Print

Please login or register.
1 Hour 1 Day 1 Week 1 Month Forever
Login with username, password and session length

Definitely, yes.

I believe he should consider it.

Maybe.

I don't think it'd be a good idea.

Definitely not.

Don't care.

[NW_Kohaku]

Not necessarily.  Animal-People shouldn't have to conform to the rules of zoology.

The problem with ignoring all zoology is that Toady is not ignoring all zoology.

The Threetoe story "Root" describes animalpeople as they are envisioned by Toady and Threetoe, and they are quite clearly a regular animal magically turned humanoid, which still contain very beastial instincts within them.  These are not just random furries or Bugs Bunny.

And I used the example of mosquitopeople for a reason: there is no current method for them to breed at all.  They do not lay eggs because the behaviors associated with that action are not yet implemented.  Toady is NOT just making them chickens. 

Antpeople are another glaring example of a species that cannot survive on-map.  11005-to-1 odds of having a (hypothetically) breeding female, and 11001-to-1 odds of having a male.  They also have no egg or child tags, so they can't breed, either, and only live 5-8 years, anyway, so combined with the astronomically low odds of getting a breeder, the only way to carry on an antperson tribe as it stood would be to have them lay eggs in batches of several thousand at a time...

The "chickenization" of several other species is, most likely, only a placeholder until better varied mating strategies are eventually implemented.  It's not meant for carnivores to never need to eat while grazers do, it's just that feeding carnivore pets/livestock is not implemented, yet. (And it's not even a good semblance of how chickens lay eggs, either, as chickens, last time I checked, didn't lay eggs only 4 times a year...)

[AceSV]

The problem with ignoring all zoology is that Toady is not ignoring all zoology.

The Threetoe story "Root" describes animalpeople as they are envisioned by Toady and Threetoe, and they are quite clearly a regular animal magically turned humanoid, which still contain very beastial instincts within them.  These are not just random furries or Bugs Bunny.

But still, if they are turned human, how much humanity have they been given?  If they gain thumbs and vocal cords, why not also gain a human's reproductive style?  Why should a wizard's touch (or forest spirit's) be any more zoological than a cartoonist's? 

Trying to get super zoological with every type of animal-person is an exercise in futility that would be lost on most players anyways and it's not fair to derail humanoid polygamy because of it. 

[GoblinCookie]

But still, if they are turned human, how much humanity have they been given?  If they gain thumbs and vocal cords, why not also gain a human's reproductive style?  Why should a wizard's touch (or forest spirit's) be any more zoological than a cartoonist's? 

Trying to get super zoological with every type of animal-person is an exercise in futility that would be lost on most players anyways and it's not fair to derail humanoid polygamy because of it.

It really is not.  All we need is to have a custom marraige setup with a number of tags.  We have the right tags and some combination of those tags can pretty much cover the mating arrangement of pretty much everything. 

[Vattic]

The problem with ignoring all zoology is that Toady is not ignoring all zoology.

But still, if they are turned human, how much humanity have they been given?  If they gain thumbs and vocal cords, why not also gain a human's reproductive style?  Why should a wizard's touch (or forest spirit's) be any more zoological than a cartoonist's?

For some animal-men, antmen especially, I think we'd be losing something important if they didn't have a more ant-like arrangement when it came to breeding. Toady already gave them worker, soldier, drone and queen castes which implies he means to make them this way.

Trying to get super zoological with every type of animal-person is an exercise in futility that would be lost on most players anyways and it's not fair to derail humanoid polygamy because of it. 

The issue here is that different animals will be iconic for different people, like ants are for me. It's like trying to remove creatures to solve the "too many animal-men" complaints. Most of the new ones come from the sponsorship drive and each of them was funded by someone. I suspect it will be those animals that are iconic for Toady and Threetoe that will end up most detailed.

[AceSV]

Okay, let's try to explain this a different way.  I do like the idea of animal people that are more animal like, and I agree that changes to reproductive strategy would reinforce the animalness and add to the gameplay, but I think it's important to admit that good narrative is more important than good zoology and a game made for humans (which arguably, DF is not) should be rooted in the human condition.  I love animals, I love the animal people, I made a mod of animal-people races and I was bummed that I couldn't make them more animal-like.  But I still say Art Major Zoology should be the law of the land. 

When building ant-men civilizations for example, the question should not be "how does a real ant queen breed?" it should be "what model of human marriage best fits ants?"  There are over twelve thousand species of ant all with different reproductive strategies and the average gamer will recognize none of them.  A totalitarian matriarchy with clone slaves on the other hand, is a human concept that human players can enjoy. 

[Mel_Vixen]

Um why does an Animal-person need to marry at all? Certainly there can be some cases were the human notion of mariage can be imported yet not every thing needs to be Humanstyled. The only problem here is one of representation to the player so s/he/i can understand the new and novel concepts.

Heck i think misunderstanding them too would be good for the the player, because it can lead to interesting narratives. The different strategies and circumstances that arise from importing the natural behaviours broadens the possibility space of the developing Story.   

Speaking of which DF doesnt try to create coherent naratives. People die left and right and one person that may have been important to you might just die randomly offscreen. No Book and no seriously story heavy book does that, even TV where it can happen for various reasons tries to circumvent such situations, DF decidedly does not. DF's world is Coherent, its narratives are not.

ArtMayorZoology is in my opinion mayor laziness. And seriously if you want to stay within the human perspective stay and work with Humans, they ARE a mayor race in DF as are Dwarfs and Elves, these we understand very well, know how and why they behave in a certain way. Even animalpeople get incorporated into human societies and cultures in the next version. There is enough Human condition, its your very startingpoint, to counterbalance the A-human conditions.

[AceSV]

I guess I don't even get why animal-people have been brought into this.  They cannot form civilizations without modding.  (I wish they could, but that's another topic)  If they join a civilization after visiting, they're stuck with whatever marriage system the existing civilization has.  There are a lot of cool animal rituals, but I'd rather keep it simple than turn Dwarf Fortress into David Attenborough Fortress. 

Marriage style tokens can be simple,

[NON_MARITAL]: Doesn't form marriages.  Partners hook up and make babies. 
[MONOGAMOUS]: As it is now
[POLYGYNOUS:NUM_PARTNERS]: One male, multiple females, limit on how many.
[POLYANDROUS:NUM_PARTNERS]: One female, multiple males, limit on how many.
[POLYAMOROUS:NUM_PARTNERS]: Multiple males and females, limit on family size. 

And an ethics token:
[PREMARITAL_POLYAMORY]: Having multiple partners before marriage. 
[EXTRAMARITAL_POLYAMORY]: Having partners other than the ones you're married to. 

[Dirst]

Whatever set of tags one proposes for generalized marriage, it's helpful to run it trough a series of scenarios to see how those could be addressed.  And maybe a scenario or two that can't be addressed with a justification why (it's icky, it'd require seven-layer-deep token trees, Toady has carved a slab stating This Shall Not Be, etc.)

Some ideas to keep in mind:

Should marriage tokens refer to castes, sexes, social ranks, marital statuses, etc.?  For example, nobles can have concubines, but concubines must be untitled at the time they "marry" the noble.  Acquiring a title would dissolve the concubine's "marriage" instantly.  For another example, perhaps the Champion is permitted to adopt anyone he/she chooses into the Champion household to enjoy the lavish furnishings and such, but this is completely independent of the Champion's marriage.

Courtship is currently only possible if marriage is plausible (although one or both partners might have commitment issues that prevent actual marriage).  Should it be up to the entity file to describe every possible form of deviant courtship (affairs, romancing a forbidden caste, etc.)?  Or should every biologically possible type of courtship automatically appear every time?  Courtship is currently also fully consensual, but that doesn't cover every possible arrangement.  Is it too icky to go into unwilling matrimony?

What is a rough sketch of the data needed to track lineage?  Will the game need to generate group IDs for families?  Is it important if another spouse is added to the family after the child is born?  Anything beyond strict monogamy and Bonobo Nation will require a notion of what the family looked like at a specific point in time.

Should marriage tags influence things like target family size?  Might it be important to have nominally identical institutions that vary only in target family size or some other parameter?  For example, suppose nobles and commoners and serfs all have "serial monogamous marriage" but they vary in target family size and the seriousness of infidelity.  Is that kind of variety worth the coding and simulation complexity?

How does an entity treat a member (presumably an immigrant) who is incapable of that civilization's legal marriage forms?  Do they get a pass (or at least reduced punishment) for an arrangement they can use?  If we go with pre-defined forms of deviant relationships, such an alien might find itself driven to "unthinkable" acts in that social context.  A simple version would be that these square pegs are doomed to perpetual bachelorhood, but this really underplays the importance of sex drive in personal motivations.  And what about a civilization with an ineligible member yet mandatory marital roles?

Do preferences for certain relationship types vary by age, professional status, social rank, etc?  Which stats, personality traits, values and ethics affect this?  The current system has a simplistic scale of marriage, lover only and hell no.  So this is beyond what's legal in that society, more to what people would do if they had the choice.  By extension, at what point does a marriage-minded person give the commitment-challenged partner an ultimatum?  Can the system allow an extramarital affair to evolve into divorce and marriage?  In more exotic combinations, at some point a concubine might insist on full spouse status or walk.

This kind of thinking will hang some "why" around proposed tags that can be debated with at least some shared understanding of the author's intent.

[GoblinCookie]

Should marriage tokens refer to castes, sexes, social ranks, marital statuses, etc.?  For example, nobles can have concubines, but concubines must be untitled at the time they "marry" the noble.  Acquiring a title would dissolve the concubine's "marriage" instantly.  For another example, perhaps the Champion is permitted to adopt anyone he/she chooses into the Champion household to enjoy the lavish furnishings and such, but this is completely independent of the Champion's marriage.

There should be two levels of 'relationships', the functional level and the legal level that exists when an entity that recognises this form of relationship as the proper form for the family uses.  It can happen in certain cases that the two levels do not actually match and one can exist without the other.  If the functional level exists without the legal we have an extralegal relationship while if the legal level exists without a functional one then the relationship is an 'empty shell' that exists only on paper. 

The example you use is a kind of extra-legal polygamy that would be very easy to hypothetically code.  We start with the basic nature of the relationship that both parties use. 

[POWER_POLYGAMY]
[NAME = "Power Polygamy".] (the name that is used when it is referred to in game)
[ROMANTIC = Yes] (This defines that the relationship is a romantic one with a romance strength bar)
[EROTIC = Yes] (This defines that the relationship involves sexual desire and has a eroticism strength bar)
[ROMANCE INSTABILITY = 5] (this defines the chance per month of the romance bar taking damage)
[EROTIC INSTABILITY = 5] (this defines the chance per month of the romance bar taking damage)
[TIME LIMIT = No] (this means that the relationship can last indefinately) 

And then we have the two parties. 

[Party 1]
[INDIVIDUAL] (No group needs to be created.)
[POSITION_HOLDER] )(Party 1 must have a position.)
[ANY_GENDER] (Party 1 may be of either gender.)
[ANY_SEXUALITY] (Party 1 may be of any sexual orientation)
[FATHER] (If male Party 1 will be the father of any resultant children)
[MOTHER] (If female Party 1 will be the mother of any result)
[ROMANTICALLY_JEALOUS: 5] (Party 1 will be upset if Party 2 forms any other relationship that is ROMANTIC at strength 5)
[EROTICALLY_JEALOUS:5] (Party 1 will be upset if Party 2 forms any other relationship that is EROTIC at strength 5)

[Party 2]
[INDIVIDUAL] (No group needs to be created.)
[NO_POSITION] )(Party 1 must not have a position.)
[ANY_GENDER] (Party 1 may be of either gender.)
[CHECK_SEXUALITY] (Party 2 must be of a compatable sexual orientation with Party 1)
[FATHER] (If male Party 2 will be the father of any resultant children)
[MOTHER] (If female Party 2 will be the mother of any result)
[RELATIONSHIP_NUMBER = 1] (Party 2 may only be in a relationship with a single Party 1)

Because no position is defined for party 2 and having a position is a requirement for being party 1, the moment that party 2 gains a position or party 1 loses his is the moment that the relationship terminates automatically, regardless of how well it was doing beforehand.  If we have an entity that uses this setup as the basis for it's legal marital arrangements then we have a situation where only those that meet the position requirements that can legally marry and divorce automatically happens the moment that the positions requirements are met. 

Courtship is currently only possible if marriage is plausible (although one or both partners might have commitment issues that prevent actual marriage).  Should it be up to the entity file to describe every possible form of deviant courtship (affairs, romancing a forbidden caste, etc.)?  Or should every biologically possible type of courtship automatically appear every time?  Courtship is currently also fully consensual, but that doesn't cover every possible arrangement.  Is it too icky to go into unwilling matrimony?

We do not have to go into it.  All we have to do is remove.
[CHECK_SEXUALITY]

From the above setup.

What is a rough sketch of the data needed to track lineage?  Will the game need to generate group IDs for families?  Is it important if another spouse is added to the family after the child is born?  Anything beyond strict monogamy and Bonobo Nation will require a notion of what the family looked like at a specific point in time.

Should marriage tags influence things like target family size?  Might it be important to have nominally identical institutions that vary only in target family size or some other parameter?  For example, suppose nobles and commoners and serfs all have "serial monogamous marriage" but they vary in target family size and the seriousness of infidelity.  Is that kind of variety worth the coding and simulation complexity?

The system only needs to create group IDs for families when instead of both parties being [INDIVIDUAL] one of them is [GROUP = Party X:Party Y].  In that quite common system of marraige among animals the group 'marries' a number of individuals or another group.  The group is defined as a marraige in themselves, one that is [EROTIC = No] and the members of the group average their personal characteristics for dealing with the other group or individual to which they are collectively in a relationship. 

Lineage is tracked using a generic system of mother and father by which an individual may have neither or may have both.  Who is defined as mother and father is not neccessery the same thing as the actual individuals whose genetics were used to make the baby.  Desired family size is best seperate as well, but being able to influence family size would be dependant upon your being recognised as [FATHER] or [MOTHER] in the system you are using. 

Infidelity is handled by having the creature (not the entity) possess other systems than the system their relationship is based upon that conflict with it and having them have inherant romantic and erotic needs that are unmet if the romantic/erotic bars for their relationships fall too low; they will then start to use a different system to meet those needs.

How does an entity treat a member (presumably an immigrant) who is incapable of that civilization's legal marriage forms?  Do they get a pass (or at least reduced punishment) for an arrangement they can use?  If we go with pre-defined forms of deviant relationships, such an alien might find itself driven to "unthinkable" acts in that social context.  A simple version would be that these square pegs are doomed to perpetual bachelorhood, but this really underplays the importance of sex drive in personal motivations.  And what about a civilization with an ineligible member yet mandatory marital roles?

Do preferences for certain relationship types vary by age, professional status, social rank, etc?  Which stats, personality traits, values and ethics affect this?  The current system has a simplistic scale of marriage, lover only and hell no.  So this is beyond what's legal in that society, more to what people would do if they had the choice.  By extension, at what point does a marriage-minded person give the commitment-challenged partner an ultimatum?  Can the system allow an extramarital affair to evolve into divorce and marriage?  In more exotic combinations, at some point a concubine might insist on full spouse status or walk.

This kind of thinking will hang some "why" around proposed tags that can be debated with at least some shared understanding of the author's intent.

Civilization will tend to treat the newcomers as square pegs, they certainly will not modify their marraige setup in order to accomadate them.  They will continue to practice the de-facto forms of their relationships and may get into trouble if there are laws against them.  If there are enough of them then the civilization may give them an exemption from the punishments due to it's core population; if they were forced to marry then we would end up with the legal 'on-paper' marraige setup that does nothing except designate the spouses legally as such.

Marraige preferences due not vary due to age or status and I cannot see why they would.  Certainly it is possible to exclude those who lack age or position from certain types of relationship arrangement thus forcing everyone else to use a less favoured arrangment and then they will immediately shift to their favoured arrangement when they can.

[Dirst]

Unfortunately this is not a live RPG where rules can change "If there are enough of them" or when it seems appropriate (such as an animal person being appointed as a Duke).  Making laws responsive to changing circumstances is the core of Liberal Crime Squad, which has pre-coded rules and a simple liberal-to-conservative scale for ideas.  It'd be great if a system could self-correct to handle an edge case (a dwarven civ that over time gets overrun by ant men), but I was talking about how to raw-code how an entity would handle a none-of-the-above situation, which I imagine would correlate with their tolerance for foreign ways of doing things.

Preferences could easily vary by age or social standing or what-have-you, basically calling out who is desperate and therefore more willing to settle (more precisely, who sees relationship X as advantageous at the moment).  "You want me to be your concubine? I'm a Legendary Cheesemaker!"  The more important mechanic is breaking up relationships that no longer work for one of the partners.

[GoblinCookie]

Unfortunately this is not a live RPG where rules can change "If there are enough of them" or when it seems appropriate (such as an animal person being appointed as a Duke).  Making laws responsive to changing circumstances is the core of Liberal Crime Squad, which has pre-coded rules and a simple liberal-to-conservative scale for ideas.  It'd be great if a system could self-correct to handle an edge case (a dwarven civ that over time gets overrun by ant men), but I was talking about how to raw-code how an entity would handle a none-of-the-above situation, which I imagine would correlate with their tolerance for foreign ways of doing things.

Preferences could easily vary by age or social standing or what-have-you, basically calling out who is desperate and therefore more willing to settle (more precisely, who sees relationship X as advantageous at the moment).  "You want me to be your concubine? I'm a Legendary Cheesemaker!"  The more important mechanic is breaking up relationships that no longer work for one of the partners.

We are better off then having a free love setup where there are no punitive rules for particular forms of sexuality.  Not only does it fit well with the present form of society but also with their apparent acceptance of homosexuality.