Code skips next cin after leaving function

Question

I am working on a little text based adventure game, the first project I've ever worked on for my own enjoyment, and have ran into a problem. I have got it to ask if you want to play, what your name will be and then the problem starts when you try to choose a race. It works just fine when the user types the first character but when they type the string it will skip past the gender, and class cin. Do I have to clear the cin? Or is my code just wrong?? Thanks for any help you can provide.

#include "pch.h"
#include <iostream>
#include <string>
#include <cctype>
#include <map>
using namespace std;

enum races { Human, Orc, Elf, Dwarf};
enum classes { Warrior, Mage, Archer, Assassin};
const std::map< char, string > race_map =
{ {'H', "human"}, {'O', "orc"}, {'E', "elf"}, {'D', "dwarf"} };
const std::map< char, string > class_map =
{ {'W', "warrior"}, {'M', "mage"}, {'Ar', "archer"}, {'A', "assassin"} 
};

void gameIntro();
void gameStart();
void raceFunc(char race);
void playerClassFunc(char playerClass);


void gameIntro()
{
string playerName;
char race;
char sex;
char playerClass;

cout << "Enter your name: \n";
cin >> playerName;
cout << "\n";


cout << "Select a race (Human, Orc, Elf, Dwarf): \n";
cin >> race;
cout << "\n";
raceFunc(race);


cout << "Select Gender (M or F): \n";
cin >> sex;
cout << "\n";


cout << "Select a class (Warrior, Mage, Archer, Assassin): \n";
cin >> playerClass;
cout << "\n";
playerClassFunc(playerClass);

gameStart();
}

void raceFunc(char race)
{
race = toupper(race);
switch (race)
{
case 'H':
    cout << "You chose Human!\n\n";
break;
case 'O':
    cout << "You chose Orc!\n\n";
break;
case 'E':
    cout << "You chose Elf!\n\n";
break;
case 'D':
    cout << "You chose Dwarf!\n\n";
break;

default:
    cout << "Please choose from the following. Program closing.\n";
    system("pause");
    exit(0);
}
}

void playerClassFunc(char playerClass)
{
playerClass = toupper(playerClass);
switch (playerClass)
{
case 'W':
    cout << "You chose Warrior!\n";
break;
case 'M':
    cout << "You chose Mage!\n";
break;
case 'Ar':
    cout << "You chose Archer!\n";
break;
case 'A':
    cout << "You chose Assassin!\n";
break;

default:
    cout << "Please choose from the following. Program closing.\n";
    system("pause");
    exit(0);
}
}

void gameStart()
{

}

int main()
{
char answer;

cout << "Welcome to Dark Horse\n\n";
cout << "This is my fisrt ever actual program I made out of my own free 
will lol.\n";
cout << "It is a Text-Based Adventure game. In this game you will make a 
character,\n";
cout << "and explore the land of Spelet, battling enemies, leveling up, 
getting loot,\n";
cout << "and learning skills! You do not need to capitalize anything but 
your character\n";
cout << "name. If a question has (something like this) if you don't 
enter whats inside\n";
cout << "the program will CLOSE, so please pay attention! Thank you for 
trying it out!\n";
cout << "I really hope y'all enjoy it!\n\n";
do
{
    cout << "Would you like to play?\n";
    cin >> answer;
    if (answer == 'Y')
    {
        gameIntro();
    }
    else if (answer == 'N')
    {

        system("pause");
        return 0;
    }
    else if (answer != 'N' || 'Y' || 'exit')
    {
        cout << "Come on dog it's Y or N...yes or no...\n\n";
    }

} while (answer == 'N' || 'Y');

system("pause");
return 0;
}

Answer 1

"cin, of class istream, is the standard input channel used for user input. This steam corresponds to C's stdin. Normally, this stream is connected to the keyboard by the operating system." (Josuttis, 2012, p. 745)

Josuttis, N. (2016). The C++ Standard Library: A Tutorial and Reference 2nd Edition: Addison-Wesley

The types are important.

char race;
std::cout << "Please enter your race:" << std::endl;
std::cin >> race;

If the user enters "Human", the standard input stream contains Human and the race variable now has the value H (of type char). The standard input stream now contains uman.

char gender;
std::cout << "Please enter your gender:" << std::endl;
std::cin >> gender;

Calling >> with std::cin gets another character from the standard input stream (in this case u) and stores it in gender. The standard input stream now contains man.

While it appears that the gender question was skipped, you can now see that this is not the case. The input stream still contains characters. If you look at your first screenshot you can see that "Mage" was selected. This is because the value of playerClass is m, the same m from when you entered human.

One way to remedy this is to use std::string instead of char to store the input. That way you have more flexibility in parsing what the user enters (e.g. you can allow for H or Human).