Porn or not to include porn that is the question.

[spil778]

Hai guys I am currently developing a game. An RPG game to be exact. Its a make your own world and story type. Open world, action based and high quality.
Now, I've been lurking on this forum since Dirtyc101 uploaded his first game so I thought it was about time for me to make a post.

My problem is that I don't want to make a porn game with RPG-elements but a RPG game with porn-elements.
I'm going to ask if any of you guys had an ideas of how you can add such things without it feeling out of place. A lot of games I know where its run-or-rape I can't help but question myself "Why are these monsters after me?". I had an idea of maybe if you die to orcs you maybe end up as a slave for them. Another thing could be prostitutes but beside these two I'm clueless.
So the game is a lot customization and realism and me fucking shit up :3. I myself is a fan of everything that doesn't involve blood or breaking body parts.

The to sum the question up "What could you like to see in an RPG, porn wise." and "What could be a sublime way to add porn?"

Regards Zanaj.

[Mr D]

Could you clear up few things?
Game format: RPG maker, flash, 3D?
World setting: DnD, Sci-fi, shadowrun, warcraft?
World politics: orcs/human wars, demon siege, Monster hunting?

Those are some basic things that should be established before I can advise you on how to make porn in your setting reasonable.

[VintageBass]

So in a way, come up with a plot and a setting for the game along with the kinks that would be the feature in the game? I'm not exactly sure about that, there are plenty of RPGs here, so having something new would be good to have. It's just you don't have anything besides asking for some porn elements. Well brainstorming is always a good start for coming up with a new game, so let's do it!

[Myuu]

Run-or-Rape games are the norm here and in Japan~

For a detailed explanation:

Spoiler (click to show/hide):

A common trait amongst men is a need to be 'dominant' to a subordinate, partner, or loved one; an instinct forged by the need to protect them and to enforce your way of thinking as 'right'.

Now, subset meanings aside, the dominant aspect of a male's mind translates to various physical ideals as well as mental. That being said, it can be assumed (and is most commonly proven) that men approve of the sight of one being subservient, obedient, and willing and able (sometimes eager) to please those of 'greater power' per say. This releases endorphins through the pleasure center of the brain, not causing pleasure itself, but enabling the ability to. The ability to see (or in our cases, command) one of a lower status to do (to point and far) what is 'expected of them' leads to plenty of this happening.

Dominance aside, there's also the universal power-fantasy

"But Myuu," you interject, "our character isn't weak! We literally have the power to wipe out or dodge every enemy in the game! Where's the 'dominance' factor in that?"

To which I answer, "Harumph!" and beat you with my hickory cane! But before that happened, I laid out some mad theories and facts on you, son!

The idea of gaining power is a universal thought that passes through everyone's mind more commonly than, "Where should I eat?" I've had my fair share of power fantasies. I can't recount the various ways I'd love to run Cambodia, but I can tell you for a fact that I have one!

But as alluring gaining power is in the common mind, the thought of losing power is a more interesting one. In the course of erotic games however, it's an almost appealing one. Allow me a minute!

Although women and men watch porn in equal measure, men have a statistical 5x bonus to activity. Match that up with any porn website featuring videos (or in our case, games) and you have your obvious marketed demographic. Now that we know who we're marketing towards, take their thoughts, laden instincts, and highest kinks into consideration. Now factor in the dominance aspect. Men enjoy being dominant. But how can they? On LOK games, they're the women.

So you experiment. You're a powerful female character, able to kill just about anything. Cool huh? But wait, if they get too close, what's this? You're restrained. Helpless. Bound to whatever mercies your opponent sets for you. Which would just so happen come in the form of a large, erected penis before you.

Thus the mentality changes. Power shifts to helplessness. Mighty to subservient. Were this a male character, you'd want revenge. But, more often than not, you find yourself intrigued. Moreso because she's a female character. A strong one, who has been captured by a boss, a grunt, a pest, or something even lower. She wasn't you, so you have no legitimate attachment to her. So maybe, now that she's had her fun and power, she's been 'put in her place,' so to speak?

This goes back to the dominance factor. YOU want to be powerful. YOU want to be the big man. YOU want to hold all the cards (speaking of the average male, so it doesn't apply all-around). So match that powerful someone who can't truly be you (because of the mental gender gap) who has just been forced to submit to a male character (whom you feel you can relate to in a way) and now has to submit to any treatment by him (and possibly others) and you have a mental play on the male mind that subconsciously MAKES you want to be helpless, MAKES you want to run half-naked, and MAKES you want to be caught, all for the sake of the rise of endorphins to the pleasure center of your brain.

That's why it's so popular.

Not that it would apply to you. This comes from the 'average male' statement. There are those who hate it, ignore it, or just don't react to it the same way. A person's upbringing really affects instincts, so there's bound to be those special strays~

...that being said, what of female players? Surely there's been one or some?

Well... I kinda have a sub kink thing going, so... meh.

That being explained, it's obvious you'll need to aim at your core audience! If you're asking the LOK site for advice, expect LOK-game suggestions, such as, but not limited to~

- Monster Rape
- A plot that's there, but not really
- A LOT of dicks

Now, what would I like?

- Maybe progressive clothing loss as I take damage (only at certain thresholds, though. A layer and amount of health depending on what you're wearing, so it should be three bars (armor, clothes, underwear)

- Animated Sex after a loss. Two per enemy would be great. One is alright, but three? Three gets you a fan, as well as people who'll lose a lot :/

- Other things, but first, maybe answer some questions.

Besides Mister "The" D's questions, I'd like to know: You said "I had an idea of maybe if you die to orcs you maybe end up as a slave for them." Now, would you CONTINUE as their slave, or would that be a game over? As for 'Prostitution', you could always integrate that as a way to make money

[n1gar0]

I'll give you my honest opinion. I think making an rpg with some porn elements is somewhat pointless. If someone wants porn, they'll just play a sex focused game. Playing hours just to get a single scene for me is not rewarding. I don't feel like having a quick fap after an hour of grinding or some hard and frustrating segment. I don't, by any means think that a hard and grindy rpg is bad if you get the stuff done right. I enjoy a challenge, but I don't want half-done, pointless and scattered sex scenes in a good rpg. In my opinion you have 3 options.

1. Make a great rpg, flesh out every mechanic, focus on story and great fights. Make interesting characters, skills and items and don't add any romantic subplot or sex, just go for a nice adventure. Pretty much just do what good rpgs do, there's lots of inspiration and I think you know your stuff. Oh and please for the love of everything that is holy don't make random encounters, that just makes me want to hang myself.

2. Make an rpg based around sex. Most, if not every enemy encounter should have some form of h content, be it short or long. Sex shouldn't be something you get at the game over, maybe in some cases you can have some hard to get bad ends, like getting raped by orcs for the sixth time or something. Victory sex is good, but only if it makes sense in the situation, for example you win a fight where the bet was sex and similar situations. Make small discoverable sex scenes, don't make sex scenes only available in fights, like a random guy behind a tree, etc. Violated heroine is the perfect example for this type of game really. Lots of sexual content, during quests, in the open world, in enemy encounters. As for sex scenes the ones I like are long and descriptive ones. Not corruption of champions long, but still be descriptive with what's happening. Pictures don't matter too much, but they are a welcome addition. Include many different fetishes, have lots of characters that you can have sex with. Make the gameworld big, with lots of explorable content. The story is somewhat important too of course, but have the story centered around sex as well. Something about corruption, sexual decadence or things like that are cool. Decide whether you want a male or female protag. Female is a lot better in my opinion, but it's obviously a debateable choice. Don't have 2 different protags, because you will never really flesh out two story lines. If you do go with a female protagonist, never go full slut from the beginning, make the corruption slow and interesting.

3.Make a perfect mix of the two. This is obviously nearly impossible, so it's more of a joke choice.

tl,dr my two cents is that you should just go with a great porn or a great rpg maker game, don't make a mediocre mix of the two.

[Mattis]

Same advice as n1gar0, lol

I'm a game creator who freaking looooooves hybriding everything, because I was raised in so many different types of games and medias.
I discovered with time it's NOT what people will go too. They might like it a few minutes, but they won't stay on it, exceptions aside.
So, I can easily guess there will be a tremendous amount of pleasure in developping your project. But will it works ?
Experience says "no". People looking for porn will go directly to porn, and people looking for regular RPG will be uncomfortable with the porn.

What you do with it is still up to you, though : personnally, I enjoy too much what I'm doing to be able to stop, so I have to deal with my own masochism on that.

But there's always a chance the perfect compromise is out there somewhere, and an intense and deep love or sex line in a regular RPG can be appreciated by everyone. If it slips a little into porn, well, we sure won't mind, here

[Cards]

Easter eggs are always an option, whilst including a feature to toggle them off. Like spying from a high rock on someone bathing in a lake, or peeking through a door and watching someone change clothes. I enjoy little drops of content like that in a game. If I'm playing a game I want it to be a good game but I'm also kind of a perv and a little boob action goes a long way for me. Maybe think of it as instead of adding "porn" to the game add "adult content". By this I mean innuendos, flirty conversation options like after talking to a sultry barmaid in a tavern when you talk to one of your allies afterward have a dialog like "Did you see the tits on her?" Think how people talk normally, when I spot a girl with a nice bottom I alert the other members of my group so we may ogle together. If your going to include speaking instead of just text, you could do a lot with whistles, hmmms, and nice-es. "Comrade, check out the carriage on her..." "Nice..." Hope I helped.

[soulbound]

i can think of a variety of things you could try,
1. a option to lower/increase or overall disable sexual content,like a difficulty setting
2.add casual options for sexual encounters and add some sex focused characters and monsters while having the rest be mostly un involved in such things
Example: guards you talk to, pickpocket attack even, but they wont rape you if you lose,
wolf kicks you butt and rapes you, make it more on the wild creature or banditry side of things involving rape
3.add sexual scenes as a choice after victory
4.add rare diseases and consequences for sexual action like say raping a nobles daughter

[tfungnoth]

I think it is really hard to make a good porn game. I didn't read your post in detail, too much words, but I want to point out something I think about the games I played.

1. Sex scene after I lose, WTF?
Players'd love to see sex scene. But If there are sex after I lose but no sex scene after victory, then there will be less motivation for me to continue playing

2. Not interactive sex scene
It always like watching porn picture or gif. If that is a really good game, I might just forget about porn and keep playing.
I'm not sure if that's something good

BTW, Having option to turn on/off sexual content is good. At least, I can still play the game when my family is around.
Just saying

[MegaPlayboy]

Same advice as n1gar0, lol

I'm a game creator who freaking looooooves hybriding everything, because I was raised in so many different types of games and medias.
I discovered with time it's NOT what people will go too. They might like it a few minutes, but they won't stay on it, exceptions aside.
So, I can easily guess there will be a tremendous amount of pleasure in developping your project. But will it works ?
Experience says "no". People looking for porn will go directly to porn, and people looking for regular RPG will be uncomfortable with the porn.

What you do with it is still up to you, though : personnally, I enjoy too much what I'm doing to be able to stop, so I have to deal with my own masochism on that.

But there's always a chance the perfect compromise is out there somewhere, and an intense and deep love or sex line in a regular RPG can be appreciated by everyone. If it slips a little into porn, well, we sure won't mind, here

I agree to an extent. I think of the "porn threshold" as needing oxygen underwater. If the game is short and not too intense, the player can hold their breath for a little bit to get to the oxygen (porn). If the game is too long, the player will drown (boredom, distraction, frustration).

However, I believe it is completely possible to make a moving and overall incredible game with an underlying porn element. The trick is to give players little bursts of "oxygen" now and then so they can keep playing. The sexual energy makes the game that much better! Perhaps at the end, the greatest porn event of all could occur.

[TheFriendlyGuy]

Isnt this what that one guy made? I believe it was queen opala or something. Much Rpg; not so much porn. Unless I quit playing to soon and didnt get to the good stuff yet.

[Lucky777]

You didn't quit playing too early: the Opala RPG series is light on the porn; I didn't waste my time on it past the first game.

[kinkykitten]

Here is my advice as someone who switches back and forth between loving and hating sex games depending on my mood...

Unless you literally make the best game in creation, mixing porn into an RPG will feel out of place no matter what you do. Look at the main stream games that do that. It just... it doesn't feel right.

If I'm picking up an RPG game, I just want to play that, just a good ol' RPG game . There is no need for sex. If anything that degrades the game.
If I am picking up a porn game, then it should be laced heavily enough with porn so that it's a porn RPG, as opposed to an RPG with porn. Otherwise what's the point?

To have a balance of the two would be pointless, even if you can pull it off. Because people either want to place for a good game, or they want to play for porn. Which means one or the other will suffer. Why make a good game when the only thin gto keep people playing is porn? Why put porn into it if people want to play a good game?

If you DO decide to go the route of having an RPG with sex, what I'd suggest is one of those RPGs where something you do changes the outcome of what you're doing. What if when loosing to a specific boss you get captured instead of just getting a game over and now, instead of completing whatever quest you were on, you ned to escape, which has it's own branch of possibilities. Similar things have been implemented in other games, just this would have porn added on.

And My persona opinion... I'd shoot for a really good RPG over a porn game. As fun as they are, there are plenty of at least decent porn games if you know where to look. The amount of good fan made RPG games is pretty lacking as many developments have halted. If you just REALLY wanna do it, make the RPG first, and release it, then go back and add in porn elements after. This way, there is a version for people who want a 'clean' RPG and one who wouldn't mind the smutty version.