Print

Please login or register.
1 Hour 1 Day 1 Week 1 Month Forever
Login with username, password and session length

[FantasticDorf]

Edit- Its probably best to circumvent this post in entirety, but i still hold that misinterpretation of the imagery used is very much real and shouldn't align with the real world causes or associations.

[jipehog]

Sorry, I know it would be an act of courtesy to provide a tl;Dr, but i mean that lacking one doesn't make a suggestion bad in any way.

There is already a tldr of the post in the headline, what it lacks is something more concrete on the implement side to talk about. 

On the actual topic at hand, I didn't have much to add besides that I like the general idea

My point exactly.

[Bumber]

They're the status icons from classic.

Playing make believe was previously ". Now it's a rainbow. Adult dwarves don't play make believe except for the moment they grow up and haven't interrupted the task.

[FantasticDorf]

I took some time off, to get a fresh head. Ill edit out my own posts from this ranting.

[Mohreb el Yasim]

you know that there is already an ORIENTATION tag?
it defaults to 75:20:5 and specified towards castes (or male female i don't exactly recall) and as such covers most attraction cases.
i don't think castes would work, as it is more of a biological difference (but it can be done too at the moment)
maybe adding a "pronoun" part in orientation tag could do the trick.
but that implies there are gender specific pronouns in dwarfish language which is not even the case in all human languages (there are many in fact that don't use she/he his/her but have a sole and unique way for designing someone, if dwarfish were like that, it would suggest that the issue can't even rise)

[Shonai_Dweller]

you know that there is already an ORIENTATION tag?
it defaults to 75:20:5 and specified towards castes (or male female i don't exactly recall) and as such covers most attraction cases.
i don't think castes would work, as it is more of a biological difference (but it can be done too at the moment)
maybe adding a "pronoun" part in orientation tag could do the trick.
but that implies there are gender specific pronouns in dwarfish language which is not even the case in all human languages (there are many in fact that don't use she/he his/her but have a sole and unique way for designing someone, if dwarfish were like that, it would suggest that the issue can't even rise)

Sure, but I think all the OP wants is for the game to refer to some critters as they when describing them to the player which it does in English and currently uses he/she.

Actually what does it use for moon snail people, as they don't have gender?

[brewer bob]

Actually what does it use for moon snail men, as they don't have gender?

Creatures with NO_GENDER are referred to as "it", iirc.

Edit. Checked with arena mode and "it" is what read in the description of a snail man (e.g., "Overall, it is untroubled by unmet needs").

[Mohreb el Yasim]

In this case, i think the ideal solution would be to associate a pronoun tag to caste AND orientation tags.
As it is irl. Some refers to biological differences by she/he others prefer to those references to be made on other bases (like the other pronouns, don't ask me which one those are I even confuse he/she all the time, coming from a background where none of those exists), hell even the position tags in entities could have a "pronoun" as a king might need to be addressed as "excellency /majesty".

[Starver]

I am reminded of the traditionally taught[1] counterexample of German grammar, as demonstrated in (via strict English retranslation) some complex sentence that contains various contragenderisations something like "...the little English miss, it has..." (with "das Fräulein" being neuter, I think).

Which is beyond scope of the suggestion, I know. But a very early forum message of mine went into the potential subtletites of "original language and context" of words, prior to 'translation' to either more forgiving or less forgiving destination tongues (or guestures), and that could so easily have included some stuff about assumed/presumed gender in its subtextual examples, from which 'translations' could arise with enhanced or suppressed awareness of identity (or, in hostile context, deliberately misgendering for effect).

Plus, of course, the dangers of suggesting that a non-binary person (let alone a "little English miss"/Fräulein) be refered to as "it is" rather than (at the very least) "they are". Snail 'man' aside ('they' might prefer "it", I don't know too many snails, either socially or professionally!), I don't see that going without comment if partial support for non-"he/she"ness is added but it then still has to fall back upon the hardcoded "it".


That said, I recall some furious forumite who railed against the changes around [ORIENTATION], or something similar. With little sympathy from most of the rest of us, as I recall, their being either terribly unreconstructed or (possibly) LARPing as someone who was not. But, for that kind of sensibility, we probably need one of those sliders (as promised for settings like "highest of high fantasy with the gods themselves likely to corporeally walk straight up to atheists and smite them directly" to "mundanity itself, no 'magic' at all, just pure mechanical physics") so that the degree of "wokeness" can be set to the certain players' satisfactions.

I've no doubt that Tarn&Co would set the default at a generally acceptable level for most, of course, if he set his mind to the task of not only accomodating the diversity but also giving it a scalable level operation. Once he gets into that area of improvement. Might be after a number of less aesthetic-'only' changes, of course.


[1] I was never actually taught German[2], only picked up what little of it I ever knew while working there temporarily, and all this might have been more true prior to various spelling reforms/etc. But I heard tell of it from someone of a prior generation as one of those "Tom Brown's schooldays"-style of rote lessons.

[2] I was taught French, but right now (and probably even back then) couldn't tell you what gender a table is with better than 50% accuracy each time I might attempt to answerñ

[JubileeGeode]

I think this is a good idea!
I'd love to see allowances for more sets of pronouns and heck, randomly generated pronouns would be a hell to see unfold

Imagine a world in which there are 3 sets of pronouns for dwarves: Xe/Xey, It/Its and He/Him
And these pronouns are not shared with elves, which have 2 common pronouns used in their culture (Be/Bits and They/Them)

Imagine elves using Be/Bits pronouns ^v^

Atm the gender situation in Dwarf Fortress isnt exactly bad, but not that great either. It leaves a lot assumed that could instead be incorporated into the storytelling machine that is this game
Another subtle touch that would add a lot, like lying and the such.

[Mohreb el Yasim]

Lying is in the game, it just did not told you .
Also the outrage for "default" orientation was more from a mechanic standpoint, as at the introduction some of your lifestock might have decided to not be interested in procreating.
I do not think pronouns would be a big change in the game. I am not often watching my dwarves at that detail, and when I do, their deeds, preferances and aspirations metter me more then what their gender is. That is a bit too private for me to spy on

[jipehog]

Also the outrage for "default" orientation was more from a mechanic standpoint, as at the introduction some of your lifestock might have decided to not be interested in procreating.

It can be annoying in certain scenarios, adding nothing except forcing us to keep extra FPS hogs. Imagine a world in which Armork bless us with 3 pronouns for livestock: male breeder, female breeder and steak.

Otherwise I am still not clear what people suggest. I seen wishes from basic textset parameter to modify pronouns, changes to caste, Discworld/lying mechanic, and there was even mention of adoption. It is all over the place with nothing specific, so i'll follow suit using general discussion forum ethics.

Rimworld recently introduced ideology, which is roughly an expanded set of ethics you can customize. It allows you to play with various social norms (from views on execution, slavery, child labor .. up to polygamy) either set at start or adjusted as you grow. Which affects both your society and how others react to it. 

I would love to return to such an approach here, instead of addressing a specific scenario of gender pronounce introduce the means to mod various social and physical caste more making the game more versatile, which would allow anything from gender pronounce to aristocracy titles, clan names, eunuchs whatever your imagination/story leads you to.

[Starver]

Also the outrage for "default" orientation was more from a mechanic standpoint, as at the introduction some of your lifestock might have decided to not be interested in procreating.

The general consternation may have been about that, but I recall a specific countering view. Not sure it's worth searching for, it might have been wiped from the boards. And I'm only mostly sure that it was on these 'ere forums anyway.

Not that it matters, as I had no sympathy with that viewpoint and would personally discount its relevence to actually guiding future development in this field.

[PetMudstone]

It can be annoying in certain scenarios, adding nothing except forcing us to keep extra FPS hogs. Imagine a world in which Armork bless us with 3 pronouns for livestock: male breeder, female breeder and steak.

I imagine that for non-sapient creatures like cows, sexual orientation would be simplified and gender wouldn't exist, only sex would. Basically the same system we have now.

[darkhog]

Agreed. Even if I wouldn't use this kind of mod myself, more modding options is always a plus. IMO as much of internal rules governing the generation (including grammar rules and strings) should be externalized, with DF executable only working as an interpreter for these things (think Factorio, where the base game is implemented as a mod).