Short version: simulation is better than prudery.
For extra badness add a Polygamy ethics tag, don't complain if your civ ends up with the ACCEPTABLE value for the coming ethics diversification.
One of those things that bugs me is that it's hardcoded when it should be an ethics tag.
I haven't noticed any mention of the controversial drug topic (AFAIK beer doesn't even get one drunk) but I don't see any advantage in storytelling or gameplay to adding it in. Think about a stoner movie if you don't believe me.
Amusingly, beer in a game pushes it up to T.
Considering that the man added individual ribs and teeth, he could add drunkeness.
Knowing you have 32 teeth doesn't really help storytelling or gameplay either.
All I can tell you is my method for judging ideas. Besides, maybe the drunk you punched in the tavern last night has decided to call in favors from his Thug allies since you knocked out some of his teeth.
You mean, like... one ally per tooth?
Planting dragons' teeth supposedly gets you one soldier per tooth, so actually, yes, number of teeth has historical story significance. (Also, necklaces of enemy teeth)
So, how will the relevant insecurities be handled? You can't very well plaster the mood list with "had a small penis recently"
And the inverse, "has launched a thousand ships recently"
The issue of homosexuality within the game did not come up. Does anyone see it as possibly adding flavour or anything tangible to the game? I think forum disputes would multiply like bunnies as eventually some people would undoubtedly begin treating homosexuality as a crime within their forts (and describing that in their narrations, believing it to be a good joke, or making fun of it),
I don't think Toady should avoid a feature for that reason. Campaigns of cleansing have explicitly come up in the devlog, including considering the dwarves "getting wise" if you start exterminating all the red-haired dwarves. Should Toady exclude color variations for this reason? No.
and of all the issues that have caused dispute this seems to be the most highly volatile. Should it be included for completeness? Avoided as a can of worms? Should it simply take the form of some dwarves* having "lovers" who are of the same sex? Is it something anyone feels strongly should be included? I've had a gender-confused dwarf in my narration of a community fort before, but it didn't require the game to actually simulate it. Could it serve any important purpose?
Completeness sounds good. Also, transgenderism is not the same thing, but has in fact a more significant root in legends, though admittedly all I can recall at the moment are pirates, well forward of the target time period, and more a "disguise to pass sexism and achieve career" than "to match gender identity".
OFF TOPIC -
I'd say the tag that best incorporates modern views of homosexuality would be PERSONAL_MATTER
That would be nice if it were true.
Could it serve any important purpose?
Making it meaningful in the gameplay, as directly as possible.
If dwarf fortress is going to tell stories, it should at least tell the highest dimensional story possible, because it'd be nice to not have to lie or fill in blanks with imagination to tell a story of a fortress.
You can dump as many dwarven children into as many dank pits and kill their mothers all you want, but all the imagined suffering in the word won't matter if their thought profile says their happyness is at "Ecstatic" and everyone they know are friends, because ultimately as long as that is the case, you'll never get one orphan to kill another. Even if you imagine there's a love triangle (or love web) there won't be any conflict because such things were never programmed, for fear it would offend someone's sensibilities.
You put it much better than I think I could.
A point on the whole media-picking-it-up thing.
It won't. Look at Mass Effect. Mass Effect, they could just show a three second clip of the two people on top of eachother and people would be outraged. Hot Coffee, they played a brief, unfinished portion of it and people were in arms.
which had to be modded to put inHell, if you need to modify a game to get at the sex, why isn't the existence of a nude patch for [insert_game_here] a call to arms?
This game will get very interesting if this suggestion is implemented. I can't wait to see [ETHIC:HOMOSEXUALITY:IF_GOOD_REASON] in the raws.
OK, you made me smile.
But I fail to see how things like necrophilia really contribute to the game at all. Other than making elves even creepier, of course.
What does 'evil_act' add to the game? Allowing 'evil' people to appear 'evil'. What does excluding it remove from the game? Verisimilitude.
When the potential to use objects sexually appears, modding or otherwise, it must be considered that corpses are objects.
Actually, this reminds me, know how it prevents you from drinking blood/vomit/mud until you're absolutely requiring the water, thanks to a disgust level? Perhaps a sensible way to go about it (but, naturally, you run afoul of the game telling you "You don't want to do that" when you think you do, getting disconnected, I think Toady's mentioned for some other action-restriction thing...)
This game will get very interesting if this suggestion is implemented. I can't wait to see [ETHIC:HOMOSEXUALITY:IF_GOOD_REASON] in the raws.
Well, if you're gay, there is always a good reason...that being you are gay.
[snip]
Indeed.
It was nice to prove that the members of the community are capable of handling these issues maturely,
IS THAT A CHALLENGE?
The issue of homosexuality within the game did not come up. Does anyone see it as possibly adding flavour or anything tangible to the game?
Probably not unless there's an ethical tag about it. Gameplay-wise its the same as having 2 dwarves that will never have children.
That's actually interesting. I can imagine people making their fortress military into a small-scale model of the Sacred Band of Thebes, just to prevent military pregnancies.
Aha! Someone else who knows about the historical military thing. I have a friend who actually researches this sort of thing.
Lastly, on rape...if it is impossible, doesn't it rather kill the point of 99.9% of "kidnap the princess" stories? The sinister prince captures the neighboring kingdom's princess, and then she gets to go "Ha! You can't do anything to me. I'm protected by the code."
Including, say,
The Evil Squire?
Kudos on keeping it civil.