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Okay, the only thing stumping me right now is gender. Would anyone prefer to choose their gender or just choose your race and find out what you get? On that note does anyone want to choose their own love interest or leave that to me?

Wrong area :P

Guess I should have posted in the writing workshop, huh.

Yeah, this'll get moved by a mod.

Anyways, as a male, I typically am okay only playing a male haha. Of course, one of my favorite on-site games make you play as a female, so I guess it doesn't really matter (IMO) as long as the writing is good.

As for romantic interests... I really dislike it when an author decides my romantic partner. I like options for that haha.

Noted, so will the mod delete this completely or just move it?

They just move it ^_^

The thing that annoys me (which isn't a problem here, but in other games) is when the author makes you pick a name, and THEN informs you of your character's gender. I've taken to using gender-neutral names for characters out of self-defense. :P

Well I was going to let you choose your gender and then give a name, but maybe I should look into the gender neutral names.

I don't care about gender.

Personally I prefer to play as a female, but a lot of the best games have male main characters, so I'm fine with that. Also, having more than one option for a love interest is always good. It's usually a good idea to give them really different personalities, that way if you find one of them really annoying, you can just pick the other. That said, it's fine to have just one romantic interest and just give the player the choice whether they want to romance them or not. Ain't no one gonna make me fall in love with no broody emo vampire 

... Truthfully, I'll pick a dude just about every single time in every game given the choice. BUT, I like the option. It just seems fair. Honestly, for a choose your own adventure, isn't it kind of... geared toward customization so it is, indeed, "your" adventure? Gender is a pretty important detail to some people.

And oh my God, please, don't stick me with a specific love interest. I hate it when an author does that.

Can I be a hermaphrodite?

I prefer the choice of gender being there even though most games are already set on male. With romance I like it when I can choose my romance instead of the author forcing someone on me because that can be annoying. However, with the gender option, there should be a difference in the story. In one of my stories, a female character will get more crap from others because she would be a military leader in the ancient times. As stated by Briar, make sure romance interests have different personalities to them and are actually interesting.

I think it helps to choose the gender if you don't have a specific name and long backstory.

Some characters like my storygame's Richard Fox obviously need to be one particular gender, but actually you could get away with writing a whole storygame with either gender. Just use the I/You terms to address the character/player.

You could even have choices and parts of the story affected by your gender. It would be amazing to see that!

Oh aye, the variation that stems from gender genuinely makes it more interesting. Especially, just for example, if it's historically accurate. Lending to how your character is treated, and fundamental advantages or disadvantages.  

I'm a girl, so I hate the story games when they say I'm a boy. And that I'll marry a girl. I AM A GIRL!!! It's really kinda stupid. You could put that as a choice in the beginning. Like say Are you a boy or girl? that would make things easier.

I hope 10 days isn't too necro.

Good story trumps gender choice for me, every time.  

I would rather read a well-written story about a specific person and his/her specific love interest than read about a blank slate character and choose from a plethora of love interests defined by a paragraph-long infodump on their appearance and personality.

That said, I'd love to see a really well done storygame with LI choices.

 

 

The zombie game "zombie survival in need of a name," let you choose weather you were a boy or a girl, but sadly the author of that hasn't been on in nearly a month. I guess it's just one of those games which could've been great, but was never finished, like some of mine probably will be lol.

Instead of choosing a gender, I just assume that if you're playing as yourself, then characters do not assume that you're a male. It's kind of hard to write that way, to be honest.

In MyVacation, I had to write it so that if a character talks to you, they wouldn't do so that they assume what gender you are. Some of the characters in my storygame will make romantic gestures towards you, but you have the option of accepting them or turning them down.