Print

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

[DarthCloakedDwarf]

Look at the people you meet. Look at them. Everywhere, hooked noses, bulbous eyes, skeletal faces... the world is full of ugly!

This got me thinking-- why aren't we that ugly? The human race has full potential for the many horrors that greet every adventurer who looks in a mirror. Why aren't they more common?

The answer, of course, is Darwinistic. Ugly people are less likely to find a mate than someone moderately attractive. If this could be taken into account during worldgen, accompanied with some sort of genetics, we could still end up with the occasional hooked-nosed hag, but they'll be the exception, rather than the rule.

My suggestion is simple: each physical trait should give a bonus or penalty to that individual's potential romantic life. Hooked nose? Penalty. Less likely to produce hooked-nosed offspring. Sweet voice? Bonus! More likely to produce sweet-voiced offspring.

Bonuses and penalties should be cumulative, but minor enough to ensure there is some variation.

Just, not the horrific stuff of now.

[Capntastic]

In the future, different cultures and civs will have different ideas of beauty, so having it be a straight numerical bonus wouldn't really work.   Dwarves might think themselves rather handsome, as things are.

[Acanthus117]

Anyways, you can simply reduce the highest value of the modifier in question, making ugly people less ugly.

[DarthCloakedDwarf]

In the future, different cultures and civs will have different ideas of beauty, so having it be a straight numerical bonus wouldn't really work.   Dwarves might think themselves rather handsome, as things are.

I had sort of figured that the numerical bonuses would be applied by the civ, not arbitrarily hard-coded.

[Footkerchief]

In the future, different cultures and civs will have different ideas of beauty, so having it be a straight numerical bonus wouldn't really work.   Dwarves might think themselves rather handsome, as things are.

Yeah seriously.  It's not as if hooked noses are universally unattractive even to real people. 

[DarthCloakedDwarf]

Yeah seriously.  It's not as if hooked noses are universally unattractive even to real people. 

I had sort of figured that the numerical bonuses would be applied by the civ, not arbitrarily hard-coded.

[Footkerchief]

Yeah, I saw that, I was mostly struck by the extreme bad taste of singling out hooked noses as an ugly feature.  Anyway, here's the real problem:

Ugly people are less likely to find a mate than someone moderately attractive.

To what extent is this proven at all?  Does "mate" refer to a long-term monogamous partner or a one-night stand?  Have you corrected for disparate birth rates?

If this could be taken into account during worldgen, accompanied with some sort of genetics, we could still end up with the occasional hooked-nosed hag, but they'll be the exception, rather than the rule.

Are there any human populations in which flawless beauty is the norm?

[G-Flex]

The thing about the physical descriptions is that they make someone seem uglier than they'd actually be. Explicitly pointing out features that deviate from the norm will do that.

[se5a]

Considering dwarfs are pretty much always wearing beer goggles, I think what we're seeing is probably pretty accurate.

[blizzerd]

"ugly" people (i hate the term) are far more abundant then "pretty" people (hate that one even more)

thus we can assume its likely that being ugly somehow is evolutionary advantageous, while selecting a preferably "pretty" mate is evolutionary advantageous as well

as i see it, it could work out as "pretty" people like to mate with other pretty people because it possibly reflects to better quality genes, higher status, etc etc but selecting out too much limits your options on mates and creates a smaller genepool to pick from, thus quality above quantity (if i can say it so crudely)

however, uglier people will overall have a more diverse genepool, and are with a whole lot more then pretty ones, thus there chance on finding a mate can be seen as relatively higher plus gene faulting will be considerably slimmer

its obviously far more complex, but it comes down to being very pretty is disadvantageous, being very ugly is disadvantageous, being in the middle, leaning to pretty is best, and because the "middle leaning to pretty" is best... prettiness as we see it today does not rule tomorrow, and ugliness we see today will not be extinct tomorrow

basically its a social mixer, keeping everyone mating with everyone (in stead of people who think A is pretty and B is ugly to only mate amongst themselves, and people who think B is pretty and A is ugly amongst there's so the species does not fracture into a thousand parts so fast)


i am not an English native tongue, but i did had a field in university concerning genetics

[Pilsu]

Spoiler (click to show/hide)

Eww, crooked nose, she'll never breed.

[G-Flex]

The problem, like I was saying, is that the descriptions essentially create caricatures, of a sort, because they only mention the things that are outside the norm to some degree, and even then, you're going to exaggerate them in your head, because normally if someone actually mentions a physical feature in normal conversation, it's because it's relatively noticeable/extreme.

For instance, a lot of people have "close-set eyes", but you'd never really pick up on it specifically. However, reading "has somewhat close-set eyes" makes you think of it as some sort of strange abnormality, because you naturally consider something like that to be a strange anomaly if it's actually getting mentioned somewhere, since normally we don't really mention physical features unless they're outliers or extremely apparent.

[Mel_Vixen]

Our expectations play also a role here. We are used to all that (super)-models and artificial perfectionism in any kind of movie, video game and other kinds of visual art. So our standards expectation wise are much higher then the actual average prettiness among the population.

Since we deal here also with a video-game i asume the frame of expectation is even more focused on the upper end of the prettiness-scale since we are pretty used to fan-service in video-games.

[G-Flex]

We're also used to the graphics being fairly cartoonish, where "hooked nose" means "holy crap that's a really hooked nose" in realistic terms.

[Ilmoran]

Additionally:
- Physical Attractiveness is not the sole factor (or even close to it) determining whether you can carry on your bloodline.

- Your thinking too modern.  Look at the technology level of the dwarves:  No gunpowder weapons, relatively basic medical knowledge (we can immobilize a broken bone, staunch blood flow, sew up a gaping wound, and cut up your insides [but may or may not know what's going on in there]).  This is probably middle medieval (based on no gunpowder).  Thus, the modern concept of attractiveness doesn't really apply.