What are your feelings on seeing non-MC thoughts?

[Jonboy80]

I've found myself getting rather annoyed by it lately, moreso than before.

I'm currently playing through the Dating My Daughter chapters for the first time. I'm on Ch.2 now and this seems to have an overabundance of inner monologue for every character. The MC's daughter, Elena, Jennifer, Georgina and even "lesser" characters have their thoughts being telegraphed to the player.

Maybe it's just me but it kinda takes away from making choices when you know exactly what other characters are thinking, so it's impossible to make a bad choice unintentionally.

 

[hakarlman]

I agree with you, It breaks immersion. Devs shouldn't' do it. In most cases, the world should be seen through a single protagonist. The only way to see another characters inner monologue is perhaps with a special ability of some kind.

 

[rk-47]

yeah it just makes no sense

 

[Chalker]

It's usually a sign of bad writing.

 

[Meaning Less]

Even mc thoughts are bad already, if you can't show what he is thinking by his actions alone then the writing is already weak.

 

[MissFortune]

There's two ways of looking at it, and it's entirely dependent on which perspective it's in.

So, if a game is first-person, as is the case for most VNs around here, then yeah. Hearing the inner dialogue/monologue of another character is both entirely unrealistic (unless MC has the power to read minds.) and as Chalksis Stella has already said, a sign of either amateur or lazy writing. There's no real reason this should exists, short of stuff superhero/paranormal stuff. Finding a way to show rather than tell should always be the priority. That being said, there are games written in third person and third person omniscient.

My own VN, We Were Just Kids, is written in this way. It has two protagonists with several intertwining storylines that require a god-like eye to look down on the entire thing. In that sense, the reader needs to know important information before the characters do to understand the situation, what led to it, and how it's relevant to the characters and the story itself. So, you're inherently seeing the story and people of an all-knowing and all-understanding eye. It's not completely bizarre to hear some or all of the character's thoughts. That said (again), I still choose to not present the thoughts of other characters outside of the main two protagonists. It's easier to show than it is to tell for me, especially in a medium that allows you to do both quite subtly - and in essence - leak the information to the player.

Obviously, there's going to be exceptions for both. There always will be. Of course, I'm looking at this via the lens of AVNs and not novels or erotica. That's a whole different argument.

 

[baloneysammich]

IMO it's a legitimate narrative tool for a VN. Maybe it's used too much or too often, but I don't have any problem with it intrinsically. Sure, sometimes I wish certain details revealed in thoughts were revealed in a more natural and dramatic way.

Is it amateurish or lazy? Maybe, I'm no authority on the matter. All I can say is that it doesn't interfere with my enjoyment most of the time.

 

[Rafster]

My policy in my game is to not show the thoughts of everyone else except the MC. Of course, sometimes the player might control an NPC for a limited time (let's say an specific battle), on which case I'll show the NPC's thoughts since the player is controlling him temporally.