Well, Mrs. Fox has gone and done it. She went and made a controversial change that not everyone will be happy about.
You see, I tried to sleep, but kept having visions of programming and modding games. I booted up the source code and decided to do something productive. I just didn't know what, and I kind of plunked at stuff and before long the result was that the next version of LCS will have gender in it. Names will be assigned accordingly. You can press G on your character sheet to "Fix Gender Label" and toggle between Male, Female, and Androgynous. If the selected gender label is different from the original one, an asterisk will be left by it to indicate that it is in conflict with Conservative society's Conservative preconceptions about Conservative identity. At the moment there are no gameplay implications (though you can see both an age
estimate and gender when you are talking to people during site actions, in case Conservative sexism or ageism matters to you), but now that the meat of the feature is in place, it shouldn't be hard to sprinkle effects on top of it.
This has long been a very controversial feature, with some thinking it's a great idea to have gender, others thinking it's a bad idea that violates the spirit of the game. The conclusion I eventually came to was that there was potential gameplay benefit in adding it, but I felt it must be done Liberally if it was to be done at all. By this, I mean mainly that you must not be forced to adhere to Conservative gender labels. This is why you are permitted to correct the gender labels the game gives you by toggling to a more appropriate one on a case-by-case basis, including one for neither male nor female. This ability will not be without its price, however, at least once I get around to implementing the drawback: Liberals in the game will respect changes you make to gender label, but Conservatives will not (and will be put off by your foolishness), and moderates will vary based on the gay rights issue.
Another concern is that right now half of all police officers, CEOs, Presidents, and eminent scientists are women. While laudable, this is far too Liberal to be the case at the start of the game, when Conservative patriarchy is not only ruling but ascendant. This, I expect, will thus have to be linked to a new Women's issue.
I am interested in your views on these and other issues that will arise from adding gender to the game.
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Topic: Male, Female, and Beyond (Read 2834 times)