Cantr II Discussion Forum

Maybe give a third option of androgynous?

Sunni Daez wrote:Maybe give a third option of androgynous?

I'm up for this, and also for including an option for trans chars, from female to male and from male to female. Even I'd add this option not just at the start of the game but also as something you could change to during the game, maybe limited to once per char per cantrian year.

IMO that'd be unnecessarily clunky. What about non-binary chars? Removing the gender lable and let people just be what they are, is an elegant solution both in programming and gameplay. Men are still men and women are still women. People can dress and act in the way they want. Only the lable is removed. In RL, nobody wears a tag saying "a man in his twenties", but we know he's a man in his twenties when we see such a man.

gudgeon wrote:IMO that'd be unnecessarily clunky. What about non-binary chars? Removing the gender lable and let people just be what they are, is an elegant solution both in programming and gameplay. Men are still men and women are still women. People can dress and act in the way they want. Only the lable is removed. In RL, nobody wears a tag saying "a man in his twenties", but we know he's a man in his twenties when we see such a man.

This is definitely my preferred way, too

Only problem I could see is some translations could become clunkier, if they rely more on gendered people. But someone who actually knows those languages should comment on that, and I'm sure there's ways around it as well.

gudgeon wrote: In RL, nobody wears a tag saying "a man in his twenties", but we know he's a man in his twenties when we see such a man.

That's why I suggested the third option. Male, female, androgynous. Androgynous could say, a person in their twenties. .. or simply leave male, female so the player knows but the tag can just say person. I think letting someone do a trans choice later is not a necessary change.

I think we should have non binary and trans options but personally I like to be what I'm. It's part of me, of my personality, and of my chars personality. Being seen and recognized by my gender and identity matters for me, same as I do irl. I would like to say that gender doesn't matter to me and mostly it doesn't, but I don't react the same to a guy or a girl, or a non binary person. The later cause me an instant sympathy and predispose me to be open with them and listen.
I know this may sound sexist or weird.

The problem with Cantr is that you have to check every single character at each location to know how they look like. Eliminating genders forces you to do that every time.

Gender is a key element of a person's identity. The vast majority of characters will abide by their genetic gender. Entirely ignoring this by default sounds like an overkill to me.

I think the fixed (genetic) gender should stay as it is, with an optional identity type (several variations possible) added.
If the player wishes so for a character, the identity type can be used as a visible identity modifier, or it can be 'hidden' until willfully exposed at a proper time. Of course gender identity can (and will) also be roleplayed.

The problem is that if you add "non-binary" as a third option, people will immediately see that you're "different", I fear that regularly, this will mean that people are immediately seen as different, no matter the description you use.

I feel like, since sex/gender has no practical uses in Cantr, there's no actual use of defining it for the game. I would support making a sort of "description" that would show up in more accessible places, in which you could write info like gender, or whatever you feel is important to be spotted immediately.

Bmot wrote:I feel like, since sex/gender has no practical uses in Cantr, there's no actual use of defining it for the game. I would support making a sort of "description" that would show up in more accessible places, in which you could write info like gender, or whatever you feel is important to be spotted immediately.

I agree. There is no real reason for characters to immediately identify as male or female. This is info which can be added by the player just as other physical characteristics are described or not.

Players could be given a certain amount of time to choose how they want their existing characters to be described by checking one of three boxes:

~ Female
~ Male
~ Self-Describe (If this option is chosen they would simply use the description box as with all other character descriptions)

New characters could have the same three choices or just default to "Self-Describe."

PaintedbyRoses wrote:

Bmot wrote:I feel like, since sex/gender has no practical uses in Cantr, there's no actual use of defining it for the game. I would support making a sort of "description" that would show up in more accessible places, in which you could write info like gender, or whatever you feel is important to be spotted immediately.

I agree. There is no real reason for characters to immediately identify as male or female. This is info which can be added by the player just as other physical characteristics are described or not.

Players could be given a certain amount of time to choose how they want their existing characters to be described by checking one of three boxes:

~ Female
~ Male
~ Self-Describe (If this option is chosen they would simply use the description box as with all other character descriptions)

New characters could have the same three choices or just default to "Self-Describe."

I don't feel like those boxes would change anything as opposed to now, though. I don't see why we need -any- mechanic for this.

Cantr should move towards more mechanics, not less. Jos's words that we never should have added custom descriptions echo in my head. The reason why we need custom descriptions is because we haven't programmed all the possibilities someone could write, and of course it does add a good creative element.

Let's not take away readability of the events page and character list. But I think a reasonable solution is to add an option to not specify gender (at character creation) which is permanent, and in such cases it would simply say person instead of woman or man, so their gender is not immediately obvious and players would then look at their description.

I do think it's a good point that descriptions aren't viewed in many cases and there may be effective ways to do so, e.g. seeing description when hovering over a character name and other physical mechanics in addition to age and gender.

Joshuamonkey wrote:Cantr should move towards more mechanics, not less.

Why is that, exactly?

Glad you ask. It's because mechanics are key to Cantr's unique value proposition, or in other words, why it exists. There are many roleplaying games that have no mechanics. It's Cantr's enforcing of consequences, challenges, and real life concepts that make it unique. Having gender be easily changeable by a description would be a step back.

Joshuamonkey wrote:Glad you ask. It's because mechanics are key to Cantr's unique value proposition, or in other words, why it exists. There are many roleplaying games that have no mechanics. It's Cantr's enforcing of consequences, challenges, and real life concepts that make it unique. Having gender be easily changeable by a description would be a step back.

Also I don't think it is a big pain to read the char desc.

Bmot wrote:

PaintedbyRoses wrote:

Bmot wrote:I feel like, since sex/gender has no practical uses in Cantr, there's no actual use of defining it for the game. I would support making a sort of "description" that would show up in more accessible places, in which you could write info like gender, or whatever you feel is important to be spotted immediately.

I agree. There is no real reason for characters to immediately identify as male or female. This is info which can be added by the player just as other physical characteristics are described or not.

Players could be given a certain amount of time to choose how they want their existing characters to be described by checking one of three boxes:

~ Female
~ Male
~ Self-Describe (If this option is chosen they would simply use the description box as with all other character descriptions)

New characters could have the same three choices or just default to "Self-Describe."

I don't feel like those boxes would change anything as opposed to now, though. I don't see why we need -any- mechanic for this.

I suggested the boxes because some players of the existing characters might also want to have that option to "self-descibe" while others would be unhappy about giving up the male/female choice which has been established for their characters.

To have, at some point, newly spawned characters be only "self-descibed" while the older characters stay as they are (man or woman), would create a divide between types of characters (old style / new style) that doesn't exist anywhere else in Cantr that I am aware of. This could result in a generational type of divide (as in millennials vs boomers) which could be interesting but doesn't seem like it fits into the Cantr model.

I do think having the ability to not have an assigned, limited sexual identity would make a huge difference in Cantr, however. As much as we might like it to not be true, sexism still exists in RL and in Cantr and greatly effects our characters.