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[Shonai_Dweller]

I would argue that prejudice, discrimination are not random and while the cause can be frivilous superstitions or other irrational reasons, they can also be very real and well founded fears and apprehensions regarding certain behaviour

It's a good thing we're talking about dwarf fortress then, where almost nothing is intended to be random. People often mistake procedural generation for "random". If there were prejudices in DF worlds they would be based on specific events or fears or superstitions or occurances during the creation of the world that civs would have. Which would differ from world to world and be interesting.

Prejudice can be interesting. The Wheel of Time is basically all about gender discrimination and that's a great story (personal, opinion, don't need telling that it's actually a crap story, thanks.).

[Rataldo]

If we present the gamer with the binary of the boot stomping on the human face, the gamer's instinct when faced with this is to figure out how to be the boot.  With passive media the viewer can empathise with the victim, the gamer on the other hand sees the boot as the winner and the face as the loser, getting to work figuring out how he can become the winner and it with the winner that he therefore empathises.

[Citation Needed]

I think most gamers would prefer to stab the boot. I mean, you're basically saying most players prefer the easiest difficulty mode.

Not to mention there's plenty of studies about people rooting for the underdog.

This article links to several studies on the subject. Some people will spontaneously switch allegiance if they see something as going unfairly in their own team's favor.
https://www.vox.com/2015/3/20/8260445/underdogs-psychology

[GoblinCookie]

Did you ignore my argument? I would find it enjoyable to play in a bigoted world.

And (at least) I would find it also enjoyable to change the world for better or for worse, even if it takes many years. And I would find those stories interesting. I'm pretty sure that at least half of the DF fandom would.

Oh, and: I would not want to actually live in an oppressive world. Looks like you misunderstood my argument.

I did ignore you, because people were getting quite worried about us having another repetitive mindless argument resulting in threads getting locked. 

There really isn't much difference between playing a bigoted world and actually living in one as far as the mechanics work.  You can't change the world in either case, because you are only one person.

[KittyTac]

Did you ignore my argument? I would find it enjoyable to play in a bigoted world.

And (at least) I would find it also enjoyable to change the world for better or for worse, even if it takes many years. And I would find those stories interesting. I'm pretty sure that at least half of the DF fandom would.

Oh, and: I would not want to actually live in an oppressive world. Looks like you misunderstood my argument.

I did ignore you, because people were getting quite worried about us having another repetitive mindless argument resulting in threads getting locked. 

There really isn't much difference between playing a bigoted world

And what? Sounds like an attempt to back out of an argument you certainly cannot win. Especially since you weren't really stopped by such things earlier.

What matters is that many players (including me) want to play in a bigoted world, either as the oppressors or the oppressed. It's certainly enough to justify adding bigotry at some point in the development cycle. We have enough time.

You can't change the world in either case, because you are only one person.

You could change it over multiple people, or as a fortress. Worlds are meant to be played over decades or centuries, you know. Enough of time to change bigotry, especially if you're playing a fortress.

[GoblinCookie]

And what? Sounds like an attempt to back out of an argument you certainly cannot win.

What matters is that many players (including me) want to play in a bigoted world, either as the oppressors or the oppressed. It's certainly enough to justify adding bigotry at some point in the development cycle. We have enough time.

There I actually posted accidentally an incomplete post and then had to move quickly to finish my reply to you.

You could change it over multiple people, or as a fortress. Worlds are meant to be played over decades or centuries, you know.  There are two sets of losers in this case, those who lose for an ideal and those who lead their unjust society into dire straits because they are foolish. 

We can't, because that is not how these things realistically work.  For the most part people change an unjust society because they lose, not because they win.  There are no people who change society by winning, there are people who sacrifice their 'winning' in order to uphold their ideals and there are those who are stupid enough to lead their unjust society off the cliff; change happens because two opposing sets of people lose, one by choice and the other by folly.

[Citation Needed]

I think most gamers would prefer to stab the boot. I mean, you're basically saying most players prefer the easiest difficulty mode.

No citation is needed because it's an argument, not a specific statement of fact.

The players stabbing the boot in this case basically like them stabbing the reputation system.  In a bigoted society the player loses status for doing the right thing and gains status for doing the wrong thing.  That is the problem, your ability to change anything depends upon your status but you only get status if you agree with the society's bigotry. 

Wait--are you seriously asking me to explain why human nature is the way that it is? Or why certain things are considered to be fun? You might as well ask "Why are trees?" or some similar existential chewing gum.

But instead, I'll operate on the belief that what you meant to ask was more like: "Why would making DF reflect this aspect of historic human behavior, and adding this precise variety of fun, be an improvement on the game?"
     Well, if dwarves (and the other sentient races) behaved more like real humans, that would make them seem more real to the player, thus improving the sense of immersion, as well as the added layer of cultural detail increasing the game's overall flavor. If their prejudices are determined randomly and differ from one game to the next, the player is encouraged to consider that real-life bigotries make about as much sense as the procedurally-generated ones. And as previously mentioned, bigoted societies give a free source of "bad guys" against whom Adventurers can push back . . . although the other side of that coin is that Fortress players might be forced to tolerate their own intolerant civ for a few years. Thankfully, if prejudice is applied via a worldgen setting, the negative effects of this can largely be avoided.

In other words, Agent Smith.  It falls flat however because there is no necessary difference in realism between the more perfect and less perfect state, that belief is simply an ideological conviction that functions as a self-fulfilling prophecy.  A healthy person is not less realistic than a sick person, a good person is not less realistic than an evil person; utopia is not less realistic than dystopia. 

Bigoted societies do not provide a free source of bad guys, because those societies warp the definition of bad and good.  You get rewarded for doing the wrong thing and punished for doing the right thing.  Unless we are working from some imperialistic fantasy by which we turn up as a foreigner and impose our foreign will on the bad society having come from a better society, we end up trapped in a situation where to change anything we must agree with the Status-Quo, because otherwise we will not be trusted with the power to change anything. 

Societies do not like having their bigotries challenged and it the societies that are deciding whether the player wins or loses. 

[KittyTac]

And what? Sounds like an attempt to back out of an argument you certainly cannot win.

What matters is that many players (including me) want to play in a bigoted world, either as the oppressors or the oppressed. It's certainly enough to justify adding bigotry at some point in the development cycle. We have enough time.

Still waiting for a response to the second part.

Re: Sacrificing your winning for a change
Many people like to roleplay in DF. Not all DF players play to 'win'.

[GoblinCookie]

Still waiting for a response to the second part.

Re: Sacrificing your winning for a change
Many people like to roleplay in DF. Not all DF players play to 'win'.

The response is that it does not matter, hence the lack of response.  Players can want stuff, does not not mean they actually understand what they are asking for means.

You are not sacrificing your winning for a change, you are sacrificing for nothing.  The only way your sacrifice can 'pay off' as it were is if, coincidentally someone playing the pragmatist 'win at all cost' opposite trips up and loses.  Then you win and you not only manage to change the society, but you also get to win in a more conventional sense of a computer game.  This is tricky point I am trying to get across, your are sacrificing and you have very low odds of accomplishing anything at all; the only way to accomplish anything is for the other team to slip up and you have no ability to arrange for the slip-up to happen, since your sacrifice was primarily of the power to actually accomplish anything. 

Unless we fix the whole game so that in 15th Granite 250 it so happens that someone in charge has done something stupid in order to discredit and destabilize the status-quo, we will in all probability end up an era where the wheels of oppression are running rather nicely.  99% of the time there is no ability for a small number of people to change the world, things are far more tragic; the choice is to give up your prospect of 'winning' for the sake of the ideal or to sacrifice the ideal in order to get ahead in life, whether this is masked by the dream of making some small 'practical' difference or not. 

To sum it up, in order for us to actually change the society, we have to arrive at exactly the right time and that time is not ours to decide.

[KittyTac]

Still waiting for a response to the second part.

Re: Sacrificing your winning for a change
Many people like to roleplay in DF. Not all DF players play to 'win'.

The response is that it does not matter, hence the lack of response.  Players can want stuff, does not not mean they actually understand what they are asking for means.

You are not sacrificing your winning for a change, you are sacrificing for nothing.  The only way your sacrifice can 'pay off' as it were is if, coincidentally someone playing the pragmatist 'win at all cost' opposite trips up and loses.  Then you win and you not only manage to change the society, but you also get to win in a more conventional sense of a computer game.  This is tricky point I am trying to get across, your are sacrificing and you have very low odds of accomplishing anything at all; the only way to accomplish anything is for the other team to slip up and you have no ability to arrange for the slip-up to happen, since your sacrifice was primarily of the power to actually accomplish anything. 

Unless we fix the whole game so that in 15th Granite 250 it so happens that someone in charge has done something stupid in order to discredit and destabilize the status-quo, we will in all probability end up an era where the wheels of oppression are running rather nicely.  99% of the time there is no ability for a small number of people to change the world, things are far more tragic; the choice is to give up your prospect of 'winning' for the sake of the ideal or to sacrifice the ideal in order to get ahead in life, whether this is masked by the dream of making some small 'practical' difference or not. 

To sum it up, in order for us to actually change the society, we have to arrive at exactly the right time and that time is not ours to decide.

You could still try for role-playing reasons.

And being changed is not the point of bigotry. It's not the reason I want it. You seem to be thinking that all players want to play as the good guys trying to make the world better and only the good guys. Well, you're wrong. This is why my point is still relevant.

[Rataldo]

[Citation Needed]

I think most gamers would prefer to stab the boot. I mean, you're basically saying most players prefer the easiest difficulty mode.

No citation is needed because it's an argument, not a specific statement of fact.

The players stabbing the boot in this case basically like them stabbing the reputation system.  In a bigoted society the player loses status for doing the right thing and gains status for doing the wrong thing.  That is the problem, your ability to change anything depends upon your status but you only get status if you agree with the society's bigotry. 

This assumes there is only 1 hierarchy to get status in. Suppose there's a resistance movement to join or you start your own group? You could start a group of Zooks who oppose the Yooks with regard to which side to butter bread and gain status by converting others to your cause.

There are already systems in place for starting and joining a group in adventure mode, essentially you'd need to add some kind of manifesto for the group.

[SixOfSpades]

It's a good thing we're talking about dwarf fortress then, where almost nothing is intended to be random. People often mistake procedural generation for "random". If there were prejudices in DF worlds they would be based on specific events or fears or superstitions or occurances during the creation of the world that civs would have.

Yes, and if the player doesn't know what those worldgen events are, and instead just starts up a game and notices that a certain civ is prejudiced against A, B, & C, while a different civ hates G, H, & I, then as far as he can tell, it might as well be random. Yes, it's better if the disparity is driven by actual important events, no one's disputing that, it's just that that's a facet that seems relatively unlikely to be explored.

[GoblinCookie]

You could still try for role-playing reasons.

And being changed is not the point of bigotry. It's not the reason I want it. You seem to be thinking that all players want to play as the good guys trying to make the world better and only the good guys. Well, you're wrong. This is why my point is still relevant.

Silly KittyTac, you seem to have completely got the wrong end of the stick.   

I am not saying that there are no other roles aside from freedom fighter, I am saying that there *are* other roles aside from freedom fighter and it is precisely from this fact that the problem comes in.  If the two roles in the game are OppressorVSLiberator then there is a complete freedom as regards to the player who can play either role and everything is else is simply part of the parcel.

If we have an oppressive society but we really just want to 'win', as in get ahead in life and make progress in a professional sense, it is optimal to this end to act in complete conformity with the values of your society and it is a handicap to challenge your society.  The adding of oppressive systems into the game, forces the player to take a political side even if all they really want to do is get ahead with their lives. 

That is because if the player does not take a side, the optimal strategy is still to cooperate with those with power and influence in order to get ahead, while avoiding alienating them without reason. 

tart a group of Zooks who oppose the Yooks with regard to which side to butter bread and gain status by converting others to your cause.

There are already systems in place for starting and joining a group in adventure mode, essentially you'd need to add some kind of manifesto for the group.

That works if your aim in the game is to be an activist.  Then you are happy to upset the Yooks in order to game favour with the Zooks even though the Yooks have more carrots and more sticks. 

In reality though, people are not all going to want to play DF as Liberal Crime Squad.  The Yooks have more ability to make you a success in your chosen career, the Zooks on the other hand have no serious resources and the Yooks will make their life difficult. 

That is what I meant by the BootVSHuman metaphor, the gamer will choose the Yooks because the gamer aims to win and to choose the Yooks is to win more easily.   Unless the primary thing the player cares about is changing society, the player will end up siding with the oppressor in the system because that is the 'optimal' strategy to 'win, by which I mean getting ahead in their profession. 

[KittyTac]

You could still try for role-playing reasons.

And being changed is not the point of bigotry. It's not the reason I want it. You seem to be thinking that all players want to play as the good guys trying to make the world better and only the good guys. Well, you're wrong. This is why my point is still relevant.

Silly KittyTac, you seem to have completely got the wrong end of the stick.   

I am not saying that there are no other roles aside from freedom fighter, I am saying that there *are* other roles aside from freedom fighter and it is precisely from this fact that the problem comes in.  If the two roles in the game are OppressorVSLiberator then there is a complete freedom as regards to the player who can play either role and everything is else is simply part of the parcel.

If we have an oppressive society but we really just want to 'win', as in get ahead in life and make progress in a professional sense, it is optimal to this end to act in complete conformity with the values of your society and it is a handicap to challenge your society.  The adding of oppressive systems into the game, forces the player to take a political side even if all they really want to do is get ahead with their lives. 

That is because if the player does not take a side, the optimal strategy is still to cooperate with those with power and influence in order to get ahead, while avoiding alienating them without reason.

I don't quite get what your point is. If you do not want an oppressive system and you want to just do whatever, just don't generate a world with oppressive systems. There should be a setting for this.

Oh, and what is wrong with conformity? Conformity does not automatically equal boredom. Hell, if you are playing solely to 'win', you do not care about fun.

[Fleeting Frames]

Playing to "win", however player defines the "win", is no guarantee to have fun but it is the default guideline most players - even veteran DF players - follow. Loss (in those goals) can be immensely entertaining, but vast majority of entries in Hall of Legends are about winning by some measure of another - even for cases where the story ended in death and tragedy.

I think GoblinCookie is getting at the inherent ugliness in de facto position being supporting oppressive governments in such worlds. Which doesn't necessarily conflict with choosing dead or dying dwarven civs, as that's about showing a fort strong enough alone to stand against the world.


However, procgen discrimination is bit of a tangent here, kinda like arch stresses when discussing supports every 7 tiles. There's been fair few ideas on possible mechanics here, I think they could be collected to new OP (maybe along with reformation-spread based data)? Would be easier for Toady One to grasp. For me too, as I'm kind of nebulous on the mechanics of player fighting the prejudice, tbh.

[Rataldo]

That works if your aim in the game is to be an activist.  Then you are happy to upset the Yooks in order to game favour with the Zooks even though the Yooks have more carrots and more sticks. 

In reality though, people are not all going to want to play DF as Liberal Crime Squad.  The Yooks have more ability to make you a success in your chosen career, the Zooks on the other hand have no serious resources and the Yooks will make their life difficult. 

That is what I meant by the BootVSHuman metaphor, the gamer will choose the Yooks because the gamer aims to win and to choose the Yooks is to win more easily.   Unless the primary thing the player cares about is changing society, the player will end up siding with the oppressor in the system because that is the 'optimal' strategy to 'win, by which I mean getting ahead in their profession.

I'm counting on not having everybody play the exact same way. Some people will play as an activist, some will not. I guess I just don't understand what your problem is with this dynamic. Maybe you can explain?

Also I feel I need to add: Gamers^TM will sometimes purposely take the more difficult path.

[Detoxicated]

Also, the inofficial motto of this game is "Losing is Fun".

I think, however, that gc is triggered by the title of this thread already, and I too must wonder, because in its subtone it implies that somebody wants to specifically add homophobia as such into the game, but I could be wrong, where we should rather discuss about discriminatory systems within the game. That is, how do they start, how can societies fight them, how can a player fight it...
If you are a slave gladiator fighting for your freedom and your mere fight does not cause a public reaction GC is right about his point, there is no real societal reward for his plight for freedom other than the individual advancement. If that gladiator however won the fight, and already unhappy slaves and peasants saw this a sign to take up arms and actually start a fight for good then the harder path would become immensely rewarding in the long run.

Portrayal of black and white is material for fundamentalists and children, in no action on the world there is true good and true evil, as both can root from the other. I would like to see discrimination in game because I would like to play a spartacus like story, or an allies fighting nazis type of story. Others might like the opposite for their own reasons, and each has their point. I suppose a horde of Elves raiding a dark fortress is seen as an act of evil by the weak goblin peasantry, while the elves consider it a good deed, for the goblins are a menace to be stopped in their opinion. Stripping the game of this ambiguity forces the player to asume a more directed role and leaves little room for roleplay, whereas a ambiguous world can lead to soo many stories.

A curious goblin might know where that artifact is hidden, and you killed his entire fortress, now you still want to find it, so you spare him. On the way to the far away artifact the two of you become friends, and suddenly the hero realizes that the goblin is a feeling entity, while the goblin realizes that his fortress caused alot of suffering questioning his own believes. A guy who lost all his friends in an elven raid becomes grudged against the elven race and sets out to end them all, but then he is shot and hurt by a fellow dwarf and left to die. Next thing happening an elven group picks him up and heals him, again making the hero question his own beliefs.

Sure, I mentioned stories on the good side of the spectrum, but it would be equally interesting to see a good fellow try his best, only to be slowly turned evil by his surroundings. These are interesting story elements, and the game should be able to track and understand them in a meaningful way.

A grandfather with a grudge against humans should be able to teach said grudge to his children. A grandfather in a humanhating society, who made friends with the humans, should also do so.


Also I do not like your views about having no power as an individual. It is wrong. An individual can shape society in great ways. Either by being a politician, or artists, or a great warrior. Sure he will need the help of others, and external circumstances to form a situation where his actions become meaningful for a greater group, but there has been many points in history where the individual shaped the forms of society, though historians might disagree with me on that one due to their historical aproach to things.

The thing is GC, while I agree with many things you say, you have a way of portraying your beliefs that feels autocratic. It feels as if you cannot tolerate that other people want to play the game in a way you don't like and this is one reason in my opinion, why you keep on angering people, causing rash reactions, with your posts. Now, I migth be wrong on this and it could only be my view on the things, and if it is so I apologize in advance.
Other people here, tend to be quite provocative towards GC however, so I suppose part of his style of posting is due to reacting to direct or indirect insults caused by some....

A while back we did not have these types of problems on this forum, I hope it can go back to that state...