Rape . . . we must understand it exists in this real-life world with a air of maturity, but it probably wont have a place in the world of DF as hard as you may try in the same way.
I disagree with this so much, I hate the way day people take the opinion that being maturer is to not depict offensive material at all, it's PC gone over board.
Happily, we know that no one will ever accuse Dwarf Fortress as being PC gone wild.
I don't believe anyone here is actually advocating rape
I am advocating it, partially because I love playing devil's advocate
There are two reasons to play devil's advocate--the first is to expose weaknesses in the opposing side's arguments, so that the opposition can move to correct them. By arguing
for rape being made part of DF, you are helping to strengthen the arguments
against it.
And the other reason to play devil's advocate is because you actually want rape in the game.
given that we now know there will be a setting to turn off violence then there is no good reason imho for the other extreme to not include horrific things like rape
You can't have a fantasy/adventure game, or a real-time strategy game, without opponents. You can't have opponents (in these kinds of games) without combat. And because realism is a core ethos of DF, with that combat comes violence. Messy, sometimes brutal violence, because the computer doesn't (yet) make value judgements, or decide that a clean kill is more moral than an agonizingly slow dismemberment. Combat is a necessity, and the violence is simply a byproduct of that necessity. But rape? Sex would only be a realistic bonus--the game's done just fine without it, so far--and rape would
not naturally occur as its byproduct, you would have to make the
conscious decision to deliberately code it in. That, right there, is a reason NOT to include horrific things like rape . . . and what reasons do you offer as to why it SHOULD be included?
. . . use DF's awesome psychological system to depict the fallout and suffering of the victim, have them crying and shivering on the ground saying "pl. please no more."
Dude. That sounds like you're getting off on this. Maybe you should talk to a professional. Really.
. . . basically try and invoke empathy from the player whom does engage in rape.
If a player indulges in rape, it's basically too late for empathy. Personally, I could tolerate rape in the game, AS LONG AS it was
not possible for the
player to rape, ever, OR to make a fortress dwarf more likely to commit rape. I'm okay with historical rapes being documented in Legends mode. I'm okay with invaders coming in and mixing a little raping in with their burning & pillaging. I'm okay with rape being an accepted practice in goblin societies. But because of today's culture of rape apologists, willing to downplay real attacks as "twenty minutes of action" and the like, I absolutely
will not accept any attempt to portray sexual assault as something that is "okay" for the player to do, or even "allowed".
Yes, the game allows killing, which is very arguably worse than rape. We watch dwarves, even infant dwarves, die horrible deaths. We can even deliberately engineer elaborate deathtraps that consume every living being in the fort. So why do I fight against rape? Because, in the real world, no one is claiming that killing your fellow citizens is an
okay thing to do. If you are observed giggling at the sight of someone falling into a wood chipper, you get sent off for mental evaluation. And when's the last time you heard about someone trying to fill a building with magma? But rape is different; in the real world, rape is common, rape is still viewed as being "reasonable", and rape is still largely
accepted. Somebody collapsing a mountain onto a city is not a thing that can happen--it is not a threat, so it doesn't matter if we encourage it. But rape IS a thing that happens--it IS a threat, so it DOES matter. That's why rape is a special case.
True, some modders will just script themselves a rape scene in every village . . . so if that can't be prevented, maybe implementing Adventure-mode sex would have to be abandoned.
No, just no, I've always hated this type of reasoning.
Really, always? Wow . . . that's quite the compelling argument. Well, I certainly can't beat
that line of argument, I guess I'll have to concede. I take back everything I said, you've convinced me.
Part of the reason I want Toady too handle the subject officially is because as it stands Meatgod is the only depiction of rape DF has and its very easy for anyone to mod in and given that its very likely that we will get some level of sexual activity based on old DF talks and Dev goals it will only become easier to mod but if rape is not handled in any official capacity then there is never any actually recognition of the horror that is rape so I think its better to add it make it legal and simulate the trauma but not the act itself then maybe the game can invoke the same response Meatgod creator had after he'd finish where he relied what he'd done went WTF and deleted the save.
Was that a
sentence? The characters ,`.;':" aren't
just for grass, you know.
But there is a very useful element in there: implementing the psychological trauma of rape, but not the rape itself. Coding only the negative aspects sounds like an idea worth exploring . . . but then again, there are some rapists for whom the trauma IS the goal. Rape commonly isn't about sex--it's about control, or punishment, or sadism.
I'm not worried about Meatgod turning into some kind of "rape ambassador" for the game. DF will always be known as the game with the drunken, retarded psychos, and the hideous ASCII, and the flux stone, and the impenetrable menus, and the traction benches, and the terrifying carp. Not as the game in which some modder deliberately warped the game's content while it was still in alpha.
I don't think it [rape] is required but I do think its a natural extension of including both sex and a violence/horror setting and no its not necessary for grand stories but many stories have rape as plot points and that doe not lessen the story and it can add to a story of revenge quite well, help show the depths of depravity of a villain and show just how evil an evil entity (civ) is.
Like I said: Legends mode, invaders, and goblins. That's all you need.