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                   JOURNAL FOR WEDNESDAY 8TH NOVEMBER, 2017
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SUBJECT: Request for help and input — genders in WolfMUD
   DATE: Wed  8 Nov 21:47:09 GMT 2017

In common with many computer games, when creating a character to play WolfMUD
you are asked if you want your character to be male or female. In WolfMUD this
is mainly used to tailor messages to the character so they feel more personal.
Some examples:


  Diddymus jabs his sword at Alice wounding her.

  Alice swings her mace at Diddymus bashing him.

  Diddymus lunges at Alice with his sword, but Alice dodges his
  attack and manages a quick swipe with her mace.


The view of gender being either male or female is very black and white. I
know, I’ve received the emails :(

How a player portrays a character has always been entirely up to them. Want
your orc to wear the cotton, flowery print dress you found? Sure, go right
ahead! A dwarf afraid of the dark? Why not?

The question is, what do you the reader/player/coder want when it comes to
gender in WolfMUD? I’m not talking about political correctness here. I’m
talking about being considerate to players and how they want to identify with
and play their character. Something that seems to be overlooked by most games.

I was thinking of changing the choice of genders to be male, female or
neutral. Is neutral the best choice? Would some find it offensive? Is there a
better alternative? Maybe there are multiple better choices than just an
additional neutral option? In my naïvety I really have no clue.

If using neutral as a gender option, should the singular they[1] be used also?
I know that the singular they is not popular with everyone, but what would be
a better alternative?

I’ve been thinking about this issue for a while and mulling over ideas.
However, I’m still not sure what the best answer is or what I should do.

Perhaps WolfMUD does not need genders at all and the singular they could be
used for everyone? Perhaps just more careful wording of text is needed in most
cases?

How important is gender in identifying with your character?

Should your character be defined just by how you play your character?

Maybe I’m just making a mountain out of a mole hill?

Lots of questions, and I’m asking those of you who care about this topic to
clue me in with comments and suggestions.

What I do will be based on the feedback I receive.

Just drop me a private email[2] and have your say: diddymus@wolfmud.org

--
Diddymus

  [1] Wikipedia singular they: https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Singular_they

  [2] If you email me, it stays between you and me. I don’t harvest or sell
      email addresses. I may want to directly quote you, but only with
      permission and due credit.


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