Dwarf trait

[jan.antilles]

Personally I think we can let geneticists have nice things that people want to get.

I originally thought so too, but as I've said in the post above, it can be a major character trait for some gimmick characters, and having it be an incredibly unlikely chance to get just kinda sucks. Lord knows how many rounds I've wasted spending my entire time in genetics, not being involved in any part of the round, just sitting still in a gene pod, just because I wanted one of my gimmick characters to look the way they're supposed to. 
So sure, it encourages some more people to go to genetics, but this is not out of their own volition (there is no alternative method of getting dwarfism except maybeeee radiation but that's even more up to chance and far more dangerous), which is very much not a fun thing to have to do every time you have an idea for a character which would not look very good if it was of a normal height.

If you build an entire character around a gimmick gene that isn't available at roundstart, that's on you. Dwarfism is not intended to be "how my character is Supposed To Look."

[Kamikaze Mongoose]

If using it to roleplay as children is an issue or people find it offensive, remove it. This isn't a reason to keep it from being a trait if we're still allowing it to be easily accessible.

If reducing foot traffic to genetics is an issue, remove the mutantraces, speech mutations, deafness, blindness, alcohol resistance, and mildly mutated. These contribute to that issue.

People built entire gimmicks around some of our current character trait options before they got added and we still added them, so that's nonsense too.

If we're going to pretend these are legitimate reasons to keep Dwarfism from being a character trait, then eliminate any favoritism for equal or worse offenders by removing them.

EDIT: I don't care if we add Dwarfism or not, but I'm not gonna sit and watch people use these excuses for some things but not for others. If we're going to draw a hard line here, enforce it or remove the line.

[Glamurio]

If using it to roleplay as children is an issue or people find it offensive, remove it. This isn't a reason to keep it from being a trait if we're still allowing it to be easily accessible.

If reducing foot traffic to genetics is an issue, remove the mutantraces, speech mutations, deafness, blindness, alcohol resistance, and mildly mutated. These contribute to that issue.

People built entire gimmicks around some of our current character trait options before they got added and we still added them, so that's nonsense too.

If we're going to pretend these are legitimate reasons to keep Dwarfism from being a character trait, then eliminate any favoritism for equal or worse offenders by removing them.

EDIT: I don't care if we add Dwarfism or not, but I'm not gonna sit and watch people use these excuses for some things but not for others.  If we're going to draw a hard line here, enforce it or remove the line.

I am inclined to agree with this take. A lot of the reasons given seem inconsistent with other mechanics or just don't add up when looking at the entire picture. 

Personally, I'm not feeling strongly on the trait either, I'll likely never pick it. But I will say that Dwarfism is a real thing that happens to real people, much like being handicapped or blind. Since it's already in the game, it makes sense for people to want to have it as a starting trait, since it's a tangible thing that's relatable to some individuals.

As for genetics being able to grant this, this isn't like monkeys, Dwarfism isn't exactly commonly found early every round, and it's often not researched either. Geneticists have by far many, many other tools they can hand out to people, it's not like we're bleeding for more mutations.

Ultimately, the question I ask myself is, would it create more fun and engaging RP if people could play with this as a starting trait? Yes, I think it would. Having a short character makes you stick out and characterizes you to a degree, which naturally leads to RP. But gaining Dwarfism 50 minutes into a shift only to tell your co-workers, "Oh, I'm short now btw", won't really have the same effect.

[Frank_Stein]

[Cal]

If using it to roleplay as children is an issue or people find it offensive, remove it. This isn't a reason to keep it from being a trait if we're still allowing it to be easily accessible.

Weird game of chicken you're playing. I'd be fine with it being removed.

[babayetu83]

If using it to roleplay as children is an issue or people find it offensive, remove it. This isn't a reason to keep it from being a trait if we're still allowing it to be easily accessible.

If reducing foot traffic to genetics is an issue, remove the mutantraces, speech mutations, deafness, blindness, alcohol resistance, and mildly mutated. These contribute to that issue.

People built entire gimmicks around some of our current character trait options before they got added and we still added them, so that's nonsense too.

If we're going to pretend these are legitimate reasons to keep Dwarfism from being a character trait, then eliminate any favoritism for equal or worse offenders by removing them.

EDIT: I don't care if we add Dwarfism or not, but I'm not gonna sit and watch people use these excuses for some things but not for others.  If we're going to draw a hard line here, enforce it or remove the line.

I am inclined to agree with this take. A lot of the reasons given seem inconsistent with other mechanics or just don't add up when looking at the entire picture. 

Personally, I'm not feeling strongly on the trait either, I'll likely never pick it. But I will say that Dwarfism is a real thing that happens to real people, much like being handicapped or blind. Since it's already in the game, it makes sense for people to want to have it as a starting trait, since it's a tangible thing that's relatable to some individuals.

As for genetics being able to grant this, this isn't like monkeys, Dwarfism isn't exactly commonly found early every round, and it's often not researched either. Geneticists have by far many, many other tools they can hand out to people, it's not like we're bleeding for more mutations.

Ultimately, the question I ask myself is, would it create more fun and engaging RP if people could play with this as a starting trait? Yes, I think it would. Having a short character makes you stick out and characterizes you to a degree, which naturally leads to RP. But gaining Dwarfism 50 minutes into a shift only to tell your co-workers, "Oh, I'm short now btw", won't really have the same effect.

yeah, height is another thing that can lead to more immersion for people. i mean if somebody wanted to model their characters after themselves, it feels weird that you can have just the right hair color, hair style, eye color, skin color, gender, but not height for your character.

[Mantwerp]

Oh also, nobody has even mentioned the sprites. Which is something I feel not very knowledgeable about, and that was the first PR's (rest in peace) main critique. It had some criticism of tails looking squished, inhands being wrong, and monkey clothing being wrong.

Although when I went to actually look at the sprites I noticed that the tails seemed to be the same as normal(?) ( doesn't it just take pixels away from the legs???),
the inhands were maybe at most 1px off for some items (wouldn't this also be unaffected because dwarfism just takes from the legs too???),
and yes, monkey pants were very small. But first of all, I don't see a possible solution to this ever being possible seeing as they're meant to look small (maybe take one pixel off the chest), and also you'd have to go to genetics to turn into a monkey (which is pretty trivial but also not THAT common).

I am absolutely in no way a spriter or knowledgeable about how dwarfism squishes the sprites, and very much not the most experienced coder. However I do feel like the sprite distortion isn't that horrible as it's been described to be. But please absolutely do tell me what is wrong because I currently do not really know what I could fix about the sprites.

Oh also the new pr was closed for being rejected last time, but I closed it myself last year after the complaints of the sprites, cause I had just barely figured out how to make a pr and supporting it was very much not in my abilities.

[Kotlol]

New idea: Change Dwarf trait into "Squished Trait"

Reason: "Person's spine has become a center of gravity, squishing the person into a smaller shape."

And insted of dwarf... your charater is just your sprite Y's squished.

[barfy]

i have a hard time understanding why some people are against this idea, because i have seen no substantial arguments against it, in my opinion its just very vague and dismissive. meanwhile there are numerous reasons i've seen to support why this would be a good, fun, and immersive trait to let people select for their characters and base their gimmicks around. because from a roleplay standpoint, if not for gimmicks then what do we have? do your job on the station and try not to get murdered by the rampaging antags?

this trait would give more freedom in the creation of our characters, at least cosmetically, which is a good thing. however if people misuse this trait to play weird and offensive characters they should face the appropriate consequences. just as we have the freedom to choose our characters name and type anything we like in the game, a few people can, have, and will make offensive names and type offensive things in game. but does this mean we should remove those freedoms and not allow people to make custom character names and restrict people from speaking freely? i certainly don't think so, people who aim to be offensive don't belong on goonstation and are promptly removed as they always have been, and the people who follow the rules are allowed to play the game in peace and have these previously mentioned freedoms.

all in all i don't see how this idea would negatively impact anyone or impede anyone being able to play the game the way they want to and always have, meanwhile i can see how it would positively impact some people by giving them more options to be creative with and have fun making characters and playing out their ideas and gimmicks and add more variety and individuality to the characters you see on the station. the main factor i think this would add to the game for people is fun, which is what games should be and what we should strive to nurture and grow and continually add to our game as much as possible.

like others i am mostly impartial, don't have strong feelings either way, and wouldn't be affected by this being merged or not. however what i do have strong feelings about and don't like to see is the spark of creativity being stamped out and dismissed with no justification other than vague, nonspecific issues which are mostly hypothetical besides a few instances of people making offensive or uncomfortable characters, which would happen without this trait being added anyways.

[Cal]

The Pr has since been closed, and I am closing this thread as well.