Options you want to have more often and other features and elements you want to see more often in COGs or HGs

Noooooooooo

Heist! Heist! Heist!
Stealing!
Spying!
Backstabbing!
Lying!

Yes, please.

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What I would most like to see is potential relationships with characters other than romance or even basic friendships. Things like mentor/mentee, sibling, parent/child, etc kind of relationships. The romance category has plenty of options, and friendship too, to a lesser extent. But I haven’t seen many games where your character can forge or have other kinds of relationships with characters.

Also, as I’m a Christian, I generally like the option for my character to be religious, especially if the narrative doesn’t treat them like an idiot for being so. When my character, by default act like a flippant hedonist with no such convictions it takes me out of the story.

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Strong characters with a past history, past/current relationships, but still with enough variation to make them somewhat your own.

Failure is treated as interesting as success.

I want to play a mess. There are so many good movies and books about absolute failures and trainwrecks of characters, I want to be that drunk has-been who is dragged back into doing one last job, or who just got out of jail, or who got demoted back to a beat cop in a tiny village at the edge of the world.

Fewer characters, but we get more in-depth with them. Not necessarily RO’s.

Conversations. Let people talk, the player doesn’t have to pick every single choice in a discussion, just the direction, and flavor.

Actual proper tactical combat that fits the story (thank you I, the Forgotten One).

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I’d love for it to be an adult game, it just wouldn’t be necessary.
I often get the impression many (I’m not talking about you here) automatically assume BDSM elements have to come with very explicit sexual content, and that’s simply not true. I can also see how this could scare an author away, because they assume they have to write explicit scenes, if they want to try their hands at BDSM.
I do actually think a story without explicit scenes can be very beautiful and satisfying on its own. And the more you go into detail, the easier it gets to accidentally put-off readers by e.g. incorrectly guessing their other preferences or even just using terminology they don’t like. This can horribly backfire and kill the mood.
But I’ve also simply become starved and humble by now. For sex-only, there’s at least “All-World Pro Wrestling”, which I enjoyed very much, despite not giving a flying shit about Wrestling (but this fact didn’t ruin Slammed! for me either). But I have a hunch many didn’t play it for the Wrestling. I might be onto something! :face_with_monocle:

Absolutely!

I would SO love to recommend Disco Elysium to you, but there’s no chance you haven’t played it yet.

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Yes and yes, more of this please!

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I know it’s a lot of work for the author, but I love it when the text itself really reflects my character - so that if you’ve created, let’s say, a really cynical character, or a deeply empathetic one, that’s reflected in the way we see the world through their eyes.

I’d like to see more romanceable characters,. especially in non-romance games, have a fixed identity. I mean this in terms of gender and sexual orientation, but also personal preferences and values - and please, for the love of all that’s holy, let them have actual flaws, not just sexy endearing ones. I want interactive novels full of complex characters, not romance simulators full of twee book boyfriends.

I want female characters who don’t read as if they were written to fit the Strong Female Character template. I love women who kick ass, but I also want to see women who are all brains and no brawn, women who are gentle homebodies, even women who are timid and demure. Basically, I want female characters who represent the diversity of actual human personalities.

I want more ROs who take the initiative. I’m not looking for anything sexually aggressive like a spontaneous kiss, just something like reaching for the PC’s hand, or tossing out a line of dialogue that could be interpreted flirtatiously or not, and letting the PC respond in a way that sets the tone for further interactions.

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Just the option to go back in stories, like flip to the previous “page”. Too often I find myself selecting an option and going “ah I wanna go back”.

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I’m glad they don’t have that. There are moments I’ve wished for it myself, usually when my fat clumsy fingers hit “Next” before I’ve read all the text on the page or properly selected an option. But I think it makes for a more powerful story experience that we can’t undo a choice or read through all the possible outcomes and pick the one we like best.

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I feel like the reason I want this option is not necessarily that it’s a good option to have, but, well, sometimes the writing is just not very clear and you don’t know what you’re getting into. It’s more of a writing issue than lack of a mechanic.

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I have to agree with height, though for the opposite (I wanna be tall >:c). At least to me, it’s easily the most important physical characteristic in a story, in that it actually comes up all the damn time. Like how often would hair color affect a bit of flavor text? But height, that can come up like every time there’s a conversation, even if it’s just switching “looks down at you” to " looks up at you" (or visa versa). I hope that’s explained enough to be clear what I’m meaning, and doesn’t sound like I’m against other customization. I think, at least with WIPs, it’s plenty common enough to not worry, so that’s good. It’s not really done in full Choice of Games like it is in Hosted (or potential Hosted), but that goes for a lot of things because how CoG handles that, so it would be disingenuous to act be surprised.

Also fully agree on more non-human protagonists, though I personally want the exact opposite. More inhuman protagonists such as vampires (and other things too I guess; I have a thing with vampires…). I especially like more out there things like in The Passenger :). Not to say you’re wrong in your opinion, but I find the standard fantasy races are too human-adjacent to feel any different, personally. Either way, more non-humans. Especially if it’s modern fantasy. Why does everyone else get to cool shit while you’re left as a basic bitch human who doesn’t know supernatural shit exists because that’s definitely a new idea with no interesting qualities or abilities? It’s writing, you don’t have to worry about budget constraining the protagonist from doing or being cool shit! That’s the best part of interactive fiction, and it’s sadly super underutilized.

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I agree with the inhuman protagonist thing, although I would actually push it further—I would like more games where you can play as something non-humanoid. Even a vampire is just a human with some magic powers tacked on. In fact, I dislike having a bunch of human-adjacent species milling about. Just admit that your pointy-eared humans, short humans, green-skinned humans, magic nocturnal humans and so on are just humans with extra steps, and bring on some really outlandish sentient beings. Maybe not necessarily in great proliferation—too much weirdness can be desensitizing—but if you’re going to have something non-human, I’d rather it be taken all the way.

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This is not an option or a gameplay mechanic, so I don’t know if it’s missing the point of this thread, but: More diversity in nonbinary representation.

I’m not nonbinary myself, but I’ve noticed that nonbinary characters are usually defined by two traits in CGs: androgynous appearance and they/them pronouns (or sometimes neopronouns). Oh, and they tend to be flamboyant and outgoing, but that’s an anecdotal observation.
It feels like playing it safe and like they’re only there to fill a quota and to be able to check the nonbinary-inclusive box (with regards to the ROs, not the player). Nonbinary people can have any agab (assigned gender at birth), use any pronouns, present however they like. Make your nonbinary RO - or character in general - an individual, with their own individual definition of what being nonbinary means to them, what it entails and how they express it.

Just as bad: You have a party of all sorts of characters and the nonbinary person is always the non-humanoid.

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I think it’s counterproductive to allow non-binary characters to seem too binary, to be honest. In real life, people of course should be whatever they want. I can be a non-binary person who presents in feminine fashion and uses she/her pronouns. Strangers will assume I’m a woman, and even my friends and family might find it hard to remember my identity, since I do nothing that jars the binary they were raised in. That’s okay. No one is obliged to provide ‘real-life representation’, even for a group they belong to.

It’s different when the goal is providing representation in media. A character who seems to conform in most ways to the gender binary will be read that way, even if they don’t. Honest or not to the reality of non-binary people, it fails to make their non-binary nature visible, and for those looking for representation, that’s the important part. If writers have to rely on the shorthand of androgyny and non-binary pronouns, I accept that as necessity.

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I don’t see how showing diversity has to equal seeming too binary. You’re immediately jumping to the other extreme with:

This is only one possible combination and form of expression, and while vaild, not the only way to provide variety.

There are many ways to make their nature visible aside from defaulting to one standard set of optics and pronouns (androgynous, they/them). It seems like the easy way to go and lazy to me, and reinforces an idea of a certain set of rules they have to follow to be nonbinary the right way.

Edit: Let me give you an example of someone going the extra mile:
Thom Baylay goes out of his way in the Evertree Saga to never use ANY pronouns for Hayden Winter. This can’t have been easy. It’s always Hayden, Winter, the captain, the changeling, etc. and it’s so masterfully done you don’t even notice it at first. The only times “it” is used, is when it’s directly referring to “changeling” not Hayden as a person (with one unfortunate exception).
There are people in real life who don’t go by any pronouns, but they’re often met with “Oh it’s so hard to drop them!”. The story shows it can be done and sound even natural.

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Perhaps, but in that case I have to ask: If not with pronouns (appearance I am not so concerned with because appearances are subjective and don’t really matter in a text game anyway), how would you go about conveying that a character is non-binary? Using binary pronouns runs into the problem I outlined, but you are against they/them and neopronouns.

There may not be a right way to be non-binary, but there might be a better way to be non-binary if representation is the goal.

Also, yes, of course my singular example only gives one possible expression, but I think it conveys an issue that will be had with any expression that doesn’t include at least pronouns signalling that a given character is non-binary. You give the example of using no pronouns at all, but that is literally the only other option. If your only complaint is that there aren’t enough pronounless non-binary characters about, I’ll give you that.

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This will be my last reply regarding this, because I feel like we’re gonna sit here for a while otherwise and derail this thread completely. ^^

(I highly disagree with you that appearances don’t matter in a text game, but that’s beside the point)

You can make appearance matter and use it as a tool to actually represent and include diversity. A transmasculine nonbinary afab person post top surgery on low dose testosterone (that was a mouthful) looks nothing like a transfeminine nonbinary amab person. Androgyny itself is often represented as a lack of distinct sexual characteristics, but it can also mean mixing both. One example of this would be Addison Rose Vincent (mildly NSFW, some underwear pics)

Not directly against. It’s when all aforementioned traits come together.

It is another option, though. And I highly doubt a character who looks like Addison Rose Vincent and goes by she / her pronouns would be perceived as binary despite the pronouns.

But you can convey the fact that a character is nonbinary by having others around them mention it (like Evertree again) or - and this could even go in another post here, because it’s generally something I miss - have people talk about gender and their feelings on gender. Especially if they don’t fit the binary cishet box and the story takes place in a world that is remotely like our own, because then there is a high chance they will have spend a lot of time reflecting on it. Don’t build their character around their gender or lack thereof, but don’t tiptoe around it either.

I hope I could convey my thoughts in a way that makes sense.

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I also think it would be nice to have a larger variety of non-binary NPCs.

And while it means in some cases the player won’t know the NPC is non-binary just by meeting them, I don’t see how that’s a problem. Presumably this NPC is going to show up for more scenes, and the player can get to know them over time.

For some NPCs, it will come down to them needing to outright state it. That happens in real life too.

I like how in Fallen Hero, the fact that Dr. Mortum is trans is pretty subtle. If you don’t get to know them, you may not learn it at all.

Some authors may only want non-binary NPCs who are instantly identifiably as such. And that’s fine — it’s up to them. But I find the idea that it’s impossible or less desirable to have non-binary NPCs who aren’t obviously non-binary the second you meet them rather silly.

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Sorry, I didn’t express myself well. It’s of course essential to be given descriptions in a text game so that things can be imagined, but I think that it matters much less than in a graphic game what a character ‘looks like’ because everyone is going to imagine something unique based on the description. An author can’t count on readers having the same image of a character that they do (barring the few who include ‘canon’ portraits). Moreover, the appearances themselves are subject to further interpretation. I’ve known multiple cisgendered people who, despite never attempting to present as another gender, were mistaken as the opposite binary gender on multiple occasions. If someone can get the wrong impression from seeing a person right in front of them, they surely can from text alone.

While I agree that diversity of appearance is important, it’s a separate matter from diversity of gender as far as I’m concerned, because any gender can look like anything. I think it’s perfectly possible for a transmasculine nonbinary afab person post top surgery on low dose testosterone to look similar to a transfeminine nonbinary amab person. Also, you started out disliking androgyny, but are now in support of it? I don’t think anyone here has said that it must be a lack of distinct sexual characteristics.

If I saw someone who looked like Addison Rose Vincent and was told that her pronouns were she/her, I’d perceive her as binary, at least by default. Those pronouns are unavoidably linked to the female gender (not to say that in some ideal future they may not become truly decoupled), and women can look like anything.

True. Mentioning it is good, but it helps greatly for the mentioning to be reinforced by pronouns, especially when you only experience the character through text. If someone used to a gender binary is told that a character is non-binary, subsequently referring to that character with he/him pronouns does not help with seeing him as such.

You’re right, though, we should probably end it here before it gets too off-topic.

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An option to chose a nickname for family and friends to call MC would be so welcome!

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