What do you guys think about having the option to kill the star character of a boss fight (Taivra for example; Amara - I'd wish) in a porn game? Should there be more of it or would it be better to not to promulgate the idea? Discuss.
Because I'm giving the TiTS audience the benefit of the doubt and assuming they're not all actually maladjusted sociopaths.
Everyone here tends to always resort to the "kill" option if it's some NPC they don't like.
Everyone here tends to always resort to the "kill" option if it's some NPC they don't like.
ESPECIALLY NPCs that didn't actually do anything to them. Like Kelt.
(brace for shitposting)
Maybe letting someone live will come back and bite you, but it's not a tabletop where the future is uncertain because you can just go right the fuck off the rails. It's a text-based RPG where you want things to try and get in your way again, or mess up your day, or even just cameo in some fashion. Killing people off starts to take away that option.
Killing truly horific NPC's sure. But killing some NPC's like Taivra or even Dr. Badger isn't necessarily something I'd do. Sure, the "option" could be cool (but holy fuck, some of you guys are savages when it comes to this topic).
Except he tried to use his corrupt power to make player his breeding slave? Yes, nothing.
Not without you submitting to him completely of your own volition time and time again. You're practically begging for it by the end there.
Or you want them dead for good. Robbing player of this option is a limitation too. I'll take up Fallout 2 again - you can literally go and kill everyone you see, including key plot characters. Everyone. Literally. No characters with plot armor, no immortal children. And this is an option as well as playthrough without killing anyone, and you still can go through plot that way.
Fallout 2 wasn't an erotic text adventure, though. You're comparing apples to oranges here. I don't know if it's just me, but I've always considered CoC/TiTS to be porn first and a "video game" second. Fallout 2, as good as it was, was entirely about the actions of the PC and their ramifications. That's the whole point of the after-game slideshow where it shows how you dealt with every town/faction's situation.
TiTS, while it does have a coherent narrative (quite the feat for something built out of voluntary writing and beeswax) and a moving plotline, differs in that the whole point of the plot is to move it forward for more porn. I have to admit I'm baffled at why you would even want this kind of player agency in a porn text game. What are you getting out of it?
Why porn game can't be a game?
Because I'm giving the TiTS audience the benefit of the doubt and assuming they're not all actually maladjusted sociopaths.
Why porn game can't be a game?
Why porn game can't be a game?
What's the point?
Counterpoint: Why does every game have to be Fallout 2?
Different game spaces require and give different decision matrices to further the ultimate goal of the narrative and mechanics. You can't go around in F2 making emotional and sexual relationships with loads of NPCs, because that's not what that game's about. TITS doesn't let you go around murdering everyone, because that's not what that game is about.
I once clicked through a fight too fast and killed a cunt snake.
I restarted the game.
But I'm not opposed to killing so much as I'm wary of it. A "kill" option that isn't sufficiently impactful is pointless and vapid. Ethical concerns, like killing someone who, if you were to let them live, would go on to do horrible things, makes for interesting narrative and choice. Refusing to kill in an absolute sense is actually much less "right" than pragmatic exception. Batman is a terrible superhero because of this. When most of his enemies prove themselves incapable of being safely imprisoned or rehabilitated, then the only "correct" path is killing them to properly safeguard the innocent. Doesn't mean you have to feel good about it, but it does mean it needs to be done.
I can absolutely see the potential for difficult choices in TiTS, some of which could probably determine whether or not someone lives or dies, but they need to be few and far between. In doing so, they become even more impactful and memorable. Quality over quantity, so to speak, because running around and butchering everyone just to do it is the epitome of immersion-breaking. Players do that when they're bored and have no sense of consequence. A bored player is not an immersed player, unless you're immersing them in something completely asinine, like a simulation of local government or something...