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[Deno]

So now that we have organized religions and guilds, I think it would be a cool idea to implement "racial communities" as a race specific counterpart. The idea is that both dwarfs and non-dwarven citizens could organize into race specific groups within a site, using some of the same mechanics as religions and guilds. Minority communities could make demands, for example humans could want buildings that are not underground or they could demand positions for members of their race. There could also be tensions between racial communities similar to religions. If a community is satisfied, they could attract more migrants of their race.

[King Mir]

This is basically a way to bring racism very directly and explicitly into the game. Now the game is not without dark themes, and does feature religious groups, but the religious strife that it features is not the marginalization an non-acceptance of people from other religions that we find in our modern world. Whereas the existence of an explicitly racial community would say that there are dwarves who consider the non-dwarf members of the fort as "other". Furthermore the inclusion of this element without a way for the player to discourage this position by the dwarf could serve as a message that racism is inevitable, perhaps even normal.

I completely oppose this. Keeping dwarves blissfully unaware of the physiological difference of their fellow compatriots is a much better state of affairs. If only humans could be this blind to race.

[Carp McDwarfEater]

I actually like this idea quite a lot; having less homogeneous populations and an element of having to potentially manage several different factions with a diverse fort sounds really appealing.

The concerns brought up by King Mir seem absurd to me when you realize that this game already features slavery, general violence/crime, and even cannibalism. Does the game's world possessing such things (and having the default ethics for human nations be to accept torture and slavery) imply that such is okay or somehow inevitable in the real world? And these rebuttals of mine are taking for granted your assertion that this suggestion would be akin to simply adding and enforcing racism in the game, and even that much is debatable.

There's just no point in trying to make a fictional video game universe conform to modern ethics or sensibilities to the detriment of internal consistency and the potential for mechanics that could be fun.

[MaxTheFox]

I actually like this idea quite a lot; having less homogeneous populations and an element of having to potentially manage several different factions with a diverse fort sounds really appealing.

The concerns brought up by King Mir seem absurd to me when you realize that this game already features slavery, general violence/crime, and even cannibalism. Does the game's world possessing such things (and having the default ethics for human nations be to accept torture and slavery) imply that such is okay or somehow inevitable in the real world? And these rebuttals of mine are taking for granted your assertion that this suggestion would be akin to simply adding and enforcing racism in the game, and even that much is debatable.

There's just no point in trying to make a fictional video game universe conform to modern ethics or sensibilities to the detriment of internal consistency and the potential for mechanics that could be fun.

Yeah. The game world needs more violence and strife IMHO, and this is a good way to add that.

[Uthimienure]

IMHO, if the OP had used different terminology than "racial communities", this wouldn't have triggered anyone.

In Dwarf Fortress, there really are not "races" such as we think in our modern world, which calls humans of different types "races".
In Dwarf Fortress, all dwarfs are the same race, all elves are the same race, all goblins are the same race, etc... get my drift?

What we should be talking about here are "species", not races!

It has ABSOLUTELY NOTHING to do with modern "racism"... sheesh!

[Carp McDwarfEater]

IMHO, if the OP had used different terminology than "racial communities", this wouldn't have triggered anyone.

In Dwarf Fortress, there really are not "races" such as we think in our modern world, which calls humans of different types "races".
In Dwarf Fortress, all dwarfs are the same race, all elves are the same race, all goblins are the same race, etc... get my drift?

What we should be talking about here are "species", not races!

It has ABSOLUTELY NOTHING to do with modern "racism"... sheesh!

I'm actually not sure this is the case. I agree with you that calling elves/dwarves different 'races,' whilst a common thing in fantasy, is misleading and that we should probably refer to them as species. However, the way I read the OP, specifically this part,

The idea is that both dwarfs and non-dwarven citizens could organize into race specific groups

sort of made me imagine there being actual races within each species, perhaps tied to nationality. For instance I could imagine the hill dwarves and deep dwarves being distinct enough to be considered different races and have their own communities, or dwarves from another dwarven civilization immigrating to your fortress and having their own subcommunity.

But OP should probably clarify.

[King Mir]

IMHO, if the OP had used different terminology than "racial communities", this wouldn't have triggered anyone.

In Dwarf Fortress, there really are not "races" such as we think in our modern world, which calls humans of different types "races".
In Dwarf Fortress, all dwarfs are the same race, all elves are the same race, all goblins are the same race, etc... get my drift?

What we should be talking about here are "species", not races!

It has ABSOLUTELY NOTHING to do with modern "racism"... sheesh!

Yes the difference between peoples in dwarf fortress is even more pronounced than it is in our world. That doesn't change the fact that all the sapient races in dwarf fortress are just that: sapient. That makes them all equal in exactly the same way as "all men are created equal", and any special social treatment of members of different species as other exactly as bad as racism is in our world. The detail that they are different "species" does not make it ok, since all that technically means is they cannot reproduce with each other. Racism is at it's core treating people as other because of their physical traits, and that would apply in DF too.

I'd also like to point out one of the desires the OP expressed is "minority communities could make demands". Minority communities are how races are treated in our world, and replicating that would indeed replicate the racial issues of today. I'm sure it's out of a desire for realism that the OP making this suggestion, and I don't deny that it would do that. It would make dwarves more human, in a bad way.

[Shonai_Dweller]

In "lore" they can breed with one another. There's a story about it in Threetoe's stories.

[MaxTheFox]

IMHO, if the OP had used different terminology than "racial communities", this wouldn't have triggered anyone.

In Dwarf Fortress, there really are not "races" such as we think in our modern world, which calls humans of different types "races".
In Dwarf Fortress, all dwarfs are the same race, all elves are the same race, all goblins are the same race, etc... get my drift?

What we should be talking about here are "species", not races!

It has ABSOLUTELY NOTHING to do with modern "racism"... sheesh!

Yes the difference between peoples in dwarf fortress is even more pronounced than it is in our world. That doesn't change the fact that all the sapient races in dwarf fortress are just that: sapient. That makes them all equal in exactly the same way as "all men are created equal", and any special social treatment of members of different species as other exactly as bad as racism is in our world. The detail that they are different "species" does not make it ok, since all that technically means is they cannot reproduce with each other. Racism is at it's core treating people as other because of their physical traits, and that would apply in DF too.

I'd also like to point out one of the desires the OP expressed is "minority communities could make demands". Minority communities are how races are treated in our world, and replicating that would indeed replicate the racial issues of today. I'm sure it's out of a desire for realism that the OP making this suggestion, and I don't deny that it would do that. It would make dwarves more human, in a bad way.

On the contrary, I don't see how that would be bad. Do you really think players will be conditioned to accept racism, due to racism being implemented into the game? Surely we're not young children and can tell fiction (especially a damn ASCII game) from reality.

[King Mir]

I actually like this idea quite a lot; having less homogeneous populations and an element of having to potentially manage several different factions with a diverse fort sounds really appealing.

The concerns brought up by King Mir seem absurd to me when you realize that this game already features slavery, general violence/crime, and even cannibalism. Does the game's world possessing such things (and having the default ethics for human nations be to accept torture and slavery) imply that such is okay or somehow inevitable in the real world? And these rebuttals of mine are taking for granted your assertion that this suggestion would be akin to simply adding and enforcing racism in the game, and even that much is debatable.

There's just no point in trying to make a fictional video game universe conform to modern ethics or sensibilities to the detriment of internal consistency and the potential for mechanics that could be fun.

Those things are indeed in the game, and I would even say the game is richer for having them. And I recognize that including racism in a game does not amount to endorsing it. But what it would amount to is a commentary on human nature. Just like including those particular ethics acknowledges that humans can and have had such cultures. If you are saying that in societies such as that of the dwarves minority groups feel compelled to gather by physical likeness, then that would be saying that even dwarves are prone to racism. Those same dwarves who are otherwise ethically superior to humans and find torture unthinkable. This is what I mean by inevitability and normality. Now I recognize, dwarves aren't necessarily there to be better version of humanity. I just don't think this particular aspect of humanity would make the game better to include.

@MaxTheFox
I think the above addresses your comment too.

[MaxTheFox]

I... don't think that makes much sense? Just because they're better than humans in other respects doesn't mean they can't be racist.

And why can't we have a [RACISM] ethic? That way everyone can be satisfied, dwarves could have it as unthinkable or appalling while humans and goblins might have it as acceptable. Remember that by the time this could be considered to be implemented (society arc), the myth arc will likely be out, and as such you won't be limited to just playing dwarves in the vanilla game so this will come into play.

[Strik3r]

just as predicted, this thread was doomed to become a shitfest straight from the get-go.  It was inevitable that this suggestion would offend some peoples' sensibilites.

At the end of the day, it is Toady's "Story Generator" and he'll choose what to implement and what not to.

Thing is though, stories are driven by conflict. And if you strip away every source of potential conflict because it might offend someone... What do you have left?

[MaxTheFox]

just as predicted, this thread was doomed to become a shitfest straight from the get-go.  It was inevitable that this suggestion would offend some peoples' sensibilites.

At the end of the day, it is Toady's "Story Generator" and he'll choose what to implement and what not to.

Thing is though, stories are driven by conflict. And if you strip away every source of potential conflict because it might offend someone... What do you have left?

Pretty much what I meant when I said the game needed more strife. Oppression makes for good stories. Virtual utopias usually don't. "BUT I DON'T WANT VIRTUAL CREATURES TO SUFFER" is not a valid excuse either.

[therahedwig]

I somewhat agree with Mir, not so much that I think dwarves should be above it, but rather that I don't really believe racism is really about the physiological differences between folk, but rather the ties we have with different communities and how those communities regard each other (that's how the racism within countries with civil wars often works), and I think DF already has the systems in place to handle that.

To have the game explicitly select physiological differences when it has a much more subtle simulation already in the works seems a little tacky.

EDIT: Thinking it through, it might be that the original intent was to have a mechanism where, say, humans can inform you that there's no human-sized clothes in the whole goddamn fort. Which is a type of microracism that might otherwise slip past. But in this case, it would be more like the disabled banding together for ramps in all public spaces in a city and braille signs for the blind. Giving them a voice rather than discriminating them.

[Toady One]

(removed a post at which point this was really starting to get out of control.  please try to do well)