Ren'Py Help, for a new creator of visual novel hentai.

[kraguto]

First of all, thank you very much for taking your time and giving me your sincere opinions. With what I could read, and reached a conclusion, I will create a game that I enjoy playing. if I need to need the points system. I will implement it to the extent that I need it.

On the other hand, if it's not too much trouble. I wanted to ask you. in patreon I can put screenshots of the game "xxx"

 

[DarthSeduction]

First of all, thank you very much for taking your time and giving me your sincere opinions. With what I could read, and reached a conclusion, I will create a game that I enjoy playing. if I need to need the points system. I will implement it to the extent that I need it.

On the other hand, if it's not too much trouble. I wanted to ask you. in patreon I can put screenshots of the game "xxx"

Definitely not in any public posts, and I've been given the impression that it isn't ok for patron only posts either. If you want to share NSFW art it would be better to invite them to a discord server where you will sometimes post NSFW teaser art.

 

[kraguto]

Definitely not in any public posts, and I've been given the impression that it isn't ok for patron only posts either. If you want to share NSFW art it would be better to invite them to a discord server where you will sometimes post NSFW teaser art.

Again, thank you very much. I had this doubt, but not knowing the answer I preferred to avoid posting NSFW images. to avoid that my patreon page was deleted instantly.

 

[anne O'nymous]

A story isn't about the series of events it chronicles. A story is about how its series of events shape our characters. In the first act we establish characters and establish a driving force. In the second act we see that the way that they've gone about things up till now isn't enough, they need something else, and in the third act we see the payoff in their character's growth, they've changed, become their true self.

It's the classical structure of a story, but not the only possible structure. And even in this classical structure, the story don't necessarily resolve around the characters, it can resolve around the situation. Anyway, even when resolving around the characters, it's not necessarily around the MC, it can be around a secondary character.

Take The Odysseus by example. Ulysse grow stronger, but stay true to itself. His personality don't really change through the story. It's Penelope, his wife so a secondary character which who the MC don't even interact, who effectively saw her true self growing. She's given a choice, being faithful to her husband, or being faithful to her king, and it took her the whole story to understand that the choice don't express itself like this, and that in fact there isn't a choice because her husband is also the king.
If she stay faithful to her husband, then she abandon the people who live in these lands, so she betray her king... and like it's the same person, she also betray her husband ; the first choice lead only to betrayal. At the opposite, if she stay faithful to her king, then she achieve what matter the most for her husband ; she stay faithful to the people who live in his lands. So, it's the only possible choice. It's only by betraying her husband, by accepting someone else in her life, that she can effectively stay faithful to both her kind and her husband.
It's the same kind of story that's behind the two examples I gave. The story don't resolve around the MC, it's the evolution of a secondary character that matter the most. And, in the "you abuse of her trauma" example, she past through all the abuses, slowly opening her eyes to the truth, then reveal her true self ; she's strong enough to confront her abuser and life by herself.

You've a vision of the story that is too much centered around the MC, the Hero ; I would say "a too much US's vision". But this is possible only in a pure Visual Novel, where the author have a full control of the story.
In a more opened game, whatever if there's a point system or just a basic decision tree, the story resolve around the secondary characters. You don't tell the story of how the MC will seduce/corrupt/whatever the characters surrounding him. No, you tell the story of those characters, telling the player how these characters react to his decisions, how their personality will evolve and reveal their true selves. For the game to be coherent, the said secondary characters must end in the same state of mind ; a state that is just expressed differently, and revealed through a different journey, depending of the player's choices.

Go back to my first example. Despite the abuse in her youth, the girl is strong and independent. If you use her trauma to abuse her, she'll run away. Her friend awake this strength in her, and she discover that she can choice her life. She don't want to be just a sex slave, therefore she go live her life on her own.
If you decide to corrupt her, but with love, and by being nicely, by caring about her, it's another path, but still the same true her. She'll live a situation that looks like the abuse of her youth ; you'll use her as a sex toy to fulfill your sexual urges. But it's not exactly the same situation than in her youth. You don't abuse her, you just have sex with her in an abusive way. Understanding the difference, going beyond the apparent resemblance, this need a lot of strength and some kind of independence ; she need to separate the love that the MC have for her, from the way he have sex with her.
And finally, if you decide to follow the seduction path, it's yet another story, but still the same herself at the end ; in a way, it's her that will corrupt you. It was not her intent, she was abused at this time, but the fact is that, while she was raped by her parent, she felt some arousal. So, now that she'd finally found someone that truly love her, she want to fulfill this arousal, she want to finally have the orgasms she never allowed her to have when it was rape and not consent sex. Once again she end being a strong independent girl.
The story will end with the same girl true self, you'll just tell the three possible way to achieve it. And it's up to the player to chose which of these way he want you to tell him.
But if you go with your (I summarize), "the MC scare the friend", "the MC take full control of her life", "the MC kill the friend", "the MC cheat to be seen as a hero", to artificially continue the path, then you face the same dilemma than Penelope.
Either you stay faithful to the story, and the strong and independent girl she is will confront her abuser and force him to stop his abuses. In this case, you betray the player ; all the choices he made until now don't count. Or you stay faithful to the player, and the girl become weak and submissive, completely broke. In this case, you betray the story, because there's now two different (and in this particular case opposed) selves for the girl.
And like for Penelope, it's in fact not a choice, there's only one possible way to stay faithful to both the player and the story. It's to understand and accept that one of the story's variations end before the others. According to what you said in this discussion, you see this as a betrayal of the story... but sometime you need a small betrayal to express how faithful you are. If your best friend goes full crazy and want to kill the guy who stole his girl heart, what is the real betrayal ? Letting him do it and be sentenced to death in your country ? Or punching his face until he understand that it's totally stupid ?

Obviously, the story is not only about the girl, and you should also explain how the MC's personality will change ; how player's choices will affect him. But it can't be his true self. It can, because it's three different selves.
If you go full abuse, then the MC end being a real bastard. If you go for the corruption with love path, then he's a loving pervert. And if you go for the seduction path, in the end the MC is a romantic lover ready to overpass himself for his love's pleasure. It's only the girl that have the same true self at the end... And it apply to all the games where the player can effectively chose what kind of reaction the player will have.
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, it's a good example of that. The MC is either a romantic loving father, or a fucking bastard. He have two self, depending if you follow one of the seduction paths or the one of the corruption paths. It's only the daughter who stay true to herself whatever the player choices can be. She's grateful to the MC for what he do, for letting her finally have a real life, and she'll do everything to express it. In the seduction paths, she slowly fall in love because of this, and in the corruption ones, she slowly submit because of this.

Take The Avengers. The first act introduces us to our 6 heroes all on their own path as well as introducing the conflict that brings them together in Loki and the Tessract. Our first act ends with the team, after fighting, capturing Loki and bringing him in. Our second act is all about showing us the team isn't working together. They're all at odds with no cohesion. The second act ends in failure, the team fights eachother and loses the only person who really had faith in them, Coulson.

Yeah, the classical US story. "Pick the character you can the more easily identify with, then let us tell you that you are so much better and stronger than you think". Note that I say this as a fact, not as a critic.
But look at the other side of the globe, how Asians can tell you beautiful and emotionally strong stories without following this structure. How they can let you witness the meaningless death of a bunch of MCs and still let you amazed by how good this story was.
Look at "The Magnificent Seven" (the original from 1960, I haven't seen the 2016 remake), then look at the "Seven Samurai". Only in the US version there's this true self revealing path. For Kurosawa, it was just an ordinary journey in the life of seven rõnins. If I remember it correctly (I have seen it many times, but not recently), the original version even end with a narrative speech which clearly express the meaningless of the whole story ; they save the village... this time.
Or perhaps have you seen "The Grave of the Fireflies". If not, well it's perhaps good that you haven't, since it's one of the most depressing story never told. It's the exact opposite structure of the one you talked about. You'll look the journey of the brother slowly loosing his true self.
You can also compare the Disney version of classical fairy tales to the original ones. In the originals, it's not the story of a MC, it's a teaching book for the reader. Where's the true self revelation (according to your vision, because there's an obvious one) in the fact that the sleeping beauty awake because (it depend of the version) :

• of the pains of childbirth ;
• the cry of her, just born, baby ;
• her twins biting her while breastfeeding.

It's only in the Disney version that she reveal the princess who was sleeping deep inside her ; like I said above (still as a fact not a critic), the classical US story. The original tale is way more realistic ; the prince is a fucking bastard who raped the girl he found sleeping...
On a totally different subject, would have Disney told the true story, that the rape situation in the US could have been different. I mean, Disney teach boys that, if they kiss the girl, she'll marry them. While the original tale teach girls that, one day they'll hit puberty, and from this day they must be careful of boys who'll try to take advantage of them. If they aren't careful enough, they'll fall asleep as a girl, and awake as a mother.


So, well, you see, a story isn't something that come with an unique and strongly defined structure. Just to keep the one you defined, there's many variations around it.
You can apply it to the secondary characters, like in The Odysseus or my example. You can reverse it, like in "The Grave of the Fireflies". You can also found it as natural process, like in "The Sleeping Beauty". You can apply it to the situation, but well no example crossed my mind for this case. And it can be irrelevant, like in "The Seven Samurai", because the characters where already their true selves. And in all these example, the stories aren't weaker because they followed a variation instead of the main definition.
Some of these usages needs that all the variations of the story itself end at the same time, even if it mean that some must continue further than their natural ending. Some others permit that each variations have it's own pace and, potentially, premature ending in regard of some other variations.
But in the end, if you give a real power of decision to the player, then you can't achieve to have the same true self for the MC at the end of each path. And so, it shouldn't be the center of your story ; it shouldn't be the one that will follow the structure you've chose for your story.

It doesn't mean that you had it wrong in Seraphim Academy. It's a great story and a well wrote one. But you're telling us many different stories. There's the story of the MC, how she'll slowly understand that life isn't a fairy tale and how it will change her. And there's the story of each characters, how they'll will evolve because of what the MC will do.
But this is possible only because you decided to keep as much control as possible over the story. The player isn't given the possibility to effectively define the personality of the MC, he can just decide of... let's call it "her priorities". It's still an important choice, it will still change the way the story will evolve, but it will change nothing about the evolution of MC's personality. It's not what the player control, unlike in points based games where the player is more in control of the MC's personality and less in control of the story.

What you're doing with your endings is robbing us of this character development, of this arc.

It's the opposite, I give you (the reader/player) full control over it.
Writing isn't a selfish act, you don't force someone to read how you see the world, how you see this character. You give hints to the reader about the character, but you don't tighten the bridle, you let it loose, you let the reader use his own experience fill blank through his imagination.
Read what writers can say, how they sometimes are amazed because they successively talked to five fans who know their works by heart, and still heard five different representations of the characters, when not of the story. Look how happy they are when it happen, how successful they felt the first time it happened.

A writer isn't a painter, it don't give a full representation of the story. No, he just provide a canvas. You know, the kind of canvas where you need to fill the cases with the color corresponding of the number wrote in the case. You can strictly follow the numbers, like you can change it, going for blue instead of green. You also can strictly follow the case, like you can decide to overpass some of them.
The canvas, is just a guide for your imagination, a way to help you overcome your own limitations. You have difficulty to coordinate your hands with the representation you have in your mind, the case are here to help you. You'll express your love for painting will still being in the incapacity to draw by yourself. You are good are drawing, but my good what a bad taste you have when it come to coordinate colors. Here, it's the numbers that will help you. You'll change the shape of the elements, will still following the numbers, and by doing this you'll goes beyond your limitation.

Writers do the same, but at another level. Their words are the canvas to express your imagination. And this apply even more with a game where the player can chose how the character will act and/or how the story will evolve. If you prolong the story after its natural end, you're stealing something to the player.

 

[DarthSeduction]

You've a vision of the story that is too much centered around the MC, the Hero ; I would say "a too much US's vision". But this is possible only in a pure Visual Novel, where the author have a full control of the story.
In a more opened game, whatever if there's a point system or just a basic decision tree, the story resolve around the secondary characters. You don't tell the story of how the MC will seduce/corrupt/whatever the characters surrounding him. No, you tell the story of those characters, telling the player how these characters react to his decisions, how their personality will evolve and reveal their true selves. For the game to be coherent, the said secondary characters must end in the same state of mind ; a state that is just expressed differently, and revealed through a different journey, depending of the player's choices.

Unless you go to jail for what you did, your scenario doesn't work at all outside of a VN anyway, you don't experience a game over when you ruin 1 girls content, you go on to play simply for the other girls. In a life sim format it's difficult to add game over states. Big Brother threatened us with one, but used a villain who was dialed up to 11 to do it. And also, bullshit. Both Long Live the Princess and The Deluca Family are giving you an overarching story for the MC as well as the individual subplots for each girl. Long Live the Princess has even managed to combine the two with regards to Primrose.

Now on to a different issue, I guess, to me a game is the story of the player, even if that player is putting themselves in someone else's shoes, becoming a new person. As a result, the story of a game should feature a character arc for the main character. Of course, I don't dispute that the side characters should also have an arc. A good example of this exists in a film I love to bring up to developers as something they should watch and understand, American Beauty.

In it you have your main character, a man about to suffer a midlife crisis. He's woken up one day and realized he lived his life for everyone else and didn't do what he wanted to do. Then we have the characters around him who all represent some aspect of this. The Wife who has embraced the lie, identified fully with what other people expect of her. The Daughter who represents his youth, yearning for freedom to do what she wants. Her boyfriend, the young adult who has managed to find a way to do what he wants. And the boyfriend's father, our antagonist, the man who denies what he really wants to the point of becoming a monster.

With the exception of the boyfriend, who the movie makes it clear is where he wants to be in life, everyone has an arc. The daughter starts to exert her freedom, the wife finds her world of lies crumbling around her and doesn't know who she is anymore, the boyfriend's father finally gets the balls to admit to himself what it is he truly wants, though when that is denied him, he reacts violently, killing the MC. This story is tragic, as just when the MC has finally figured out who he is, he's killed, and the two kids are framed for it, but everyone who was meant to started this film in one place, and ended it in another.

But if you go with your (I summarize), "the MC scare the friend", "the MC take full control of her life", "the MC kill the friend", "the MC cheat to be seen as a hero", to artificially continue the path, then you face the same dilemma than Penelope.
Either you stay faithful to the story, and the strong and independent girl she is will confront her abuser and force him to stop his abuses. In this case, you betray the player ; all the choices he made until now don't count. Or you stay faithful to the player, and the girl become weak and submissive, completely broke. In this case, you betray the story, because there's now two different (and in this particular case opposed) selves for the girl.

I disagree with your implication here. There are not "strong women" and "weak women" there are not "strong men" and "weak men", there are people of both genders reacting to the world around them. The girl in your scenario started as someone who's ended up in a state perceived as weak, a previous victim who in response to her victim conditioning has become abused by this MC. However, she's not nearly as in a weak position as she would be after the MC cuts off her support system.

Furthermore, I'm not saying that this game ends with her dominated and him on top. I'm saying that this provides a 3rd act for the MC. If you kill the friend, maybe you get caught by the police. If you control the girl, maybe she eventually gains the courage and shoots you. If you scare the friend, maybe all you do is inspire her to stop you even more, but force her to act in secret to ensure you can't retaliate until it's too late. Maybe if you go the Hero route you're eventually exposed when one of the pretend rapists tells the cops about it all.

You see, in each of these scenarios there's a way to tell the story giving a 3rd act arc to everyone, and you're right, if you as the writer really just want to see this girl have a good strong ending, it would be a betrayal of your character to go with the hero route, because in that particular moment she turns back to her abuser willingly. However, none of the other 3 options make her weaker than she starts the game out as, they simply act as a setback before her achieving her freedom and becoming the stronger girl through the help of her friends, or through finding the strength within herself to save herself.

Yeah, the classical US story. "Pick the character you can the more easily identify with, then let us tell you that you are so much better and stronger than you think". Note that I say this as a fact, not as a critic.

You know, the Heroes Journey, one of the most ancient concepts in literature.

But look at the other side of the globe, how Asians can tell you beautiful and emotionally strong stories without following this structure. How they can let you witness the meaningless death of a bunch of MCs and still let you amazed by how good this story was.

The MC doesn't have to live to have fulfilled his/her arc. That's the problem, I'm saying by killing the MC before the story is over you remove their third act arc.

Look at "The Magnificent Seven" (the original from 1960, I haven't seen the 2016 remake), then look at the "Seven Samurai". Only in the US version there's this true self revealing path. For Kurosawa, it was just an ordinary journey in the life of seven rõnins. If I remember it correctly (I have seen it many times, but not recently), the original version even end with a narrative speech which clearly express the meaningless of the whole story ; they save the village... this time.

Again, there's nothing wrong with this, but I'd argue that the fact that seven ronin decided to protect a town with their lives is in and of itself a character defining change. Sometimes something worthy of praise, a heroic act like this, is futile. Take 300 for example. Sure, they proved a god could bleed, but Greece didn't rally to fight immediately after that, it took a very long time, a healthy Persian rule before they finally got rid of them. That doesn't take away that what Leonidas did was right, that the journey he went on, duty to yourself and Greece, or duty to the gods, was any less important.

You can also compare the Disney version of classical fairy tales to the original ones. In the originals, it's not the story of a MC, it's a teaching book for the reader. Where's the true self revelation (according to your vision, because there's an obvious one) in the fact that the sleeping beauty awake because (it depend of the version) :

• of the pains of childbirth ;
• the cry of her, just born, baby ;
• her twins biting her while breastfeeding.

It's only in the Disney version that she reveal the princess who was sleeping deep inside her ; like I said above (still as a fact not a critic), the classical US story. The original tale is way more realistic ; the prince is a fucking bastard who raped the girl he found sleeping...
On a totally different subject, would have Disney told the true story, that the rape situation in the US could have been different. I mean, Disney teach boys that, if they kiss the girl, she'll marry them. While the original tale teach girls that, one day they'll hit puberty, and from this day they must be careful of boys who'll try to take advantage of them. If they aren't careful enough, they'll fall asleep as a girl, and awake as a mother.

Would it not be argued that the arc of this story for sleeping beauty was learning this painful lesson? In order for the same thing to be achieved in the case of your abusive MC scenario, there'd have to be a lot of foreshadowing and moralizing, signs pointing to consequences, and then he'd have to do more than just lose her, he'd have to be exposed in some way, put on trial, blasted over social media, the subject of an article that the girl writes chronicling her journey, something that would expose his inner monster and force him to confront it.

But in the end, if you give a real power of decision to the player, then you can't achieve to have the same true self for the MC at the end of each path. And so, it shouldn't be the center of your story ; it shouldn't be the one that will follow the structure you've chose for your story.

Again, I don't think a true self is a real thing. I think people react to the world around them. The MC isn't born evil, he becomes increasingly evil as a result of choices he makes. The girl isn't born strong, in fact, you've made it quite clear that she's been a victim twice, showing her to have been "weak". The end of her arc being one of strength is a result of her reacting to her surroundings.

It doesn't mean that you had it wrong in Seraphim Academy. It's a great story and a well wrote one. But you're telling us many different stories. There's the story of the MC, how she'll slowly understand that life isn't a fairy tale and how it will change her. And there's the story of each characters, how they'll will evolve because of what the MC will do.
But this is possible only because you decided to keep as much control as possible over the story. The player isn't given the possibility to effectively define the personality of the MC, he can just decide of... let's call it "her priorities". It's still an important choice, it will still change the way the story will evolve, but it will change nothing about the evolution of MC's personality. It's not what the player control, unlike in points based games where the player is more in control of the MC's personality and less in control of the story.

A single stat would make it possible for me to evolve the story here in any way I want. The stat starts at 0 and as you do things that are positive climbs, as you do things that are negative, falls, and below a certain threshold you enter a dark story branch, but above a higher threshold you enter into a positive branch. There would also be a more neutral branch in the middle. How each of these played out could be completely different, some ending with the MC dead or in prison, others ending with him as a pillar of the community in a wondrous relationship with his "best girl" and the neutral path likely being the closest you'd get to a harem ending if it were possible in the game.

It's the opposite, I give you (the reader/player) full control over it.
Writing isn't a selfish act, you don't force someone to read how you see the world, how you see this character. You give hints to the reader about the character, but you don't tighten the bridle, you let it loose, you let the reader use his own experience fill blank through his imagination.
Read what writers can say, how they sometimes are amazed because they successively talked to five fans who know their works by heart, and still heard five different representations of the characters, when not of the story. Look how happy they are when it happen, how successful they felt the first time it happened.

A writer isn't a painter, it don't give a full representation of the story. No, he just provide a canvas. You know, the kind of canvas where you need to fill the cases with the color corresponding of the number wrote in the case. You can strictly follow the numbers, like you can change it, going for blue instead of green. You also can strictly follow the case, like you can decide to overpass some of them.
The canvas, is just a guide for your imagination, a way to help you overcome your own limitations. You have difficulty to coordinate your hands with the representation you have in your mind, the case are here to help you. You'll express your love for painting will still being in the incapacity to draw by yourself. You are good are drawing, but my good what a bad taste you have when it come to coordinate colors. Here, it's the numbers that will help you. You'll change the shape of the elements, will still following the numbers, and by doing this you'll goes beyond your limitation.

Writers do the same, but at another level. Their words are the canvas to express your imagination. And this apply even more with a game where the player can chose how the character will act and/or how the story will evolve. If you prolong the story after its natural end, you're stealing something to the player.

Your game would still be missing a third act if it ended where you're ending it. What I'm talking about isn't the person's interpretation of the character, I'm talking about a character who has an arc, in your version, and you've not done a good job of explaining a way where this isn't the case, you have cut that arc short at the end of the second act.

All stories have at least 3 acts. Some have 5, still others, if they are in a long enough format, might have more. But you can't tell a story without at least 3.

 

[anne O'nymous]

Unless you go to jail for what you did, your scenario doesn't work at all outside of a VN anyway, you don't experience a game over when you ruin 1 girls content, you go on to play simply for the other girls.

Not all games resolve around a harem or multi-loving routes. Take Dating my Daughter, to use the most known. Despite the presence of few side characters, the whole story lost all its meaning if you fuck up with the daughter. But it can happen even when the game resolve around a harem. If you fuck up with the mother in Sisterly Lust, you lost all the sisters. There's still the side characters, but once again, it become a totally different story.

Both Long Live the Princess and The Deluca Family are giving you an overarching story for the MC as well as the individual subplots for each girl. Long Live the Princess has even managed to combine the two with regards to Primrose.

But in both the player have few, if not none, control over MC's personality. He only control his action in the range of possibilities corresponding to the personality decided by the author.
It's even more explicit in "Our fate", that I took as example in my previous comment. 95% of the time you can chose to "be rude", or to "be kind", that's all. Both Belle and Hopes Gaming made it that the choices are less obvious, but still they stay put and don't change MC's personality.

Now on to a different issue, I guess, to me a game is the story of the player,

But you and me differ on the meaning of this sentence. For you, it mean that, through the MC, you tell the story of the player. While for me it mean that the player write his own story resolving around the MC.
I don't say that you are wrong (neither here nor elsewhere in our discussion) ; I hope that you now know me enough to know that. I just give you another point of view over what a story (for a game or not) can be.

As a result, the story of a game should feature a character arc for the main character.

And, as a result, the story should only depict the change in MC's personality.
Note that it's also why we differ (less now) on the point system. It obviously have less meaning from your point of view, since you keep the control of MC's story from start to end. This while it's mandatory from my point of view, since it's what keep track of the changes in MC's personality.

I disagree with your implication here. There are not "strong women" and "weak women" there are not "strong men" and "weak men", there are people of both genders reacting to the world around them.

Sorry, but I can't do otherwise that call you wrong here. I'm, alas, well placed to know that it's far to be as simple than that. Your personality depend of your life's experience, but this experience first past through the bias of your "mind structure/physiology" (there's surely a better saying, but I don't know it in English). And this one is totally independent of you and what you passed through.
Twins can have been raised in the exact same way and passed through the exact same experiences, that they'll still react differently. One can be shy as fuck, and because of this will live each social experience as a suffering, while the other can be extrovert and live the exact same situation as proof that life is exciting.
It's more relevant when the problem is more on the side of "mental deceases". While you can sometimes achieve to overcome your mind structure/physiology, because the brain is a modular structure which constantly redefine itself, you can't change the default(s) coming from your "decease". That's why, by example, there's two kind of shyness ; the regular one, that can be overcome, and the medical one, that you'll have to deal with all your life ; someone suffering from the last one can't stop being shy, this in the same way than a homosexual can't stop being homosexual.
In the end, yes, there's "strong people", like there's "weak people". If your condition make it that you simply can't stand for yourself, whatever the hidden strength you can have, you'll always be the carpet guy/girl, the one over who everyone walk day by day. And nothing will ever change that ; the only way for you to have a "strong" life (and I'll add "long life") is to have a friend/partner, who will stand for you.

The girl in your scenario started as someone who's ended up in a state perceived as weak, a previous victim who in response to her victim conditioning has become abused by this MC. However, she's not nearly as in a weak position as she would be after the MC cuts off her support system.

What ? No, it's not how it works in real life psychology. In the vast majority of the cases, it's when the abuser cut off all support, that the victim discover that she's in fact way stronger than she thought. This unless she's effectively weak or broke, but in this case she'll never cross the support's cuts off scenario.

However, none of the other 3 options make her weaker than she starts the game out as,

Because you decided that she was weak. But having a weak point doesn't mean that you are weak. Despite my condition, I raised my kids alone since the death of my wife seven years ago... Still, place me in some situations, and I'll become weaker than a baby. So, am I strong because of these seven years (and you'll have to trust me on this one, it need more strength that you can imagine), or weak because in some cases you can totally abuse of me with what can looks like my full consent ? And by totally abuse of me, I mean that you can even try to kill me without any attempt from my part to escape it.
The MC used the weak point as his advantage, and that what render the girl suddenly weaker than she effectively is. He dragged her deeper each time he abused her, and that's why she need an external help to remember that she's in fact strong, but that's all. The simple fact that she's with the MC prove that she isn't weak and that, despite the fact that she didn't overcame her trauma, she still had the strength to overcome once the consequences of it.

You know, the Heroes Journey, one of the most ancient concepts in literature.

Concept that, unlike in the classical US stories, was never intended as an immersion. The reader wasn't expected to feel that he was Ulysse coming back from Troy. Like he wasn't expected to feel that he was Hercule, Roland de Ronceveau, Arthur Pendragon or even Bilbo Baggins.
The purpose changed upon the time. At first they where either simple telling or a way to comfort the reader ; "look, you're an average guy, be glad of this because exceptional peoples have it way harder than you". Then they became inspiration, with still a little part of comfort ; "don't try too hard to overcome your destiny, at least you avoid all these inconvenient". But in both cases the reader wasn't expected to immerse himself.

Again, there's nothing wrong with this, but I'd argue that the fact that seven ronin decided to protect a town with their lives is in and of itself a character defining change.

No, simply no. They decided to protect the town because of what they already were.
They failed to protect their master (the exact word don't come in my mind), and to avenge his death or to kill themselves as expected ; if they haven't simply be deprived of these rights. So, protecting the town is a way for them to restore their honor. But only those who died doing it achieved this restoration. The few others (don't remember if there's one or two) won because they protected the town, but also lost because they're still dishonored.
There's no change, neither in their personality nor in their journey. They'll still wander in the country, with the hope to find a way to save their honor.

Sometimes something worthy of praise, a heroic act like this, is futile. Take 300 for example. Sure, they proved a god could bleed, but Greece didn't rally to fight immediately after that, it took a very long time, a healthy Persian rule before they finally got rid of them.

Er... Thermopylae, 11 August 480 BC, Salamis, 22 September 480 BC. Then Plataea, June 479 BC, which ended the Greek part of the Persian wars and ensured the independence of Greece. The conflict itself continued until 449 BC, but this time in Persian, starting with the naval battle of Mycale, in autumn 479 BC.
So, one month after Leonidas' sacrifice, Greeks won a significant battle, and less than one year after, Greece was definitively ride of the Persians. This isn't "a very long time". Yet I agree that it didn't really changed the fact that Greece wasn't unified, they just fought a common enemy.

That doesn't take away that what Leonidas did was right, that the journey he went on, duty to yourself and Greece, or duty to the gods, was any less important.

It wasn't for Greece or the gods, it was for Sparta and himself, which is another thing. Would have he fled, that he would have lost his honor and couldn't have stayed king of Sparta. There wasn't specifically a law providing him to do it, but in Sparta, a city where you could only be a woman, a future soldier (so a child), a soldier or a slave, a king who fled a battle isn't a thing that can exist.
Like the rõnins in the Seven Samurai, he simply had no other choice. And like for them, you see the story of Leonidas through the bias of your own culture. That's why I make a difference between the classical journey of a hero, and the classical US stories.
Until the Renaissance (and probably a little further), these stories weren't about a character overcoming himself or revealing his true self. It was about characters that were achieving their destiny whatever they really wanted it or not.
Ulysse had no intent to make a so long journey. Hercules had no intent to past through all these challenges. Arthur Pendragon had no intent to become the king. They just had no choice. It's not even a "either they do it or else" situation, they had to do it with no way to avoid it, point.
This while in the classical US stories, it's a choice made by the character. At anytime he have the possibility to change his mind and return at home ; it's just that the story decided that he'll not make this choice. In the classical version, one day someone come and say "you have to do this", followed or not by a "because no one else can do it". While in the US version, it's the character himself who say that he will do it, this despite the fact that generally many other persons can do it instead.

Would it not be argued that the arc of this story for sleeping beauty was learning this painful lesson?

No, it was to teach that the purpose of a girl is to become a mother. This time you read it with the bias of our modern time and of your opened mind. At this time a girl had no real saying for this kind of things.
The arc of the story was what I said. She fall asleep as a girl (the sting of the spinning wheel is the first blood of puberty), and awake as a mother. All the time where she sleep is the meaningless time where she isn't a girl anymore and not a mother yet ; so a time where her purpose isn't anymore to learn, and isn't yet to raise her children. As for the whole kingdom falling asleep, it's to mark the fact that they were waiting for the time she effectively become a mother. This like the parents of a girl are expecting her to now become a mother.
But if you want we can talk about Cinderella. I remember less of this one, but her step-mother made it that she didn't had the possibility to try the shoe despite the prince's order to make all girls in the kingdom try it ; she lied saying that she was dead, or something like that. This while one of her step-sister cut her toes to fit the shoe.
I'm curious to know what's the arc of this story. Except "life is a bitch, deal with it", I honestly never show it.

Again, I don't think a true self is a real thing.

Still it is. Don't remember from where it come, but we all wear three masks. The one we show in public, the one we show in private, and the one we show only to ourselves. But none of them is the real us, it's the combination of the three which is what we really are. To this you have to add the fact that who we think we are isn't necessarily the third mask.
But well, explaining this would need a full roman and is even more out of topic than the rest of our discussion.

A single stat would make it possible for me to evolve the story here in any way I want.

I didn't said that it wasn't possible, just that it's totally unnecessary. You go further than the initial story, without effective reasons.

What I'm talking about isn't the person's interpretation of the character, I'm talking about a character who has an arc, in your version, and you've not done a good job of explaining a way where this isn't the case, [...]

Well I thought that (I summarize) "you can't tell the story of the MC, because you have no control over it. You can just depict the change in his personality", was a good explanation that the MC have no story.
The player just use MC's eyes to witness the story of the girl, through three variations of her journey ; variations decided by the player. He's not in control of the MC, he's in control of the girl's fate ; every action he chose for the MC have a direct influence on the girl story. He's not a puppeteer, he's a pool player. So he don't control MC's move, he use it to change the direction of the girl's story.

All stories have at least 3 acts. Some have 5, still others, if they are in a long enough format, might have more. But you can't tell a story without at least 3.

They are here, it's just that you don't look at the right place. Act one, the encounter between the girl and the MC. Act two, the MC abuse of the girl, using her past trauma to drag her deep. Act three, with the help of a friend, the girl overcome her trauma and run away.
Once again, I never said it was MC's story and explicitly said that it wasn't ; that the MC had no story, because he can't have one outside of the player mind. The fact that you can't visualize it (it's not necessarily easy with just words instead of an effective story) doesn't mean that it's false.

 

[DarthSeduction]

Not all games resolve around a harem or multi-loving routes. Take Dating my Daughter, to use the most known. Despite the presence of few side characters, the whole story lost all its meaning if you fuck up with the daughter. But it can happen even when the game resolve around a harem. If you fuck up with the mother in Sisterly Lust, you lost all the sisters. There's still the side characters, but once again, it become a totally different story.

You are the one who suggested it could be a sandbox, not me, I was already treating it more like DmD. Sisterly Lust, on the other hand, it's possible to fuck up one of the sister's stories and keep playing. I wouldn't know about the mom route, but I haven't tried to tank it so I never would.

Sorry, but I can't do otherwise that call you wrong here. I'm, alas, well placed to know that it's far to be as simple than that. Your personality depend of your life's experience, but this experience first past through the bias of your "mind structure/physiology" (there's surely a better saying, but I don't know it in English). And this one is totally independent of you and what you passed through.

In English we call this concept nature vs nurture, but from everything I've ever read or experienced nurture has far more to do with how you react to situations than nature. Unless you are mentally ill in some way, a lack of empathy or something else that might cause you to see violence and actions of a negative nature to be viable and even correct, you are shaped by your experiences far more than nature. You watch and learn from your parents at a young age, hence, people who grow up in abusive homes learn to handle their issues in the same way, a destructive cycle of nurture. Moving beyond that is something that takes a lot of work, possibly even therapy. Even a lack of empathy can be a problem of Nurture, with empathy being something we learn early through our environment, though some do still have a natural born block against that.

Twins can have been raised in the exact same way and passed through the exact same experiences, that they'll still react differently. One can be shy as fuck, and because of this will live each social experience as a suffering, while the other can be extrovert and live the exact same situation as proof that life is exciting.

What makes you so sure that one's introversion isn't specifically the result of the other's extroversion? The one never having to develop the social skills of the other because as twins they were always together, the more extroverted leading the charge?

In the end, yes, there's "strong people", like there's "weak people". If your condition make it that you simply can't stand for yourself, whatever the hidden strength you can have, you'll always be the carpet guy/girl, the one over who everyone walk day by day. And nothing will ever change that ; the only way for you to have a "strong" life (and I'll add "long life") is to have a friend/partner, who will stand for you.

Put simply, I disagree. Unless you have a mental illness, there is nothing stopping you from changing except for you. And to be frank, I won't budge on this.

What ? No, it's not how it works in real life psychology. In the vast majority of the cases, it's when the abuser cut off all support, that the victim discover that she's in fact way stronger than she thought. This unless she's effectively weak or broke, but in this case she'll never cross the support's cuts off scenario.

No, that's not true at all. ESPECIALLY for a repeat victim. Victims become conditioned to respond to certain things. Eventually the abuser isn't punishing her for real mistakes at all, just taking his or her anger out on her as their personal punching bag. The person stays from a combination of fear and a strong belief that the abuser doesn't mean to hurt them. What helps the person finally escape this torment isn't suddenly finding the strength, it's someone else showing them that they have it. If you get rid of that person who would do that before they've come to grips with it, they'll likely revert to their conditioning to stay safe rather than risk fighting back and having worse happen to them.

Because you decided that she was weak. But having a weak point doesn't mean that you are weak. Despite my condition, I raised my kids alone since the death of my wife seven years ago... Still, place me in some situations, and I'll become weaker than a baby. So, am I strong because of these seven years (and you'll have to trust me on this one, it need more strength that you can imagine), or weak because in some cases you can totally abuse of me with what can looks like my full consent ? And by totally abuse of me, I mean that you can even try to kill me without any attempt from my part to escape it.
The MC used the weak point as his advantage, and that what render the girl suddenly weaker than she effectively is. He dragged her deeper each time he abused her, and that's why she need an external help to remember that she's in fact strong, but that's all. The simple fact that she's with the MC prove that she isn't weak and that, despite the fact that she didn't overcame her trauma, she still had the strength to overcome once the consequences of it.

This statement contradicts half of what you've said. Don't get me wrong, I agree with the majority of it. I simply think that you, up until this point, have been saying the exact opposite. I'm sorry, but the character as defined, a previous victim of abuse who managed to land once again in an abusive situation is in that moment weak. However, remember I have said I don't think that defines her, I think it is a chosen reaction to the situation, and one that can change under the right circumstances. A weak person can become strong, a strong person can become weak. There is nothing stopping this but yourself. It will take a lot of work, and won't happen overnight, and you'll likely need help, someone to guide you out, someone to listen to your frustrations, but it will ultimately be you who changes.

The purpose changed upon the time. At first they where either simple telling or a way to comfort the reader ; "look, you're an average guy, be glad of this because exceptional peoples have it way harder than you". Then they became inspiration, with still a little part of comfort ; "don't try too hard to overcome your destiny, at least you avoid all these inconvenient". But in both cases the reader wasn't expected to immerse himself.

In a story, not a game, but a story, you're not meant to immerse yourself. Sure, you might imagine yourself as the hero, but it isn't the you that you are, it's the you that you want to be. It's aspirational. In fact, your two statements here about the intended meaning is exactly how I an american millennial feel the heroes journey is supposed to act. I don't know where you get this immersion thing from.

Games on the other hand, are about immersion. You are Geralt when you play The Witcher. But, that is a spot where we have to talk about something else, it is, You are Geralt, not Geralt is You. You aren't meant to imagine yourself as a witcher, you are supposed to pretend you're Geralt. I will agree that there are a lot of people who don't get this, but that's not an American thing. Go look at the thread about hate for female protags and read fitboy's comments. I'm the one acting as a voice of reason telling him he's playing the game wrong if he's trying to take the character out and put himself in.

So, protecting the town is a way for them to restore their honor.

In other words, a character defining change. I'm well aware of Bushido and what it means to be a Ronin. An act to restore one's Honor is an act that goes against their status as Ronin.

Er... Thermopylae, 11 August 480 BC, Salamis, 22 September 480 BC. Then Plataea, June 479 BC, which ended the Greek part of the Persian wars and ensured the independence of Greece. The conflict itself continued until 449 BC, but this time in Persian, starting with the naval battle of Mycale, in autumn 479 BC.
So, one month after Leonidas' sacrifice, Greeks won a significant battle, and less than one year after, Greece was definitively ride of the Persians. This isn't "a very long time". Yet I agree that it didn't really changed the fact that Greece wasn't unified, they just fought a common enemy.

I fault my education on this one. I simply know what I've been told.

Until the Renaissance (and probably a little further), these stories weren't about a character overcoming himself or revealing his true self. It was about characters that were achieving their destiny whatever they really wanted it or not.
Ulysse had no intent to make a so long journey. Hercules had no intent to past through all these challenges. Arthur Pendragon had no intent to become the king. They just had no choice. It's not even a "either they do it or else" situation, they had to do it with no way to avoid it, point.

Luke had no intent to fight against and destroy the empire, harry potter had no intent to take on and defeat Voldemort. The heroes journey isn't one he makes by choice, but one that is thrust upon them. The story is about how they react to that calling. I admit, I don't know the Odyssey as well as I'd like, so I can't speak to that particular example, but no, the heroes journey hasn't changed all that much, the only thing American Cinema really changed is the need for a happy ending, and I'm one of those who isn't always of the opinion that a happy ending is right.

No, it was to teach that the purpose of a girl is to become a mother. This time you read it with the bias of our modern time and of your opened mind. At this time a girl had no real saying for this kind of things.
The arc of the story was what I said. She fall asleep as a girl (the sting of the spinning wheel is the first blood of puberty), and awake as a mother. All the time where she sleep is the meaningless time where she isn't a girl anymore and not a mother yet ; so a time where her purpose isn't anymore to learn, and isn't yet to raise her children. As for the whole kingdom falling asleep, it's to mark the fact that they were waiting for the time she effectively become a mother. This like the parents of a girl are expecting her to now become a mother.

I would argue that this was always a painful lesson to learn, no matter the context. Sure, women were trained to know their place, but it obviously is a matter of nurture, not nature, so still a painful lesson.

But if you want we can talk about Cinderella. I remember less of this one, but her step-mother made it that she didn't had the possibility to try the shoe despite the prince's order to make all girls in the kingdom try it ; she lied saying that she was dead, or something like that. This while one of her step-sister cut her toes to fit the shoe.
I'm curious to know what's the arc of this story. Except "life is a bitch, deal with it", I honestly never show it.

Might have been meant as a tool to keep people's aspirations in line with reality. Stop your poor farm girl daughter from dreaming of becoming a prince or lord's bride.

Still it is. Don't remember from where it come, but we all wear three masks. The one we show in public, the one we show in private, and the one we show only to ourselves. But none of them is the real us, it's the combination of the three which is what we really are. To this you have to add the fact that who we think we are isn't necessarily the third mask.
But well, explaining this would need a full roman and is even more out of topic than the rest of our discussion.

I was talking more about peoples ability to change, I agree with the concept of the 3 masks, but don't agree that you are who you are and can never change that, whether that mean weak or strong, good or bad, etc. Outside of mental illness you can always change.

I didn't said that it wasn't possible, just that it's totally unnecessary. You go further than the initial story, without effective reasons.

What's the point of a branching narrative if the branches lead to nothing? As I said at the start, a game over scenario isn't a choice, the story remains the linear "true story" you intended with this side path being nothing but a dalliance that you aren't willing to fully explore.

Well I thought that (I summarize) "you can't tell the story of the MC, because you have no control over it. You can just depict the change in his personality", was a good explanation that the MC have no story.
The player just use MC's eyes to witness the story of the girl, through three variations of her journey ; variations decided by the player. He's not in control of the MC, he's in control of the girl's fate ; every action he chose for the MC have a direct influence on the girl story. He's not a puppeteer, he's a pool player. So he don't control MC's move, he use it to change the direction of the girl's story.

They are here, it's just that you don't look at the right place. Act one, the encounter between the girl and the MC. Act two, the MC abuse of the girl, using her past trauma to drag her deep. Act three, with the help of a friend, the girl overcome her trauma and run away.
Once again, I never said it was MC's story and explicitly said that it wasn't ; that the MC had no story, because he can't have one outside of the player mind. The fact that you can't visualize it (it's not necessarily easy with just words instead of an effective story) doesn't mean that it's false.

Why tell this story from his perspective then? I've been tempted to make this challenge before to your idea, but never did because I felt it would be pedantic, however as you've just described this I feel this hypothetical would work much better in the format of Katie's Corruption than it would in the format of Parental Love.

 

[anne O'nymous]

You are the one who suggested it could be a sandbox, not me,

A sandbox game isn't necessarily resolving around a harem.

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is a sandbox game, with a point system, pure grinding, and only one character.

Sisterly Lust, on the other hand, it's possible to fuck up one of the sister's stories and keep playing. I wouldn't know about the mom route, but I haven't tried to tank it so I never would.

The point wasn't if it's possible or not, but what should be the normal consequence if it happen. Whatever if you are her son or not, if you mess up with the mother, she will kick you out of the house to protect her daughters. They lived without you for almost 15 years, they can continue now that they don't miss a son/brother, but a fucking jerk.
It will not necessarily end with a "game over", it depend of the relation you already have established with the sisters. By example at the actual state of the game, the youngest is totally dependent of you ; if you're kicked out, she'll run away with you. The one in the middle is just sexually addicted, so she'll try to see you time to time, but can also let it go. But if it happen early in the game, well... you were here and are their brother, but they have full trust on their mother to take the good decisions for them.

Unless you are mentally ill in some way, [...]

First, I don't like the word "illness" here, it let think that it's curable, which isn't the case ; you can only control, partially or totally, parts of the effects. The brain is damaged in a way or another, and despite its capacity to evolve constantly, these damages can't be reversed. But it's not a critic, just an information.

This said, in the US, each year 1 out of 5 adults suffer from a temporary

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. This while 21,8% suffer from a more in depth mental condition (schizophrenia, bipolar disorder, PTSD, OCD, major phobia). Note that this number don't include the autistic troubles nor less prominent pathologies like psychopathy by example ; so you can estimate that in the US, 1 adult out of 3 suffer from a permanent strong mental condition.
But the effective number is higher since each one of these pathologies have many variations, some of them being less visible. By example someone suffering from a small form of simple schizophrenia can live normally ; he will just be seen as an awkward introvert with sometimes some crazy ideas. Same for someone suffering from a small form of bipolar disorder, who'll be seen a just emotionally unstable. But, despite the lack of visible sign, and so the fact that themselves don't know that they suffer from a mental condition, the disorder still works inside their head and act as an effective bias deforming the reality and what they get from their experiences. In the end, you can reasonably estimate the number between 35% and 40% of the US population.
Like I can't found reliable sources for more global statistics, I'll stand with the 15% I already used. But it was the estimate number in the early 2000, a time where the world still thought that their were only one form of autism, two of schizophrenia, and so on. Therefore, a time where many people where suffering without being effectively detected as having a mental condition. Globally the effective number is probably more around 25%.

You watch and learn from your parents at a young age, hence, people who grow up in abusive homes learn to handle their issues in the same way, a destructive cycle of nurture.

The learning phase and its obvious-like consequences are true only for pathologies that don't start at a young age, and obviously for people who don't have a pathology at all.
To revert your example, someone suffering from the early form of schizophrenia can be in a loving family, and still live it as being in an abusive home. For him a, "no, you can't do this", can be seen as a proof that his parents don't effectively love him and fake it. A, "we go eat at grandpa's house today", can be lived as a trauma because this particular day he need to be let totally alone. Not only his parents don't love him, but they like to see him suffer ; because they like it, look how happy they are this day, while he's suffering in silence (paranoia is a component of schizophrenia).

Even a lack of empathy can be a problem of Nurture, with empathy being something we learn early through our environment, though some do still have a natural born block against that.

It's not to contradict you, but alas, it's not this simple.
What form of empathy are you talking about here ? There's the natural empathy (an extension of what is called "sympathy"), the emotional empathy (you feel what the others feels), and the cognitive empathy (you understand what the others feels). [Note that I translate literally the french names, they can be different in English.]
Actually it is supposed that we are all born with natural empathy, then develop it further or tend to forget it, depending of our life ; but as far as I know it's still neither proved nor invalided.

Yet, it's still not as simple as this, because these three forms of empathy aren't exclusive. You can have one, two or the three of them. So far there's seven possible combinations, and therefore seven different personalities ; seven different way to perceive the experience you're facing and seven different way to grow your own personality. And we are just talking about "empathy".
You can enforce (acquire if it's finally not from birth) the natural empathy, like you can acquire the cognitive one. But unless you suffer from a mental condition, temporarily or not, there's few cases where you can acquire emotional empathy.
To this, you have to add the fact that you can suffer from the deprivation of one, two or the three forms of empathy. And, no, a deprivation isn't here the same thing than not having it. To explain the difference I'll take the cognitive empathy. Not having it mean that you understand that the others feels something, but you can't understand what is this something ; "poor guy, he just lost his father. I don't know what he feel, but it must be difficult to live". This while being deprived of it mean that you can't understand why they feel something ; "what the fuck man ? Alright you lost your father, but do you really need to be like this ?"
I'll not do the math here, but between the "having", "not having" and "being deprived of", just for "empathy" you already face almost twenty different personalities.

Now, forget about the deprivation, which probably never occur outside of a mental condition or physical brain damages, to go back to the seven basic combinations. They mean that there's seven different way to perceived a, "why are you like that, can't you be a little more compassionate, he's father died !" ; still just talking about empathy and without counting the variation of intensity.
While there's two way to acquire cognitive empathy, by going deep in your psychology studies or by passing through many suffering during you life, there's only one to enforce/acquire natural empathy. And it's by being surrounded by people who have it or by people in need of your compassion. Simply because, unlike cognitive empathy who can be both a knowledge and a state of mind, natural empathy can only come from a state of mind. You can fake compassion, but then you don't have natural empathy, you just have a good social behavior ; "good social behavior" which finally add an artificial fourth state.

What makes you so sure that one's introversion isn't specifically the result of the other's extroversion?

On the instant, nothing and it can be effectively the case. Over a long period of times, by the way the introvert will react and to what he will react.
Even with strongly marked conditions like autism, you can't put a diagnostic with a single situation. It's the repetition, frequency and context's variations that permit to do it. And in this case, if you know what you are looking for, you'll be able to make the difference between someone who's not at ease when surrounded by too extrovert peoples, and someone who's effectively introvert.
The more obvious way to make the difference being, in this case, to saw this person being an extrovert when there isn't someone way more too extrovert. Still it's not an effective proof. Some introverts can be extrovert if they're at ease, peaceful and surrounded by only people they trust and like ; a little bit of alcohol can help. So, look how long it last, because if he's effectively an introvert, it will end quickly.

Put simply, I disagree. Unless you have a mental illness, there is nothing stopping you from changing except for you. And to be frank, I won't budge on this.

Well, you can stay on your position, it don't bother me. At least as long as you clearly understand that, with at least 30% of the US population suffering from a permanent mental condition, and around 20% of the US population suffering from a temporary one, at any time, there 1 out of 2 chance that the person in front of you suffer from a mental condition preventing him to change.
And also at least as you clearly understand that it's still stay true for only half of the people who aren't actually suffering from a mental condition. Like I tried to explain above about empathy, it's not always just a matter of will ; you can't learn natural empathy if you don't face (really many) situations that force your brain to restructure itself in the right way. Like I said, it can be because he's surrounded by people who need his compassion, or because he's surrounded by people who already have a natural empathy. But learning it by himself is impossible. What he'll learn this way is not natural empathy, but what I called "good social behavior" ; so he will "fake it", not "have it". This said, if he pass enough year faking it many times a year, it's not impossible that he end really "having it".

No, that's not true at all. ESPECIALLY for a repeat victim.

Alright, I'll stop you here. What I said is not something I read or something I thought. It's something I heard, coming from the victims themselves, when I was younger and volunteered in a center that help victims of abuse.
Perhaps that the particular conditions in the US generate a context different enough to not let to the victims the time to understand it, but it doesn't mean that it's false. It must be acknowledged that between Europe, where if you are cut of the support of your abuser, you're just on your own and still continue to live a decent life most of the time, it's not the same in the USA. Unless you have a job and can keep it without risk, you end deprived of everything, including basic health support, you know that your children will probably not be able to attend college (perhaps even not university), and you don't earn money anymore.
I can understand that, because the society you live in make you pass from "victims" to "you don't exist anymore", you need effective external help to understand that you grown stronger. Just because, yes, you surely don't feel stronger when you don't eat one day out of two, because else you'll not be able to pay for the basic health need of your children. But, like I said, it doesn't mean that it's false, just that you aren't in position to see it.

Victims become conditioned to respond to certain things.

Conditioning that already start to fade, otherwise they wouldn't run away. But here you miss the fact that there's a difference between being conditioned and being strong. And that's perhaps why you think I was contradicting myself later.
Conditioning is an unconscious reaction to a trigger, while being strong is a natural condition. You can see it with child who where victims of domestic violence. Even decades after the end of these violence, there will still be case where their first reaction will be to protect themselves. This even if they now are strong person who dedicated their time to help and protect child who live the same situation. They can face without problem an abusive father more muscular than them. They can stay impassible when he'll threaten them physically, they can even fight him if needed... And still there will be time where they'll protect themselves if their wife/husband have a too sudden movement.
And that's why the girl in my example can be strong, and still fallback to her previous self because of a new cycle of repeated abuse. The mental suffering caused by the reminiscences of her youth will slowly hide her strength to her own eyes. She's not effectively weak, she's maintained in a condition of weakness by her suffering.
Mental suffering is like a cocoon. It's something comfortable where you already know everything that will happen. It's only bad things, but you know them, you know what they'll do to you, you know when they'll happen, your prepared and trained. Whatever how difficult it is to live, it's still easier to stay in this state, than having to face the unknown of the life. So, when facing an unexpected situation ("I'm not like your parent, I really love you... by the way take that bitch, you forgot my beer."), and with the help of the reminiscences of her youth, she'll fallback to what she know. But like I said it don't removed her strength, it just hide it.
But well, I confess that I don't find the words to express it efficiently. You probably need to have a strong background in regard of mental suffering and its process, to understand it with just my words. Which make it impossible to place in a game because, as realist as it is, it's a situation that will be understood by too few players. They'll probably love to play this game, but you don't make a game for tens peoples.

In a story, not a game, but a story, you're not meant to immerse yourself.

Wait, what ? Who said this stupidity ? Sorry for the word and if it hurt you, it's not my intent, but it's the nicest word I can find because it's really a stupidity. I don't know where this idea come from, but if it come from someone you trust to know how to write, I'm not sure that you should continue listening him.

It's hard to find references now that the world is massively talking about immersion through virtual reality. Yet, what about this (

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) :

"All the arts depend upon telepathy to some degree, but I believe that writing is the purest distillation," says King. An important element of writing is transference. Your job isn't to write words on the page, but rather to transfer the ideas inside your head into the heads of your readers.

This telepathic transfer can't effectively succeed if the reader don't achieve to immerse himself, more or less deeply, into your story. I would add that it also can't succeed if, as author, you don't immerse at least a part of yourself in your story. It's because now both of you share the same experience, through feelings sharing a common core, that this transfer works.
In fact, immersion is such a thing, that a whole study was conducted on

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, by using the level of immersion felt by the reader as measure.

Sure, you might imagine yourself as the hero, but it isn't the you that you are, it's the you that you want to be. It's aspirational.

Neither one, nor the other, it's who you temporarily are. You don't want to be him/her and you never cease to know that you aren't him/her. You just borrow his/her eyes and emotions for some times.
But I never said that everyone can achieve it. There's people who are totally refractory to reading ; some studies from the 80's (didn't found references) tend to say that it could come from the fact that they can't achieve at least a small level of immersion when they are reading.
And it's not inspirational, it's recreational, sometimes even something that distracts you from the reality.

In other words, a character defining change. I'm well aware of Bushido and what it means to be a Ronin. An act to restore one's Honor is an act that goes against their status as Ronin.

This would have been true if there were a relation between who you are, in term of personality, and what your status is. But there a long time that modern cultures integrated the fact that the two aren't in anyway linked.
If these seven rõnins weren't still samurai and if it wasn't something deeply rooted in them, they wouldn't care about their honor. At anytime they could have leaved their clothing and weapons, traveled to the other end of the country, and started a new live as peasant. Many have done it, rõnins who in fact never were real samurais, partly because they care most about their life than their honor.

Luke had no intent to fight against and destroy the empire, [...]

Are you sure about this ?
Take "Eragon" (E) (the book please, not the insulting movie) on one hand, and "A new hope" (SW) on the other. You'll see, it's interesting... I'll put it in spoiler, not because of Star Wars, but because of Eragon.

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