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[lordcooper]

Just make all the dwarves homosexual.

...This is a joke, right?
A 100% homosexual race or culture would die out in a generation.

You're forgetting that dwarves reproduce via spores.  In the absence of sex being a necessity for reproduction (or even a thing that exists) it really doesn't matter who the ickle ones fancy.

[GreatWyrmGold]

...unless they're hermaphrodites.

...in which case the labels of hetero- or homosexual can't really apply.

One thing I don't like about the "making it a social statement" thing, is that then you have to drag every social issue into the game, and for me at least it will cease to be fun, and become nothing but a lecture on political correctness.

Seriously, we have books and movies to give you a social statement. I don't want every time I open dwarf fortress to get a constant lecture on gay rights. I think even gay rights activists don't want the "message" infused into literally every form of media they ever consume.

And of course, it would be discriminatory to not include cross-dressing dwarves, and the social conflict that causes as part of the narrative of every single fortress, and about 100 other social elements where there is conflict.

Agreed.
That being said, dwarves/elves/whatever might organize their own lectures on gay rights, to be heard only by other dwarves/elves/whatever, before getting caught and punished/lynched/cleansed by some group against homosexuality, like a goddess of children*.
No "social statement" needed on Toady's part, only the dwarves'. By dwarves, for dwarves.
Point hammered in enough?

Do you really want to play a game where your dwarves beat each other up for being gay? I do not. And I think most gays would not.

Dwarves already beat each other up for much stupider reasons.

I hope you get where I'm coming from with that, it's like yeah, a movie or a book, you get the message once, but a game like DF which you play over and over, you really don't need that occurring every single time.

It's not a message, it's not constant. If there are homosexuals and a group that hates homosexuality, and they both exist in your fortress, they'll come to blows. Similar things could happen in worldgen.
Is having social tensions based on what race you are, or having goblins and kobolds always at war with elves, humans, dwarves, and each other a statement about racism? No, of course not, it's an expression of social tensions and cultural differences within the world.
Is having religious wars a statement about religion? No, of course not! Well, definitely not if they're fictional religions.
My point is, conflict =/= author making a statement about something. There's conflict IRL over homosexuality, why not IDF?

Considerign he stated in the recent Future of the Fortress that dwarven Society will remain un-abashadly equal, I doubr there will be much difficulty. Especially since he said tha tthe dwarves as a whole will be more culturally continguous then other races.
 
If there's conflict, it will be in the same vein as a regular male-female romantic conflict. So like Romeo and Juliet, but with 2 Romeos.

Alternatively, dwarven society may be about as equal as the modern world: Equal in the eyes of the law, but that doesn't stop individuals or groups from coming into conflict over stupid things. Suggesting otherwise suggests that dwarves achieved perfect social equality, something I doubt in a culture ruled by kings and other oligarchic nobles chosen with no real meritocical basis behind the appointment, surrounded by peoples with differences that make African- and European-Americans look like siblings, and full of stupidity and insanity that affect the settlement and individual on a daily basis.

Just make all the dwarves homosexual.

...This is a joke, right?
A 100% homosexual race or culture would die out in a generation.

You're forgetting that dwarves reproduce via spores.  In the absence of sex being a necessity for reproduction (or even a thing that exists) it really doesn't matter who the ickle ones fancy.

You're joking. Statement, not question.

*Children was the first sphere I could think of with a legitimate reason to oppose homosexuality. More gays, less children you know.

[misko27]

But Refering to that particular issue of gender and the like, it will be the same. I think most conflict will be competition and jockeyign for power. Unions, rebellions, religions, all tha FUN stuff. But he seems to want to keep that sort of easily politicizable thing out. Pride marches cetainly weren't very common in the 14th century Europe, which is the limit technologically, and one could say in other aspects.

[GreatWyrmGold]

But Refering to that particular issue of gender and the like, it will be the same. I think most conflict will be competition and jockeyign for power. Unions, rebellions, religions, all tha FUN stuff. But he seems to want to keep that sort of easily politicizable thing out. Pride marches cetainly weren't very common in the 14th century Europe, which is the limit technologically, and one could say in other aspects.

I'm not saying that there should be a modern-esque gay movement, but if we're going with the "RL 14th-century Europe" angle, homosexuals wouldn't likely be tolerated...

[Reelya]

...unless they're hermaphrodites.

...in which case the labels of hetero- or homosexual can't really apply.

One thing I don't like about the "making it a social statement" thing, is that then you have to drag every social issue into the game, and for me at least it will cease to be fun, and become nothing but a lecture on political correctness.

Seriously, we have books and movies to give you a social statement. I don't want every time I open dwarf fortress to get a constant lecture on gay rights. I think even gay rights activists don't want the "message" infused into literally every form of media they ever consume.

And of course, it would be discriminatory to not include cross-dressing dwarves, and the social conflict that causes as part of the narrative of every single fortress, and about 100 other social elements where there is conflict.

Agreed.
That being said, dwarves/elves/whatever might organize their own lectures on gay rights, to be heard only by other dwarves/elves/whatever, before getting caught and punished/lynched/cleansed by some group against homosexuality, like a goddess of children*.
No "social statement" needed on Toady's part, only the dwarves'. By dwarves, for dwarves.
Point hammered in enough?

No, because the point is bullshit. e.g. if Toady programmed the game to specifically ensure certain situations regularly occur, it's completely disingenious to say "the game did it". If you explicitly code "roll a die, on a roll of 5 or 6, the dwarves in your civ are homophobes and have pogroms" then the very fact that you coded that option, and the way you coded it, is the statement.

Optionally, saying that they game doesn't take any particular ethical stance either way, but is programmed to pretty much ensure it's a regular occurrence, just makes it sound worse.

The point is that every time you play you'd be subject to dwarves etc beating up gay dwarves. Not fun. I don't want gay-bashing occurring every time I load up the game.

[Reelya]

But Refering to that particular issue of gender and the like, it will be the same. I think most conflict will be competition and jockeyign for power. Unions, rebellions, religions, all tha FUN stuff. But he seems to want to keep that sort of easily politicizable thing out. Pride marches cetainly weren't very common in the 14th century Europe, which is the limit technologically, and one could say in other aspects.

I'm not saying that there should be a modern-esque gay movement, but if we're going with the "RL 14th-century Europe" angle, homosexuals wouldn't likely be tolerated...

Yeah, but it's the opposite of "fun". And this is a GAME. A form of enjoyment, not a simulation of dwarves going to the toilet etc.

Why don't we also simulate 90% infant mortality while we're at it? And turn all females into constant breeding machines to compensate. That would be a much more realistic simulation of the 14th century than what we have now.

EDIT: I'll just mention that there have been other threads about this topic, and they all got deleted when people started to argue about whether anti-gay pogroms should be included in the game for "realism". I'm pretty sure that's a message from someone.

[misko27]

But Refering to that particular issue of gender and the like, it will be the same. I think most conflict will be competition and jockeyign for power. Unions, rebellions, religions, all tha FUN stuff. But he seems to want to keep that sort of easily politicizable thing out. Pride marches cetainly weren't very common in the 14th century Europe, which is the limit technologically, and one could say in other aspects.

I'm not saying that there should be a modern-esque gay movement, but if we're going with the "RL 14th-century Europe" angle, homosexuals wouldn't likely be tolerated...

Yeah, but it's the opposite of "fun". And this is a GAME. A form of enjoyment, not a simulation of dwarves going to the toilet etc.

Why don't we also simulate 90% infant mortality while we're at it? And turn all females into constant breeding machines to compensate. That would be a much more realistic simulation of the 14th century than what we have now.

I think constant breeding machines and high infant mortality are already parts of the Game. One enforced by ridiculuously low pregnancy requirements, the other by Players.

[Reelya]

I'm going to end my involvement in this discussion with the observation that anyone promoting this game development really needs to split it into the two elements of sexual orientation, and social effects. That's my observation based on the fact that Toady has deleted previous threads about this very suggestion, when they started to go in the direction this one is going.

[GreatWyrmGold]

...unless they're hermaphrodites.

...in which case the labels of hetero- or homosexual can't really apply.

One thing I don't like about the "making it a social statement" thing, is that then you have to drag every social issue into the game, and for me at least it will cease to be fun, and become nothing but a lecture on political correctness.

Seriously, we have books and movies to give you a social statement. I don't want every time I open dwarf fortress to get a constant lecture on gay rights. I think even gay rights activists don't want the "message" infused into literally every form of media they ever consume.

And of course, it would be discriminatory to not include cross-dressing dwarves, and the social conflict that causes as part of the narrative of every single fortress, and about 100 other social elements where there is conflict.

Agreed.
That being said, dwarves/elves/whatever might organize their own lectures on gay rights, to be heard only by other dwarves/elves/whatever, before getting caught and punished/lynched/cleansed by some group against homosexuality, like a goddess of children*.
No "social statement" needed on Toady's part, only the dwarves'. By dwarves, for dwarves.
Point hammered in enough?

No, because the point is bullshit. e.g. if Toady programmed the game to specifically ensure certain situations regularly occur, it's completely disingenious to say "the game did it". If you explicitly code "roll a die, on a roll of 5 or 6, the dwarves in your civ are homophobes and have pogroms" then the very fact that you coded that option, and the way you coded it, is the statement.
Optionally, saying that they game doesn't take any particular ethical stance either way, but is programmed to pretty much ensure it's a regular occurrence, just makes it sound worse.
The point is that every time you play you'd be subject to dwarves etc beating up gay dwarves. Not fun. I don't want gay-bashing occurring every time I load up the game.

1. What part of the post I made suggested that it would happen EVERY time? Besides, acting like no one should care about gayness is a lot more of a statement than just basing the game on reality. What I suggest is just saying "it happened on Earth, anyone denying that is misinformed, there's nothing special here."

But Refering to that particular issue of gender and the like, it will be the same. I think most conflict will be competition and jockeyign for power. Unions, rebellions, religions, all tha FUN stuff. But he seems to want to keep that sort of easily politicizable thing out. Pride marches cetainly weren't very common in the 14th century Europe, which is the limit technologically, and one could say in other aspects.

I'm not saying that there should be a modern-esque gay movement, but if we're going with the "RL 14th-century Europe" angle, homosexuals wouldn't likely be tolerated...

Yeah, but it's the opposite of "fun". And this is a GAME. A form of enjoyment, not a simulation of dwarves going to the toilet etc.

Why don't we also simulate 90% infant mortality while we're at it? And turn all females into constant breeding machines to compensate. That would be a much more realistic simulation of the 14th century than what we have now.

Which is why I didn't bring it up until it was brought up.

EDIT: I'll just mention that there have been other threads about this topic, and they all got deleted when people started to argue about whether anti-gay pogroms should be included in the game for "realism". I'm pretty sure that's a message from someone.

As is s standard practice, I'll drop it if you do.

[Reelya]

"I'll drop it if you do" - what arrogance. Since all I did was outline my proposal - and you've done nothing but bitch and complain about something that CAN be implemented without totally squicking Toady out and introducing elements that clearly make quite a large chunk of the player-base uncomfortable.

And you haven't offered any working model which is a viable alternative. I can actually show how mine works.

If you say "I don't care that it makes others uncomfortable I want it in the game!"- then mod it into your own game, or propose a modding framework which allows it, don't demand every copy of the game ship with your personal wishlist of features as the default. Toady clearly doesn't like adult elements in the game, demanding them and that every other player be forced to deal with it - well that just isn't going to happen in a million years, so get a realistic obsession.

[G-Flex]

Do you really want to play a game where your dwarves beat each other up for being gay? I do not. And I think most gays would not.

I hope you get where I'm coming from with that, it's like yeah, a movie or a book, you get the message once, but a game like DF which you play over and over, you really don't need that occurring every single time.

Civilizations in DF go to war for all kinds of reasons, often very repetitively. What you're saying could be applied to basically every single source of conflict in the game, in the present or the future.

[Reelya]

Not really, because Toady has been very clear that he wants to keep things "clean". Any thread on the forum that remotely strays into areas Toady find uncomfortable, gets shut down pretty quick (rape, underage sex, gay bashing).

I can't see him putting stuff he won't allow in the forums into the game he's making. We've had this thread before, several times (they all got locked if not outright deleted), and the ideas proposed are still not in the list of anticipated features. Regardless of the pro's and con's, arguing for something that will never ever get implemented is a bit of a waste of time.

That's why I'm arguing for the modding possibilities to be expanded.

[G-Flex]

He's specifically stated that he could add homosexuality into DF without it being a foreseeable problem. What exactly are you saying will "never ever get implemented"?

[Reelya]

Well fuck me for trying to offer a model that could actually get implemented. Next time I won't even bother if it's going to be a shitfight every time. I don't see the whiners offering up a comprehensive thought-out system.

[lordcooper]

I prescribe an intensive course of cute kitten videos, lasting for a minimum of 15 minutes.  Repeat as necessary.