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I like nuance and emotional depth, which I know is difficult in COG. I don’t so much care about personality traits on the stats screen —those can be extremely simple for all I care— but I do like it when your choice options allow nuance and for you to explain motive. For a really simple example, let’s say that you have the choice to kill someone.

Rather than “I shoot him” vs “I spare him,” I like it when the options are more like “I shoot him, but immediately regret it,” or “I ignore my desire to kill him and keep him alive for pragmatic reasons,” and probably several more. Basically the two options can be killing him or sparing him, and so you really only have to write two paths from there. It’s sort of a fake choice since there are still only two outcomes, but I’d feel much more immersed and connected with the protagonist nonetheless.

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I prefer more blank state MCs where I can choose their personality and gender. I want an option to skip all the appearance customization that has no impact on the story. A game can have a defined plot and backstory, but I want to choose how my MC feels.

The moments app has the worst protagonists. In one story game, MC was captured by her rapist abusive ex who threatened to force her to have an abortion if she left and her response was that she was happy her baby’s family was together. I would have at least liked the option to acknowledge that he is a scumbag. The MCs on the app are always so happy to know their one night stand knocked them up and the guy they have spent a total of 5 minutes with wants to marry them, and that breaks my immersion.

I want a protagonist that doesn’t go through a forced pregnancy plot. I don’t want the protagonist to have zero agency or for the authors to write their story into a sinkhole.

In the Love Island App, your partner can betray you, but your MC is never given a chance to find closure. It is good to give MC a chance to confront people. The App is suppose to be a love game, but has so much betrayal that my MC has given up on love and it isn’t fun anymore. The MC should never loose so much that there is no conning back from it as I play my games for escapism. I want my protagonists to have a satisfying end.

I want to have options to display my morality and ideas when it fits the story. A game asked if the MC wanted kids, but never gave the option to say no when saying no wouldn’t have even branched the plot and would not have been very difficult to write and code when there were already option choices present.

I also want the ability to have a pet.

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That’s seriously disturbing. :flushed::anguished::confounded:

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It is really Bad, is that game designed for teenage girls? That would be even worse.

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Yeah, it’s nice if characteristics the MC tends to lean to shows up in flavour text. Tho I think it can also become a bit annoying sometimes as it often doesn’t leave place to character development or just different behaviours in different situations. For example in Heroes of Myth I found it kinda frustrating that an MC who continues to lie about the story they made up also can’t be honestly sorry about their involvment in messing up a familys life. I think the two things are different enough to leave place for such different feelings and approach but the high liar stat makes us fail the stat check required for that one time to be honest.
Not sure how this could be handled better tho since playing blank slate MC isn’t too enjoyable either…

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I think a lot young people play it judging from the comment forums. Most of the games would actually be good and have an interesting plot if the MC wasn’t insane and it wasn’t normalplace for the characters to be insane. A dark fan theory stated that the authors might be in abusive relationships and write to try to normalize and justify the situation by saying all relationships are like that or something. All I know is that it is too dark when I just want some escapism. I don’t mind an insane MC as long as the story is lighthearted.

The App is actually one of the few that has disabled npc’s and you can even have half a disabled LI as the other half of the LI is a rouge sandman boss. Or maybe he’s only a third of a LI because you also have an undercover historical lesbian romance that happens at the same time. I don’t know it was weird with all the third of a perspective switches, but my route was the saddest thing ever and not escapism. The authors just need more follow through to make a great MC.

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Give them a predefined character, voice, and story! Excessively clear and I never make it past the demo since I don’t know why I should mind.

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Sometimes the MC seems totally offline, even they are right there, the scene used a whole page describe the banter throwing back and forth between NPCs or fantasy NPCs’ personal show, the MC only been mentioned inbetween you see thems and you hear thems, I thought I was playing an interaction novel game, not reading an actual novel…

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Welp, I normally don’t like to chat online. Especially if I don’t think my complaints would actually have an impact on anything. But I have four hours to kill before my shift ends and I’m bored out of my mind.

Anyways, I’m not sure if anyone else said but I would like an MC who’s more morally grey (or have morally grey options) and it is reflected as such. Not really a good person to be considered a “hero” but not bad of a person to be considered a “villain”. Most games I played that try to deal with morality sort of fail to me. It’s either a black or white case where you stuck being good or being bad depending on your first set of actions. Or the scenario is too black or white for you to even try to be any shade of grey. I may be a world class bitch, but if someone is in danger, I don’t mind saving them… ya know what I mean? It’s rare for the MC to be like that though there are plenty of love interests who act as such (for some reason).

Another thing is not so much of the MC but the love interest’s treatment of the MC. Idk, is it just me or do most of these games make me feel like the love interest aren’t really “interested” in you. How to explain… the MC would chase after the love interest of their choosing but the love interest never really chase back or show their interest in return. The MC is there to flirts and drag the love interest to a date while fixing the love interest’s problems. Then once everything is done, your love interest says they love you and rooooll credits! I think what’s bothering me is that the MC has this large impact on a RO’s life while the RO kinda is on stand by for the MC’s emotional baggage. While it’s nice that some games bother to have the RO be a little proactive in inviting the MC to events or asking the MC for their hobby’s, it really isn’t impactful. Urghhh I feel like I’m going crazy trying to explain this. So I’m going to jump to my next point.

A bit out of order, but I want more uh… “common sense” answers, more “in the middle” answers, and more “street rat” answers. How to explain… most of the time these answers are just wildly different with no in betweens. There’s also lots of answers that are just plain stupid or something the player should already know. There shouldn’t be a disconnect if the player knows something is up but the MC is still acting naive. Something in that story tipped off the player, therefore the MC should have been tipped off too. And finally, more “street rat” answers. Answers that really speaks volume to the more impoverished or those who are on that money grind. Idk it would be nice to have options where the MC isn’t a middle class family but not quite a homeless peasant from the medieval ages.

Anyways, I feel like my thoughts were all over the place here and this looks like the rambling of a crazy person. I’m going to shut up now

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92

You are so true neutral…:sweat_smile:

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I’d like it if the conflict between the MC/their companions and the antagonist wasn’t always painted or portrayed so black & white I would find it more interesting if the side or organization that the MC is on or joins is established as not being the typical squeaky clean good guys who haven’t had to do anything morally questionable to save lives and the villain wasn’t as bad as the MC’s allies made them out to be. I know this is something that has more to do with plot but it definitely affects the protagonist and their allies.

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I honestly think those are some outstanding suggestions!

Black-and-white morality is something I’ve repeatedly seen discouraged across the internet, and in fact, the COG blogs do so as well:

  • “If you do want to add morality traits, we recommend using multiple virtues like “Honesty” and “Compassion” and not use an overall morality score like “Good” or “Evil”. We prefer moral dilemmas, where it’s hard to decide what’s right and wrong; when I’m literally choosing between two options, one obviously Good and one obviously Evil, I don’t think about the decision as much.”

All the options should still make sense, of course, and their consequences even more so. I get irritated quickly when you’re given multiple options, some incorporating shades of grey, but then the NPCs react as if it’s still a black-and-white affair. :roll_eyes:

This is actually the main reason for me wanting to reply to your post. You mention how PCs often have a significant impact on those around them, but aren’t influenced in kind. Would you (and anyone else reading this who feels like adding to the discussion) then like to have more opportunities for the ROs, or any NPCs to whom the MC is close, to approach the PC and ask about them, or otherwise for the PC to ask them for consolation/support? I didn’t think about this until now (which is shameful, really :sweat_smile:), but now that I have, it strikes me as brilliant. Not only would it make the ROs more engaging, it would also give the player character more depth, as well as exploring any background the story has created for the PC.

I understand why you have difficulty explaining your point, so allow me to attempt to rephrase it: You want ROs to be more relevant to the PC’s life? To offer a reciprocal relationship where both individuals can rely on and ask for support from the other?

Yeah, that would be awesome! It sometimes feels like the replies the PC gives all fit into a nice box, e.g. the aggressive one, the timid one, the selfish one, the compassionate one, etc. More neutrality in the available options sounds grand, and even if it means you’re only writing, say, two to three more options, that would already lead to a significant increase in variety without costing too much time. Most situational branching options don’t have long-term effects besides altering the stats anyway, so it should be doable.

Not at all! Thanks for sharing your thoughts. For me, at least, this has given me much to think about.

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I was thinking of something like The City of Fog where the choices you make define your personality.

So if you were a Loner/Group(I think it was) it would show you different text of how you reacted with groups/crowds/socially.

But then again I’m a hypocrite because I am guilty of making the player in my own image. In fact I try to avoid the personality part altogether and just focus of the skills the players have.

What if I have a story where the whole stat screen doesn’t even matter? I focus on the objects the characters are able to carry.

I often feel uncomfortable writing emotion while I just love to read it… go me.

Aside from that a blank slate is what I’m looking for and I would rather choose my character’s personality without them just randomly saying, doing, thinking what I wouldn’t. Almost like a carbon-copy me.

Hint the almost part some of the characters could be in situations that there’s no way possible for me to be in. In those cases I want the character to act at least somewhat like me.

There was this one game I played and for the most part they brushed every NPC off despite me trying to get close to them. When I finally got into a relationship the NPC ended up using me but like I said my character brushed it off and called it a day. That wasn’t like me at all. I’m easy to trust and hurt when I’m betrayed and I may not even show it. My character had no thought about them since they left like the NPC never existed.

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Wow! I’m pleasantly surprised that someone reacted well to my ramblings here. I was gaslighting myself that I was the black sheep here with my remark about RO’s. I’ll get through the points here first…

I find it funny that there’s actually advise out there on these forums about morality… advice that’s really helpful actually! Though I can’t be too surprise that there’s so many games and demos that don’t really follow it. Being morally grey is probably a hard concept to grasp for some people and it would mess with a linear plot, I would imagine. I know a lot of people who just avoid morality like the plague just so they don’t have to think too deeply about their plots lmao.

But you mention that some games sprinkle in the grey with some answers. Truth be told, I can’t think of any. The only sort of “grey” I remember from these games are when the PC is given the answer like “I don’t know” or “I’m not sure what to think yet.” I feel like these sort of answers are most authors use as their go to “morally grey” but to be honest: “I don’t know” isn’t a morally grey answer. If person doesn’t know, then they do not know… aka they do not have an opinion to be considered as any manner of morality. It’s very cheap and lazy as an option if it’s suppose to be able to stand against two other defined choices. Having an “I don’t know” answer is fine tbh but there should But more options that are actually in the middle such as “option a is a little right but so is option b. Therefore I meet them in the middle as option c”.

Of course these answers are dependent on the scenario. Which brings me to my question that I want to ask you (and for anyone else who wants to answer): would you prefer it if an author just sticks to writing black and white scenarios if they don’t know how to write the grey or do you like it when an author attempt to make a morally grey scenario but it’s obviously a black and white choice. Personally I much rather it be that the author stick to their element if, at the end of the day, they’ll just do the same thing but pretend to be #deep. I guess a good example of pretend to be #deep is the anime Shiki (controversial opinion here… also the only thing scary about Shiki are the people who genuinely thought the anime was scary :tea:)

Yes yes yes! This is exactly what I mean. I can imagine writing this is hard if there’s a dozen of RO’s in the game (tbh I think the best number of RO’s is four and all of them gender optioned) but the relationship feels so… fake when something major happens to the PC but the RO just moves on like it was nothing. Or in instances where the RO is part of the scenario (ex. RO is kidnapped and PC has to save them) but the author kinda gloss over the interactions for the sake of ease for all the other ROs (ex. “And so, the PC saved their RO and went out for pizza. The end.”) I like to imagine a scenario where the player gets their happy ending with an RO and close the app but the PC in the game is now stuck with some person they don’t really like and doesn’t know the PC as a person. A bit of a sad thought and we do our alternative self dirty lol. I can only think of like two games that had the RO give a shit about the PC. One of them was one of those random super powered high school plot demos on this forum and the other being Wayhaven book one.

Oof, please. You triggered me with the “the aggressive one, the timid one, the ect.” Cause it’s so true lmao. I can probably play a dozen games and be able to neatly categorize the answers into a pile. While I don’t mind it since it suppose to show the PC’s personality but like we been saying about morality, there’s nothing in the middle. And sometimes there’s no variety? I think the best way to describe it was this one game I played (not CoG). All the answers were the same of the PC throwing away a letter but what made each answer “special” was the emotion behind throwing away the letter. One was aggressively against it, one was timid and creeped out by it, and the other was dismissive of it. But just because the “UwU emotions” are different it doesn’t change the fact that the only option was to throw away the letter. That’s just an illusion of choice at that point. Why even give the option lol. And this reflects on some games at certain answers. Sometimes it just makes me go “Why are you asking for my opinion if you’re going to disregard it?”

Anyways, thanks for humoring my messy thought process here lol

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