COGG BBS

New characters can now choose "androgynous" as their gender appearance during character creation. If there are any cases where gender-related output looks incorrect, please report it via the BUG command in-game.

Anyone who has an existing character they'd like set to androgynous, please make the request in-game via the REPORT command while logged in as that character. Response may not be immediate, but the request will be logged.

A note on the gender-neutral pronouns used in the game's text output (zie/hir/hir/hirself): They don't need to be adopted or used by players and their characters. Those pronouns are used so the system can effectively communicate the androgynous appearance of the character, and were chosen because they could be easily used alongside existing pronouns without having to change any other terms and grammar and whatnot, which they/them would have required. The fact that they/them also serve as plural pronouns really complicated things when it came to pre-written text in the code. ("She is" vs "They are", "He was" vs "They were", "He jumps" vs "They jump", etc.)

Fortunately, writing text case-by-case as we do with our characters when roleplaying makes it easy and natural to use they/them for those who want to. I know that my characters/NPCs will continue to use the more common they/them pronouns, which I think most people are more comfortable and familiar with anyway.