This RFE is a request if at all possible to alter the current strange and uncomfortable imbalance between gendered monsters; specifically, female variants being encountered far less often, and the strange disparity between 'male' monsters having no referenced gender and 'female' monsters of the same kind being described foremostly by their gender.

I'm a massive long-term fan of ADOM and came to the entire genre of roguelikes through it. I'm also female. As a female ADOM fan, this issue actually impacts on me quite seriously and continues even now to make me feel marginalised as a player. I love the fact that the main character can be of either binary gender, and the overwhelming detail that has gone into the game in every respect, and having 'female creatures' is definitely a step up from simply assuming that all of the standard monsters in the game are male by default. Nevertheless it's really quite glaring when a 'female' variant of a known monster suddenly shows up. When the game was first being conceived this probably seemed like a progressive step forwards as female monsters were finally being consciously included, but what it actually serves to do is to normalise every monster without the 'female' descriptor as male and therefore make female monsters seem strangely unusual. When I started playing this game it was postcardware and I wasn't as aware of the wider repercussions from this sort of representation - so I just enjoyed something but felt I had absolutely no place to criticise it for one stylistic choice I wasn't happy with. I've been thinking it would be great to change it for going on twelve years, though, and have finally got the courage up to submit a report to that effect. Now that ADOM is a priced commodity which being released to Steam and a public audience, I see this as a much more pressing issue. There'll be a vast new player base encountering 'female orcs' and 'orcs' for the first time; many of whom might be offended, and some of whom might well post about the issue on social media. I do appreciate that not everyone will be affected by this problem to the same extent (some more, some less, after all, I'm certainly still supporting the game!) but it's something that -does- get noticed, -does- affect at least some players and -may well- garner negative attention.

I would like to see a finished version of ADOM where there is no default gender assumption for either the player or any randomly generated standard monster that they encounter.


My suggestions for how improve on this issue follow:

First, remove the 'female' descriptor from monsters with a 'standard' and 'female' alternate. Generated creatures should instead be assigned a gender on first generation according to a global or per-species algorithm which alters their name (when appropriate), art (if possible), description and the pronouns used (he/she/they/it) in their attack messages and 'l'ook description.
Secondly, I suggest adding this to all applicable/humanoid creatures, not solely the types that already have a 'female' variant, excepting where these are prohibited from one or the other gender by canon or game mechanics.
Ensure the pronouns within descriptions for all monsters currently without gender variation are listed as 'it' or 'they' instead.
I'd also like to up the encounter frequency percentages, now that differing names are not required, to something more like 50% chance per gender (distributed differently by species as required).
Standardise gendered monster names that won't work without the 'female' prefix - notably Swordsman, Lizardman. Suggestions include using swordsman/swordswoman/swordfighter to match their pronouns and lizardfolk/lizardkin/lizardlings.
Maybe add some variant gender names in the same way to current elite forms of the normal monsters, as well - Ogre Queen, Werewolf Queen, Minotaur Queen - whatever works for canon.
NPCs that are generated as 'named' should probably generate their gender first, and then draw from a list of appropriate names afterwards - shopkeepers and artifact guardians, etc.
Some few sections of dialogue also still need to be parsed to avoid accidental use of the wrong pronouns for the PC.


These changes are the easiest way I can think of to introduce the necessary alterations and more reasonably balance the Drakalor Chain. This would present the continued impression of a diverse and balanced world in ADOM without any gender being singled out as more exotic to the player by default, and some suggestions would also allow for the incorporation of non-binary gender to be represented in the game.

My original suggestion was that for every monster with a 'female' alternate, add the 'male' descriptor to their 'standard' opposite. In this manner 'male orcs' and 'female orcs' would show up without any major coding changes being requisite - I have now discarded this in favour of the more streamlined option of removing prefixes entirely. It was originally included because it seemed like the fastest fix. There are also other aspects that would also add to the rebalancing of this issue that might make good suggestions for further gender balance and to link with the above. For example, incorporating female shopkeepers (if not already done) by using names randomised from a list which includes those suitable for both genders (maybe change the HMV shopkeep to female by default), increasing number/balance of set female NPCs, implementing gender parity in Terinyo and Dwarftown by having the graphics for 'farmer' and 'goodwoman' randomly select per foo from the two tiles available (and therefore change the second monster name to 'villager' or similar) and replacing 'female dwarf' with 'dwarves' with RNG'd appearance.. We could even add a third 'other' option to the current character select screen for gender (incorporating a +1 to say, Toughness, and a third gender quest). But I see these more as hopeful future developments after the main, essential suggestions above have been implemented.

Either way, though, this is an issue which has my sincerest attention, and one I honestly think is a necessary change to be made before the game is completed.