Too many player choices?

[Victoria Jennings]

Heh, I've noticed that my tastes seem to differ quite a bit from most on the forums. As somebody else mentioned above, extra conversation is a satisfactory reward when it comes to pointless choices. And the way to keep from agonizing over them is to decide what kind of person you want to play as before you start the game. For example, when I played DA2, I decided from the beginning that I'd always choose the middle option (sarcastic). On my next play-through, I decided I'd always choose the bottom option (aggressive), but when I was talking to Merrill (the girl I wanted to romance), I'd take the top option (which I guess is... polite? sincere? idk).

Dragon Age II has a pretty good way of distinguishing important choices from unimportant choices (though, I guess they're vaguely important because they can affect the rivalry/friendship points you get with others; Aveline usually hates it when you're being sarcastic, lulz) in the form of a dialogue wheel. As the DA wiki puts it, "an icon in the center of the dialogue wheel shows the type and/or tone of Hawke's response."

[Ryouzanki]

I am sorry, I have no advice for you since I am also new to VNs. In my VN, I have a lot of choices but they are pretty clear and the consequences are predictable. I used relations points. Each choice bring a character or another to like or dislike you. After in the game, if the relationship is strong, the character will help you to resolve the mystery.

[Destiny]

As somebody else mentioned above, extra conversation is a satisfactory reward when it comes to pointless choices.

Well, the thing is, that VN-players are used to the fact that their choices mean something.
They make characters like or dislike them or even define if the MC will survive the game.
So "random" choices will make the player irritated. I remember quite clearly that Obscuras game was totally freaking me out at the beginning because I was just staring at the choices with absolutly no idea what would be right (the alcohol question alone gave me headaches because I don't drink but already guessed it COULD be important.)
If I somehow know that those choices are for fun and not really important then they are ok. But if I'm not sure about that then I will get uncomfortable, since I'm becoming nervous how my choice will change the game.

[Victoria Jennings]

Well, the thing is, that VN-players are used to the fact that their choices mean something.
They make characters like or dislike them or even define if the MC will survive the game.
So "random" choices will make the player irritated. I remember quite clearly that Obscuras game was totally freaking me out at the beginning because I was just staring at the choices with absolutly no idea what would be right (the alcohol question alone gave me headaches because I don't drink but already guessed it COULD be important.)
If I somehow know that those choices are for fun and not really important then they are ok. But if I'm not sure about that then I will get uncomfortable, since I'm becoming nervous how my choice will change the game.

Yeah, I figured that was the case with most of you. I've been conditioned by RPGs to not really think of these choices as meaning much beyond the way characters react, so I guess that's why I'm more comfortable with it.

I'll totes make sure to mention that in my thread, that people don't need to sweat the little choices and just be the kind of character they want to be. C:

[netravelr]

I also am going the Persona 3/4 route on my current project as well. I feel it adds to the immersion of a game allowing the player to fell like their character is their character. I guess if you are set to be a certain person having more meaningful choices are important, but with a choice I can pick whichever one sounds the most like me. It all comes down to personal preference.

[Fungii]

Oh man, I can relate on the MCL thing. Currently at -100 with him

Though I can be guilty of the irrelevant choice thing, my current project has a lot of conversation in it that is just that: a conversation. I'm thinking of adding some kind of point system to it to matter later in the game but for the most part I'm just trying to counter all those times I've played VN and not been allowed to say 'no' to something I didn't want my character to do, or at least protest.

Moment of character exploration can be pretty neat, after all. But if this is a game where it's not so much about learning everything about a person...maybe trim it down to the important choices.

[wakagana]

I guess its more so that there can be choices. But what it comes down to is that everything has to have a reason. Otherwise it's sort've just up in the air.

Say for example, the main character is talking with a buddy of his. They're talking about what they're going to do later tonight when they hang out.

You can literaly fill that question/choice menu with millions of choices

"Lets play Xbox"
"Lets go to the beach"
"Lets invade Russia"
"Lets get ice cream"
"Lets go to the mall"

I feel like the point of a visual novel, as well as any other form of literature is to tell a story.

If you have so many choices that the story is neverending, why would anyone bother playing it? I feel like a game where I'd pick -every- -single- -thing- the poor guy/girl said I'd just be pretending that I'm the person in the game. A story needs a start, an introduction of characters, a climax, and then an end.

It's nearly impossible to come up with viable and meaningful endings or climax's if you literaly have to write 500 of them because you choose the option "Lets go to the beach" followed by "No, I don't like pistachios"

Story's are supposed to be linear, but with games and VN's and such, they've snipped back just a bit of the rule and made it so that each playthrough can be unique. Why should I care that my character doesn't like pistachios if it really has no relvenace to the story's end?

What it comes down to is if you're going to have a SHIT LOAD of choices, they need to be relevent otherwise its just content filler. :I Again, just my opinion. -throws two pennies into the forum hat-

[Steamgirl]

I get what you're talking about wakagana - but my feeling is that you example is more about choices that are not interesting, as opposed to having too many of them.

To pick an example...
Loren: Amazon Princess gives you 3 different conversational styles. I *think*, though correct me if I'm wrong, the different styles don't change any of the outcomes? You can go through the story being jokey, friendly, or forceful... and still unlock a romance, defeat the bad-guys, etc. But this does show different content to you (the player), and how people react to your style of talking. I like these options, because it means I don't have to be "stuck with" an assy character, or a wipe-the-floor-with whimp. I get a say in how my character reacts to those around him.

Another example...
***********CONTAINS SPOILERS!!!!!!!!!!****************
In Planescape: Torment one of the characters poses the central question of the game:

"What can change the nature of a man?"

Would you prefer it if you could only answer "Death", "Love", and "Hatred"... or the full list of 12 or so answers (plus more for intelligence or wisdom, I think)?
If your answer, for example, is "Regret", would you not miss it being there?
And in having more answers available to you - does it not make you think further? Does it not make you wonder what can change someone's nature?

Furthermore, the answer you give has not real consequence. Only the fact that you have an answer does.
Ravel is pleased with The Nameless One's answer because he offers his own thoughts; she claims she has killed many men in the past who, instead of giving their own answers, tried to guess what her answer might be.

And yet this was one of the most impacting games I have ever played. And the fact that there were options - and plenty of them - was something deeply compelling for me.

[Morgan_R]

Hmm. I wonder if a useful way of defining a 'good' choice might be that it either affects the story (directly or indirectly), or it allows you to express something interesting about the character you're playing. So, whether or not you like pistachios isn't that interesting... but whether you're snarky or friendly to someone is.

[Akjosch]

The question about how many - and which - choices should the player have is another side of the question about how the protagonist in a novel should react at any given moment.

The answer is relatively simple. The protagonist ("he" for short) should react such that:

• In a dialogue, he's as clever, as witty and as eloquent as possible, given his background and abilities.
• In bigger decisions, he acts at the maximum of his capabilities in trying to solve his problem or further his agenda.
• What he decides follows logically from what he knows, from how he acted so far (or else you need a very good explanation why he didn't do it this time!) and from what he's trying to achieve.
• What he decides furthers the plot.
• What he decides brings him one step ahead on his path of change.

In writing for a game, the same things basically apply, but we have the additional problems of trying to give the player choices - ideally, meaningful ones - and to cull down the options to a sane amount (no more than five at any one time except for the exceptional).

Let's see how the guidelines above help us here:

Dialogue

In a dialogue, the character needs a clear goal. Whether this is that he wants to convince the other guy that they should rip off each others clothes right now, tries to make the crime witness nervous so that she spills some facts she'd rather kept hidden, or tries to avoid the nosy principal, the goal means that there are only very few ways the protagonist can talk that makes him fulfil the "clever, witty, eloquent" requirements. In most cases, there is just one such line - or at most minor variations thereof - so we need no choices.

Where we need choices is:

• To pick his goal (not the topic!) of the conversation.
• To decide on the tone of the conversation - though usually not more than once per character. If the protagonists always talks respectful with the principal, he should stick to that, at least until it turns out the principal is a tentacled alien from Rigel V ...
• At any point the conversation demands a decision ... which technically breaks the conversation and leads us to the next point.

Decisions

In real life, we decide all the time: Should we stand up now or sleep for another 5 minutes? Bread with cheese or a fried egg? Try to overtake this slowpoke in front of us or wait until your exit?

In novels - and by extension, visual novels - we thankfully don't have to. The writers do that for us, looking for things like pacing, characterisation, furthering the plot, their revenue per words written and so on. But there are still places where big decisions take place, sometimes anticipated by both readers and the characters, but more often than not at least partial surprises for both. As a writer of a novel, you usually have the problem of picking just one decision and sticking with it (though there are counterexamples - see "Run Lola Run"). Game writers have the opposite problem ... too many decisions. But we can cull them down again, same as novelists cull theirs down to just one.

The other difference from real life is that novel protagonists are tangible. Real-world people, the nasty bunch, are notoriously random, illogical and self-contradictory. If you write a protagonist this way, your audience will expect the reveal that they are a heavy case of bipolar disorder or have an evil twin ... or evil, crazy and stupid quintuplets, as the case might be.

On to culling the decision tree, then!

• The decisions have to follow from what already happened in the story, from what we know about the characters and their relationships and so on. You can skip any decision which contradicts how the character behaved so far. This also means that you should establish the baseline personality of the character early on, by such decisions - ideally in "Act 1" of your game.
• The decisions have to push the character one step towards his change. A good protagonists doesn't just follow a story, he is changed by it - as a rule, you can pick one aspect the character has at the beginning of the story ("only cares for himself") and turn it to the complete opposite ("only cares for the loved one" or "becomes a martyr for the greater cause"), but it has to happen step by step. The moment to decide on the path is early on, in the first third or so of the game. The destination might be surprising, if your writing is good, but the steps should be - in hindsight - logical.
• The decisions have to push the plot forward. No decision should end with the equivalent of the author telling the player "You suck. Why don't you go into the dark forest! It's where the adventure is!" If you can't think about a way to further the plot despite the protagonist trying his best to avoid it, you're not working hard enough.
• The decisions have to be just one more step in proving what Lajos Egri (Look him up! Then buy his books ) calls the "premise" of the work. The premise is basically the "thematic truth" of it - where the plot describes what happens (and why), the premise describes which "lesson" the story tries to prove. The flexibility of the game allows us to "prove" different premises depending on what the player chooses. The important thing here is: If you want to "prove" that "Forbidden Love leads to Disaster" (as in "Romeo and Juliet"), any decision which would contradict that is right out.

[tigerkidde]

Number of Choices
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I'm of the RPG vein of choices, where various dialogue choices make for a more personalized experience. I think the journey is just as, if not more important than, the ending. Granted I like a good epilogue with an ending.

I do see the VN side of the coin, where those players want only plot altering choices presented, save for points-based situations.

For a choice heavy dialogue, I think the choices should be different enough that it does not appear to be a synonym for another choice.

choice 1: "I don't agree with that."
choice 2: "I don't concur."
choice 3: "I don't like that."

Consequence
=========
And as another said, for major decisions, to have a clear consequence of the outcome for those players that like to replay scenarios to piece together the bigger picture.

i.e. "Picking up the umbrella now means that you get to hand it to a girl you've never met before, thus preventing her from getting sick while walking home in the rain, keeping her from collapsing that will cause her to be placed in the ambulance truck that gets destroyed by a runaway bus, killing the patient."

Without spoilers, Persona 1 has a series of choices that determine a branch that occurs several dungeons later. After heavy time investment of leveling, exploring, and gearing up, I have "my ending". I don't want to replay the game to find out which choices would have resulted in another ending, my journey is over. But I would have liked to know if chit-chat choices at said point would have had a major impact on an outcome of events 15+ hours later.

[Kuroneko_rg]

I feel overwhelmed when almost every single choice is significant (Like in "The Dreaming").
I however really enjoy when a lot of choices are present just to trigger "meaningless" events.

This was already said but I also dislike a little when in a game a choice you made 10-15 hours back prevents or allows you to do
something specific. As Persona 1, 3 and 4 were mentioned, I'll mention Persona 2. Some persona can only be obtained if you make the
right choice when prompted, and there is sometimes not a clear answer to what to choose.

[Fungii]

I guess maybe it should be like watering things down to 3 choices if it's just conversation? One agreeing, one disagreeing and one apathetic. That way would could get the player personality across without having 200 ways to do so.