Male Protagonist Archetypes in Adult Games

[megaplayboy10k]

So, I've played enough of these games to get an express trip to the hot place. And I have some thoughts about the main characters in games with male protagonists.
The first observation is that MCs tend to fall into a few age categories, and that these age categories tend to affect the theme, tone etc.
"18"(Shota/Early-Mid Adolescent)--basically, any male protagonist who is clearly not fully grown yet, usually 11-14 years old. Some are a little younger(yikes!) or a little bit older(15 ish?). Small/short, not physically powerful, may be innocent or devilish in nature
Examples include Insexual Awakening, Urban Demons, Zombie's Life, Zombie's Retreat, Bad Bobby Saga
18"ish"--this is the typical high school age protagonist, usually portrayed as a high school senior. Usually portrayed as unexceptional but can be buff or exceptional in some way. Nearly fully grown, sometimes the female adults are still larger than they are. Examples too numerous to mention but includes "Max" from Every Game Ever(lol), Milfy City, Summertime Saga, et al
18+--this is a college age male, usually just starting college. Mostly fully grown, can be normal(usually is), wimpy, buff, or exceptional in some way. Examples include Man of the House, College Life, The Way, et al
20-something--a young adult male, in their physical prime. Fully grown, body types vary, often unexceptional but sometimes they have some special inherited trait. Often the character is kind of a "bum" or "problem son"--also the case with the college age MC
30-something--a male in their prime, fully grown, body type is normal-to-buff. The Hot Uncle, a little too young(usually) to have adolescent children. Examples include Babysitter.
40ish--a male in early middle age, fully grown, slim, buff or with a Dad Bod. The typical Dad protagonist. Examples include Dating My Daughter, Dual Family, etc.
50ish--a male in his mid-late middle age, starting to gray, gain weight, wrinkles, etc. Sometimes an older dad, sometimes verging into Dirty Old Man territory. Not a lot of examples here.
60+--a male in his senior year. Bald or losing hair, a little out of shape. The quintessential Dirty Old Man character, though occasionally more of a Lion in Winter type. Shows up in more than a few Honey Select games for some reason.

So, that's 8 different age categories, of which there tends to be a predominance of protagonists in the first 3-4 categories, centering on 18ish and 18+. For games with an incest theme, the age of the MC affects the age of the other female family members, which is why there aren't a lot of games about 60+ MCs seducing their grandmothers.

I will post more to this later.

 

[megaplayboy10k]

I'll briefly touch on the race/ethnicity of the male protagonists in games. It's brief mainly because the MC is almost always white/European American or American. There are a decent number of Asian MCs, mostly in games that use Honey Select characters. A handful of games with black, latino or other ethnicities. I assume this has something to do with:
1) the ethnicity of the game developers and 2) the perceived popularity of white or Asian protagonists and the relative perceived unpopularity of other ethnicities as MCs. I'm not sure that's 100% likely to be actually true, though there are some players who won't play an MC of a different ethnicity than their own(or who won't play one specific ethnicity).
Ironically, if a player wants to see black men having sex in a game, they may have to choose games with NTR content.

There's also not a lot of overweight male heroes, though there's a fair number of skinny ones. There's also a decent number of male characters with athletic physiques, or even ultrabuff bodies, more of a wish-fulfillment/idealized body thing. The dilemma of how to portray the physique is that some players will identify with an idealized self surrogate, while others will prefer a more easy to identify with "average schlub".

Dick size: There are three choices. Regular, Large and Ludicrous. Shota MCs will have a regular(adult-sized) or large penis. Half of the time, women will be aroused by the large size of the MCs cock, particularly family members for some reason(lazy writing?)

The next post will be on male character personalities, including their moral outlook and decision-making process, such as it is.

 

[Avaron1974]

I'm not the biggest fan of male protags but some games are really well done and the lack of good female protag games means I either like it or go without completely.

That being said I avoid the first 2 selections full stop. No exception I will not play a young male MC. They are always weird and creepy and generally annoy the shit out of me. Usually always in games with shower spying, sleep rape and staring at a pair of tits for 10 minutes during a conversation with odd internal monologue.

Most 20+ games are pretty decent. I mean you have the whole Elsaverse set with characters in their mid to late 20's and they are great.

I'm also fine with most college age male protags. They tend to be less creepy and at least partially aware of how the world works. I do avoid the layabout bums, they do still tend to be creepy.

The 30+ games are usually pretty good. Depraved Awakening falls into the 40 or 40+ and that's awesome. Also Philly's new one, Broken Dreamers is about the 30+ range.

The only game I know of with a 50+ character is Last Sovereign but he has powers that made him younger.

It usually depends on the game but, as I said, there are some age ranges I will not play regardless.

 

[Deleted member 229118]

As a general rule:
The more undesirable/ugly the guy.
The greater the joy of corrupting woman into his personal fucktoys.
After all a muslebound jock getting laid is easy.
A wieldchair bound obese fatsto with no hygiene standerds getting laid with a bautifull teen.
*Corruption bonner rising*

 

[batman666]

There are two sides of the spectrums.

For me, the perfect protagonist is someone like the MC from "Becoming a Rockstar". A cool, slick dude, no troll face, he's chill, cool, but enough of a canvas for us to draw on with our decisions.

The worst protagonist I've ever seen is the one in "The Personal Assistant". I found it repulsive to play such a disgusting piece of trash, and only the disgusting route led to any nudity.

 

[megaplayboy10k]

Discussing the personality, outlook/morality and decision-making process of the male protagonists in games is tricky because a lot of the "morality" of the MC is shaped by player decisions(peep or not peep, grope or not, blackmail or not, e.g.)
But we do often get commentary by the MC in game that reflects how they view women, what they appear to value most, and what they feel is fair or out of bounds when it comes to methods of seduction/"conquest"(i.e., bedding women).
One type I'll call the Dorian Gray MC: other characters don't seem to change their positive opinion of them, even when they are doing some really shady or even downright evil stuff. An example is the MC in Summertime Saga--he can bang his best friend's mom, enslave his female friend's mom(or permit her to be more "flexible" via getting quasi-raped by a nun), sleep with Roxy's mom(and Roxy), sleep with his mom, sister and aunt without telling them about it(well, this changes later I guess, but still..). Actually, a lot of MCs are Dorian Grays...no matter how shady their methods are, it doesn't really affect the world's perception of them.
A variation is the Innocent Casanova MC: usually on the younger side("18" or 18ish), this character is "innocent" in the ways of sex and seduction, and yet winds up bedding a horder of younger and older women, often including his own family. Not sure how innocent they'd be after the 5th or 6th conquest, but...
Then there's the Phony Nice Guy Creeper MC: comes across as kind, sweet and considerate...then peeps, creeps, gropes, blackmails, lies and pushes their way to sex.
Occasionally you get the Conflicted Creep MC: he knows he shouldn't be doing this, wonders if he should stop...and keeps going. He's a creep, but at least he feels kinda bad about it!
The Megalomanic MC just doesn't give a fuck. Whatever it takes to ruthlessly conquer and enslave everything with two X chromosomes in his area code. A lot of corruption, mind control and enslavement themed games fit this.

I'll probably make this into a baker's dozen of types, but that's enough for now.

 

[macadam]

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[Ataios]

I prefer lesbian games and only rarely play male protagonist games, and the protagonists themselves certainly wont make me like male protagonist games more. Those male protagonist games I do play are often mom son games and I absolutely can't stand shota or shota-like characters. Neither can I stand it, if the son is smaller than the mom or the mom is the first woman he fucks. For these games, I'd favor quite different archetypes, like a post-apocalyptic warlord or ruthless business man. School boys ruin a game for me.

 

[megaplayboy10k]

I prefer lesbian games and only rarely play male protagonist games, and the protagonists themselves certainly wont make me like male protagonist games more. Those male protagonist games I do play are often mom son games and I absolutely can't stand shota or shota-like characters. Neither can I stand it, if the son is smaller than the mom or the mom is the first woman he fucks. For these games, I'd favor quite different archetypes, like a post-apocalyptic warlord or ruthless business man. School boys ruin a game for me.

Well, keep in mind that the mom is going to be 18 to 25 years older than the male protagonist. So a 30 something hero is going to have a post-menopausal mom, the market for which is likely to be,uh, "niche".
I could see a young adult warlord or businessman, mid-20s, with a mom in their mid to late 40s, as viable, though.

BTW women in their 50s are hot, wasn't saying that to disparage them.

 

[Ataios]

Well, keep in mind that the mom is going to be 18 to 25 years older than the male protagonist. So a 30 something hero is going to have a post-menopausal mom, the market for which is likely to be,uh, "niche".
I could see a young adult warlord or businessman, mid-20s, with a mom in their mid to late 40s, as viable, though.

BTW women in their 50s are hot, wasn't saying that to disparage them.

I was mostly thinking of protagonists in the mid 20s or very early 30s and moms in the mid 40s or maybe early 50s, not about the GILF niche. Most important however: the protagonist should not have any remaining child-like features and should never ever be portrayed as naive.

 

[hseigin]

I lurked a lot of similar threads, like cliches in adult-games. I only play male protag's, all of them were trash and inconsistent, also the presented action options didn't fit the character's theme many times. Only AL and DA had somewhat decent male protags.

Thankfully, the protagonist I have doesn't fit any of these cheesy themes and feels superior. I feel very confident with my writing and hopefully we will be able to play The Indomitable in early-mid Q1, 2020.

 

[megaplayboy10k]

I was mostly thinking of protagonists in the mid 20s or very early 30s and moms in the mid 40s or maybe early 50s, not about the GILF niche. Most important however: the protagonist should not have any remaining child-like features and should never ever be portrayed as naive.

I think there's a market for both the adolescent male fantasy scenario and the adult male fantasy scenario.

 

[Joshua Tree]

Majority of the time, they all shallow. If the game give the player enough options, they just end up a reflection of the players own fantasy and perversion.

The Japanese adult industry nailed it. In a lot of porn out of there, you see most male actors is regular Joe's, you could even say some even fall into the less than appealing category. Because the consumer, that more often than not is males, does get sold on the fantasy. They too could get that awesome chick.

If you take the physique of that "Bacon" fellow (or what his name is), from "Timestamps Unconditional Love", you would probably end up with a more believe able protag. Games that portray the characters more like "everyday people", rather than extremes either way does it right imho.

 

[Ataios]

Another archetype, I'd find interesting, especially for the mom/son scenario would be an insane plastic surgeon. He could be obsessed about turning his mom into the perfect fuck doll. This would also allow some sort of character creation system and explain why the mom looks slightly younger than she is.

 

[Ashley young]

The 50yo 100 kg fatties are an instant boner killer. The MC from 'personal assistant' is so off putting that I could not play the game for more than 5 minutes.

The underdeveloped 18yo 5'5" boy in highschool is another thing that bother the fuck out of me and kills all the realism. It is bothersome that the MC is atleast a foot shorter than other females in the game (looking at you ICSTOR).

As batman666 said, the MC from 'become a rockstar' is a good example of an MC who can fuck around multiple girls. He's looks cool and actually looks like a guy who's in his late teens/early 20s