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Author Topic: Dynamic morals: atheism, homophobia, racism...  (Read 5102 times)

Skorp

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Dynamic morals: atheism, homophobia, racism...
« on: July 14, 2014, 03:11:56 pm »

Right now a civilization morals are pretty much set in stone from the moment they exist and hate crimes are non-existent, so I suggest a way to add those things to the game.

Basically it would work with historical events, if a blonde dwarf became a bandit and slaughtered a village or a great hero/king had a grudge against a homosexual courtesan  the civilization could start to "dislike" those traits, with could lead to the affected dwarves having less friends and therefore a higher chance of becoming criminals, with would lead to more hate points to that trait, etc. Finally we have a civilization that hates a certain attribute, even if the original reason has been forgotten. This could also include things like being tall, cowardice, having a different colour of skin, being a sadist, liking nature...

These attributes can only be hated if they are the minority of the population, the point is that they are trying to blame the problem on a unusual trait, in the game dwarves could have the "Has been forced to talk to somebody annoying/dangerous lately" just by having a hated attribute and in the event of a tantrum those dwarfs will be prioritised abode other as targets for assault/vandalism and if they have a important position everybody in the fortress would have a bad thought. Of course this can be solved by forcing interaction between these dwarves, having a outcast mayor that increases the quality of life of the fortress, creating an artifact and heroic acts can lead to a retrieval of the racism or even get into the "good" traits that the dwarfs want their children to have.

For thing like atheism there could be something like a "faith" percentage, heroic acts by faithful people would lead to the percentage to stay the same or even get higher if the act was particularly impressive but the passing of time and evil acts by faithful people would lead to a progressive atheism in the population. Churches and religious sites can slow down considerably the coming of the atheism and big events like wars and megabeasts can return the percentage to normal, they want to have something bigger than themselves to feel safe.
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conductorbosh

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Re: Dynamic morals: atheism, homophobia, racism...
« Reply #1 on: July 14, 2014, 03:28:51 pm »

o boy
here we go
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CubeJackal

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Re: Dynamic morals: atheism, homophobia, racism...
« Reply #2 on: July 14, 2014, 03:32:16 pm »

I like this idea, actually. I know it'll catch a lot of flak since the game would hypothetically begin depicting hate crime against groups like homosexuals, but you can already massacre entire civilisations by punching their heads into pulp and throw children so hard into their parents that both entities literally blow apart. Hate crime is a step down, really.
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Zanzetkuken The Great

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Re: Dynamic morals: atheism, homophobia, racism...
« Reply #3 on: July 14, 2014, 03:51:13 pm »

Towards Atheism: Since gods actively do stuff to people in the game, pure atheism wouldn't work.

Maybe something along the lines of this would work better, with acts you mentioned shifting things up or down:
disenchanted (hatred towards all gods)/agnostic (searching for a new religion since the old is missing something)/don't care (religion doesn't matter)/devout (decently rooted to the religion, but will still question things)/zealot (believes everything about their religion is right and all others are wrong)
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Deepblade

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Re: Dynamic morals: atheism, homophobia, racism...
« Reply #4 on: July 14, 2014, 04:05:24 pm »

These attributes can only be hated if they are the minority of the population,

What happens when the minority becomes the majority but the people who used to be the majority still hold all the political and financial power?
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Skorp

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Re: Dynamic morals: atheism, homophobia, racism...
« Reply #5 on: July 14, 2014, 04:35:42 pm »

These attributes can only be hated if they are the minority of the population,

What happens when the minority becomes the majority but the people who used to be the majority still hold all the political and financial power?
Then the ex-minority would be no longer hated, but on the other hand the now minority that controls the civilization could start to be disliked by their traits and even sprout some revolutions, for example, a dwarven society has blond people and red haired people, the latter being in the minority.

Somebody with red hair becomes infamous and now everybody hates them but many years latter a red haired becomes the hero of a battle and has several children that have more children that are now semi-accepted.... at some point they become the majority and automatically they are no longer hated and the rulers (all of them blond, remains of the previous racism) can start to be hated if they commit bad actions, resulting in every blond dwarf being discriminated by the red haired dwarfs, even if they are not noble. The king could be automatically hated no matter what does he do if the blonds have very bad reputation.
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"I'M NOT DONE WITH THE GORY PULP THAT IS YOUR EYES! I WILL ERASE THE VAGUE IMPRESSION THAT YOU WERE EVER ABLE TO SEE AT ALL! FORGET THE VITAL ORGANS, BLINDING THE BLINDED AS I BLIND BLIND PEOPLE IS ALL THAT MATTERS!"

-Urist McMason, enraged at having found a Gecko Man in his fortress.
Urist McMason likes Gecko Man Eyes.

Dirst

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Re: Dynamic morals: atheism, homophobia, racism...
« Reply #6 on: July 14, 2014, 04:49:19 pm »

Towards Atheism: Since gods actively do stuff to people in the game, pure atheism wouldn't work.

Maybe something along the lines of this would work better, with acts you mentioned shifting things up or down:
disenchanted (hatred towards all gods)/agnostic (searching for a new religion since the old is missing something)/don't care (religion doesn't matter)/devout (decently rooted to the religion, but will still question things)/zealot (believes everything about their religion is right and all others are wrong)
Atheism in a world where gods walk the earth:
"I believe that you exist.  I just do not believe that any being is worthy of any other being's worship."
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Skorp

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Re: Dynamic morals: atheism, homophobia, racism...
« Reply #7 on: July 14, 2014, 04:52:16 pm »

I was thinking atheism more in a way of forgetting that they used to be gods, monsters, etc and only focusing on the day-to-day problems.
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"I'M NOT DONE WITH THE GORY PULP THAT IS YOUR EYES! I WILL ERASE THE VAGUE IMPRESSION THAT YOU WERE EVER ABLE TO SEE AT ALL! FORGET THE VITAL ORGANS, BLINDING THE BLINDED AS I BLIND BLIND PEOPLE IS ALL THAT MATTERS!"

-Urist McMason, enraged at having found a Gecko Man in his fortress.
Urist McMason likes Gecko Man Eyes.

Dirst

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Re: Dynamic morals: atheism, homophobia, racism...
« Reply #8 on: July 14, 2014, 04:55:30 pm »

I was thinking atheism more in a way of forgetting that they used to be gods, monsters, etc and only focusing on the day-to-day problems.
That's being irreligious.  Atheism is literally "there is no god"-ism.
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Neonivek

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Re: Dynamic morals: atheism, homophobia, racism...
« Reply #9 on: July 14, 2014, 05:02:08 pm »

I was thinking atheism more in a way of forgetting that they used to be gods, monsters, etc and only focusing on the day-to-day problems.
That's being irreligious.  Atheism is literally "there is no god"-ism.

Usually in these settings the closest analogy to atheism are characters who believe the gods are not worthy of worship or simply are not "gods" so to speak.

Whether or not they believe this is a worthy goal, something they would fight over, would depend on their personality.

It easily could be handled by the religion system. Though it tends to pop up during times of great affluence.
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samanato

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Re: Dynamic morals: atheism, homophobia, racism...
« Reply #10 on: July 14, 2014, 07:35:16 pm »

I can't really see atheism being a thing in a setting, in which gods have a direct, demonstrable and far-reaching influence upon the world.  Atheism wasn't even a thing in most pre-modern societies with an a heavily dualist concept of the world, and Earth has only one civilised race (that is, humans) and no immortal beings like elves or goblins, much less hordes of bronze-armoured undead or spoiler sites full of priceless treasure and creatures that will obliterate you from existence in seconds flat. I would imagine in this setting, religion would be even more taken for granted.  Maybe except for goblins, but even they might like a little demon-worship sometimes.
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Neonivek

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Re: Dynamic morals: atheism, homophobia, racism...
« Reply #11 on: July 14, 2014, 08:07:18 pm »

Well the larger issue samanato is that being an atheist in this setting... is a good way to get cursed or smited.
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FrankMcFuzz

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Re: Dynamic morals: atheism, homophobia, racism...
« Reply #12 on: July 14, 2014, 09:17:49 pm »

I think the racism is okay, as long as it is restricted to humans, dwarves, elves and goblins, and not "Urist McDwarf hates dark coloured dwarves for their sneaky nature" because Toady will cop a trainload of hate for that. And that's the last thing we want. Same goes for the other 'morals'.
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samanato

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Re: Dynamic morals: atheism, homophobia, racism...
« Reply #13 on: July 14, 2014, 10:36:58 pm »

The whole concept of 'racism' as we know it today would be anachronistic as applied in this time period, too.  As I understand it, people thought of themselves in terms of ethnicities and religions, not "white" or "black" or what have you.

Though I could see 'racism' as being applied across entity lines, for example dwarves against elves, maybe with some flavourful adventure mode dialogue. ("Be careful of those folk" and suchlike) This might make a town you're visiting as a different race less than cooperative, depending on how worldgen plays out, though this would diminish as you gain more reputation.
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Neonivek

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Re: Dynamic morals: atheism, homophobia, racism...
« Reply #14 on: July 14, 2014, 11:14:18 pm »

As for homophobia...

I don't want to have that issue touched in dwarf fortress.
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