What kind of love interests you would like to see more of in Hosted games?

Currently i am creating my own book.
Rught now i qustion what kind of love interests i can add.

So my question is- what type of cahracter do you want to romance?

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unpopular opinion (might be Im not sure): most of the time I dont do Romance but when I do I prefer stoic or shy ROs
also I always prefer slowburn romance

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Thanks for replying! Yes i know some people don’t do romance at all, so i will add that option.

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To shamelessly paraphrase a recent post from @will,

Browse this thread:

Poll thread: romantic interests

And take absolutely none of it as gospel and do your own thing anyway.

More seriously, in general I recommend coming up with characters you find interesting first. If players aren’t interested in getting spending time with characters initially, they won’t be interested in getting closer romantically either.

That said when someone writes a ChoiceScript game with a haplessly ambitious loser like Rhys in Tales from the Borderlands whom I can romance, I will be very happy.

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dont get me wrong I like good romances I am just extremely picky about ROs, but yeah some people doesnt care about ROs at all so adding that option will be a good choice

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I’d generally love to see:

  • Mature, older (40+) ROs with life experience (but only if I’m not playing a bumbling, naive MC in their early twenties).

  • ROs who can fuck up my shit and whose shit I can fuck up as well. Mind you, I’m only here for some of the already existing ROs in this category, but a little variety is always a good thing.

  • More friends-to-lovers ROs that are explicitly weirdo4weirdo. The reason why I’m into enemies-to-lovers is that it’s usually more exciting and potentially a little twisted. But a friends-to-lovers romance that focuses on the fact that both are a little (or a lot) cracked and that it’s exactly what makes them work? Poetic cinema.

  • If it’s supposed to be a spicy book, I’d love a kinky RO with whom the MC can either negotiate their preferences, experiment or indulge in their own kinks. However, I’d hate for them to be the sole “kinky” RO because that could make it seem as if that’s their entire personality or the only thing that makes them special.

Edit: I see some people have given you serious writing advice, so I’d just like to say that the above are some general thoughts. You should always write what suits you personally and once you have some solid ideas in mind, you can still always add things inspired by community feedback. Don’t incorporate characters x or y just to fulfill some quota.

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As others say the best approach is characters first and romances second. Garrus and Tali ended up the most popular romances in Mass Effect for most players because we’d gotten to know them as characters and friends first, so making their platonic relationship with the player as arguably engaging and involved as their romance path is ideal. Ultimately do what suits your game and yourself as the writer.

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I’d like to see more older male ROs, with or without a significant age difference.

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I’m obsessed with this description! I hadn’t entirely put together in my head that often the way friendship to lovers plays out is very sweet and adorable, and often the friend character is very sweet and adorable too. But I’d love to see Chaos/Disaster Friends to Chaos/Disaster Lovers.

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I’d love to see more lesbian romance options.

Not bisexual, pan-sexual, player-sexual … but lesbian, with characters that are truly developed as such.

I’ve seen an emphasis on gay romance options as being important (i.e. ZE:SH, ITFO and Fallen Hero) but never for a lesbian.

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There’s a wip on here where you can choose everything about the main ro from how they look to their personality I know that’s not realistic but I enjoyed it.

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Thank you! I will definetly try to create some good and diverse RO.

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Thank you for advice! I will definetly do my own thing, but still as i read the replies i get a lot of new ideas i can implement into the story.

Yes! I plan on making an emphasis on this. Inherently when i started writing all ROs and the MC were lesbian. Now, of course iam adding some diversity.

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I love the crazy types, the more insane the better i say!

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My personal fav “type” is “grouchy at everything except their person.”

But I think the thing that I find myself wanting the most from ROs is just that, as characters, their role in the narrative is prioritized over their role as a romance interest. It’s great to have characters who have developed personalities, but imo it’s so much better to have characters who also have goals. I think a lot of the time, usually when there’s a bigger “cast” of ROs, they become sort of interchangeable. Like Scene 1 with A’s dialogue or scene 1 with B’s dialogue. And obviously that’s a good bit of what needs doing just for the sake of flow and workload and that’s good and fine and reasonable, but I always appreciate when an RO has their own subplot that relates to the main story, whether that coincides with, complicates, or absolutely screws up MC’s goals. That’s what makes them feel real and interesting to me.

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YES.

A thousand times yes.

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Very good point any ro should be a character with backstory and purpose outside of the MC before being an ro.

I like opposites that attract so it kinda depends on what kinda mc I’m playing… I usually go for sarcastic loners so I guess I want more ro’s that are kinda goofy and outgoing but those ro’s tend to wind up bland which I get it’s kinda hard to make a generally good person all that interesting at least usually.

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Probably the most important thing for me is: I want ROs I can befriend. I want ROs to be characters with hobbies and interests who my PC might want to talk to or hang out with EVEN IF I DON’T want to romance them. I really liked that I could hang out and read books with Lissa in Their Majesty’s Pleasure, that I could go to a factory farming protest with Mob/Synergy in Community College Heroes; in general, when scenes with ROs amount to more than “choose flirt option until kiss.”

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