Honest question about game
Sexual Themes n Shit

However, I'm curious why it seems like literally everyone is dyke, fag, femboy etc etc?

I don't use those words in real life and they sorta bother me to see them thrown around so willy nilly in a game. It almost seems like there should be a filter to turn off the offensive shit.

Another thing I don't really understand is the RP based around relationships to such a degree of sexual relations that aren't faded to black or used to kill someone or vice versus.

I've walked into a few things in my time in game and been like OOCLY like EW and I get it, different strokes for different folks and I'm not trying to harsh your vibe or what you like to choose to RP.

I'll even go so far as to say I've talked about this game on a discord and had a friend from Tarkov jump in for about a total of an hour and leave because of the same communicability with the various shortdesc/name things. He is gay for the record and didn't like that he saw a "dyke" walk past him on the street.

So I am not trying to tell you what to do or how to play, but I figured it was worth noting that some of the in your face with these horrible offensive words is probably scaring away some new players like my tarkov bro.

Some people are all about it, and many others don't touch it with a ten foot pole.

You will instantly know who I am if you try anything sexual because I'll be like OOC FADE TO BLACK, I was great.

As for ERP, it's present in pretty much every RP game ever. Here it's not something that is nearly as verboten as in other games, and in fact, a good chunk of the game embraces that part of the cyberpunk experience because it's representative of theme. That said, there's plenty of people who agree with you that ERP isn't great simply for the sake of ERP, but that's entirely a player's choice for what they prefer or not. Thankfully, ERP in SD is an entirely opt-in experience, unlike many other things in game. Don't like tits and dick in your face? Don't frequent strip clubs. Hate prostitutes? Don't hire them, don't hang out in their haunts, etc.

I've sometimes spoken out against it in the past, but I will say, some of the most intense betrayal plots have come from characters that get their ''hooks'' into others via text sexing them into trusting them and then stabbing them in the back when they hit their career zenith. It's absolutely brilliant RP.

While I understand your reasoning, those terms have been decided on as part of the game.

-bit of a huge and untrue generalisation.

I don't use those words in real life and they sorta bother me to see them thrown around so willy nilly in a game. It almost seems like there should be a filter to turn off the offensive shit.

-that is entirely unfair, you are entitled to your opinion. Sindome is so much about the harsh reality though, people are brutalised minute to minute, killed on a frequency where it is a daily way of life and so on. There is offensive content in this game, how do you content manage from a system point of view everything that someone may or may not find offensive, the answer is, you can't really.

Another thing I don't really understand is the RP based around relationships to such a degree of sexual relations that aren't faded to black or used to kill someone or vice versus.

-ERP is very common, and it doesn't always have to be rutting like animals, sometimes sexual acts can have a great deal of strength to a story between two characters, it can be a sweet part of perhaps a long waiting sexual tension or a beatiful and loving scene between two characters that love one another. At the end of the day it is RP. And FTB is there for those that don't want to do that kind of RP.

I've walked into a few things in my time in game and been like OOCLY like EW and I get it, different strokes for different folks and I'm not trying to harsh your vibe or what you like to choose to RP.

-I would be concerned if there was nothing In SIndom that didn't make you go Ew ooc if i was honest, but it is part of the game as a whole. I doubt it will get censored as well.. it is sort of a part of the built world.

I'll even go so far as to say I've talked about this game on a discord and had a friend from Tarkov jump in for about a total of an hour and leave because of the same communicability with the various shortdesc/name things. He is gay for the record and didn't like that he saw a "dyke" walk past him on the street.

-Two parts to this, firstly, you shouldn't be talking about IC stuff OOC with your friends, it is against the rules.

-secondly, I am really sad to hear your friends experience, but it is part of the game. It is like being offended watching a movie that says 'Hey there will be blood in it' then seeing blood and going 'eww blood, I want all this but without blood'. People are fairly warned about the game before they play.

So I am not trying to tell you what to do or how to play, but I figured it was worth noting that some of the in your face with these horrible offensive words is probably scaring away some new players like my tarkov bro.

-I think everyone who plays is fairly warned, and even if codedly you could filter things, the language used by PC characters would be impossible to do so and would be directly couner active to the world, the tech, the people, the players and information.

I will say that it does almost seem like sexuality and non-binary stuff is sorta thrust in your face in this game. And I don't know if that's a good or a bad thing. I love people having choice, I just don't want wanna have your dick, pussy or otherwise thrust in my face daily.

I mean... yeah. Those are both themes of the cyberpunk genre. You live in the future where people are getting their genes spliced with god-knows-what and replacing their body parts with lava lamps. Who gives a shit about gender binaries?

In the end though, I am 99% sure that some people would find the alternatives you propose to be just as offensive. But, as others have said, people here CHOOSE to call their character's those things. They are not forced to. I personally think that more options is a good thing as long as they are reasonable.

As far as ERP and relationship RP goes, it really is opt-in. I have chosen not to engage in it for years and have engaged in it for years. I have not been more or less successful in either case. And, as others have said, some interesting plot can and does come from this kind of RP.

I have even seen some PCs that are designed around the idea of using their beauty and sexuality to gain allies and win conflicts and they have done it well. That kind of RP is very CP in my mind and I would never want to see it go away, even if I often choose not to engage in it.

Lastly, I have never ever come across a player who refused to fade to black on sex scenes at my request. Should I find one who does, my PC will find a reason to distance themselves from them.

People do give off intentional signals about their sexuality, and I'm happy with how easily Sindome allows players to specify how their characters are presenting. It's very possible your friend misunderstood that these labels are self-assigned, which is liberating and cool. I would be annoyed if these description options were taken away, especially because of a concern troll thread.

The cyberpunk future is pretty gay and you have to live with that.

Well, it's just so out of place that when you see casual racism or sexism, it's like WHOAH! BIGOT ALERT! ICly.

I do feel that sometimes there is a bit of virtue signaling going on, but in my experience that's been dealt with ICly in appropriate manners (ultraviolence!)

I know some characters ICly that made a big stink over what seemed like obvious racial stereotyping in the past, and as you mentioned, that was dealt with OOCly and hasn't seemed to be an issue since. ;)

I messed that one up!

Transhumanism of every sort is rampant: genderfluidity, genemodding, and assorted cybernetics are a package deal. Old-world cultures have collapsed, evolved, assimilated, and mutated in countless ways. A place where you can quite literally rearrange your physical anatomy in accordance with whatever you feel like doing or being this week. Want gill, a tail, or claws? Want to become more machine than flesh? Push this button to go bald, or get waist-length hair. Change your appearance to emulate a kindly old grandmother while you evade capture for that place you just bombed? Try to seduce someone to get data on some big happening in the local space? Anything is possible - with an open mind, there can be no wrong answers.

Welcome to the cyberpunk future - where you're the master of your own destiny, the government still sucks, and social constructs are upended - a time and place where no one cares what you call yourself or what your gender is - we're all just vibing and hustling along our character's plot arcs.

I'll be blunt. I'm getting the impression that's what your concern is really about.

This is going in my quotes folder.

LGBT+ players make up a significant percentage of the active player base as a whole, which really should be unsurprising since Sindome allows for an immersive expression of identity to which players might be subject to oppression, persecution or violence for presenting in their daily lives. I suspect this percentage will only increase over time.

i learned that 'dyke' is a reclaimed word that is rarely used as a pejorative anymore -- but the same cannot be said for former word.

a majority of the sindome community simply does not want this to change. after the last thread on that subject, i decided to take a break from the game and came back with a plan to just ignore the useage of the word in the game, but it does still irk me when i eventually see it. it's mainly used by randomly generated mementos, anyways.

i am still disappointed that the main response to concern over using 'fag' in the game is basically to respond with 'well it actually is not offensive' or 'if you do not like it, simply do not play'. while i am glad that all who say these things are relatively unaffected by the usage of the word, it is deeply uncomfortable for people who have to deal with these things in their real life.

I say this in good faith, but I think you're experiencing confirmation bias on the Mementos thing. I'm 100% positive that it's entirely random what names and shortdescs they get. I have, at times, snickered or gasped at their names and shortdescs as a result.

i dont mean to say that it is disproportionally used over other shortdescs by mementos, but i do mean to say that the only characters in the game that i have seen use them are randomly generated memetos

It's just about theme, really. It's the same reason people will look at you like you have a third eye growing out of your face if you start calling people rapscallions and roustabouts in public in 2020.

Calling people mentally retarded isn't vogue in 2105, it's way, way dated. Calling people blanks or nulls conveys the same meaning, and doesn't make it seem like there's OOC bleed happening.

And don't make any mistakes, if you're acting ICly bigoted towards players and it seems like there might be OOC motivations for it, you -will- get talked to by staff. IC bigotry 100% OK. OOC Bigotry 100% not acceptable. Just understand that acting ICly bigoted will absolutely get your character on a significant number of shit-lists IC. It's a thing, but it's honestly not compelling RP and people recognize it as such.

I am realizing though that players are the life blood of the game, I have introduced one person to it, and he ran away within an hour, so I brought it up. Am I super comfortable with seeing all the dykes and fags running around? The word of it, not the action of being one. Yes.

I can suck it up and get that it comes from a place of self identify, but again, you want new players, not all new players will get that, clearly I'm at 100% who don't with my one fellow.

Now, they say it's just whining if you don't try to brainstorm a way forward and I don't want to come off as whining? What if, and again, just spitballing, but what if there was an option for it, like cacophany was added. Say every character starts out with @option gendersafe enabled and they only see folks by male/female/nongendered (not sure of the official phrase for that, so don't roast me on it). Then they have the option to disable that and boom they see all the fags and dykes they want.

I think that would be fair and good for the game because people who don't wanna see it don't and folks who do do. It's a more newbie friendly game and less people will run away yelling at someone on discord about their horrible game and why would I send him here?

Is that at least fair?

I get what you're saying but it's only meant to be offensive when used as a slur and in this game these words are always self picked, i.e. you are only called such if you identify as one, NOBODY save for the odd outlier goes around calling people these words if they don't describe themselves that way.

If we remove the words then what happens when a gay character wants to identify themselves as one of these pronouns? Wouldn't that be actually even more offensive that they don't have a way to display themselves as such.

Personally, RP environments like Sindome have given me a lot of space to explore and develop my own (admittedly complicated) sense of gender, sexuality, and self. I am an emotional, narratively minded, relationally focused, sometimes sexual, and often complicated person. I cannot overstate the value I have found in Sindome as a playground for learning about myself, nonbinary representation and all, and I would never want to see that experience curtailed for someone else. The cyberpunk tone/aesthetic fits my temperament to a T, so it really all just happens to work great for me.

That being said, I do get the discomfort around certain words, particularly when there is a lack of supporting context (i.e. not being aware of the generally inclusive attitudes/culture of the playerbase). I can see certain words driving some people away if that context is not effectively established. I think it's too bad that this happened with Volo's friend. I absolutely do not have a good answer for this particular situation, but I do see it bringing up a very worthwhile conversation and I do think some sensitivity is called for.

And I say all of this as someone currently enrolled in a mental health counseling grad program with a focus on topics in sexuality and gender, who has spent way too much time researching and writing about these topics, and who is genuinely tickled to see this conversation happening here at all.