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[qalnor]

I do want to make one small comment on the subject of one of the criticisms I find to be somewhat valid, which is the idea that prostitution is simply unfitting in dwarven society.

I have mixed feelings on this issue, but I ultimately decided to post this thread when I realized 'their hobbies include drinking and hard labor, of course they like whores'.

There are a variety of conceptions of dwarvishness, however, and I do admit some of those conceptions are contrary to the idea of there being a lot of prostitution in dwarven society.

One popular conception that does go contrary to this is the idea that dwarves are one big family, and they prize family above all else. If their conception of family is anything like our own, this would admittedly seem to preclude whoring.

I personally like to think of them as slightly stupid, extremely strong and very hairy versions of humans with all of the same foibles except magnified ie alcoholism. In many ways, I think of them as slightly tragic icons for the 'common man'.

[SnowWhite]

I have some thoughts on the effect adding dwarven prostitution would have on game play.

There is plenty in the game that is gruesome (lizardman chunks) and some that is poignant (kitten swept off bridge and drowned), but so far there's nothing seedy.

I know there are plenty of well-documented instances in history and literature of wealthy, respected, sophisticated prostitutes.  But they are usually called something else: courtesans or call girls come to mind.  A common stereotype of prostitution today is that it's low-class and happens in garbage-strewn alleys or flea-bag motels.  

I think that adding prostitution, cheating spouses, gang wars, or graffiti would change the mood of the game fairly significantly, and that change would deter a different set of players than are put off by butchering puppies and drowning nobles.

If prostitution is added, I strongly prefer that men and women dwarves both have the option to trade sex for money.  Maximus made the point that every other profession in the game is gender neutral.

Prostitution is a different type of profession than the current ones.  Whether making crafts for trade, cleaning blood off the floor, or making armor for the soldiers, the current jobs all serve the fortress.  Prostitution serves one (insert your preferred orgy or thresome joke here) dwarf at a time.  Similar professions such as massage therapist, shoe shiner, and personal assistant aren't in the game.  

But this topic does make me wonder, have any of you played the Sub Games?  http://www.bay12games.com/subgames/   I read that page weeks ago and was intrigued, but somehow was too busy playing DF to try any of them.  :-)

[20,000leeks]

It's possible, I suppose. The dwarves at the moment don't seem to be that much into sex, though. I mean, the birth rate is very, very low in the Fortress. Think about it. Over a 5 year period, you might get 3-4 births in a population 100 fortress. If anything, that's a decline in population. Since dwarves still exist as a race in the game, I have to assume that either a) only very serious-minded dwarves whose number one concern is building a fortress migrate, or b) the social mathematics of the game aren't quite there yet.

I'm tending towards b myself (we're up to, what, v0.22?), and realistically speaking, it's a little early to be taking sides on a debate like this. So far the dwarves and fortress mode in general are still in development, so it's a little hard to extrapolate from that and say "No, dwarves won't go in for that kind of thing because they are..." or say "Yes, dwarves would do that becuase they are not..."

That being said, were it a human society, then yes, it'd be realistically (that and 'human society' being the key words here) viable. Some people would find the inclusion of prostitution into what is, after all, a video game a little distasteful, but that's down to personal ethics. Unfortunately though, it's *not* a human society (see above), and since it's just a game, the level of realism can vary quite a bit. Thus, really, it all depends on where Toady wants to go with this.

Personally, though, I don't really mind one way or the other, just so long as we're not talking about the game degenerating into '1337 p1mp1ng skillz' or anything like that.

[Toady One]

As far as the mathematics goes, there's a larger problem.  We can't really have uncontrolled population booms -- unless you want to be offloading historical figures for the rest of your life.  There is a ton of food in the game (it's either easy to get it *underground* or from magic everfilling town barrels), so the population should be increasing (there might be other limiting factors, but the food supply wouldn't be one of them), but it can't.  The game will probably just have to stress the world if the population gets out of line.  It's easy to stress the world, especially when you're free to have meteors blowing the capital away and so on, though hopefully it won't have to rely on cheap tricks like that all the time.

Speaking of cheap tricks, were people turned off because Ultima (7?) had prostitutes?  Ultima 7p2 had a nude lesbian scene.  That kind of thing doesn't bother me.  I'm not sure what I think about dwarven prostitutes though, or even dwarven marriage.  Both genders seem like a bunch of heavy drinking workaholics, though they do share beds with their spouses (and their pets).  The dwarves I'm portraying aren't "slightly stupid" in a general sense, as they are very talented artisans and engineers -- this mechanical/crafting bent pulls them away from the common man analogy.  They are also emotionally unbalanced and strangely attracted to lava flows, though.

[qalnor]

On the issue of 'l33t p1mping skillz', I certainly do not want the game to be at all about that. I meant for prostitution to be largely a drain on society in terms of production, so no player would really actively seek out having lots of prostitutes, much less make the game remotely about them.

On the subject of the Subgames, hell, look at most any of the Bay12 games and dwarf-fortress looks tame by comparison.

It was with the spirit of Bay12games in mind that I made this suggestion, and to be perfectly frank I have to say that despite the fact that I am well aware of the American proclivity towards damning sexuality, I was still quite surprised to see the reaction of some towards this.

[Draxxalon]

Considering the birthrate... it may not be viewed as "prostitution" at all in dwarven society, and more as "population maintenance".   More or less, breeding for the sake of maintaining the population.

They aren't getting paid for the carnal pleasures (Do dwarves even enjoy sex?  The aforementioned lack of children might suggest otherwise)... they are getting paid to ensure that the race doesn't fade out of existance.

Morality is always context driven (anything that anyone objects to, at one place or time is/was accepted).  If your race has a statistically low natural birth rate, and a statistically high death rate - is it imoral to be paid to maintain your existance?  Probably not.

(I'm in no way trying to justify putting them in.   I am just trying to point out that Dwarves could view this entirely differently.  This concept isn't even mine... I got it from a book or a movie... I just can't put my finger on where atm).

[Veinless]

My only concern with this suggestion is that this would be, as mentioned above, the only profession that exists to serve the other dwarfs.  All other professions serve the fortress, be it hauling, cleaning, protecting, or manufacturing.

Now that I think of it, health care exists to serve other dwarfs.  Perhaps we can use our imagination and include prostitution there.

We do not have an insight into the sexuality of any of the denizens of DF, be it dwarf, dog, or (forbid!) elephant.  I am not sure that adding this would add anything fun to the game/simulation?/experience.  I just know that sometimes the bitches are pregnant.

You know those wood and stone crafts the craftsdwarf makes?  Sex toys.  You know it.  Or maybe they're miniature axes.  Pretty sure no one REALLY CARES.  Use your imagination.

Here's to tryin', it's better than dyin'.

I think Terry Pratchett has the nature of dwarf gender down pat.  Perhaps his example is insightful.

OK.  I've been drinkin', and it ain't longland beer.  How come dwarfs don't pass out?  Eyelid scratches make them unconscious, but chronic alcoholism doesn't affect them.  Oh yes, this isn't meant to be reality.  This is the dwarf world.  THEY ARE TOO BUSY TO BE HAVING NAUGHTY SWEATY DWARF SECKS.  They don't even take off their clothes, bathe, or use the washroom.  I know I wouldn't want to copulate with a sweaty, drunk, never washed nor voided dwarf.  Even if I was a fellow dwarf.

OK.  Enough rambling.

Go Oilers and damn the kittens.

[qalnor]

quote:Originally posted by Toady One:
<STRONG>  The dwarves I'm portraying aren't "slightly stupid" in a general sense, as they are very talented artisans and engineers -- this mechanical/crafting bent pulls them away from the common man analogy.  They are also emotionally unbalanced and strangely attracted to lava flows, though.</STRONG>

I did think about this to be honest. I agree that the word 'stupid' doesn't quite fit the bill.

I don't know, I can't quite think how to express what I was trying to say, I'm not sure there's even a word for it.

Tolkein's dwarves fit this part of the mold as well, and I still wouldn't consider them to be exactly 'intelligent' in the human sense. And yet of course they were more accomplished in many respects than their human counterparts.

Maybe there really isn't a word for what I'm trying to say, just a completely different kind of intelligence, not necessarily inferior in magnitude, but different in kind and inferior if measured within the human framework as dwarves would perhaps measure humans as inferior within their own.

edit: Also, now I want to play Ultima 7  

[ November 01, 2006: Message edited by: qalnor ]

[Mechanoid]

I'm surprised this thread has survived for this long, and that Toady even bothered to reply to it... I mean common, a two-liner for a inital post? It reeks of trollish flame bait.

The idea itself?
Yeah ok, anything to make the game more then it is. Gothic 2 had a pre-rendered sex scene in it when you went into the harbor districts' whore house. You could even go around killing everyone in there, smacking the bitches and pimps up for some cash. Unfortunetly, you only posted 2 lines which basically stated "Gimme whores" ... How will you deal with tracking historic figures? The population booms? Even the fucking descriptions...

All of that critical information necessary for fleshing the idea out was non-existant in the inital post.
...
What's the point of suggesting the red light district if you arn't going to outline the dwarven equivelant of bust size that's required for job assignment?

That, and we need lighting in the game first before we can create a red light for the district, anyways.

[Zengief]

(reads through topic...)

Looks like y'all had a party here and forgot to invite me.

On topic, prostitution would not hurt the game from a moral stand point. For all y'all that have a missionary outlook on life, there are plenty worse things in the game already than dwarf prostitutes (looks at artifact dwarf bone flute).

[SnowWhite]

Speaking of Terry Pratchett...

For those of you who haven't read enough Diskworld novels (which I highly recommend), dwarves in that universe all dress and act as males.  Courtship is very tricky because step 1 is delicately figuring out the gender of that cute dwarf next door.

How would prostitution work in such a society?    Instead of the human "Hey baby, want a good time?" do the dwarven solicitations start with "Hey baby, 20 bucks and I'll tell you my gender?"

[Aquillion]

Shingo, have you played any of the other games on this site?  Particularly in the Sub Games section?

That aside, I don't know about prostitution in dwarf mode specifically (dwarves, in most fantasy, are awfully hung up about sex), but I do think that it could add to the game if it appeared in human towns under certain circumstances.

More importantly, though, I think that "Nazi Dwarves" are actually a good idea--not necessarily "Nazi Dwarves" specifically, of course, but the idea that the fortress can become despotic and monstrous under the player's leadership.  Representing the general social character of the fortress in some form, and giving the player feedback about it, would be a good thing.

In most games of this sort, all the player has to worry about are practicalities--keeping food in people's bellies, keeping enough gold in the treasury, fending off goblin invasions, and so forth.  Those things are all well and good, but is that really what it means to run a town or fortress?  I submit that it is not.

If the fortress becomes a place where passing merchants are regularly murdered and their goods confiscated, the weak and injured are left to die, and even those in the upper ranks can be drowned at a moment's notice if they become troublesome, shouldn't this be represented somehow?  If the player runs their fortress monstrously, its people ought to become monsters, and the world should be full of rumors of the latest atrocity committed within its depths.

Similarly, if the leadership of a human town only cares about money, opening up huge casinos and attracting traders with flashy, high-rent central areas while putting most of their people in 1x1 tenements, they should see filthy slums developing around the outskirts, with crime, prostitution, disease and malnutrition becoming rampant.

The only game I've seen so far that really addresses this sort of 'moral' dimension to leadership is Hidden Agenda.  In that game, the player runs a recently-liberated South American nation through a series of decisions.  One of the decisions the player needs to make, for instance, is how harshly to prosecute the death squads that operated under the old regime; if the player prosecutes them harshly, it can cause the country to become divided.  At least at first, it seems like the logical thing for the player to do would be to swallow their conscience and only prosecute them lightly, if at all.

If they do that, though, then the leader of the "Mothers of the Dispossessed", an advocacy organization consisting of the relatives of people who were murdered under the old regime, is eventually found dead by the side of the road, and the player is informed that death squads are once again operating throughout the nation.

It is important for the player to get a sense that their actions have consequences, that they're doing more than just shuffling numbers around to maximize their productivity.  If the player runs a fortress like a totalitarian state, then they should start to hear rumors from abroad of how horrified the rest of the world is at their actions; if the player runs a town like some sort of urban slum lord, then they should end up with a skeezy slum.  Likewise, if the player manages to turn the fortress into a beacon of freedom and prosperity, they should get a sense of satisfaction out of that, and know that they've accomplished something more than just accumulating a huge pile of food and gold.  Gold is good, yes, but knowing that you're not going to get drowned in your bed for failing to toe the line is even better.

More importantly, this sort of gameplay would give the player a feeling that they have real choices, choices more meaningful than "do I put this statue here or over there?"  The player should have to decide if they want to make a fortress where no one starves, or a fortress where only the strongest survive; if they want to make a city that is clean and quiet, or a city that is filthy and raucous.

...now, part of the reason why I said that prostitution might wait for human towns is because, really, for dwarves it does make a certain sense that they're so obsessed with gold; yeah, collecting wealth will almost always be a major goal as far as dwarves are concerned.  But even there, it would be interesting if the way the player ran the fortress had an influence on the character of the dwarves who lived in it.

There should be more for the player to worry about, in other words, than whether their fortress survives or doesn't survive.  Having every game end up with an enclave of Dwarven puritans in slightly different-shaped caves is simply dull.

[ November 02, 2006: Message edited by: Aquillion ]

[Nobody]

On the subject of whores...

First of all, qalnor, quit crying and playing the victim card. You said, "Gimme whores and abortions" in the first post. You were begging for attention from the get go. And all the people who were instantly offended fell for it, so that you could stand on your soapbox of "Teh PC police are comin oh noez!" Have a cigar qalnor.

But on the subject of prostitution seriously? It's the question of what kind of fantasy world we're generating here. A pure, Tolkien, "The races of good are pure and at best fail and suffer from hubris", or a dark gritty Conan experience? I realize that you can skin kittens, gouge eyes, and chuck chilluns heads at city guards, but traditional black and white fantasy was chock filled with gore, and it applies to everyone (Although usually heroes die more heroic deaths than passing out and getting repeatedly stabbed by a kobold...). And there was little to no "secks", courtly love maybe, but that's it.

Dark, gritty fantasy however would have to weigh that in however. I personally cannot imagine dwarves having all too much of a sex drive, but who knows? Maybe that Baron has some kinky delights that he wants to fulfill, and wanders down to the room closest to the butcher's, drops his platinum pieces in the coffin, and waits for his voluptuous hairy masked companion for the night.

If you put in prostitution, it will change the theme of the world by quite a bit. It's not "teh bible thumpin' pc police", it's just the fact that we are quite, quite, quite focused on sex constantly. It's a major part of our world. Would you be able to look at Lord of the Rings the same if Aragorn took the guys for a quick stop in the red light district of Minas Tirith? And showed it in detail? I mean, how heroic an epic would it be, if Tolkien lavished his love for detail on Aragorn's copulations with One Armed Betty? O CRAP I MENTIONED A POPULAR FANTASY SERIES MY ENTIRE ARGUMENT IS INVALID.

And Berserk, if they removed all trace of sex, would make the thing broken. It's about what is wrong with the world, not the sooty, dark, shadowy wrong of Tolkien, but the festering, disgusting, corrupting dripping wrong that you see when you go wandering too far in the internet. Berserk just being blood, while probably still being loved by thousands of 'OMG POWER LVEL OVER NINET HOUSAND' teenagers, would most definitely be broken without some serious writing efforts on the part of Miura.

I think that really, we need a lot more basic underpinnings to the world, before we slap on sex, much less such complications to sex such as abortions, prostitution, fetishism, and taboo. And figure out which world we want our dwarves to slog through. Why am I saying we, I mean Toady, Toady is in the end in charge. What he says goes. We can only hope that our pathetic words might reach his ears.

[ November 03, 2006: Message edited by: Nobody ]

[Toady One]

It's funny how the last paragraph of your post merges with the quote in your signature...  it fills me with fear, in fact.

[Pesty13480]

quote:Originally posted by Wahnsinniger:
<STRONG>While we're at it, lets add Nazi Dwarves. Think how unifed your nation would be! You'd be the envy of all other Dwarven Kingdoms... at least until you invade them. All it would cost would be a randomly picked dwarf profession to be exterminated. I always thought Jewelers were a bit inferior anyway. Guess we'd get to build another type of Furnace too, eh?

What, no good? Are you offended? How dare you be offended by my ideas. My ideas are just as valid, nay, MORE valid than yours. Anyone who doesn't like this idea is just as bad as those Jewelers I just got rid of.
</STRONG>

I am not opposed to the idea at all, and no I am not offended because my skin lives slightly in the realm beyond "so thin it breaks in an inconvenient though mild breeze," so long as it could be presented in an entertaining way. As it stands, my current Dwarf Fortress is a blood-thirsty, violent Communist Republic where anyone with so much as a drop of noble blood gets sent to their deaths for the greater good.

It usually involves drowning, though I've upgraded to a nifty lava chamber which I suppose would fit your definition of an oven. If I really wanted to, I guess I could mix them both and steam them to death as well - it's already there.
......

 

quote:<STRONG>
Moral Issues Aside (for which I personally DO take issue with this), if it causes this much controversy, its not worth adding to the game. It also adds no real gameplay value. "Look mom, my dorfs are getting abortions. Isn't this fun!", nor does it add any real depth to the game, because prostitutes and abortions are more of a footnote in society than any real mainstream part of it.

</STRONG>

So your argument is that you find it offensive and therefore it shouldn't be done, even though there's hundreds of equally, if not more horrifying things, that take place in the context of every single game? Answer a question for me then, please - are you just not bothered by those other horrible things or the potential to do those things? If that's the case, do you strive, every morning, to be as inconsistent as you can be or is it just a natural defect in your character?

 

quote:<STRONG>
Besides, STDs and Abortions are just one MORE thing to kill dwarves off, and those can be all too numerous already. Prostitutes WOULD help increase the population I think, but only to marginal degree, meaning they're a relatively worthless profession.
Dwarfland Uber Alles!</STRONG>

On the contrary, Fortress Mode is probably more on the side of being too easy and safe than it should be. I mean, once you get your farms up and running, and let's be honest with ourselves here, the biggest killer is the first Winter, things pretty much run smoothly unless you choose to deliberately sabotage yourself by avoiding things that make your time easier (traps and the like).

I have the perfect idea, mind you, for the implementation of prostitution and such like; if, post bookkeeper, a dwarf can no longer afford to sleep in a room of his or her own, and is instead confined to a barracks or sleeping out on the floor where it's good and cheep, then the dwarf ought to turn to the dark side. Well, except that prostitution isn't really immoral to begin with, but let's call it that regardless.

And their clients?

The nobility. Nobles love their concubines.

We ought to leave abortion out, however, until/if children actually become a significant burden to their parents instead of the overall productivity of the fortress; I mean, what motivation would they even have to off their offspring? There's plenty of reasons to abort or practice variants of infanticide, but children don't inconvenience  the dwarves at all.

Abortion, though, would be pretty simple to handle - nothing as primitive as tiny hooks, though rest assured people have been lancing at their unborn with those for a few thousand years of recorded history. All you would really need to do would be to designate a few shrubs as special abortifacients and you're all set.

quote:Originally posted by Nobody:
<STRONG>
If you put in prostitution, it will change the theme of the world by quite a bit. It's not "teh bible thumpin' pc police", it's just the fact that we are quite, quite, quite focused on sex constantly. It's a major part of our world. Would you be able to look at Lord of the Rings the same if Aragorn took the guys for a quick stop in the red light district of Minas Tirith? And showed it in detail? I mean, how heroic an epic would it be, if Tolkien lavished his love for detail on Aragorn's copulations with One Armed Betty? </STRONG>

Frankly? I mean, the movies are entertaining mainly for the scenes of war and carnage, but I can't look at Lord of the Rings at all, or most any high fantasy, without laughing. Yes, it's fantasy, but fantasy to me means a simple change of location and the assumption that assorted races/magic/gods/history exists; that is to say, fantasy is the setting where the story plays out and that can be, get this, as fantastic as the author/designer/director pleases.

That's what makes the fantasy interesting.

To me, what makes a fantasy, and I'll throw Tolkien in here much to what I'm sure will be everyone's horror, stupid and unbelievable, are two dimensional plots, two dimensional characters, generic overwhelmingly good vs overwhelmingly evil conflicts, and two dimensional uses of fleshed out and interesting worlds.

No, fantasy isn't laughable because there's an ancient tree creature who tends to a forest, oh no, fantasy shifts over into the realm of the laughable and boring when it's shining knights in gleaming armour, with a white standard, charging off to do battle against the generic unspeakable horror of the ages, and woe, look he's fallen, the hero is dead but he's such a hero and there will be songs about him and on and on and on.

Fantasy only works if you throw the motivations and politics of the real world onto it. If the biggest crime your characters have is hubris, and if everyone who isn't outright black evil can be motivated by the greater good, you've got a pile of crap on your hands.

If you want Dwarf Fortress to be about generic dwarves in a generic fantasy world doing generic things, that's your right, but I'm pretty sure the rest of us want it to be interesting and entertaining and afford us the ability to do things we would not do in real life - and that formula, my friend, runs a little deeper than generic fantasy simulator + dwarves.

[ November 02, 2006: Message edited by: Pesty13480 ]