interesting but I would take this anytime over playing a game including NPCs who have zero personalities.

[ParrotWatcher]

@Cari-san

Hmm, I don’t remember of even having the option to kill anyone in Psy High.

I don’t know if there was; the complaint was that Andrew/Alison (the boy/girl-next-door character) would request that the player not kill/hurt anyone, and would break up with them if they refused.

[Cari-san]

Yeah, they are kinda the pacifist character in that game so they might complain about you taking the more “ruthless” way. I can imagine that. It’s just the killing thing I was questioning there. But that’s just in their personality and that’s it. I can accept that. It’s just like IRL in order to be with someone you have to be ready to make some compromisses.
Edit: Actually what I don’t like is when an ROs romance is too much based on points. Like when you need to take care of what choices you make even before the RO in question is introduced in the game (with Jess/Jace from The Lost Heir I feelt this way, othervise I love that game don’t misunderstand me) I mean unless the characteristic you have is so far away from their standards I find it unfair that they wouldn’t even give the chance for the MC to change their ways.

[TheRusty]

@ElliotEnjolras

It would be super rad to be able to play a character of whatever orientation, and have the same ROs, but still be asexual and have a non-sexual romance.

This. I’m mostly aromantic myself and generally don’t bother with romances in CoGs unless I really like the character or I’m bored and whimsy takes control but credit to @Havenstone for how respectful pursuing an asexual romance with Breden was. There’s alot of stigma and pressure with being asexual and Breden became my absolute favourite CoG romance when they admit they’re a little disappointed you won’t put out but still love your MC too much to even care. It was an extremely heartwarming scene.

Apologies to any other authors who have done the same thing, again I never usually bother with romances so my bad.

Personally I’d suggest doing exactly what Havenstone did in Choice of Rebels and allow the player to choose their MC to be asexual while not locking them out of romances. I’d agree though picking any orientation shouldn’t block romances. Sexual and romantic preferences are fickle and can’t be so easily labelled.

[Dark_Stalker]

@Cari-san

(with Jess/Jace from The Lost Heir I feelt this way, othervise I love that game don’t misunderstand me)

I feel like they would’ve been fine if it was easier to get to, we don’t get to interact much with them really in ways that doesn’t effect stats, or hinder us later (blocking the fire). I thought the evil check stat was weird.

@Cari-san

I mean unless the characteristic you have is so far away from their standards I find it unfair that they wouldn’t even give the chance for the MC to change their ways.

I feel like a warning, acting differently specifically toward that person or plain lying would also be fun. Or changing the person. Though I guess that would largely depend on the character and how much work the author puts in.