Before you begin these are just the musing of a mad man so take them as you will. I am contemplating something for a story and wondering how others would feel about it. Essentially in video games you can make choices that will affect the story but never the overall plot. Telltale games is one of the biggest ones to use this. The over all story never changes but some of the story elements may. the main reason I am considering this is for sub plots. Have a choice happen early on but link the story back together. Later when that choice becomes important the reader can pick which they choose the first time. The main reason I am considering it is to avoid having to create long branches that would muddle up the story map and can focus on the story map. The second is if I want to add in a certain fetish. such as having one branch that acts normal while another the guy might sleep with his sister so the reader would have a choice if that is not there thing and have it as a sub plot of the main story.
I think Mass Effect would be a better example than Telltale considering Telltale did it so poorly that it literally bankrupted their company at the end of the day.
Huh, as it happens that's how I want to handle it as well The story I'm currently writting is in essence a harem, where you have main narrative and multiple options in which you can go on dates with different girls. Basically Main plot Date 1 (Girl A,B,or C) Main plot Date 2 (Girl A,B, or C) Main plot Date 3 (Girl A,B, or C) The dates are building up on each other, so ideally you would always choose the same girl, but creating multiple paths for this feels very cumbersome and also not particularly user friendly if one readers wants to view all the dates. Game mode would be a solution, but it's not like the date aspect is that huge and only having game mode on for this feels a bit excessive. So at the end I do believe a note telling the reader to pick the corresponding choice is the best option, even if its a bit clunky
