There are several things about this that have got me concerned--I mean yes, the basic premise kind of made me side-eye it a bit, but hey, I'm all up for a dark story, so long as it's done well. But I have to respond to a lot of things you've said. The basics have already been covered by other users in this thread, so I'm just offering up my two cents.
You have control over the mc and what he does. You can choose not to do any of the three over two months and die. Game over. The end. Congratulations, you finished one ending.
In different mediums, there are many different ways you can characterize a character, some of which are unique to their own mediums. One of the most effective ways you can characterize someone in a video game with choices is by the choices they can or cannot make. If you have a character who finds a lost wallet, and you're given a choice between "find the owner yourself" or "take it to the police station", that means the character is implicitly honest and would never consider taking any of the money for themselves. However, if the choice is instead "find the owner" or "take it for yourself", that means the character is at a bit of a moral crossroad and a bit more complex--part of them wants to do what's right, but the other part is a tad selfish and greedy. That they're a generally honest person in principle, but also want to be "bad" for a change.
So if you've got your Average Joe who is given the
choice to rape another woman or respect her boundaries...what does that say about the MC? You say you also have the choice not do any of it, sure, but you also mention that the MC's main concern is going to jail or ruining their reputation, and yet what stops them from committing rape on their own or holding a gun to these women's heads is "human empathy". If the MC is set up as morally questionable or outright villainous from the get-go, then it wouldn't be as much of a problem. The problem isn't that he's a guy who's caught up in a fucked-up situation and needs to do fucked-up things to survive, it's that he's a guy caught up in a fucked-up situation who places a higher value for his own life above the lives of others and yet will apparently be portrayed as a "good person" who doesn't hold a gun to these women's heads because of "human empathy" nonetheless. You say "nobody's saying what happens in these stories is good", but if you're setting him up as someone who is capable of feeling empathy and then chooses to just ignore that empathy for the sake of saving his own skin, that says something different.
K F M - Killing first will give you less guilt over time. But anyone who finds out might give you difficulty seducing and attracting someone.
Killing first gives the MC
less guilt over time? And you're setting him up as a good person capable of feeling human empathy?
Here's the thing: Murder is not something that can be done in a split-second without hesitation, barring certain circumstances. It can actually have long-term damaging effects on a person's psyche, even if it's done in self-defense or the defense of someone else.
Here's a good article about writing on death, dying, and murder. In particular, points four and five would be strongly recommended reading for this case.
If Average Joe is meant to be set up as a good person who feels human empathy and would rather not kill if given the choice, then his biggest concern over killing someone should be the fact that he's
killing someone, that he's taking a life, that he's potentially putting their loved ones through a lot of grief and robbing the victim of the chance to live a good life, no matter how "justified" he may be in doing so. If his biggest concern is just having difficult seducing and/or attracting someone afterwards, going to jail, and/or having his reputation ruined, sorry, but he's a sociopath. Doesn't matter what the story itself says, if his biggest concern about killing someone is how it affects his own chances at romance or a successful career, that pretty much nils any argument that he's capable of feeling empathy. Even if the story is intended to just be "entertainment", that doesn't mean people can't take away their own interpretation from it. Even if he's
intended to be sympathetic, that doesn't necessarily mean he
is sympathetic, if that makes sense.
(Yes, it's reasonable to want to avoid jail time; but if jail time, as in personal consequences for one's self, is the
only thing that prevents someone from committing rape and/or murder, that doesn't really make them very sympathetic if they're intended to be sympathetic)
And as I said, this is all for literary fun. You can't always write about sunshine and rainbows. Nobody likes rape, nobody likes murder. But this is all happening in a fictional universe. It's not right I agree, but it is also not real.
Consider our minds to be a wonderful thing to be able to imagine and create stories. It's controversial, it's maturely themed, it's dark, and it's not justified at all. The mc is neither the bad guy or the good guy, he is a character like everybody else. And you can totally argue that he's the bad guy. I'd think if the mc chose to do these, he becomes a terrible person. Nobody's saying the acts he is going to or is supposed to commit is justified. It's definitely not. And nobody's saying any of this is moral either.
Nobody's saying "OMG ONLY WRITE ABOUT HAPPY THINGS", we're saying "hey, this looks like a decent premise and set-up, but you might want to think about the execution". Because ultimately, that's what it comes down to: execution. And it's great to hear you agree that if the MC does these things then that makes him a terrible person. But again, the problem is how we're supposed to view him in light of these things, and you keep alternating between "empathy stops him from doing these things" and "yeah, he's pretty much an asshole if he does this". Ask yourself, "what sort of character is this guy supposed to be? Is he an anti-hero, a villain protagonist, or just a poor innocent caught up in a bad situation?". Once you answer that, then it's easier to see how you can characterize him. From the sounds of things, however, and I am just saying this based off of what's been described of him so far, he sounds an awful lot like a sociopathic villain protagonist who just happens to cross paths with another villain who's slightly eviller by comparison, and is like this from the get-go. And hey, if that's what you're going for, do it, but I would also recommend checking out other works with a villain protagonist to see how those are executed within the narrative. I would recommend going
here or
here to look at examples.
Of course, if you're not intending for him to be a Villain Protagonist, then maybe check resources on writing anti-heroes or victims of circumstance instead.
Also, just have to get this off my back: Including adult subject matter does not instantly make something "mature". What makes something maturely-written is how it handles its plot and themes, philosophy and character development, the depth of the characters, etc. How much adult content it has or doesn't have does not impact how mature it is or is not. Or, to quote from JesuOtaku's Puella Magi Madoka Magica review:
JesuOtaku wrote:'Dark subversion' is not a measure of quality. It is an element or a gimmick, like any other...it can be bad, it can fail.
(for the record, this comment was made in response to PMMM being hyped up on the basis of "it's darker and edgier" and she was discussing why, though this may be true, this is not and should not be used to determine how good or bad something is, and she gave the show a wholly-positive review based around how well it was written and told and executed its genre, NOT just for being "a darker and edgier magical girl show")
And lastly:
But you know who I think is the bad guy in my own story, the mystery man. If he wasn't such an evil person, the mc wouldn't be in this mess. But what sort of power does the mc have over this man. None. The mystery man has powers over life and death and he chose not to use it for good. He uses it to manipulate people to do things they normally would never ever do for his entertainment.
That's the other major problem I have with this: The MC himself is in a position of power over these women, too. Not physical, supernatural power, but he is still set up in a situation where he has the potential to choose which women live and which ones don't. If he decides who's the most "disposable" one, that particular character could die. And since he plans to manipulate other women into either falling in love with him so he can marry them or getting into bed with him--and possibly leaving one or the other with a broken heart once he moves on with someone else--then he's also using the power of manipulation. It doesn't seem like there's much of a difference between the MC and the mystery man.
So basically, the MC does reprehensible things, is given the choice NOT to do them and nobley sacrifice his life so no one gets hurt but also has the choice to do them and become a monster..and yet this mystery guy is the one whom we're supposed to view as "THE" bad guy, as worse by comparison? If there's not much of a difference between the hero and the villain's actions, then the story is either an intentional black-and-gray/gray-and-gray/black-and-black morality story (which could be interesting if done right), or the story has a bad case of
Moral Dissonance.
Look, I know people are going to say "let him make the game he wants" and hey, I'm all up for dark games. But I also believe in giving someone the tools to help them make the game they want, and to do it well. If done right, a dark game can be really amazing and thought-provoking even if it's intended as just entertainment alone. If done poorly, a dark game can come off as insulting and trivializing, and not even the "it's just fiction" disclaimer can hold water for that.