Dwarvern Gender - time to fix a few things

[Rosiebelle]

We had a spate of adotions the other night in our kin. I was overjoyed to think I could do what my other kinnies were doing and have "daughter of ..." as my title.

However I am unable to do this. I am a dwarf and I am female. The only option for me is "son of .."

As I am already fed up with NPC's and some other players assuming I am a laddie and not a lassie I don't want to make it worse. So I now can't use the title half my kin is using.

If you really do want to let people play dwarves as either gender then please consider making these adoption titles netural for dwarves. Such as "child of" or "parent of". Or you could just make "son of" and "daughter of" available to all players and then let them choose.

Whenever this issue comes up you claim dwarves are genderless when you create their character. This clearly isn't true. Things are clearly skewed in game to assume that the dwarf is male. Much of the NPC dialogue leans this way too.

Before anyone claims there are no female dwarves - there certainly are. There is one named by Tolkien. Her name is Dis and she is the mother of Fili and Kili.

The time has come for a little more respect for my axe wielding sisters. Sorting out the title business would be a nice start. Beard ribbons and more frilly dresses that don't make us look like elephants would also be appreciated somewhere down the line

[Tiamira]

Three cheers for Rosiebelle!
And a loud HUZZAH!
I second this motion.

[Cadd_EU]

Personally, I have long been of the view that a gender selection should be added to the Dwarf Character Creation screen, with no effect on cosmetic alternatives, but there for these specific things that look to the characters gender to effect titles or dialog.

Of course, all existing Dwarves should in that case get to head to a registrar or something to establish whether the wish to be known as male of female.

[Vandervahn]

Well, you name Dis as a solitary example, but you could have also mentioned the other implications of Tolkiens writings. Female dwarves are simply not on the Waltz. That takes dwarves of the female sex as player characters out of the picture.

As to the gender thing, I think the tricky part is that dwarves of the common fantasy ilk dont actually have a proper gender. They have a sex, they know you need one of variety A and one of variety B to produce offspring. Other than that, dwarves are dwarves, not males and females.

[Ingiogal]

Exactly, perfectly correct.

Kudoes to Rosiebelle for bringing it up. I play two dwarves that I consider to be females and it's a bitter pill that the game disallows me the gender opportunities it does other races.

Kudoes to Cadd for describing the right way to implement it. Make gender a choice that affects titles and forms of address but otherwise does not affect cosmetic choices like facial hair, etc. Within that, optional but highly desirable would be a wider range of beard andhairstyles available to dwarves of both genders.

(And can ALL races please, pretty, pretty please have a REAL curtsey animated emote?)

Cheers to all dwarf-ladies.

[Urwendil]

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I support the idea. It would encourage more female players to role-play Dwarf characters. After all, we do have at least one attested female Dwarf NPC.

Concerning the lore behind races... It's already in crumbs, not even fragments. There are Hobbits everywhere in Middle-earth and Elves are as abundant and proactive as if it's the First Age. (No complaints on my part about that: It's apparently both a marketing decision and necessary to balance gameplay.)
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[Figment99]

I also support this idea. I would love to have the opportunity to have a female dwarf.

The dwarf women need to have their day too in the battle fields.

[Rosiebelle]

Rosiebelle and Posienell Rabbitbane both appreciate all your support in this matter.

Bearded, beautiful and in Middle Earth near you now.

[Eartholloth]

Beard ribbons and more frilly dresses that don't make us look like elephants would also be appreciated somewhere down the line

ROFL too funny

I also play female dwarves

[Radhruin_EU]

Before anyone claims there are no female dwarves - there certainly are. There is one named by Tolkien. Her name is Dis and she is the mother of Fili and Kili.

Oh right, mention the one bit of lore that suits you and ignore all the rest:

- They only very rarely left their halls at all, unless there were some really pressing reason to;

- They didn't go to war at all;

- When in the outside world, they dressed just like the men and were effectively indistinguishable from them as far as non-Dwarves were concerned.

The time has come for a little more respect for my axe wielding sisters. Sorting out the title business would be a nice start. Beard ribbons and more frilly dresses that don't make us look like elephants would also be appreciated somewhere down the line

...and so asking for that sort of thing is just being two-faced. You can't have it both ways: you can ask the devs for whatever silliness you like, just don't try to rope in Tolkien to help.

[Rosiebelle]

The last comment was mischief - hence the smiley.

Hobbits were not supposed to be wandering all over Middle Earth either - but I sure have seen plenty of them in my travels - even got one as an adopted sister in my kin yesterday. Would people find it acceptable if hobbit players were limited to The Shire? I doubt it.

[djheydt]

Consider this Lore, attested to by Tolkien:

Dwarven women make up a small percentage of the population.

They tend to stay at home in their caverns, practicing their crafts and/or marrying and having children, if that's their choice: sometimes they prefer to remain single. (It's a good thing that Dwarves live for several hundred years.)

Dwarven women look exactly like their menfolk.

That being the case, when a Dwarf-woman has to leave her caverns, fleeing from danger or motivated by the spirit of adventure, nobody (except another Dwarf) knows she's female. Yes, she calls herself "son of" somebody, and if the Westron speech has different noun/adjective endings for masculine and feminine, she uses masculine forms when speaking of herself. This helps her remain safe on the road.

"Son of" is the right term for you, Dwarf-maiden, as you travel across Middle-earth fighting the minions of the Great Enemy. Only your closest friends know you're female, and they will not betray you.

(They'd better not, or you will hit them with your axe.)

[Lilka]

I'm pretty sure the "but that would have never happened in the books" is no longer a big defence against game inclusions.



I really liked WETA's mockups for dwarven women. I agree, it's time to put aside the long bleatings about dwarf women never leaving home - neither did hobbit women - and give us some dwarf-girlie hairstyles, beard-styles, jewellery adornments and outfits to a dwarf-female body type. I've wanted to play a female dwarf but I can't get over the fact it's still a male dwarf. That I can have 'Father' as a title but not 'Mother', that people refer to you as He.

Yes. Proper female dwarves. It's not like it would be so absurdly popular as to 'break the immersion' of the RP-Purist, and those who would be upset by true female dwarf characters are probablly already upset by hobbits in shoes and elves being friendly with dwarves and sitting in the Prancing Pony.

[Sapience]

Female Dwarves, when out and about, are virtually indistinguishable from males. So much so that even male dwarves occasional have trouble telling them apart. This is why there is NO gender assignment on the character select screen.