Bay 12 Games Forum
Dwarf Fortress => DF Suggestions => Topic started by: AuthorX on December 23, 2022, 01:26:51 pm
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I've been wanting to try Dwarf Fortress for a long time, and took the opportunity with the steam release, as well as looking at how mods work. One thing that quickly came up in discussion with friends is the idea of trans dwarves, since I and most of my friends are trans. It was nice to see this tweet (https://twitter.com/Bay12Games/status/1107118932077346817) suggesting they're planned at some point in the future, but since there's obviously a lot going on I decided to look at the possibility of adding it in a mod myself. But there were two problems that come up quickly.
The first is that everyone has different ideas of how they want gender in general or transgender dwarves specifically to work. Even among my friends, our opinions have ranged from "I hope nothing is changed, the way it is currently has no social gender roles which is perfect" to "I want dwarves to work like Discworld where they're all male by default and their physical sex is not relevant/known until they take a spouse, or if they personally decide to make it public" to "I want dwarves to be able to have different pronouns or gender markers in their profiles than the one they were assigned at birth, maybe at random, or maybe some internal personality trait that causes stress until they do, or maybe some of them want help from a doctor or some don't, or... [continued rambling about the possible mechanical minuteae]". It's pretty much a certainty that if Toady adds transgender dwarves, the way he designs it won't make all of us happy, because we want different things.
The second is that the way gender, sex, pronouns, etc works in the game is hardcoded and unmoddable (the "how I did pronouns" issue, as Toady aluded to in the tweet). Currently, you can assign different castes MALE or FEMALE tokens (or even NO_GENDER to revert to neither) to specific castes, but each one controls a bunch of different behaviors, including the gender marker on the bio, pronouns used for each creature, and whether/how can reproduce. So as it is you can't, for example, have every dwarf described as "he/him" but still be able to have kids. Or to model many historical transgender or third-gender castes (https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Transgender_history). It also prevents any kind of neopronouns or other genders being reflected on the creature's bio page.
Solving the second problem would also solve the first. It's the spirit of the game that everyone can customize their Dwarf Fortress experience to whatever they want, not just in in-game constraints and goals, but in modding the game itself. Making the behavior of sex and gender moddable, without even necessarily changing the default behavior, would provide this for a lot of players, beyond just the default dwarves but also to customized creatures and societies. There's already some gesturing toward this in the game itself - the fact that Orientation is moddable, for example, and that the elves, unlike other civilizations, only have Queens, never Kings, and have Princesses as both a military and nobility role. I can understand how the current implementation of gender is easy to implement as a quick default, to "look right" in most circumstances, but it is limiting the possiblity space.
I'm sure there's a lot of people that think this is unnecessary, but again, the whole spirit of the game is unnecessarily detailed simulation and customizability. Most people probably don't care if you can change the material a dwarf's toenail is made of, but you can. So, I figured I'd post something that I know I and many other people would be interested in seeing in the game.
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While I personally think this change is not necessary, I wouldn't protest if support for that was eventually implemented, if people want it, why not. But on the other hand, this game has real issues, like big big issues with multiple aspects, that are there, waiting to be fixed/changed/adjusted, and I would be really pissed if something with as little impact on gameplay as pronouns would take priority over those matters. This happened to the sims 4, game that has really annoying bugs since its release years ago, every new expansion adds new bugs, but somehow, they couldn't find time to fix this, but apparently had time to implement pronouns that have literally no impact on gameplay apart from making a margin of players happy that their sim can be called "they" instead of "she" in the game. Everything else is exactly like it was, full of bugs.
So yeah, I'd say: yes, but there are bigger things to do first.
Btw, you should check out Noble Fates, not sure if it has support for modding this part of the game, but it already has more than 2 genders by default.
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Yeah, I certainly didn't think this would be priority, especially with the premium release having just hit the public, and doubtless needing to fix a lot of bugs now that it's hit the public and keep the classic version up to parity with it. But I figured I'd suggest it, since this is the suggestion forum (and Toady already expressed interest so I figured I'd offer how I'd like to see it implemented - moddability rather than different-but-still-hard-coded behavior).
Regarding Sims 4, I've also had games get worse and worse as new content adds new bugs that are never fixed - Lego Dimensions was basically unplayable last time I tried it. But both of those games have something in common that Dwarf Fortress doesn't - selling the additional content that they keep pumping out. It's easy to see why more attention would be paid to additional content than the base game when the developers are being pushed by the publisher to create ever more profit, and new expansions means new sales from existing customers. Despite the appearance of the premium edition, I very much doubt that Dwarf Fortress is going to go that route.
Also, all work is not equal. I'm not a game developer, but I work in an enterprise software firm and I know from experience that what seems like a huge and obvious issue to some users may require a ton of work and rigorous testing, and not have been brought to our attention for years after a feature was added (despite the customer's protesting that "there's no way I'm the first person to have this problem"), while something they see as unimportant is fixed or added because it was faster to implement, didn't affect other parts of the software that would need to be tested too, and requested by multiple users (and often, in the case of enterprise software, higher-value customers). I'm not saying my suggestion is highly-requested or would be easy (especially since it touches on reproductive behavior, which affects most of the creatures in the game), but in general if you see a game add feature X instead of fixing bug Y, it doesn't mean that the time they spent on X would have instead equaled Y. Especially when it *is* limited to something in-game text that doesn't affect how things behave/render/interact, like pronouns.
I'll check out Noble Fates, thank you for the suggestion!
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Tarn has already indicated intentions to go along this path in the future. I think it would require a bit more refactoring but it is on the to-do list to have more gender variance stuff going on.
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The main hurdle at the moment is that gender itself, in the social construct sense, doesn't really matter in Dwarf Fortress. Different expectations and norms per gender aren't modeled at the moment outside of the possibility for civs to make positions exclusive to a particular sex. Male and female dwarves will both happily put on dresses if they are available and won't behave differently. The only significant difference in behavior then is just the fact that female dwarves are capable of becoming pregnant and bearing children, and that's due to their sex rather than gender.
I imagine transness and a general refactor of how gender identity works would come when Toady and co. get around to reworking entities and how their culture works including a look at gender roles and expectations and such.
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Possibly by the time of Myth And Magic there'll be something (if not already, by Syndrome inducement?) which can effect the sex of the dwarf, on top of the gender identity aspect and/or the sexuality one.
(i.e. the details of what's between their legs. Vs what's between their ears or who is between their legs...)
But, right now, a good approximation of the Discworld Dwarf system exists. Except that male pronouns aren't the default, or the near total (or at least traditional) insistance on hypermasculinity in dress. The latter might be enforced by modding out (or across?) the undesirable garbs. - This of course being not the solution that OP is looking for, but just me generally chatting around the subject and various implications of various possible choices. (Ditto the Ancillary series's main culture seemingly being both sex- and gender-agnostic (edit: and, by natural extension, sexuality also), and defaulting to feminine descriptions, etc.)
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Male and female dwarves will both happily put on dresses if they are available and won't behave differently.
Just want to point out that dresses were also used by males in ancient times (even in the 14th century where DF tech level is mostly). And many cultures still have all genders wear dresses.
It's a fairly recent (Western) development that dresses are seen as "womens' clothes".
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in The World of Bones succession fortress, a third gender was modded in (through caste shenanigans, I assume), and this worked well enough. but I fully support the addition of this possibility.
I think the main issue is where to halt modability, if at all? DF is a framework for random generation, so the more open the framework the more varied the generation. along these lines, allowing genders to become something created by gods during mythgen would be equally awesome.
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Male and female dwarves will both happily put on dresses if they are available and won't behave differently.
Just want to point out that dresses were also used by males in ancient times (even in the 14th century where DF tech level is mostly). And many cultures still have all genders wear dresses.
It's a fairly recent (Western) development that dresses are seen as "womens' clothes".
And when the Romans first saw trousers, they thought they were feminine…
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For me this is a bad suggestion. Please include a tldr implementation suggestion of what exactly you are proposing.
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No Nonono, that does not disqualify a suggestion, there's no requirement for succinctness. We discuss their merits and issues here, and if you can't read far enough to know what those are, then delay commenting until you have read them in their entirety. It's simple forum etiquette.
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No Nonono, that does not disqualify a suggestion, there's no requirement for succinctness. We discuss their merits and issues here, and if you can't read far enough to know what those are, then delay commenting until you have read them in their entirety. It's simple forum etiquette.
It would be a act of courtesy in both your advice given and the original request. So far, there's enough power in the player's hand to suit personal taste and expectations laid upon them, but mechanically the game does require some act of reproduction to progress "the plot" (no_gender races are possible, but even they require psuedo reproduction via modding tricks) but you would have to disable the inbuilt systems for historical unit culling and find ways across dead-end situations realistically speaking like adoption.
At the given minute i think its dicey enough there's a rainbow blurb on graphical steam version, which players can't control the appearance of as a early indicator of a potential alternative sexuality present in the creature (or just a innocent expression of whimsy/mood level up? no way to be sure, but there is 0 tolerance to rainbow paraphernalia abroad, especially amongst "childrens products" in places like Dubai).
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Sorry, I know it would be an act of courtesy to provide a tl;Dr, but i mean that lacking one doesn't make a suggestion bad in any way.
On the actual topic at hand, I didn't have much to add besides that I like the general idea of having different gender/sex possibilities and the possibility to have gender specific normal behaviors in societies. Especially when modding in wierd species where the mammalian male/female sex characteristics aren't present.
I do think, however, that Dwarven and goblin societies don't seem like ones where differences among genders are common or significant. Elves on the other hand do have one indicator of a tradition of female preference among leadership roles in the female-exclusive queen position.
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+1. It's been acknowledged for a while that gender roles/identities in DF need work as a whole (which is to say they're virtually nonexistent in the current version beyond gendered pronouns), so to me this seems like a pretty natural extension of said work.
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No Nonono, that does not disqualify a suggestion, there's no requirement for succinctness. We discuss their merits and issues here, and if you can't read far enough to know what those are, then delay commenting until you have read them in their entirety. It's simple forum etiquette.
At the given minute i think its dicey enough there's a rainbow blurb on graphical steam version, which players can't control the appearance of as a early indicator of a potential alternative sexuality present in the creature (or just a innocent expression of whimsy/mood level up? no way to be sure, but there is 0 tolerance to rainbow paraphernalia abroad, especially amongst "childrens products" in places like Dubai).
It's a child playing make believe. Not an "early indicator of potential alternative sexuality".
And all players can change it whenever they like, along with all the rest of the graphics in the game. So what on earth are you talking about?
(data\vanilla\vanilla_interface\graphics\images).
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Edit- Its probably best to circumvent this post in entirety, but i still hold that misinterpretation of the imagery used is very much real and shouldn't align with the real world causes or associations.
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Sorry, I know it would be an act of courtesy to provide a tl;Dr, but i mean that lacking one doesn't make a suggestion bad in any way.
There is already a tldr of the post in the headline, what it lacks is something more concrete on the implement side to talk about.
On the actual topic at hand, I didn't have much to add besides that I like the general idea
My point exactly.
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They're the status icons (https://dwarffortresswiki.org/index.php/Status_icon) from classic.
Playing make believe was previously ". Now it's a rainbow. Adult dwarves don't play make believe except for the moment they grow up and haven't interrupted the task.
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I took some time off, to get a fresh head. Ill edit out my own posts from this ranting.
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you know that there is already an ORIENTATION (https://dwarffortresswiki.org/index.php/DF2014:Creature_token#ORIENTATION) tag?
it defaults to 75:20:5 and specified towards castes (or male female i don't exactly recall) and as such covers most attraction cases.
i don't think castes would work, as it is more of a biological difference (but it can be done too at the moment)
maybe adding a "pronoun" part in orientation tag could do the trick.
but that implies there are gender specific pronouns in dwarfish language which is not even the case in all human languages (there are many in fact that don't use she/he his/her but have a sole and unique way for designing someone, if dwarfish were like that, it would suggest that the issue can't even rise)
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you know that there is already an ORIENTATION (https://dwarffortresswiki.org/index.php/DF2014:Creature_token#ORIENTATION) tag?
it defaults to 75:20:5 and specified towards castes (or male female i don't exactly recall) and as such covers most attraction cases.
i don't think castes would work, as it is more of a biological difference (but it can be done too at the moment)
maybe adding a "pronoun" part in orientation tag could do the trick.
but that implies there are gender specific pronouns in dwarfish language which is not even the case in all human languages (there are many in fact that don't use she/he his/her but have a sole and unique way for designing someone, if dwarfish were like that, it would suggest that the issue can't even rise)
Sure, but I think all the OP wants is for the game to refer to some critters as they when describing them to the player which it does in English and currently uses he/she.
Actually what does it use for moon snail people, as they don't have gender?
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Actually what does it use for moon snail men, as they don't have gender?
Creatures with NO_GENDER are referred to as "it", iirc.
Edit. Checked with arena mode and "it" is what read in the description of a snail man (e.g., "Overall, it is untroubled by unmet needs").
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In this case, i think the ideal solution would be to associate a pronoun tag to caste AND orientation tags.
As it is irl. Some refers to biological differences by she/he others prefer to those references to be made on other bases (like the other pronouns, don't ask me which one those are I even confuse he/she all the time, coming from a background where none of those exists), hell even the position tags in entities could have a "pronoun" as a king might need to be addressed as "excellency /majesty".
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I am reminded of the traditionally taught[1] counterexample of German grammar, as demonstrated in (via strict English retranslation) some complex sentence that contains various contragenderisations something like "...the little English miss, it has..." (with "das Fräulein" being neuter, I think).
Which is beyond scope of the suggestion, I know. But a very early forum message of mine (http://www.bay12forums.com/smf/index.php?topic=38052.msg627406#msg627406) went into the potential subtletites of "original language and context" of words, prior to 'translation' to either more forgiving or less forgiving destination tongues (or guestures), and that could so easily have included some stuff about assumed/presumed gender in its subtextual examples, from which 'translations' could arise with enhanced or suppressed awareness of identity (or, in hostile context, deliberately misgendering for effect).
Plus, of course, the dangers of suggesting that a non-binary person (let alone a "little English miss"/Fräulein) be refered to as "it is" rather than (at the very least) "they are". Snail 'man' aside ('they' might prefer "it", I don't know too many snails, either socially or professionally!), I don't see that going without comment if partial support for non-"he/she"ness is added but it then still has to fall back upon the hardcoded "it".
That said, I recall some furious forumite who railed against the changes around [ORIENTATION], or something similar. With little sympathy from most of the rest of us, as I recall, their being either terribly unreconstructed or (possibly) LARPing as someone who was not. But, for that kind of sensibility, we probably need one of those sliders (as promised for settings like "highest of high fantasy with the gods themselves likely to corporeally walk straight up to atheists and smite them directly" to "mundanity itself, no 'magic' at all, just pure mechanical physics") so that the degree of "wokeness" can be set to the certain players' satisfactions.
I've no doubt that Tarn&Co would set the default at a generally acceptable level for most, of course, if he set his mind to the task of not only accomodating the diversity but also giving it a scalable level operation. Once he gets into that area of improvement. Might be after a number of less aesthetic-'only' changes, of course.
[1] I was never actually taught German[2], only picked up what little of it I ever knew while working there temporarily, and all this might have been more true prior to various spelling reforms/etc. But I heard tell of it from someone of a prior generation as one of those "Tom Brown's schooldays"-style of rote lessons.
[2] I was taught French, but right now (and probably even back then) couldn't tell you what gender a table is with better than 50% accuracy each time I might attempt to answerñ
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I think this is a good idea!
I'd love to see allowances for more sets of pronouns and heck, randomly generated pronouns would be a hell to see unfold
Imagine a world in which there are 3 sets of pronouns for dwarves: Xe/Xey, It/Its and He/Him
And these pronouns are not shared with elves, which have 2 common pronouns used in their culture (Be/Bits and They/Them)
Imagine elves using Be/Bits pronouns ^v^
Atm the gender situation in Dwarf Fortress isnt exactly bad, but not that great either. It leaves a lot assumed that could instead be incorporated into the storytelling machine that is this game
Another subtle touch that would add a lot, like lying and the such.
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Lying is in the game, it just did not told you ;).
Also the outrage for "default" orientation was more from a mechanic standpoint, as at the introduction some of your lifestock might have decided to not be interested in procreating.
I do not think pronouns would be a big change in the game. I am not often watching my dwarves at that detail, and when I do, their deeds, preferances and aspirations metter me more then what their gender is. That is a bit too private for me to spy on :D
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Also the outrage for "default" orientation was more from a mechanic standpoint, as at the introduction some of your lifestock might have decided to not be interested in procreating.
It can be annoying in certain scenarios, adding nothing except forcing us to keep extra FPS hogs. Imagine a world in which Armork bless us with 3 pronouns for livestock: male breeder, female breeder and steak.
Otherwise I am still not clear what people suggest. I seen wishes from basic textset parameter to modify pronouns, changes to caste, Discworld/lying mechanic, and there was even mention of adoption. It is all over the place with nothing specific, so i'll follow suit using general discussion forum ethics.
Rimworld recently introduced ideology, which is roughly an expanded set of ethics (https://dwarffortresswiki.org/index.php/Ethic) you can customize. It allows you to play with various social norms (from views on execution, slavery, child labor .. up to polygamy) either set at start or adjusted as you grow. Which affects both your society and how others react to it.
I would love to return to such an approach here, instead of addressing a specific scenario of gender pronounce introduce the means to mod various social and physical caste more making the game more versatile, which would allow anything from gender pronounce to aristocracy titles, clan names, eunuchs whatever your imagination/story leads you to.
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Also the outrage for "default" orientation was more from a mechanic standpoint, as at the introduction some of your lifestock might have decided to not be interested in procreating.
The general consternation may have been about that, but I recall a specific countering view. Not sure it's worth searching for, it might have been wiped from the boards. And I'm only mostly sure that it was on these 'ere forums anyway.
Not that it matters, as I had no sympathy with that viewpoint and would personally discount its relevence to actually guiding future development in this field.
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It can be annoying in certain scenarios, adding nothing except forcing us to keep extra FPS hogs. Imagine a world in which Armork bless us with 3 pronouns for livestock: male breeder, female breeder and steak.
I imagine that for non-sapient creatures like cows, sexual orientation would be simplified and gender wouldn't exist, only sex would. Basically the same system we have now.
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Agreed. Even if I wouldn't use this kind of mod myself, more modding options is always a plus. IMO as much of internal rules governing the generation (including grammar rules and strings) should be externalized, with DF executable only working as an interpreter for these things (think Factorio, where the base game is implemented as a mod).
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It can be annoying in certain scenarios, adding nothing except forcing us to keep extra FPS hogs. Imagine a world in which Armork bless us with 3 pronouns for livestock: male breeder, female breeder and steak.
I imagine that for non-sapient creatures like cows, sexual orientation would be simplified and gender wouldn't exist, only sex would. Basically the same system we have now.
There's already orientation, and that does mean that each of your livestock has a 5% chance to not be breeding.
And yes, it's 5%. This is verifiable, easily verifiable. The wiki has this info. You do not need me to tell you this. Taking 3 males and females each gets you a whopping 0.0025% chance that you will not have breeding due to orientation; either all of your males must have no opposite-sex interest or all of your females do. I have tested this, too, both in earlier version and the latest (via DFHack).
Anyway, game just doesn't have enough in the way of this stuff. Just male and female. That doesn't even match biological sex, much less gender. You can't grab up a handful of dirt without grabbing up a bunch of a species which is 0.1% male and 99.9% hermaphrodite (https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Caenorhabditis_elegans), for example. The game only gets away with slugs/snails by making them vermin, which don't reproduce at all. I want (modded) parthenogenetic dwarves, dammit.
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There's already orientation, and that does mean that each of your livestock has a 5% chance to not be breeding.
Personally, I suspect that was never been the goal but an unexpected positive-ish outcome of Toady detailed models. With orientation, a natural aspect of human model, in turn bleeding into livestock. But realistically orientation is undue for livestock (there many things like age and repeat breeding that play MUCH bigger affect) and serves no real gameplay purpose (you could call it random-failure-chance-use-imagination-factor) but it is already there, so why not use it?! With added bonus of making some people very happy and make the simulation feel deeper.
Hence my suggestion, if the devs ever come around to this (their plate is rathe full atm), then they should focus on greater modablity of castes physical/social which would allow this scenario and sooo much more.
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It's only 5%? I'd have sworn it must have been higher. I used to bring one male and 3-6 females of every bird species, and it seemed like every embark would end up with at least one species that would not reproduce. At 5%, that should mean 13 species before you hit a 50% chance of at least one non-reproducing species. Which I should have been hitting once every other embark. Must have been a long string of bad luck. As expected, bringing 2 males pretty much eliminates the problem, appearing maybe 1 in 10 embarks, and gives the butcher something to do.
But dogs! Seriously? They will mount your leg, a couch, an end table, pretty much anything.
It is irritating, though, when I'm playing a dead civ, so will never get replacements, and it turns out I find out why the civ died out. I have enough trouble getting Urist to put his socks on before putting on his shoes. If I knew that was the situation at embark, I'd abort the game and get a new team.
As long as it takes to generate a world, and select a starting location, then get a colony started without getting overrun by lycanthropes or wiped out by rain, seeing it die out from something like that is lame. If Toady gave a slider option, I'd have that puppy slid all the way.
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Re: the suggestion, how would that work? If it's pulling from the raws and generating randomly within those parameters, doesn't that imply that if if rolls a result you don't want, you can't change it? Or something more superficial than that, kind of like renaming the dwarf? Check or uncheck the box and you now have a fertile member of the clan? Well, I guess that's one way you could control the size of the clan without an externally-imposed pop limit.
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I was indeed aware of the orientation tokens, yes. I can't recall how it works off the top of my head exactly. I just didn't elaborate on it. I do feel like the orientation token stuff that exists currently wouldn't be sufficient for representing how attraction (sexual and romantic) works for humans and presumably other sapients once gender identities and expression become more developed.
It definitely would be cool to have parthenogenesis and hermaphroditism. I've actually thought about the latter before, specifically in regards to sequential hemphroditism. While this wouldn't matter for most of the mundane animals already in the game, it would certainly would present more cool options for both the devs and for modders. Simultaneous hermaphroditism would also be cool.
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It's only 5%? I'd have sworn it must have been higher. I used to bring one male and 3-6 females of every bird species, and it seemed like every embark would end up with at least one species that would not reproduce. At 5%, that should mean 13 species before you hit a 50% chance of at least one non-reproducing species. Which I should have been hitting once every other embark. Must have been a long string of bad luck. As expected, bringing 2 males pretty much eliminates the problem, appearing maybe 1 in 10 embarks, and gives the butcher something to do.
It was 30% for a while, which still isn't terribly likely; 3 of each would get you a 50% chance at 13 species like that, even with 3 males. Bringing two males nowadays gets you a 0.0025% chance that both are incompatible, while back then it would get you a 9% chance, which squares with your "maybe 1 in 10" statistic.
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There's already orientation, and that does mean that each of your livestock has a 5% chance to not be breeding.
Personally, I suspect that was never been the goal but an unexpected positive-ish outcome of Toady detailed models. With orientation, a natural aspect of human model, in turn bleeding into livestock. But realistically orientation is undue for livestock (there many things like age and repeat breeding that play MUCH bigger affect) and serves no real gameplay purpose (you could call it random-failure-chance-use-imagination-factor) but it is already there, so why not use it?! With added bonus of making some people very happy and make the simulation feel deeper.
Hence my suggestion, if the devs ever come around to this (their plate is rathe full atm), then they should focus on greater modablity of castes physical/social which would allow this scenario and sooo much more.
It is not realistic to have your liverstock always breed, it doesn't matter that the secret reason is because of orientation.
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It definitely would be cool to have parthenogenesis and hermaphroditism. I've actually thought about the latter before, specifically in regards to sequential hemphroditism. While this wouldn't matter for most of the mundane animals already in the game, it would certainly would present more cool options for both the devs and for modders. Simultaneous hermaphroditism would also be cool.
Rimworld recently introduced an elaborate genetic system, that allows anything from "vampires" to fertility and propensity to violence, the sort of thing I suspect got Tarn really excited in the morning (unlike UI stuff). Rimworld system suits well their high tech setting (where you can have gene manipulation and growth vats) and complements well with existing systems, allowing for real impact on gameplay with multi generational colonies a viable option for most.
I doubt that such a system would suit DF well, it would have very little impact on anything except animals (especially with recent adult age change from 12 to 18) even there it adds minutia detail on top of existing things like basic genetics and procedural generated monsters. So personally, I don't see the allure here, this isn't DF forte. But as general rule I welcome greater degree of freedom for modders for others things.
I do wonder what magic might allow todo.
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It is not realistic to have your liverstock always breed, it doesn't matter that the secret reason is because of orientation.
I was raised on a ranch, cattle, sheep, pigs and horses. Plus dogs and cats. I've never encountered it. My brother runs 700 head of bison, and has never had to screen to see which to leave as bulls and which to geld.
I'm not saying it couldn't happen. I'm just saying I've never even heard of it around the sale barn. You buy a bull and he performs. Where are you getting your information?
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It is not realistic to have your liverstock always breed, it doesn't matter that the secret reason is because of orientation.
I was raised on a ranch, cattle, sheep, pigs and horses. Plus dogs and cats. I've never encountered it. My brother runs 700 head of bison, and has never had to screen to see which to leave as bulls and which to geld.
I'm not saying it couldn't happen. I'm just saying I've never even heard of it around the sale barn. You buy a bull and he performs. Where are you getting your information?
I think the point was that some creatures fire blanks (or don't seem to have a valid target to be shot at), and it doesn't really matter if the bull performs or not, there's no stuffed toy won at the end of the day.
I don't actually know if there's a game mechanic to make a mating potentially fruitless (I'm sure you had your share of those, some just "not caching occasionally", some turning out to be complete duds and went off in a truck to serve the food industry more directly), but if the same effect arises due to what is (or isn't) beteen the ears rather than the legs... Realism by proxy?
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I get that, Starver. You can almost always weed out the ones with frozen or unusual testicles by branding time, so well before shooting blanks makes any difference. When in doubt, cut 'em out, because you need so few bulls. You judge performance by results not by attempts. You call in the vet to preg check before it's too late to fix the opens, or you just send the opens to the sale barn. If you turn out to be bad at choosing breeding stock, you go out of business.
But the whole conversation is irrelevant. This is a game, and for purposes of the game, reproduction is what is defined in the raws, not based on what real world animals. You just learn to deal with the game on its own terms. Bring an extra rooster or two on the embark if it's important. All I was doing was questioning an assertion that the game was sufficiently realistic that it did not matter what the rationale was. If cows really were 5% non-breeders, evolution would have long ago driven them to extinction.
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You mirror a comment I made earlier (snipped out of the thread[1]) that it's just a game, and reality is indeed irrelevent as long as gameplay 'works'. I think you both agree on the ends but are only at odds over whether the means are correct (for the game, that is).
But I may also have the wrong ends of the wrong sticks, somehow.
[1] Fallout from a similar Mod decision on what I was replying to, but deliberately not actually quoting, methinks... Which was probably the correct decision.
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We aren't even disagreeing on the means. I could not care less whether the raw says they have a lower reproduction rate due to orientation, genetics, environment, stress, lack or excess of minerals, whatever. All that matters is that some animals don't reproduce and you need to come up with a workaround if you want to do some animal husbandry. Orientation is convenient because it's already coded. It's also very easy to deal with -- a hen lays more than a batch or two of infertile eggs, off to the stewpot with her. Unless all the other hens are also laying infertile eggs. It's not like you need to code a mechanism for tracking down whether there's something in the water or figure out whatever else is causing it.
All I was getting at is that an appeal to real life is silly in a world that has re-animating rain, were-creatures, necromancers, dwarves, crundles, etc.
In a way, the OP's suggestion makes things vastly easier. Presumably it was that you could "mod" your dwarves to trans characters, which means you could either adjust the likelihood within the raw or you could change it directly as easily as you can change a name. So move the slider all the way to "None" and you don't have to try to figure out which animals are not reproducers. Or just click the box that says they are reproducers, depending on how it's implemented. If you really enjoy the bit about putting hens and roosters into locked rooms and figure out which are gay, knock yourself out. It's not that I'm repulsed or anything. I just find that tedious rather than an enjoyable part of the game.
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This is a game, and for purposes of the game, reproduction is what is defined in the raws, not based on what real world animals. You just learn to deal with the game on its own terms.
True, gameplay comes first, however, I would add that if the game fails to communicate its rules and player have to learn them from looking up the code that is a bad design. In this case, this situation can be simply solved by adding an 'infertile' tag in the health tag. So in dire situation if one need to cull the herd they can make an informed decision.
Btw, in case it was misunderstood, before I was suggesting that orientation (which is the ~only affect on livestock reproduction) is likely a consequence of good overall creature prototype (rather than conscientious attempt to address it), suggesting that here too we should focus on more versatile prototype which allows for more options rather than put blinders on a specific option.
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Agreed. If instead of "hens" and "roosters", we were talking about "hoons" and "resters", not many people would try to compare it to real life animals, any more than they do when talking about crundles or blendecs. It's only when dragging our preconceptions into it that it makes any difference.
I'm also not saying one needs read through the raws. I had not done that when I settled on bringing along at least 3 pairs of each poultry if I wanted a reasonable chance of getting at least one breeding pair. 4M/8F was almost a guarantee. Not based on real life, just my in-game outcomes of several embarks. Anymore, I mostly go with 2/4, 3/8 for "essentials" like turkeys and dogs.
I hope more mechanisms for non-reproduction are not developed. I think that part of the game is dreadfully boring. At the very least, if it's going to be there, it should be rare enough that evolution would not weed out the species, which has a whole lot more evolutionary pressure than the real world. Rarely do giant honey badgers ravage herds in the real world.
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If cows really were 5% non-breeders, evolution would have long ago driven them to extinction.
That's quite an extraordinary claim! And I can find no evidence to back it up!
Orientation doesn't affect egg fertility AFAIK.
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I was raised on a ranch, cattle, sheep, pigs and horses. Plus dogs and cats. I've never encountered it. My brother runs 700 head of bison, and has never had to screen to see which to leave as bulls and which to geld.
I'm not saying it couldn't happen. I'm just saying I've never even heard of it around the sale barn. You buy a bull and he performs. Where are you getting your information?
You are pretty sure that your personal anecdotal experience is definite.
Most of the male animals get eaten, only a small proportion are kept for breeding purposes. Since the majority will reproduce, the odds of selecting one unable/unwilling to reproduce at all are not good sinceyou are selecting only a tiny number out of the total population.
On top of that, I think most people rent their bulls rather than owning them outright. If the bulls the owner rent out don't reproduce, they simply get eaten and a new bull is saved from being eaten, so people have a limited experience with unproductive bulls because it is bad business to rent one out. To sum up, those that are allowed to live are those who will reliably reproduce, therefore we end up with limited experience with those who do not.
The main reason to think that livestock do not always reliably choose to reproduce is the existence of Artificial Insemination; if all livestock creatures were constantly 'trying to reproduce' (in Rimworld fashion), there would be no gains to be had in doing this.
If cows really were 5% non-breeders, evolution would have long ago driven them to extinction.
Quite the reverse. Evolution would drive extinct any creature that mindlessly reproduced to the maximum extent of it's ability, because raw ability to reproduce is exponential and the carrying capacity of the environment is not going to go up in a similar fashion to accomadate them. Actually it has a tendency to actually go down when there are more creatures than resources......
In games, framerate has a similar function. :)
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Not sure what you are trying to prove (lets not get sidetracked too much from the topic of improving gameplay) but his experience seem to match your conclusion that orientation is a rounding error among current decision making regarding reproduction, and the emphasis on outcomes match my experience as player.
I don't care about underlying reasons*. I don't want pointless RNG death that I can't affect, wonder what secret rule I might have stumbled over (like with cages) that prevent creature from procreating, nor play peeping tom farm simulator. All of the above can be solved with simple 'infertile' note in health tab (gelded automatically infertile)
* btw Quick google suggest that USA male infertility rate is between 4.5% - 6% and I am certain that age and multiple pregnancies play a MUCH bigger factor in breeding.
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If I want realism, I'd go outside for a walk. I would not expect to find realism in the eponymous Dwarf Fortress, any more than I'd expect to see it in Hogwart's.
Orientation doesn't affect egg fertility AFAIK.
Oh? Is that new? Or have I been wasting my time the last few years? Many's the hen that went in the pot after two consecutive clutches that would not hatch.
Getting back to the original idea, I find it interesting, depending on how it is implemented. So long as I am not playing a dead civ, I could not care less whether they all are non-marrying. At least some of the migrants are working age adults, many with useful skills here and now, while none of the infants are. Non-marrying individuals are often better for sending on dangerous missions, allowing those with close friendships to stay relatively safe at home. Migration is just a quicker way of filling jobs without bearing the overhead of non-working kids.
If it is more like changing the character's hair color or his preferences, that can be "gamed", tweaked as the fort needs. It's not exactly the same as other games where you select the protagonist's preference and the player chooses whether to romance Elliot or Jodi, in that you have little to no say in who takes a liking to whom, if any. That is, unless you are willing to lock them together in the same room until a relationship takes or it does not. Which isn't exactly what I'd call "romance".
I get that the OP has a vision of a game where there are other like-minded individuals. I just don't see how it works in this kind of a simulation without ending up with ham-handed things like bashing your sweetheart over the head and dragging him home by the hair.
Now if preferences were expanded upon, say, if one had a fondness for wren eggs, and chose that from the barrel of biscuits, or the guy who likes apple wood trades out his bed and chair for applewood furniture, great. There's potential for the game itself to accommodate orientations in a PC-friendly manner. Is that anywhere close to happening?
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Anyway, game just doesn't have enough in the way of this stuff. Just male and female. That doesn't even match biological sex, much less gender. You can't grab up a handful of dirt without grabbing up a bunch of a species which is 0.1% male and 99.9% hermaphrodite (https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Caenorhabditis_elegans), for example. The game only gets away with slugs/snails by making them vermin, which don't reproduce at all. I want (modded) parthenogenetic dwarves, dammit.
i would love new biological types , even more if Putnam is suggesting it ;D also orientation/ pop ratios expanded a bit too to make ant-like societies more viable (at the moment if you bump up drone casts there won't be enough breeding pair kings/queens to support a race of antman for example)
the pronoun parts is the least interesting to me, as i don't care even irl (as i always miss-use she/he already in any language) but of course i don't mind per say ..
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A hermaphrodite sex flag would be ideal for giant snails and such for sure. Maybe just allowing male and female flags to coexist and function in the same caste/creature. Parthenogenetic/asexual reproduction would also be neat to see (where the child can be different from the parent in attributes/traits/caste), including cloning (where the child is always identical to the parent in terms of attributes/traits/caste). You can simulate those via summoning interactions currently tho.
Or budding. Where body parts cut off the creature (or the creature splits itself) develop into new creatures after healing over time.) But that would have to be able to break the upper/lowerbody and head flag system, so for those creatures getting bisected or decapitated isn't instantly fatal.
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Or budding. Where body parts cut off the creature (or the creature splits itself) develop into new creatures after healing over time.) But that would have to be able to break the upper/lowerbody and head flag system, so for those creatures getting bisected or decapitated isn't instantly fatal.
That would also be appropriate for zombies or various magical constructs, but that's getting quite off topic now. :p
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Nature has so many wonderful examples, herma snail man civilisation and a budding sponge man one would feel quite unique to play in that way.
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Playing as creatures which reproduce by fragmentation, using a job at the guillotine workshop to turn into two identical sponge men half the size. :p
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Serrated disc traps hate this one simple trick!
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Actually, all Dwarves are already Trans. The men wear dresses, the women wear suits (of armor), and you can change names to whatever.
Pronoun editing should be implemented though, if it's not already.
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I am afraid I will give myself hypernatremia if I stay in this thread for too long, so I'm just going to share my drive-by opinions.
Going into details of "trans dwarves" is going to cause so, so much contention that I think the best way is to abstract it as far as you can. So, really quickly:
For creatures considered sapient by the game (idk which combination of tags do that), separate "biological sex" (determined by creature raws), "gender identity" (which is cultural and varies based on worldgen) and "gender expression" (which is entirely individual). These are three separate concepts and should be treated as such.
We can get into the weeds about how different things should be treated as gendered or not, which modifies the dwarves' behaviour and appearance and pronouns and whatever (the manifestation of gender identity determined by gender expression preference) but it would not be productive in the slightest because that is itself a point of contention in real life and I play videogames to escape how shitty being trans is. Quite frankly, that should all be based on worldgen anyway, since 99% of what we think of as gendered is cultural and it makes zero sense to hardcode it. Five genders! Skirts and dresses are masculine! It's a fantasy world, why the Hell should our biases affect it?
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The main reason I haven't even given thought to implementation is because the game really doesn't have gender. Gender expression relies on there being things-that-are-gendered, which there aren't right now. Just having some dwarves use opposite pronouns from their caste's sex token would be, like, fine, but it would be a good deal of work that would ideally be torn out of the game when more in-depth cultural stuff happens anyway.
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The main reason I haven't even given thought to implementation is because the game really doesn't have gender. Gender expression relies on there being things-that-are-gendered, which there aren't right now. Just having some dwarves use opposite pronouns from their caste's sex token would be, like, fine, but it would be a good deal of work that would ideally be torn out of the game when more in-depth cultural stuff happens anyway.
I was more suggesting gender be treated like names, or nicknames. You can put in whatever you want into the field.
Then again, the priority should be getting Adventure mode implemented. Adventure mode allows adventurers to take on whatever identity they choose, regardless of gender or species.
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The main reason I haven't even given thought to implementation is because the game really doesn't have gender. Gender expression relies on there being things-that-are-gendered, which there aren't right now. Just having some dwarves use opposite pronouns from their caste's sex token would be, like, fine, but it would be a good deal of work that would ideally be torn out of the game when more in-depth cultural stuff happens anyway.
I largely agree, which is why I said that I think this suggestion (while a good one) should be an extension of fleshing out gender roles and identities in DF generally rather than an independent change. Given the current state of gender in DF, changing anything substantially right now would probably just cause more confusion than anything else IMO.
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I largely agree, which is why I said that I think this suggestion (while a good one) should be an extension of fleshing out gender roles and identities in DF generally rather than an independent change. Given the current state of gender in DF, changing anything substantially right now would probably just cause more confusion than anything else IMO.
I feel the best and least disruptive approach would be to make the basic items as gender-neutral and then have gender 'added' to the items in a similar fashion to how we add for instance gemstones to items. The 'upgrade' can be proceedurely generated and more specific in it's material requirements than the base items. Dwarves of a certain gender, over a certain age get a mood penalty for wearing the basic, ungendered items, but not as great as for being naked. They get a bigger mood penalty from wearing the opposite gender's clothing however than they do for wearing the ungendered base clothing.
An advantage of this is it drives trade because the player will often need to import the materials to properly gender their clothes, even if they can just make the base items out of pig tail fibre.
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They get a bigger mood penalty from wearing the opposite gender's clothing however than they do for wearing the ungendered base clothing.
How awful.
Better: the game could continue with no repurcussions for wearing a dress and/or trousers if any dwarf feels like wearing a dress and/or trousers, or wearing high heeled shoes, or thongs (means a VERY different item of clothing for us Aussies anyhow) or whatever. I'm lucky enough to be able to wear clothing made for men when I feel like it (pockets! Yay!) or clothing made for women here in the real world. Ideal. Why program unneccessary gender-based behaviours for clothing when the game works fine without them? I find it hard to understand why people would ever want to try to gender clothing. Not like how you dress has anything to do with peoples sex/gender/cisness/transness anyway. There are better things to repair than something that ain't broke in the first place.
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There's also the thing that a dress isn't a gendered piece of clothing universally, and it being gendered (where it's seen as such) is a relatively new thing.
If we're going with the DF technology cutoff of 1400, a dress wasn't gendered at that point (in the West), afaik.
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It is an entirely cultural concept, yes. Making gendered behavioral/clothing choices a default is a bad idea, it should, if at all, depend on the culture an individual comes from and their personal regard for its traditions and values, and their personality.
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Agree with bob that dress and robes were not gendered in middle ages. However trousers were.
Dresses were preffered in general, because they were easier to make without machinery, and trousers were used mostly for horseriders. Professions that would not have to ride horses (priests, farmers etc.) would typically not wear trousers.
As a sidenote, it is still technically forbidden in France for a woman to wear trousers, due to an old napoleonic law that fell out of application but was never technically abroged. When they had to ride a horse, women would have to do so in a robe, and so were taught a special horseriding method ("à la cavalière") with both legs on the same side of the horse. You even had special saddles for women due to that.
As for the suggestion I do believe it is a massive waste of time and I'm more interested for an option to opt out from gender politics discussions in my fantasy simulation.
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However trousers were.
In western culture yes, but not in all cultures (Persians, Scythians, etc. other Iranian people wore trousers regardless of their gender).
As a sidenote, it is still technically forbidden in France for a woman to wear trousers, due to an old napoleonic law that fell out of application but was never technically abroged.
I think I read about this at some point, but I thought the law was overturned?
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I think I read about this at some point, but I thought the law was overturned?
Well, yes and no, it's neutralized but still in the book if I remember my middle school classes correctly. But then again the amount of legacy code in the book is overwhelming.
Both french empires took gender norms pretty seriously among other trivias to obsess about.
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As a sidenote, it is still technically forbidden in France for a woman to wear trousers, due to an old napoleonic law that fell out of application but was never technically abroged.
...until 10 years ago! (https://www.bbc.co.uk/news/world-europe-21329269)
(Ninjaed, but not quite so thoroughly ninjaed as to make it not worth leaving in...)
When they had to ride a horse, women would have to do so in a robe, and so were taught a special horseriding method ("à la cavalière") with both legs on the same side of the horse. You even had special saddles for women due to that.
"Sidesaddle" is the English for that. (I assume, as I know that this fits your description perfectly, for those that ride in a dress (Fr: robe), so I'm assuming you're more knowledgable about your version by way of being a Francophone... Something at the back of my mind agrees with that, based on other things we might been in the same thread about, in times past, but that bit of my mind might also be grossly mistaken!) As in "you ride sidesaddle" (style) and "you sit on a sidesaddle" (object). But maybe a more equestrian person would be able to elaborate further. (Or correct me!)
As for the suggestion I do believe it is a massive waste of time and I'm more interested for an option to opt out from gender politics discussions in my fantasy simulation.
I just can't get out of my head the possibility that if it went procedural (i.e. how the RNG dealt specifically with your current world's attitudes and expectations), you could end up with gender-norms being that males wear only left socks and yet females wear only right ones. And "I hear they cover both their feet!" being a potentially scurilous rumour (in-universe) about a certain individual's full on and deliberate non-conformity.
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I just can't get out of my head the possibility that if it went procedural (i.e. how the RNG dealt specifically with your current world's attitudes and expectations), you could end up with gender-norms being that males wear only left socks and yet females wear only right ones. And "I hear they cover both their feet!" being a potentially scurilous rumour (in-universe) about a certain individual's full on and deliberate non-conformity.
"Have you heard where the ELVES wear their socks? They cover *that* part...," said Urist and pointed at the other dwarf's (also Urist) groin.
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I had drafted up my own thoughts about implementing non-binary sexes in dwarf fortress, and found this post while searching to make sure I wasn't making a dupe suggestion. Here are my suggestions for expanding the [MALE]/[FEMALE] system:
The following tokens would affect whether a creature would display as male/female/no-gender, as in the description pronouns and the male/female symbol next to the name:
[SHOW_FEMALE]/[SHOW_MALE]/[SHOW_NOGENDER]
If these tags are missing, then default behavior could either automatically choose based on a caste only having CAN_SIRE or CAN_BIRTH/LAYS_EGGS, or default to SHOW_NOGENDER
The following tokens would affect reproduction:
[CAN_SIRE] for male behavior
[CAN_BIRTH] for female behavior (and preexisting [LAYS_EGGS] )
[CAN_SELF_BIRTH: days:years] or [CAN_SELF_EGGS:days:years] would allow a creature to give birth/lay eggs without a father involved, plus how often they try to do it
All reproduction tags would be combine-able, so [CAN_SIRE][LAYS_EGGS] for hermaphroditic snails, or [CAN_BIRTH][CAN_SELF_BIRTH:0:10] for a female caste that's capable of parthenogenesis every 10 years.
Also a new [WOMB] bodypart token that could be interchangeable/combine-able with [GELDABLE] to damage a creature's ability to give birth/lay eggs (and possibly allow spays)
The preexisting MALE/FEMALE tokens would just be shorthand for [SHOW_MALE][CAN_SIRE] and [SHOW_FEMALE][CAN_BIRTH]
I didn't see anyone mention seahorses in this thread, but IRL female seahorses lay their eggs inside male seahorses and then the male seahorse gives birth to them, so with this system female seahorses would be more accurately represented as [SHOW_FEMALE][CAN_SIRE] and males would be [SHOW_MALE][CAN_BIRTH]
This would (super minor detail) also allow mules to be both male and female without allowing them to breed, by just giving each caste [SHOW_MALE]/[SHOW_FEMALE] without including the [CAN_BIRTH]/[CAN_SIRE] tokens
There's probably some other things to consider like fish that change sex when they get older, but I feel like this would be a "basic" way to expand sex without getting too complicated. Also this doesn't touch social gender because, like other people in this thread have said, that's a completely different beast related to culture and stuff like that. Though the ORIENTATION token could also be modified to take a caste name instead of male/female
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I just can't get out of my head the possibility that if it went procedural (i.e. how the RNG dealt specifically with your current world's attitudes and expectations), you could end up with gender-norms being that males wear only left socks and yet females wear only right ones. And "I hear they cover both their feet!" being a potentially scurilous rumour (in-universe) about a certain individual's full on and deliberate non-conformity.
The idea of generating gender norms and then having certain members of societies deliberately defy the norms is pretty interesting, tangentially. Making rules and then making part of the system break them.
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I did want to mention that technically, the female seahorse is the one giving birth, she's just laying her eggs into the pouch of the male. To my knowledge the male isn't secreting any food or nutrients to the eggs, theyre developing on the yolk provided by the female. They're just being sheltered by the male.
A more accurate simulation might be for the female to lay eggs into the male's inventory, where he will then carry them until they hatch. This could also be used to simulate parasites like wasps that lay their eggs on/in a particular host, but in the seahorses' case its the host's intention to carry the eggs, like with some sort of "WILL_SHELTER_EGGS" tag, while in parasitic species the victim can attempt to dislodge them/wash them off if the eggs are external and its not paralyzed, or a doctor could remove deadly chestbursters from unfortunate dwarves. So a setup where a female/CAN_BIRTH lays eggs, they get an additional [EGG_LAYER_TARGET_CREATURE:(creature_ID):(CASTE_ID)] or EGG_LAYER_TARGET_CLASS:(class)] tag, and a TARGETED_EGG_INTERNAL/EXTERNAL flag. Pregnant egg layers with these tags will then seek out a valid target and lay their eggs on/in them, or lay eggs on themselves like how wolf spiders carry their eggs on their backs. The eggs end up in the creature's inventory, and as long as they stay in its inventory they're considered to be incubated properly. If the creature doesn't have a [WILL_SHELTER_EGGS] flag then it will attempt to remove them/a doctor will remove them. If plants could be targeted, then giant wood boring insects or giant moths/butterflies could seek out a plant of an appropriate species to lay their eggs on. Could go even farther to say, give creatures like giant cave spiders the ability to make a cocoon out of their silk and lay their eggs in that, or birds/reptiles can make a nest out of branches/dirt, placing it in appropriate areas like on a target plant or tree, which counts as a natural nest box. Such cocoons/nests could be encountered in the wild/made by wildlife in-game, and then provide natural sources of eggs and tameable hatchlings if the player dares steal them.
But then, whether or not the hatchlings eat whatever their host is, can be simulated some other way. Maybe they attack the host? Destroy tree tiles? I dunno.