Bay 12 Games Forum
Dwarf Fortress => DF Suggestions => Topic started by: Joutilas on October 09, 2008, 03:35:42 am
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Expanded from original thread “Perversion”
One of my all-time favorites, Medieval: Total War gave me an idea for DF's future development.
Currently, we have all-seeing knowledge of our Dwarfs inner thinking’s. One way to add additional flavor to them would be to include hidden traits that won't be normally revealed - in similar fashion as you have in Medieval with the nobles.
Currently, the personalities of the dwarfs are not really present in the game. They do a wonderful job in making our imagination soar as we read their profiles, but don’t really affect the game that much. The idea of this post is to visualize some ways they could be expanded to really make the dwarfs personalities stand out and also affect the direction the fortress is heading to.
My vision for this is based on two main suggestions:
- Hidden personality traits
- Evolving culture
Hidden personality traits:
Currently, the player has total access to the most intimate thoughts and inner workings of a dwarf. While this contributes a lot to the “all-seeing-bene(/male)volent cave-spirit” but detracts from the playing experience. I like to think that the player is no smarter or knowledgeable than all the dwarfs combined, and in this way there simply are some things that no-dwarf knows. Hidden characteristics have already been suggested, so I won’t argue the case further, but rather will concentrate on the uses they could have.
My original thought was that the hidden traits would be mostly negative ones, such as:
Sadism - Urist McNoughty takes secret pleasure in inflicting pain upon others. If assigned to military duty, he tends to have more "accidents" while sparring. If hunting, he likes to take his time with his kills. And if assigned to the dwarven inquisition - he'll be very happy.
Deviant - Urist McKinky has unnatural liking for Elves. He spends way too much time in the trading depot whenever elven merchants are present - even though he's not trading or hauling!
(Can be linked to probability of indulging in this ->
http://www.bay12games.com/forum/index.php?topic=21189.0 )
Heretic - Urist McGoth prefers to engrave demons devouring dwarves. He is often seen in the secluded parts of the fort, holding private parties with like-minded individuals. Cats and dogs have started to go missing in the fort...
Sober - Urist McWeird seems to never visit the alcohol deposit. In fact, the still has had weird malfunctions ever since he settled in the fort...
Infiltrator - Urist McFriendly doesn't like to talk about his past. On his breaks, he spends a lot of time observing the fortress defenses. For some odd reason, nobody from his migrant group seems to really know him.
Anarchist - Ever since Urist McPunk settled in, the nobles have started having non-player related accidents. Their expensive rooms have been defaced; artifacts have gone missing from their rooms. What could be the cause?
Thief - Urist McGreedy likes shiny things - even beyond dwarven standards. A lot of expensive ores, gems and trade goods have gone missing. The traders are complaining that we're attempting to swindle them
Misanthropy - Urist McLonely has no friends, but he holds a lot of grudges. For some odd reason, he is on his most happiest during the darkest times. He attends a lot of funerals.
Necrophilia - Our ancestors graves have been defiled in unthinkable manner. The relatives of the deceased are in outrage. Accusations are flying wildly.
..etc.
Further discussion on the topic made me realize that they could also be expanded to include positive/neutral characteristics. You can see it as hidden potential, which is only surfaced in certain situations. Depending on the implementation, the dwarf might gain a positive “perk” that shows up in their profile once specific criteria are met.
Personally I imagine this occurring in extreme situations – when the dwarf is pushed to do something they’d not attempt in ordinary situations, their hidden potential would be surfaced. Normally the trait wouldn’t affect them, or in the most it would only have a miniscule effect that is hard to notice.
An example: McWoodcutter is cutting wood with his colleagues, when a goblin ambush arrives. The ambush fires arrow at the woodcutting party, wounding a hauler mortally. The civilians flee in panic, but McWoodcutter puts his ax aside and makes a mad dash towards to the wounded hauler. Despite the hail of arrows, he grabs the wounded dwarf, carrying him to safety in his back. If McWoodcutter survives, he gains a perk of “bravery” as he has realized his true potential and the criteria are met.
Evolving culture:
Idea behind the concept of “evolving culture” is that player’s actions have an effect on the way that the fortress develops. This would be demonstrated through the development of the dwarfs inside the fortress. Upon birth (generation), every dwarf would get a set of hidden personality traits. Just like in Medieval, in beginning those traits wouldn’t be visible. After all, the dwarfs are way too busy trying to survive to indulge in their dark sides or to search their inner potential.
But once the fortress grows and dwarfs have more idle time, the traits start to become more predominant. Eventually the dwarf will start affecting others around them, creating a kind of a snowball effect. So an anarchist/rebel will start to instigate anti-governmental movement, activating other dwarfs that have similar hidden traits. If they are not stopped, the group will start to affect also dwarfs that don’t have the specific hidden trait, but have the suitable personality traits (dislikes authority etc.).
To explain the sudden influx of dwarfs sharing the same hidden trait can also be explained quite simply – if one of the original seven dwarfs is secretly worshipping demons, they will attract more similar dwarfs’ in the future migrant groups. Some of the traits would naturally be more individual, such as infiltrators or pyromaniacs (though would be fun to see a cult of fire-loving dwarfs running the fort), so they wouldn’t affect “normal” dwarfs.
Now, there can also be several ways to avoid those perversions (like in Medieval). You could for example start a dwarven inquisition who weeds out the rotten individuals or appoint a dwarf to reform miscreants. Obviously those methods would also have a negative effect (incl. cultural) as well. And like in Medieval, you'll never be totally able to avoid them as they are a part of individual’s personality.
Some of those traits would improve greatly, if there would be also "natural occurrences" of certain suspicious things. So the player would never be totally sure of the cause of certain things (e.g. if corpses are disturbed in the graves, it can be a) thief, b) corpse-lover, c) cultists using them for rituals, d) wild animals).
So if one of your dwarfs is doing weird things, you’ll never be totally sure if it is just the broken AI acting up, or if the dwarf is up to something… After all, paranoia is fun and extremely dwarven!
Generally the bad-bad things would start happening at the end game, when the infrastructure is solidly in place and the game is otherwise starting to be too easy. The idea behind “evolving culture” is that player basically is reaping what they’ve been sowing. The fortress population forms their norms through the design choices the player has been making though the years. The way of living shapes up the personalities of the dwarfs inside the fort, and they start to value certain things whilst disliking others.
For example, if you never appoint a sheriff (that lives through the season), never have any fortress guards or build jails, your fort would go into a certain direction that can ultimately lead to total anarchy. Or if all the resources of the fortress go to making steel weapons and armor, whilst the naked dwarfs eat raw fish and sleep on cold stone… Well, THIS IS MADDNESS! Or if you have a massive cloth industry, decking out colorful clothes, at some point dwarf fashion would emerge.
In all of those cases, certain set of values would be formed. Ultimately this can lead to wars, rebellions and general mayhem. Or legendary dwarven civilization that’ll last decades.
This would add a totally new layer to the game. You wouldn’t just be thinking about taking care of the basic needs of your dwarfs, but also about the consequences that your design choices will have. Late game emergence of hidden traits would give something to look forward even in a mature fortress.
Obviously this is all quite far in the future still, seeing that there are quite a few more pressing matters to be addressed in the game. Hopefully this thread will still be able to give Toady some fresh ideas when thinking about the future of the game. Dwarf Fortress is after all the only game I can think of that could implement this idea – as the framework for it is mostly in place already.
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While sexual perversion seems a bit over the edge, this would make a good bloat.
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A great idea, but I agree it should be a bloat at best. Although, I think there already are bloats (or Reqs?) for invisible personality traits.
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Is bloat the same thing as filler material? Fluff?
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Bloat means things that are cool and might get implemented, but aren't considered necessary for the game to be complete.
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Ah, makes sense. Fun!
I'd suggest the sadist kills less and wounds more, and grievous wounds at that. We also need a pyromaniac. "Waitasec, I didn't tell anyone to mine. The heck is that guy doing near that warm wall WAITNOAAAAGH EVERYONE OFF THAT LEVEL!" And thus, you lose 1/5th of all your workshops.
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I like the idea!
But for moral reason I would kill off any fanatical Inqusition...
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don't ask...
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Yeah, this is definately not a thing that needs to be implemented tomorrow, there are quite a few more pressing issues to be fixed before that ;)
Just a part of how I envision the endgame being: you are less and less in charge of day to day operations, delegating more of those responsibilities to various managers, leaders and guildmasters. It would be more about shaping the society itself - what is unique about this fortress, where do they put more resources?
And of course stepping in when you start reaping the rewards (half of my dwarves have been revealed revealed as a part of demonic cult, oh-noes!)
I just find the thought very intriguing - instead of micromanaging 300 dwarfs, you're actually guiding the culture of the fortress with indirect actions. It'd definately add in some flavour to mature fortress, and would prevent the usual simcity syndrome (once your city is running well enough, you're just sitting there and waiting for a massive disaster).
Funnily enough, Dwarf Fortress is pretty much the only game that comes to my mind where such is possible - and this is only due to the clever way that Toady has built the framework for the game (hats off to that!).
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So basically you want to see more diverse personalities in the game. Perversions...sounds interesting, and since this would lead to some epic moments, I like the idea. ;D
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I like the idea of this, sort of. The "perversions" thing is a little over the top, but the idea of dwarves who steal/vandalize/form cults/etc. if they aren't kept busy could work very well. It means that, once your fort gets over 100 dwarves or so and you can't micromanage everybody anymore, some of your dwarves "go bad" and you have to figure out how to stop them, or else your fort will start to fall apart. This would give the dwarven justice system more of a purpose: currently, unless you have a tantrum spiral, the Fortress Guard and the jail aren't much use.
I would like to make it work like this: you can either keep the "bad" dwarves busy to keep them from committing crimes, or you can sic the Fortress Guard on them and have them jailed. The Fortress Guard won't catch these miscreants on its own, so you can either implement a system where you can "mark" dwarves to be arrested (which means you'll have to constantly watch the spots that are being vandalized/stolen from to see if the perpetrator shows up again), or you can station the Fortress Guard at certain locations and have them watch for criminals.
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Not being able to see such traits just sounds irritating
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I don't know, the perversion could have it's own place... Think about it: Urist McKinky was getting a little to friendly with his hands and the Elven Maidens backside. The elves are outraged, and demand McKinky's head on a spike or there will be much dwarven blood spilled. McKinky being the Fort's greatest Marksdwarf tells them were to stick their opinions.
Now 500 years after the "Insult at Fort Divine Wells" the war of the Dwarves and Elves continues to rage.
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So long as that plan includes Urist McKinky being quicky yet quietly castrated with great smacking noises by the hammerer-
I see nothing wrong with a five-hundred year war of dwarves versus elves.
Yeah, you thought the worst the hammerer would do was just give your legendary craftsdwarf a headache and fainting spells for the rest of his life, huh? Once this goes into effect, Mr. Hammerer and Mr. S. Deviant are going to have words. Mainly "AAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAA" with no comeback from the noble. He let's his hammer do the talking.
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I like the idea. Sounds quite easy to implement too. That pervesion thing was awesome in the Total War games. It was quite fun(ny) having an angry, drunk, gay commander lie siege and enslave an entire town in Rome: TW. It was also fun trying to assassinate off some of my commanders and kings because they were ruining the entire town with their insanity. I had a King Leopold the Mad with 0 authority collapse my entire empire into civil war. After that game, I secretly tried to assassinate the heirs who looked like they'd make bad leaders.
With something like DF, I'd like to see how that'll go. It'll should be as common as artifacts :P
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I find this idea intriguing, and support it wholeheartedly.
I suggest that such 'interesting' personality traits be spawned by certain combinations of existing, and perhaps expanded, visible traits, so that those who would bother to look them up on a chart could find out just where all the half-elves are coming from; those more interested in being surprised could just not pay any attention, and the more investigative-ly minded could carefully examine their dwarve's behavior and pore over profiles, carefully considering the effects of all those little traits.
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I support that idea as well, as long as those things can't ruin your fortress permanently due to a minor oversight. I'd hate to have to step into war with another race because of one sexual deviant or have a stolen masterpiece drive one of my dwarves into an unstoppable berserk rage.
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So long as they take time, I'd be happy if you not paying attention to a series of suspicions events and sleuthing your way out of it gets your fort utterly annihilated by anarchists. If you see
Obsidian Statue has been defaced! Urist McLegendaryMason has thrown a tantrum!
Urist McMaybeAnarchist admires a fine graffiti defacement
Obsidian Statue has been defaced! Urist McLegendaryMason has thrown a tantrum!
Urist McMaybeAnarchist admires a fine graffiti defacement
Obsidian Statue has been defaced! Urist McLegendaryMason has thrown a tantrum!
Urist McMaybeAnarchist admires a fine graffiti defacement
Obsidian Statue has been defaced! Urist McLegendaryMason has thrown a tantrum!
Urist McMaybeAnarchist admires a fine graffiti defacement
And you don't pay any damn attention, I say you deserve a civil war. Which is bound to be a barrel of fun right there. Hell, first time I encounter this, I'd encourage any perversions I think I've sniffed out. I want to see what happens and if I'm good enough to handle organizing riot control and losing 3/4ths of my fort to civil war, inquisition, and a rather fun game of Mafia: DF Edition amongst all the people. Oh, and another hint is if someone utterly random throws a tantrum if someone else carries a body away for burial first. Or you notice someone -not idle- stopping their movement near the trade depot when humans or elves are about. Or that guy who only -ever- starts by injuring an opponents legs (maybe so they can't run from him/causes them agony without killing them often/gives him more time?) and takes triple the amount of time to finish an opponent as others do. Or an inquisitor who doesn't question, and instead just starts mandating the hammerer break hands after hands after hands without gathering information. Unless there's torture, in which case he'll only torture people. Or a man who hangs out constantly by the still when idled, which is then deconstructed and the materials in his inventory (not stockpiled, and who checks inventories of characters regularly?). Or someone admiring trap... After trap... After door... After ballista... after catapult... only those things, and following the mechanic about as he constructs things, whilst listed under another task, but following the mechanic for brief spells.
I'd say... four, five years before things start kicking into mid-gear and personality psychoses come out to play, five and a half, six before the big problems start coming out. Should be plenty of time for a base to start getting dull enough to want a civil war, or war with the humans, or war with the elves, or an inquisition manhunt.
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Oh hell civil wars would be so amazing. I wholeheartedly support anything that will cause my entire fort to schism.
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I am in support of this idea.
I'd sort of like the traits to be non-hidden, though, so I could have a Communist Party an anarchy-squad with no labors enabled to kill my nobles for me.
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And I swear, if the misanthrope doesn't devolve into a serial killer or mass murderer, I will find you and beat you with oranges until you smell of that healthy vitamin-C from across the room and you have nothing but yellow wounds. Get it? Yello- shoot, oranges are orange. Uhm. Wait! I got it! Lemons! But then you won't smell of healthy vitamin C... Shoot, aw forget it, just make sure that the misanthrope turns into something nasty. OR ELSE I SHALL GLARE AT MY COMPUTER SCREEN WITH GREAT INDIGNATION AND TYPE NASTY THINGS ABOUT YOU ON SOMEONE ELSE'S LIVEJOURNAL.
You shouldn't have them listed, that defeats the purpose of it mate. Maybe mod it if you want so it -is-, but don't have it off the bat listed. Just observe them defacing carvings and nobles rooms, then put them all in a squad, then give them no labor. Deduction, man.
I think I'll compile some end results I've thought up:
Sadist: Eventually cannot do enough to satisfy his sadistic urges and starts crippling everyone he sees for life in a sort of "focused-Insanity" only maiming and mangling people. Will carry around several weapons to crush and slash and gore and hack away at people, breaking bones, rending flesh, and chopping off limbs until he's taken down. Which could take quite some time if it happens during a battle, or there's no traps inside the fort perimeter where he lives.
Sexual Deviant: Could start producing monter hybrids of things that are just wrong (tentacle demon + Male Dwarf = Ohgodmyeyes!) not to mention downright dangerous, or could end trade relations all at once and forever, along with sieges to follow. A "slighter" effect is that a plague of puppy sodomy and dwarven butt-burgling leads to the inquisition being called down and there being a mass lynching, corpses hung up in the main meeting area, or strewn across the statues in the statue garden.
Heretic: Worst case is the cult gets large enough, and it turns into a civil war. Except the cult has demons on it's side. And quite possibly half your military.
Sober: The stills are destroyed, the brewers killed in their beds, and all the booze dumped into the ground. Tantrums ensue, riots ensue, slaughter ensues.
Infiltrator: A massive siege arrives. S'alright, right, let the traps and fail-safes and lads in armor handle it, right? Wrong. The goblins/whatever are stealthed this time. No one saw it coming. Traps're disabled, the moat is redirected, Levers undone, the doors are gone, the weapons misplaced, and the siege starts once enough of your military men are asleep. Sucks to be you.
Anarchist: Civil war. Utter pandemonium. Destruction of lots of property. And you end up controlling the victor. Go you?
Thief: A dwarven mafia gets set up, fencing needed supplies to goblins, humans, elves, and whomever else can pay up. Rent is due, and anyone speaking up is quickly silenced, order of the DwarfFather. There's a secret war on now, between the innocents and the guilty and the inquisition, and everyone's going to get hurt. Prepare for lots of murders in the night with dwarves slaughtered in their beds.
Necrophiliac: Eventually the wrong granpappy gets "boned", if you know what I mean. Mass lynchings begin, and it doesn't stop after the necrophile dies, if he dies during the lynchings. Everyone is to blame, no one is innocent, and the world dissolves into grudges, tantrums, riots, crackdowns, and utter slaughter from which you may never recover.
Misanthropy: Minimum: The dwarf goes serial killing, always cutting off a body part and keeping it or taking the shirt or the pants and leaving their bum hanging out for the watchmen to find. Medium:The man berserks, going on a killing spree, locked in an enraged and a martial trance. He's the juggernaut powered solely by his hatred and spite for all life alone. The Max? Ooh baby, this is gonna be fun. Urist is gonna haver herself competition. Insanity takes hold, and no creature shall escape this dwarf's cold fury. The disgusting creatures crawling about in darkness shall be sterilized, and none shall become whole. What powers this dwarf is unique- it's more than anger, it's more than loathing- it is pure, platonic hatred of all life. Consider him the worst thing that can happen to your fortress. He is the Implacable man, and made of steel. He'll suit up in any weapons and armor available (and upgrade from dead corpses), grab a pick for good measure, and go to town, taking a few levels in agility, toughness, and strength, along with entering martial trance and enrage. He is your new nightmare, your worst nightmare, your last nightmare. He will be the dwarf under the bed of your children- until they are hacked to pieces or boiled by lava. The place is locked down, lava is dug in, miasma is let out, kittens and baby dwarves have their throats ripped apart by his teeth, fires are set, buildings torn down, and the entire fortress is going to go falling eight Z-stories straight into Buttf***ed, Region * ( <---that's a sphincter for those not associated with ASCII orifices). If you don't figure out and put a stop to this madman, your fortress and the very region itself may be doomed. He will kill them all.
And now I think I'll go to sleep.
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I once more agree with this idea, but I definitely think that this should be a more uncommon thing. In a town of two hundred people the chances of having 50 mass murderers seems a little unlikely, that's not to say however that your fort gets the bad roll and DOES get a whole Migration of *GASP* non beer swilling layabouts.
I just think that too much of a neat idea like this could just make me want to bash my keyboard through my monitor yelling "NOT Necrophiliacs!!! I WANT Infiltrators!!!", but seriously great idea. :)
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Maybe there are certain "design" choises that increase the likelihood of "bad apples" developing. Like not having a fortress guard/sheriff (or not having a jail), having a huge gap between the poor and the nobility etc. Just like in normal society.
Come on, you really expect that the constant slaughter of puppies and the horrible "accidents" that face the nobility will have no effect on the dwarven psyche? ;)
Actually, the desensitization is a good case example of cultural development within the fortress that could lead into negative traits becoming more commonplace (sadism, misanthropy). It's partially affecting all the dwarves, but only the ones who have their "dark side" already will fall to their negative traits.
We already have quite a few characteristics that could act as hints for finding out potential troublemakers (doesn't like working with others, dislikes authority, likes tentacle demons etc.). Now the trouble would be that two thirds of them are false flags. The guy just happens to like demons, thats all!
If you expand the negative traits enough, then in theory everyone could have their dark side. Naturally only a fraction of this would be revealed in normal cases, but if things start REALLY going to the wrong direction, then all hell would break loose (a.k.a. decadent fortress).
And what a legendary ending for a fortress that would be :)
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I think you should have a 1-10 severity, and as the severity goes up, so does the likeliness of it happening. Like necrophelia.
1: Dwarf visits the graveyard in his break sometimes, instead of going to the meeting area.
2: Dwarf visits graveyard often, and gets a happy thought from "being with his friends"
3: Dwarf eats and drinks in the graveyard sometimes.
4: Dwarf takes random breaks from work, this shows up on the unit screen as a green "on break" to visit the graveyard.
5: Dwarf visits graveyard at night, and often during the day. grave sites are vandalised.
6: Dwarf is in graveyard for hours on end. Graves are destroyed and corpses are found on the ground.
7: Dwarf eats, sleeps, drinks and takes breaks in the graveyard. A certain deceased dwarf is seen to be it's "lover" in the profile.
8: Dwarf leaves the graveyard to work, and only to work. He/she takes longer than normal breaks.
9: A number of graves are destroyed per night, there is a great happy thought. The dwarf sleeps with incredibly old corpses, going almost to skeletons.
10: The dwarf refuses to leave the graveyard and openly uses corpses all the time, regardless of rank, age, or time deceased.
Of course i thought up these ones up on the spot, so they may be bad, but if you don't like it whatever.
Also i was thinking that a level 6 heretic could inspire young children to grow into level 1 heretics, or convince other dwarves to become heretics. That way you can make them extremely rare, but dangerous if left for a while, whilst a sadist just walks around hurting people. Level one could be he hangs around the barracks in his free time, level 5 he kills cats and dogs, level 10 he arms himself and thinks himself a "justice maker" I.e. like a hammerer, but more dangerous and less restrained in his punishment, whether they committed a crime or not.
I also thought that some of those could have opposites, such as Peace lover, who often breaks up sparring sessions, or drunkards, who drink far more than anyone else, and clutter the still with their personal objects.
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Drunkard? For a dwarf? All he gets is a medal, maybe some looks of envy and jealousy for being capable of consuming so much alcohol (and using so much of it), but that man isn't a menace to society. He's not going to annihilate the still. He'd probably kill the Sober (designation).
I think the rarity of these guys does need to be upped. One every... One hundred dwarves? And sheriffs and hammerer's'll sniff'em out easier than other people- /Suspicious/Wary/Watching are good relationship terms, appliable to authority figures and the Inquisition.
Joutilas, got a suggestion for the Inquisition?
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quietly[...] with great smacking noises
Wat?
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quietly[...] with great smacking noises
Wat?
I was not so subtly implying that the hammerer was castrating the sexual deviant. With his hammer. And the deviant's testicles. And several vigorous raising and rushing downward motions on the part of the hammer. And the stone underneath the sexual deviant's marbles being not only bloodsplattered, but cracked.
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Joutilas, got a suggestion for the Inquisition?
I'm not totally sure how it'd fit into Toady's vision, but maybe somethink akin to "Inquisition" would be applicable - with or without the religious connotations that the term has. They could be in charge of weeding out the heretics/traitors/rebels amongst the dwarven populace as well as interrogating prisoners. After all, at the moment you don't have much to do with all the goblin prisoners you get.
Interrogating prisoners could bring some information about incoming attacks and would be more useful once the politics arc is in place.
Inqusition should be led by noble who has apprentices helping him out. They would take over prisoner management from normal peasants, and would required workshop of their own. Somethink akin to Joe Abercrombie's "The Blade Itself" would be quite cool ;)
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May I add several new categories to the discussion?
-Pyromaniac: Once lighting and torches are implemented, we could have someone with an unusual interest for all things incendiary. Effects could range from taking breaks near braziers and magma pits to becoming friends with Fire Imps to *gasp!* burning booze stockpiles!
-Zealot: "They're wrong! They are all wrong! And I will show them!!". A character that doesn't get along well with those that do not share his (religious) views. At low levels, he'd just get into debates with "unbelievers". At higher levels, he might start rows, deface statues and engravings of "false gods" or even become a messianic figure for his God, ultimately causing a rift in the fortress on religious grounds.
-Revolutionary: In essence similar to an Anarchist. He's bent on overthrowing the order. But he does not do it in the same way. Instead he instigates, talks and sets people up against each other. He could cause people to become anarchists, dislikes nobles and makes people dislike nobles and could even challange the mayor for control over the fortress. He could also leave with a part of the population (probably after a row) to settle somewhere else.
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This suggestion has my full support, partly because it adds some interesting twists to the personality aspect of the dwarves, and partly because it provides the mechanisms for some truly outstanding innovations and additions to the game.
1) First of all, I don't think that miscreants should only be punished (punishing the body has never done much to rectify the mind of a deviant), therefore they should be rehabilitated (if caught early enough) and thus we have a new workshop, the ASYLUM. In this a dwarf of high enough social skills can help "cure" a deviant dwarf, thus a new need for social skills.
2) The idea of deviances being contagious and spreading (metastasising) throughout a fortress, eventually turning it into a new direction, brings us to the idea of FORTRESS MODES: a fortress can be "normal" (aligned to vanilla dwarfdom), "evil"/"deviant" (governed by daemonic or other "evil" minds), and "decadent"/"degenerate" (lust, perversion etc has taken over).
3) The notion of CIVIL WAR was brought up in this thread. The spreading mindset will create factions within a fortress that when reaching a critical threshold will turn into a civil war. That is, civil wars occur in, when and due to the border zone of competing mindsets.
Having your fortress go through these stated would make the game be rated A for "Awesome" with a cherry on top!
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Shouldn't zealot just be an overenthusiastic soldier, i.e. ignoring wounds? maybe an extreme would be him going beserk during battle? running ahead of the other soldiers?
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An overenthusiastic soldier should be a berserker, which would also be a good invisible trait they might have. Perhaps make a berserker more effective at hurting others but bad at defending themselves, and you've got a one-shot kamikaze dwarf. They rush in, do a lot of damage while ignoring their own wounds, and then battle ends... and they promptly fall over because they were greviously wounded during the fight.
I'd like to say also that I approve of this idea of there being an Asylum structure if these are implemented. If social skills help in treating others, then maybe that should apply outside the Asylum too. It'd give a purpose to all the parties dwarves throw, if parties made them less likely to go weird.
I've never actually seen a social skill above the basic level though. I'd have a lot of trouble staffing an Asylum.
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Another possibility is that if dwarven psychiatrists get implemented, they could also sniff out these dwarves - and if they're a low enough level, perhaps reverse the effect, e.g. a level 1 anarchist might be convinced by a good psyche and revert to a happy normal dwarf or whatever... whereas a level 10 anarchist might try to kill the psychiatrist.
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Don't think WH40K Inquisition, think "The Inquisition! What a show! The Inquisition! Here we Go! We're on a Mission- To Convert the Jews-Jew-Jew-Jew-Jew-Jew-Jew-Jews!" A la Mel Brooks, History of the World Part 1, or "NO ONE EXPECTS THE SPANISH INQUISITION!" A la Monty Python.
Or for those who have no bleedin' clue what those references are (and shame on you!), think priest zealots, not soldier zealots. Preachers screaming about their God on street corners, preaching to the masses. Taking it a biiiit farther than socially acceptable. And "a bit" is rather a long way in dwarven measurements, so they might even be organizing mass-lynchings and pogroms on those who aren't with their beliefs.
And I've decided to include the link to HotW(Pt.1) The Inquisition: http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=mKxnaMeOK20 (http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=mKxnaMeOK20)
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As a side note, anarchism is not random violence, much like democracy is not a military regime... though there are some who confuse the two - for example in Iraq.
I'd say that seven dwarves living in a commune is pretty close to anarchic desires. Anarchists might object to the introduction of money, the arrival of nobles, the paying of tribute to a warring king, the draft, etc. Whether they use violence to express their opinion should depend on their personality: depression, strikes etc. are other options.
Their polar opposites would be fascists, who like being told what to do by nobles, being drafted, consorting with similar dwarves, etc.
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There are an absurd amount of different anarchist philosophies out there. I know, I just checked, and it blew my mind. But for the sake of making things FUN (losing more often), let's employ the violent ones here.
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Oh, I'm just mentioning it, there's no need to open up a political discussion here. The system should be more flexible: you have different groups, that act on their differences is in ways depending as much on the personalities of the dwarves partaking, as the particular ideology: the anarchist plethora of interpretations illustrates that nicely. But then i'm talking about pacifism and such, which is a political view but hardly a perversion (or is it, for dwarves?). To conclude, political views shouldn't be a perversion, a propensity for the use of violence to attain one's goal could.
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Perhaps most of these should result from interaction of the various (almost unused) personality traits already in the game? People with a healthy respect for tradition and stability are unlikely to become anarchists for instance. Low empathy could cause sadism, Immoderation could or a lack of self discipline could cause some sexual deviancy. Abnormally high caution could cause one of the various paranoia from wanting to kill the neighbors to making and trapping their own room in the most remote part of the fortress.
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Interactions may perhaps contribute to factions forming too easy. Conservatism, religiosity and fascism tend to correlate, as does anarchism, individualism and neophilism.
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I disagree, when I imagine my utopia it all too often turns facist but I am not conservative. (and religion has nothing to do with either.)
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I disagree, when I imagine my utopia it all too often turns facist but I am not conservative. (and religion has nothing to do with either.)
I'm not stating psychological facts, rather observing that conservativism is about retaining the existing structures, "normal" religion is conservative, and fascism (as in a psychological personality trait) about subordinating to and enforcing authority structures. All of these deal with taken-for-granted and not-to-be-questioned "truths". Therefore, from a statistical and sociological perspective, at least as applied to a game of DF type and in relation to this thread, the above holds.
Your personal philosophy is not debated :)
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Weeel. Unless you want to go right into politics it's fine, though with my idea you can have extremist politicals, and maybe they'll become worse if they get into power.
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I edited the first post to better reflect the direction the discussion has been going towards.
BTW: looking at the current dev. notes, imagine entering dwarven hell where all the miscreants of your previous fortress are locked in, suffering from their crimes ;-)
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Maybe not 100% what you meant, but reading the dev notes screamed at me 'Kids could develop their personalities based on what happens when they are growing up'
Somewhat like how you could tweak kids personalities in the Sims...