Love is a reward

[niisan]

@DreamingGames

The problem is that you need a LOT of RO in one game to make this remotely fair. Or we end up with subconscious biases sneaking through. Such as the Bi ro always being loose and flirty, the gay man always being morally dubious and so forth.

I agree 100 %! Forgot to write before that I prefer when ROs are available to everyone and don’t have set orientations OR fixed physical preferences.

@DreamingGames

MC: “But you don’t understand there are dragons pouring out from a hell gate.”

RO: “I don’t care. This is the fourth apocalypse this month. You are not getting out of doing the laundry.”

Actually, this sounds awesome. Can someone please write something like this?

[MockTurtle]

@happenstance2me

If this is the case, then I guess I wonder what you would like to see change? How would you innovate to address what you see as a “love as reward” dynamic in most romance games?

Believe me, if I had figured out already a perfect answer to this question I would have opened this thread with that. For me, the “Love is a reward” is not so much about the mechanics of getting the relationship itself, that has its own problems but I need to understand that these mechanics are still limited, and it has to do more about how relationships and romances are presented, when the game treats the idea of getting the relationship as the ultimate goal. This limits somehow the potential to move beyond that and reduces love to a mere achievement.

Maybe there are cases when you can’t completely avoid following a similar structure and tropes that are at the foundation of “Love as a reward”, but I think you can write a story that prevents it to be percieved this way.

For the moment, the only games that I’ve seen that approach love avoiding most of these problems are brief and short games that focus on small facets of love rather than a whole experience, and they usually are based around pre existing relationships, which allows them to focus in aspects that are not very dependant of this tropes.

[DreamingGames]

@niisan

@DreamingGames

MC: “But you don’t understand there are dragons pouring out from a hell gate.”

RO: “I don’t care. This is the fourth apocalypse this month. You are not getting out of doing the laundry.”

Actually, this sounds awesome. Can someone please write something like this?

Perhaps it was the weather that had your beloved in such a foul mood. The heat from the burning sky fell over the city like a heavy blanket and your better half had always been prone to head aches.

“I have to go.” You managed to get the words over your lips. “I am the chosen one. It is my duty to keep the city safe.”

Eyes, usually warm, glared at you with coldness. "It’s always your duty. The goblins attacks on UN. The meteor which almost hit. Goddamned Chtulu who you just had to have over for tea - "
“To be fair it was good tea…” You interrupted, only to be met with an eye roll.
“It was perfectly fine. Except for the fact that Chtuly tried to eat the world when it was done being polite.” Your beloved sighed and took a step forward, poking your chest with an demanding finger. “I don’t care that the Devil himself summoned a thousand dragons. It is your turn to do the laundry and if the world can’t survive that… well then it just deserve to burn.”

[ashestoashes018]

@DreamingGames

The problem is that you need a LOT of RO in one game to make this remotely fair. Or we end up with subconscious biases sneaking through. Such as the Bi ro always being loose and flirty, the gay man always being morally dubious and so forth.

And they will end up sneaking, because we always those biases because of the stories told to us.

Authors on this site tend to specifically try to circumvent these stereotypes, however, so this may be a bit of a strawman. CoG is outspokenly progressive and tries to avoid derogatory stereotypes. It’s a little unfair to assume things like that would slip through, simply due to characters having some form of agency.

[DreamingGames]

@ashestoashes018

@DreamingGames

The problem is that you need a LOT of RO in one game to make this remotely fair. Or we end up with subconscious biases sneaking through. Such as the Bi ro always being loose and flirty, the gay man always being morally dubious and so forth.

And they will end up sneaking, because we always those biases because of the stories told to us.

Authors on this site tend to specifically try to circumvent these stereotypes, however, so this may be a bit of a strawman. CoG is outspokenly progressive and tries to avoid derogatory stereotypes. It’s a little unfair to assume things like that would slip through, simply due to characters having some form of agency.

Considering I have seen it slip through time and time again. It is not unfair.

[ashestoashes018]

But has it slipped through specifically on characters whose sexualities are locked or just in the sense that the trope is used?

[Ghostfriendly]

One of the fan-made campaigns for the Shadowrun PC game had love interests that take the initiative with a compatible MC. The MC chooses to pursue the relationship or not, but the LO’s ‘choice’ has nothing to do with the player’s actions. Bonus points for a endearingly awkward bedroom scene, in a game built for running around and shooting guys.

Herorise, Robots and other games all portray ongoing relationships, rather than ‘save the princess, happily ever after’, but there’s a limit to what you can do with a non-sentient partner. A computer game love interest’s ‘choices’ can only be reactions to the player’s imput, but the love interest’s reactions are determined and restricted by their character; the companion robot in Robots will never murder the MC for leaving her, for example.

Ongoing game romances do often only cover key choices, or those that effect the main game. Inconsequential but highly meaningful choices, such as what colours the bridesmaids will wear, or whether to watch a sunset together or go out to a restaurant, is probably best left for the player’s imagination to freely supplement, rather than the game to restrictively pin down.

[DreamingGames]

yes. It has. But I am not going to name names because that would be unfair. (And honestly, I doubt I could do better. These things sits deep in all of us.)

[ashestoashes018]

And, I mean, it’s not wrong to use tropes, so long as they don’t specifically harm a subgroup of people. Otome/dating sims, as I have mentioned on the forum before, are based 100% around character trope archetypes, and Voltage and Cheritz are two of the most successful gaming app companies.

So long as the trope isn’t the only option, and is not horribly offensive, I fail to see the issue, personally.

[HomingPidgeon]

@MockTurtle

and they usually are based around pre existing relationships

Probably the reason it’s mostly common to have romance in games end when the romance actually starts is to give the player time to get to know all the ROs and make a decision without feeling rushed into it. With a limited amount of space in a game, there might not always be enough room for an author to feel comfortable putting the romantic confirmation early enough to allow for some views of the actual life as a couple (aside from epilogue content).

Games that are part of a series have an advantage in this case–with just more time to tell the story, there’s more freedom to ensure the player isn’t rushed into a decision while still leaving time for the relationship proper. (And that is a generalization, to be fair–there are absolutely one-off games that have left room for the player to experience the actual relationship.)

[DreamingGames]

@ashestoashes018

And, I mean, it’s not wrong to use tropes, so long as they don’t specifically harm a subgroup of people. Otome/dating sims, as I have mentioned on the forum before, are based 100% around character trope archetypes, and Voltage and Cheritz are two of the most successful gaming app companies.

So long as the trope isn’t the only option, and is not horribly offensive, I fail to see the issue, personally.

And then we are back with LGBTQ+ always getting the short end off the straw. Yes, they are tropes and they can be fun. I personally enjoy the morally dubious BI, but that doesn’t mean that i can’t regonize that it is done again and again and when there is a sexuality lock it becomes obvious.

Just as certain tropes never is given to certain groups. Just ask gay men how many upstanding, lawfully good knights they get when there is sexuality lock on.

That they get anyone at all is impressive and to this site’s recommendation, but most often than not the character archetype is straight - even here.

And no, that is not a good thing, but it is damned hard to avoid.

[ashestoashes018]

@DreamingGames

And then we are back with LGBTQ+ always getting the short end off the straw.

Just throwing out there that I am LGBT I’m not necessarily disagreeing with you. I’m saying that tropes, which are not harmful to a subgroup of people, are okay. They’re tropes for a reason. To use anime terminology, you might have the tsundere, yandere, etc.

And even some of the more morally dubious ones can be enjoyable. I, personally, like flirty characters, so a flirty, dominant lesbian is right up my alley.

It’s not okay when tropes are the only option.

[poison_mara]

Well I am not a writer and I write really for fun and to improve my english but I have made the main npc companion Lesbian it could be friend and I try to give a meaningful friendship but she is lesbian and happy . In fact I think I have made all straight people assholes … What is really really fun due I am straight myself. And my knights are vampires an werewolves vegetarian and mostly polisexual… But I am as original as bad writer Still I have so much fun writing. Not everyone has to writing thinking in publishing.

[ParrotWatcher]

Okay, so a lot of stuff has been said, so I’ll try not to repeat anything.

I guess I’m more okay with game romances that are just “spend time with your guy and make compatible choices”. I don’t really think that’s tailoring my choices to the RO as much as it is tailoring my MC to the RO. And sometimes that will mean playing as someone quite different from myself, but I don’t think that’s inherently bad. The romance will still feel natural, at least in universe (if it’s well written, obviously).

I’m less okay with ROs who are harder to obtain. I recently played a VN with a secret RO who (in order to romance), you have to not only hang with him and make choices he’d agree with, but also have to hang around with his friend (who was one of the other ROs), and almost romance him. I ended up having to read through the code in order to find out what to do, and I still had to start over at least once… Also, while the main romances happened during the plot, and you’d be going steady for a few months by the end, with the secret RO, you only got him right in the last scene. Now, that romance felt forced and unnatural.

@DreamingGames

Just as certain tropes never is given to certain groups. Just ask gay men how many upstanding, lawfully good knights they get when there is sexuality lock on.

Even here on CoG, we really don’t, unless everyone’s bi. (I even had a WiP author claim that they’d made a character straight because he was supposed to be a “hero”… )

[ashestoashes018]

Oh yeah, for myself, one of the main ROs in Citadel, Derrick, is gay as the day is long. He’s a knight :’)

He’s also my favorite character, by far, and it honestly probably shows in my writing, woops.

[ParrotWatcher]

He would be the exception.

[poison_mara]

Welcome to the club of not Straight traditional knights

[DreamingGames]

@ashestoashes018

@DreamingGames

And then we are back with LGBTQ+ always getting the short end off the straw.

Just throwing out there that I am LGBT I’m not necessarily disagreeing with you. I’m saying that tropes, which are not harmful to a subgroup of people, are okay. They’re tropes for a reason. To use anime terminology, you might have the tsundere, yandere, etc.

And even some of the more morally dubious ones can be enjoyable. I, personally, like flirty characters, so a flirty, dominant lesbian is right up my alley.

It’s not okay when tropes are the only option.

Every love interest is going to be a trope no matter what. Because tropes are so broad that anything can be boiled down to it.

But just because we personally might enjoy some of the tropes aimed at us, it doesn’t mean that the rest of our group do.

And those little bias always slip through. Sometimes, I have to work real hard to avoid seeing the patterns so I can just enjoy them.

Because I know I can’t do any better. Nobody can write free of bias.

[MockTurtle]

Guys, this might be deviating a little bit from the main topic, I want to point out that we have the following threads to discuss LGBTQ content:

LGBTQ and Feminism Issues

A general topic for discussion. Feel free to spawn off new topics from this, or link them back in once they’ve run their course to help keep things nice and tidy.

https://forum.choiceofgames.com/t/lgbtq-and-feminism-in-non-cog-hosted-games/50438?u=mockturtle

Gay Representation in ChoiceScript games?

After a certain gay character was killed off in a certain WIP (and my comments were almost certainly unable to save him), I realised that there are actually worryingly few gay characters in these games, as most characters (ROs especially) are bi or MC-sexual. While it’s true that, for example, when I played the game, Carl in Psy High was a gay boy, I know that he was straight for any straight female characters, and a girl, Carla, for straight male and gay female characters. Now, as a player, I’…

[ashestoashes018]

In cases like that, it comes down to quality vs quantity. You mentioned needing lots of options to make things fair, but unless the game is a dating sim or has hella strong emphasis on character interaction, you’re going to end up with bland, boring romances, due to the quantity.

It’s a shitty give and take, unfortunately, because it boils down to the amount of work involved.

I actively try to avoid harmful tropes and to have a large variation, for fairness, but it makes my games incredibly long and time-consuming. I’ve been writing a dating sim for almost 1.5 years, and the Ilyaaren games for almost 3.

also - though I’m responding to you, none of my discussion points are aimed at you. I find your point of view interesting, is all, and nothing is intended rudely. I’m sneak-typing at work rn