Protagonist having a personality or not?

[Doorknob22]

All the rules which apply to traditional storytelling apply to AVNs too. You can make an AVN where the MC has no personality, but it will be inferior to an AVN where the MC has personality (given that the personality is interesting, relatable, funny, etc).

 

[Antman63995]

Personality for sure. But I find with most porn games that there's wayyyy too much dialogue. I appreciate some good dialogue, it can be the best part. But I don't need 5 minutes of them talking about what they enjoyed doing as a kid, or how they hate the neighbor because he's mean to them, or whatever bullshit they give. I'm guessing they do it so their game won't be short, but especially for a porn game, I'd rather get through it in a few hours and them make several different games, than for one game to be 10 years to make, and have 30 hours of unnecessary dialogue and actions.

 

[Insomnimaniac Games]

I'm guessing they do it so their game won't be short, but especially for a porn game, I'd rather get through it in a few hours and them make several different games, than for one game to be 10 years to make, and have 30 hours of unnecessary dialogue and actions.

I can't speak for everyone, but for me stuff like this is mostly unintentional. When you're writing, it can quickly get away from you. For me, conversations flow naturally from my head, which can make some of them go a little long. I try to go back and trim the fat a little, at least. (I make an RPG, so the rules are a little different from an AVN. More so just talking about writing in general.)

 

[kytee]

there is a reason Being A DIK is far and away the most popular game on this site, i think every AVN dev should downright plagiarize the dik/chick system and add it to their game since it adds so much immersion to the game for the player

having the ability to play as an alpha/beta/somewhere in between MC allows you to mold the MC to fit your exact own personality compared to the usual generic/wimpy/awkward MC of most other games

Way too much work to do it successfully. You are basically writing two stories at that point, or one really bad one where your "evil" character occasionally acts like a fucking wimp or your "good" character occasionally acts like an asshole when you try to reuse a scene for multiple paths.

 

[Living In A Lewd World]

Personality for sure. But I find with most porn games that there's wayyyy too much dialogue. I appreciate some good dialogue, it can be the best part. But I don't need 5 minutes of them talking about what they enjoyed doing as a kid, or how they hate the neighbor because he's mean to them, or whatever bullshit they give. I'm guessing they do it so their game won't be short, but especially for a porn game, I'd rather get through it in a few hours and them make several different games, than for one game to be 10 years to make, and have 30 hours of unnecessary dialogue and actions.

For all I've witnessed with writing myself and and by what I've read so far about writing, writing short and pointed dialogues is a process, that might take a lot of time. It takes much more time than just writing everything, that comes to your mind down and, writing everything down is actually often the first point to start with. In the process one will read and read what one has written again and strike away what seems unnecessary, rephrase words, rearrange sentences... . One will shorten things, look for other phrases, metaphers and other stylistic devices, which put what one want to writes in less words but might have even more impact with the reader and get more unique characters, which are more different from each other in the process. But in all this, it has still to transport all necessary information and not get overcomplicated, so that what you write stays understandable. A process, that might be not that enjoyable for everyone and feel too long for many. And in all this you have still no images produced.

Writing short and pointed dialogue directly is in my experience even harder and might be even more unsatisfying. Either it might get too ununderstandable, too simple or if one might thinks about any word one writes, one doesn't see anything on the sheet of paper even after some time, what puts oneself under stress and slows the process even more down. Additionally, if one hasn't at least outlined everything before (also a quite time-consuming process), one may lack a understanding of what one wants to write next, what adds additional stress.

 

[Antman63995]

I can't speak for everyone, but for me stuff like this is mostly unintentional. When you're writing, it can quickly get away from you. For me, conversations flow naturally from my head, which can make some of them go a little long. I try to go back and trim the fat a little, at least. (I make an RPG, so the rules are a little different from an AVN. More so just talking about writing in general.)

That's fair, thanks for providing your point of view.

 

[Antman63995]

For all I've witnessed with writing myself and and by what I've read so far about writing, writing short and pointed dialogues is a process, that might take a lot of time. It takes much more time than just writing everything, that comes to your mind down and, writing everything down is actually often the first point to start with. In the process one will read and read what one has written again and strike away what seems unnecessary, rephrase words, rearrange sentences... . One will shorten things, look for other phrases, metaphers and other stylistic devices, which put what one want to writes in less words but might have even more impact with the reader and get more unique characters, which are more different from each other in the process. But in all this, it has still to transport all necessary information and not get overcomplicated, so that what you write stays understandable. A process, that might be not that enjoyable for everyone and feel too long for many. And in all this you have still no images produced.

Writing short and pointed dialogue directly is in my experience even harder and might be even more unsatisfying. Either it might get too ununderstandable, too simple or if one might thinks about any word one writes, one doesn't see anything on the sheet of paper even after some time, what puts oneself under stress and slows the process even more down. Additionally, if one hasn't at least outlined everything before (also a quite time-consuming process), one may lack a understanding of what one wants to write next, what adds additional stress.

I can see your point and understand what you're saying but just from my point of view, nobody cares about the main story in all these porn games. Honestly I love a good plot, but I'll go play a game or watch a show if that's what I want.

What I think is important and the best part of a porn game is the character interactions and dialogue during and after the sex scenes. Honestly most of the games I'll just hold ctrl and skip over the main story, after so long I'll just read a bit and I'll still know what's going on because it's just taking so long to get to the point.

And why are so many games main plot "your father was in the mafia and they're after us" then your character joins or does work for them or something stupid. It's the last thing I care about in these games.

 

[JuiceBox12]

For some reason most protagonists in avn's are terrible and them having little to no motivation is part of that I think. Boring af to play the hundredth game where the character you play as only thinks about fucking and nothing else.

 

[Rafster]

I'll always support MCs with personality traits, a past or secrets. Blank MCs don't do anything for me. And I extend that to literature, movies, TV shows, SFW games, etc...

Even if it's a personality I totally hate, I prefer that to blank MCs.

 

[Living In A Lewd World]

I can see your point and understand what you're saying but just from my point of view, nobody cares about the main story in all these porn games. Honestly I love a good plot, but I'll go play a game or watch a show if that's what I want.

What I think is important and the best part of a porn game is the character interactions and dialogue during and after the sex scenes. Honestly most of the games I'll just hold ctrl and skip over the main story, after so long I'll just read a bit and I'll still know what's going on because it's just taking so long to get to the point.

And why are so many games main plot "your father was in the mafia and they're after us" then your character joins or does work for them or something stupid. It's the last thing I care about in these games.

Well, that depends on the main story, e.g. I totally care about a pervert corrupting some poor girls... erm I mean, a scientist thoroughly educating mischievous students, as it's perfectly presented in "The headmaster", but when the main story isn't connected to the lewdness of the game, I would personally also not be that much interested in it, as there are definitely better ones in the non-lewd-genre.
What I like in AVNs is, that they show not only pure sex but more how it comes to the sexual interactions, especially in corruption stories and that's where you need a certain build up to explain, who the characters are and how it comes to their development.
I agree, that in many stories, this is much too much and most of the story could probably be deleted. But exactly to determine what can be deleted from a story to still keep the players/watchers/readers interested in the characters and their development is an art, that takes much experience/time/talent/skills... and is not that easy to achieve and when you are in the process of developing or writing, everything seems to be somehow interesting, as you are much deeper in the character, as a player will probably ever be. Writing too much is actually not only a thing, that you see in games. I read also lots of lewd literature on literotica and also there many authors which have interesting ideas, but the tendency, to barely bore you to death with extensive descriptions of things that just don't interest you when you just want to fap.
Alike the authors on literotica, many devs aren't skilled professionals, but rather interested amateurs and do all the writing, image-creation and programming alone. I think, this is the main reason why dialogues can be too extensive.

Devs who want to raise playtime with little time expense of their own, have better ways to achieve this, they can just add some stats, you have to raise by doing events again and again. A device, that is actually extensively used in some lewd games.

Regarding similar plot-lines: Some people just try to make money and hope, that what has worked once will work another time. This is something, that as far, as I know actually works up to a point. And one of the most famous lewd games is e.g. summertime-saga where this is part of the plot.

 

[m_k_d]

Some porn game protagonists do have personalities, while others may be more generic or blank slates for the player to project their own desires onto. I think a well-developed character with a unique personality can add depth and engagement to the gaming experience, but it's not always necessary for a porn game.

 

[Randomguy3478]

As soon as the MC speaks to someone his personality gets established. Blank slate MCs usually end up as pushovers who get sex by accident or something.

If the MC has a clearly defined personality its easier to write him as someone who actively leads the story and initiates the sexual encouters. Prefer that.