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[Dorsidwarf]

I get what you mean, Cathar, but I feel that your example was poorly chosen.

[Cathar]

I am perfectly aware that this topic can trigger a lot of people looking for a reason to get offended, but sometimes the solution to insanity is a cold factual look at reality. I thank you for reading me with no prejudice and evaluating what I say without pathos.

Only a tiny minority of the women at any given time are giving birth.  If women were twice as strong, you would send the women to war and give all their babies to the men to look after. 

Being pregnant is not the issue. You don't want to lose women because they are pregnant, you don't want to lose women, period. Just because a women got a kid doesn't mean she will stop having kids, the growth of the tribe remains linked to the number of women in age of procreation. So yeah, even when a woman is not pregnant, you keep her out of harms way.

Or you don't and get conquered by tribes who do, and therefore grow faster than you.

[SixOfSpades]

There is no particular reason not to send the warriors (regardless of gender) off to war and give the babies to the civilians (regardless of gender).

True, but there can easily be reasons not to train one gender as warriors at all.

Only a tiny minority of the women at any given time are giving birth.  If women were twice as strong, you would send the women to war and give all their babies to the men to look after.

I have known a couple of women that seem to give birth about once a year, for several years on end. Granted, they are outliers from the curve, but in a society where childbirth was more strongly encouraged, they could easily be the norm (for those women who were physically up to the strain, at least).
The fact is that women are not as strong, men are much more likely to have higher upper-body strength than women, and thus wield weapons more effectively. But for the sake of argument, and because humans aren't dwarves, let's presume that females actually are the stronger gender. That leaves you with an army of strong women, and a civilian core of weak men caring for all the babies--which they cannot breastfeed. (Granted, there is such a thing as formula, but that's a modern development.)
But most critical is the fact that a male-army nation can recover, population-wise, after a war far more quickly than a female-army one. If your military of Amazons heads off to war and comes back having suffered 50% casualties, your entire nation's population growth is bottlenecked at only half of its former rate, and it'll be 2 or 3 generations before it can return to normal. If, however, you lose half of your male population, your nation's birthrate is largely unaffected, because it's so cheap and easy for a male to impregnate multiple females at a time. So, even in a case where the females of a species are physically stronger, a prolonged war between two nations who use opposite genders as their warrior caste would inevitably lead to the annihilation of the female-army civilization, due to repeated attrition of their most critical reproductive members.

NOW. The real question. Why are you all devoting so much time & attention to an issue that Toady almost certainly is dead-set against?

[EDIT:] Dang, ninja'd.

[Cathar]

Good lord that is a post I enjoyed reading thanks

Also for why...? Well. I dunno. Franckly I don't. I was to say "because it's the topic", but in the context of Dwarf Fortress I'm very happy about the status quo. So I guess I'm discussing for the sake of discussion, since all those threads get inevitably derailed, maybe I can get some ideas in and out.

[thompson]

To answer the real question: social injustice is something that makes for interesting narratives that can move the game beyond the standard "Hero goes on an adventure" format. Few games do it well (none that I'm aware of, as I wouldn't really be interested in a game that has gender discrimination as its primary selling point). Class oppression is probably more interesting as a mechanic than gender discrimination, as it would add many of the same mechanisms to the game, but you would have much greater potential for conflict between classes than genders, as both genders are mutually dependant for reproduction so you'd never see a gender war.

There clearly is an interest in playing dystopian worlds, so exploring the possibilities it could unlock has some value. That does probably move into a different genre than Toady originally envisioned, but could be taken up by modders if the framework is there.

[KittyTac]

I'm fairly sure he's against hardcoded sexism. I'm all for playing in a dystopian world.

[SixOfSpades]

Good lord that is a post I enjoyed reading thanks

. . . There clearly is an interest in playing dystopian worlds, so exploring the possibilities it could unlock has some value. That does probably move into a different genre than Toady originally envisioned . . .

Well, if you're talking about Adventure mode, now I'm not certain that it does go against Toady's vision. I primarily play Fortress mode myself, so I was thinking of you, as overseer, subjugating your women (or whomever), which would make the player the villain, something Toady is clearly unlikely to encourage. But if the "goal" was to lead a crusade to overthrow such villains, then yeah, that could give the generic "hero goes on an adventure" a good deal of scope & direction.

As for social dystopia in Fortress mode . . . I'm not sure. I know that "Prison Colony" has been suggested as one of the possible Embark Scenarios, but I haven't heard if Toady has approved that specific idea or not. Even if it has, that would lead to the Mountainhome expecting you to enforce control and labor over what is essentially a slave caste . . . who have all presumably been tried and found guilty, and most of whom will likely be released after they've served their term. That's a big difference from people discriminated against solely for their sex or parentage. As for the latter, if the Mountainhome were to expect the player to uphold the civ's standard racism/sexism, and the player must build up his military to the point where he can safely rebel against his own nation (while simultaneously re-educating his own citizens so that they won't rebel against him)--while I agree that that's an intriguing idea, I can't see Toady supporting it due to the necessary "I was only following orders" period where you play along and essentially appease the Nazis.

[Shonai_Dweller]

Prison colony is Toady's idea. That's why people talk about the possibility of playing a prison colony.

Devnotes:
Various possiblities that guide or govern fortress activity: frontier settlement, religious site, prison colony, mining company, military citadel, roadside inn, secondary/future palace of the monarch

(I always imagine it more along the lines of being a bunch of convicts deposited in a hostile environment (monster island?) trying to build a new home and survive. With possible extra fun trying to escape as an adventurer starting in such a place.).

[KittyTac]

I want to be the villain in fortress mode. That is all. Remember that DF is a game "about taking on a wide variety of roles in a fantasy world". It won't be a very wide variety if you can't be an evil overlord.

Political Correctness Gone Mad is a bad thing, m'kay?

[Strik3r]

A bit of a hot-button topic to have a thread on but as long as we stick to the discussion of discrimination itself rather than getting into a political slap-fights, it shouldn't be a problem.

Anyway, my opinion on this is that discrimination in all shapes and sizes is a part of human nature, something that can't be rooted out and was, is and will continue to be a part of society. Its not something that you can make disappear. And while everyone always focuses on the kind that appears malicious or unfounded, there is plenty of it in the world that is benign or well founded. Thing is: Discrimination and oppression are great drivers for conflict, and conflict is a driver for a good story.

Sure, you could have a (mary sue)fantasy race or society with absolutely no discrimination or oppression whatsoever, but the matter of fact is, it'd be boring. I would rather have beings that are as fallible and discriminatory as humans are, in their own way and have that discrimination arise on its own as a result of friction between individuals, groups, nations and races instead of being either omitted completely or shoehorned in to the game.

Nor do i like the idea of being arbitrarily limited in what or how I'm allowed to play. Dwarf Fortress is about that, y'know? "Be whoever the hell you want, Do whatever the hell you want" kind of deal. Dwarf fortress really is exactly what you make of it, if you want it to be a power fantasy and play an evil overlord, you should be allowed to, same being true if you want it to be a tale of oppression, with your adventurer being an slave, doing their best to survive, is equally valid.

[Putnam]

I see no reason for dwarves to have any sort of discrimination as of now, mostly because such things would frustrate newer players due to, say, some ridiculous thing like one dwarf being born with amethyst eyes rather than the much more common emerald eyes causing them to be bullied into going berserk or something. Humans having procedural prejudices should be fine, and something like goblins simply being racist towards everything that isn't a goblin seems fine, too. When procgen levels are a worldgen setting, it could probably be allowed that dwarves or afamorla or whatever gray goo playable race you get gets some extra procedural elements, but by default dwarves should act the same between worlds.

Similarly, the "violence" worldgen settings that have been mentioned before should play into it, too. A world with no violence probably shouldn't have much in the way of discrimination. I personally don't really know if egalitarianism should be its own slider; sticking it in as part of "violence" seems appropriate.

[Strik3r]

I see no reason for dwarves to have any sort of discrimination as of now, mostly because such things would frustrate newer players due to, say, some ridiculous thing like one dwarf being born with amethyst eyes rather than the much more common emerald eyes causing them to be bullied into going berserk or something.

In this instance, if said emerald eyes were ubiquitous among the population and one dwarf was suddenly born with amethyst eyes, it is completely reasonable and expected that the said dwarf would be discriminated against, be the cause for such prejudice be envy, superstition or whatever. And that is exactly what i want to see. At worst, I'd just be a bit of flavour, at best it'd be a catalyst for a great story.

Similarly, the "violence" worldgen settings that have been mentioned before should play into it, too. A world with no violence probably shouldn't have much in the way of discrimination. I personally don't really know if egalitarianism should be its own slider; sticking it in as part of "violence" seems appropriate.

I actually agree with this, the level of discrimination and oppression should be tied to the "violence" worldgen setting, so little silkypaw pussies can just slide it all the way to "No violence" and have their boring teletubby worlds if they want and not have to complain about the game not catering to them in some suggestion thread.

[Rowanas]

I see no reason for dwarves to have any sort of discrimination as of now, mostly because such things would frustrate newer players due to, say, some ridiculous thing like one dwarf being born with amethyst eyes rather than the much more common emerald eyes causing them to be bullied into going berserk or something.

In this instance, if said emerald eyes were ubiquitous among the population and one dwarf was suddenly born with amethyst eyes, it is completely reasonable and expected that the said dwarf would be discriminated against, be the cause for such prejudice be envy, superstition or whatever. And that is exactly what i want to see. At worst, I'd just be a bit of flavour, at best it'd be a catalyst for a great story.

I think Putnam's point si nto that it's unrealistic, only that having a dwarf go axe-crazy because she has the wrong colour eyes would be infuriating.

[Strik3r]

I think Putnam's point si nto that it's unrealistic, only that having a dwarf go axe-crazy because she has the wrong colour eyes would be infuriating.

Maybe, but there's shit in this game that is a lot more infuriating than a feature that is nothing more than a potential source of stress, if that's how you see it.
I see it as a feature that will result in a more interesting world and more engaging stories.

[KittyTac]

I see no reason for dwarves to have any sort of discrimination as of now, mostly because such things would frustrate newer players due to, say, some ridiculous thing like one dwarf being born with amethyst eyes rather than the much more common emerald eyes causing them to be bullied into going berserk or something.

In this instance, if said emerald eyes were ubiquitous among the population and one dwarf was suddenly born with amethyst eyes, it is completely reasonable and expected that the said dwarf would be discriminated against, be the cause for such prejudice be envy, superstition or whatever. And that is exactly what i want to see. At worst, I'd just be a bit of flavour, at best it'd be a catalyst for a great story.

I think Putnam's point si nto that it's unrealistic, only that having a dwarf go axe-crazy because she has the wrong colour eyes would be infuriating.

Not for me, at least.