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[MetalSlimeHunt]

Having recently read the excellent dystopian novel The Handmaid's Tale by Margret Atwood, concerning the destruction of the United States Government and its replacement with the theocratic dictatorship known as the Republic of Gilead, I feel compelled to offer some related suggestions for LCS.

In the novel, individuals who are found committing homosexual or unmanly/unwomanly acts are considered "Gender Traitors", and are executed. I think that this kind of crazy is exactly the sort of thing that could be added to the Conservative Nightmare.

A liberal would be charged with Gender Treason under circumstances relating to whether or not Gay Rights and Women's Rights are Arch-Conservative. Would, like everything else, be punished by death under Arch-Conservative Death Penalty. The addition of this would make surviving the Nightmare all the more difficult, in addition to reducing the effectiveness of Seduction (Grimith...).

Under Arch-Conservative Women's Rights
-If a Liberal wears a dress as a male or a suit as a female. (Fixing the Liberal's gender label would offset this, as it would change how they present themselves regardless of their actual gender.)
-If a Liberal has fixed their gender label to Ambiguous and has gone out in public.

Under Arch-Conservative Gay Rights
-If a Liberal attempts to seduce an individual of the same gender and fails (or is observed succeeding by someone else), with the chance of this being reported being different for Important Conservatives (100%), Conservatives (85%), Moderates (60%), Liberals (20%), and Important Liberals (5%).
-If a Liberal is in the midst of seduction, but the Conservative Sleeper Scum were feeding information to the cops the whole time!

[EuchreJack]

I dunno, it seems to lead to all kinds of ugly.

For instance, some muslim societies forbid women from leaving the house.  Does that mean all women liberals who go out on site actions should get a criminal count, realizing that in Arch-Conservative society, all crimes are punishable by death?

Yes, this does in fact occur in some countries.  But do we want it in the game?

I dunno.  It would certainly bring light to issues that tend to be hidden.  But is it enjoyable to play with such a challenge?

[DeathsDisciple]

But is it enjoyable to play with such a challenge?

Remember: Losing is Fun.

[Grimith]

The addition of this would make surviving the Nightmare all the more difficult, in addition to reducing the effectiveness of Seduction (Grimith...).

[Do you go to my church?]

More seriously, I like the idea, but I don't know how to implement it. Cracking down on same-sex seduction attempts might be doable for me and my lack of C++ knowledge. Telling the game to focus on whether the clothes a Liberal's wearing are gender-appropriate (with a fitting punishment)? Not so much.

[MetalSlimeHunt]

For instance, some muslim societies forbid women from leaving the house.  Does that mean all women liberals who go out on site actions should get a criminal count, realizing that in Arch-Conservative society, all crimes are punishable by death?

Yes, this does in fact occur in some countries.  But do we want it in the game?

Some Muslim societies do indeed forbid that, but as the United States isn't a Muslim society that's irrelevant. Arch-Conservatism represents the most extreme far-right attitudes of American culture, and that includes support for traditional gender roles without exception. To C+, all men wear suits and court women, and all women wear dresses and are courted by men. I think that it's very fitting for the Nightmare, in light of that.

Less politically, it will make the game harder, and as I recall you are of the camp that wants LCS to be harder.

The addition of this would make surviving the Nightmare all the more difficult, in addition to reducing the effectiveness of Seduction (Grimith...).

[Do you go to my church?]

Jesus....

[EuchreJack]

Less politically, it will make the game harder, and as I recall you are of the camp that wants LCS to be harder.

Ok, you got me there.   

[Callista]

The "do your clothes match your gender" issue is difficult to implement and could be circumvented by simply switching your gender label, which would be tedious bookkeeping, not added difficulty. But switching your gender label as a mechanic represents either cross-dressing or a sex change, and either one of those would also be a crime in an arch-conservative society. That would require Disguise checks, as well as adding the necessity of keeping a "birth gender" statistic as well as a "real gender" statistic for each character. I don't see the payoff--we'd just end up with a bunch of genderqueer (not-that-there's-anything-wrong-with-that) Liberals raising their Disguise skills sky-high and swapping genders to suit the occasion. We already have that challenge in the form of appropriate disguises for various locations, and the gender restrictions in the gentleman's club.

But I do think the pick-up lines to same-sex targets would be a reasonable change. Under C and C+, make it a crime that any Conservative present would respond to with suspicion (Liberals and Moderates wouldn't care) just as they would respond to your looting. If your Liberal is the same sex, it's automatically a crime. If your Liberal is androgynous, then maybe roll on their Seduction or Disguise skill to see whether they manage the seduction without tripping anybody's "OMG gayness" alarms; if they don't make the check it's treated the same as a same-sex seduction. So androgynous Liberals would have a bigger dating pool, but would also run the risk of being detected every time they tried to seduce a Conservative or seduce anybody with a Conservative present.

It would also be a way to specifically affect the gay rights issue. Right now we don't have anything that'll do that; the gentleman's club affects women's rights, but gay rights still depends on your randomly getting it when you're doing things like the Liberal Guardian or graffiti murals or whatever.

[Jonathan S. Fox]

The "do your clothes match your gender" issue is difficult to implement and could be circumvented by simply switching your gender label, which would be tedious bookkeeping, not added difficulty. But switching your gender label as a mechanic represents either cross-dressing or a sex change, and either one of those would also be a crime in an arch-conservative society. That would require Disguise checks, as well as adding the necessity of keeping a "birth gender" statistic as well as a "real gender" statistic for each character. I don't see the payoff--we'd just end up with a bunch of genderqueer (not-that-there's-anything-wrong-with-that) Liberals raising their Disguise skills sky-high and swapping genders to suit the occasion. We already have that challenge in the form of appropriate disguises for various locations, and the gender restrictions in the gentleman's club.

The gender restrictions at the gentlemen's club already work this way.

1. You can circumvent the restrictions by changing your gender.
2. The game secretly tracks two gender variables.
3. The bouncers will refuse you entrance if they know Conservative Gender is different from Liberal Gender.
4. You can pass a disguise check to get past them despite this restriction.
5. Succeed or fail, attempting to do this trains disguise.

[Callista]

Ah, okay. Well, in that case, we already have "gender treason", don't we? The option for pickup lines to affect gay rights would be a good addition though.

[MetalSlimeHunt]

No, we don't. It would be a listed crime, like Flag Murder or Seditious Speech.

[Jonathan S. Fox]

Oh, I just meant that a lot of the implementation barrier toward having consequences for gender-related stuff has already been dealt with to enable the Gentlemen's Club bouncer to use that information. Extending it beyond that would therefore be much easier than it would at first seem; we don't need to add tracking of "birth" and "identity" concepts, since the game secretly does this already. The only reason that fact isn't advertised to the player is because, when I sat there looking at how I would present this information, I eventually concluded that as the Liberal Elite, you just don't care. For a long time there was no gender in LCS for that same reason. But the game does track this under the hood, and it could be made to spring this knowledge on the player at Conservative intervals, when the laws are unfriendly.

[SealyStar]

Oh, I just meant that a lot of the implementation barrier toward having consequences for gender-related stuff has already been dealt with to enable the Gentlemen's Club bouncer to use that information. Extending it beyond that would therefore be much easier than it would at first seem; we don't need to add tracking of "birth" and "identity" concepts, since the game secretly does this already. The only reason that fact isn't advertised to the player is because, when I sat there looking at how I would present this information, I eventually concluded that as the Liberal Elite, you just don't care. For a long time there was no gender in LCS for that same reason. But the game does track this under the hood, and it could be made to spring this knowledge on the player at Conservative intervals, when the laws are unfriendly.

I dunno, maybe at M/L/L+ Gay Rights/Women's' Rights, you could go to the hospital to get your sex changed. Maybe if someone conservative noticed a liberal's gender differed from their biology, there would be a chance of them springing on you, even if laws weren't C+.