[MUD-Dev] Same-Sex Marriage

[John Hopson]

"Ananda Dawnsinger" <ananda at greyrealms.com> said:

>How did you end up dealing with same-sex marriages?  It's an issue our
>design team is most likely going to have to face at some point (and the
>project leader is perfectly content to ignore it until a player asks).

>The issue is complicated because ours is a multi-racial system and IMO it's
>neither realistic nor desirable to sanction marriage between species of
>fundamentally different kingdoms.  Will players accept it if two humans of
>the same sex can marry, but a female human can't marry a male dragon?


	We ended up saying that same-sex relationships were accepted but that
heirs were considered necessary to a marriage.  This seems to have been
pretty successful with the players.

	What has been less successful is our stand on interspecies relationships.
We said the races were separate species and that relationships between them
were taboo, similar to necrophilia in real life.  This has caused a lot of
friction with the players and has contributed to an imbalance in the
proportions of the races.  ("Well, if I can only sleep with my race I
should pick the most popular race")

	It's always tough to get players to believe in the customs that differ
significantly from 2000 ad north america.  They don't want to really
roleplay believing in a caste system, or that women are inferior, etc.
There are just places they don't want to go.

	Taboos seem to be particularly bad in this way.  They're enforced by
social pressure, but how do you get players to police themselves?  It's
easy to make mobs salute the way they should or to address players
correctly, but they can't snub someone who was being publicly drunk.  The
social consequences for violating an in character taboo have to come from
the players, but there's no real reward for doing it.  Why should they stop
speaking to their friend just because of some arbitrary ic taboo?

	Has anyone had any luck getting fictional taboos established?






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