Dead ends in a game mode story. Literally: "You die!". Good idea? Bad idea?

[dingsdongs]

I ask this question with a certain type of game mode story in my mind. Namely the kind i'm trying to write right now, where you are supposed to develop your character, gain stats, perhaps participate in a fight from time to time, have several options, yet return to and proceed on the same story path.

What are your thoughts on endings in such a game mode story, where your character would literally die because of your chosen path, decisions, "bad luck" or lack of stats in combat, and thus termination of your play-through is the final outcome.
Would you possibly consider it fun in any way? Or would you rather feel frustrated?

I mean, there is no save / load feature on chyoa, so the only options left to you are to restart from the beginning or to abandon the story.

I personally imagine it to be quite frustrating, if you are forced to read through several dozen pages of story, and suddenly all your progress is gone.
Example: "Your Defense Score is too low. You fail to parry and your head is chopped off. You are dead! Sorry!"
I mean sure, starting a second or third time might be fun, IF there are a few different and interesting story paths. But by design there would be many common chapters as well, and having to reread those over and over again, or rather skipping them entirely: I certainly wouldn't consider that to be fun.

On the other hand, where is the challenge, if nothing you do matters, and when you can proceed with any choice, without having to worry where it might lead you?

 

[gene.sis]

Would you possibly consider it fun in any way?

I'd do.
I really enjoyed doing these fucking hard games on C64 where you had to try again and again only to get some footsteps further.

I mean, there is no save / load feature on chyoa, so the only options left to you are to restart from the beginning or to abandon the story.

At the moment, you could also get some chapters back to avoid this. (Though the bug with the current Save Games could be a problem)

I mean sure, starting a second or third time might be fun, IF there are a few different and interesting story paths. But by design there would be many common chapters as well, and having to reread those over and over again, or rather skipping them entirely: I certainly wouldn't consider that to be fun.

Well, it would probably unlikely that I'd read it completely again. So skipping would be common.

What about

"Your Defense Score is too low. You fail to parry and your head is chopped off. You are dead! Sorry!"

with an answer "Resurrect" and counting all deaths over the story. If the story leads to an end, you could say:
- "Bulletproof"
- "You certainly like dangerous situations"
- "More death than alive"

 

[SeriousBrainDamage]

Seems fair actually.

I'd do.
I really enjoyed doing these fucking hard games on C64 where you had to try again and again only to get some footsteps further.

I hear you.

I don't know it can be done but maybe you could link to a specific previous point of the story at the end of the chapter.
You could give the option to the player to either

-Start over
-Return to point A

But that would probably work only if you could delete the variable changes from that point on.

 

[gene.sis]

I don't know it can be done but maybe you could link to a specific previous point of the story at the end of the chapter.
You could give the option to the player to either

-Start over
-Return to point A

But that would probably work only if you could delete the variable changes from that point on.

Well, it could be possible in the future to achieve a behavior like that, though only with a small set of variables.
Sort of a custom save point.

 

[Omni-kid]

I think the idea of bad ends is a good one as it actually puts some weight on the decisions you make. But I would prefer more varied situations and ends rather than just a bland "You Died". You, know stuff like bad ends where you end up mind-broken, a sex slave, or at least more descriptive and interesting variants of deaths. Similar to a lot of text based games like TiTS, CoC or Free Cities.

 

[Ovipositivity]

I've got a bunch of "dead ends" in my story, but since it's not a game and there are no stats, it's easy to just reverse a chapter and choose differently next time. I like it. It stops forks from growing out of control.

 

[Xenolan]

I think it's essential to have undesirable outcomes, if you want the good outcomes to be worth achieving. I think it's also important to have shades of gray in those outcomes; not every "bad" ending need be total death and destruction, it could be an ending where you just don't succeed at the primary goal.

And, I think it needs to be at least somewhat fair. When the bad endings vastly outnumber the good ones, that sucks - especially when the difference between achieving a good ending and a bad one seems to be totally arbitrary, a matter of going left instead of right when there's nothing to tell you that left is the correct choice.

I recall that on the older version of CHYOO, it was possible to terminate a thread and make it so no more branches could be added. They seem to have taken that feature away for the current CHYOA - I think they should restore it, so editors can end threads if they want to.

 

[Loeman]

I think it's essential to have undesirable outcomes, if you want the good outcomes to be worth achieving. I think it's also important to have shades of gray in those outcomes; not every "bad" ending need be total death and destruction, it could be an ending where you just don't succeed at the primary goal.

And, I think it needs to be at least somewhat fair. When the bad endings vastly outnumber the good ones, that sucks - especially when the difference between achieving a good ending and a bad one seems to be totally arbitrary, a matter of going left instead of right when there's nothing to tell you that left is the correct choice.

I recall that on the older version of CHYOO, it was possible to terminate a thread and make it so no more branches could be added. They seem to have taken that feature away for the current CHYOA - I think they should restore it, so editors can end threads if they want to.

On am only somewhat related note, I have problems with abrupt 'left/right' or equally arbitrary outcomes in stories in general.

In a *complete* story (an admitted rarity), either clues should be given about the results of an outcome, even if the results aren't completely intuitive based on the information, or both paths should be somewhat valid.

 

[229]

I agree, I don't like it when there's a choice where I don't know where to go because then I obviously take turns going down each.

As to the main question, here's the problem I sometimes have. If I'm on chyoa, then I'm probably masturbating. If you put in an end thread that's a total turn off, like "and then the minotaur bit her head off and killed her" it's going to kill my high. That's why I think that if you do put bad ends or dead ends you shouldn't make them that bad.

 

[RicoLouis]

I think it is okay if the story warrants it. A fantasy story for example would work best since the reader might like a challenge but dead ends in a teen story wouldn't be well liked. Also if some kind of hint is given early in the story such as if you picked to play as a thief then later to choose to run in screaming Leroy Jenkins and get killed it would be okay to kill the reader because the thief is not a straight up fighter and should be played smart

On the downside though it hurts your story. To many deaths and the reader might give up or if they took a certain path they will not choose that path again and may miss something new added to the story.

 

[Sthaana]

If the Bad End involves sex, then it's fine imo. I'd be careful with non-sexual ones. It's pretty frustrating to read through a bunch of chapters, knob in hand, only to be greeted by "Fuck you, go back"...

 

[Xenolan]

There have been a few times when I submitted ending chapters to someone else's story. I've only ever done it on stories to which I had submitted many other chapters, and in each case I felt the ending was warranted (they were all accepted, so the editors must have been OK with it). These were stories, not games, so there was no question of having to start all over again with one's score.

One of them I can't find anymore; it was a "population crisis" story, where there's some kind of deadly virus and humanity has to make a lot of babies soon or go extinct. I introduced an option wherein the protagonist could choose to force sex on one of the nurses running the program, even though she was clearly against the idea. The story then ends with the protagonist being arrested, imprisoned, and compelled to jerk off in a cup every day to provide the necessary sperm without contaminating the next generation with his attitudes. I felt like that was a "fair" ending, one which essentially telegraphed to the reader that it was a wrong choice but which they could try anyway just to see what would happen. I actually ended the chapter with the words "Next time, don't be so fucking stupid." (Trust me, it WAS a very obviously stupid choice in context!)

Another story where I provided an unhappy ending was one which apparently didn't make the leap from the older CHYOO site to CHYOA; it was about the goddess Venus coming to Earth and selecting you to have sex with her so that a new demigod may be conceived and subsequently save the world, or something (here it is on the older site). I wrote two endings on that one; the "bad" ending happens after the protagonist accidentally blows his load prematurely, and is then given the choice to let Venus take over and ensure it doesn't happen again, or give up. I figured anyone who chose to "give up" shouldn't be surprised that it leads to a bad ending, which in this case was a curse of permanent impotence (which Venus promises to lift, if not in your next life, then definitely the one after that). I also wrote several more threads which led to a *happy* ending, in which the conception is successful and Venus leaves you with the assurance that you will find many advantages to living with the Goddess of Love watching over you. In this case, since the story was clearly about having sex with Venus and that was pretty much it, I felt like I could go ahead and end it once that was complete.

Each time I ended a thread "unhappily", I felt like it was essentially telegraphed in advance that it WOULD be an ending; the option presented boiled down to the reader actively choosing to give up, or do something clearly identified as wrong. If the reader takes an option like that, then he's essentially cockblocking *himself*.

 

[SeriousBrainDamage]

I suppose that i'd like better having a few bad (gruesome, uncanny or simply unsatisfying) endigs in the mix than having none.
I'm not fan of stories that become endless sequences of i fuck this, i fuck that, i fuck her mother, her brother, the neighboor, the cop who came to ask what's the fuss ...
Stories need more endings, as far as you could be concerned with getting turned off with a bad one, it will still happen with normal chapters.
How many times the author takes the story in a direction that you don't like? Isn't it the same thing? You could always add an alternative to that chapter, you just can't add after it.

On a side note, i advocate a more horizontal development of the stories in fact.

 

[Artican]

I remember a story that had the option for the protagonist to do nothing. He went on with his day oblivious of the adventure he had missed out on and the story ended. I gave it a thumbs up for logical storytelling.