Groundhog day plot

[thtiger]

I was curious. Anyone seen the plot where you live the same day over and over again used? Seems like it would have potential. It might take a little while, but how long before your protagonist would start engaging in behavior they would never otherwise do, because they know at the turn of mid-night everything gets set back to stage one?

The cute girl next door you've been trying to get up the nerve to talk to for months, if not years. Well, what have you to lose. And why not ask be blunt with her and directly ask her fetish related questions. She'll forget them the next day, but you'll remember how she reacted to them.

And what about your hot mother, or sister?

Or, if you're a girl. What would it feel like to get gang-banged by the football team, or do it with your hot brother, or father?

Why not try out every fetish you could possibly imagine? You're the only one who will remember.

 

[gene.sis]

There are a few threads on the forum discussing possible story concepts, though I'm not sure if any of them have been put to chapter yet.

I've seen one written draft where the protagonist awakes at the very same position after they die as part of a game setting.

They usually seem to be quite interesting with game mode active, though your ideas might work better without.

What would it feel like to get gang-banged by the football team, or do it with your hot brother, or father?

Why not try out every fetish you could possibly imagine? You're the only one who will remember.

Well, the problem there is that the main character IS the one who would remember.
Sure, there wouldn't be any physical pain or reactions of the other characters but the main character would still know every little detail.

 

[thtiger]

There are a few threads on the forum discussing possible story concepts, though I'm not sure if any of them have been put to chapter yet.

I've seen one written draft where the protagonist awakes at the very same position after they die as part of a game setting.

They usually seem to be quite interesting with game mode active, though your ideas might work better without.


Well, the problem there is that the main character IS the one who would remember.
Sure, there wouldn't be any physical pain or reactions of the other characters but the main character would still know every little detail.

That's the point. The main character remembers. Over the course of hundreds of times through the same day they might compile a mental list of events. Such as the exact time their hot next door neighbour steps into the shower while in an empty house. Or that after a few dozen disastrous dates with your crush you determine what their secret fetish is.

 

[thtiger]

There was a cartoon that ran for one season called Looper. Where two friends lived through the same day over and over again. They got to the point where they would automatically duck various accidents, or deliberate pranks, would find out if they did this, then this would happen, or not happen. The story I'm thinking of would start up several hundred repeats into the same day when you have reached the point where you say to hell with it I'm just going to do anything and everything.

 

[insertnamehere]

There was a Steins;Gate ending like this...

I think this would be interesting in a game mode framework if there was something else in the world that remembered your actions. After all, without it, this would just be a neverending, unchanging story. Maybe with every day you repeat, you slowly succumb to some sort of condition (I would say illness, but something like an aphrodisiac effect would be more appropriate), and you have to work to stop it from eventually killing you. Or, perhaps the reason the day repeats is the result of a catastrophic event and stopping it from occuring breaks the loop (like Edge of Tomorrow). Or perhaps you're intentionally creating the loop by using a time machine every evening, and your repeated abuse of the time-space continuum attracts the attention of the Time Police, from whom you must now evade capture and punishment while continuing your escapades...

 

[RicoLouis]

For some reason every time I hear of this plot device now I picture the film premature. Every time the guy cums he gets sent back in time to that morning.

 

[thtiger]

There was a Steins;Gate ending like this...

I think this would be interesting in a game mode framework if there was something else in the world that remembered your actions. After all, without it, this would just be a neverending, unchanging story. Maybe with every day you repeat, you slowly succumb to some sort of condition (I would say illness, but something like an aphrodisiac effect would be more appropriate), and you have to work to stop it from eventually killing you. Or, perhaps the reason the day repeats is the result of a catastrophic event and stopping it from occuring breaks the loop (like Edge of Tomorrow). Or perhaps you're intentionally creating the loop by using a time machine every evening, and your repeated abuse of the time-space continuum attracts the attention of the Time Police, from whom you must now evade capture and punishment while continuing your escapades...

Not at all. Your actions would cause the people you interact with to alter their actions, for that day. Some things you would not be able to change, like the songs on the Radio, or the weather.

To give an example. One of my characters has a crush on a girl. Each day he tries a different way of asking her out, trying to find the perfect pickup line if you will. He might even start stalking her in order to find out as much about her likes or dislikes as he can. How she reacts to his various requests for a date would vary depending on the method he used. Maybe he'll find just the right approach, or maybe while eavesdropping on her he'll hear her laughing about the pathetic loser who tried to ask her out, as if. So, does he give up, or does he take advantage of what he knows about her movements to ambush her in an isolated way and have his way with her. After all she won't remember.

Maybe for kicks they might rob a bank, or do it more than once. Maybe take a good looking teller hostage, or maybe they'll tie her face down over a desk and order the customers to each have a turn at her. Just that one scenario would offer them all sorts of variations. I would not do a whole bunch of them, but I might have them recalling different scenarios they did on previous occasions during the one I did write about.

 

[thtiger]

For some reason every time I hear of this plot device now I picture the film premature. Every time the guy cums he gets sent back in time to that morning.

Ultimate cock block. LOL

 

[insertnamehere]

Not at all. Your actions would cause the people you interact with to alter their actions, for that day. Some things you would not be able to change, like the songs on the Radio, or the weather.

To give an example. One of my characters has a crush on a girl. Each day he tries a different way of asking her out, trying to find the perfect pickup line if you will. He might even start stalking her in order to find out as much about her likes or dislikes as he can. How she reacts to his various requests for a date would vary depending on the method he used. Maybe he'll find just the right approach, or maybe while eavesdropping on her he'll hear her laughing about the pathetic loser who tried to ask her out, as if. So, does he give up, or does he take advantage of what he knows about her movements to ambush her in an isolated way and have his way with her. After all she won't remember.

Maybe for kicks they might rob a bank, or do it more than once. Maybe take a good looking teller hostage, or maybe they'll tie her face down over a desk and order the customers to each have a turn at her. Just that one scenario would offer them all sorts of variations. I would not do a whole bunch of them, but I might have them recalling different scenarios they did on previous occasions during the one I did write about.

I think you misunderstood my post. Game Mode is a specific setting in a CHYOA story that allows you to store information in variables (hidden or otherwise), so you can keep a 'score' based on previous decisions without having to completely copy-paste chapters for slight differences. For example, the chapters "Do it missionary" and "Do it anally" might subsequently link to the same post-sex chapter, then in that common chapter there's some code where the character you had sex with briefly comments something different based on what you chose.

In the example you give, you don't need Game Mode to make that work - you just have regular decisions that are always open to the player, and whenever the day ends you link it back to the first chapter. Unless you wanted to include a hard knowledge-based restriction mechanic, you wouldn't need to track what the reader knows, because the reader's brain is already doing that. The available options shouldn't change if the day is resetting to exactly as it was before. If you wanted - and this would indeed be rather interesting - you could include a significant number of options where some seem less interesting than others until you learn certain information that you remember in the next repeat. For example, you might be given five or six options for what to do after your lecture, one of which might be "Have a drink with X classmate" and another might be "Go for a walk past the old broken jetty", and the classmate in the first option might tell you she likes to go skinny dipping at the old broken jetty that nobody ever has any reason to visit... but if even if you didn't have that conversation, if you were to walk past the jetty you would see her anyway, since the day repeats without anything changing. (Game mode might enhance this by reminding the player what they've learnt and expressing the character's internal dialogue, but depending on your writing style you could make it totally unnecessary.)

You could use Game Mode for the example you described, which I suppose would enable more complex interactions in the dialogue and even throughout the whole day, but having Game Mode active and clearing it every day seems like a severe missed opportunity. Only by having a remarkably 'long' day (where the average playthrough of a day is dozens of chapters) would it be necessary to use Game Mode to track prior decisions.

 

[DeviantChalice]

I think the thing is you need to in some way distinguish this from simply having a bunch of choices and rewinding to a previous chapter. Because a lot of stories do that already, just without the time loop flavour.

 

[thtiger]

I think you misunderstood my post. Game Mode is a specific setting in a CHYOA story that allows you to store information in variables (hidden or otherwise), so you can keep a 'score' based on previous decisions without having to completely copy-paste chapters for slight differences. For example, the chapters "Do it missionary" and "Do it anally" might subsequently link to the same post-sex chapter, then in that common chapter there's some code where the character you had sex with briefly comments something different based on what you chose.

.

I see what you mean. And you are right, game mode might be a good resource to use for this idea. But I don't think it is really needed to make the story work either. Plus I'm a bit of a technophobe and would need someone to hold my hand to set it up.

If I were to write it I'd start the introduction deep in the loop, where the character/s had already gone through dozens, if not hundreds of replays. There would be no need for them to list off everything they have learned about the day. Each story arc, if you wanted to call it that. would reveal things they had discovered about a particular character or circumstance over the course of that story arc.

For instance the characters might decide that today they are going to do a home invasion on the hot MILF down the street whose husband left on a business trip the day before. Leaving her and her teen age daughter alone. Over the course of that event they'd reveal that they discovered the code for the home security system. That the next door dog will not bark if you throw him a frozen steak. They'll know the location of everyone in the house. The MILF in the kitchen, the daughter in the shower, if they time it right, and so on. They might also have dug up some dirt on the two, or know just what threats are the best to make them comply.

To keep it short for the introduction there would not be a big drawn out sex encounter. For instance one character might walk up behind the MILF in the kitchen, and push her up against the counter and whisper something like "Vinny says hi" that happens to be the name of a gangster she testified against. Her reaction would be to say. "Oh God. Please don't kill me. I'll do anything. Just don't kill me."

We then instantly switch to the other character as they casually walks into a big bathroom, strips down, and steps into the shower where the teenage daughter had been masturbating and had not even known he was there. Turns out she has a rape fantasy about this very scenario, which he happened to know because on a previous run-through she had confessed it to him.

This would sort of be the reveal of the concept to the reader. At the end of the day, as they are cleaning up they might discuss what they are going to do the next loop day.

Which would appear as the next chapter title


Rob a bank
Mess with a cop they find annoying
Blackmail one of their teachers into sex.

Any given storyline does not have to rely on what they have previously done. Except for them the whole world reverts to default and they get to start fresh.

I might toss in some plot devices. Such as the idea that anything they are carrying or wearing loops with them. So maybe one of the guys keeps a log-book in a backpack he makes sure he is wearing at the end of the day. It also would allow them to have access to plot devices they can carry from loop to loop without having to go to all the work of acquiring them each day, like some means of increasing the size of their endowments, or gender shifting a non-looper. Maybe they came from the same magic shop that supplied the device that started the loop in the first place. Or maybe it is science based and there is a top secret Alien research base hidden in the middle of town. Heck, there might even be real aliens living among them.

Who knows what secrets exist in the town.

Other writers would have the option of adding whatever they want. Each segment would be self contained using the basic concept. Writers would be free to invent any scenario within the confines of the town and throw in information the loopers would have discovered about the situations and people they interact with over the course of it. the only restriction would be to not contradict events that have already happened in another loop. But that is easy enough to do if you simply have the characters meet up at a common location and ask.

"So what are we going to do today Brain?
The Same thing we do everyday Pinky. Try to take over the town!"

Followed, by. "Actually, I thought we might buy tickets to that dungeon themed escape room." Pulls out book. "here it is. "Cindy and her friend Betty get stood up when their boyfriends have a flat. I bet we can talk them into joining us. Plus, according to my notes the guy who's suppose to monitor the room sneaks out back to have a smoke."

'Betty, Betty. Hmmm, I think I learned something about her a few dozen loops back. Oh, wait, I remember. I heard one of her friends talking about how she's only passing math because she's sucking the teacher off."

Well, you get the idea.

Now this is just something that popped into my head. I'm not sure if I'll write anything on it. Depends on how badly blocked I get on my other two stories. I started this thread while I tried to work out some blockage. If anyone wants to take a run at the concept I'd be happy to talk with them about it.

 

[insertnamehere]

And you are right, game mode might be a good resource to use for this idea. But I don't think it is really needed to make the story work either.

Sorry, that's partly what I was getting at.

In the example you give, you don't need Game Mode to make that work

As in, if one were to use Game Mode to make a story like this, then it would be beneficial to have something in the story other than you that remembers information between day loops, otherwise the score would have a greatly limited impact. If one were to not use Game Mode, as you are suggesting, then doing so would indeed be quite impractical and not at all necessary. I just thought it would be something interesting to note if anyone was considering a story like this in Game Mode. We do seem to actually agree.

 

[gene.sis]

which he happened to know because on a previous run-through she had confessed it to him.

This would sort of be the reveal of the concept to the reader. At the end of the day, as they are cleaning up they might discuss what they are going to do the next loop day.

From a logical POV, it is quite unlikely that the character would spend a number of loops just to find out every detail of the persons he spies on.
At least not without doing anything.
If the character already was in a similar situation, they would most likely have acted on it. It's also unlikely that they would just do the whole work on multiple locations and then wait for 100 loops before starting to do something.

Additionally, you can't observe a system without influencing it.
So just by being there, the actual outcome of a scene could change.
Though, in most cases, that might be minor enough to ignore.

I think loops work better if the main character actually experiences the loops, only changing the outcome by his actions.


For the stories you want to tell, a character who is simply omniscient or who can predict future events.
That way, there would be no limits about where and when a story takes place as the main character would have enough time to travel.
The only difference is that everything that happened wouldn't be reset.

On the other hand, there could also have some device that allows you to turn back the clock for some amount of time. So the character could find out every detail by themselves. If he gets caught, he just goes back 10 seconds and hides behind another wall or sth.

 

[thtiger]

From a logical POV, it is quite unlikely that the character would spend a number of loops just to find out every detail of the persons he spies on.
At least not without doing anything.
.

They have no choice but to get looped over and over again. If it were me my first assumption would be that I had to do something to stop the loop. Save someone's life, treat someone differently.

But the longer the loop lasts with nothing you do having any difference you are going to get frustrated, as Bill Murray's character did in Groundhog Day, and start doing stuff like punching an annoying person in the face the instance they show up in front of you.

But, over the course of looking for the person you're supposed to save, or the situation you are supposed to change, you'd discover lots of things. This person is cheating on their husband/wife. This person is doing something illegal. This person is a serial killer. Etc.

Finding out dirt on one person, might lead to finding out dirt on someone else. You could threaten a person with exposure, unless they can supply you with a better target.

You don't have to worry about your life, or being arrested, or just becoming a pariah for your behavior. I think the story lends itself to short scenarios that are only connected by the protagonists.

Do you save the girl from the rapist, or do you line up to take your turn. In this situation you could try both avenues. Play the cad, or the hero. Depending on your mood.

Just as an aside, if it were possible to put people into a virtual reality simulation of this situation it would be an interesting physiological experiment to see if they would retain their morality, and if they didn't how long does it take before they lose all empathy for the people they interact with.

If I were in their shoes I'd likely have to go through a lot of loops before I'd give up and stop acting as if the world was going to restart and I'd be held responsible for whatever I did on the last day of the loop.

I should mention that while I love a good story. there are times when it is nice to relax and enjoy pure porn without any consequences and that are totally unrealistic.