What about the choice to wear Brogues or High heels in Sunset: a character-driven, pre-apocolyptic WIP that actually decides the MC’s gender ? @Sashira has explained it quite well why it is a bad way to choose the MC’s gender.
I dunno about that, unless you’re transgender/transvestite or something, men don’t generally wear high heels so that one doesn’t seem all that convoluted to me. Had to look up what brogues were though.
To clarify your use of the term ‘on your own premises’ - do you mean ‘on your own terms?’ If you mean on your own terms, of course you’re allowed to enjoy the game as you see fit. But the player isn’t the only one doing this for enjoyment - the writer is too. If you’re willing to read something, you have to account for the writer’s part in the story, and any discrepancies that may result between your view and the writer’s. Otherwise, there’s no story.
The general theme I’m getting from your posts is that you feel personally hurt by the way the author wrote out the choices in the work of fiction you’re talking about. The consequences are no fault of your own, and affect a fictional character you built in the game world. The author has no motive to harm any person (or at least I would hope that’s the case if that author wants to keep readers), but it’s unrealistic for one reader to expect the author to rewrite or reword a situation to fit that reader’s wish for a particular ending.
On a similar note, it sounds like you want the choices written to be clearly right or clearly wrong to achieve your desired storyline. Which, I would contend, is a wish for prescience.
If you’re concerned about clarity in wording, consider also that unclear wording can be part of the storytelling process. Mystery novels come to mind as an example of this. If the character or narrator wants to reveal something important later in the story, the surprise from that reveal is part of the enjoyment of reading for me. Discovering an unexpected result in the story, whether you like the result or not, can make for a better reading experience. It can’t be about what result the reader wants for the fictional character, because the author (who I assume is human) can’t account for every circumstance that readers come up with. It has to be about what makes sense based on information on the player character and the NPC.
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@MutonElite How about Hero of Krendrickstone? You choose your story path in a conversation with the mob boss (and why would a mage or knight assume you have to choose in THAT conversation?). Worse, you’ve already chosen your starting stats, so if you choose wrong, you’ll end up going down the completely wrong path, failing at everything you do, and generally being the worst hero ever. And because you fail, you don’t get the rewards, so you can’t buy anything, so you fail again… (And everyone STILL treats you as the Great Heroic Hero, despite the fact that you suck at everything.)
I do disagree with your initial choice though, that seemed like a perfectly valid “I’ll try my best” vs “I won’t try at all” choice. Indeed, looking at your character description, it seems perfectly in character to ignore the girl’s feelings simply to get power as easily as possible. (And that’s not bad storytelling; that’s classic tragedy. Except without everyone dying.)
Are they not interchangeable? To assume a premise. I’m unsure now. Regardless, it still doesn’t seem like I’ve gotten my point across at all. Clarity does not equal right or wrong, it means having knowledge of what the player does when choosing the intended action. If it says eat the sandwich, then I don’t wish to stab myself in the eye with a fork, I wish to eat the sandwich as it was labelled (unless it’s the theme of the whole game). Now the world’s reaction is out of my grasp of course (and granted, in the mentioned example that was partly what happened) YET since you’re not given a chance to clarify your intentions/explain yourself in the case of a misunderstanding, the first choice doing what I intend for it to do matters all the more. When I make my choice, I want that choice to be the choice that I made, not something I didn’t choose. It’s the difference between;
“I go into the cave.”
“Okay, you enter the cave and get crushed by a dragon.”
and;
“I go into the cave.”
“No, you decide to go into the castle instead and get crushed by a Grue.”
That doesn’t mean it applies for everything mind (bolding this so I won’t get ten replies about it), for instance if you’re in a dynamic situation where things are happening fast, like say you’re trying to stab a dragon in the neck, then it could be excused that the action; I stab the dragon’s neck, might result in the dragon squirming away. But not so in this case.
What it affected was my overall experience with the game, in a negative way, something that most authors surely ought to want to try and avoid if they can. I’m trying to provide solutions/tips to what I perceive as a problem, given the topic of this thread.
Unless it’s the stated theme of the game, I don’t wish to flail around like a ragdoll, I wish to have control of my actions. If I say I do A, I don’t wish to do B instead. I hope we’re clear now as I can’t really say it any other way. And this was pretty much as late in the story as you could get, so not really relevant.
@ParrotWatcher I haven’t played that game but that sounds to be in the ballpark if not spot on. I don’t expect anyone/everyone to agree with my interpretations, but no it cannot be justified like that IMO and hey since I was the one playing, I got one up on you on that one.
They can be interchangeable, but I asked for clarification on the term to make sure I’ve read the intended meaning. Word choice, as in any choice, can have unforeseen consequences.
If a CYOA writer wants to keep readers, then it’s helpful to avoid the extremes of writing a choice resulting in bizarre consequences. But there has to be a balance between taking the reader’s wants into account and sacrificing the story the author wants to tell. The reader may not want to lose control of the story, but once again, the reader is not the writer. The writers who write appealing CYOA stories take into account that the reader wants to have that measure of control, but they cannot take every reader’s desire into account. No CYOA reader wants to have that extreme of being arbitrarily forced into a situation where either choice leads to a dead end. But if the story itself develops to a point where either choice results in the loss of something important, in this case a goal versus a love interest, then that conflict is part of the point of the story that the writer wants to tell. For a reader to disagree with the result about that is within the realm of possibility, but it doesn’t make sense to feel wronged or attacked by that result in a work of fiction. And considering the thread regards the balance of choice between the player character and NPC, this is relevant regardless of the time posted.
Except that’s not what’s happening here. You said “I do A”, and it was the girlfriend (NOT your character) who acted in a way you weren’t expecting. Your actions were entirely your own. It was her reaction that you couldn’t control (and why should you have?) She has her own wants, desires, and agency (inasmuch as any fictional character can have those things), and she made her own choice, based on your choice. You decided that brutal honesty was what she wanted to hear, rather than idealism, and you were wrong.
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What?? What kind of world do you live in? Of course it makes sense to feel wronged when you’ve invested time into something and you end up with nothing but a huge disapointment. You know what, agree to disagree.
@ParrotWatcher Read this part here;
I haven’t yet read the story you’re referring to but from what I gather, your point of view is that perhaps a choice should be explained beforehand?
Scenario
Your childhood best friend, Gina is excited about finally going on a date with the guy of her dreams, but on the day of the date you discover that the guy in question is only doing it as a dare; a joke among his mates. You are now faced with the options:
a)Tell your best friend the truth about this guy.
b)Try reason with the guy to back off. Threaten if you have to.
c)Lie about the guy to your best friend to make her forget about the date.
d)Tell her nothing.
Instead of the choices being laid out simply, as above, they’d have a little explanation before the choices being given to you.
Something like: You could tell your Gina about this guy, but she’s been in love with him since the first grade! Alternatively, you could make him back off. Or you could decide to make up some undesirable lies about him, but those options could backfire later. There’s always the option of saying nothing at all, but what kind of best friend would that make you?
^^^^---- Is this the type of thing you’re talking about?
@leo, I feel like that would be okay if that was their nature. It would be disappointing to read otherwise. I remember with Choice by Gaslight (SPOILER ABOUT A LOVE INTEREST—>>>) The wife does not approve of the use of healing magic. She ends up gravely ill and you can choose to save her life but in order to do so you would have to go against her wishes and use that magic. She’s too far gone and you have to act fast. If you decide to save her, she leaves you. Because in her nature, she would rather die than do that. It goes something like that anyway. One of the best HoG’s in my opinion. As long as your MC can look at it in a different light (not as a bad ending) it shouldn’t be seen that way. Or maybe let the MC voice their frustration at the NPC if they refuse. The NPC can explain briefly that MC can’t change their mind or something like that. Something like: after so-and-so walks away you think about this outcome. It makes you feel insert feeling options as choices. Hope that helps with the planing of your story. Good luck. 
Agreeing to disagree is fine. But ask yourself, if you have such a heavy emotional investment in a fictional character that you choose terms like ‘huge disappointment’ (the less combative of the terms you’ve used to describe the situation so far), if this is worth such anger.
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Sure I guess, a little internal dialogue to uh, weigh the options through the author’s viewpoint/remind us of the perceived values of the affected Npc(s) or whatever. That could work if the story is set up like that. Since most options are no backsies in CoGs then it shouldn’t really hurt to have some lifelines every once in a while.
Mm I do really like that example, and the idea of being able to voice the MC’s anger/frustration or an attempt to persuade them does seem like a good thing to add. To be entirely honest, I am a little bit set in my idea to have the character react badly, but I do think that it’s important for me to make this a good aspect of the game (if I do include it) rather than something that’s widely considered a flimsy ending.
Okay, if this will make the situation any clearer, here’s my idea for the exact example. Under a blur since I’m a tad paranoid about revealing anything that’s supposed to come as a surprise later on in any of the games I’m working on.
The objective of the game is sort of set up as the PC completing a journey with the NPC. Because of in-game circumstances, the chances are that the two will not survive to see their goals completed- not only the journey itself, but personal goals and aspirations. The PC finds a way to become immortal, but it involves sacrificing a person/many people’s lives to complete it. It has been shown throughout the game that the NPC is strongly against the sacrifice of the many for the benefits of the few, and their personal goal involves overthrowing a system that benefits from the (metaphorical?) sacrifice of the weak. Though being immortal would help NPC satisfy their goals (by keeping them alive long enough to create the change), the cost is too much for them. The NPC will refuse to go through with it, and will discourage the PC. IF the PC has already made the sacrifice and/or tries to force the NPC to make it as well, the NPC will consider PC their enemy and cease contact with them.