Sil: What are your least liked features of Sil?

[Mikko Lehtinen]

I was slightly offended because Bluefish seemed to imply that having politics (= your values) affect game design choices or forum discussion arguments is somehow bad. I'm a feminist. I guess that affects my game design sensibilities too, in subtle ways, and I think that's good.

That said, the female/male choice in Sil was probably not at all a "political" decision originally, it was just the alphabetical order, but Bluefish turned it into politics. That's somehow very funny, and I guess that's why people are still commenting.

[Bodhi]

I was trying to defuse that obvious and absurd rejoinder. I see you went with the other obvious and absurd rejoinder I intentionally planted in my initial post, about how someone with a preference for which gender they role-play in a roguelike, must be inherently insecure. I'm sorry you didn't understand my intent, and I'm sorry for not making it more clear.

I'm glad that you've apologized. It was just strange to see someone say something that was clearly offensive and then act as if they were the ones being persecuted

[BlueFish]

I obviously don't post often. But saying that "I'm whining. Just like a girl." is offensive to me. And I felt compelled to post because it seemed so out of place on message board about Angband and its variants

I was trying to defuse that obvious and absurd rejoinder. I see you went with the other obvious and absurd rejoinder I intentionally planted in my initial post, about how someone with a preference for which gender they role-play in a roguelike, must be inherently insecure. I'm sorry you didn't understand my intent, and I'm sorry for not making it more clear.

Actually, I've played females before, for archers, but I've been playing exclusively brawlers, where I play males. I've also done the ladder math about which gender is most popular, in Sil and other variants.

I haven't counted, but I'm pretty sure that male heroes are more common in Tolkien than females. Since Sil intends to be thematic, this would seem to be a point in favor of defaulting gender to Male. Though of course females played very important heroic roles as well. The short sword of Galadriel is one of my favorite weapons in the game!

It's really just a minor interface issue that could be solved in any number of ways. It's just that mashing "enter" at that point in character creation is so easy, and it's easy to skip that selection. If you do, and if the default wasn't what you wanted, you have to start all over.

[Bodhi]

I obviously don't post often. But saying that "I'm whining. Just like a girl." is offensive to me. And I felt compelled to post because it seemed so out of place on a message board about Angband and its variants

[BlueFish]

Apologies to debo and everyone else sick of the subject for this; I promise one post only.



This thread is for things you don't like about Sil. You identified one, and that's fine.

The problem as I see it is that in doing so you[*]acted as if there had already been considerable discussion on this, and you were sick of everyone picking on you over it;

Cite? There are clear and predictable social norms around these sorts of discussions; I predicted those and was proven correct. I said nothing about whether this had ever been discussed here.

][*]said some things about gender which some people found genuinely upsetting and offensive and

Um, cite?

[*]came across during the whole process as a whiny entitled brat.

And you're the good guy, along with Derakon and whats his name. I get it. You rarely insult people, unless they deserve it. And I clearly deserve it. But you're above it, so you won't defend or substantiate your insult.

I predicted all of this. We had a decent discussion the night I posted my point. You guys have succeeded in ruining it. By being the good guys.

I don't expect you to see the irony.

As I said above, that's it from me. Just please keep in mind that we mainly play pretty nice on this forum, and try to post accordingly.

You too, Nick.

[Nick]

Apologies to debo and everyone else sick of the subject for this; I promise one post only.

What I suspect I'm spot on about is that some people love feeling righteous, because it gives them free reign to do what they secretly enjoy doing - angrily attacking other people.

This thread is for things you don't like about Sil. You identified one, and that's fine.

The problem as I see it is that in doing so you

1. acted as if there had already been considerable discussion on this, and you were sick of everyone picking on you over it;
2. said some things about gender which some people found genuinely upsetting and offensive and
3. came across during the whole process as a whiny entitled brat.

As I said above, that's it from me. Just please keep in mind that we mainly play pretty nice on this forum, and try to post accordingly.

[BlueFish]

I would say that you're spot on about being insecure

What I suspect I'm spot on about is that some people love feeling righteous, because it gives them free reign to do what they secretly enjoy doing - angrily attacking other people.

[Bodhi]

I don't like that new characters default to female. I'm sure I'm insecure in my masculinity but I prefer playing male heros in these sorts of games. I suspect most roguelike players (who are factually male) feel the same. Why not default to the most common choice, as would happen with any other design decision throughout the game?

I know, I'm whining. Just like a girl. But the frequent deaths and frequent rebuilds lend themselves to lots of character creations and you have to remember to stop at the right point in character creation to flip the default female to male. It's not so much the extra keystrokes as it is the intentional design decision that bothers me. I've totally rethunk gender roles in society. Thanks for the politics.

I would say that you're spot on about being insecure

[HallucinationMushroom]

You could just make a male and female of every possible race and house, name them FeanorM, FeanorF, etc... and just load them up over and over again. Should you get one you want to post, you can always change their name. Low-fi solution, engage.

[BlueFish]

For what it's worth, I find it hilarious that a person of the male persuasion is feeling put-upon that their preferred choice is not catered to.

Oh wait, that's not funny at all. It happens all the frickin' time. Like 90% of the games industry caters to men. Get over yourself.

Well, this is why I already acknowledged that I wouldn't get a real conversation over this. (We had a decent enough one before this ejaculation of rage, though.)

I know, righteousness is fun. Those who want to indulge in it are emotionally incapable of having actual discussions. But absent the political stuff, the design decision here is debatable at best. It's a slightly bigger concern than one or two extra keystrokes since you can't back up in the character creation wizard, you have to start over from scratch, if you accidentally pass by gender selection.

I'm glad the gender sticks though for character re-starts that use the same race/house. It's only when you switch race or house that you have to remember to re-select gender.

[debo]

For what it's worth, this thread is becoming terrible, please stop

[Derakon]

For what it's worth, I find it hilarious that a person of the male persuasion is feeling put-upon that their preferred choice is not catered to.

Oh wait, that's not funny at all. It happens all the frickin' time. Like 90% of the games industry caters to men. Get over yourself.

[fph]

Just brainstorming: another possible solution would be allowing the player to wield a 2-handed weapon (or a digger) without removing the shield. The shield would be still equipped but "disabled" (its bonuses and flags have no effect).

The net effect of this would be having one more free slot for 2-handed weapon users. But that's an extra slot you can only use for a shield, and after all if you are a heavy 2-handed melee users ŕ la Hugo a shield is just an useless piece of junk for you.

This would need some other interface changes to handle bastard swords and other 1.5-handed weapons properly.

[taptap]

Thinking about it a bit more, it's clear that a game like Sil should just do away with gender altogether. Let the player imagine his/her character as he or she will. Let the completely arbitrary name of that character be the only indication.

Sex doesn't affect anything at the moment and apparently is only there to imagine the character according to your fancy, similarly age, size, weight do affect nothing as well but really are a part of how I imagine a character. Hell, even hair and eye colour is important to me and I reroll until I find one combination that pleases me. Removing sex altogether reverts the hero to male by default - and I really can't tell from the weird elvish names. Stat differences are very hard to do - regardless of politics - when you play a game with very low numbers but nothing stops you from "roleplaying" your flexible stat points.

I doubt that male players automatically play male characters and female players automatically play female characters, I certainly do not, at least for elves and humans. I did with dwarves, because I have no real notion of female dwarves.

And please keep mattocks as viable weapons. I understand the convenience problem for shield users - one of the benefits to have moved to subtlety is not having this drop shield, dig, wield weapon, pick up shield dance anymore, although I tend to keep a swap shield and have effectively a smaller inventory this way.

[Scatha]

What if digging provoked an attack of opporunity if you did it next to an enemy? Same mechanic as when you fire a bow adjacent to enemies. Then it can stay a single turn action but severely penalize doing it in combat.

That sounds a very natural solution to me.