This is not my original material, but I'd be interested in seeing what people come up with for it. How much interest would there be in a story series based on Tokhaar Gul's Mindslaver CYOA? https://drive.google.com/drive/folders/0B1CwO4KqTgloMlBvY1ZjTV8yN2s?usp=sharing
I'm very much a fan of this... it would probably work best with booleans, which are unfortunately beyond me at this point, however...
I like the concept and some of those cards gave me new ideas for bits and pieces of stories, but I have the impression that the choices are so endless, it might be difficult to fit this all into one story. The stories coming out from this might be all very, very different and would probably branch out pretty quickly. I am personally not a friend of those kind of story collections, who all only have a vague, general idea in the first chapter in common. However, I would be intrigued by some kind of play style story, where a main character slowly adds different boons and capabilities to his power. A bit like what the "Gamer" story did, just based on the Mindslaver background. I still think we would have to limit the choices to keep the story together and preventing it from spreading out too far. There is a certain appeal to the idea of meeting a new victim, and depending on your skills you either have to convince her so sign a contract, or sing to her or put a sigil on her body.
I think that idea has a great deal of merit. I'm a big fan of having to work for the reward. I'd be very interested in hearing your ideas on what a good start point would be, and what kind of progression there would be. I'd suspect that if the author chose one of the Pacts at the end (or came up with one of your own) it would help guide the narrative, conflict, and general progression of things. Circumstances would often force you to pick an option that fixes the immediate problem over a better long-term plan.
Okay, so my thoughts are basically along these lines: I would probably start with an early choice which involves 3-4 branches in the beginning. That gives the reader something to choose and experience different paths according to their liking, but is still manageable. So, in this case, for example, the Mindslaver God shows up and presents the player with three options on means of control. Or, to stay closer to the setting, you get, say "10 points" to spend, but you don't spend them all at once, but only when the "God" presents you an option to choose. Then, for example, you could choose between "sigil", "siren song" and "contract", and maybe one of those would indeed be cheaper, the other one more expensive, which makes the choice even more interesting. In the next step, we could present the reader with another option on who to approach as its first victim. So let's say, there's Mary (shy but with hidden desires), Janet (self-confident) and Susan (rich, interested in music). Depending on which means of control you chose earlier, it would be easier or even impossible to get each girl under control. That would present a first very nice introduction into the whole topic. Then, after you got your first girl under control, the God shows up again to grant you boons, so you can decide what to do with your girl OR you have to catch three girls first, before we get to the action part of having sex with them and so on. The difficulty still lies in the complexity of branches we create here: 3 means of control on 3 girls is already 9 different story lines. Put 2 boons on top, and you end up with 18, etc. You could of course deliberatly decide to leave some paths open and concentrate on some others, but in my personal opinion, a story on CHYOA as a one-branch-story feels a bit lacklustre. I am also a big fan of regrouping different story threads into one thread after a while, so that the whole thing becomes easier to manage. For example at the end of the day, we lead all branches back into one scene and start day 2 fresh (maybe with another girl, so that for the moment, the first one doesn't matter; you can still put in some smaller sentences referring to earlier decisions with if-conditions). I agree with your idea that introducing a pact would probably add some spice and some more sense and purpose to the story. Problem again, in introducing several options, we'll get even more branches. So maybe indeed, starting with one would be enough. All that being said, there would be still enough possiblities to add other branches/choices later and add another mean on control, another pact, another girl, etc., once the story is set up and running.
To be honest, I'm not planning on writing threads that follow subjects that I'm not interested in. A lot of the upgrades support kinks that I just don't like or understand. I'm all for having branching paths, but I'm going to leave some of them for people more interested in them to complete. So if there are three choices to be made, I may write threads for two of them and leave options for others to follow up with if they so choose. For example: Which girl will you choose? Mary the shy girl, Janet the self-confident, or Susan the rich? Mary>> Thread Janet>> Thread Susan>> no Thread I'm just not a prolific enough writer to fill out a web of threads like that. I recognize with awe that others are, and more power to them!
Well, if someone wants to see the story go into places that you don't like or care about then they can write their own threads. Unless you keep the story locked of course.
Yes, those were examples from the top of my head. You write what you like, obviously. Others can add what they like. That's the beauty of CHYOA, after all.
