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[Reelyanoob]

So Toady should acquiesce to the homophobes just because they might cause a ruckus? Should we also remove skin color now, since there might be racists on the forums?

I'm saying make it moddable - anyone can have any system they like then. Choice. The same as saying that if a vocal minority want something in a game is no reason to force everyone else to have it as the default.

I'm sure Toady will let you punch in "[ETHIC:PERSECUTE_HOMOSEXUALS:UNTHINKABLE]" on if you really want.  Maybe it's even going to be the vanilla standard.  But that doesn't mean we should side with the notion that there is no such thing as homosexuality, just "deviant lifestyles" in this game at all.

I don't want to have to mod a fantasy game so gays don't get murdered during worldgen! You may wish that upon me, but that's just saying because you want sprinkles on YOUR cupcake everyone else has to have them on their DAMN cupcakes or they're a goddamn SPRINKLE HATIN' REDNECK. And if they just want a plain cupcake, you'll tolerate them scraping them off, but still call them a sprinkle-hater. That's basically what you're saying.

Some of us just want to play a medieval adventure game, not a pron fest.

So, since humans technically can't exist without sex, every game with humans in it must model gay sex, to be realistic and fair?

EDIT: Many games don't deal with even straight sex. Does that make them "Anti-Hetero?"

Also, consider the broader appeal. How many gay non-DF players will join up because of this feature? Very few who aren't already playing it. How many players (gay or straight) might be put off by this feature? Many, I'd say.

[knaveofstaves]

So you assume that because I want homosexuality to be a good thing, several degrees above the very simple system we have now... That makes me one of the bad guys?

Nope. I was reacting to this:

But if it's just a name tag that means nothing, what does it matter? We don't even have SEX in the game at this point, let alone same-sex relationships.

Because we do have opposite-sex relationships -- even if their in-game implementation isn't consequential enough to cross your threshold of importance. I can see that because they don't cross your threshold, the above second quoteblock was not meant rudely.

But they do cross my threshold. If I get my joy from reading the descriptions of dorfs and filling in the blanks with my imagination... all the deities, spouses, families, friends, nodding friends, and grudges... that's a valid way to play the game. Seeing two beards share a bed without sleep is not what this is about. (If Tolkien and Pratchett say dwarven women have beards THEY DO RAAR! ...ahem.)

So do I think you're one of the bad guys? No. But given the parts of the game I appreciate, calling out "same-sex relationships" above as something not implemented, while blithely ignoring the opposite-sex relationships I see every time I load a fortress, offended me by its implication that opposite-sex relationships are so normal or natural as to be invisible, but same-sex relationships are so odd or unnatural that they require special attention or pleading. They're not, they don't, and anyone who says or thinks otherwise is a bigot.

On the off chance Toady is reading this and wants some actual data with which to implement same-sex relationships, may I suggest the Williams Institute. Variation between species on sexual behavior is very high, male giraffes have more same-sex sexual interaction than they do opposite-sex sexual interaction, but if you're modeling social relationships as opposed to sexual behavior, you have only one species to work from...

[knaveofstaves]

I don't want to have to mod a fantasy game so gays don't get murdered during worldgen! You may wish that upon me, but that's just saying because you want sprinkles on YOUR cupcake everyone else has to have them on their DAMN cupcakes or they're a goddamn SPRINKLE HATIN' REDNECK. And if they just want a plain cupcake, you'll tolerate them scraping them off, but still call them a sprinkle-hater. That's basically what you're saying.

This was directed to NW_Kohaku, but it's certainly not what I'm saying.

I'm saying that this cupcake wasn't fully baked, and I want you (i.e. Toady, who has my continuous gratitude) to put it back in the oven. You (i.e. Reelyanoob) don't eat the part that's not yet baked, which is fine, but if you can't see that it's not baked... well, yeah, you might be a redneck.

[G-Flex]

So Toady should acquiesce to the homophobes just because they might cause a ruckus? Should we also remove skin color now, since there might be racists on the forums?

I'm saying make it moddable - anyone can have any system they like then. Choice. The same as saying that if a vocal minority want something in a game is no reason to force everyone else to have it as the default.

This isn't a vocal minority. Even the developer said he'd like to have it incorporated in a natural fashion at some point.

Sexual orientation (indeed sexuality in general) is an extremely important thing to human culture and personality. It wouldn't make sense to leave it out, at least in the long term.


What you're saying is akin to saying that skin color should be left out, lest people be "forced" to accept that different ones exist.

If you feel that having gay dwarves in your game is a problem, or "forces" anything uncomfortable on you, then you are the problem.

I don't want to have to mod a fantasy game so gays don't get murdered during worldgen! You may wish that upon me, but that's just saying because you want sprinkles on YOUR cupcake everyone else has to have them on their DAMN cupcakes or they're a goddamn SPRINKLE HATIN' REDNECK. And if they just want a plain cupcake, you'll tolerate them scraping them off, but still call them a sprinkle-hater. That's basically what you're saying.

Some of us just want to play a medieval adventure game, not a pron fest.

Why does the acknowledgement of sexuality or sexual orientation make the game a "pron fest", exactly?

Also, consider the broader appeal. How many gay non-DF players will join up because of this feature? Very few who aren't already playing it. How many players (gay or straight) might be put off by this feature? Many, I'd say.

If they're put off by this, it's their own problem. If someone is actually put off by the simple acknowledgment of non-heterosexual orientation, then again, they are part of the problem just as much as someone who would be put-off by dwarves who aren't white. Hell, the game has enough stuff that could be found legitimately distasteful, like torture and murder, so why should sexual orientation be left out just because some homophobes might not like it?

[Reelyanoob]

I'm saying that this cupcake wasn't fully baked, and I want you (i.e. Toady, who has my continuous gratitude) to put it back in the oven. You (i.e. Reelyanoob) don't eat the part that's not yet baked, which is fine, but if you can't see that it's not baked... well, yeah, you might be a redneck.

Hang on - so because I say I DON'T want pogroms against gays in every fantasy world I generate, I'm a redneck now?

I mean there's a lot of things I personally feel strongly about but I wouldn't want them thrown into the game because I don't think they'd add anything to the game and they'd be innapropriate (and soapboxing)

e.g because there's no explicit Marxism in the game, it's a Capitalist Conspiracy! Every second fortress should be overthrown by an anarcho-syndicalist commune run by the haulers. And they should stop following your labour designations or order for extra realism.

And animal rights - every second dwarf should be a PETA member or it's just not fair. We treat animals worse than gays, it's Auswitz 24/7 for the animal kingdom in Real Life. So every frame of DF should be filled with animal rights activism. After all, it's got animals in it.

[Jeoshua]

For the record, there should not be a gay caste.  That's really rediculous, since they'd be considered like a gender, able to have different traits, body parts, maturing ages, attributes, etc.  That's not what castes ARE.  Castes are genders, like Male, Female, Queen Bee, Worker Ant, and stuff like that.  And the things you could add to a caste aren't remotely necessary for anything resembling human sexuality.

Being gay would have to be put in as a Personality Trait, maybe two (Homosexuality and Tolerance).  That means you're born with it, it can shift over time, and you could have people that are right in the middle, instead of just "either or".  This would allow lots of behaviors like gays in love with straights, self-hating gays, homophobic straights, and the whole gammut.  That's MUCH better, I think.  Really captures the representation of a wide spectrum of sexual behaviors without alot of kludgy mechanics.

This means you can set certain things with the caste system already in place, like women being more likely to be tolerant, or a certain race that would be more likely to be gay than others.

Nope. I was reacting to this:

But if it's just a name tag that means nothing, what does it matter? We don't even have SEX in the game at this point, let alone same-sex relationships.

And that makes me "heteronormative"? The fact that I recognize that there isn't such a thing as a sexual relationship in this game so therefore adopting the current system for marriages is a bad choice for same-sex relationships?

I do no' thin' tha' word means wha' you thin' it means.

Cause the way it was used, I thought you were trying to call me "fag hater". 

[Reelyanoob]

The Gay Caste thing was just a modding idea, that would require little change from Toady's end, it wasn't intended for any level of realism, just an engineering kludge. Mainly pointing out that a slight change would create some workarounds. Everything about the 2 new castes would be identical to normal, except mate-selection, so it's really just to create an idea of individual sexual orientation.

Also, as I pointed out, there's other mods that this slight change in how the raws works could allow, i.e. subraces which breed true

[Jeoshua]

Actually, it would require quite a signifigant change to what a caste is, and does, in DF.  Right now castes aren't recognized as anything other than [MALE] or [FEMALE] and are therefore added to the breeding/marriage pool from that.

The suggestion it be a personality trait recognizes that however it's going into the game, it's going to take mechanics to back it up, so one might as well not add it in as a silly hack, but try to do something worthwhile with it.

Because adding it in for pure modding support simply wouldn't do anything with the kind of information currently moddable from the raws.  This kind of thing requires supporting engine code, from where we're at now.

[Murphy]

Homosexualism is associated with modern time too much. Yes, I know it existed before, no history lessons please. I just don't want it in my fantasy world.
That being said, I do not mind if it's implemented, yeah, why not make some people happy. Just leave the option to turn it off for me.

P.S. The Sims had homosexualism all around, so there's no real taboo on it in videogames.

[Jacob/Lee]

Oh look, you changed the title.

[Reelyanoob]

I don't think it'd be such a huge change, assuming relationships form through direct interaction between dwarves, then there'd be checks for eligibility of forming a relationship already. this would check both parties are single, basically checking that partner = 0 for both dwarves, and also a check for compatible genders. Toady could easily separate the line of code for the gender compatibility check off into a separate function, if he hasn't already. Then, change that line of code to consider castes rather than the direct gender tags, and compare to a table of compatible castes for that race (the possible pairs would be specific in the race raws) This code would return a boolean yes/no for the match, so the detail of how it's done would be isolated here in the code.

Nothing else about how castes work need be affected by this, it's just creating a new use for the existing system. Proceating children would still consider the [MALE] and [FEMALE] gender tags.

With the above set-up you could define castes for gay/bi/straight in male and female varieties, set the frequency of occurance in the population however you like by tweaking POP_RATIO's, and define a relationship matrix as a set of pairs, specifying which combos would work, and which would not.

Sure, you can't change the caste of a creature during it's existence, and that's a limitation of the idea, but remember the average player rarely get to see what's under the hood of the game. So some dwarves would appear to have a specific preference, and other dwarves would seem to oscillate between the choices, with the system I just outlined, which would seem pretty realistic.

This, or some similar, but hard-coded and more elegant solution, is what I think would work better, where it's an accepted background variation in behaviour, rather than a Message (with capital M) about real-world persecution of specific groups.

[knaveofstaves]

And that makes me "heteronormative"? The fact that I recognize that there isn't such a thing as a sexual relationship in this game so therefore adopting the current system for marriages is a bad choice for same-sex relationships?

I do no' thin' tha' word means wha' you thin' it means.

Cause the way it was used, I thought you were trying to call me "fag hater". 

It's another indication of the difference in our interest level in using our imaginations to model dwarven social interactions as they currently exist. I see lovers, spouses, and then every once in a while the game pauses for a birth announcement, and then there are parents and children, and I say sex and family must therefore exist. You don't see sex unless it's coded in, and the coded versions of family don't meet your threshold for relevance. I insist that as coded it is a textbook example of heteronormativity, and that I do know what the word means. Throwing in a quick system that models a sketch of opposite-sex families but ignores same-sex ones, and doing so out of oversight, is perfect heteronormativity.

But this game is in alpha after all, and my understanding is that all this will be fleshed out one day. That was what I came into this thread thinking -- game's young, oversight is not insult.

Then people said that even talking about it will set the internets ablaze. It is evil to argue that we should be silent about inequalities because discussing them would upset people (not that I see you, Jeoshua, arguing that way). And, yes, I know what the word evil means, too.

I don't think you're a hater, though here's a for introducing the f-word to this thread. I strongly disagree with you over whether sexual relationships and family groups exist, but we can't even reach equality vs. heteronormativity if we're disagreeing over that.

[kaenneth]

I don't think 'Homosexuality' would be an appropraite trait.

Consider http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/The_Gods_Themselves (second part), which has a three gendered species.

Castes should have tags like "[SPORE_PRODUCER]" (male) and "[SPORE_RECEIVER]" (female), which would also allow [MALE_NEUTERED] [FEMALE_NEUTERED] castes which lack those tags if spay/neutering is ever implemented (or as a combat injury..  )

An individual would have a preferred caste to 'bond' with, with those castes being chosen from their caste data:

(the numbers after BONDING:(CASTE): are the min/mean/max tendancy to bond (fall in love) with a member of that caste that they are already friends with. this dosn't cover tolerance/ethics of other dwarves relationships.

[CASTE:FEMALE]
[BONDING:MALE:0:90:100]
[BONDING:FEMALE:0:10:100]
[BONDING:MALE_NEUTERED:0:10:50]
[REPRODUCTION:FEMALE]
[MULTIPLE_LITTER_RARE]
[REPRODUCTION:INFANT_CARE]

[CASTE:MALE]
[BONDING:MALE:0:10:100]
[BONDING:FEMALE:0:90:100]
[BONDING:MALE_NEUTERED:0:1:10]
[REPRODUCTION:MALE]
[BODY_DETAIL_PLAN:FACIAL_HAIR_TISSUE_LAYERS]

[CASTE:MALE_NEUTERED]
[BONDING:MALE:0:1:30]
[BONDING:FEMALE:0:9:50]
[BONDING:MALE_NEUTERED:0:1:10]
[REPRODUCTION:NONE]

In a three-gendered species, the MALE, FEMALE, and INFANT_CARE tags could be assigned to three different castes.

[NW_Kohaku]

I don't want to have to mod a fantasy game so gays don't get murdered during worldgen! You may wish that upon me, but that's just saying because you want sprinkles on YOUR cupcake everyone else has to have them on their DAMN cupcakes or they're a goddamn SPRINKLE HATIN' REDNECK. And if they just want a plain cupcake, you'll tolerate them scraping them off, but still call them a sprinkle-hater. That's basically what you're saying.

Some of us just want to play a medieval adventure game, not a pron fest.

So, since humans technically can't exist without sex, every game with humans in it must model gay sex, to be realistic and fair?

... What does this even mean?

I'm not sure what you are arguing against, much less what you are arguing for, here.

As for the "pron fest", I don't know where you get that notion, since I was explicitly talking about having relationships not sex. 

Seriously, we don't need to add in sex to add in homosexual relationships, we can just have men that prefer the company of other men in the literal sense. 

[G-Flex]

I don't think 'Homosexuality' would be an appropraite trait.

Why not?

Homosexualism is associated with modern time too much. Yes, I know it existed before, no history lessons please. I just don't want it in my fantasy world.
That being said, I do not mind if it's implemented, yeah, why not make some people happy. Just leave the option to turn it off for me.

Why exactly would you be so put off by there being gay people in your video game? Do gay people offend you that much?