u/Regular-Molasses9293

I see this problem a lot in fangans where the protagonist barely feels like an actual character and instead just exists to observe the “more interesting” cast members, and by more interesting I really mean the author’s favorites.

Your protagonist should have opinions, flaws, insecurities, emotional reactions, and moments where they’re WRONG. They shouldn’t just stand there narrating events while perfectly solving every case and emotionally supporting everyone else like some kind of therapy robot.

And for the love of GOD, stop turning the protagonist into the author’s personal thirst narrator every time a female character appears. If a character walks into a room wearing a bikini, I do NOT need an entire paragraph describing her body in microscopic detail unless that level of attention actually says something about the protagonist as a character. You can genuinely just say “She was wearing a white bikini” AND NOBODY WILL CARE.

Oh yeah, and a bit unrelated, please stop making half the cast immediately start simping the moment a girl exists. Attraction is one thing, but sometimes it feels less like characters reacting naturally and more like the author pausing the story to remind me who they think is hot. THEY ARE USUALLY TEENAGERS!

At that point, the protagonist stops feeling like a believable character and starts feeling like a camera being controlled directly by the writer.

The protagonist also cannot control the story just because they’re the POV character. Other characters should argue with them, distrust them, draw blades in Rebuttal Showdowns, or even outperform them sometimes. A protagonist who’s always correct and universally respected stops feeling human really fast.

If your protagonist can be replaced with a floating camera or Makoto Naegi and almost nothing changes, there’s probably a problem.

This main character is named Hiroto Arai, and he’s the Ultimate ???. The mascot refuses to tell him what his ultimate is, and he cannot remember most things about himself other than his name.

He’s a very pale guy with messy brown hair with green eyes, and wears black sweatpants, a white shirt with a red tie, and black sneakers.

He’s overall a guy who isn’t very social and gets easily embarrassed, and as a result of his amnesia he’s also very insecure when it comes to his identity. He basically just compares himself, questions his place in the killing game, and really gets affected by what others think about him.

He is very respectful of his classmates and does get along with some members of the cast so far, but I wouldn’t say he’s friends with everyone yet.

Anyways, I wouldn’t mind some feedback on him, please and thanks.

To get to the point, the thing that kinda bugs me in some fangans is how fast people convict the culprit with barely any actual evidence. Sometimes the “proof” is just one person saying they saw them do something suspicious, or a single piece of evidence at the crime scene, and then suddenly everyone acts like they know exactly who the killer is and the trial is basically over before it could really take off.

What makes Danganronpa trials fun is when the culprit gets cornered through multiple pieces of evidence that specifically point to THEM, not just “well technically you could’ve done it, so you’re probably guilty.”
Especially when the contradiction is something literally anyone could’ve messed up or lied about under stress. Realistically, that shouldn’t immediately equal “you’re the killer.”

Person A could’ve easily lied about Person B bringing the crowbar to the gym. A letter written in someone’s style could absolutely be forged. Red herrings and coincidences are also a thing, especially when there’s barely any evidence to work with in the first place.

Not to mention, out of a minimum of at least sixteen students, not all of them are going to immediately agree. Some of them will argue with the accuser, some will actively defend the accused, some will question whether the logic even holds up. The protagonist cannot control the trial no matter how smart, charismatic or identical to the writer they are. There will always be at least some pushback, debate, and challenge. It’s a class trial, not a “Protagonist and friends” trial.

I get that trials need momentum, but sometimes it feels less like solving a mystery and more like the author already decided they wanted their least favorite character dead and worked backwards from there.

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So I'm writing a killing game right now, the Prologue's done and I might send it once I complete chapter 1, but I want to figure out something for this chapter ahead of time.

So, the idea is that the first murder in Chapter 3 feels genuinely impossible to solve, and while the second murder wouldn't actually find the blackened, that murder would be how the first one eventually gets solved. How can I create a scenario where the first murder is that difficult, while the second murder is only reasonably difficult to figure out?

Yes, this is like v3's third chapter, but I don't want the second murder to be insanely obvious like that game. If you've done something like this I'd appreciate the help.

Important characters in this story:

George: Party member who got robbed

Vegeta: Ranger

Chair: Barbarian

John NPC: NPC I tried to kill

CIA: Central Intelligence Agency

So just for context, my party’s traveling in a giant caravan and everyone’s in their own wagons with various NPCs, except me and Vegeta because we’re in the same one. Anyways, one night George had his gem stolen and Vegeta saw John NPC running away from that wagon, gem in hand.

The next morning, he decided to tell me what happened, and the way he said this was “Yo I saw John NPC take George’s gem, wanna take care of him?” And I was like sure, keep in mind the way he said that made me think we were going to kill John.

He later tells Chair and the two of them camp out together the next night while I decide to wait right in front of John and George’s wagon, and John walks out gem in hand as I use the Sleep spell on him and drag him to my party members at the camp.

I show off John’s sleeping body, and both of them are surprised because apparently the plan was to follow John to the guy who was going to buy the gem, who was two wagons away from us. I offer to just drown him in the river which made my DM start laughing out loud and both of them were like “NO WE ARE NOT KILLING HIM!!!”

Eventually we go to get the gem back which was relatively easy cuz the buyer genuinely could not give a shit about the gem, and then I dragged back John’s body back to his wagon.

I also decided that I should still do something anyway, so first I took all the gold he had on his body(about 150), then I found his diary and ripped out a page that was slandering George and stuck it on his hand, then putting the gem he stole on his other hand. Because of this he ended up getting beat up by maybe 10 guys the next morning including George, Chair and Vegeta.

The Central Intelligence Agency has nothing to do with this story, but they probably would have been contacted had I actually killed John.

TLDR: Almost killed a robber because i misunderstood the ranger and I later robbed him of all his gold and aura while he was unconcious.