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Hi,

I'm a writer currently working on a series of CYOA style books set in different fantasy and sci-fi universes. The books are akin to Endless Quest and Twist-A-Plot style adventures. Often in CYOA books the name and gender has been pre-assigned such as "Your name is Ren, a young boy..." etc.

My question is for readers. Does having the gender pre-assigned to you matter to you? Does it determine whether or not you will read the story? Do you prefer the gender being ambiguous? I'm curious to know what your thoughts are. 

Thank you

Yes it does matter to me, if a game does not allow me to play as a demisexual/omnisexual dragonkin with the spirit of a non-binary genderfluid homosexual wolfboy, the author is obviously a cisgender white transphobe who needs to check their privilege. Also Twine and ChoiceScript are better than CYS.

I sexually identify as a capybarakin, and you just triggered me. Shitlord. 

Just do it the way you'd want and I'm sure people will be fine with it.

Okay thanks. Some stories have the option of giving the reader the choice in the beginning to decide gender and character class, but other stories are different. I'm just curious what people prefer.

If a set character is going to let your narrative flow better/more naturally, then anyone who'll seriously discount your story on account of the fact that they want to play as X should write their own damn game and stop squawking at us all with their irritating and insignificant grievances.

Gender choice and other options to detail the character IMO work better in the 'game' half of things rather than 'story'. Once you let the player get it in their head they're piloting their customized avatar around rather then slipping into the role of the author-provided protagonist, the writing and characterization by necessity have to become very generic wherever the main character is concerned so as not to contradict whatever any given reader might be projecting onto 'their' protagonist. 

My views align strongly with Mizal's. I really believe that the strongest CYOAs offer an opportunity to navigate a world from the perspective of a character defined by the author, and not an opportunity to navigate a world as if you were present. When an author attempts to define the reader as a character within the story, they must be very vague with their description of the character and they must offer a very vast array of choices so that the reader does not feel as if they are being limited to options that they themselves would not take. At best, this is an insane amount of work for the author, and at worst (and in general) this leads to a very bland and boring setting with a very bland and boring protagonist.