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[Greiger]

The only successful method would have been to rig up the download link to randomly give 2 different versions of the raws.  One with beards on by default, and one with beards off.

Of course that would probably cause DF to get downloaded much much more than normal as folks who donno how to add or remove a bracket from a raw entry download multiple times to get the version they want.

At any rate you don't even need to know how to mod to turn female beards on.  Just open creature_standard.txt with notepad and look for Toady's instructions.  It's just adding a [ and ], the DF raws equivalent of uncommenting a line of code.

[RedKing]

My guess for males is that a thick full beard is a show of healthiness and excess resources (protein), much like a lion's mane or a peacock's fan, although in all three of these cases I'm not entirely certain why females don't have corresponding structures.

Umm...they (at least female humans) do have corresponding structures (i.e. physical traits which indicate health and excess resources). I hope I don't have to explain what they are....

http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Venus_figurines


Typically, it's males of a species who evolve..."plumage" (for lack of a better catchall term) in response to mating pressures. Basically, critters with bigger whatevers have more success finding a mate, so their genes get passed on to the next generation. There's not always a practical reason at work (other than increased mating chances, which is really the *prime* yardstick a mutation is measured against to judge it beneficial or not).

Females lack the mating pressure in most populations, so they don't need to evolve showy plumage. In more social animals, females do seem to evolve sexual characteristics or strategies to attract healthier/stronger/smarter mates in order to safeguard herself and her offspring (again, evolution is all about preserving one's DNA legacy).

[Mephansteras]

Beards actually do have a good function. They work as padding and obfuscation for the very vulnerable throat when fighting off predators. Most predators go for the throat when attacking and a thick beard makes it harder for them to target it. Since males are expected to do most of the fighting in humans, it's a worthwhile cost. Females use the energy and resources elsewhere.

[Quatch]

Although... Strike the Earth! is starting to sway my opinion back the other way.

ooh, thanks for linking, I hadn't heard about this comic yet.

[Bunny]

Quote from: AbacusWizard on Today at 11:46:09 AM

    My guess for males is that a thick full beard is a show of healthiness and excess resources (protein), much like a lion's mane or a peacock's fan, although in all three of these cases I'm not entirely certain why females don't have corresponding structures.


Umm...they (at least female humans) do have corresponding structures (i.e. physical traits which indicate health and excess resources). I hope I don't have to explain what they are....

http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Venus_figurines

What Redking said.  Also, even where female human bodies as a whole may trend further away from explicit physical characteristics (overtly wide hips and very large breasts are somewhat of an abberation - most women have very little in the way of curves or breasts compared to the cartoonish model) female humans generally will resort to extravagant and, at times, ridiculous methods of advertising sexual availability.

See:  Vajazzling. NSFW:  http://www.buzzfeed.com/theluxuryspot/vajazzling-is-real-ttc (does not know how to hyperlink.  sucks)

[Mel_Vixen]

Just mark the words for the link, then click on the little globe with the sheet of paper next to it. As next thing you insert the url. You end with clicking on "OK".

I would like to see a preference system (apart from gender and species) for dorfs. Like: "Urist Bomrek likes bearded woman. / Olon likes shaved woman"

[AbacusWizard]

@AbacusWizard: What about the Silmarillion?

Ahhhhhhh, it's been so long since I read it... it's mostly about elves and humans, but there was a little bit about dwarves too. I vaguely remember Aule the Smith creating the Seven Fathers of the dwarves and seven wives for them (I think Durin the Deathless was separate and didn't get a wife maybe?) which at least implies existence of female dwarves, but I don't think it said anything about their appearance.

And while we're on the subject, I'm pretty sure elf-beards have precedent in LotR as well--Cirdan the shipwright probably had one, for instance. Nowhere near as impressive as dwarf-beards though!

I vaguely recall some line about Gimli not wanting to talk about female dwarves, as if they were some kind of secret.

Are you sure that wasn't added by the movie? I don't recall Gimli saying much about dwarven culture other than how awesome Moria used to be and how awesome the Glittering Caves still are.

[Genoraven]

I believe there was a huge discussion earlier in this thread. But i personally will be turning beards on as soon as i download.

[GRead]

I would like to see a preference system (apart from gender and species) for dorfs. Like: "Urist Bomrek likes bearded woman. / Olon likes shaved woman"

I'd much rather see a dynamic system that picks potential preferences based on available traits. So if your women don't have beards, your men will not have strange longings for bearded women. At least, not as anything normal.

As for Dwarf beards, Wikipedia states that Tolkein's dwarfs do have beards, according to 'later writings' of his. Possibly letters or something.

The whole discussion of other fantasy dwarfs is kind of moot though. This isn't middle earth, or the discworld, or any other fantasy setting. It's Dwarf Fortress, and its dwarfs are not required to reflect the dwarfs of other fantasy worlds. Last I checked, Tolkein's elves weren't cannibals.

[Todestool]

I think there is only one effective way to decide whether you should keep your women beardless or not: mod both in as separate castes, then make them fight to the death.  Whoever survives proves themselves worthy.

[Reese]

As for LotR itself, I don't think there's anything in the main text discussing female beards, or even mentioning female dwarves at all--the only dwarves that even make an appearance are Gimli and (briefly) Gloin. Female dwarves are mentioned in The Hobbit (Fili and Kili are sons of Thorin's sister, I think), but that's it. However: the extensive appendices to LotR do state, if I remember correctly, that female dwarves are visually indistinguishable from male dwarves to the extent that most of the aboveworld races don't even realize that there are female dwarves, so that could certainly be read as implying beards.

Though it should also be pointed out that not all the dwarfs in The Hobbit had beards(though that could be a misinterpretation by Rankin Bass, since I am recalling the art from the cartoon rather than the written descriptions).  If that is correct, though, then it's plausible a Tolkienesqe female dwarf could be beardless but have no obvious feminine secondary sexual characteristics.

[tombthedwarf]

In any event if we want any sort of realism the question we should be asking ourselves first is: why DON'T female humans have beards? And why do male humans have beards?

The hormones linked to beard development in males are not as present in females in general. At least, that's what I remember it being.

Well ya but those hormones don't do anything to the hair growing off the tops of our heads. Why should it impact the hair coming off the lower fronts of our heads?

I added the addendum "At least, that's what I remember it being." because I was just repeating what I'd been told it was, and I have no evidence to back up my claim. It's entirely possible that I am dead wrong, so.

Not what I was getting at at all.

Ya, it's because male hormones make the hair grow there but that's sort of like saying sally got burned because the stove was hot instead of because she was trying to cook breakfast and keep her kids from causing too much havoc at the same time, which is distracting.

probably a fair bit of why females don't have beards is just plain husbandry: human males don't seem to like bearded human females (we cringe), ergo human males don't breed with bearded females, ergo bearded females cease to exist.

if you ask why human males don't like bearded females it would be that a male does not want to attempt to breed with what appears to be another male, for if he did then his line would slowly die out ergo, no bearded females

[LordShotGun]

Ok semi-long and seemingly unrelated post coming but skip to the end if you like.

‘The Dwarves’ by Markus Heitz Is a pretty good book that goes into detail about dwarven personal life and I thought that the first 3-4 chapters could be right out of an ordinary dwarf fort.

Although the rest of the book pretty much went downhill from there because dispite the title most of the book is about an overly complicated plot about humans and mages.

The parts of the book that actually deal with the dwarves are freaking awesome because of how closely they resemble dwarf fort. Dwarves use magma for defense and forging. Champions are rare but Uber-strong, able to kill multiple orcs while another dwarf had trouble dealing with only one. Artifacts are created with "fits of insanity" aka strange moods. I recomend either downloading or buying this book cause its over 700 pages and thus hard to read in the bookstore.

Anyway the whole point of this was how the author dealt with female dwarves. He made it so that females has wispy peach fuzz all over thier face (kinda similar to light arm hair) and how soft and fuzzy the "beard" is contributes to the attractiveness of the female dwarf. This is a nice compromise that I personally enjoy and it how I like to view female dwarfs in my mind so that any dirty/hot pictures that just "happen" to pop into my mind are not totally wierd/gross.

[Mel_Vixen]

I would like to see a preference system (apart from gender and species) for dorfs. Like: "Urist Bomrek likes bearded woman. / Olon likes shaved woman"

I'd much rather see a dynamic system that picks potential preferences based on available traits. So if your women don't have beards, your men will not have strange longings for bearded women. At least, not as anything normal.

Culture ties in here too. F.E.: Today more and more man prefer woman that are shaved in theyr private places. Thus this isnt natural but still normal. I would say a system should choose among possible traits but weights the 'normal' high.

If something is seen as "kinky" like bearded females or even "unnatural/punishable" like being in love with a animal-person should be a part of the culture. In our culture acceptance decreases at the same time as similarity decreases thus the wish for a partner with a different skin-colour is more acceptable then a fox-woman. This hasnt to be true for a fantasy culture especially if different species are indeed available. The same goes for stuff like beards etc. as long there is a strong opposition against this preferences.


ot:

‘The Dwarves’ by Markus Heitz Is a pretty good book that goes into  detail about dwarven personal life and I thought that the first 3-4  chapters could be right out of an ordinary dwarf fort.

Heitz should stay at cyberpunk especially since the "the dwarves" series (i have read them all so far) is a blunt rip-off of his aeternitas plot from shadow-run. The 2nd and 3rd book go more into detail about the dwarfes. "The elves"-series by Bernhard Hennen on the other hand i recommend strongly.

[greenwatering]

this many pages of beard talk gets annoying.

so... will there still be infinite sources of water underground? i know Toady got rid of bottomless pits and chasms, but what about the mini-pits at the end of cave rivers?
i got the impression that bottomless features interfered with overlapping map features.