Wow, Im really in the minority here so far. I prefer pre-set but failing that I’d take random. The two lowest options lol
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If you had not said this, I would have voted for another option. I feel that authors who already decided on genders beforehand made it rather obvious in their writing because they don’t really account for it outside of pronouns. I know for myself that I tend to have this nagging feeling that I had “picked the wrong choice” while playing, so to speak.
So for this example specifically, I’ve picked “play with a set cast”.
6 Likes
Yeah I prefer ROs with set genders. I feel like your gender/the way you present yourself has a profound effect on who you are or the experiences you live. I also feel like certain ROs have genders that more accurately fit them. For example, I tend to prefer male ROs but sometimes I meet a character and I’m like…OK this character is clearly nonbinary coded and I’m really not about to change that.
If the ROs are gender selectable though, I prefer choosing as the story progresses.
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If we assume that the character writing is done in a way that works for all genders, as I hope all writers making gender-changeable characters do, then this is what I think:
I know I don’t go too wrong choosing all male ROs, so I am very fine with that option.
If I want to have ROs of different genders, I greatly prefers to set them myself, when I have at least a bit of an idea of who they are. I’ve found that having the author, game, or randomness choose, means that I often don’t enjoy the way gender has been assigned, since it tends to skew heavily towards classic gender stereotypes and very binary gender-presentation. When I choose the genders myself, I can be sure that the ROs I prefer have the genders that feel right for them to me.
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Yeah, I’d agree. I don’t know any examples of random sex (or gender I guess, but the sound of random sex is more fun.) Could be interesting. Especially if it’s a story with a lot of random elements, maybe certain characters are missing, maybe the available factions are different. Just an idea.
I don’t really care if the gender is already set or not, just any option other than “Let the game decide the gender ROs based on your sexuality”. I mean, what if someone wants to be gay/lesbian, also what would happen to non-binary people?
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Well in a lot of games like those characters have a set orientation. Ex. one character might be coded to be the opposite gender of you, one the same gender as you, etc.
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For me, it comes down to what would make a game unplayable (from my perspective).
With automatically gender-flipped ROs, either based on my character’s sexuality or a choice at the beginning of the game, the potential downside is - depending on the skill of the writer - meeting a bunch of ROs who are basically agender or whose gender doesn’t seem to ‘fit’ from my own perspective. Not really a big deal, I can still get with the romance program and enjoy the game.
With set genders, OTOH, the worst-case scenario is ending up with all the people I want to romance being of incompatible gender/orientation, and since I’m pretty much here for games with romance, 99% of the time this scenario means I quit and walk away (in fact this happened quite recently, with Battlemage). Still not a huge deal unless I paid a lot of money for the game, but it is disappointing.
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I have a few pages where I can either break up the text with an extra page_break, or leave it as it is, but you have to scroll down to read it. So it’s a choice between clicking and scrolling, and I’m not sure if it’s worth minimizing scrolling if it’s giving the reader more pages to click through, if that makes sense.
Which do you prefer?
- Having to scroll more
- Having to click more
0 voters
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Probably better to break it up with page_breaks, IMO, if only to avoid the “wall of text” effect. 
You’re right that the amount of text is the same either way, of course, but it might seem daunting to have it all in one page (if it’s a really long text — otherwise, scrolling a bit seems fine to me, especially if it doesn’t happen for every page).
I do think I’ve seen some people mention that they prefer to see all choices at once, without having to scroll, but this might depend on factors like whether players are on desktop / mobile, etc.
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In a story where the player character isn’t the main hero, what role would you want to play?
I’m not including “villain” in this poll because it would obviously win in a landslide.
Explanation on Choices
Mentor: The player character is the main hero’s mentor and teacher.
Sidekick: The PC is the lovable (or otherwise) sidekick who supports the hero.
Bystander: The PC has no direct relationship with the main hero. But witnesses or is affected by their actions.
Loved One: The PC is a loved one of the hero
- Mentor
- Sidekick
- Bystander
- Loved One
0 voters
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There is no genre choice from the poll which include infinity series and fallen hero so i choose other opinion.
Those two series is very creative and unique unlike all if stories i’ve ever seen in this forum.
Honestly i’ve read too many if story here so a lot of things almost looks samey for me.
So if there is a story which is not in one of the genre on the polls then highly chance it will be interesting
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It’s not winning, but I think playing the mentor would be awesome. Trying to shape your messy teenage hero into a functional adult who can save the day and not get themselves killed? I would love that.
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Instead of being something to a hero, I’d love to be the mentor to a villain, like being Palpatine to Vader.
Or a sidekick to a villain, like helping the Joker takeover Gotham.
Or a bystander observing the fight between the Black Order and the Guardians of the Galaxy, and choosing to go against them both and rule for themselves.
So many possibilities 
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Of those four, I think Mentor is probably the most likely to have their own interesting things to do in the story.
Love Interests and Sidekicks do as well, probably, but they run the risk of feeling too much of an adjunct to the hero in my opinion. Sidekicks perhaps more so.
Bystanders are simply boring, unless they have their own story going on with interesting things happening there. But then they’d be the hero of that story, which just happens to intersect with that of the ‘main hero’ at points.
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I am a complete and utter hypocrite in regards to this question, so I chose two answers.
On the one hand, as a player, I like being able to choose the genders of the ROs. I tend to create straight female characters, so being able to choose all ROs to be males is appealing. I’ve seen WIPs where the genders are fixed and the only ROs I found interesting were female, so I never went back to play them. That said…
From a writing standpoint, and from a story standpoint, I much prefer a set cast of ROs with fixed genders. It’s not because I feel that male should behave one way and females another, but the world feels more solid and “real” to me as a reader when that sort of thing is set rather than variable. When they aren’t set, it ends up feeling more gamey, especially when the questions pop up right before a scene to ask what gender the MC wants someone to be. My MCs are like “huh??” So it takes away from immersion.
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Would you play a game with a fixed character and storyline, like a traditional game? The gameplay style is like a cross between Ace Attorney Investigations and L.A. Noire, meets vampires.
You are an aristocratic vampire hunter, responsible for the protection of your assigned domain. Five years after you have eradicated the last vampire in your domain, they have suddenly reappeared. You track them down… only to uncover a plot that revolves around your own questionable past.
I haven’t actually finished plotting this out, so that summary may change later on - but that’s the gist of it.
- Yes
- No
- It depends (please explain)
0 voters
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The storyline sounds quite interesting and I would definitely be up for something like that, even if it was fixed. As for the fixed character, I would certainly appreciate some level of customization even if it wasn’t a lot, just to help me relate to the character more.
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I won’t mind if the player character is fixed if we can alter small details like first name/gender.
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