[ETHIC:SLAVERY:UNTHINKABLE], anyone?
Erm,Code: [Select][ETHIC:SLAVERY:UNTHINKABLE], anyone?
http://www1.assumption.edu/users/lknoles/douglassproslaveryargs.html
Detoxicated, read the exert from William greyson's "The hireling and the slave". Your argument walks a dangerous line.
It should be up to the player to decide how they play the game. The moment you start to remove major idea's because they might support "Amoral behavior" is the moment your game changes from a game into a tool for political indoctrination. Some people might see killing and eating animals as Amoral, would you remove that to?
There is a difference, I think, between saying that some individuals are suited to certain tasks and that a tribal group of people is better off in a forced labor camp so they can learn proper culture. A large part of why the theory of evolution was rejected so vehemently in victorian england was because it clearly stated that blacks were of the same approximate makeup as everyone else, as apposed to being a lesser being created to serve man, like dogs and oxen. Do I think it is necessarily a bad idea to have foomen folded into culture in a bigger way then they are now? No. Do I think that the proposed mechanism unsuitable for randomly generated fantasy anarchy? Not at all. But it is exactly slavery, right down to the moral justifications.
Are they paid in the economy? I mean Civilization and its clones like to claim they model different governments by giving you some (not based on reality) bonuses and penalties to having different government, but when it comes down to the simulation, your always playing a despotic ruler than micromanages his citizens life, sets production levels, and taxes irrespective of what civilians would actually have(where do citizens get the gold to pay their taxes), and invents new technologies by throwing money at them.
I actually typed this already, but i felt I was getting a little off topic and deleted it before posting my last post.
In short, just stripping it completely out and declaring total communism was basically an upgrade from the old economy, since it just didn't really make sense without the internal social structures it takes for a mercantile or capitalist system to make sense.
QuoteIn short, just stripping it completely out and declaring total communism was basically an upgrade from the old economy, since it just didn't really make sense without the internal social structures it takes for a mercantile or capitalist system to make sense.
It does sound easier, but I would like to be able to put a price on a forgotton beasts head, and watch as every able bodied dwarf went after it with the enthusiasm that they go after a sock.
I would too, but that falls under the "Majesty style of gameplay" that Toady doesn't seem to want. Which is a pity, because that's how a more realistic version of feudalism would work.
Screw slavery and all that.... I just want bushrangers to assist my soldiers.....
Quote from: NW_KohakuWould you even consider changing the relationship that the player has with the dwarves right now (as unquestioned overlord and direct allower and denier of all things dwarves can and cannot do), so that dwarves can become more autonomous and individual, and possibly create a better simulation, while on the other hand, potentially dramatically upping the potential for Fun because dwarves are stupid and very likely to hurt themselves unless continually babysat, or perhaps more importantly, if it meant that the player had less direct control over his fortress, and had to rely more on coaxing the ants in his/her antfarm to do his/her bidding?
Our eventual goal is to have the player's role be the embodiment of positions of power within the fortress, performing actions in their official capacity, to the point that in an ideal world each command you give would be linked to some noble, official or commander. I don't think coaxing is the way I'm thinking of it though, as with a game like Majesty which somebody brought up, because your orders would also carry the weight of being assumed to be for survival for the most part, not as bounties or a similar system. Once your fortress is larger, you might have to work a little harder to keep people around, but your dwarves in the first year would be more like crew taking orders from the captain of a ship out to sea or something, where you'd have difficulty getting them to do what you want only if you've totally flopped and they are ready to defy the expedition leader.
Wouldn't that depend on how quickly they breed anyway? Seems animal people don't breed very fast, so having them living as specialists within the fort seems feasible, as they usually only come in smallish numbers.
yeah, but given the high mortality rate in DF worlds... Seems living to reproductive age would be difficult.
There is a difference, I think, between saying that some individuals are suited to certain tasks and that a tribal group of people is better off in a forced labor camp so they can learn proper culture. A large part of why the theory of evolution was rejected so vehemently in victorian england was because it clearly stated that blacks were of the same approximate makeup as everyone else, as apposed to being a lesser being created to serve man, like dogs and oxen. Do I think it is necessarily a bad idea to have foomen folded into culture in a bigger way then they are now? No. Do I think that the proposed mechanism unsuitable for randomly generated fantasy anarchy? Not at all. But it is exactly slavery, right down to the moral justifications.
Actually Darwin held the beleif that africans were the "missing" link. Missing is in quotes because darwin did not know about extinction, or continental drift, or anything else in modern evolutionary theory. He made a drawing of the humanoid family tree that puts africans between chimpanzees and europeans.
If troglodytes and animalpeople were real, then forcing them to work for you would indeed be slavery, but then so would forcing dwarves to work for you without pay as well.
Actually, no. Look up Social and Racial Darwinism. Evolution, during both the Gilded Age and Progressive Era, was used to prove that there was a hierarchy of races with Anglos (i.e., Brits) on top and with other groups (Africans, Jews, Asians) at the bottom. The backlash against evolution would not occur until at least the 1910s due mostly to the conflict between it and the literal interpretation of the book of Genesis.
As I said earlier, I have no problem the suggestion, I have a problem with not calling it slavery. Darwin was adamantly apposed to slavery, as any person with modern commonly accepted morals would be, and his theory of evolution was in part fueled by the desire to prove that blacks were human, and not "the highest of the work animals", as was the common belief. His theory wasn't perfect, but it did make that point. Once again, the suggestion is fine, but to justify forcibly assimilating tribal cultures into a larger one as described previously for their own good is slavery by definition.
One issue is that simply speaking the ONLY cause of mortality is one on one combat (or War with soldiers a very VERY small fraction of the population). I think Toady also added starvation but it doesn't affect Non-historical characters.
Disease, poverty, accident rates, and all that yeah COULD stop the rabbitman invasion. but we don't have any of that.
One issue is that simply speaking the ONLY cause of mortality is one on one combat (or War with soldiers a very VERY small fraction of the population). I think Toady also added starvation but it doesn't affect Non-historical characters.
Disease, poverty, accident rates, and all that yeah COULD stop the rabbitman invasion. but we don't have any of that.
Actually, that's backwards.
The two biggest killers in DF worldgen currently are starvation followed by old age, with violence coming in third.
Animalmen have a very low age limit - sometimes hardly any older than adulthood, and generally nothing more than around 25 or 30 years old. If they reproduce quickly as well, then that starvation rate is going to be big.
Toady had to exempt historical figures from starvation, because so many kings were starving to death, and he figured that if anyone would survive starvation, it should be the historicals.
With that said, there IS a big problem with goblins and sometimes elves taking over human civilizations... but that's mainly because goblins don't eat and don't die of old age, which are the two major caps on population. As such, goblins are the perfect population explosion race, as they ONLY die of violence, and the more of them there are, the more adventurers they send out to wipe out the megabeasts and werecritters that do cause them problems.
But come on guys, does this really have to be a debate about slavery? Were all the Native Americans that fought for both sides during the American Revolution enslaved?
I suppose Elves would never come to your fortress if you chop down trees and so on. Why would an Elf want to go and live in a smelly dark cave full of alcoholic midgets? Indeed, why would a human, except to trade?
But come on guys, does this really have to be a debate about slavery? Were all the Native Americans that fought for both sides during the American Revolution enslaved?
No, nearly 90% of them died of the waves of diseases that followed European contact. The fatality rates were so devastating that the overwhelming majority of villages were simply abandoned by the few survivors who had to flee to other villages or tribes just to survive.
Part of the reason that there are so many towns with names like "Springfield" is because when the first European settlers were looking for a place to set up their homestead, they found an abandoned Native American farm already plowed and planted, and simply moved into the old village where the hard work had already been done for them, and said, "Nobody was using the land, so it's perfectly fine for us to just take it."
Still, it's not like slavery of the natives didn't take place - it's just those slaves died too frequently. In the islands where Columbus first landed and enslaved the native peoples, the entire island was depopulated of its native population. The reason the African slave trade was started was to get slaves that would survive.
Oh, wait, we were talking about something else...
Current migrants are culturally dwarves who just have strange attributes right now. Elves that live in your caves would have dwarven mentalities, not be cannibals, and not give a darn about the trees. They might also have a good appreciation for stonework, and their artistic inclinations might lead them to be engravers rather than rope reed weavers. They adopt all the religions and ethics of their adopted culture, rather than having it be an innate aspect of their race, which is a big part of the Cacame-style integration. Cacame was an elf in body, but dwarf in soul, because he had adopted the dwarven way of life. I also once had an elven queen named Asmel (dwarven name) who spent the early portion of her life as a plump helmet farmer because she was born in dwarven lands, and spent her whole life as a dwarven subject.
It's not a bug if a non-dwarven king or queen rises up, it just means that there is a shortage of adult dwarves to take the throne. That's just much rarer in the current versions of the game where there are so much greater population totals, and more people die of starvation than violence, so the wars that tended to depopulate dwarven mountainhomes of all adult dwarves don't take place as often. But they still happen - a dwarven civ that takes a serious pounding and faces existential crisis might still put a non-dwarf up if there are only non-dwarf adults left.
Plus, there are plenty of occasions where there are vampire tyrants that become king - and those include the lizardman vampires.
Well, that causes problems, though.
What's "aboveground" when it comes to a building, anyway? I mean, any sort of home is going to have a roof, right?
If I completely construct a building aboveground that includes a warehouse and workshops and dining hall, and those tigermen carpenters are working with the tigermen woodcutters and haulers only ever see the insides of your facility... what's the difference between that and being underground, as far as the game can tell?
I can dig a giant pit into the ground, and then construct walls all over the place to build a fortress that is "below ground", yet has been considered "outdoors" for the purposes that farming would care about.
Does that make tigermen happy? Or do they have to get direct sunlight in a way that would make cave-adapted dwarves nauseous? If so, does that mean including Tigermen specifically means making my fortress highly vulnerable to flying creatures?
If so, I think I'll keep the serpentmen and antmen, but screw the tigermen.
Animalmen have a very low age limit - sometimes hardly any older than adulthood
Yes, of course I know about the inside designations - that's why I was comparing it to the aboveground/underground farming, where something is marked as "outside" forever if it has ever seen daylight.
The problem is that the system you are talking about essentially punishes the construction of roofs of any sort, except maybe to get around the problems of not being able to build a bedroom without a roof.
But seriously, talking about this is kind of pointless - why have anything other than dwarves at all for efficiency purposes? There is no efficiency to be gained in having to set up completely separate quarters unless those tigermen can literally do something dwarves cannot. Even lizardman and serpentmen, who are shorter-lived and more likely to wind up dying on you of age, are perhaps more hassle than efficiency, although serpentmen at least have the decency to come with a venomous bite that dwarves can't do themselves.
Multi-racial forts make sense only as far as their interactions and the presence or absence of racial tensions exists for flavor, and so it has to come back to those arguments.
Further, as someone who has made a multi-racial fort through the use/abuse of castes to make radically different sentient beings possible, including making minotaurs, spider-people, and serpent-people all live together with dwarves... guess what, those serpent people are going to be wearing pants. If you make tail-warmers, elves that come to visit are going to be wearing tail-warmers instead of socks, in spite of the fact that tail warmers are basically the size of an elf's torso.
Oh, I know exactly what it takes to make clothing fit the proper castes - you need to make clothing based upon caste-level tags (although for efficiency, it might be useful to put it on the body part templates, as well).
Because right now, you have one-size-fits-your-whole-species clothing, regardless of if your females are 8 times the size of the males.
Right now, you have no capacity to make clothing for sizes other than your primary race, so tigermen that might have different clothing sizes would not be covered at all - you'd need to have a menu option that lets you select what species or caste you are building your clothing for.
This has already been made fairly clear, I think, but hey, we can make another suggestion thread if we have to, I guess.
Flight and swimming make no difference, because pathfinding. But then, we have to talk about pathfinding optimizations again.
The thing is... no, trogs are not better at that "low-brow" stuff than dwarves are. In fact, given enough training, trogs would be as good as dwarves at the book-writing. A dwarven miner and a tigerman miner are basically the same thing. In fact, the tigerman might be better, since dwarves have an agility penalty. Tigermen should then be better at darn near everything, since agility and speed are generally the only truly relevant stats in most work.
If you really want specialized races, then modding castes is your friend.
Otherwise, the only point to this is the interracial relations.
I know you want to reduce this thread to interracial relations, but it can actually cover any matter of things concerning "semi-sapient" creatures i.e. savages as part of your fortress. Modding is all fine and well but it's nice if it's an actual feature in the game. Technically, we could just mod in a lot of these suggestions from many threads and not really bother. Indeed, we don't have the capacity to make clothing for sizes other than your race, but I don't see why that couldn't be added. Also, trogs aren't as good as Dwarves at "high brow stuff" because they can't bloody read at all, and are slow learners. They're not better at the "low brow stuff" either, I'm just using them as an example of a slow-witted creature that could be handy doing basic jobs in your fortress while your dwarves do better stuff. Indeed, the tigermen would be faster than Dwarves (but perhaps they can't dig complicated designs) but remember - they can't stay underground. You need lizardmen for something like that, and even then they're not as good as Dwarves because of their inability to dig complicated things. Antmen could also do that job much better than any tigerman or lizardman could, but they run into similar problems - hence where your dwarves come in.
I know you want to reduce this thread to interracial relations, but it can actually cover any matter of things concerning "semi-sapient" creatures i.e. savages as part of your fortress. Modding is all fine and well but it's nice if it's an actual feature in the game. Technically, we could just mod in a lot of these suggestions from many threads and not really bother. Indeed, we don't have the capacity to make clothing for sizes other than your race, but I don't see why that couldn't be added. Also, trogs aren't as good as Dwarves at "high brow stuff" because they can't bloody read at all, and are slow learners. They're not better at the "low brow stuff" either, I'm just using them as an example of a slow-witted creature that could be handy doing basic jobs in your fortress while your dwarves do better stuff. Indeed, the tigermen would be faster than Dwarves (but perhaps they can't dig complicated designs) but remember - they can't stay underground. You need lizardmen for something like that, and even then they're not as good as Dwarves because of their inability to dig complicated things. Antmen could also do that job much better than any tigerman or lizardman could, but they run into similar problems - hence where your dwarves come in.
Actually, no, you can't mod that into clothing. There is NO way to change how clothing is handled, and let your dwarves produce any sort of clothing other than clothing sized specifically for dwarves, and which dwarves will wear. You can make "wing protectors" if you really want for your dwarves to give to owl creatures, but they're going to see those as "gloves", and wear them like gloves, and they aren't going to be sized for owl creatures.
Also, when something moddable comes into a suggestion thread, it is usually mentioned rather quickly.
Further, no, you can't dictate that troglodytes can't read or that lizardmen can't dig. Not from the way the raws are right now, at least, because that isn't a part of their creature definitions, and what jobs they can claim are determined by what civ they are in.
A whateverman in a dwarf civ will be just as good a metalsmith or engraver as a dwarf is right now, because there are no relevant modifications to their skills.
And really, why should there be? Unless you want to make some sort of personality-based conflict with the job itself (which is Personality Rewrite stuff), why should a tigerman NOT be as good as a dwarven metalsmith?
Again, the game is just not built to currently meaningfully convey differences between races, which is partially both because of and why so many of the current races are just so plain similar when you get right down to it.
Only making interactions between different races meaningful and more fundamental changes to the game mechanics to allow for more meaningful differences will change that, and it isn't some sort of personal insult to accuse me of saying that.
I personally like the open air camp deal, like a sort of nobles screen thing showing requirments for the camp as a whole: Dining/meetinghall, watersource, dormitory, and for more savage races like trogs and tigermen, a barracks.
But seriously, talking about this is kind of pointless - why have anything other than dwarves at all for efficiency purposes? There is no efficiency to be gained in having to set up completely separate quarters unless those tigermen can literally do something dwarves cannot. Even lizardman and serpentmen, who are shorter-lived and more likely to wind up dying on you of age, are perhaps more hassle than efficiency, although serpentmen at least have the decency to come with a venomous bite that dwarves can't do themselves.
Multi-racial forts make sense only as far as their interactions and the presence or absence of racial tensions exists for flavor, and so it has to come back to those arguments.
Well, for starters, Armok doesn't exist. You must be thinking of [ADJECTIVE][NO_ART_NOUN], the creator deity of [NOUN][PHRASE].
Anyway, the only thing unique about dwarves, aside from some attributes and a few personality things that don't make much difference until after the Personality Rewrite, the only thing that really matters is that they have TRANCES (which also makes them mood), and 60k size.
Attributes unfortunately don't matter nearly as much as skills do right now, and since most animalmen don't even have any attributes given to them at all (or rather, all of them have default attributes), then the differences between the animalmen are essentially restricted to maxage and size.
Sure, we could ask Toady for caste-level body-templatable clothing tokens... but that's another suggestion entirely, and I fully support making it (if it hasn't already been made).
Which was my whole point - these sorts of things rely upon other suggestions to be implemented beforehand.
CAN_READ is not a token, by the way. Reading is a skill, and while it might be possible to make creatures innately read or possibly even theoretically impossible to read through use of the caste-level skill tokens, those aren't being used in such a way right now.
Digging is not a creature-level concept right now, either (barring skill tokens being used in a way they aren't right now, again), it's a civ-level token, so again, anyone who joins a dwarf civ is going to immediately become capable of dwarven steel manufacture, and have access to all other civ-level knowledge.
To get onto the "well that's how it should be", with lizardmen not being able to "dig as well"... once again, you're not answering the important question: Why shouldn't they?
Why can't a lizardman dig as well as a dwarf can dig if they are members of a dwarf civilization? Unless there is some sort of physiological or deeply ingrained psychological problem with them not being able to swing a pick in a way like how a dwarf does if a dwarf taught him how to do that digging, why wouldn't a lizardman learn to dig just as well as a dwarf does?
Why shouldn't a lizardman know how to make steel if a dwarf shows him how? Why shouldn't a lizardman start making =steel breastplates= with the best of them?
What you would have to justify is some sort of actual racial inferiority. You need to explain why a lizardman will never be able to understand how to pound a bar of steel with a hammer to make it sharp the same way a dwarven weaponsmith will be able to understand it, no matter how tutored in the arts of weaponsmithing he/she may be by dwarves. What justifies that?
The rest, after that, is all culture, and how cultures interact, and those are the very things that I am trying to say are the most important aspects.
So what if it takes a lot of thought? This is the suggestions forums. Anything that DOES get implemented is going to get implemented only after a few years and dozens of threads on the subject with hundreds or even thousands of posts. THINKING or conversing are not the bottlenecks to ideas in DF. If there's one thing we can do, it's hash out ideas as thoroughly as we need to before any action is taken upon them.
I want this to the above:
the [TRANCES] is NOT related to moods.
It makes them go into martial trances, nothing else.
And those martial trances are damn scary.
I want this to the above:
the [TRANCES] is NOT related to moods.
It makes them go into martial trances, nothing else.
And those martial trances are damn scary.
As for lizardmen not being able to dig as well as a dwarf, yes. I believe there should be physiological powers and limitations in every race; even Cacame could never be as good a smith as a biological dwarf, nor could Morul or Tholtig ever be as good merchants as humans are or druids as Elves etc. It could just be innate within dwarves to be skilled in certain areas that others aren't, as with every race. As for the "should" argument here, I think it adds more dept to the races as things stand. If the creator wanted all the races to be equal in every way, why did he bother creating seperate races other than for cosmetic reasons or for roleplay, as race relations may be oriented towards? I really like the idea of inter-racial diplomacy, dealing with racism etc, but there's only so many times you can be called "pondscum" before you realise you're exactly the same as that human guard only you weren't born and raised in the same town as him. That just makes it all seem a bit silly, doesn't it? Like real life racism; but this isn't real life.
I'm getting carried away here, but one of the conclusions of the "Biological powers" thing is that if an elf marries a dwarf and they have kids, the child would be a better smith than any elf but never as good as a true blooded dwarf, but also a better druid than any dwarf. If that dwarf had children the power would be lost, or it could lie dormant like a recessive gene. Again, that's genetics getting involved there - another suggestion? We could make a list.
Here's the thing: I've always really hated those sorts of assumptions.
The games where elves are made to be wizards, because they have higher INT, and lower STR, so they have to take magic-based classes, and where there is no point in making your wizard anything but an elf? It just crushes the RP when you stereotype and constrain race and class to mean the same thing.
I much preferred something more like 3rd ed D&D, where the difference between an Elf and a Human was +2 Dex, -2 Con. Or, +5% evasion, +5% ranged attack accuracy, and -1 HP per level. Put the skill and feat stuff plus those bonus weapon training aside for a second, and consider what classes you are allowed to take or are constrained to based upon race from just that...
You can play an elven pretty much anything and take functionally similar bonuses and penalties for doing so. You aren't overly punished for being an elven fighter. A human wizard was just as good as any other basic race (actually a little better because of the feat and skill, but again, that's going beside the point).
What I don't want to see is a game where efficiency dictates type-casting dwarves as miners and smiths, tiger men as the warrior caste, and gnomes or whatever as your gem setters.
It just utterly cheapens the fantasy into nothing but stereotypes, which is the eternal pitfall of fantasy.
As for lizardmen not being able to dig as well as a dwarf, yes. I believe there should be physiological powers and limitations in every race; even Cacame could never be as good a smith as a biological dwarf, nor could Morul or Tholtig ever be as good merchants as humans are or druids as Elves etc. It could just be innate within dwarves to be skilled in certain areas that others aren't, as with every race. As for the "should" argument here, I think it adds more dept to the races as things stand. If the creator wanted all the races to be equal in every way, why did he bother creating seperate races other than for cosmetic reasons or for roleplay, as race relations may be oriented towards? I really like the idea of inter-racial diplomacy, dealing with racism etc, but there's only so many times you can be called "pondscum" before you realise you're exactly the same as that human guard only you weren't born and raised in the same town as him. That just makes it all seem a bit silly, doesn't it? Like real life racism; but this isn't real life.
I'm getting carried away here, but one of the conclusions of the "Biological powers" thing is that if an elf marries a dwarf and they have kids, the child would be a better smith than any elf but never as good as a true blooded dwarf, but also a better druid than any dwarf. If that dwarf had children the power would be lost, or it could lie dormant like a recessive gene. Again, that's genetics getting involved there - another suggestion? We could make a list.
Here's the thing: I've always really hated those sorts of assumptions.
The games where elves are made to be wizards, because they have higher INT, and lower STR, so they have to take magic-based classes, and where there is no point in making your wizard anything but an elf? It just crushes the RP when you stereotype and constrain race and class to mean the same thing.
I much preferred something more like 3rd ed D&D, where the difference between an Elf and a Human was +2 Dex, -2 Con. Or, +5% evasion, +5% ranged attack accuracy, and -1 HP per level. Put the skill and feat stuff plus those bonus weapon training aside for a second, and consider what classes you are allowed to take or are constrained to based upon race from just that...
You can play an elven pretty much anything and take functionally similar bonuses and penalties for doing so. You aren't overly punished for being an elven fighter. A human wizard was just as good as any other basic race (actually a little better because of the feat and skill, but again, that's going beside the point).
What I don't want to see is a game where efficiency dictates type-casting dwarves as miners and smiths, tiger men as the warrior caste, and gnomes or whatever as your gem setters.
It just utterly cheapens the fantasy into nothing but stereotypes, which is the eternal pitfall of fantasy.
It does, but DF is full of stereotypes. Dwarves like metal and do blacksmithing, they have beards and dig holes to hide their treasure in. Elves live in the woods and have floppy hair, no beards (yet) and try to protect nature. Humans are the most balanced of the two races, but they are also the most prolific. Goblins are evil and violent. Practically every creature in DF is a fantasy stereotype; and that's not a big problem. DF handles things differently to an extent, but not to the point that it abandons traditional fantasy conventions. Dwarves are already type cast as miners and smiths, elves are already type cast as tree huggers and humans are already type cast as... well, merchants and... humans I suppose.
Still, it won't be "overly punishing" you for trying to make an elf smith or a dwarven ranger if they just won't be as good (in specific ways) as the race that is "specialised" for that role. Remember what I said about antmen being more efficient miners than dwarves, but they can't dig intricate designs? The same principle can be applied across the board, meaning that if you decide to make an elf smith, he'll be a different sort of smith to a dwarven one; exactly how, I don't know yet. I know, for example, elven warriors may traditionally fight with a sword and bow, but what if you made a heavy armoured elf that uses druidical powers to cause trees to twist and tangle together in the path of his fleeing enemies, allowing him to cut the villains down where they stand? He won't be as good an axeman as a dwarf, but he will be able to use other powers that make him very interesting. I would like to find a way to allow these things to be up to the player to find out new combinations of innate skills and skills that can be learned to create very unusual characters; specialised to fit roles of our own creation. It encourages experimentation; if everyone can be anything, then why experiment? Just be "everything".
You might want to correct your quote error.
Anyway, no, elves aren't just people that live in woods. The Forest culture that is formed around the nature spirits, in which elves are by far the most populous species does that. Elves as a species are not entirely defined by their culture, however. Elves preferring bows are just what their culture does, but an elf raised in a different culture should not be incapable of wielding an axe - there is no reason they would be physiologically less capable of being an axelord if they were born to a dwarven culture.
I can find "humanized" or "dwarfified" elves, and they are defined only by the personality traits and physical differences they have, but those "dwarfified" elves are capable of becoming artisans and even metalsmiths of just as fine craftsdwarf/elfship as any other. Why shouldn't an "elfified" dwarf be able to become a druid just like an elf? Unless there is some reasoning that dwarves physiologically are incapable of that sort of magic, there shouldn't be such a thing, just as there is no reason an antman shouldn't be capable of learning to apply intricate designs to his engravings, so long as they have the eyesight, dexterity, and mental capacity for doing so.
Artificial limitations just to enforce a stereotype are not something that adds character to the game. Personality-based or culture-based preferences add character, and that is why I guide this towards making culture and cultural interactions and tensions more meaningful.
why does this have to devolve into some race debate
i want other non-dwarves to join my fort for strategic reasons. the undergrounders can innately swim and some animal-peoples can take to the skies. why does it have to be more complex than "send liason to animalman outpost. animalmen get shelter, you get extra workers."
why does this have to devolve into some race debate
i want other non-dwarves to join my fort for strategic reasons. the undergrounders can innately swim and some animal-peoples can take to the skies. why does it have to be more complex than "send liason to animalman outpost. animalmen get shelter, you get extra workers."
THANK YOU. Jeeze.
It's about making the differences between species be actual differences of the species, not the culture they come from.
Elves have an innate artistic sense as part of their personalities (which are apparently species-based), and will decorate things like cloth or wood objects in their own culture, but not so much stone. They have the dexterity, the physical and mental capacity to and inclination for such artwork. Put an elf in dwarven culture, though, and why should they suddenly fail to understand engraving just because "stone" or "metal" is somehow something too difficult for an elf to grasp?
The same goes for those tigermen smiths - unless there is some sort of physiological reason they cannot learn how to pound a steel rod into a sword, there is no reason they cannot be as good a smith as a dwarf can be, provided they have the proper training.
Now, if it is something like a druid, and there literally is some reason that a dwarf cannot cast magic the way that an elf can, because some fundamental magical makeup of their being is different, then it's something different from just "because that's what elves are good for". If only elves and forest creatures are born with the nature-magicky-souls needed for nature magic, then it would make sense to say dwarves can either not learn that profession or that they can only advance up to a certain point and even then with great difficulty.
Likewise, if you had an animal-man creature that had no sense of sight, and no concept of aesthetics, then it would make sense to say that they are incapable of almost any form of artwork, not just some specific material they choose to work with.
If it's something like fishing for muscles, and you have a race of water-breathers, then yes, that makes sense to say that the water-breathers are going to be more efficient about collecting muscles, but saying that a lizardman can't learn to dig in the same way as a dwarf does simply because dwarves are stereotypical miners doesn't make sense.
So again, saying just a blanket "dwarves are better axelords" does not make sense - it can make sense to say that dwarves will be stronger than elves, and elves will have more agility, on average, (where the way that attributes are distributed now is perfectly fine) but not that an elf is somehow fundamentally incapable of understanding a concept like "swing an axe" in the same way they understand "swing a sword".
So yes, there's a difference between a physiological difference that provides a strength or weakness, and a totally arbitrary stereotype limitation.
I've given up because all the debating makes this an obviously pointless thread to have gotten involved in.
I'd just like the option. If nothing else, figure a way to make them work as mercenaries. No slavery, both sides benefit, and not much consideration needs to be made for either side in such a situation. Tribe defends fort, fort pays them in tools or food or whatever. Pay insufficent, tribe leaves. Probably not possible/ this won't be implemented anyway.
Farewell thread. May your debate continue in peace.
Of course, what physiological reason is it? Is it that dwarves have a greater muscle density, conferring greater strength and stamina? Wait...that could also explain their skill at forging metal and such (which I imagine is somewhat tiring), masonry (ditto), and why they prefer weapons like the axe and hammer...especially if their muscles don't allow for as fine of muscle control, explaining why they use bows and not crossbows! And elves are weaker and more fragile, but have more muscle control, so they can use swords and bows with great finesse, but not too much strength! Humans are in between, so they can use both kinds of weapons...Awesome! I just answered my own question and some others, too! Now we need to apply this logic to animalpeople to justify their strengths, and apply that logic to see what else they'd be good at.
One issue GreatWyrmGold is the scaling up of weapons.
We are not giants but how do weapons work when you are giant?
Do blades still work? Peircing weapons? Blunt weapons?
If Bows are out of the picture what about powerful slings?
I myself depart from this thread, but I will take the opportunity to declare Kohaku a shameless, filthy elf apologist and an elf admirer. If he were my dwarf I'd have him in the volcano by now.
I love you, too.
Well, it's kind of easier to talk about elves and dwarves, since those are creatures that have actually specified attributes and personalities and cultures to compare, whereas all the other creatures just go by default.
I myself depart from this thread, but I will take the opportunity to declare Kohaku a shameless, filthy elf apologist and an elf admirer. If he were my dwarf I'd have him in the volcano by now.
Of course, what physiological reason is it? Is it that dwarves have a greater muscle density, conferring greater strength and stamina? Wait...that could also explain their skill at forging metal and such (which I imagine is somewhat tiring), masonry (ditto), and why they prefer weapons like the axe and hammer...especially if their muscles don't allow for as fine of muscle control, explaining why they use bows and not crossbows! And elves are weaker and more fragile, but have more muscle control, so they can use swords and bows with great finesse, but not too much strength! Humans are in between, so they can use both kinds of weapons...Awesome! I just answered my own question and some others, too! Now we need to apply this logic to animalpeople to justify their strengths, and apply that logic to see what else they'd be good at.
Actually, no.
*snip*
So someone doesn't think having animmen mercs without the cultural crap would be right. We're all entitled to our opinions.It wouldn't be not right; it would merely lack much of the substance and vermilisitude such a topic could offer.
As someone who has dabbled in swordplay, I can say that it is almost never practical to change the path of a swing. The fine muscle control is not the source of your force; for the most part, it is the amount of weight that you can commit to the path, which is gained by moving your whole upper body in unison to transfer the force. That why many martial artists bob up and down while they fight- by dropping their center of gravity when they strike, they allow the weight of their bodies to transfer into their strike.
As someone who has dabbled in swordplay, I can say that it is almost never practical to change the path of a swing. The fine muscle control is not the source of your force; for the most part, it is the amount of weight that you can commit to the path, which is gained by moving your whole upper body in unison to transfer the force. That why many martial artists bob up and down while they fight- by dropping their center of gravity when they strike, they allow the weight of their bodies to transfer into their strike.Ah, well, I was operating on my intuition. And when you assume something...
Then in that case a few animalmen would be able to mop the floor with dwarves, elves, goblins and humans with the right skill/training....And if they have noninferior gear and aren't smaller and weaker, why not? Why are humanoids without traces of animal inherently superior to those with them?
Regarding the armor, if an integrated sparrowman would become a smith, and reach an attainable high level, he would eventually become inventive and create an armor template for his race. So it would become possible for the player to create new armor for the new humanoids in the civilization.
Well, in the OP itself, it is talking about building custom equipment for the creatures, because that's sort of a key ingredient in making them useful in any military sense to the fortress:...Oh, yeah.Regarding the armor, if an integrated sparrowman would become a smith, and reach an attainable high level, he would eventually become inventive and create an armor template for his race. So it would become possible for the player to create new armor for the new humanoids in the civilization.
Besides, these minor side-discussions should take place, and it's not like it wouldn't be even more annoying to have a hundred new threads that only go on for a few paragraphs discussing small side-points to a central topic.Also a good point.
Besides, I find it hard to find ANY topic of conversation that nobody is going to complain about. Talking about how other creatures are different from dwarves? Talking about how to have meaningful interactions between those creatures and dwarves? Talking about how to equip those other creatures besides dwarves? All these different topics have been complained about. The argument seems to be that people want to discuss only a "simple" system with just one or two features, and that any further discussion beyond everyone just agreeing on that one point is somehow derailment. If we all just agree to a limited and incomplete system, however, there's nothing left to discuss, making the whole thread useless, which is why it seems so largely contrarian to argue that talking about how to make the proposed system actually make sense. It's like all they're arguing for is that other people shouldn't be able to talk about anything....D'oh. Just...pretend I didn't say that, please?
If the idea of having multi-racial forts is to make any sense, you need to have an agreement on how these other races will be different, how they will be able to contribute to the fortress in meaningful ways, and what factors you will need to balance, both in keeping relations good, and in simply making your "money's worth" in terms of making the alternative humanoids provide benefits great enough to make up for the disadvantages of having to actually care about their different needs.
YOU GET FOOD, WE GET SOLDIERS AND HAULERS, DEAL?
YOU GET FOOD, WE GET SOLDIERS AND HAULERS, DEAL?
Enough said, seriously. I read until page four of people going on "oh elves can do that but dwarves cant" and "no there culture dictates it" and "Oh they can do what they can, there culture is all thats stopping them" crap. Seriously guys, serious?
Haha, I would love to see them spermwhalemen working in the coalmines.
Haha, I would love to see them spermwhalemen working in the coalmines.
YOU SICK BASTARD.
Your a genius.
Think about it: Would YOU want to live next door to a weird scaley person with a viper's head
Also, if you had read the post, you would have noted that there is a difference between slaves and these sub-sapients. You see a slave is already a member of one civ, who was imprisoned by another civ. These integrated tribesmen are basically in a different position, as a dwarf might feel that he needs to beat civilization into a tribalist. Also i don't see why dwarves wouldn't enslave somebody. Isn't putting a forgotten beast in a chamber to produce limitless silk also a form of slavery, if you consider that forgotten beasts are sapient? The game does not recognize it as such, but if you think about it...
Also, even if the dwarves wouldn't do it, I could totally see the humans do it.
Dwarves do have a physiological reason for being good miners, cave adaptation. Another race that does not cave adapt isn't going to be as comfortable working underground.
YOU GET FOOD, WE GET SOLDIERS AND HAULERS, DEAL?
Enough said, seriously. I read until page four of people going on "oh elves can do that but dwarves cant" and "no there culture dictates it" and "Oh they can do what they can, there culture is all thats stopping them" crap. Seriously guys, serious?
Dwarves do have a physiological reason for being good miners, cave adaptation. Another race that does not cave adapt isn't going to be as comfortable working underground.
Actually, I believe you have that backwards - they are cave adapted because they spend so much time underground, not they spend all their time underground because they are cave adapted.
Cave adaptation is a weakness, not a strength.
cave adaptation is a token, other races don't have it. For that to make sense with the plot there must be more to it than just puking in the sun.
Dwarves do have a physiological reason for being good miners, cave adaptation. Another race that does not cave adapt isn't going to be as comfortable working underground.
Actually, I believe you have that backwards - they are cave adapted because they spend so much time underground, not they spend all their time underground because they are cave adapted.
Cave adaptation is a weakness, not a strength.
cave adaptation is a token, other races don't have it. For that to make sense with the plot there must be more to it than just puking in the sun.
Cave adaptation doesn't happen on tigermen and the like, however. They can go underground, but that doesn't mean they are cave-adapted.
Likewise, dwarves that periodically travel aboveground avoid cave adaptation.
Again, this is a matter of putting the cart before the horse - cave adaptation is caused by generations spending life underground, having cave adaptation doesn't cause creatures to start living underground.
In order for cave adaptation to be justified there must have been an original cause for that shift to being an underground creature that had nothing to do with cave adaptation.
Dwarves do have a physiological reason for being good miners, cave adaptation. Another race that does not cave adapt isn't going to be as comfortable working underground.
Actually, I believe you have that backwards - they are cave adapted because they spend so much time underground, not they spend all their time underground because they are cave adapted.
Cave adaptation is a weakness, not a strength.
It's a good idea/point, but it can be rebutted more easily the more magic is added to DF.
Just because gameplay wise it is only a disadvantage at this point, I wouldn't go so far as to calling cave-adaptation a weakness and not a strength. Putting game-mechanics aside, it is as much a weakness as it is a strength - an adaptation that changes the dwarves in such a way they physiologically prefer underground and the dark, even though they can handle light and the outside unless they stay underground for prolonged amounts of time without ever wandering outside.
My third point, pertaining previous claims of "everyone should be able to do everything with proper training" - I don't agree.
I feel like I've been getting into a lot of these verbose debates, lately...You and me both.
I'd summarize what I said as more like "In a world where deities are known to curse people, and where people are known to cast some kinds of spells, it's possible that certain traits were added by magic, and if they were the other traits could have come from the lifestyle constraints imposed by the curse." Much wordier, but also closer to what I said.It's a good idea/point, but it can be rebutted more easily the more magic is added to DF.
I've never really liked the notion that magic should be unexplained.
Being as it is DF, I rather prefer the notion that magic is a force of nature that simply does not exist in our world, but nevertheless is an understandable and rational force. Magic that exists in the game is predictable, if not exactly well-explained. Evil areas mean zombies and occasionally clouds that do all kinds of not-good things to your dwarves.
I pushed along a thread on exploring the concept of a magic-based ecosystem (http://www.bay12forums.com/smf/index.php?topic=76578.0), where magic, much like regular ecosystems, is consumed by the "autotrophs" that form the "plantlife" of caverns and form the basis of a magical ecosystem, and restored back by "decomposers" that replenish the magic supply of the area.
To simply say "dwarves are magic" and that therefore, none of their attributes has to make sense is deeply dissatisfying.
Taking cave adapation by itself, yeah. Code-wise, nothing else has to do with dwarves' cave adaptation. Similarly, in the code, there isn't really any connection between a bird's flight and its wings, or a kobold's sealth and its tendancy to steal things, or a goblin's antisocial personality and its tendancy to go to war with everyone. After all, if we assume that dwarves evolved from something, like you did, why would they evolve to vomit (wasting time and precious nutrients) if they saw the sun after being underground too long?Just because gameplay wise it is only a disadvantage at this point, I wouldn't go so far as to calling cave-adaptation a weakness and not a strength. Putting game-mechanics aside, it is as much a weakness as it is a strength - an adaptation that changes the dwarves in such a way they physiologically prefer underground and the dark, even though they can handle light and the outside unless they stay underground for prolonged amounts of time without ever wandering outside.
There's nothing really advantageous about cave adaptation no matter how you might look at it. It is, again, a weakness, not a strength. Dwarves can live aboveground for their whole lives with no ill effects. Humans and elves can live underground for their whole lives with no ill effect. It's just that dwarves that spend most of their time underground will start feeling ill effect if they reach the surface.
Dwarves have advantages and adaptations that help them become better cavern survivors, but cave adaptation is less an advantage and more a vestigial weakness, like a moth's confusing artificial light for the moon and flying into a flame.
Those advantages (short size, high strength, magical strange mooding and trances) are completely separate and distinct from their cave adaptation. They work just fine with or without cave adaptation actually taking place in a dwarf. If they do have a darkvision-like ability, then unless it actually only activates once dwarves become cave adapted (and ceases to function if they lose their cave adaptation), then cave adaptation is nothing but a weakness.
Ah, irony...My third point, pertaining previous claims of "everyone should be able to do everything with proper training" - I don't agree.
That isn't the point I was making. In fact, I was making a point fairly similar to yours.
The argument I was making was that saying "dwarves are poor swimmers because when you think of dwarves, you think of mountains, and they don't go out to oceans" is invalid reasoning, but that "dwarves are poor swimmers because they have shorter limbs compared to their more bulky torso" is valid reasoning.
If there is a valid physiological reason for an elf not to be capable of metalworking, it's one thing, but at the same time, if an elf is capable of carving wood or sewing images into cloth, why are they incapable of performing that same precision into carving stone images or statues? How different are the requirements to be a wood sculptor from being a statue sculptor?
By comparison, if an ant-man lacks the eyesight and the mental development to appreciate aesthetics, then it makes perfect sense to say they make crappy artists.
Just... ignor me. I'll probably be injecting less coherent data as time drags on simply because the debate is over my head crushed my dreams already.Aw, don't feel left out. You can still point out good information. Like the amphibious guards--if you pay, say, cavefishmen to live in your moat in exchange for chum and metal armor/weapons, that moa would be much more fearsome. It's easier than any kind of tamed animal, perhaps barring pasturing them and then flooding the moat...but then what happens if they leave the pasture?
I've given up because all the debating makes this an obviously pointless thread to have gotten involved in.
I'd just like the option. If nothing else, figure a way to make them work as mercenaries. No slavery, both sides benefit, and not much consideration needs to be made for either side in such a situation. Tribe defends fort, fort pays them in tools or food or whatever. Pay insufficent, tribe leaves. Probably not possible/ this won't be implemented anyway.
Farewell thread. May your debate continue in peace.
I've given up because all the debating makes this an obviously pointless thread to have gotten involved in.
I'd just like the option. If nothing else, figure a way to make them work as mercenaries. No slavery, both sides benefit, and not much consideration needs to be made for either side in such a situation. Tribe defends fort, fort pays them in tools or food or whatever. Pay insufficent, tribe leaves. Probably not possible/ this won't be implemented anyway.
Farewell thread. May your debate continue in peace.
This is what I would like. I'm a newb. The game is more than sufficiently complicated for me without having to apply the wonders of social and racial friction between the dwarves and their hired mercenaries.
Not to mention, that would probably take quite awhile to implement. :-\
I think we can all agree this thread stopped going anywhere. Let it die people.
I was talked back into it if I recall right. But the constant debates give me a headache so I try to avoid it if something comes up that is of that nature. Otherwise I'll be happy to either murder this thread in it's sleep or try to think of something productive to say.
1. Non-dwarves needs:Spoiler (click to show/hide)
2. Semi/Megabeast AlliesSpoiler (click to show/hide)
and winged, antenna'd, fire/syndrom firing dimetrodon, along with the usual dwarven troops bearing down on him?
and winged, antenna'd, fire/syndrom firing dimetrodon, along with the usual dwarven troops bearing down on him?
For some reason, I don't really imagine citizen megabeasts to go to war. They'd probably be content to slumber, to be worshiped and fanned by followers, to guzzle booze and to ogle statues of itself contentedly. If the megabeast had a more knight-like outlook, they would enjoy fighting among your soldiers, but more vain and lazy megabeasts would probably tantrum if they had to do anything outside of their royal chambers.
Is this on the Eternal Suggestion voting? If it is, I can't find it. On another note, you're all brilliant!Thank you. :D
Now potential unfortunate results would be interesting....Heh heh, of course. You think it's bad when your mostly-tame bear snaps and starts to kill dwarves? Imagine if you lost a bunch of clothiers and such to a recent siege, meaning that the antman miners and tigerman rangers don't get their silk clothes that they requested in exchange for doing work, leading to a strike and a lack of stone, gathered plants, hunted meat, and wood; leading to the creation of those promised rooms for various non-dwarves being delayed and the humans who help with relations not getting the cups they wanted; leading to the tigermen rebelling, killing antmen and humans; leading to the antmen leaving, taking their picks and such with them, and the creation of some iron goblets to placate the humans; leading to a lack of metal, digging tools, and diggers; leading to...you get the point.
*Sniffs and wipes a tear from his eye* That was beautiful!Now potential unfortunate results would be interesting....Heh heh, of course. You think it's bad when your mostly-tame bear snaps and starts to kill dwarves? Imagine if you lost a bunch of clothiers and such to a recent siege, meaning that the antman miners and tigerman rangers don't get their silk clothes that they requested in exchange for doing work, leading to a strike and a lack of stone, gathered plants, hunted meat, and wood; leading to the creation of those promised rooms for various non-dwarves being delayed and the humans who help with relations not getting the cups they wanted; leading to the tigermen rebelling, killing antmen and humans; leading to the antmen leaving, taking their picks and such with them, and the creation of some iron goblets to placate the humans; leading to a lack of metal, digging tools, and diggers; leading to...you get the point.
Why, thank you very much. Do you think an extended and expanded version would make a neat story? (Answer, then we'll possibly take this to the Community Games & Stories subforum.)YES. Yes, it would.
Lets face it. The first thing everyone would do if this got implemented, would be to have Cave-fish-man citizens.
Also bear in mind that, if we're talking about technologically/socially "inferior" races like the animalmen, there is historical precedent for treating them as a resource (enslaving them, that is), as well as for treating them like people (sometimes even inter-marriage) and genocide. Dwarves are against slavery, so they'd probably tend towards integration or extermination rather than subjugation, but that should be more a matter of ethics/unhappy thoughts/whatever than a game mechanic.
Anything that makes animalpeople, etc, more than resources should be based more in the mechanics of dwarven psychology than in those of actually allying with them.Also bear in mind that, if we're talking about technologically/socially "inferior" races like the animalmen, there is historical precedent for treating them as a resource (enslaving them, that is), as well as for treating them like people (sometimes even inter-marriage) and genocide. Dwarves are against slavery, so they'd probably tend towards integration or extermination rather than subjugation, but that should be more a matter of ethics/unhappy thoughts/whatever than a game mechanic.
Ethics/Unhappy thoughts/Whatever are game mechanics, however, (presuming most normal definitions of "Whatever",) and so that is a statement that needs a better description.
Anyway, it's Personality Rewrite stuff, but making a xenophobia personality trait or derivative of their cultural ethics (probably with cross-pollenation, if possible).My point was that many cultures were very receptive to "greater" cultures coming in and destroying theirs. Sure, humans, goblins, and probably elves would resist assimilation, as would some groups of other sentients, but many would tend to flock to a chance to enjoy the "soft, easy" life afforded by dwarven civilization.
Likewise, some cultures having high cultural pride does not by any means preclude others from having low cultural pride and being willing to adopt any new practice that seems to come from a "superior culture". In fact, you could just call it a "reticence to change" and apply it both ways, as the marker of dwarven xenophobia and how upset they will get at "the beastmen polluting our proud dwarven culture" just as much as the animalmen will see dwarven intervention as "brutish outsiders with no respect for the old ways".
Conversely, it may be opposed by (or if simply at the low end of the spectrum of the xenophobia personality trait) some sort o cultural curiosity.
We are supposed to be exploring the game not as some sort of deity, but as the consensus of the bureaucracy of the fortress itself. To be subjected to pressures both from the animalmen and from the dwarven populace over every decision that you do or don't make, with the necessity to please every faction of each side could make the game's internal politics an interesting one.I was fairly certain that that's why our debate, and that of others, has been going on for so long in this thread.
... Suddenly, I'm merging this idea very heavily with the ideas I've had for expanding Class Warfare...
I gotta say, I'm starting to warm up to some of the more complex things mentioned. Others... not so much.Mind explaining what you do and don't like?
Forget about black white and gray morals. People here have Violet and Turquoise and Banana as their morals.
rtg593, it's not so much that we can't stomach slavery--it's that dwarves can't. And who says that it has to make sense to everyone else? (http://www.tvtropes.org/pmwiki/pmwiki.php/Main/EvenEvilHasStandards)
Dwarves are among the more moral races in DF. They aren't cannibals, or thieves, or slavers, or torturers, or goblins. They are completely opposed to most forms of evil supported in the raws, with most such crimes being either severely punished or simply unthinkable as anything a dwarf might do. The only exceptions are killing animals, plants, enemies, and neutrals, and that last one only if they were ordered to. Oh, and lying, but how the hell is any race going to track down every liar in the land and punish them? These aren't mere conjectures, made to make us feel better about playing a short, alcoholic race; they're actual data, gathered from the raws (our only source of information on dwarves). So what if we can currently violate these ethics? The dwarves shouldn't be modified, using Toady's limited time, to violate them egregriously when the player tells them to.
[ETHIC:SLAVERY:PUNISH_CAPITAL]And while I was slightly wrong on the severity (I appologise to everyone to whom I insisted that it was unthinkable), this clearly shows something about how dwarven society works, or is intended to work: Anyone participating in slave trade (except the slaves, of course) is risking capital punishment. Can you tell the attitude dwarves have towards those who keep slaves from this? Hint: There's about as much chance of a dwarven society taking slaves as there is of one deciding to chow down on the corpses of the elves they just killed. And how do we know that dwarves don't condone consumption of sentient beings? From the ethics of the dwarven civilization. By this same logic, if the idea that dwarves are fine with chopping down trees is important, then how dwarves react to slavery is important as well.
You mean, send nobles to other sites and have them diplomat over there? Sounds like a good idea in general, epsecially in conjunction with the ability to send out one's own trade caravans. Which could also be useful in dealing with those tribes of animalmen...
You know, we've mostly been discussing based on the assumption that friendly contact is attempted and succeeds. But what could happen if one or both of those fail? For instance, judging by the fact that the Norse Greenlander's first record of the Inuit included notes on how much they bled, it seems that the former decided to experimentally stab the latter. What if a dwarf decided to do the same with, say, a plump helmet man or something he found roaming the underground depths? This could be Fun. Or maybe the tigerman delegate sneers at the metal weapons his tribe is being offered, not considering them worth sending his tribesmen to abandon their way of life. And that's assuming that they can find a common language to speak. Hm, what if we added language barriers in other ways?
Just some ideas to get us started.
Clearly my attempt at humor fell on deaf ears. The above stament I made was in no way meant to be taken seriously.Sorry about the misunderstanding.
I'm sure that that would be an amazingly clever joke if I knew why it was funny.You mean, send nobles to other sites and have them diplomat over there? Sounds like a good idea in general, epsecially in conjunction with the ability to send out one's own trade caravans. Which could also be useful in dealing with those tribes of animalmen...
You know, we've mostly been discussing based on the assumption that friendly contact is attempted and succeeds. But what could happen if one or both of those fail? For instance, judging by the fact that the Norse Greenlander's first record of the Inuit included notes on how much they bled, it seems that the former decided to experimentally stab the latter. What if a dwarf decided to do the same with, say, a plump helmet man or something he found roaming the underground depths? This could be Fun. Or maybe the tigerman delegate sneers at the metal weapons his tribe is being offered, not considering them worth sending his tribesmen to abandon their way of life. And that's assuming that they can find a common language to speak. Hm, what if we added language barriers in other ways?
Just some ideas to get us started.
OK, just as a hint, you probably shouldn't offer the frogmen your dead elephant off the bat. That didn't seem to go so well. Also, be careful with elephants in general, especially once one of them has a taste for blood.
Turtle diplomacy seems to go well, however.
Anyway, that depends on them not just meandering into your own fort, but post-Army Arc or during some time when you have control over barony hill dwarves and can send out expeditions, that would be a fun thing to have.That does sound like a couple of pretty good ideas. I can imagine how well a show-of-force would go if you assumed that the whalepeople were militant...well, two ways, and neither of them much fun for the dwarf (although plenty of Fun). Other misunderstandings could be nice, but I like the idea of angering a tribe which you hadn't realised was so powerful...
We could try to set the stance of the diplomats we send out - militant/show-of-force to get respect if they happen to be militant tribes, or a softer diplomatic touch for the more peaceful tribes, having to guess what they will respond best to, or just giving them a little show of what it is that's in store for the rest of your diplomatic missions.
I'm sure that that would be an amazingly clever joke if I knew why it was funny.
That does sound like a couple of pretty good ideas. I can imagine how well a show-of-force would go if you assumed that the whalepeople were militant...well, two ways, and neither of them much fun for the dwarf (although plenty of Fun). Other misunderstandings could be nice, but I like the idea of angering a tribe which you hadn't realised was so powerful...
That being said, some cultures should probably see the dwarves as possessing a culture superior in, if not every way, then in by far enough ways that they'd gladly shuck their old ways of life to join them. I remember stories about a variety of native cultures destroying their cultural artifacts because anti-pagan Christian religious leaders or what-have-you told them to, and one instance where some Polynesians changed their drainage ditches from vertical to horizontal at the Europeans' suggestion (the gardens got washed away the next time a big rainfall came along). That's assuming that their religion isn't unfortunately geared towards misinterpreting your dwarves as gods, as famously occurred to the Aztecs.
Also bear in mind that, if we're talking about technologically/socially "inferior" races like the animalmen, there is historical precedent for treating them as a resource (enslaving them, that is), as well as for treating them like people (sometimes even inter-marriage) and genocide. Dwarves are against slavery, so they'd probably tend towards integration or extermination rather than subjugation, but that should be more a matter of ethics/unhappy thoughts/whatever than a game mechanic.
Yeah, I bet that if I had read that it would have been funny. Heck, I might read it now.I'm sure that that would be an amazingly clever joke if I knew why it was funny.
It's from Elves of Amanareli (http://www.bay12forums.com/smf/index.php?topic=55601.0). The elves tried to capture an elephant to trade with the dwarves, and pissed off an elephant that killed off multiple elves and made a return appearance to kill off more. When negotiating with frogmen to make safe passage through their land, the frogmen demanded something of value from the elves, and the players tried to pawn off the rotting carcass of the elephant on them, and sparked a war for insulting them by offering what was essentially their trash.
I wouldn't call it rip-roaringly hilarious reference, but it was a pretty funny set of events at the time.
I thought that it was obvious. Clearly not, on further reflection.That does sound like a couple of pretty good ideas. I can imagine how well a show-of-force would go if you assumed that the whalepeople were militant...well, two ways, and neither of them much fun for the dwarf (although plenty of Fun). Other misunderstandings could be nice, but I like the idea of angering a tribe which you hadn't realised was so powerful...
Alternately, if you go to a militant powerful tribe with baskets of flowers and singing the praises of peace, they may just think you're a bunch of pansies and kill your envoy and steal their stuff.
Just so long as it isn't assumed that one position will always be superior to others.
Huh, you learn something new every day.-Snip-
It's doubtful that many Aztecs actually believed Cortez to be a god- we only have his word for it. Rather, contemporary sources suggest that leaders within the different areas of the Aztec "empire" recognized his unexpected appearance was a destabilizing element and attempted to use him as a combination of military ally, favorable omen and political pawn but were unable to make him stop once he had conquered the opposing rulers that they disliked.
Or maybe they'd see the steel axes the dwarves carried, and the steel armor they wore, which respectively cut through their armor like it almost wasn't there and rendered them nigh invulnerable to their attacks, and start a cult around those.
Or an artifact-based cult...
I also recall there being pacific islanders who mistook american, australian, and british military personel as thier dead ancestors during WWII and built cults around the machines they arrived in: Thier planes.
I would imagine a giant carved skull with a massive ropereed impersonation of beard in place of a bamboo and vine/palm leaf plane.
Ok, so I was wrong. Pardon my lack of knowlege on something I hadn't looked up more than once (And I skimmed at that.)