The Bro: Brainstorm

To brainstorm regarding the “Bro Character” situation, I feel certain things need to be considered and decided first.

First off, does our Main Character live in a two-person or single dorm room? If it is a two-person dorm room, this could be used to 'shatter' his hope of just staying alone in the room for the majority of the school year. That might be an interesting, albeit abrupt way of kicking in the door to socializing.

How should the BC affect the storylines? I would think it would be best that he would not affect them any way, but would still, say, give the MC advice in that said storyline – that would not necessarily affect any arc. How would it affect the MC himself, in the long run? Would it be a blossoming, supportive bromance, between two individuals helping them through the rough times? Or would it be a simple supporting character to add light humour?

Edit: I should also add I have written up an idea for a bro character, but the individual is by no means a 'lulz' character like Kenji in Katawa Shoujo. It's a deeper and more supportive, poetic character - but can still be a sidelines supporter, no?

I like the idea of a shared dorm room, it would be fun to see our anti-social MC forced into that position daily.

Second yes I have also had the same idea of how the BC interacts with each story. He would probably give his advice, sometimes good
sometimes not so great. We've all been in that situation where we have a friend trying to give us relationship advice, so it makes their forced friendship
feel more realistic with whats going on around them.

I feel like if we go with the blossoming bromance then we would have to make that its own path. For two reasons

1. If the bromance has the possibility of taking place in any of the girls paths we would probably want to write
two different stories based on how the MC and Bro character get along (one they are best friends, the other not at all).
Otherwise if the bro friendship is forced on the reader it feels well forced, like no matter how he was treated it didn't matter.

2. More importantly though, if the bromance is added to the girl's paths then it would tend to take focus away from
the real topic that is the MC's relationship with the girl of his choice.

I feel like should MC go down one girl's path, the Bro character plays this supportive advice roll, the relationship becoming better / worse based
on that 3 person group (We've probably been in a relationship a friend didn't agree with). So my vote goes to give the Bro character his own personal
path where you really get to explore what it means to be a best friend with someone.

Agreed. Absolutely agreed.
Of course the first bio or character I wrote up was a bro-character, so it's understandable that I would be pushing for this. A friendly supporting character was exactly what I had in mind.

I think that the bro character should take an active role in the routes, adding both depth and realism, in a way. Lives aren't isolated once someone enters a relationship, after all. Not necessarily do enough to influence the ultimate outcome of the routes, but more so than just giving advice. Sometimes, your friends help you go the extra mile, or something.