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[Jeoshua]

I think in a world in which elves eat your Dwarves after they slaughter them brutally, then your Miner gets a wild hair up his ass, killing your Mayor and making a mug out of his flesh, then everyone dying from tentacle demons swarming up from the depths of hell...

Yeah a few gaybashers not liking the game is the least of our worries

[DrSazar]

Then don't play a gay elf adventurer? Play a straight one if you or your friends are that small-minded?

Also, as Jeoshua just mentioned, Toady is already fine with the concept of broadening sexual orientation and doesn't seem to think that politics needs to enter into the question whatsoever. If something like this would actually cause the game's reputation to suffer, then that's hardly the game's fault anyway.

As I said, I support the idea, I just don't think it would fly. For example, if you would get to choose your adventurer's sexual orientation, a small amount people would feel it offended their priciples, but ALOT of people would simply feel uncomfortable playing the game. You're right that politics shouldn't interfere with the game, but it must in order to have an audience for DF. Otherwise, why don't we have goblins rape dwarves during their ambushes? How about you incorporate AIDS and other STD's as syndromes? Why not add pedophile dwarves while we're at it? I wouldn't mind it, and seemingly neither would most DF players. But it would decrease the number of potential future players, decrease the number of present players, and decrease the donations that support dwarf fortress.

So if DF should put homosexuality into the game, it should be very suttle while being as realistic as possible. Like not directly stating in the dwarf's info "He is gay" or "She is a lesbian" but rather seeing a male dwarf having a husband and not being able to have kids. It shouldn't be treated like such a big deal that you choose your adventurer's sexual orientation, just like you don't choose his eye color or skin color. It really dosen't matter that much.

[Jeoshua]

Well our discussion thus far has pretty much settled on the option of sexual orientation being a personality trait, akin to carefulness or self effiacy.  These are set at birth and can vary on a range of 0-100.  They can be set for any creature, not just civilization entities, and are generally unchangable (without hacking).

These traits, as you know, are normally displayed on the creature's detailed information. "He is very lazy.  He dislikes authority.  He is extremely creative."  Normally this suggestion would add something to the effect of "He is extremely straight" or "He swings both ways" to this list.

Are you proposing that Dwarves be "in the closet"?

I doubt the kind of people who would really be offended and make a big stinky fuss about gays in DF are the same kind of people who would play for long enough to even see their Dwarves personalities.

One good thing about Personality traits are you can't set them.  As an Adventurer, you'd either be randomly generated gay, or not gay, depending on which race you picked and the luck of the draw.  In that situation, it wouldn't matter too much anyways, since you can't get married or do any of that stuff in Adventure mode... so it might say "He is flamboyantly gay" but you don't have to play it as such.

Another interesting thing is that if a personality trait is not grossly different than the norm, it's not mentioned.  You would probably never see a Dwarf that said "He is not homosexual." because that would be their "default" state.  You'd only see any information about it if that personality trait makes them much different than the median value.

So, in a way, you could have a race that never said anything about their sexual orientation in the descriptions screen by making that race not have a very wide spread of values.  Elves wouldn't have a thing that says "He swings both ways", because by their very nature they would not have a wide spread outside of that, excepting maybe the really straight elves.

So it would be "remarkable" that "He is straight as an arrow", but a gay elf would be nothing to even be talked about, being more natural than not.

[G-Flex]

As I said, I support the idea, I just don't think it would fly. For example, if you would get to choose your adventurer's sexual orientation, a small amount people would feel it offended their priciples, but ALOT of people would simply feel uncomfortable playing the game. You're right that politics shouldn't interfere with the game, but it must in order to have an audience for DF. Otherwise, why don't we have goblins rape dwarves during their ambushes? How about you incorporate AIDS and other STD's as syndromes? Why not add pedophile dwarves while we're at it?

Because pedophilia, AIDS, and rape are actually very harmful things, whereas homosexuality is completely benign. The former group of things are touchy because they're problematic, whereas the latter thing is touchy because of people being flat-out intolerant.

I wouldn't mind it, and seemingly neither would most DF players. But it would decrease the number of potential future players, decrease the number of present players, and decrease the donations that support dwarf fortress.

Except for the fact that the game would be providing a good example by deciding to not ignore the issue, and to deal with it responsibly. This would get the game credit where it counts. It would alienate the intolerant, sure, but it would also pique the interest of others, while also doing what's socially responsible by not turning a blind eye to this aspect of the human condition simply because some intolerant folk might not like it.

[Jeoshua]

I think the biggest problem that would arise from all this is that civilizations would have to handle the gay "issue" in realistic ways.  Meaning that certain races would go to war over it.  I've mentioned it before but it's worth going over again.  Having war over the other side's beliefs on homosexuality would be several steps above what we have now, which is basically "He finds lying appalling! He must die." and "OMG HE KILLED PLANTS! MURDER HIM!"

I'd honestly rather see wars over homosexuality than some of the dumb crap that happens now.

[G-Flex]

I'm not really sure if wars over sexual orientation would actually happen. In the real world, wars seem to either happen for more practical reasons (e.g. natural resources, territory) or for more broadly-reaching reasons (e.g. religious imperialism), often with the latter being used as an excuse for the former.

[Jeoshua]

Well in the real world, wars aren't fought over another civ's treatment of animals, or their stance on eating people... but I was talking about DF's really screwy ETHICS wars.

[G-Flex]

Well in the real world, wars aren't fought over another civ's treatment of animals, or their stance on eating people... but I was talking about DF's really screwy ETHICS wars.

To be fair, I think one country might take issue with another country eating its dead in real life. But yes, DF's wars are pretty weird right now, that's true. Presumably, though, those things may change just as dwarven relationships might/will.

[NW_Kohaku]

Well, I support this suggestion because I think DF should become more and more realistic with each update, but I know that this would just never happen.

It would just make DF infamous for having gay dwarves and ruin its good reputation while labeling DF as "the game where you can have gay dwarves". I know it shouldn't be like that, but most people would be embarrased to say they play a game where they take the role of a gay elf adventurer.

For example, if you would get to choose your adventurer's sexual orientation, a small amount people would feel it offended their priciples, but ALOT of people would simply feel uncomfortable playing the game.

Dragon Age lets you be a gay human/elf/dwarf adventurer... and yet people still played that.

I don't think it made them too uncomfortable if, given an option, they say, "Yeah, I'm straight".

Bioware games have given you some sort of gay option in every game but Mass Effect 2 since Jade Empire (although Mass Effect 1 only had Liara for a "lesbian" option), and they aren't known as the "gay adventurer company".

Sure, it's mentioned, but at the same time, the romances are such tiny parts of the actual things you do during the game (and really, why ARE they so inconsequential?) that few people really care that much about it.

You're right that politics shouldn't interfere with the game, but it must in order to have an audience for DF. Otherwise, why don't we have goblins rape dwarves during their ambushes?

(sarcasm) WHAT?  Inter-species breeding! That's SICK! What two goblins choose to do in the privacy of their own bedrooms is one thing, but breeding with a hairy mongrel dwarf?! (/sarcasm)

Sorry, I just thought it might be worth pointing out that just because goblins are "evil", they don't necessarily want to rape other races. 

How about you incorporate AIDS and other STD's as syndromes?

Procedural fantasy STDs sounds like a great idea.  Just toss them in the pile with all the other diseases we should be getting.

So if DF should put homosexuality into the game, it should be very suttle while being as realistic as possible. Like not directly stating in the dwarf's info "He is gay" or "She is a lesbian" but rather seeing a male dwarf having a husband and not being able to have kids. It shouldn't be treated like such a big deal that you choose your adventurer's sexual orientation, just like you don't choose his eye color or skin color. It really dosen't matter that much.

From earlier in this thread:

When I say "we don't need sex in this game", I mean we can keep "sex" the same as it is right now - not sex, just magically having creatures get visits from the stork or something.  That's implied sex, but it's not displayed sex.  We don't need to display sex.  We should, however, display intimacy - the actual act of building up relationships, and make social mingling a more major portion of the game. 

I'm saying lesbians are just girls that really like spending their off time throwing rock nuts at the goblins in the zoo with other girls more than spending time with guys, and getting relationship values that go into "lover" range with other women, not with men.  (Or have the ability to go into the lover range with both...)  Meanwhile, we need to have the ability for dwarves to want to seek out taking breaks with the people in their serious relationships, and having those relationships become more important and more detailed in the game.

None of this has to involve any displayed sex.

[Urist McAddict]

I don't have time to read through everything, got tired halfway through the trolling...
Seriously, who gives a rat's buttocks about sexuality of your dorfs? Everyone gets beards, i only realize that a dorf is male or female when i accidentaly check their statuses. Sure, it's a reality and such, but so is racism, pedos and such... Would you really want a Hitler reference in your cute little topic?
I'm all for variable ethics, but since before the monotheism flood, noone gave a second thought on gay relationship, really!
Everyone was kinda too worried with fighting for their lives to give a damn about who's sleeping with who... Only in our modern life, with much stability and idle time that we even start considering that...
I'm not saying "ban gays", just that being gay or not would just mean that in relationship tab you would get a same sex dorf with a in love tag... I suppose that this wouldn't end the world just because they can't get married...
I gotta say that i'd love a spending time with lover/ family job, a flirting around, looking for partners, now THAT would get DF to a next level... Who they decide to be unhappy with is their damn business, marriage is a legal/religious way of saying that "you're allowed to reproduce with this person, not with everyone else, keep your sausage fingers to yourself", but ppl make it look like marriage is the definite way of saying i love you...
Sure, in our actual society it may even be, but i think that if we lived like dorfs, it wouldn't be a touchy topics, you can hide your sausage where you want, that is none of everyone else's business, or you see straight ppl with a "100% Straight" shirt? Gimme a break...

As I said, I support the idea, I just don't think it would fly. For example, if you would get to choose your adventurer's sexual orientation, a small amount people would feel it offended their priciples, but ALOT of people would simply feel uncomfortable playing the game. You're right that politics shouldn't interfere with the game, but it must in order to have an audience for DF. Otherwise, why don't we have goblins rape dwarves during their ambushes? How about you incorporate AIDS and other STD's as syndromes? Why not add pedophile dwarves while we're at it?

Because pedophilia, AIDS, and rape are actually very harmful things, whereas homosexuality is completely benign. The former group of things are touchy because they're problematic, whereas the latter thing is touchy because of people being flat-out intolerant.

I wouldn't mind it, and seemingly neither would most DF players. But it would decrease the number of potential future players, decrease the number of present players, and decrease the donations that support dwarf fortress.

Except for the fact that the game would be providing a good example by deciding to not ignore the issue, and to deal with it responsibly. This would get the game credit where it counts. It would alienate the intolerant, sure, but it would also pique the interest of others, while also doing what's socially responsible by not turning a blind eye to this aspect of the human conditionsimply because some intolerant folk might not like it.

Well, let me tackle this generic defensor, as it's mostly the discussion here...
Sure, pedophilia, rape and etc, are harmful things, but if you insist that cultural and social things are to be complete, it's there... Some tribes still adopt forceful sex as their way to keep things working, so if you want gay marriage in DF, be ready to get everything variable ethics are about to get things to sound realistic. Pedophily? In real life, even now, some religions permit (having many ppl doing it in the places where it's allowed) marriage with girls as soon as they enter the reprodutive cycle, and yes, that means that some ppl are being pedophiles, just as the ancient Greece and so forth it was common for old man to have teenage sex buddies... All those things go with ethics and philosophy, saying something is harmful, is saying it's harmful to US... You can't force ppl to agree with you on that... So you get a all jolly gay fortress, they won't mate and you get a 20 casuality situation, now you're gonna depend on migration? Sometimes the ban on gay is more for the necessity of the reproducing, unless some smart fella says that we should put geneticist dwarven to make same sex reproduction available...
Ppl worry too much to some aspects that aren't the focus of the game... You should be worried about these damn giant beast riding gobbos, that's right...
To your second reply, REALLY? REALLY? Do you think games ought to give good examples? We have a whole topic on wiki that states on cruel ways to kill goblins, which go from really simple slash and done to throwing them from a tower and drowning the ones that survive the fall... I'm kinda sure that games are there for fun, not political, social or positive behavior motives... It's an interesting thing to add to the immersity of the game, but really, that's an overrated thing, unless you plan on using it to separate gays, bi and such from the others.
Please, gay-rights or pro-family or pro-whogivesadamn activists, keep your trolling to minimal, saying someone's comment is stupid is doing to others what you don't want to be done to you, so eitheir state your opinion or go to some other forum to spew your venom...

[Jeoshua]

I gotta say that i'd love a spending time with lover/ family job, a flirting around, looking for partners, now THAT would get DF to a next level...

This is the biggest thing.  Once we have lovers/friends/family hanging out together, we can then ask the question "what gender is that lover" and the rest should flow naturally.

[NW_Kohaku]

Except for the fact that the game would be providing a good example by deciding to not ignore the issue, and to deal with it responsibly. This would get the game credit where it counts. It would alienate the intolerant, sure, but it would also pique the interest of others, while also doing what's socially responsible by not turning a blind eye to this aspect of the human conditionsimply because some intolerant folk might not like it.

Well, let me tackle this generic defensor, as it's mostly the discussion here...
Sure, pedophilia, rape and etc, are harmful things, but if you insist that cultural and social things are to be complete, it's there... Some tribes still adopt forceful sex as their way to keep things working, so if you want gay marriage in DF, be ready to get everything variable ethics are about to get things to sound realistic. Pedophily? In real life, even now, some religions permit (having many ppl doing it in the places where it's allowed) marriage with girls as soon as they enter the reprodutive cycle, and yes, that means that some ppl are being pedophiles, just as the ancient Greece and so forth it was common for old man to have teenage sex buddies...
[/quote]

By modern common perceptions of pedophilia/statutory rape, we already have pedophilia, I would point out.  (If we want to get really technical, it's "hebephilia" and "ephebophilia", because there's a different "philia" for every 4 years of age, apparently, and sometimes people want to get really precise about this stuff... but really, when people talk about pedophilia, they mean "not of the age of consent in our country/culture".)

12-year-olds are considered "adult" in this game, and are capable of being married, having children, and being sent to war. 

I once had a trip through legends mode where I saw a dead 13-year-old girl with 68 kills under her belt in the one year she was considered old enough to fight in wars.

As soon as they hit 12, they are completely legal in dwarf terms, and I've had 12-year-olds get married in my fort to 80-year-olds. 

Even the Greeks, with their love of boys, probably at least usually waited until they were at least 12. 


Now here's the thing, though... people just don't really care.

We have dwarves that mass vomit, and even build "vomitoriums" to try to cure the cave adaptations.  Yet nobody really complains about how crass that really is. 

I'd have to say that I suspect most of these things that are such hot topics, like magic, sewage, homosexuality, they're not going to be controversial topics when they're actually in the game.  (In fact, "yellow filth" and "brown filth" are already in the game, and nobody really notices.)

[Cyx]

You've said a lot of stuff Urist, I'll just answer a couple of your points.

Everyone was kinda too worried with fighting for their lives to give a damn about who's sleeping with who... Only in our modern life, with much stability and idle time that we even start considering that...

I assume you mean that the only reason people care about gay relationships is religion. So your point is that the only way they can have any effect is by being culturally allowed or forbidden. But Spartans were encouraged to have gay relationships so that they'd fight better : that's a pretty interesting way for homosexuality to be important. It makes your soldiers better fighters, but makes pregnancies less frequent so you that might have to rely on immigration.

but ppl make it look like marriage is the definite way of saying i love you...

Well, marriage is a placeholder currently, so we don't really know what it actually means to dwarves. I'm not even sure they need marriage, it seems like something you could take away to differentiate them from other races.

Ppl worry too much to some aspects that aren't the focus of the game... You should be worried about these damn giant beast riding gobbos, that's right...

You're not the one deciding what the focus of the game is. Combat got most of the attention so far, but ultimately Dwarf Fortress is a fantasy universe simulator, and relationships are a very big part of this. You don't give a crap if the goblin you just killed was gay. Okay. But if some king's wife turns out to be, it might destroy an empire.

To your second reply, REALLY? REALLY? Do you think games ought to give good examples?

Why not ? You're free to kill goblins however you like, that's not the goal of the mechanics Toady coded, merely things you're free to do. I'm sure homosexuality done in a tasteful way would draw a lot of positive attention on the game.

I'm kinda sure that games are there for fun

DF has always been great because of the stories you get out of it ; as a game to be beaten it's not bad, but I'm pretty sure Toady wants it to be more than that. If you think homosexuality wouldn't fit into the stories you want to see unfold, then you're free to. But a simulation so deep than who bones who can ultimately win or lose a war, I'd personally find that pretty fun.

[G-Flex]

Well, marriage is a placeholder currently, so we don't really know what it actually means to dwarves. I'm not even sure they need marriage, it seems like something you could take away to differentiate them from other races.

I can see elves as not having marriage. Being immortal, the period of time they spend raising children needn't be as defining a time in their lives as it is for humans, nor is pair-bonding quite as necessary in such a case.

Sure, it's a reality and such, but so is racism, pedos and such... Would you really want a Hitler reference in your cute little topic?

I find it kind of gut-wrenching that you're comparing sexual orientation to racism and pedophilia. What on Earth makes you think that is remotely appropriate?

Everyone was kinda too worried with fighting for their lives to give a damn about who's sleeping with who... Only in our modern life, with much stability and idle time that we even start considering that...

Tell that to the Greeks, or anyone else who actually spent time examining their relationships with others.

Sure, in our actual society it may even be, but i think that if we lived like dorfs, it wouldn't be a touchy topics, you can hide your sausage where you want, that is none of everyone else's business, or you see straight ppl with a "100% Straight" shirt? Gimme a break...

I'm not entirely sure what point you're trying to make here. That dwarves wouldn't be exclusively straight or gay? Because that's an option too. I have no clue what you mean by the "100% straight shirt" comment.

Sure, pedophilia, rape and etc, are harmful things, but if you insist that cultural and social things are to be complete, it's there...

I never said that every single cultural and social aspect of the real world be incorporated into Dwarf Fortress.

Sometimes the ban on gay is more for the necessity of the reproducing

When has this ever, ever been true in real life?

To your second reply, REALLY? REALLY? Do you think games ought to give good examples?

Yes, because they are capable of doing so, and people should strive to be socially conscious in all aspects of their life and work. It isn't right to dodge the question of homosexuality simply because some people are ignorant or intolerant about it. Or I should say, it is meaningful and worthwhile to respond to that question despite people's intolerance. The social situation concerning sexual orientation must get better, and part of it getting better is people stepping up to the plate and acknowledging the existence of various sexual orientations without treating them as something wacky or special, rather just as another aspect of people like any other. I don't necessarily think that Dwarf Fortress has some moral imperative to do this, just that it would be a very good thing if it could.

We have a whole topic on wiki that states on cruel ways to kill goblins, which go from really simple slash and done to throwing them from a tower and drowning the ones that survive the fall... I'm kinda sure that games are there for fun, not political, social or positive behavior motives...

So what if the game isn't trying to make a social or political statement? It still can have a positive social benefit, potentially, by treating the subject responsibly in a way that people would notice... and judging by this thread, people would in fact notice.

Hell, games are almost always, at their core, about more than fun. Why do you think people play and have fun to begin with? Part of the idea is that you learn things or develop (often abstract) skills. I know in the case of DF, there's also a lot of tangential learning going on; because of DF, I know a lot about things like metallurgy and medieval industry that I would not know otherwise. Games can be pretty good at this.

And again, a big part of my argument here is just that normalizing non-heteronormative behavior is a positive thing. It's wrong, in my opinion, for casual entertainment to apparently avoid non-heterosexuals unless they're camp gay or it's some major aspect of their personality (more than being heterosexual would be). I want to see a brainless action movie where the hero just happens to be a gay guy, not because it would be trying to hammer home a message, but because we need more examples of sexual orientation being treated realistically and naturally without it having to be some core defining aspect of the character (again, any more than heterosexuality normally is). Speaking about society in general, we need more cultural understanding of the fact that gay people aren't magically different from the rest of us.

Please, gay-rights or pro-family or pro-whogivesadamn activists, keep your trolling to minimal, saying someone's comment is stupid is doing to others what you don't want to be done to you, so eitheir state your opinion or go to some other forum to spew your venom...

It's kind of disheartening that I have to be considered an "activist" just because I don't think DF should refrain from including non-heteronormative sexuality simply because some ignorant people might be offended by it, or because some 13-year-olds might find it distasteful. I simply think that's a bad reason to exclude something that would otherwise be included, particularly when it's an issue with important social ramifications.

[Jeoshua]

I can see elves as not having marriage. Being immortal, the period of time they spend raising children needn't be as defining a time in their lives as it is for humans, nor is pair-bonding quite as necessary in such a case.

This is precisely the reason I have for thinking elves would be primarily "bisexual".  In their centuries long existence, they would most definitely explore almost all possible avenues of life that they could, at one time or another.

To make a brief aside, I always had problems with the way that elves were typecast, in role playing games, as being somehow "stuck" in particular jobs.  The fact is since they live so long, they would have a set of skills that is more diverse, as would their experiences, as a natural consequence of their extended lives.  In DnD terms, they should be able to "Dual Class", and totally change their lives on a whim...

I find it kind of gut-wrenching that you're comparing sexual orientation to racism and pedophilia. What on Earth makes you think that is remotely appropriate?

Ditto.  I don't understand why whenever someone mentions homosexuality, the first thought some people have is AIDS, Bestiality, Pedophilia, and the like.  Theres nothing at all similar in these things.  In the slightest 

Who else here facepalms whenever they hear the anti-gay-marriage argument "Well if they let gays marry, then next we'll be letting people marry their cats"  Yeah, because gays are like animals, right? Makes complete sense... if you're retarded.

Anyways, I'm not trying to make a political statement anymore, because that's not what we're doing here.  We're talking about a video game.  And not just any video game.  There aren't any political statements already in the game, so far as I can tell.  Toady got that out of his system with "Liberal Crime Squad", I would imagine.

Theres too much to quote in these walls of text, but I noticed alot of talk about gay and being notable and maybe Dwarves don't care as much about all that.  I would happen to agree with this idea.  Dwarves are the most gender-equal race in the game, with the possible exception of Goblins, who don't even care if you're even a Goblin, so long as you fight well.

I'd say that on a personality trait scale, Dwarves probably have a Sexual Orientation score of 30, and don't have a greatly variant spread.  This would break down to mean that they don't mind gays, and the game would not mention their sexuality unless they were extremely deviant from the cultural norm.  The thought of a really REALLY gay Dwarf doesn't seem that likely, but a bisexual Dwarf doesn't seem out of the question.  In many settings female Dwarves don't even look different from a male one, so who's to care?  That isnt' the case with DF, but we can use it as yet another example of why Dwarves have such gender equality.