I have a couple of 'game over' endings in a story of mine. Because it's ~30 chapters deep, I've kept them fairly early on, but even so, they seem to have been the wrong decision, based on feedback. In that regard, I think whether dead ends are a good idea depends on the Game Mode weight of your story. If the reader feels like they're losing something other than just time by 'dying', then perhaps implement some way to allow them to restart without losing too much. My own solution is to not end the story as a punishment, but instead take away items and force them into 'rooms' that make them more likely to reach the bad ending. Similarly, rewards involve giving them new items and putting them into rooms that are nearer to the good ending.
In a way, you're asking two different questions, and the reason I say that is that it's not super necessary to tie your decision points to
whether the reader gets a sex scene. Instead, you can use decisions to determine
which kind of sex scene they access. For instance, say the reader has a Charisma score, and wants to woo the female guard so that he can sneak into the castle. You might think the obvious options would be:
- His score is high enough to persuade her, so they have sex and he gets into the castle.
- His score is too low, so nothing happens.
It doesn't have to be this way. Instead, you could have:
- His score is high enough, so they have sex and he gets into the castle.
- His score is too low, but he doesn't realise this. The guard sees through him but wants the best of both worlds, so has sex with him, then arrests him for trespassing afterward and takes him to the castle dungeon.
You could even have another split immediately after the second where the reader has a variety of choices as to how to escape the dungeon. The key here is to not make X or not X happen, but rather, let X or the equally interesting Y happen. It's best to write in a way that allows your story to go down multiple weird and interesting paths, instead of just the one you thought of first.
That said, I rather enjoy the idea of certain sex scenes being locked behind difficulty, or even just getting lucky based on a seemingly unrelated choice. This is fine as long as you have something else for those who miss out. It doesn't need to be parallel; in fact, it's rather interesting to have options where you can either have a sex scene now, or most likely unlock one later. For instance, the reader might be in a tavern telling tales of their adventures when a gorgeous barmaid expresses her desire to venture out and see the world herself. However, the reader is also aware that she will do anything with her body for the right price.
- He offers to take her on his travels. This opens up the potential for a relationship that lasts more than a couple of chapters, and provides a bigger, better payoff later on with more sex scenes.
- He buys her services. As a result, the barmaid is less smitten by him and does not wish to travel with him. This gives the reader an instant sex scene in exchange for losing a future opportunity.
There's even another element here with a secondary goal of the reader, which is money. Maybe they want a sex scene now, but they want to save their money even moreso, so they choose the first option. It's always worthwhile to have at least some incentive in your story that isn't explicitly sexual and balance that out with the sexual payoffs. In this way, you have different types of readers making different choices, and following paths that are actually catered to them. Someone who wants to play for longer is more likely to choose the first option.
Sex scenes are an interesting tool because they're usually a payoff for the reader, but not strictly a good thing for the character. In this regard, it's important to balance them correctly, so as to not bore your reader regardless of the choices they make.
I would just try to keep in mind some way not to make it too punishing for a player, so he can either backtrack and repick or perhaps loop back to a shortcut. It's quite a blessing for someone to choose to read a story and I like to try and make sure they have some convenience features, so they aren't starting at 0 if they mess up, so to speak. If it's a game mode story, I'd try to keep that well in mind (you can only hit previous chapter so many times in sequence before it goes gray and inactive). If it's not game mode, they can jump around anyway.
Not that they can all be so bizarre, but you get what I mean: never forget to make the writing entertaining, even in your bad ends.
