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So I've started to write a story and I've been trying to figure out if being able to choose your own race is worth adding and if so what races should I even have, because I already have the option to choose your own gender and backstory so is it worth the trouble? 

If it won't have an affect on how the rest of the story goes or the character stats, or if the affect is only cosmetic, don't bother.  

 

 

See originally I was debating on having a race affect how well you do certain things but since I'm using the basic writing I'm starting to wonder If that will take to long or if the time it would take be worth it.

You're using the basic editor? No variables? I'm assuming answers are yes to both for the following.

If you aren't using any variables to track gender, you're basically gonna be doubling up on every page just to change out pronouns, which I doubt is worth the effort. Heck, if the gender has no actual impact on the story, and you aren't using variables, I'd pretty much encourage you to drop it, but if the customization is something you feel is worth having in the story, then I'd say learn the few variable things needed to make it immensely less tedious.

I don't know how you're handling backstory, or what sort of branching the story will have, but again, variables can make a lot of things less tedious. If the backstory will have a major impact, maybe variables aren't needed, really depends on what you're gonna do with it (and how you want to utilize it).

Adding races pretty much has the same factors as the above.

I will mention that if you're going to add races, add what makes sense for the story/world, unless you're just trying to make a character creator, but I doubt that is what you're going for. Figure out what is best for the storygame/work that you are making, and go with that. Worth keeping your abilities in mind, and not having the scope get out of hand.

Finally, I'm pretty sure people on this site don't care as much about customization as some other communities, especially when it ends up feeling very superficial; however there is an appeal to customization and all that, so if you do decide it is something you really want your story to have, go for it, but without variables you'll either be limiting yourself on how you can use the customization, or, depending on how much customization there is and how it will be integrated, you'll be making so much work for yourself that you might as well learn variables as it'll save you more than enough time and effort in the long run.

Ok thank you.

Feels like Zake already covered everything but yeah I would not bother with cosmetic choices at all, especially the way your doing it. It would be insanely time consuming with the basic editor if you tried to have the story reflect it even with tiny changes like another character referring to the character's race or using a pronoun, and in the end it might just annoy readers because it'll look like you're padding the word count.

Is there any reason why you're using basic? The advanced editor lets you keep your pages a lot more organized and can save you a huge amount of tedium in this exact situation

Also...you know...just sayin...

I'm using basic because I'm more used to writing stories this way instead of using codes and the likes, and by the way the picture isn't loading. 

Huh, it's working fine both on my phone and computer, might just be a connection thing. But it is an image of the forum index with a clearly labeled thread explaining am easy way to do gender choices right below this one.

Anyway the reason we always suggest the advanced editor is because it doesn't force you to script anything but still gives you the option when you need it, and it gives you tabs to let you separate your pages into chapters for organization. And for what you're attempting it's almost necessary, the usage of a single variable can save you from having to copy and paste your entire story multiple times. And I can't speak for anyone else but if I figured out a story's length had been padded that way, I'd rate it down.

A situation like this is exactly what originally prompted me to learn scripting actually, I wanted to put in a choice the player didn't see the outcome of until later, and it turned out to be a matter of typing...
IF %VARIABLE = 1 THEN
$DEST := @P19

...once rather than copy and pasting and linking up 40 pages.

I was planing on having each gender have different backstories so that it would have more playability and possibly be a better story as a whole. 

E: that's why I'm not using variables for gender.

Probably not worth the effort. You're just creating two similar but kinda different stories. Just go with whatever gender would be the more interesting story.

If there are different paths for the different characters it's worth the effort, but they'd essentially have to write two separate stories while not yet having experience writing even just one.

I've written stories before just not on this site.