Consistency between dialog, thought and action

[anne O'nymous]

I don't know how to put it into words properly so guys that haven't lived with a woman can understand but periods for some of us are horrible. Some women cope fine but I get really down when i'm on mine and I get cramps and pains and I have to worry about what to wear just in case something leaks through.

And, for guys, it's not the same for every girls. My wife reacted not too badly to hers, but there's days when it's almost if my daughter can walk. If women deal with pain better than men, it's not because of childbirth, it's because of their periods. Guys, imagine that for three to five days (here again depend of the women), you live with a constant pain in the background of your feelings with, time to time, a peak that can feel like you were literally stabbed... And all this while continuing living like if there's nothing, every month for around 40 years of your life.

Take The Engagement for example. [...]
For a business like that employment contracts are a thing everyone has to have. Her contract is for an assistants position, she's been given lead which is perfectly reasonable as long as someone above her supervises which is the MC's job in that particular instance. Groping openly like that is extreme sexual harassment and liable to cost the guy his job and a lot of financial trouble.

Like I see it as a guy, passed the "innocent" groping, it will become a big no ; note, that I use quote because there isn't innocent groping, just a level of intimacy that some women are more ready to accept against their will depending of the context. Perhaps that she'll loose her job because of this, but not before fighting.
There's women (and also men) that are naturally too submissive and will accept anything because they fear too much the consequences. But in this case it's all the rest of the story that don't make sense. Someone this submissive is like this every single second of her life, not just when there's sexual harassment.

On top of that we have the illegal drugging, illegal kidnapping, false imprisonment and attempted rape all in one scene. That's pretty much life imprisonment for that guy and the MC stood by and let it happen regardless of intent it's still criminal charges for aiding and abetting. Yes folks, seeing a crime and doing nothing is also a crime in most first world countries.

It feel like the sudden #metoo thing lets too many guys thinking that before this girls never fought back. Too many weren't heard, few made it into the media, but they always fought back. It's less a humiliation to loose your job than to have your soul violated.
Because it's what's in question here. In this situation it not just her body that is violated, it's her soul ; it's how she feel, it's to what she react. That's why I talked about "innocent" groping above. A woman will stand it as long as it's just her body that is affected, but once it start to touch her soul, whatever how much power you can have over her, she'll fight back. And the further you'll go invading her soul, the less she'll care about the consequences of her fight.

Then in another scene you have the MC in his hotel room with his assistant while he's on the phone to his girlfriend. The assistant speaks, the girlfriend asks who it is and rather than say "oh, it's my assistant" who the girlfriend already knows is on the job with him he completely lies making himself look like a complete moron in the process and making the girlfriend suspicious.

Not just suspicious, she's now ready to cheat. Once again, what the fuck ? That she became suspicious, I agree, but she'll argue with him, try to discover the untold truth before going this far.

That's my problem with a lot of corruption games. It's not the scenario's themselves it's the reactions.

Like I like to say, you can't corrupt someone against his will. What you do is opening gates and help the other discover what's her true nature, following paths that she wouldn't have traveled else. Which imply reaction that are in fact at the opposite of those generally depicted.
If you use blackmail to corrupt a girl, it can works at first, but soon or later you'll either end in jail, be killed, or found her dead body. There's no cases where she'll pass her life as your sex slave, and even less cases when she fall in love with you.

 

[grtrader]

Removed because I am tired of staff behavior

 

[215303j]

Lechertown is not lechertown without a dimwit mc

No, a lechertown is a town filled with lechers. And one female MC, but even if she's pure and innocent, that doesn't really change the demographics too much.

Having a sexy-as-hell MC that every guy wants to nail and you try to avoid having sex with 99.99% of those creeps, jerks? Thats real life already

Maybe it could be simulator? It'll have to be made in RPGM then...

 

[HarveyD]

Why are games written poorly? Because they're written by poor writers. As people have pointed out, writting well is hard. But wanting to write is easy. I mean, they're trying, so that's something.

I feel games here are often written in a way where the creator decides what situations they want in the game and then creates ways to get that character into the situation. Rather than creating a character who then gets into various situations. Did that make sense?

 

[RomanHume]

This is exactly why I keep the thoughts of my female character's heads in their fucking heads. I'd rather try swallow the entire fucking ocean than attempt to figure out a woman's thinking.

The only character that gets any moments internal dialogue are the MC. And that's just to rationalize his actions and make the story flow and evolve organically. As for the women, their motivations and intentions are revealed through dialogue, action and characterization. If it's some kind of secret or hidden agenda, then it plays itself out in the story and the and motivations are revealed in the end. Or in some cases, it's a deep harbored belief or desired that was revealed to a confidant that later shared it with the MC, giving the MC a logical "in" to another's thoughts and capitalizing on them.

I may one day try and write a female MC, but I'm simply not there yet.

I completely agree with the OP on this particular topic. And as a writer, I simply chose to write my way around the problem altogether.

Cheers mates!

 

[GuyFreely]

I'll admit I'm a bit late to this thread so I skimmed a lot of the replies, sorry. I think the OP is spot on with the problem being consistency. I mean you can have a game about a slutty chick, you can even have a game about a woman that becomes a slut over time (more difficult). You can have intelligent women characters and not so bright women characters. The problem is when they are both at the same time. From scene to scene, you need them to behave in a consistent manner so it's not jarring to the reader/player. Again, a character could progress (or regress?) on a scale over time, but you don't want it constantly flipping back and forth.

This often becomes a problem in open-world corruption games, because the writer or programmer hasn't accounted for different encounters at different corruption levels. So you run into a situation where a guy says, "I'll forgive your debt if you suck my dick." The female MC says, "I don't know if I can go through with it." The player is sitting there going, "You've sucked like 100 dicks so far. A minute ago you were saying you love the taste of cum." It is perhaps more forgivable than when you run into similar problems in a more linear narrative.

The brilliant-idiot is perhaps more common. Hard to say. I think the general problem is that a writer wants to present a woman as competent and clever, so that taking her down a peg is more satisfying perhaps. They just don't know how to make a believable scenario where a competent and clever woman might fall into a trap. I think it's the classic case that I've mentioned in other threads that they want to have their cake and eat it too. She's super intelligent, except when she's not.

 

[polywog]

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Women are unpredictable by nature.
A study has concluded that males are much more consistent in their personalities than females are.

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[caLTD]

Majority of our games are try to find best layout for nail much woman as possible.

Our base aim was create product which has better fap material than main stream porn.

None of us are good writers and none of us are good game designers even most developers mother language isn't English.

And you demand, good backstory, better character development ?.

Why not, in 5 years there will be.

And today our job is, make this fap fest much believable as possible.

 

[Deviant Delights]

This is exactly why I keep the thoughts of my female character's heads in their fucking heads.

That's creative writing 101. Avoid head hopping. Some authors can pull it off and they do it well but let's face it, there are no GRRM's here making porn games. Most writers would be better served by limiting the internal dialog to the MC and expressing the thoughts and motivations of ancillary characters through action and dialog.

 

[Zippity]

I've been looking through a good number of games lately. I play through games pretty fast.
Dialog and consistency matters to me maybe a bit more than to some other people. If I just want to see images I could watch porn.
I read a bit fast so I can finish out a game rather quick.

I noticed a good number of games have a problem with female character dialog and thoughts don't match up with the actions.

She thinks something to the effect of I need to explain myself to such and such so I don't look like a slut and instead of saying something like the truth she ends up saying something that makes her look more like a slut.

Or they have her act rather intelligent half the time and when it comes to choice and situations the only options that pop up are what a moron would come up with.
If the character is going to be smart then she act smart. You can still get them into situations and compromise them.

There are various character traits that lend to people being easier to ensnare. Hubris excessive pride.
A Smart person that is over confident and acts and ass is much easier trap into crap than a person who rare nice and intelligent and doesn't act like an ass.
On the other hand dumb and nice are easier to ensnare. Dumb and mean aren't so much dumb and arrogant are real easy.

The reason is actually pretty simple. The good smart girl is more likely to simply refuse stuff and go to someone she trusts for help.
Egotists will think they are smarter than you and can handle you on their own.
Dumb people make less informed choices because they have less answers at hand so will make more bad choices. They generally only see the choices presented them or if lucky remember something they experienced or some they know experienced. They can often not realize they are out of their league when it comes to a situation.

This is an example of a person not realizing they are out of their league. Not sex related. I'm shooting pool in the NCO club and I've had a good night. Several friends around me.
This guy comes up and goes so you think you are pretty good at pool. I'm fair is my response. He then goes well I got a bet for you. He takes a pool cue lays it across the table and say he can role the ball under it without touching it. I'm like let me see that I take the ball and run it along the table and and the stick and go no way. He's like how much you want to be $20. He doesn't realize I just kicked my jacket under the table and signaled for a dozen other people to do the same thing. I've got him distracted building him up. He takes that ball slings it under the table and goes were is my $20. I look at him and go I think you should look under the table. He, "Awe fuck".

His failure was he didn't realize a person he just seen win 5 times in a row might actually know the very crap he was trying to pull.

I have noticed a few games use similar gambling tricks as a means to get to the strip and so on. But it doesn't have to be just gambling.
A real life example from my life was this woman who contracted for a job. If she defaulted on the job she would be forced to pay back monies on the job. Her lack of skill in the work put in the predicament she was forced to get others to help her or risk breaking contract. There was guys that helped her simply to help some got paid and some got their dick wet.

The point is think about your characters traits and then work off them if you want to make it more plausible.
Think about what a real person with those traits is going to do in that situation.

It's an inherent issue in this niche industry of Erotic/Adult Visual Novels and Games... The two biggest issues, as I understand from what your talking about, are Story Continuity and consistent Character Development...

If I had to best guess the percentage of VN/Games that used stereo types for Character Development it would be somewhere between 75 and 90 percent of the time... Male protagonists have this tendency to be thrown into this stereotypical pool of sex starved ego maniacs, with a high amount of perverted thoughts, where he then tends react on those thoughts a lot, or sometimes it's presented as choices to do so or not... And depending if the intended target of his lust is a love interest, purely a lust interest, or the target lusts after the protagonist (also) as a mutual lust interest, you then see various plot points play out... And many of the times it's as though there is a lust story playbook, that a majority of the developers use, for not only how those relationships play out, but also for how the character personalities develop or devolve...

And when it's a female protagonist, 9 times out of 10, she is the unwilling target of sexual corruption and/or perverted/deviant behavior towards her from every male (and some females)… Many of the times she starts as this smart but naïve young woman, but has a tendency to make some of the worst life choices... She could be presented with many situations where she might be able to get out of a sticky situation, yet no matter the choice, she is destined to fail at some point and give in to her more primal nature... Basically, it's not often you get a female protagonist who has a more realistic personality, and/or is treated in the same way as male protagonists by being the one doing rather then the one receiving...

As an example of stereotyped female characters, we have the sex starved and lonely MILF... She tends to be this matriarcal woman, who is easily seduced (through what ever story/game mechanics selected by the developer), but is unsure of herself or what she's thinking/doing, but after she finally breaks down and has full on sex with the protagonist, she either becomes this clingy sex crazed goddess or she submits to the protagonists will from that point forward... Almost as though her free will and mind is now putty for the protagonist to mold as he/she sees fit... And there is this overused pattern that seems to immerge from how the seduction begins, to how it ends... With such a dynamic change in her personality from the beginning, to the middle, until the end... Depending on the developer, it is either cliché, over the top, unrealistic, and/or just slightly close to believable...

Then look at the a-typical slut type character (male or female, but typically female)… I notice in a lot of VN/Games it's typically a female friend and/or family member, of the intended lust target... She either teases or hits on the protagonist very early on, or is used as a catalyst to push the intended target into succumbing to the protagonist... You see the later occur usually in the form of an over sexualized/slutty female friend of the intended target, who keeps nudging her friend into giving in to her sexual desires for the protagonist, or is using her friendship to get with the protagonist herself... I've seen that dynamic used over and over again... And usually their personality is over the top, and not very realistic... I've even seen it, many times, where the slutty friend wants to have sex with both her friend and the protagonist, and her ulterior motive in pressuring her friend and/or the protagonist, is so she gets that to happen... And in almost all cases, that slut like character doesn't have a realistic personality...

It's kind of a nature of the beast, almost... That there is this overshadowing and misinformed belief by many developers, that most folks out there just want as much sex as fast as possible, and that they don't care about immersion or believable characters or good story telling... Sure there are plenty of folks who just want to get their jollies as quickly as they humanly can, but I believe far more people want properly made entertainment value (alongside the sexy bits) over just back to back porn scenes, with unbelievable character personalities and a half assed story/plot... Especially when it comes to Visual Novels... Where as Games on the other hand, have a tendency to be more forgiving by the masses, when it comes to any of this stuff...

As to the story continuity... That will almost always boil down to the developers talent/skill at story writing... Although that can also be influenced by other things, such as: Pandering to paying fans, the developer getting bored, the developer rushing out content updates too quickly, the developer getting sloppy part way through, the developer develops an ego that influences the writing in a bad way, the developer has/had real life issues that somehow influenced the writing quality, the developer isn't as good at story writing as they think they are, the developer starts to run out of good ideas, the developer didn't plan everything out and is primarily winging it the entire time, the developer gives too much (or any) creative control over to the paying fans, the developer changes his/her mind on the story telling part way through but doesn't go back and fix the rest to be consistent with the changes, and the list goes on and on... So many reasons for why story continuity/consistency might change... I've seen several writers, regardless if it's this industry or not, who think they have talent because someone said they did, but in the end the greater public finds out that it isn't the case (another case of ego vs real talent)...

There are plenty of well written story based VN/Games I've tried... In some cases, they did well the entire time and in some cases they did well most of the time (room for improvement)… And in many other cases, the writing was mediocre to piss poor...

There will probably always be some stereotyped characters here and there with these things... Primarily because less thought and development needs to be put into the VN/Game, with regards to those types of characters... They are an easy and somewhat lazy approach to VN/Game design, either to get to the sexy bits earlier/faster or to add in simplistic characters... Sometimes it's purely because the developer saw it used in other VN/Games, and it was easier just to emulate the ones he/she experienced elsewhere, when making their product... Either out of convenience or lack of personal talent or some other reason... In parodies on the other hand, it's typical for the stereotyped charactertures, and over the top personalities to be used, mostly in an attempt to add in some humorous elements (even if it might not be funny to everyone)...

As to thoughts not matching actions... There are various reasons why that might have been done... From lack of developer talent/experience, to the fact that sometimes people think something but never act on those thoughts for whatever reason/s (although I doubt this was the actual purposeful case for why it happened in a given VN/Game, most of the time)… It just depends on a case by cases basis, as to how it actually was intended versus played out... If a woman is thinking of kissing a guy, but then shy's away from doing it, that kind of stuff happens... If a woman was thinking that she definitely was going to kiss a guys Johnson while kissing his body, but then she just arbitrarily goes past it, to his legs instead, and never goes through with it, but the story doesn't give any indication as to why, then we have a case of inconsistency in the story telling... That, or perhaps the developer was just creating a teaser moment? But just failed to portray that she had any kind of change of heart at all, in the story telling... There are plenty of more extreme examples of all that stuff, where the continuity and consistency of a characters thoughts to actions may be completely off kilter... For varying reasons...

Zip

 

[RomanHume]

That's creative writing 101. Avoid head hopping. Some authors can pull it off and they do it well but let's face it, there are no GRRM's here making porn games. Most writers would be better served by limiting the internal dialog to the MC and expressing the thoughts and motivations of ancillary characters through action and dialog.

I agree 100%, but at the same time I cringe every time someone says that GRRM is a good writer. The first Martin book I read was in 1992, "Fevre Dream" and I stand by that it's the only good thing he's written. Don't get me wrong, he writes great dialogue and has the descriptive capabilities of Tolkien. But he ignores the need for plot, wanders aimlessly from scene to scene, and fills his pages with superfluous details that bear no relevancy to anything. But I digress.

But even so, and to your point, Martin limits his head hopping to one, rarely two characters in a chapter. So even then, it's done with great restraint.

 

[GuyFreely]

I think there's a difference between fickleness and consistency.

Fickleness: "I like Mike, but I also like Dan. I can't decide which I want to be with."
Inconsistent: Veteran detective female character sticks her finger in some liquid from a crime scene and tastes it.

I also have no problem with any particular character type. As long as they stay on type. Sure, you can use going against type as a twist, but it shouldn't be overused.

 

[polywog]

Writers tend to be more observant of small detail, things which are often so subtle as to go unnoticed by the average person.
While sharing these observations is a big part of writing, be careful not to exaggerate them too much.
For example when writing about a woman's breasts. Breasts are highly responsive to physical touch, even anticipatory.
Sweater puppies can certainly come alive, and poke their noses out, as if sniffing around for some kibble. Clearly a tale worth telling, but don't get carried away, unless the reader knows that you're writing fantasy, then it's fine for the pups to attack their prey.

Physical touch is one thing, but spooky action at a distance, things that can't be explained by science... magic. These are troublesome areas. A woman's body becoming aroused at the mere sight of her lover... preposterous to some readers, who have never experienced it for themselves. "Nipples don't simply erect themselves" these critics say in disbelief...

 

[grtrader]

Removed because I am tired of staff behavior

 

[polywog]

It doesn't matter what she said, yesterday.

 

[grtrader]

Removed because I am tired of staff behavior

 

[polywog]

You appear to have the topic confused with something else.

Consistency in a woman's thinking, actions, and what she says, isn't the topic?
She wanted sex yesterday, said let's do this again tomorrow, but got back with her old boyfriend the next morning.
A woman has a right to change her mind in the blink of an eye. If you paid in advance, you can ask for a refund, but you can't force her to do what she said. Maybe you can get your friends in law enforcement, to shake her down to get your money back.

 

[grtrader]

Removed because I am tired of staff behavior

 

[polywog]

Dialog indicating thought of female, "No way am I doing that, I'm not exposing myself just for the job...."
Then the two options you get is, "Takes off top" or "Takes of skirt"

That type of garbage. These games are rampant with it.

That's exactly the same thing. Girl comes to the audition, ask her to strip, she says "no way, I would never..." 5 minutes later she's got a cock in her mouth. You can't get all mad, because a girl changes her mind. It happens millions of times per second.


Maybe what you're really asking isn't for people to be consistent... I personally think "free will" is a good thing,
what you really want to know is "show us your secret" "how did you get her to change her mind like that"
that's up to the dev... a magician never reveals his secret. You saw it with your own two eyes, you know it worked,
but you're in disbelief. Most people who play these games have seen it happen before... when the girl takes her top off
they're like "cool"

Or she is portrayed as smart and having a family, friends and so on. In short she has a support system but her only option is to act as if no one out there will help her and act like a complete moron. Even though right before that she was supposed to be just the opposite.

You're making the assumption that a woman with a support system would never get her freak on? Wow. Some clubs won't let you in if you don't have a support system. A couple of the Dallas cowboy cheerleaders are Doctors. Playing dumb to get a mans attention happens all the time. Smart women aren't dummies, they know exactly what a certain type of man wants.
Women have other motivations besides changing diapers

 

[grtrader]

Removed because I am tired of staff behavior