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[EnigmaticHat]

While in-game conflict over homosexuality is acceptable... am I the only one who's a bit wierded out that people think it important enough to mention?  I mean, there have been threads suggesting racial half-breeds, specific types of magicians and magical creatures, and improvements to the way religion is handled.  All of those are things that have caused significant real life conflict, despite the fact that at least one of them doesn't even exist.  Yet there was no significant push in those threads to implement social conflict over those things.  No one in the half-breeds thread said "I don't think we should have racial half breeds because then we'd have to imitate the social conflicts that prevented blacks and whites from marrying in a certain era of US history".  And we have no racism, religions conflict, sexism, or any of that stuff, and its implied in some of the old powergoals that we eventually will have those things.  There's no reason not to assume Toady will handle all social conflicts at the same time... so why is anyone even bothering to suggest having a specific system for conflicts around sexual orientation?

Honestly, there seem to be some double standards going on here.  We have people talking about how gay dwarves would add nothing to gameplay, but I know I've seen a thread that suggested (and only suggested) that licking a frozen sword should cause your tongue to freeze to it, and that was met with a largely positive response with little mention of how it would add nothing to gameplay.  Hell, this game and this forum are positively anal about realism; the game simulates the most minor things with unprecedented realism, and people still have all sorts of complaints and suggestions about how to improve things.  Yet people think this core part of how humans think would be going too far?  And don't even get me started on the complaints that this would be too hard to deal with.  This is a community that prides itself on climbing the learning cliff.  Its also a community that considers dwarven children a drain on resources that will never reach maturity in the lifetime of the average fort, and thus never do any actual work.  Vampires that constantly murder your dwarves?  Awesome!  A 3-10% chance that a given dwarf won't produce kids that most players don't want anway?  Unacceptably bothersome.  And that's not even how homosexuality works, RL gay people can and do have kids.

I'm not necessarily saying that the reason there's been a disproportionate amount of complaint about this suggestion is because people are uncomfortable with homosexuality and it sounds less prejudiced to say gay dwarves disrupt gameplay or that they would bother people in general than it is to say gay dwarves would bother you specifically.  But... well, it seems clear to me that a lot of people are uncomfortable with homosexuality, and that there's been a disproportionate amount of complaint (and taking minor complaints very seriously) going on in this thread.  So at least some of you should consider why you're complaining about this.  If you have a legit concern about the suggestion, cool.  If you just don't want gay dwarves in the game and are playing up other concerns because you don't want to look prejudiced, that's dishonest and unhelpful.

Fakeedit: I hadn't read page 10 when I wrote this, and just realized its been the same few people arguing for the last two pages.  So be aware that this post was written about the thread as a whole, not targeted at a specific person.

[Reelya]

Why is conflict over homosexuality different than religious conflict, or racial conflict, or whatever? Why is it okay and not a statement to have goblins and dwarves, who are clearly differentiated by skin color and such, fight, but having a religious group dislike homosexuals and discriminate against them not okay and a big political statement? And didn't someone say a while back that Toady said he'd eventually include homosexuality? I'm pretty sure I remember that.

First up, we're talking 2 separate points. I myself offered a model for implementing gay/bi in detail - and working within the current framework (with minor tweaks needed from Toady). Your request for anti-gay dwarves cannot be implemented in anything like the current framework, so it's really irrelevant to my proposal. My proposal is something possible in an update or two, the full social model is probably 5-10 year away.

Anyway Toady said he'd implement homosexuality, which is exactly what my proposed model did. He did not say he'd implement groups who beat gay people to death. That's a whole other issue which in no way can be read out of Toady's comments. And that's the issue we're debating. I never said "no gays" so please stop trying to use straw man arguments against me.

With race and religion there is a difference - you inherit your race & religion - it's something common to the entire clan / tribe etc. But being gay isn't. with race or religion, we're currently talking conflict with the outside, not some bigoted reason that perfectly good individual dwarves will be ostracized or killed in the fortress.

Now, I really don't want a fortress where bigots are in control. If it was a random chance to get a race of homophobic dwarves who build a "bigot fortress", for me that would be just another reason to re-roll the world. It would be far more annoying than dwarves just being gay, which would hardly affect me.

[Bdthemag]

Yeah, we should include gay dwarfs. It's only fair after all, everyone is equal. We should also include transgendered dwarfs, just to show people how socially progressive dwarf fortress is. Therefore I suggest that we include all aspects of transgenderism such as trans-male, trans-female, trans-bi male-female,  trans female-male-human, and trans-dead people. People may argue that this adds nothing to Dwarf Fortress, but everyday people suggest supposedly "meaningful" ideas such as more detail, and ways to better manage your fortress. But are these things really as important as equality? Hopefully Toady will ignore all of these bigots, and implement these features.

[Strife26]

That's a bit more acidic than I'd put it, but I gotta agree. I mean, yeah, it'd be something that'd be interesting to have in this game from a simulation standpoint. And, all things considered, this community *does* tend to be pretty damn liberal on things (at least from my, southern board, dwellings).

However, it's not even remotely worth it. Some additional dwarf tags for "does not marry" would be more than enough for me, and honestly, I don't see why demanding any more would be remotely nice. 

[Bdthemag]

Excuse me for the sarcasm and acidity, I'm just tired of people taking their real world opinions and trying to put them into a video game. I mean hell, I'm extremely liberal but I just find people even wanting this in the game silly.

[XXSockXX]

I think dwarfs should remain spore-reproducing asexuals, at least without modding.
Violence is always a lot less controversial than sexuality. That's pretty weird but fact. Humanity is strange.
So dwarfs should not have sexual preferences for the same reason they don't have sex organs: If Toady does not want to see goblins raped to death he will probably not want to see that "DF - the game where you can kill your gays with magma" video that some idiot is going to post on youtube. And someone probably will because this is the internet after all.

[Strife26]

Someone certainly will. Honestly, the more I reread, the more I'm getting acidic too. The whole idea, at this stage, reaks more than a little of political correctness gone mad.

Whenever we get to the Civil Strife Arc, if the center piece is raw listings for

X weight to be homosexual
X weight to be open
X weight to be intolerant
X weight to be violent
Ethic:Homosexual:X
Ethic:Pansexual:X


I'm going to be more than a little disappointed at my namesake arc.

[EnigmaticHat]

The whole idea, at this stage, reaks more than a little of political correctness gone mad.

This is exactly the reason I wrote that wall of text back there.  DF has a temperature sim that's only real result is making water instafreeze and kill people, simulates every material down to whatever the hell tensile strength even means, and has a weather sim that no one even notices.  The game tracks a fort's stocks down to the last rope reed sock, and how worn out that sock is, and how cold that sock is, and how high quality it is, and who owns that sock, and I could go on.  The point is, DF simulates things for the point of simulating them, and a big portion of the playerbase either likes that, or likes the random stories that all these details can combine to produce.  Sexual orientation is just another detail to simulate.  And with the next update we're getting a personality rewrite, which makes simulating orientation more relevant to the current development than most other suggestion threads.

The point is, most of the people in favor of this suggestion didn't look at DF and say "not having gay people isn't PC" they looked at it and said either "not having gay people is unrealistic" or "I want the game to include gay people".  That's exactly the sort of thinking that motivates the majority of suggestion threads.  The only people talking about political correctness are you and Sock, and frankly I think you guys are the ones bringing your politics into this.

[Strife26]

Pardon me? You're doubting my goddamn political principles? You're a fucking idiot. My political principles, as they pertain to here, is that giving dwarves sexual orientations would, at best, be a pointless, complicating, and stupid mechanism that makes it *more* fucking difficult for a player to tell stories, and has damn little to add to the game that shouldn't be able to be abstracted by a player saying "Yep, I'm thinking that this grudge is because of Y"

Tracking stocks is a used feature. Weather and temperature are little seen mechanisms that do all sorts of gameplay and world building related things.

[Bdthemag]

and frankly I think you guys are the ones bringing your politics into this.

Now, I really don't want a fortress where bigots are in control. If it was a random chance to get a race of homophobic dwarves who build a "bigot fortress", for me that would be just another reason to re-roll the world. It would be far more annoying than dwarves just being gay, which would hardly affect me.

Love is Love man

I don't really think "it would alienate backward-thinking bigots" is a good reason to not include something in the game.

I'm really curious: Why is implementing sexual orientation without homophobia a "politically correct gimmick", but implementing different skin tones without racism isn't?

At any rate, it's insulting to say that sexual orientation is a choice, but also unproductive to say that it's determined by nothing but genetics, or at/before birth. Human sexuality is an incredibly complicated thing, and to try to reduce it to anything simple like that is misguided.

It's a real life issue, and some people are putting their political beliefs and principles in front of whether or not it'd actually be beneficial to gameplay.

[EnigmaticHat]

You're doubting my goddamn political principles?

Your political principles aren't what my post was about.  The point I made was, you were arguing against those who want gay people in the game because of political correctness, but no one is talking about political correctness except you.  You're arguing with strawmen; the people who want gay dwarves in the game don't care if its PC, either way.  The part at the end where I said you were bringing your politics into it was A. not the main content of my post but also B. based generally on this post:

Someone certainly will. Honestly, the more I reread, the more I'm getting acidic too. The whole idea, at this stage, reaks more than a little of political correctness gone mad.

Whenever we get to the Civil Strife Arc, if the center piece is raw listings for

X weight to be homosexual
X weight to be open
X weight to be intolerant
X weight to be violent
Ethic:Homosexual:X
Ethic:Pansexual:X


I'm going to be more than a little disappointed at my namesake arc.

You have, thus far, not separated homosexuality the state of being and homosexuality the political issue.  Look at your post.  Exactly one line of it (the first that starts with X) was actually about what was suggested.  The rest is totally immaterial to the issue of whether dwarves should have orientations.  Instead, its about sexual ethics and social conflict, aka politics.

Pardon me? You're doubting my goddamn political principles? You're a fucking idiot. My political principles, as they pertain to here, is that giving dwarves sexual orientations would, at best, be a pointless, complicating, and stupid mechanism that makes it *more* fucking difficult for a player to tell stories, and has damn little to add to the game that shouldn't be able to be abstracted by a player saying "Yep, I'm thinking that this grudge is because of Y"

Tracking stocks is a used feature. Weather and temperature are little seen mechanisms that do all sorts of gameplay and world building related things.

Now, this post (I'll ignore the personal attack, as I've been confrontational myself) is actually discussing the suggestion.  But still, you're blowing the cost of implementing this out of proportion.  There are already a bunch of scaling personality traits that have minor effects on gameplay such as speed to anger and friendliness.  That means that there's already systems in place that would support this; it could simply be two more scaling stats: "is attracted to men" and "is attracted to women", and a minor effect on gameplay (a value above, say 35% in either would allow marriage with that gender, with the percents weighted towards a plausible demographic makeup).  It can and should be more in-depth then that, but you have no reason to assume that it would be.  My point in mentioning temperature and weather is that, for the purposes of DF, a realistic sim is a goal unto itself.  That's why we bother with the tensile strength of copper instead of simple defense/offense effectiveness values.  Since homosexuality is realistic, the suggestion that it be implemented is in line with one of DF's core traits, and thus its annoying to see you dismiss it as a grab at political correctness.

-snip-

Bdthemag, while its nice that you used quotes for your argument, its also not nice that you quoted the same person three separate times in an effort to make a certain trend seem prevalent.  Its also a bit weird that you're saying the quoted people are bringing their politics into it, when almost all of those quotes are a call for implementing homosexuality without the political climate that surrounds it.  If DF simulated the political conflict of its technological era than it certainly would be political to not what homophobic dwarves, but we all know dwarves are anachronistically egalitarian, nobility aside.  And I don't even want to know why you think the love is love post was political, or why you felt the need to rip those three words out of their relatively short context.

[GoombaGeek]

Oh man dude, this is really getting somewhere now. Strawmen! Politics! Aaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaah

Seriously, though, I like the spore reproduction because it's just not intrusive. Babby is formed and the dwarves don't even care. It's great.

[pisskop]

The only people talking about political correctness are you and Sock, and frankly I think you guys are the ones bringing your politics into this.

I am.  I've mentioned it twice here, although that's really Toady bag, ultimately.

Except it really oughtn't be controversial in the first place. It's not Toady's fault if homophobic attitudes still exist in society.

It shouldn't be, I agree.  It should be a personal thing.  As a personal matter, it  shouldn't be flaunted for the sake of flaunting it.  Which is what I think it would be if it was added now.  We don't have proper heterosexuals, how can we have homosexuals?

Those are games where you control individual characters directly. That is not the case here. For that matter, in The Sims, sims have autonomy anyway (especially neighbors you aren't immediately controlling), and can and will do things like that without your instigation.

Spoiler (click to show/hide)

I've never seen the sims engage in homosexual activities without my input.  If I created the relationship, or if I put out aphrodesiacs.  Then again, I haven't played the new ones.

How about games where it is added and you control a large group?  I strugle to think of any, save one: Crusader Kings.  In that game, being homosexual makes you half as likely to have children.  It doesn't stop their marriage, and I've never had one in my line, even after marrying one.  I've had several wed into a courtier position, and they've usually been quite well bred (and capable to serve on the cousole or as a tutor).  That's the extent of it.  No piety reduction, no positive effects, no nothing but the lose of fertility.  I think I got an event to hook my gay queen up with a courtier, but I can't be positive she was gay. . .  Completely minimal.

I'm against it at this point: it adds nothing but creates controversy.  Adding it now would also mean it was put in wrong.  Wrong as in not realistic (or practical).  Somebody mentioned licking swords and cracking knuckles, and how that adds nothing.  I've never seen a thread on those get locked. 
  We can't seperate homosexuality from the political, because at the end of the day, that's part of homosexuality.  Sure you can, in the game.  You'd have dwarves just chumming around.  that's it.  If you took out the taboo on alot of things itheyd qualitf yto put in the game.  But it'd still piss somebody off, out here.  Pedastry was mentioned. . . alot of people didn't like that. 
   Out here in the real world it is political.  But I've said this before.

[XXSockXX]

The only people talking about political correctness are you and Sock, and frankly I think you guys are the ones bringing your politics into this.

I don't think you understood what I meant to say. I think adding sexual orientation would give some filter to kill dwarfs by to some players and that bothers me.
DF has the potential to do some cruel and violent things already, but player-induced gay killings is where I would draw a line.
I worry about headlines like "DF added homosexuality and this is what people did with it". Because I'm certain there will be people who will make "LOL this migrant is gay, down into magma with him!" posts and that will shape the public image of DF far worse than atomsmashing children.

[10ebbor10]

It shouldn't be, I agree.  It should be a personal thing.  As a personal matter, it  shouldn't be flaunted for the sake of flaunting it.  Which is what I think it would be if it was added now.  We don't have proper heterosexuals, how can we have homosexuals?

Suggestions like this shouldn't be put in just because we can, but as part from an interdwarf relation framework. It's much funnier/enjoyable when any behaviour occurs procedurally, rather than having X% of your dwarves being labeled A, and Y% labeled B, with, face it, minimal effects on gameplay*.

*This isn't an argument on itself, but it indicates that implementing an entire system capable of resulting in gay/heterosexual/whatever dwarves is a much better thing.