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[Eagleon]

To the argument that modelling some persecution is a bad idea because it would make gay/bi people uncomfortable, for what it's worth, that would only engross me in the game more. I'm only one person, granted, but a sense of justice and resolution has always been a very visceral aspect of RPGs and dramatic fiction in general. For most people, if they see a person kicking puppies, or babies, or whatever other object of their affection and empathy, they have a strong instinctual urge to kick the person's face in as brutally as possible, despite how antisocial and disproportionate of a response that really is.

DF's worldgen and legends desperately need more interesting conflict than land disputes and meaningless/aimless destruction, or there will never be any reason to examine it closely.

[kaijyuu]

Throw me into the "don't really care but would be a neat detail to add I suppose" camp.

[nidpants]

Homophobia isn't cool.

Thank you.

As is, I don't actually see any evidence that there are any heterosexual dwarves in DF. They live in a state of demographic transition where sexual orientation is irrelevant. Considering the massive amount of deaths and births in a given year of a standard DF2012 fortress, procreation is of utmost importance for the Mountainhome's survival and "husband/wife" status probably doesn't necessarily indicate anything more than a good friend with a shared interest in the future of the expedition. Historically, marriage has had little to do with "love" until recently, and much more to do with economics and politics, so DF's interpretation hardly seems out of step.

Maybe the feature ought to be "any good friends can sleep in the same bed," because that's currently the only manifestation of marriage that doesn't require a set of clothes when it grows up.

Seriously, orientation and sexuality isn't addressed at all in DF, and would feel out of place to me unless it was addressed more fully. Adding "S/he prefers the company of wo/men" would be a cute addition to the description, but who's to say all your dwarves aren't already gay?

Spoiler (click to show/hide)

They are.

[Monk321654]

One of the other threads on naming recently had someone pop up and talk about how this game has virtually no distinction of gender, and they like it that way.

Hey, you remembered!

Anyway, I'm not sure if I actually commented on this or not, but it would be a very depth adding addition.

[NW_Kohaku]

I would be against implementing this if it was the only trivial personality* aspect that could be discriminated agianst. If elves could go to war with a mountainhome because their leaders eyes were blue, or their earlobes were detached, and most certainly not because their military is rich and squishy, I would have no problem with them going to war with the mountain home because someone is openly gay. If my legends mode were dominated by the spears of bigotry massacring gays with no one massacring for other comparably valid concerns, I would be uncomfortable with that.

*I say trivial, in that it is a small part of what of what a dwarf(person) is. A tall blond gay armoursmith is armoursmith, as far as I'm concerned

Look at the casus belli we have now.

We have elves declaring war over the fact that someone told a lie.

Surely, telling lies, cutting down trees, killing a wild animal for food, or mere elficide for fun are trivial enough reasons for war to already satisfy this idea that we should have other trivial reasons for a war.

Further, with the Personality Rewrite coming up, the main reason for war will be "The leader of the civ was expansionist, and thought he/she could get away with it."

Speaking of ancient history, did you know most ancient nations had no such thing as tax?  At least, not for the actual citizenry, there was no direct tax, and they believed direct tax was "tyrannical".  Instead, all the money in the earlier Roman coffers came either from annexing valuable mines (into which the State sent slaves they captured from conquest to work for the State's profit) or else through conquest, tribute, and taxes payed by non-citizen subjects of conquest.  In fact, there was a "reverse tax" of sorts through the dole - the "Bread and Circuses" were state-funded means of distributing the tribute and tax the state placed on non-citizens to the citizenry. 

I'm fairly sure that conquest just for sheer profit motive with a completely trumped-up casus belli, exactly as the Romans did it, will be the primary motivator of warfare.

[catoblepas]

I would be against implementing this if it was the only trivial personality* aspect that could be discriminated agianst. If elves could go to war with a mountainhome because their leaders eyes were blue, or their earlobes were detached, and most certainly not because their military is rich and squishy, I would have no problem with them going to war with the mountain home because someone is openly gay. If my legends mode were dominated by the spears of bigotry massacring gays with no one massacring for other comparably valid concerns, I would be uncomfortable with that.

*I say trivial, in that it is a small part of what of what a dwarf(person) is. A tall blond gay armoursmith is armoursmith, as far as I'm concerned

Look at the casus belli we have now.

We have elves declaring war over the fact that someone told a lie.

Surely, telling lies, cutting down trees, killing a wild animal for food, or mere elficide for fun are trivial enough reasons for war to already satisfy this idea that we should have other trivial reasons for a war.

Further, with the Personality Rewrite coming up, the main reason for war will be "The leader of the civ was expansionist, and thought he/she could get away with it."

Speaking of ancient history, did you know most ancient nations had no such thing as tax?  At least, not for the actual citizenry, there was no direct tax, and they believed direct tax was "tyrannical".  Instead, all the money in the earlier Roman coffers came either from annexing valuable mines (into which the State sent slaves they captured from conquest to work for the State's profit) or else through conquest, tribute, and taxes payed by non-citizen subjects of conquest.  In fact, there was a "reverse tax" of sorts through the dole - the "Bread and Circuses" were state-funded means of distributing the tribute and tax the state placed on non-citizens to the citizenry. 

I'm fairly sure that conquest just for sheer profit motive with a completely trumped-up casus belli, exactly as the Romans did it, will be the primary motivator of warfare.

I think we need to examine that 'trivial' things are not usually the cause of conflict in of themselves, but rather that they are typically an excuse where the 'real' reason will be bigotry, hence my example of genocide in response to killing a cow (which has happened in real life), where the 'trivial' reason was killing the cow, but the 'real' reason was that they wanted an excuse to kill those 'barbarians' in the next village over. This doesn't mean that the 'different-ness' of the other people won't be cited as a reason for why they deserve murder/war/slaver/subjugation etc, but it is rarely in of itself the 'spark' that sets off a conflict, instead a (often contrived) justification will be used instead. For isntance, the Elves might site a Dwarven Merchant lying as justifiable cause to invade, but the underlying reasons will likely be more complicated than that (why else would they invade a kingdom to punish the actions of an individual). For a real life counterpart, Pizzaro let the Inca emperor be given a bible, and when he (predictably) was not impressed and insulted it, his 'blasphemy' was used as a justification for attacking his entorage and capturing him, but hid a hidden motive, that being greed for power and wealth. there are plenty of examples of excuses being made for such behavoior that mask underlying prejudices and other motives.

In this manner, cutting down trees, eating animals, homosexuality, etc could all be examples of things which elves find culturally alien and disgusting practices among dwarves, and wouldn't necessarily be 'trivial' reasons in their mind-as they have ample reason to dislike them within their cultural context. All they would need would be an excuse such as a dwarf cutting down a tree in their forest, or eating one of their animals or makiing advances towards their ambassador to have justification in their minds-as their previously disgusting (to them) behaviour has suddenly becoem a personal insult to the elves, etc.

Inother words, unless every civ has an ethics tag with HOMOSEXUALITY:ACCEPTABLE, I would expect the matter to be one of contention from time to time.

In other words, I would expect the history to say "The leader of the civ was expansionist, and thought he/she could get away with it. The conflict was over cultural differences B, Q, & R, and incidents X & Z were used as justification."

I think that cultural differences should contribute to a general favor/dislike relationship between civs that influences how likely they are to forgive transgressions or punish them. Large enough differences in ethics (ex UNTHINKABLE versus ACCEPTABLE) should be considered transgressions in their own right, and could lead to on and off conflict between nations.

As for the conquest for money thing, I recall hearing that Rome used the justification of 'pre-emptive attacks' to justify many of their conquests, under the reasoning that their enemies would invade them if they didn't invade first-but of course the real reason was greed coupled with a disrespect based upon cultural differences-which fits in quite well with the rest f my point.

Conflict/persecution/personalities/cultures etc all of these things are the result of a mosaic of smaller things which make up a whole. And while they may seem 'trivial' individually, they are all important in that they add up. Ethnicity, wealth, religion, sexual orientation are all items that are vital to the expression of the aformentioned mosaics, and as such, any good simulation of them should address them, which is why I think homosexuality (among the other things mentioned) should be implemented!

[NW_Kohaku]

Essentially, yes, that's the concept of casus belli.

Actually, one of the things I remember from the book "Lies My Teacher Told Me" was that there's often a sense that, for example, slavery in the Americas was instituted on black people by white people because the Europeans were already racist towards Africans, and wouldn't have done the same thing to fellow Europeans.

Part of the point of the book was that the power disparity was actually the cause of racism, itself. 

That is, because they stood to gain economically from mistreating other people who were different from themselves, but that brutality they were performing caused cognitive dissonance because it conflicted with their ethics system, racism was invented as a coping mechanism - ideas like "The people I am mistreating must deserve the mistreatment somehow because they are not worthy of being treated as a human." 

One haunting quote from the book that I am paraphrasing had a pastor saying something along the lines of, "We must think of the [black person] as something less than human.  For if we did not, then we would have to think of ourselves as something less than Christian."

That is obviously something about racial slavery, but that same mechanic is used against any form of conquered or discriminated against portion of any population in history: People are taken advantage of because they are powerless, and the people who take advantage try to justify themselves to themselves through hatred of the people they take advantage of.

The way elves are the token discriminated-against minority of Dragon Age (basically, fantasy Jews), all the different ethnic minorities (and classes of citizens, from farmers to craftsmen to soldiers to nobles) may see their fortunes rise and fall with the political power their cultures can wield, even when they are visiting different countries. (Dragon Age Origins also makes a city elf female rogue that you make dark-skinned quite humorous, as your basic special attack type is to send your discriminated-against black female character running up to and kicking in the groin every single white male hostile authority figure you can find.)

Vae Victus.

[Babylon]

From a mechanics standpoint, how is this any different than friendship? The only thing separating married dwarves from friends is that they have kids, so gay dwarves won't do anything but share a room.

I can just picture the anti-straight genocide people will go through to stop having babies and use half as much space for sleeping.

share a room, and cannot marry another dwarf.  Also I think the sad thought for losing a spouse is more serious than the one for losing a friend.

[Babylon]

It may not add any value for you. Obviously, other people think it would add value for them. It is much less 'your game' than it is 'our game', though not as much as it is 'Toady's game'.

Tell me off the top of your head how many Male and female dwarves there are in your fortress. Then tell me now tell me how many are single and married. Now tell me the names of all of those that are married. Finally tell me which dot is which dwarf by name. If you cannot answer these questions then you don't pay attention to them either.

I can tell you the locations of my stock piles, factories, my aqueduct system, traps, etc. That is because I care about those features.

From a mechanics standpoint, how is this any different than friendship? The only thing separating married dwarves from friends is that they have kids, so gay dwarves won't do anything but share a room.

I can just picture the anti-straight genocide people will go through to stop having babies and use half as much space for sleeping.

Do married couples even sleep together? I never see them even paying attention to one another. Has seemed to me the only purpose of marriage is babies.... Then again this isn't a Sims game either XD

You don't have to pay attention to every single dwarf to get something out of them having more complexity to their personalities and traits.  Maybe you follow a couple of children around the fortress like that one methhead did brilliantly, maybe you keep track of the starting 7, maybe you track your mayor or baron or whatever.  It definitely adds something if your baron is gay, for one thing that means no heir.  When you make that all male squad to avoid baby meatshields it makes a difference if some of them are married to one another.  If you are playing a community or succession fort and you name a gay dwarf after someone it opens up all sorts of new possibilities for roleplay and story telling in the thread.

[simonthedwarf]

Homosexual dwarves is something to think about when genders are more than simply 1 gender bearing children and the others not. Right now genders serve no other function, and this kind of identity has to be built upon something a bit more elaborate than the current situation if it's going to be worth adding it.

One thing that has always bothered me is that there is no wedding ceremony in Df.

You would think that dwarves that live 150 years and don't remarry would take marriage very seriously. A lot of fiction assumes the dwarven identify to be strongly tied to clan (the big family) and kin (close family). A marriage ceremony wouldnt need to be harder than allowing the dwarves to loiter about in a meeting hall zone with their friends and family.

[catoblepas]

Homosexual dwarves is something to think about when genders are more than simply 1 gender bearing children and the others not. Right now genders serve no other function, and this kind of identity has to be built upon something a bit more elaborate than the current situation if it's going to be worth adding it.

One thing that has always bothered me is that there is no wedding ceremony in Df.

You would think that dwarves that live 150 years and don't remarry would take marriage very seriously. A lot of fiction assumes the dwarven identify to be strongly tied to clan (the big family) and kin (close family). A marriage ceremony wouldnt need to be harder than allowing the dwarves to loiter about in a meeting hall zone with their friends and family.

Dwarves will actually sometimes throw parties upon getting married if there is a statue garden or something similar available. Don't think it acts any differently then a normal party though, although I assume that friends and family of both dwarves are invited instead of the friends/family of a solitary dwarf. They don't need a priest and/or governemnt official to conduct a ceremony or make everything official right now however, and there are no children out of wedlock, or affairs, etc.

It may not add any value for you. Obviously, other people think it would add value for them. It is much less 'your game' than it is 'our game', though not as much as it is 'Toady's game'.

Tell me off the top of your head how many Male and female dwarves there are in your fortress. Then tell me now tell me how many are single and married. Now tell me the names of all of those that are married. Finally tell me which dot is which dwarf by name. If you cannot answer these questions then you don't pay attention to them either.

I can tell you the locations of my stock piles, factories, my aqueduct system, traps, etc. That is because I care about those features.

From a mechanics standpoint, how is this any different than friendship? The only thing separating married dwarves from friends is that they have kids, so gay dwarves won't do anything but share a room.

I can just picture the anti-straight genocide people will go through to stop having babies and use half as much space for sleeping.

Do married couples even sleep together? I never see them even paying attention to one another. Has seemed to me the only purpose of marriage is babies.... Then again this isn't a Sims game either XD

You don't have to pay attention to every single dwarf to get something out of them having more complexity to their personalities and traits.  Maybe you follow a couple of children around the fortress like that one methhead did brilliantly, maybe you keep track of the starting 7, maybe you track your mayor or baron or whatever.  It definitely adds something if your baron is gay, for one thing that means no heir.  When you make that all male squad to avoid baby meatshields it makes a difference if some of them are married to one another.  If you are playing a community or succession fort and you name a gay dwarf after someone it opens up all sorts of new possibilities for roleplay and story telling in the thread.

Yes, I can imagine succession wars in the case of kings/queens dying without heirs, it would make politics in DF more interesting then they are now. As for Homosexual Dwarves in the military, something like the Sacred Band of Thebes would be interesting. It would require dwarves to fight harder if their loved ones are in danger though. Currently they don't have any reaction to seeing elven unicorn riders barreling down on their loved ones or friends however, which is definately something that could be expanded on. Thoughts?

[dizzyelk]

Homosexual dwarves is something to think about when genders are more than simply 1 gender bearing children and the others not. Right now genders serve no other function, and this kind of identity has to be built upon something a bit more elaborate than the current situation if it's going to be worth adding it.

One thing that has always bothered me is that there is no wedding ceremony in Df.

You would think that dwarves that live 150 years and don't remarry would take marriage very seriously. A lot of fiction assumes the dwarven identify to be strongly tied to clan (the big family) and kin (close family). A marriage ceremony wouldnt need to be harder than allowing the dwarves to loiter about in a meeting hall zone with their friends and family.

And coming of age ceremonies when children grow up. In fact, dwarven personal lives just generally need upgrading.

[bukitodinos]

ye gods... EVERYONE ABODON THREAD

[simonthedwarf]

Also: Where do we stop?

I mean if we have detailed representation bout gender/sexual identifies, how about masochistic dwarves that love pain, legendary masturbator and peeping urist the grand master observer? I would love all these things because it sounds fun to me, but it all might become too tentaclish when Urist McLeatherThong throws a tantrum because of having no chains in his bedroom.

I would think it rather natural to with homosexuality introduce inter-species marriage. Here, Urist. Marry your pet pig, involve yourself in a romance with a kobold swinger's club.

[simonthedwarf]

triple post sry