So give the player the option. If a player wants her back in the game, allow the make up option. If they are happy with her being a bad and distant memory (and not making a single positive choice regarding her is a pretty good clue), please allow me as a player to keep her out of the game.
I understand the sentiment, you aren’t even the first one to ask for such option. And in a perfect world I’d be happy to do that.
But it’s basically impossible. Just to give you an example:
In chapter 4 the whole gang goes on holydays together. It’s a huge chapter with lots of scenes with everyone together, or several combinations of people in it. Now I have to write one story with Emma in it, and another without Emma…
But why stop there? Why just give the option to remove the LI
you don’t like? Emma is actually the more popular one, there would be more interest in leaving other LIs out of the game, not her. There are people that would rather not have invited Jen, even as a friend, for ethical reasons. And there are people that would want Kim burned to the ground after some events on chapter 3…
So now I have to make all of these versions of chapter 4:
Version with Emma, Kim, Jen – The one I did: it took 4 months of work.
Version with
Emma, Kim, Jen
Version with Emma,
Kim, Jen
Version with Emma, Kim,
Jen
Version with
Emma,
Kim, Jen
Version with
Emma, Kim,
Jen
Version with Emma,
Kim,
Jen
Version with
Emma,
Kim,
Jen
How long do you think it’d take me to finish that chapter? And all the other ones that follow, that will also have to accommodate all of those combinations?
How long until other players, like you, start to demand to take the LIs
they don’t like out of their game? Like Lea, Olivia, Bri or Deb? How many combinations of scenes and stories do I have to make now? Do you still want an update every 3-4 months?
Another alternative would be to just write every scene in complete isolation, and nothing that you do in one scene affects the rest of the game/story. That way, if you don’t like Emma, just cut all her scenes out and it doesn’t have any impact in the rest of the game. Same for the other LI’s. Everything completely independent of everything else. But would that make a good story? Just a sequence of independent scenes?
So you miss out on the hallucination - just make it a nightmare. Or have MC fall victim to edibles, without realizing it (Olivia thought it would be a laugh to get everyone high on marihuana-laced brownies, for instance), if the hallucination is mandatory. I'm not saying remove the joint, I'm saying: give the player the option.
In my opinion, those are bad alternatives that don’t fit the characters or the mood of the scene. I’d rather lose interest from anyone so averse to a single scene with marijuana, than to compromise that scene.
People that complain for lack of options in a given scene seem to forget that the writer isn’t asked to give more options
only for those particular scenes; The writer gets asked to provide alternatives for
every single scene, that
any player deems unnecessary, boring, or where the MC simply behaves in a different way than what they would want to. Why is
your wish more important than
all the other ones? Where do I draw the line?
In the end, it’s very simple. Players either like the story as is, and enjoy the game; or they don’t like the story and play something else. And that's true for all AVNs.