Suggested new action: "switch gender role"

[Confused Cat]

(The action name is probably not great. Please suggest improvements.)

 

 

 

Hello.

The topic of same-sex breeding has come up (again) in the Help section recently. I've been thinking about how that could work, especially from a lineage-building point of view, and here's my suggestion.

Unlike an older topic I found, it does not include adoption of eggs, but simply breeding two dragons of the same gender.

 

 

In short:

A new action allows a female dragon to appear in the position that would usually be taken by a male dragon on the lineage page and on the offspring's view page, and vice versa.

 

Availability of the action:

- Every breedable dragon breed gets this new action called "switch gender role".

- It is available on adult dragons.

- Always successful

Edit, comment by @tjekan: "Dragons who are specifically set up to be one gender only, like Valentine and Christmas dragons, would have to be exempt from this BSA though." True!

 

Additional requirements (may be unnecessary, see blue text below):

- It is only available if the dragon does not have any offspring yet.

- The action can only be used once per dragon.

- Its effect is permanent.
 

 

Effects:

- The dragon keeps its sprite and gender.

- The dragon can now only breed with dragons of its own gender, i.e. only dragons of its own gender appear on the list of available mates.

- In lineage view, the dragon will be placed as if it were the opposite gender. On the offspring's view page, the dragon's name will also be placed as if it were the opposite gender parent.

- The rate for successful breedings involving this dragon goes down (but not by too much... please...) because the pair will need magic/mana to produce eggs.

- The dragon gets a note or symbol of some kind on its view page to indicate the action has been used on it.

 

 

 

Why does same-sex breeding work:

- Basic premise: magic exists.

- Dragons can cause other dragons to come into existence in magical ways (summoning of GoNs and Sinomorphs).

- Even humans have access to some magic (freezing, fogging). Dragons probably have access to even more magic, which should be enough to make eggs from same-sex parents a realistic option.

- Purple dragons have "abilities" that allow them to influence other dragons' fertility. My conclusion: dragons seem to be okay with using (at least some types of) "reproductive medicine". I think this would allow them to be willing to use magic (or life mana?) to create eggs that would not be possible without it.

 

 

Example:

I apply this action to an adult female Frill.

A message is displayed: "[Dragon name] informs you that she prefers breeding with members of her own gender. Thanks to [magic? life mana?], eggs can still be produced, although with a slightly lower chance than for other pairs."

 

She is still a female Frill, but I can now breed her to another female dragon, e.g. like this:

 

 

So I just typed out how this will never affect existing lineages because it's only available for dragons with no offspring. No "Aegis-like" problems where someone can change a CB dragon that already has offspring on other scrolls.

Then I realized:

Since the dragon is meant to keep its sprite, even applying the action to dragons with offspring would not change any previously existing lineages.

Maybe there are no complications at all? Maybe we could allow dragons to switch their breeding preference multiple times without causing any problems?

 

However, there is a potential problem regarding the technical implementation: in those previously existing lineages, the dragon in question would have to keep its "original" position. E.g. if the female Frill already had offspring with a male Gold before I used the action on her, she would have to be in the "female position" in the lineage with the Gold, and in the "male position" in the lineage with the Harvest. I don't know how complicated that would be.

 

 

 

 

Thoughts on politics:

In an older thread, someone wrote that TJ said something like (very shortened) "it's too political" (not a literal quote afaik). Obviously it's up to TJ to decide wheter or not same-sex breeding exists in the DC world. The fact that it does not currently exist is usually not seen as a political statement, but if he introduced it, it might be seen as one. It wouldn't have to be (IMO), because there are simple gameplay reasons why users might want this feature, but it's easy to see why it could become controversial.

 

 

Thoughts on gameplay effects:

 

For breeds without dimorphism:

- An irreplaceable dragon (2nd gen Prize, Holiday checker...) misgendered --> not a (big) tragedy anymore!

- You want a gay dragon --> congratulations, you now have a gay dragon!

 

For breeds with dimorphism:

- Not a perfect solution for misgendered dragons (because they still keep the "misgendered" sprite), but... an option, at least?

- You want a gay dragon --> congratulations, you now have a gay dragon!

- Ooooh, all the new lineage possibilities! Mirror lineages that actually look like mirrors! And those sprites of two dimorphic breeds that look like they were made for each other, but they're the same gender? Not a problem anymore! Or hybrids where you only like the male sprite of both involved parent breeds? Also not a problem anymore!

(Although I wonder if spriters might be opposed to these new possibilities? I guess if they designed a male sprite specifically with its position in a lineage in mind, they might not like it if users could move it to the other position...?)

 

 

Problems / complications / things that are not perfect:

 

So my lesbian Frill will now be in the "male position" in lineage view. Does this mean she can also have offspring with a male dragon on which I have used the action (because he will be in the "female position" in lineage view)? I tend to say no, because that male dragon is still male, so the Frill will not want to breed with him. When I try to breed her, only female dragons should show up in the mates list.

Note: this suggestion is really only about "gay dragons". Trans dragons would need a different mechanism. As for me, if I wanted a Gold dragon who is a trans woman, I would just get a female Gold and make a note in my mind or in her description saying "everybody thought she was a boy when she was born, but actually she's a girl", and that's it. Of course this doesn't help when you have a dragon that the site already shows as male that you want to be female... so, as I said, that situation would require a different mechanism that - unlike my suggestion - actually does change the dragon's gender.

 

What if I have this lesbian Frill (on which I used the action so she can breed with the female Harvest), and a lesbian Balloon on which I have also used the action (e.g. to breed her to a female Mint), and now I want to breed the Frill to the Balloon? They are two females who want to breed with females, but now they can't for technical reasons, because they both would be in the male lineage position. (This is only a problem if the action can only be used once. Otherwise I'd just switch one of them back so she'd be in the standard female lineage position again.) - I don't know what to suggest for this situation.

 

 

(Hey, did you really read all of this? Thank you.   I'm afraid it was too long, but ideas and "ifs and buts" just kept coming... )

 

 

Edited September 8, 2018 by Confused Cat

[Pilauli]

On that help thread (which was probably the wrong place), I suggested a redirect page from the lineage view to a gender-swapped dragon.  Therefore "dragcave.net/view/ABcde/m", for example, appears in the top position of a lineage but then redirects to "dragcave.net/view/ABcde", who's female.  I don't know what the most logical extension would be, although there're probably many options.

 

I'd suggest not having an obvious indicator on the dragon's page for everyone to see.  Why?  Because, your lesbian Frill breeds to a female Harvest.  But shouldn't the Harvest be lesbian, too?  Lore-wise, the only thing that makes sense to me there is to give the dragon's page a little note if it has ever produced eggs with a same-gender dragon.

 

In progeny view, it'd be nice (for any dragons that can swap back and forth) to show the gender the dragon was when it had that offspring, although that would really just be a convenience.

[Fuzzbucket]

And would that harvest be bi - and breedable with males as well ?

 

I don't think they should ever be able to switch back and forth. One-off change, if this were to happen - so that it can only EVER affect he owner's scroll. (And what about progeny passed to other players ?)

[tjekan]

8 minutes ago, Fuzzbucket said:

One-off change, if this were to happen - so that it can only EVER affect he owner's scroll. (And what about progeny passed to other players ?)

 

Well, what about it, really? If other players don't like it they can drop it to the AP. I don't like BSAs that can visually change a lineage you already paid for and/or built on (don't care for "enrage" for this reason), but in this case, the dragon's gender and sprite would stay the same so there's no effect on other players' lineages.

 

I'm not sure how this BSA would work exactly or if I'd ever actually use it, mind you-- my attempted same-sex breeding from the original thread was an accident, LOL-- but I don't see any way in which this could bother players who don't want to use it.

 

Dragons who are specifically set up to be one gender only, like Valentine and Christmas dragons, would have to be exempt from this BSA though.

[Confused Cat]

43 minutes ago, Pilauli said:

Therefore "dragcave.net/view/ABcde/m", for example, appears in the top position of a lineage but then redirects to "dragcave.net/view/ABcde", who's female.

 

I'm not sure what this means. "dragcave.net/view/ABcde/m" is probably a link to a view page? Do you mean if you click the dragon's lineage from this view page with the extra "/m", it would appear as male on the lineage page? That would not make a lot of sense because it would be this exact dragon's lineage page, on which the dragon's gender doesn't matter.

 

 

 

25 minutes ago, Fuzzbucket said:

And would that harvest be bi - and breedable with males as well ?

 

That would at least make bisexual dragons possible regardless of whether the action is reversible or not. 

Anyway, yes, in my suggestion the Harvest would be a "default" female, meaning she appears in the female position in lineages and is able to breed with males. But I realize this is a little inconsistent.

The whole complicated system comes from the necessity of having a "male" and a "female" parent to make lineages viewable. My solution is "just declare one of them the opposite gender for lineage-viewing purposes".

 

 

25 minutes ago, Fuzzbucket said:

One-off change, if this were to happen - so that it can only EVER affect he owner's scroll. (And what about progeny passed to other players ?) 

 

I really don't think it would affect other scrolls if it could be reversed, assuming what I called a "problem regarding the technical implementation" is solved.

Example: I give you a Gold egg from my female Frill and a male Gold. Then I apply the action to the Frill so she can breed with the female Harvest. The lineage of your Gold egg does not change, the Frill still appears as a female Frill in the same position as before in the lineage.

 

 

 

(quotes out of order because forum technology ugh)

 

43 minutes ago, Pilauli said:

I'd suggest not having an obvious indicator on the dragon's page for everyone to see.

 

This was meant mostly as an indicator for the owner so they don't forget it. (Would be bad if they made breeding plans that turn out to be impossible at the worst moment, e.g. "I'll breed this female Frill to a male Marrow on Halloween", and then it's Halloween and they realize the Frill can't breed with males anymore and they don't have another one.)

So the indicator could be invisible to other users if desired.

 

 

2 minutes ago, tjekan said:

Dragons who are specifically set up to be one gender only, like Valentine and Christmas dragons, would have to be exempt from this BSA though.

 

I added this to the first post.

(I mean I wouldn't mind being able to do that, but it would turn the feature into something it was not meant to be, and would likely be against spriters' intentions.)

 

 

Edited September 8, 2018 by Confused Cat

[Pilauli]

What I mean about the redirect page is that there's a special link to the dragon only for when it's acting like the opposite gender.

 

To show what I mean, try this link:

https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Algebra

See how it says "Algebraist redirects here"?  Tack an "ist" onto the end of the URL, hit enter, it goes to the same page (only with a note that it was redirected from Algebraist).

 

Actually, I suppose that might be more complicated than it needs to be.  If each dragon just records its mother and father as distinct roles, rather than recording two dragons in the role of parent (it may already; I don't know), then changing genders shouldn't mess anything up.  Old offspring would keep the old pattern.

[scribbletoby]

Support

[Fuzzbucket]

1 hour ago, tjekan said:

 

Well, what about it, really? If other players don't like it they can drop it to the AP. I don't like BSAs that can visually change a lineage you already paid for and/or built on (don't care for "enrage" for this reason), but in this case, the dragon's gender and sprite would stay the same so there's no effect on other players' lineages.

 

I'm not sure how this BSA would work exactly or if I'd ever actually use it, mind you-- my attempted same-sex breeding from the original thread was an accident, LOL-- but I don't see any way in which this could bother players who don't want to use it.

 

Dragons who are specifically set up to be one gender only, like Valentine and Christmas dragons, would have to be exempt from this BSA though.

NO - I meant how will it affect THEIR lineages ? It needs to be thought through, is all.

[DarkEternity]

Dragons that change gender might be literally game breaking, in that trying to put an image under another image might cause the image to literally start warping out of place depending on how lineages are saved, I'd be thinking that lineages aren't actually saved at all and the gender of the parents determines how it is displayed to us. However, if this was determined early like set in place during the egg period or hatchie period before it can be bred, it would probably be a lot less screwy

[XxTheCorruptxX]

Make all dragons hermaphroditic. Boom. Problem solved.

[Fuzzbucket]

No way. ALL lineages ruined at a stroke.

[tjekan]

1 hour ago, Fuzzbucket said:

NO - I meant how will it affect THEIR lineages ? It needs to be thought through, is all.

 

I'm confused. Can you explain to me how using this could affect somebody else's lineage? It may be possible, but I'm not seeing it.

 

1) Example of one player's action affecting another player's lineage: Player A trades player B a 3rd-gen shimmerscale for a CB gold. Then player A kills the shimmerscale's common parent to be a jerk. (That happened to me. :P) Result, the lineage that used to be a two-breed stairstep now has a tombstone in it. The lineage on Player B's scroll has changed and is ruined.

 

2) Another example of one player's action affecting another player's lineage: Player A trades player B a 2nd-gen aegis. Player B makes a checker lineage out of it. Then player A enrages his Aegis. Result, the lineage that used to be a perfect checker of two sprites now has the third, enraged sprite in the middle of it. The lineage on Player B's scroll has changed and is ruined.

 

3) The example from this thread: Player A trades player B a 2nd-gen gold from a gold father and blue nebula mother. Player B makes a checker lineage out of it. Then player A uses this BSA to make his blue nebula breed with another female dragon. Result, the lineage on Player B's scroll is still exactly the same. The gold and blue nebula are still in the correct positions for the checker. It doesn't affect Player B. The only effect is on the new egg which the two females bred, which Player B doesn't have to pick up if he doesn't want to continue a lineage like that.

 

Have I missed something? Is there another way in which Player A's decision to use this hypothetical BSA or not could change anything on Player B's scroll?

[Fuzzbucket]

1 hour ago, DarkEternity said:

Dragons that change gender might be literally game breaking, in that trying to put an image under another image might cause the image to literally start warping out of place depending on how lineages are saved, I'd be thinking that lineages aren't actually saved at all and the gender of the parents determines how it is displayed to us. However, if this was determined early like set in place during the egg period or hatchie period before it can be bred, it would probably be a lot less screwy

 

21 minutes ago, tjekan said:

 

I'm confused. Can you explain to me how using this could affect somebody else's lineage? It may be possible, but I'm not seeing it.

 

1) Example of one player's action affecting another player's lineage: Player A trades player B a 3rd-gen shimmerscale for a CB gold. Then player A kills the shimmerscale's common parent to be a jerk. (That happened to me. :P) Result, the lineage that used to be a two-breed stairstep now has a tombstone in it. The lineage on Player B's scroll has changed and is ruined.

 

2) Another example of one player's action affecting another player's lineage: Player A trades player B a 2nd-gen aegis. Player B makes a checker lineage out of it. Then player A enrages his Aegis. Result, the lineage that used to be a perfect checker of two sprites now has the third, enraged sprite in the middle of it. The lineage on Player B's scroll has changed and is ruined.

 

3) The example from this thread: Player A trades player B a 2nd-gen gold from a gold father and blue nebula mother. Player B makes a checker lineage out of it. Then player A uses this BSA to make his blue nebula breed with another female dragon. Result, the lineage on Player B's scroll is still exactly the same. The gold and blue nebula are still in the correct positions for the checker. It doesn't affect Player B. The only effect is on the new egg which the two females bred, which Player B doesn't have to pick up if he doesn't want to continue a lineage like that.

 

Have I missed something? Is there another way in which Player A's decision to use this hypothetical BSA or not could change anything on Player B's scroll?

 

See DarkEternity's post above. THAT kind of way. I catch an AP egg with two female parents, breed the egg I got and who knows which way the lineage will pan it out.

[Confused Cat]

10 minutes ago, Fuzzbucket said:

 

 

See DarkEternity's post above. THAT kind of way. I catch an AP egg with two female parents, breed the egg I got and who knows which way the lineage will pan it out.

 

The lineage will look exactly the way you expect when you looked at the lineage of the AP egg. (Although to be honest, I don't understand DarkEternity's post, so maybe there is something I'm missing.)

If you catch an egg from my female Frill and female Harvest on the AP, this egg's parents will always be displayed with the Frill in the "father" position and the Harvest in the "mother" position. As soon as you look at the egg's lineage, you know what it will look like forever*, just like any other AP find.

 

 

* ... as long as I don't kill or zombify a parent.

 

[The Dragoness]

I kind of agree that this seems problematic. I like the idea behind it and do think it has the potentional to be beneficial at times, but I'm not sure if it's possible to incorporate it into the site without A) major difficulty on TJ's part, B.) confusion on behalf of players, and C) lots of drama. A combination of those three things could drastically change the game and community. So I'm hesitantly leaning towards the "no" side.

 

Before someone bites me, let me try to explain my reasoning:

1. If the BSA is used on a female dragon to allow her to breed with another female, how will future offspring gender and breed? For example, the Frill x Gold pairing. Let's say that they produce a Frill egg, which is abandoned. New owner then has to influence the egg it female and use the gender switch BSA on her once she grows up. And if they don't have whichever dragon uses the BSA (ex. Purple with Fertility), it will be difficult to continue new gay lineages. As far as I know, all of our BSAs are connected to a dragon, so one (hopefully common) would need to be picked.

2. Religion and politics. I know it's a difficult can of worms to get into and I personally don't want to get very deep into it, but adding something like this to the site may have an effect on certain groups. DC has avoided controversial topics so that anyone can play comfortably. If a player joins the site and happens to be of a religion/political group/etc. that doesn't support this sort of thing, player activity will drop. Feelings will be hurt. It's unfortunate but realistic, and should be considered.

3. Is it even possible for a female dragon to suddenly be recognized as "male" by the site? Like @DarkEternity said, I'm not sure how lineages are saved/stored, but I feel like their points are good. I'm not sure if TJ could code something like this.

4. Is the BSA permanent? And are dragons bred with other dragons who have the gender switch BSA able to breed with both genders? If it's irreversible, there would be people asking for a BSA to switch their dragon back, just like with freezing.

5. Please don't allow the use of the BSA on Christmases and Valentines. I love those breeds because I don't have to worry about influencing them. This would make building holiday lineages a bit more difficult, at least for me.

 

All in all, I don't hate the idea. I just feel like, as such a large change to the site, it needs to be thought out more.

Edited September 8, 2018 by The Dragoness
Annoying emojis sneaking in

[Fuzzbucket]

I have absolute NO issues with the political side of it all; I would find arguments against it on those grounds VERY VERY annoying. But to the rest - I agree.

[The Dragoness]

1 minute ago, Fuzzbucket said:

I have absolute NO issues with the political side of it all; I would find arguments against it on those grounds VERY VERY annoying. But to the rest - I agree.

I'm not saying that I agree with that view either. Just pointing out that there will be (potentionally nasty) political debates over the new BSA. People on both sides may leave the site. I don't like seeing feelings hurt, so let's try to avoid that as much as possible.

[Fuzzbucket]

Sure, but those with most hurt feelings will be those already most discriminated against. Just saying.

[HeatherMarie]

Re possible controversy: The site already has plenty that *could* be taken in an offensive/controversial view if the person chose to see it that way. Holiday stories that, while not actually *saying* 'Christmas', have very obvious Christmas themes, are obviously 'offensive' to other religions or people who don't believe in Christmas/Saint Nick/etc. Killing dragons (and turning them into zombies!!) could obviously be offensive to pacifists/etc. We have spooky Halloween events that could easily be offensive to some. We have dragons who literally destroy people's minds. I really really don't think 'this might be offensive/controversial' is a legitimate reason to not do something in this game.

 

That said... I love this idea. Of course I do. I think it would be totally awesome and I'll always support a way to make my dragons less gender-conforming. And as an LGBT+ individual I think it would be awesome to have something like that in the game. It's not something I'll argue over though, I'm not super-invested in it, but I'll definitely say I'd support it.

[Confused Cat]

56 minutes ago, The Dragoness said:

3. Is it even possible for a female dragon to suddenly be recognized as "male" by the site? Like @DarkEternity said, I'm not sure how lineages are saved/stored, but I feel like their points are good. I'm not sure if TJ could code something like this.

 

Since this has never been an option so far, it is probably not possible at the moment, but it could be made possible. The most complicated part would be the "who can breed with whom" questions, and not the displaying of lineages.

 

I imagine every dragon in the site has a property (database field) for "male parent" and a "female parent", containing the codes of its parents, or a "null" value if it doesn't have any parents.

When the view page is requested, those values will be read from the database so the parent names can be displayed. When the lineage page is requested, they will also be read so the parents can be displayed in their respective positions. (And then for each parent, their own parents will be fetched from the database in the same way so they can be added to the lineage page, and so on.)

 

Currently the code in the "male parent" field will always be a male dragon. If my suggestion is implemented, it can also be a female dragon, but this should really not cause any technical problems when displaying the lineage. (Unless the DC software is very different from what I imagine.)

 

 

[Stromboli]

Yeah. Considering the API gives you the "parent_f" and "parent_m" properties for a given dragon, I would assume parents are stored in a similar way in the database. I'd be kind of concerned for how you'd manage those fields when you can't rely on the gender of the parents to sort them into the necessary db slots. Like, every dragon would need a "display" gender and an "active" gender or something...

I don't think there's much point to arguing too deep into the technical side implementation, since we don't actually know how the site fully works though. 

 

That said, I don't much care for the whole bit about "only for dragons with no offspring, only usable once per dragon, the effect must be permanent" bit. Honestly, if something like this were to be BSA based and we're going to say it's possible by magic, I'd prefer the effect be more like a fertility, that lasts until the next breeding.

[angelicdragonpuppy]

While I’ve thirsted over many an impossible pairing—

 

1) Much lesser things than this have been shot down for “magic hand wave!” being a poor explanation. Heck, even things that are pretty solidly fleshed out and limited in scope (like some dragon requests) have been rejected because “magic” isn’t a good enough reason. I often disagree with that, but it is what it is.

 

2) Like it or not, this is still a very political, controversial thing in many parts of the world, and adding it likely to ruffle feathers.

 

Personally I would like the simple option to, where sprites are dimorphic only in pose, be able to switch the sprites—but only for unbred dragons, and once bred it’s permanent. For dragons with glaring dimorphism (like hellfires) perhaps there could be a new dragon with a BSA that influences gender at hatchling in a more chaotic way then pinks (or a store bought potion, if we ever go that route) that influences eggs to hatch as dragons that have unusually feminine / masculine traits for the breed. This happens in people (muscular, hairier women, more gracile, lighter voiced men), but it’s just an extreme variant on the spectrum and they are still biologically male or female. This happens in nature, due to genetic quirks, and doesn’t involve magic or potentially political issues.

[angelicdragonpuppy]

Oh, forgot to say! Also keep in mind during this that lineage is a biological record, not a relationship record.

[LadyLyzar]

I'm not overly fond of this idea.  It adds a lot of complexity to something that is relatively simple.

 

In addition, it makes zero biological sense for two same sex dragons to be able to produce offspring.

[DarkEternity]

Here's a clearer explanation of my suggestion:

We basically tell the site to display picture x but get represented as gender y. 

 

So male picture is recorded as a female by dragcave, and because it gets recorded early it always behaves like that.

 

If we instead went and changed dragons, say a dragon behaved like male in one lineage and you wanted to make it behave like female, the entire sort order of that dragon lineage chunk could be messed. Eg

from

       M

M    F

F

 

F

       M

F     F

One way of imagining how it works is M is compared to how big F is. M is less than F, so M is stuck on top and F on bottom. If F is compared to, for example F, or M is compared to M, you would get equal results and you would not know where to put the dragon. So switching might not be as easy as just changing how the dragon is represented on the inside, unless you set that F dragon as M or M as F in the first place then there's no chance of not knowing where to put it because you would never end up with two of the same.  Then you could probably tell it to display a different image. Since the M dragon with an F sprite behaves like an M always and is recorded as an M (although the user gets told it is F), the comparison would work. 

 

Another solution would be if you really wanted to change genders on the fly, you could make four genders. Say F, M, Z, W. But Z and W, for example, always display as F or M to the dragcave user because those are the genders assigned to any newly changed dragon. Then you'd be able to figure out the correct order when comparing. Or if something like gender was represented, as say, 0 being male and 1 being female maybe you could set the newly maled dragon as -1 and the newly femaled dragon as 2 

 

Edited September 9, 2018 by DarkEternity