Good grief, all this RFE is about is getting rid of "female" prefix in message log while keeping "hit her/hit him" as it is. When was the last time you paid any attention to it while fighting swarms of monsters since it has zero effect on gameplay?

It's not about gameplay, it's about impression. Despite we tend to ignore it as rogulike genre adepts and despite we got used to the current behavior its very important to get new players. Decision whether to continue playing and whether to recommend the game to friends depends on impression only. Gameplay in ADOM is just a thing that makes pretty good impression about it. But unfortunately there are weak points that make impression bad and turns new players constantly. This issue is just addresses one of such things.

Every player is very important. More players => more purchases => more money => more development time could be spent on ADOM => more our RFEs implemented.

Yeah, I've voted "yes" on this.

I just don't understand the long-ass discussion in this specific RFE. 90% of it is devoted to more generic issues, not the particular solution requested by the OP.

Interesting problem, isn't it? "Lizardwoman" sounds wrong to me as a native speaker, it's clunky and a little too long, ditto "lizardperson". I suggested "lizardkin" in addition because I thought it might work better for that reason - it means of a family with lizards, but can be used plurally or singly, whereas "lizardfolk" is more pluralistic. "Lizardling" might also be an idea. It's close (perhaps too close) to drakeling, but the common theme is interesting and already established. Or they could even just be converted to drakelings in general (presumably that wasn't the original intention though).


Works perfectly well, I like it. However I personally prefer "swordfighter" and for the master swordsman, "swordsmaster", because it's nearer to the original intention of the text ("mercenary" holds other implications like a money-led philosophy). "Blademaster" might work too? "Mastering the blade is my life!"


I know the feeling a little..! The discussion is pretty long because people keep adding even more amazing ideas - some that fit this RFE and some that would be better in another - and fixing small issues with the original, as well as the standard commenting why they agree/disagree if they do. I've started trying to multi-reply to shorten it. Grey's already said it, but I should probably have tried a forum thread first. Was more confident with this process, however, given the inherent strong views this would engender.
Actually the RFE has to be slightly more complex than that, as I meant it as a suggestion to: remove the prefix, increase the frequency of 'her' in "hit her/hit him" to maintain or improve gender balance since it'll be less visible with the prefix removed, change monster memories and add some where they're not presently available in both genders so that they also vary randomly (for added interest, again), and sort out a few other related issues that mesh.
In addition to previous responses I would like to add that removing the prefix also streamlines the game because less text would be generated per action than at present. Significantly less if the PC is paralysed!


First off, thank you very much for your support! Secondly, and hopefully, it's okay. I'm generally fine with debate and even conflicting opinions as long as neither of these end up irrepressibly taking over the thread or becoming toxic in any manner. At that point I think it's unhelpful to me, to the RFE and unhelpful for the other people watching this thread. For now, I'm glad we're still having a reasonably calm and involved discussion - it's just a shame if it gets to be too long for Thomas to bother with, as there are a lot of good ideas in here.

Given ADOM's limited present resources I completely understand that there'll be only certain things which are easily editable. I'd love to see alternate tiles for all possible races, but a good many examples of the existing art would work for all genders, or at least not be immediately problematic. For others, while a completely different tile art, appearance and costume would be more interesting, the fastest and easiest fix for the art team will be changing attributes like shoulder-waist-hip balance, adding extra 'width' on the chest, removing beards... The naming conventions on the other hand should have the potential to be changed globally if any changes are possible at all.


I am so very glad to hear from you. Until now, I've been considering players who are already and vocally in the same position as myself (or in sympathy with that position), and considering the possible response of new players in the same light. People like you are the reason I consider this RFE more than a small issue, meaningful to other people than myself, and worth the effort not just of posting (and answering hundreds of replies) but of implementation. While I regret that you've had the same jarring experience I did when I started playing ADOM ... it is indescribably useful to have my initial concerns justified by you speaking up about it.
Thank you. I hope that your comment is taken into account. I also wish I had your talent for brevity!

On the matter of race (great counter-example) I would also personally prefer to see some darker skintones in the ADOM universe, especially for PC races like Dark Elves and Gnomes that frequently generate with a brown/dark/black complexion.


I really appreciate your furthered consideration on this issue. I've answered you mostly in private (and in the seperate paragraphs below) because I saw your PM first, especially on the matter of splitting the RFE - I hope the global response below this one helps to clarify my position - but thanks for giving it thought! So, in answer to a few of the points I didn't already cover:

To my mind, you've already explained why I don't see a need for a gender imbalance in the game. ADOM's male and female PCs are (VERY marginally) more suited to certain roles in the life of an active adventurer. According to the stat bonus, men make better melee fighters and women better archers and thieves. At the same time however the difference is absolutely miniscule and is immediately overshadowed by class, race, starsign and charactergen question choices. I think that this is intentional and reflects the fact that while there is some variation between the genders it is neither universal nor prohibitive in any way.
Regarding your unaddressed but similar points (at the risk of getting into another political conversation, please let's not!); ADOM's gameworld beyond that of the Drakalor Chain is a relative mystery and may or may not incorporate the concepts you suggest as universal, especially the idea that women would be less likely to fight. Childbearing is a reasonable example but generally takes up only a few years at most within the decades-long life of most people (and that's if they have multiple children/attempts), and in addition for 1/2 that time the woman in question may not be disadvantaged by or even aware of the pregnancy. In some warrior cultures a pregnant woman was even considered more dangerous and likely to fight more brutally to preserve herself. If we are using the real world as an example, though, then your own examples are only accurate for a certain geographic area, while others have maintained an even split and occasionally encouraged women over men. That said I don't think ADOM needs to be or should be reflective of real-world human history to that level and can see no reason to limit the proportion of female NPCs based on outdated societies. While it is true that the very strongest men within the real world tend to be stronger than the very strongest women, skewing the mean variation ahead, both men and women can reach a powerful physical peak and become effective fighters with training and practice. It isn't necessary to skew the number of either gender who decide to take that course in life based on their potential maximums. After all, no character starts out with those already fulfilled. They also vary wildly for both genders. In other words I can't see any reason to limit monster gender frequency based on real-world bell curves, and even if this was important, society and personality have a much stronger effect on who does or doesn't choose to fight.
On the basis of all this I'd argue that while technically the proportion might not work out at 50%, it should -approach- 50%. Whether that proportion should be 40%, 45%, 55% or any other figure is really ultimately down to Thomas and his dev team, and the impression they want people to take away from this game. What I do want to highlight with my own personal suggestion of around 50% is actually that, at present, the proportion is far lower, and should be raised to ensure that gender variation is still visible when prefixes are removed (hence why it's in this RFE rather than one purely based on gender balance).
There's also no solid reason for any fantasy race to mimic humanity in how the male and female variants differ, if at all. I would expect different races to feature different types of variation.
I think monster memory entries are already dynamic based on race and current gender prefix, but there would be a need for edits to those about single-gender monsters (or the writing of new ones for the other gender). When remembering a gendered race, the player would be presented with one or another applicable memory for female or male creatures of that race, at random. I included that change in the original RFE, AFAIK.
Completely happy with some societies staying thematically matriarchal or patriarchal as wished, but my personal preference would be for the average overall percentage of female foos generated to rise, preferably to near 50%. Hopefully that would mean that races with a preference for one of the other gender would balance each other out. No issues there, flavour is better than uniformity!
Dropping the gender description is probably the best option in general and I've changed the RFE text to highlight that after a lot of people suggested it.
"Swordsman" isn't gender-neutral, but we already have a few that are; "Swordfighter", "Swordsmaster", "Mercenary", "Blademaster". "Swordswoman" is a term in general British use although one that is considered archaic - we have more neutral terms nowadays and use fewer swords. For a medieval-style fantasy setting it's probably just archaic enough. I'd vote for either Swordsman/Swordswoman or a neutral term covering both (that isn't Swordsman).
"They" and "It" are already in the game IIRC for inanimate monsters and "they" is currently considered the default pronoun for someone whose gender or preferred pronouns are unknown. It's probably the most global of all existing nonbinary pronouns. That said, I would prefer to see he/she implemented too, rather than have to see "they" used throughout and all variation squashed. It was just a suggestion in case people want to add more than the two binary genders now they're going through all the trouble to change this in the first place!

News_Of_The_World, shockeroo and others have raised the issue of politics and what my intentions are, as well as whether the RFE is overcomplex. I thought I'd answer globally to prevent further lengthening of the thread!

My initial focus was primarily to balance the use of pronouns in the text (and accompanying art?) in the game to prevent the current weird disconnect for native English speakers without losing gender variation in the process.
My primary motive for posting this RFE remains the pronoun/prefix issue which I honestly consider high priority. It causes jarring for many male and female players, especially as it is unexplained. New and old players have already flagged it up here and elsewhere. It doesn't match up with male variants not being labelled. It isn't a standard use of native English. It feels clunky and unnatural. It affects gameplay where it lengthens messages unnecessarily.
Changing this small (but potentially complex) text and balance issue will carry with it a raft of positives which would improve the game for everyone.

One of the major strengths of ADOM is the almost infinite variety it offers the player in terms of exploration, gameplay and content, and reducing that variety (even to fix a different issue) is a shame. My motive for adding further elements therefore was that when I considered only removing the gender prefixes and leaving everything else as-is, it struck me that there would still be a lot of inaccuracies in the game like undescriptive tiles and occasional misgendering by NPCs, and that the variation which already exists with the use of 'female' monster variants would suddenly be buried. Keeping gender variation visible keeps ADOM interesting, but it also makes the game more inviting to female players - which I consider a very good thing, personally, and also for ADOM in general since a wider target audience improves its future prospects. For these reasons I rewrote the RFE to feature gender balance and prefix fixing all at once. This is also one reason I didn't support the alternate idea of removing monster gender entirely, and it also means I'd support RFEs for more female NPCs, etcetera.

Some other elements of this RFE also cover potential issues caused by the major suggestions (changing "swordsman", for example, to something either gender-neutral or to two variable names, is really essential if you're going to have swordsmen wandering around with the "her" pronoun). I then added the other suggestions for a greater proportion of female monsters to be generated and some additional female monster types and NPCs to, again, increase variety and interest within the gameworld as well as provide easy ways by which a better balance might be achieveable. Lastly I also wanted to support Thomas and the rest of the game team by providing a series of detailed possibilities to make implementation of this RFE somewhat easier. My hope in itemising the most necessary changes was to save the dev team time and make my suggestions as clear as possible. I see these all as necessary extensions of the original suggestion, and am of the opinion that the RFE doesn't hold as much water when pared down.

I hope this makes everything clear and answers the majority of similar questions. This was my first RFE submission, as well, so it may well still be overdone, but after rereading it three times it seems as it should be.

One last note - I'm aware this will take effort to implement. Maybe not too much, but maybe a serious amount. Unfortunately when I originally hit on this suggestion I was too young and unsocial to feel comfortable posting and the game was then out of active development for a long time. I feel that it's a reasonable request to make now that ADOM is being actively developed and released to mass market, as it's technically a matter of refining something that's being updated now rather than complaining about an old and much-loved classic. I just wish I'd summoned the nerve and impetus to do so a year ago before the major release was already underway. I still hope it's possible to incorporate these changes, though - it'd really make a difference.

Support for dropping the descriptor and having the gender 'hidden' until examined or a pronoun is used; this standardises the handling of gendered monsters.

Neutral to female art.

Opposed to further development & algorithms; dropping the descriptor accomplishes the goal and further changes give greatly diminishing returns.

Does he/she/it even ever come into it? Combat is always 'The [monster type] hits you.'.

Mildly opposed; I suspect Thomas has already done this for all creatures where it's easy to do so.

Strongly opposed; unnecessary. Jellies and undead et al are already 'it'. 'They' as a singular pronoun for a known individual is poor English. (Do some research if you think it's fine; it's disputed at best.)

I don't imagine there's much to fix in this category. For any remaining cases, if anything, I'd rather grandfather them in as patriarchal societies and introduce a new matriarchal female society alongside the Dark Elves.

Neutral; I don't see any pressing reason to do this (most women are at home in a pre-modern society), but it's no skin off my nose, and it's probably an easy one to implement.

Neutral, this is just renaming so whatever. Any reason Swordsmen shouldn't be Duellists?

Support. This sounds like it's fiddily to fix, but it is really weird that we have Kings & Princes but no Queens or Princesses (other than the Dark Elven ones). It might be more efficient to give them the 'generate as either gender' flag (if such a thing exists) and change Kings to Monarchs, Princes to Heirs, Lords to Nobles and Emperors to Soverigns. Whatever, I'll leave it for TB & co to figure out the specifics.

Meanwhile i gave up on reading comments for this RFE (and, tbh, RFE itself) approximately at the middle of the first page. You write about this small issue like this is a gamebreaking bug that formats your HDD, burns your apartments afterwards and threatens to sell you into a slavery.

How about you would make a nice topic in general ADOM discuisson and post all walls of text there, and recreate this RFE with as short as possible description and comment on it _once_ with your stance on it?

I don't understand why this has such a high listed priority - this feature is lots and lots of work with absolutely no benefits to gameplay. It should have the lowest possible priority.

The minimum possible implementation of this feature - calling female orcs "orcs" (and female giants, etc) but having them use female pronouns (like they already do) should actually be really simple. It's just a name change.
Making them more likely is also probably pretty easy.

The art part of this is now present in a second RFE.

You know, I didn't participate in this thread when it first came out because I was traveling and didn't have the time to sit down and write a reply (just read it on my phone), but this is something that has bothered me as well.

I mean, priority isn't really defined (which is sort of a problem), but looking back at my own reports, the only reports I've made at priority 3 or below have been bug reports about issues that either (priority 1) cause a fatal crash at startup or soon after or (priority 2) break core aspects of the game. (like a priority 2 report when, during one version, you couldn't 'a'pply any skills) I don't actually have any priority 3 reports, but I imagine that would be reserved for maybe relatively obscure bugs that cause fatal crashes or something.

My *lowest* priority RFEs are 5s, and those are for things that would actually impact the gameplay or UI in a non-trivial way and significantly change and (IMO) improve the game experience. Things like redoing command menus completely, or changing the way eating works (however unpopular that one was), as well as some priority 5 bug reports for bugs that, while significant, don't make the game markedly less playable.

Any of my RFEs that actually address game content or relatively minor UI changes are priority 7 or higher. (I really should use 6 at some point) Because that's how I understand priorities to work:

Bugs that affect game's ability to run properly > bugs that keep basic user from playing the game properly > bugs that occur in more obscure situations => RFEs for UI/gameplay features that greatly affect the game's play-ability > RFEs for UI/gameplay features that have a minor impact on the gameplay => content based RFEs.

The fact that this has a priority of 3 is crazy to me, but I could see it having maybe a 6 or 7, since it does have a somewhat significant impact on the way people react to (or feel alienated by) certain content.

It's just non-constructive. First of all that's only your own point of view, you should understand that everyone sees priority in their own way. Secondly, let's there really could be bugs/RFEs which fall out of your scheme. For example if content (say image or text) that offends a lot of people was non-intentionally added to the game if would have very low priority following your scheme. On the other hand this would turn a lot of potential customers who could buy game on steam and fund further development otherwise. And you're underestimating priority of content features. For example if game was ASCII only without tiles and music would it have any chances to be successful on steam? People do love content as much as gameplay. The same regarding crashes. Bug-free game doesn't yet mean that someone would play it. I'd rather play interesting game that crashes from time to time than a boring one that is perfectly stable.

Think it another way. Every issue would change impression about this game. No matter RFE this, bug, crash or anything else. Assigning priority to an issue one is just saying how much it would improve his own impression about this game.

Are you guys Thomas Biskup?

I am pretty sure user-submitted priority score is meaningless. In practice, RFEs and bug reports and reviewed by developers and assigned actual priorities.

And you dig up an RFE where the last comment was added 3 weeks ago and add nothing for the discussion concerning the actual RFE subject.

Man, I'm starting to feel auricbond.

EDIT: Yes, I also add nothing for the discussion and simply venting my annoyance.

Yes, it's not like I said that "this is my own understanding of the priority system" MULTIPLE times in my post and acknowledged that priorities aren't really defined. Or in fact that my entire post was "this is how I see the priority system." Thank you so much for assuming I'm too stupid to understand that.

A fatal crash makes the game unplayable. For anyone. A RFE like this one (which I think is a good idea) makes the game more enjoyable, immersive, and welcoming, especially to those who are more sensitive to gender issues, but doesn't outright keep anyone from playing it. It terms of priority, in my opinion making the game basically playable outweighs making the game more welcoming or more enjoyable. (though both are obviously worthwhile endeavors)

Yeah, why have a bug report or RFE system at all if we're not Thomas Biskup?

There's no need to be condescending, no one is claiming an authoritative stance on the issue. Merely questioning why something is a high priority or explaining your own understanding of it is not the same as "you all are wrong, this is the only way to do things!"

If they were meaningless, then why would they exist?

In practice, I've noticed my high priority issues get noticed and acknowledged much more quickly than my low-priority ones. That doesn't mean it's being used as the actual priority for implementation, but I believe it affects the order in which they're looked at. Which is why I have no problem with making a "the game crashes when you attempt to apply a skill" a priority 1 bug report, but I would hesitate to make "add this new cool NPC to the game!" a priority 1 RFE, because no matter how cool or awesome or game-changing it may be (and I personally believe some of my ideas really would make the game much better), I think Team ADOM has made it fairly clear their highest priority is fixing game-breaking bugs, and I know I would be more likely to irritate them than anything else.

However, yes, that's just my opinion! I understand what an opinion is! And I think it's perfectly valid to discuss, debate, or even critique an RFE or the RFE process in general without being ridiculed for doing so! My humblest apologies if that offends you.

Voted yes, the gender surely needs rebalancing. I think the monster gender ratio among humanoid species - where female form exists - is 80:20. I get the impression, not sure, maybe also read that somewhere, that while male monsters have 10% more HP, females have +10% crit chance, maybe also some +speed, which makes them more dangerous. But that's different topic.

Changing the NPC balance should be higher priority. There is about 7 female NPC's to about 70 males, that's 1:10. What's more, there is no single one nice, middle aged female. Two old women, two ghosts, one tiny girl and a dragon. Common, no Lara Croft, really? Furthermore, random shopkeepers are always male. At least Mad Minstrel should have been female from start. Then I can imagine, half of the guaranteed shopkeepers, druid in Terynio, the priestess in Dwarftown, at least one Arena opponent, one chaos orb guardian, malicious doctor offering female flesh golem, etc. Certain NPC's - shopkeepers at minimum - should be male/female based on RNG, differently each game.

Hi, original RFE author here, I suddenly started getting alert pings on this thread again so came to see what was up. So.. priority, why's it set at three?

First off, this was the first RFE I ever wrote so I was just getting used to the way the website worked for suggestions as a whole and had little to base this on! My others are a little more geared to the site's average usage. Secondly I wanted to choose something that reflected the reputational damage or simple discomfort the current text could cause but didn't place it above massive gameplay edits (which I saw as priorities 1 and 2). I used Thomas' own mini-RFE on gender and potentially insulting text as a priority guideline. Thirdly, this is already a RFE / suggestion rather than a bug report, so the report type takes into account that it isn't a game-breaking bug. It's also I've come to realise a very complex suggestion with several elements which actually all have different priorities and speeds of implementation. The removal of the "female" prefix I'd actually put at priority 2 now I know the system better as it affects player experience and is, definitely, something that affects gameplay too (shortens a lot of monster text). Rebalancing is priority 4 but should be integrated simultaneously to avoid variety disappearing. The other elements range from 4-9. On average it should perhaps be a 4 or a 5 and I did consider altering the priority at one point, but honestly, I didn't see the point in muddying the waters any further - the comment thread was plenty long enough already to the point that at least one user suggested I just give up and post the whole thing again (which I would have but it seemed like adding pointless extra hassle as well) and it hadn't been replied to in over a week, so I left it be - but then again it seems to have woken up anyway.

Frankly I can't see any real reason to alter it as priorities are used only as a guideline and this issue will likely have a delayed reply simply for being so subscribed which effectively lowers priority.

IGB's suggestions seem balanced and sensible at a glance, I thoroughly support them depending on artist time available. There's another RFE open for the art element.

@Kelibath: FWIW, I didn't mean to imply you ought to change the priority. :)

I was just using it as an example when replying to SinsI of how I would probably rate it, it's not meant as a criticism of your RFE. (Which I think is a great idea)

Dogbreath - thanks very much for this! Apologies for the misinterpretation, and the delay in my response. I got frustrated by the lack of implementation and author response and the growing thread. May resubmit in shorter form sometime, unsure.

This has to be the creepiest suggestion I have ever read. Can you just imagine it.

Besides, for a frankenstein monster probably gathered from various body parts, I do not see the reason to assign a gender to Flesh Golems to begin with.

No, I agree. I don't think the choice of gender when buying one is a good idea for the same reasons you just listed - however having said golem randomly generate as male or female would make sense without the creep factor.
But actually I agree that Flesh Golems really ought to be "it", much like Living Walls et al. They're constructs rather than people.

Well, Frankenstein's monster was distinctly male. But I have always imagined the flesh golem more "shapeless" than that, so I would be fine with "it". I suppose it depends on how the creator wants to imagine a flesh golem.