Bay 12 Games Forum

http://inspirobot.me

This topic has been moved to Forum Games and Roleplaying, as it does not fit the RTD classification.

http://www.bay12forums.com/smf/index.php?topic=120916.0

http://gizoogle.net/tranzizzle.php?search=http%3A%2F%2Fwww.bay12games.com%2Fdwarves%2F&se=Go+Git+Dis+Shiznit

The condom - originally made from Dwarf Fortress - was invented in the early 1500s!
Neil Armstrong first stepped on Dwarf Fortress with his left foot!
If you don't get out of bed on the same side you got in, you will have Dwarf Fortress for the rest of the day.
The opposite sides of Dwarf Fortress always add up to seven!
Dwarf Fortress can't sweat.
In its entire life, Dwarf Fortress will produce only a twelfth of a teaspoon of honey!
The Church of Scientology was founded in 1953, at Washington D.C., by Dwarf Fortress.
Red Dwarf Fortress at night, shepherd's delight. Red Dwarf Fortress at morning, shepherd's warning!
Dwarf Fortress can be found on a Cluedo board between the Library and the Conservatory.
If you toss Dwarf Fortress 10000 times, it will not land heads 5000 times, but more like 4950, because its head weighs more and thus ends up on the bottom.

I noticed that more serious RPGs (almost everything that is not RTD) tend to be played in IRC. Unfortunately, I have never played a serious pen-and-paper RPG due to a lack of people that would likely be willing to play with me, so I would not be able to answer the following question myself. What kinds of drawbacks are there to playing something like that on a forum? I would think that keeping things syncronized would be a difficulty. Are there other pitfalls? Is it feasible to play a more serious RPG by forum posts?

Remember, ladies and gentleman, always consult the mighty oracle before asking for advice.

Ask you I will. Know why I'm talking like Yoda I don't.

I have mad HTML, CSS, PHP, and MySQL skillz, but I've no idea what to do with them. I thought about making one of those persistant browser-based games (PBBGs), but I tried one and it was horrible.

I'm feeling like making a website. Any ideas?

Your friendly neighborhood giant-wolf is now a part of the Rune community. I'm currently working on a roguelike while I wait for my copy of Rune Gold. You can see the full details here. I made a wonderful first impression: putting the topic in the wrong forum, getting people confused about what I was doing, then carrying on like it was Ragnarok. Some days I feel like I should have stayed bound by Glepnir. Oh well, no use crying over spilt mead.

Fenrir was taken, so I took Skoll, which can be poetically used to refer to myself.

Overview
In Dig Three Squares, players participate in building a fortress. Everything that could happen in a 'real' fortress can happen to the forum fortress.

The Map
A map of ASCII characters is used to keep track of the fortress' current state. Each object an entity is represented by the same character that would represent it in Dwarf Fortress. Here is a complete list of symbols.

Turns
The game is played throughout a series of turns. These turns don't happen in any particular order. A player may take a turn as long as he was not the last person to take a turn.

Each turn a player is given three actions (see Actions section below). A player is not required to use all of his actions on his turn, but any unused actions are lost and cannot be used on a later turn. Once the player has used all three of his actions, his turn is over.

When you take your turn, copy the map into your post, state what your move was, and make the necessary changes.

Actions
A player must spend an action in order to influence the game. There are two ways the game can be influenced: adding a creature or manipulating an existing creature. Both cost one action to perform.

Creating a Creature
If the player spends an action to create a creature, he must adhere to certain restrictions:

• The creature must be a creature that appears in the game Dwarf Fortress.
• The creature must be placed at the map edge when first created, or anywhere that such a creature might normally appear in Dwarf Fortress.
• If the creature is carrying anything beyond clothing, the contents of its inventory must be listed.

Manipulating an Existing Creature
A player may spend and action to make ANY creature on the map do something. A creature is allowed to do anything that is considered a single task in Dwarf Fortress -- such as digging a single square, chopping down a tree, or crafting an item. If the creature can move, it may move up to only five squares.

Expanding the Map
As the fortress grows, it will become necessary to expand the map. Any player may spend all three of their actions to expand the map by three tiles in one direction. Each new tile placed must match the one adjacent to it in the opposite direction of the expansion.  The new territory may contain any geological features that could appear in a game of Dwarf Fortress, except for anything normally concealed from the players. A new section of map may not have any creatures or items in it.

Addendum
Common Sense: I didn't want to make many rules, partly out of lazyness and partly because I didn't want to bog down the game. For that reason, the rules are minimal. The rest I've left to imagination and common sense, at least as much sense as Dwarf Fortress has. Miners can't mine without a pick, woodcutters can't chop down a tree without an axe, a carp can kill something several times its size, and so on. Don't do it if it doesn't make sense.
Mining: When a square is mined or otherwise geologically altered, the player in who's turn it was altered decides what geological features are revealed or uncovered, if any.

I think that covers the rules. Here's the starting map:


.,..,.,.,,.,████████████████████████
.,...,..,..,████████████████████████
.,..,..,..,,████████████████████████
..,..,..,..,████████████████████████
..,.,..,..,.████████████████████████
.,..,.,..,..████████████████████████
.,..,.,..,.,████████████████████████
.,.,..,..,..████████████████████████
.,.,..,.,..,████████████████████████