ever notice that ? lol
Gay= Oh he is good looking, but I prefer womenz/menz…
Hetero= I prefer mens/womens .
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Please don’t decide whether the protagonist find someone charming/attractive for me, pretty please!
I don’t like beard man, so I get anxious whenever I read something like “that man has a beard, you can’t help but think, he’s so attractive”… No, please, no.
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Should ask for shaving…must be mandatory 
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Non human protagonists! I love fiction where an animal is the POV character, and I think that interactive fiction is a brilliant way of writing BUT I think that there are way too many games where you’re a human In a supernatural world or normal in a world of super’s THAT I find extremely annoying. I feel that human protagonist’s are slightly overdone that’s all, one of my favourite WIP’s is “The Passinger” where you play as an abomination who is trapped in a human body that is a extremely good story and all in part because of the non human hero/villain/middle ground.
Also the lack of disabled protagonists and that it’s always something like blindness or being deaf, please do the research and include some lesser known disabilities, like Cerebral palsy or CP for short, I think that it’s a good way to raise awareness and it’s a good way to make things interesting for the protagonist. Look, I get that it’s easier to write about able bodied hero’s and villains but the world isn’t all able bodied people, so why are all the protagonists able bodied?
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I usually prefer the more blank slate protagonists where there’s a range of choices to determine their personality and actions. I also like choosing origins, although it can be fun to roleplay within a predetermined background as well.
One thing I don’t like is when the narration conflicts with the choices made or conflicts with the protagonist’s personality by having the protagonist do or say something to develop another character. I think consistency is important for having a connection to protagonists, especially the blank slate ones.
I mostly agree, although I think it can be done well like in Fallout: New Vegas where gender doesn’t have that much impact on your own choices, but it does have an impact on how other characters (like Caesar’s Legion) react.
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the issue I have with gender or orientation reactions, is that its always the same gender who get the shit dropped on them .
In that game…what was the name ? hum…Magick something . If you play a female you cant enter a bar, if you are a dude its just fine . Another has it, that if you are a male, all them hookers next to you offer you service . if you are female…well…nada .
Either make it equal in the negative…or don’t make it happen at all .
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When it comes to MC’s portrayal, I prefer having one of two worlds: either a pre-defined protagonist, with set personality that determines the available choices, preferably in set starting relations, or a blank-slate, where it’s up to reader to figure out what their character feels, looks like (in one of the newest games ie, to my slight dismay, when given no prior description or choice about it we meet a character that’s “much shorter than you are”. Oh, are they? Just say they’re on the short side and let me figure how that relates to mc) etc, and choices are reflections of different types of play suiting different characters.
Was it Arcanum: Of Steamworks and Magick Obscura? Because I remember being annoyed how even at the start there’s a lack of options (like being unable to play as a dwarf) for female characters during the character creation. There was a lot I enjoyed about that game, but the female protagonist’s options compared to the male’s were disappointing.
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I don’t think I would want to be an animal protagonist, but I definitely find it boring always or usually being the unaware human who get’s sucked into the supernatural, or into a fantasy world. I like the fantasy genre but why do I have to be a human MC when I’m surrounded by all these interesting supernatural beings ? I don’t think a character or MC needs to be human for them to be relatable to the audience or player.
As for the idea of disabled protagonists or character, I’d love to see that in a story but my only concern would be is that character’s disability being accurately portrayed in the story.
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Yes! That was the one!
I kinda quit at that part…I couldn’t get in the bar by the front door was like…screw this .
But thats a good exemple, a game should please and be fun to everyone . It shouldn’t be done in a way where X get a blast…but Y get hindered .
The same happen in BG2 that nobody talk about actually . Hence why I said, there are others way to ‘encourage’ replayability without falling on those…things .
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Foremost, player agency. I do not want emotions, thoughts, morals or actions (and so forth) defined to me or be told how I feel, think and so on. I want to be a part of my character, not an observer. Allow me to pick, please. I love multiple answer that are similar yet have different tones to them as well. Genuine, sarcastic and all other attitudes.
Blank sheet or predefined? A bit of both. If I can get input into the history, great. But that does not work with all stories. But I do not want it to be like in Fallout 4 - as a guy you are ex military, as a gal you are a lawyer. No thank you. I need room to role-play too. Fallout 3 is far better there, I felt I came from somewhere yet had room to grow. Fallout New Vegas, well, I feel a lack of roots there and did not know why I would care for that big conflict. Dragon Age Origins, well, played all origins, in several different ways. Loved that. Dragon Age 2, meh, boring start and lack of [race] options among other things.
Gender choice too, of course, and I enjoy detailing my appearance, but that is not really the subject here. 
As other mention, in a sense, too many games have my girl swoon at the sight of a stunningly beautiful lady even after I stated I have no interest in my own gender in that way. 
That’s all I can think of, of the top of my head.
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I second both of your opinions!
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This. I don’t like stories where the NPCs all have personalities and the MC just has skill bars. Or, at best, a morality meter. I don’t like stories where the MC is a friendless orphan who doesn’t know anyone except the ROs and doesn’t have social connections. I don’t like stories where the MC has no past and acts as if they had just hatched from a slimy green egg in a mad scientist’s laboratory, fully formed physically but with zero memories.
You know how to fight? Nice. Who taught you to fight? The people in the MC’s past are what made them. Let MCs have families and friends. Rivals, even. Exes, even. Something. Let them have jobs and hobbies and things going on in their lives other than the game’s main plot. I’ve quit so many games because the MCs were non-persons with no love or passion except for the romance route they were on. Ugh.
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This topic does remind of a debate I had with someone about a week ago with my latest project.
Basically, the question they had was why people are interested in stories where the protag is the strongest X or Best of X, or something along those lines. They made the point that they like to see main characters who are just average. I countered with…that I freaking hate that trope.
Afterwards, I made the point that the main character should at least have some meaningful contribution to their own story other than just being the special one somehow. Yes, supporting characters shouldn’t be useless. However, there’s nothing more annoying than watching a supporting character entirely outclass the person I’m supposed to root for.
Naturally, it doesn’t apply in all cases. The doctor character generally probably knows the most of medicine. The doctor character is much less likely to however also be a master swordsman, strategist, banker, pilot, and whatever else, let alone all of those things just to be better at it then the MC.
I can grasp the point of some that they want to watch an ordinary character, but I’m of the mind that a protagonist needs at least some form of talent in some regard to be actually memorable. Example. We know there’s thousands and thousands of visual novels about average teenage boys who aren’t anything special, but how many of those main characters could you actually name off the top of your head without looking them up?
Of course, main characters should have flaws, but I just don’t see the appeal of the primary person I’m expected to be rooting for also being the deadweight.
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Autism. Hidden disabilities. But lbr literally anything, I feel like begging for scraps at this point where every disabled character in mainstream media is used for some sort of ableist inspiration porn.
Same here but the real and most important idea: non-binary genders. I can name tons of games that allow you to play as male or female, but very, very few, that allow otherwise.
breathes in
cetero nbs/nblnb people are barely represented at all even by so-called progressive media, it is not fair that playing as non-binary has to lock you into a binary, often cis romance when not all non-binary people are okay with that
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Whilst I would agree with some of this I am quite keen on games that goes into a certain genre from a unique perspective - not an average joe but someone who wouldn’t be the core character in another game. There was a never released WIP game where we were the innkeeper who knows about stuff in a fantasy world and was keeping their business afloat while helping or hindering would be adventurers which saddens me that it was never completed. Or the planned Unmasked series of games where we get to be Lois Lane or the henchman or Jim Gordon - the ordinary hero or investigator in a super world. That sort of thing.
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I can imagine one bad ending would be that the inn burns down. That often happens in fantasy setting. 
Anyway is the demo still around? It’d be interesting to check it out.
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Even tho females get even more often included than non-binary people I get the frustration of being ignored in the majority of games. Tho I also get why a cis author would hesitate to write about things they don’t fully understand. After all badly done representation doesn’t help anyone either. Don’t take this as shrugging off the issue just that it’s a complicated issue I guess.
To be complately honest here I also stay away from the LGBTQ+ thread bc half the terms used there are just confusing for me. Whenever I feel like I get it basically I read a new term which leaves me like “what?”, so it’s easier to stay silent than accidentaly insulting someone.
And sorry, gone offtopic again…
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I like MCs that are people, I feel more immersed in a story when I can know the characters backstory, so I can see where they stand in the world and how they got there, then decide how that affect then and how to carry on in the game.
Blank slates get boring fast, they can be useful for most gamey interactive fiction since there’s more emphasis on the gameplay, but for story purposes (and I’m in for the story) it’s just a waste.
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Honestly, I’d like more opportunities to play as the protagonist villain in a game(like in Fallen Hero: rebirth). Personally, I enjoy the villains perspective of a story a lot more than the hero’s unless I can influence their morality to at least anti-hero.
@Laguz As a guy with Asperger’s, I don’t know how trusting I’d be about autism being properly represented. I’d need the person to either be on the autism spectrum themselves, have a PHD in Psychology or be related to someone with Autism. But still, Autism isn’t the same for each person, yes there are characteristics that carry over to person to person.
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