Can be done great or poorly. No universal yays or nays here. 
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I say yes. I think I’d even enjoy the suspense of not knowing which characters are actually RO’s.
When I know and when there is a bar in the stats screen telling me how much they like my character I subconsciously start thinking of them more as goals than actual characters with inner development, everything just… turns into math 
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This is a slight tangent, but do you equate relationship bars to RO by default, or is it the knowing ahead of time?
Fair point
Also, damn, that’ll be a fun rom-com.
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If I didn’t know it was a fake RO up front, I’d be all kinds of pissed off.
If I did know the RO was fake, I’d steer clear of it. And probably the game altogether. It’s rare enough to get a satisfying romance in these games–I don’t really want to play one up front that I know will never be satisfying.
I’m so the opposite. I hate surprises, so much so that I read the endings of books before I ever start them. The only exception is when watching a suspenseful movie, because I love being caught offguard in those (that said, I check doesthedogdie.com before ever watching most movies, lol).
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Hm. I had an idea about a LI you could call fake in one of my projects. He (or she) is romantically involved with you during flashback sequences, but goes missing right before the time-skip to the actual meat of the game. MC takes this loss with stride and keeps fighting for his forces for several years afterwards, yet after him being assigned to a new unit a mysterious masked pilot starts to appear.
This masked pilot is the very same LI, only brainwashed and recruited to the side you vehemently oppose.
There are opportunities to bring him to your side, since his love for you was the only reason he stayed even remotely sane, but I imagine you can also fail in doing this and be forced to kill him. Either with hard feelings or not - he is your dead partner, but it’s been five or seven years since then, and there are other LIs aside from him.
Would that count as a fake LI?
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Nay. Definitely nay.
Outside this site, stories about queer relationships will often end in tragedy (if they’re allowed at all). I don’t particularly want to have to worry about if I’m going to be getting more of that over here. Also, it kinda feels like you’re using the promise of these ROs to get people invested in the story, only to pull them back at the last moment (which is also something queer people experience quite a bit). I don’t think I’d trust an author who had done that enough to ever read anything else by them.
It doesn’t matter if it’s hard to accomplish, if you can save him (and get back with him) then it’s not a fake RO. If it always ends in tragedy, then yes, I would count that as a fake RO. (Granted, I also think that ROs shouldn’t be too hard to romance/save, because that always makes it feel very artificial and gamey.)
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I think the ‘false RO’ thing can work out in theory, but I also think that they’re always a bad idea in practice because the risk/reward ratio on them is unfavorable. Including them is pretty much guaranteed to piss off a substantial chunk of your audience, and it’s very unlikely that they’ll bring enough to the table to counterbalance that.
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I am a staunch Tesla-in-War-of-the-Currents-defender and I do love having more varied kinds of relationship stories… but I think you’re right that the majority of people playing will be annoyed or upset by it, so if someone wants to write it, it’s best to go in clear-eyed about that.
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I think that’s fair, although I’m sorry that a narrow set of expectations seems to be overtaking the possibility for a broad range of literary experiences.
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I totally agree, and believe there’s room for really wonderful explorations of less-widely-popular and less-commonly-seen relationships.
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I wouldn’t mind the death for plot (I know of VN where MC and one of RO don’t have happy ending at all bc they always die).
But If RO supposed to romancable and then pulled they actually aren’t into MC I would feel turned off whole game.
I don’t want to waste few hours on Love Interest that shouldn’t be option for my MC in first place.
As someone who plays female MC I would hate “romancing” male RO, having all the sweet moments to get told in the end he doesn’t like women.
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I think people will be a lot more forgiving towards ROs who are destined to die than ROs who were never into PC to begin with. One is a tragedy, another one is designing a twist few people will appreciate.
Compare F in Hero Maker and Ignis in Tale of Heroes if you want an in-community example (both WIPs). Tesla was also well received, but I wouldn’t consider them a “fake RO” because the game doesn’t promise you romance.
I feel like this is somewhat missing that all stories must in some way be limited by their medium. IF can do many things that a lot of other media can’t, but at the same time, there are stories that just can’t work. True Classical Tragedy, for example, is not just “lots of things go wrong and it ends badly”, but is explicitly a story of how the protagonist’s flaws and bad decisions make things worse at every turn. A Hamlet IF could never truly work, as most players wouldn’t make the same bad decisions, and the “canon” end would just be the worst among many other endings, in which Hamlet goes off with Ophelia or Horatio, or even manages to successfully murder Claudius without killing literally everyone else.
Similarly, with fake ROs, the bad end is being forced on the player not due to their actual choices, but due to the character they happen to like, which comes across less as tragic but meaningful, and more punishing and arbitrary.
Granted, more modern tragedies do often play into the inevitability despite one’s actions, but I feel as though that’s something that should be made clear well in advance, not sprung upon the player as a final twist. And let’s be honest “no matter what you do, your actions change nothing” is a weird theme for IF. Not saying it couldn’t work, but it would be very hard to do well.
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There’s a lot of non-commercial IF that does this kind of thing very effectively, especially short IF - one of my favourite IFs I encountered when first exploring was Even Cowgirls Bleed by Christine Love, for example. (And it can be popular even in commercial IF - there was conversation a while back about Red Embrace: Hollywood which sounded very interesting in this sort of regard, though I haven’t got around to playing it yet.)
But it is generally not so common in commercial ChoiceScript IF, where some elements of the CoG style (such as a relatively blank-slate/non-“set” protagonist, relatively “fair” choices where “bad” endings are uncommon, etc) become more commonplace in HG too. There are some more tragedy-shaded released games - I’m thinking of Rent-A-Vice in particular - though they don’t seem to tend to do so well sales-wise (although I wonder if Fallen Hero could be counted as a tragic story about bad decisions, in some paths).
In general I would love to see further variation over time. I really enjoy being surprised by unusual themes or stories done well.
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That’s a good point, but I think the length is the key factor here; I can’t really see something the size of the modern CoG/HG game being able to do it well, but for something short and focused, it could definitely work.
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For me this stuff is interesting only if it’s important for the MC’s character development and/or plot and should happen in the first half of the game, giving an opportunity to have an actual romance after that.
For example
you want to kill off some character to raise the stakes and not only you make the said character very compelling, but also allow the MC to start relationship with them before the tragedy. Or you need to push the MC into despair in the beginning, so you add some optional unrequited love drama (just don’t make fake RO more attractive than actual ROs lol). But imo it won’t be fair to include these fake ROs in the RO list in the description.
Alternatively it can be an actual romance without a happy ending, but it should be something special, not just them being not interested (and telling that after sharing some romantic moments would be leading MC on anyway, not cool).
Example again
Like in Pathfinder WOTR one of the ROs is a psychopath (as in a mental condition) and in the end she either snaps because you didn’t allow her to kill enough people or leaves the MC in the epilogue because she doesn’t want to feel the desire to kill them. Personally I wouldn’t go down that road, but I think it’s a good example of an interesting doomed romance.
In other cases it’s an author’s story to write, but I’d rather see a content warning about a fake romance so I could avoid it (or accept it in rare IFs like One Knight Stand, where the premise requires doomed romance routes).
Also you can add optional bad/early endings for real ROs, so it’s still possible to provide some drama for those in need without disappointing the majority.
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Maybe If someone has such a "Fake"RO how about just not mentioning that it is a RO so that you know from the beginning that If you involve with that character IT will end badly. So If someone wants to try that Bad ending they do Not get to think they might Turn the Tide.
I Bet there are still people trying the Route, but No one geht’s fooled about it.
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In the case that they choose not to be with you because they aren’t interested, I’m all for sadness and RO autonomy, and can see myself enjoying this route with a specific type of MC, but like others, I would prefer this fact be stated in their description or at least SOME indicator be made before I start— if only so I can shape my MC accordingly. The other ones? Death, or some other thing preventing you two from being together (perhaps the situation is too complicated, perhaps they have to leave to go fight in a war on the other side, etc. etc.) then I wouldn’t require an indicator, as I feel like the general vibe of the character and the story might be an indicator enough? Unless, of course, death isn’t preventable and is a fact throughout every path; that could get squicky for some people very quickly, so a warning would be in order there.
HAH! 
Same here, though my personal pride dictates that I only read the very last page (which has never spoiled anything so far, but usually gives me some kind of vibe on whether it’ll end happily or sadly. I do still adore plot twists, just not the ones that make you feel… cheated?)
OHHH!!! I LOVE THIS SO MUCH??? Brainwashed plots (though I mostly like the “Hey our robot friend just got their brain reprogrammed” ones) are so fun for me for some reason; just seeing how characters react to everything, and whether or not they can bring them back… and the possibility that you’d have to kill him? 
Love me some Murder as an Act of Devotion stuff… “I’m going to kill you for your own good, because this isn’t you, but I love you nonetheless” etc. etc.
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