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.
