Phasing Out Gendered Profile Numbering?

[MurderWeasel]

A couple days ago, I was talking about SOTF traditions with a former handler from way back in the day, and one topic that came up was how rosters are numbered, and specifically how in a lot of ways it feels outdated and unnecessary to sort them by gender.
Sorting the roster this way has been the default for a long time, but the only major benefit to it is being able to quickly get a rough estimate of the number of male/female characters at the start of the game. It has some pretty serious drawbacks that outweigh this, though, IMO, chief among them that characters who don't fit neatly into the gender binary are just sort of awkwardly shoved to one side or the other, which in turn raises a bunch of questions about the villains' respect for gender identity and such which feel sort of like a weird digression re: people whose main goal in life is to murder a bunch of teenagers in a horrible way.

The reason for the current rostering norm is almost certainly that that's how it was done in Battle Royale, but in BR the numbers corresponded to the students' class numbers—they had the numbers prior to the game, would've potentially known each others', etc. This does not translate at all to the American system seen in most games—it'd be like TV3 numbering characters based on class rank. Gendered numbers is totally arbitrary for the games we see, and just does not add any real value.

In fact, we've had a bunch of games avoid the issue and they haven't suffered in any way for it. Evo and INTL simply numbered everyone following the same scheme, and TV has always numbered by team.

I think we can and should adopt a similar system as the default moving forward, numbering characters sequentially without gender inclusion, possibly with a version designation instead (68-1, 68-2, etc. for the first small TV, say). The one potential wiggly spot is retired winner numbers in SC, but IMO we can just retire the number wholesale, skipping 02 and 08. This preserves the retirement aspect and actually makes it felt a little bit more.

I'm mostly throwing this post up in Suggestions rather than staffside because there's always a chance someone's super attached to the current system or there are angles I'm not considering, and because I want to kinda float it somewhere where folks planning upcoming AUs can see it and think about it instead of just quietly changing it ourselves in way where the rationale (or even that a change was made) might not be obvious until a few versions down the road, whenever we return to SC/Program/Virtua (since TV has never used gendered numbering).

Anyways, would love to get thoughts, any ideas folks have around the numbering system, and anything else related. Thanks in advance!

[Shiola]

I'd already planned to do away with it in SOTF:U entirely. The characters were going to be given number designations with a P standing for Participant. P1, P2, P3 etc.

[Jilly]

My only take is that I think SC should keep the gendered rostering since it's what Main does and it has the most shared blood with Main so to speak, and I do think splitting the roster like that makes sense as a way to break down the list even just for the wiki so it looks neater when there's a large amount of characters, but in the context of mini where it's not that common to have more than 30 or 40ish kids I dont think people would be too bent out of shape just doing a universal numbering system.

[DerArknight]

I have this weird little version on Discord. At the start I had no system for numbering. Eventually I made a poll that ended in a 5 to 0 vote for doing the boys/girls-system. I know five handlers is way too small of a sample, but I just wanted to mention it.

Like Shiola, I was thinking about using a numbering system like in INTL for my own AU. Only with the letter A instead of O or P.

I think such a split into boys and girls makes sense on Main where each versions has over 100 characters. But for smaller games like AUs, its not really necessary since the roster is small enough to find a character with little issues. Minis are somewhere between this two, so I think it would be worth giving another system a try during the upcoming Vir2ua, for example.

Finally, I agree that SC should keep the system since it is the closest thing to Main. And since SC3 is still deconfirmed, meaning it won't make a difference anyway.

[MurderWeasel]

I will say that size specifically I don't think is a concern, on either site. We've had a cast hit 151 members of one gender and that table was fine without further subdivision, and only two versions have had meaningfully more characters than that (V3, and V4 itself). The numbers the community has pulled since would all easily fit into a similar setup.

[Yonagoda]

My take is that we've had plenty of non-binary characters and that as someone whos not exactly a traditionalist gendered numbering is pretty unneeded nowadays

[Jilly]

Yeah, to be fair v3 and 4 were also outliers, but the roster size thing is such a minor thing it's why it's not really a hill I'd be willing to die on.

I still think that if any of the current cycling Minis keep the gendered roster system grandfathered in it should be SC due to its ties to Main unless it gets removed there as well (though I also understand getting rid of it completely considering how it doesn't account for nonbinary kids and that does lead to some awkwardness), but for everything else either figuring out a different system to divvy up the roster like TV or just using a unified formatting I think would not be a bad call at all.

[Lilith]

I think we should split off the model.

[Sh4dE]

1. If we're already revamping the rostering system please please fix something that had been bothering me since forever: the order. Currently, it is random. In Battle Royale it wasn't: it was alphabetical just like American schools would organise a list of students. Now of course that couldn't be done in V1-4, because at the start of the game you didn't know who else was going to join. But now with our current system with the roll calls being a thing, we know the whole roster before the game starts, so we can actually organise the list by surname, instead of having a randomised list, just because we always did it because there was no other options in the days of open registrations till the deadline.

2. We need IC justifications as to why they changed it. This will be easy to handle in versions that will be new (new AUs), but with versions with lore already available, we need IC reasons as to why. TV proper doesn't need it, because we have teams, though the question will be: what about S68, with it being a teamless season and the lore explicitly stating gendered numbering in the past?

My suggestion for Program for PV4, would be: abduct two schools: 1 American, 1 British and list the American ones as A01, A02, etc and the British ones B01, B02, etc.

Virtua is a one-off and doesn't need a sequel so that's not a problem.

In SC it's probably the hardest to justify new names, since 2 run versions and its terrorism. Maybe SC3 could have TV1 mechanics, idk. Would make it interesting. Otherwise I'm kinda with Jilly on that one? But kinda also not, because the number thing isn't really important at all in SC, because if it were important or had like a significance of like SC1 characters having the numbers of their V4 run, that'd be a different thing. Still don't know how it'd be justified IC.

Maybe the easy way is to simply translate the whole thing into the American system instead of using the japanese one and make it like one whole list instead of gendered ones. I don't recall having gendered lists when a whole class list has been read of, do you?

[Catche Jagger]

I agree that SC should probably have parity with Main, due its presentation being drawn heavily from that source. However, in all other cases having a single, set resolves complications that would arise from trying to place non-binary characters and the set of two has no specific utility that I’m aware of.

[Espi]

I would also say it's for the best to adjust to a new system as genderqueer characters have become more frequent and overall community awareness has grown (it's been like 16 years, a lot has changed in general after all).

[MurderWeasel]

TV proper doesn't need it, because we have teams, though the question will be: what about S68, with it being a teamless season and the lore explicitly stating gendered numbering in the past?

Honestly for TV it can easily be established as having happened in some past season (or taking 65 as an opportunity) specifically to be more sensitive, because being more sensitive to social issues while murdering teens is pretty much the TV aesthetic already.

[Dogs231]

I agree with Catche's take. If I may make suggestions, here's what I think could work as a replacement for each setting.

Second Chances: Unchanged, to maintain parity with Main.

The Program: "Combatant".

Virtua: "Player Character".

SOTF-TV: "Contestant".

[MurderWeasel]

SOTF-TV: "Contestant".

For TV, I was actually thinking a season designation could be useful, like 68-1, 68-2, etc.

[Dogs231]

SOTF-TV: "Contestant".

For TV, I was actually thinking a season designation could be useful, like 68-1, 68-2, etc.

I feel like that'd end up looking a little weird and would be kinda hard to reference in-universe.