Trivial choices

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Kailoto
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Trivial choices

#1 Post by Kailoto »

Trivial choices. Do you like them? Dislike them? When would you implement them in your own work, if at all?

For the sake of the discussion, trivial choices are defined as instances in a visual novel where the game presents you with a choice, yet the choice has no impact on the overall story. They aren't crossroads between arcs, nor do they add to a point counter; at most, they simply present different scenarios on a small scale, before quickly rejoining and continuing down a single path. Oftentimes you'll see them as dialogue options in quieter or more comedic moments in the story, as a way for the player to express their personality or choose a funny scene to play out.

I find that in a lot of indie visual novels, every choice in the game is an important one. Menus only show up when a critical choice is nigh, and it's very easy to see where the story branches off. I don't think this is a bad thing per se; after all, it reduces the complexity of the arcmap and shaves a small amount of writing from the script. But I've often wondered why they're omitted so often. Is there a reason for it? Do people dislike them for some reason, or is it just the extra work that they are trying to avoid? Or am I just overthinking things again?

Anyways, I'd be interested in your thoughts on the matter.
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Re: Trivial choices

#2 Post by Ozitiho »

Hahaha. I literally just alt tabbed out of Majikoi, which is exclusively trivial choices.

Trivial choices are fine, right? It gives the player a moment to have some interaction with the game. When I presented my project to my friends who all never played VN's before, they said they wanted to have more menu moments, even if they're trivial. They say it wakes the player up from just clicking away. Which I can totally understand. Also, it gives the player the ability to project their personality on the main character some more. That's also definitely good.

Although I feel that mostly just applies to a comedic context. The player should feel safe to make the ridiculous choice knowing they won't get a bad end for it. I can see that not working out in a generally serious dating sim game where, indeed, all your choices matter. I'd be questioning like: "Awh man I want to say that, but I'm too scared of the effects later on..."

In short: Give me as many as possible! In a comedic context.

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Re: Trivial choices

#3 Post by trooper6 »

I like the sorts of choices you describe...I just don't think of them as trivial.
I think choices that define your character's personality are anything but trivial, I think they are a very important storytelling tool.

So...yes I like them, yes I use them.
No...I don't think they are trivial.
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Re: Trivial choices

#4 Post by LateWhiteRabbit »

Kailoto wrote:Trivial choices. Do you like them? Dislike them? When would you implement them in your own work, if at all?

For the sake of the discussion, trivial choices are defined as instances in a visual novel where the game presents you with a choice, yet the choice has no impact on the overall story.
I like them. They help keep me interested and involved. And to be honest, as a player, you often won't know they are trivial ahead of time. And if they are fun, it makes no difference whether they are or not.

As trooper6 said, they are often a great tool to establish player/character personality, even if they have no impact on the story. I recently played HuniePop, and the dialogue choices in that game are equal parts unimportant and hilarious. Lots of times it is 100% obvious the game is railroading you to a certain answer, and it is still fun to pick from the different "so bad it's good" dialogue choices. You can basically establish your protagonist as a super-willing participant, or someone being dragged along unwilling, but it makes zero difference to the game. And that's fine.

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Re: Trivial choices

#5 Post by YonYonYon »

I like this kind of choices when they're mixed with important ones.

If I know that the game is fully linear, but there are choices like "Where do you want to go?" and you have to visit every place anyway, then... what the point? It irritates me. But if I know that there will be grand choices that will affect the story this way or another, I do like to choose what do I want to drink. It adds interactivity.

I dunno.

I forgive this kind of choices in RPGs and TellTale-like games, because there's a lot of interactivity and gameplay already, even if the story is linear and doesn't really change. Also, they're already Role Playing Games, playing the role is the whole point.

But in visual novels I like to know beforehand, will the choices matter or not. Like, I liked Aloners' story, but I was disappointed when I discovered that my choices didn't really matter, because they were there just for roleplaying. It kinda spoiled my enjoyment.

I'm gonna use this kind of choices in my game tho. But I'll put them in the beginning, or in the moments of pause and peace. Most important choices will be near the end, when the story will reach its climax.
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Re: Trivial choices

#6 Post by trooper6 »

YonYonYon wrote: But in visual novels I like to know beforehand, will the choices matter or not. Like, I liked Aloners' story, but I was disappointed when I discovered that my choices didn't really matter, because they were there just for roleplaying. It kinda spoiled my enjoyment.
For me, role-playing matters.

For me a choice that determines if my protag is a jerk that no one in hir party likes vs if my protag is a saint that everyone likes is just as important as a choice that branches the plot.

If my party members barely tolerate me because of how I treat them vs. if they and I have a really good friendly connection...I just don't see that as trivial.
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Re: Trivial choices

#7 Post by YonYonYon »

Well, the thing is, I'd like to know it from the beginning. I play RPGs for roleplaying. I play Visual Novels for branching story. I play Kinetic Novels only if they have good story.
If I know from the beginning that some particular VN has RPG elements, then I'll be happy to have as much roleplaying choices as the developer can provide.

Hmmm... I dunno how to explain better.

Like, I didn't mind roleplaying choices in Icebound. I loved them in Cinders. But I kinda disliked them in Aloners because Aloners didn't feel like that kind of story.
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Re: Trivial choices

#8 Post by trooper6 »

YonYonYon wrote: Like, I didn't mind roleplaying choices in Icebound. I loved them in Cinders. But I kinda disliked them in Aloners because Aloners didn't feel like that kind of story.
I've played Cinders and loved the way choices were made there. I haven't played Aloners, though it is on my list of games to play. I haven't even heard of Icebound...I'll look into that game. Once I've played all three I'll see if I can pick up on what you are saying about how choice is implemented in those games.

As for RPG-VN-KN...
I think of RPGs and VNs as being part of the same world. I know this is just me...so I don't expect anyone else to feel this way.
But I didn't come to VNs from JVNs and dating sims. I came to VNs from RPGs, point-and-click adventures, interactive fiction, and indie art games. So for me, VNs are part of that game world. I don't see any problem with elements from those genres being in VNs...because they are part of the same genre world for me. So it makes sense to me that the sorts of choices you'd get in those games I'd also get in VNs. And for me a game with no branching plot can still be a game with different stories if the game reacts to the character defining choices that I've made. The reason why I tend to not like KNs is not because they don't branch the plot...but because the ones I've played have given me no customization at all. I don't get to customize the plot, I don't get to customize my character, I don't get to customize the world's reaction to me based on my choices.

I want to matter as a player. I want interactivity. But that interactivity can be from branching the worlds reactions to my character or branching plot...or both...or other things. But I want interactivity.
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Re: Trivial choices

#9 Post by KuroOneHalf »

I feel like I only enjoy them if they're very evidently trivial, and used sparingly, as a device to add a little bit of flavor or comedic effect. I despise choices that are presented as being important and turn out to be trivial. I might not realize it during the fact, but afterwards it really gets to me. Makes me feel like the author is betraying the sense of agency he gave me, dangling the carrot in front of my face and then snatching it away. It's a huge reason The Walking Dead left such a bad taste in my mouth, that all these life-or-death choices meant nothing in the short and long term, and variations were little more than pallet swaps. If you instill the idea that a choice has real consequence, the reader starts expecting the various outcomes, and when they finish a branch and you suddenly go "lol jk there's no more branches, I was just messing with you" they feel they've been robbed of content and toyed with.

And this is more related to the player-agency or role-playing topic, but I also dislike trivial choices as a means for the reader to express himself in the world, at the cost of the protagonist losing their identity. I find that I enjoy trivial choices most when they're in character. When it's plausible that the protagonist would say/do any of the things in the choices being presented to us. I'm basically in the inverse camp of trooper6's, where I see VNs more like movies, anime, manga, or other linear storytelling methods bound by standard storytelling rules. I want to be told stories, to learn about interesting people, predicaments and ideas. And I feel like the avatar character & role-playing choices have the opposite effect of immersing me.

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Re: Trivial choices

#10 Post by YonYonYon »

Hmmm, I thought about this topic some more.

And wanted to add that as "trivial choices" I think about the choices without consequences. And as Trooper6 said, in VNs I love interactivity. For me, interactivity in VNs is when my choices have some weight, some consequences. Like, if I do this, I'll get this and the characters will react like that.

But when your choices don't matter at all, except for few lines right after the choice, I don't feel like my choices matter. So I feel fooled and decieved. I was promised interactivity and I didn't get it!

Even the roleplaying choices, if they don't have any consequences, they're trivial. Because, what's the point? It doesn't matter whatever I do. Then why should I care?

This is the difference between Cinders and Aloners, I realized. In Cinders I still can somehow affect the story/characters/details even in limited range AND roleplay. In Aloners all the choices felt trivial - whatever I do, whatever I choose the outcome is the same. So without my desirable interactivity the roleplaying part wasn't enjoyable.

Because for me it's not enough.

That's why I like to know everything beforehand, so I won't feel fooled. And I agree with Kuroonehalf in evidently trivial choices, they're nice because I know that they're trivial. I don't expect anything more.

So, in conclusion, my first post still stands. I like roleplaying, but only if it's mixed with the choices that will matter, or else I feel that I'm not getting enough interactivity.
In RPGs and TellTale-like games there's already enough interactivity as I can move my character in 3D world as I wish, so I tend to overlook "trivial" choices.

I hope I'm not derailing the thread and will shut up right now.
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Re: Trivial choices

#11 Post by Carassaurat »

I suppose the question you need to ask is why include choices at all and not simply make a kinetic novel -- and that the answer you come up with there will determine whether trivial ones are desirable. If you feel that you have a story that needs to be told from two angles, then trivial choices won't contribute to that and you might better make it clear to the audience what the crucial splitting point is (or what the crucial splitting points are) in your novel. If you feel that players need to roleplay and be involved lest they doze off, then trivial ones will help.

For what it's worth, I once made a VN in which all text from the player character came through a menu -- like in traditional CRPGs -- and one thing I tried to do there was simply reference them later on and, if possible, combine them. For example, you were on a date with a girl and if you ordered a glass of water, when you'd get to her home she'd mention that she could serve you that; whereas if you had ordered a cosmo in the bar, she'd mention she didn't know how to make a cocktail ("...unless beer and ice tea makes a cosmo, but I doubt it.") Or, another example, two trivial dialogue pieces were about your name and your profession. Which you picked didn't matter at all. But if you'd picked the name "Max Orion" from the menu as your alias and "I write science-fiction novels" as your profession, she'd answer "A science fiction writer named Max Orion? That has to be a pseudonym. No, wait, don't tell me! I like to imagine it's the other way around and that you had to do something with science fiction. If this isn't true, I don't want to know." It's a one in sixteen chance that a player gets to see these lines, so it's a lot of work, but it does acknowledge two of their otherwise meaningless decisions.

It is, I admit, pretty fun to write this kind of stuff, because it quickly becomes a web of cross-referencing and feels like sneaking funny secrets into your script. That said, I myself am always a little uncomfortable with roleplaying because it feels like the writer doesn't have a point to make and is offloading the characterisation duty onto me.

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Re: Trivial choices

#12 Post by Gambit74 »

I actually like those kind of choices to be honest, especially if they're used to describe just what kind of person the character may be (Think Skyward Sword's options for Link as an example). Then again, I'd also rather not have too much at once either. Maybe sprinkle a couple of them across the game to provide the player a little break from the overall story.
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Re: Trivial choices

#13 Post by Parataxis »

Assuming I understand your definition: I like a mix of trivial choices and important ones. But I don't really think of them in that way. To my thinking there are structural and content choices.

Structural choices are well... structural. They determine in the grand scheme how to the visual novel is shaped--if you have branching stories or relationship scores then these choices are rewarded with long-term story consequences. Structural choices are quite literally the backbone of VN, and they're very important.
But I personally really enjoy smaller choices whose result is like, a short dialog split--because it gives me as a player a sense of exerting some control over the environment and rewards my engagement with personalized content. Sure if I make the character have a bagel for breakfast vs eggs it won't affect the plot where the aliens burst through the door--but that fact that the choice results two different short conversations is personally rewarding to me as a player.
That said, there are also fake choices, which offer you an option but doesn't respond to it at all. I don't like these choices very much because, unless they are secretly structural choices, it's sort of a violation of game/player contract. THE CHOICE IS A LIE and the player can often tell even on the first play through is the case.

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Re: Trivial choices

#14 Post by Kailoto »

Parataxis wrote:Assuming I understand your definition: I like a mix of trivial choices and important ones. But I don't really think of them in that way. To my thinking there are structural and content choices.
Hmm. I quite like that terminology, I think I'll start using it from now on. I didn't like the connotation of the word "trivial," but I was having trouble finding another word to distinguish them from choices that influence the overall flow of the story.
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Re: Trivial choices

#15 Post by verysunshine »

Parataxis wrote:Assuming I understand your definition: I like a mix of trivial choices and important ones. But I don't really think of them in that way. To my thinking there are structural and content choices.

...

That said, there are also fake choices, which offer you an option but doesn't respond to it at all. I don't like these choices very much because, unless they are secretly structural choices, it's sort of a violation of game/player contract. THE CHOICE IS A LIE and the player can often tell even on the first play through is the case.
Content choices can be some of the most interesting choices in a game. They offer glimpses in the way a character's mind works, which can be helpful, especially if you don't understand them. However, if a content choice is 100% meaningless and you can tell, it's a crappy choice. There does seem to be a good workaround to that. Remember the choices later.

Let's go back to your breakfast and aliens example. If your character chose to eat eggs and the aliens are vegetarian, the aliens could react hostilely for a while. It might not affect the whole plot, but it could make the choice feel much larger than it actually is.

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