Poll: What's your ideal size for a harem?

[None of your bee wax!]

I think is boils down two factors:

1. Are members Bi or are only a few ok sharing/ attracted to another?

2. Are there an even amount of people(that includes you), or is it odd? (Is someone left out if a orgy happens?)

For me I would go for Three members; I would rather there be two girls who love me as well as eachother, then having two wives that have to share their husband.

 

[Renko]

I've seen a lot of harem fics here, especially Waifu Catalog ones, where the MC got so many girlfriends that almost all of them are just relegated to "girl of the day" and never to be heard ever again after the MC have done their way with them!

It felt like the girls are just treated more like pokemon that the MC gets to f#ck and dump rather than being actual characters!

The stories then tend to die off because the dumb authors don't even know what to do with the damn character bloat that they inflicted on their f#cking stories!

So you guys are just adding more and more girls and you are not going to do anything about them after your MC f#cked them?

That's it!? WTF!

 

[Darknessthere]

1. Are members Bi or are only a few ok sharing/ attracted to another?

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That's an important consideration, not just for sex scenes, though a little yuri does make for a nice palette cleanser, but also lets the girls go on dates/events with each other. Then you can do character writing for both at the same time, making it nice and efficient.

 

[Nerevar]

Writing even relatively small harems is a pain if you've got anything else going on in the plot. Hell, writing even a single romantic pairing often becomes an issue if that isn't the focus.

As a theoretical limit, humans can basically consider up to about 300 or so people as members of their "tribe" with anything past that being outsiders that we need complex artificial social structures to get along with and pretend to like eachother, so I'd place that as the theoretical limit if you are regularly interacting only with harem members and none of them have families or outside attachments of any sort.

For a battle harem, your best option would probably be best suited to developing a team dynamic similar to your standard five man band, then just also have them fucking, and let the size of the team dictate the size of the harem.

 

[Darknessthere]

Writing even relatively small harems is a pain if you've got anything else going on in the plot. Hell, writing even a single romantic pairing often becomes an issue if that isn't the focus.

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Word count is definitely something to consider. A big harem for a 500,000 word trilogy and a big harem for a 2,000,0000 word serial are very different.

 

[Nerevar]

Word count is definitely something to consider. A big harem for a 500,000 word trilogy and a big harem for a 2,000,0000 word serial are very different.

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Absolutely.

Another factor is how many interesting characters can you write more generally. Tenchi Muyo, being one of the oft imitated harem comedies, works in large part because the girls are each individually interesting characters with a lot of distinction between them. When characters don't have clear distinctions, they might as well not be in the story at all. And that means anyone writing a harem story needs to be careful not to give the protagonist too strong of a "type".

Like, if you want a hundred Officer Jennys or Nurse Joys to have huge incestuous orgies with, that's fine, but Officer Jenny and Nurse Joy still represent just two characters, and narratively should be treated as such no matter how many are on screen at the same time.

 

[Blue1ao]

2 maybe 3 max if someone else is spending all their time managing the group.. also story wise names are easier and makes it easier to get attached

 

[Darknessthere]

2 maybe 3 max if someone else is spending all their time managing the group.. also story wise names are easier and makes it easier to get attached

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Three is really the bare minimum for it to be a Harem. Two is just a threesome.

 

[None of your bee wax!]

Three is really the bare minimum for it to be a Harem. Two is just a threesome.

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Hey, a threesome is a partner on each arm. Good amount of loving all around.

Plus, do you really want to write interconnected motivations and and story arks for four or more people at the same time. Too easy to forget or sideline people to free up plot space.

 

[Darknessthere]

Plus, do you really want to write interconnected motivations and and story arks for four or more people at the same time.

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If you want to write t a harem? Yes, definitionally.

 

[TricMagic]

10-15 mostly with understanding there are probably going to be harems within harems. Shoutouts to the Solomon voters though.

 

[Syn17]

Plus, do you really want to write interconnected motivations and and story arks for four or more people at the same time. Too easy to forget or sideline people to free up plot space.

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I mean, that's sort of your average genre adventure novel, no? Star Treks' spaceship crews, Star Wars' plucky bands of heroes, a fantasy novel's adventuring party - all of these are standardized around three to eight main characters who have interconnected motivations and story arcs. Most have a romance arc or two already worked into the plot; the only question is how to write in the rest of them.

 

[Blue1ao]

Three is really the bare minimum for it to be a Harem. Two is just a threesome.

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I mean, that's sort of your average genre adventure novel, no? Star Treks' spaceship crews, Star Wars' plucky bands of heroes, a fantasy novel's adventuring party - all of these are standardized around three to eight main characters who have interconnected motivations and story arcs. Most have a romance arc or two already worked into the plot; the only question is how to write in the rest of them.

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But they're part of the plot. The harem is going to be mostly side stories. Of constant interaction goals and pov changes

 

[Syn17]

But they're part of the plot. The harem is going to be mostly side stories. Of constant interaction goals and pov changes

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Does that have to be the case, though?

If Artus the Farmboy picks up his father's old sword to avenge his death at the hands of the Dark Lord's troops, and along the way he encounters Shalaevar, the elven swordmistress who condescends to teach him the art of the blade and has her own reasons for wanting the Dark Lord dead, and Allisa, the human prophetess who foresees he will be a champion of the Goddess, and Phyrra, the questionably redeemable dark elven blood witch seeking to usurp the Dark Lord, well, all three of these characters are invested in the main plot, all three are able and willing to travel with Artus and participate in battles, intrigues, etc. At that point you're only writing one-on-one scenes if you're inventing excuses for our Farmboy to get alone with one of them.

 

[Darknessthere]

But they're part of the plot. The harem is going to be mostly side stories. Of constant interaction goals and pov changes

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If you are writing a harem story, the harem should be the main cast. This isn't hard to understand.

 

[Blue1ao]

[

Does that have to be the case, though?

If Artus the Farmboy picks up his father's old sword to avenge his death at the hands of the Dark Lord's troops, and along the way he encounters Shalaevar, the elven swordmistress who condescends to teach him the art of the blade and has her own reasons for wanting the Dark Lord dead, and Allisa, the human prophetess who foresees he will be a champion of the Goddess, and Phyrra, the questionably redeemable dark elven blood witch seeking to usurp the Dark Lord, well, all three of these characters are invested in the main plot, all three are able and willing to travel with Artus and participate in battles, intrigues, etc. At that point you're only writing one-on-one scenes if you're inventing excuses for our Farmboy to get alone with one of them.

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Lol I made a huge reply then deleted it. So this is shorten. No but yes. If they're to many characters with side or petty roles it's hard to remember or even care about them. If the series is a romance then it's usually hard to follow or extend my suspension of disbelief enough to follow it..so yes 2 is ideal 3 max

 

[None of your bee wax!]

If you want to write t a harem? Yes, definitionally.

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If you are writing a harem story, the harem should be the main cast. This isn't hard to understand.

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But what about other characters? How many are main cast and how many are supporting? What`s the total number of characters being written; and how much time and energy is going to be put towards their development and/or relevance in the story?

If the Harem are going to be the only main Characters, that's fine. But I do want to point out that for it to work means that now this group has be be more entertaining to compensate for a lack of outside motivations, like you can`t have the mail man intervene within the plot with out coming off a contrived or being an antagonist. Or if you do include other outside characters, you need to tie them to the main cast in some way. Which just adds to the growing list of interactions you need to keep track of.

It feels like to me, when you go past three main characters, you end up with a DXD or One piece situation: where every character is struggling to get their moment in the sun and what time they do get is brief. It`s hard to have both quality and quantity when you have the many motivations one fully fleshed character can have. Though if you keep the outside vague and the characters arks lean, then I could see it working out: though not without careful consideration and plot trimming. (I could see a story of fifteen people living on a island in a free love group could work; have the story center itself around the individual people in the group interacting, and the interactions they bring back with them when they return to the island. The outside world could become a sort of evolving antagonist, that acts as the forward motivation of the group, while introducing new problems or new opportunities for the harem members.)

 

[None of your bee wax!]

I mean, that's sort of your average genre adventure novel, no? Star Treks' spaceship crews, Star Wars' plucky bands of heroes, a fantasy novel's adventuring party - all of these are standardized around three to eight main characters who have interconnected motivations and story arcs. Most have a romance arc or two already worked into the plot; the only question is how to write in the rest of them.

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I don`t know, feels like most of classic writing we enjoy is more action focused, with bread crumbs of character interaction/development in between those action scenes. How many episodes did we get before we leaned that Captain Picard is of French origin or Jordy was born blind thus needing a cybernetic interface installed to see, (because the federation refuses to use Gene therapy)? (Or Luke and Leia needing to be brother and sister to justify Yoda going "There is another..." at the last minute, without introducing another side character?) To me stories are a lot like a Sunday: the ice cream being the plot: (the foundations that is the overall flavor/tone) and the characters the toppings: ( good in small amounts of individual screen time.)

Not that you can`t have it be character driven, but that still means sharing development time and character backstory without it turning into a info dump between (as you said) three to eight unique people and all their individual motivations. It`s the balance of keeping the story going, while also keeping the characters moving forward as well, and deciding which plot needs what main or side character to work. It`s like what Darknessthere said:

A big harem for a 500,000 word trilogy and a big harem for a 2,000,0000 word serial are very different.

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It really comes down to the depth of the time the author wants to spend writing a functional harem, and what they do individually or together to keep reader interest.

 

[Wolffils]

Just found this thread.

In order to prevent character bloat and avoid anyone being left out, the ideal harem size is 4-6 at max. Also, at a minimum the members would have to be a true poly where everyone is open/attracted to each other. There can be no favorites or 'sub categories' so to speak within the harem.

 

[Albadaarmahagsret]

Как следует из названия, какой размер гаремы вы считаете своим? Какое наибольшее количество мужчин вы готовы принять?

По каким причинам вы считаете свой размер исправленным? Какие недостатки вы бы отметили по сравнению с другими вариантами?

Я хочу услышать мнение людей, так как в настоящее время я не решил, какой лимит мне следует установить для новой истории, над которой я работаю.

Поэтому мне важно получить обратную связь, чтобы принять решение.
[/ЦИТИРОВАТЬ]

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Кха гха, так и есть. Я сумасшедший. То есть, в общем-то, если бы я попал в какой-либо фандом (даже незнакомый), я бы ни при каких обстоятельствах не пытался заводить отношения (потому что даже не хочу знать, что за концептуальная чушь реинкарнация из мира, где всё Образец интермедий в художественных произведениях представляет собой вселенные, оценил поведение Наруто из фанфики «День экзамена на Чунина» как абсолютное настроение.
Важен не размер, а умение им пользоваться. Если бы каждый член семьи, мозг ребенка, мог бы находиться в нескольких отделениях одновременно, семья была бы настолько огромной, что действительно поменялось бы сердце. С этим акцентом внимание оно никогда не бывает маленьким, просто потому, что метаматериал, склеенная искренность светлых чувств из малой степени грехов, впитывает в себя каждый сантиметр окружающего пространства, движущуюся жизнью со всеми допустимыми ошибками, приводящими к таким последствиям.

Извините, переводчик Google, мне не хватает сна.