Bay 12 Games Forum

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"A stout creature fond of drink and industry." And yes, I know what you mean, but A. using the same two resources you tried to discredit, I showed that dwarves could be tall and beardless, and B. it varies by dwarf, with few dwarves I've seen being short.

I don't quite understand what you mean. The only resource I tried to discredit was the raws, and the descriptions (which are in-game) describe the dwarves' beards and in adventure mode you can see that dwarves wear "small" armor. The game, which is the one resource I don't discredit, rather obviously portrays dwarves as the short, little bearded drunks they are.

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That's what happens in DF. Dump an adamantine wafer into your volcano or magma pit, and see what happens. You're all for experimentation, with the only canon being what actually happens in-game, so try it! Also drop in a bron ze colossus to see if it leaves behind an adamantine armature.

Correct me if I'm wrong, but dropping items down a volcano or letting them fall into the magma sea and hit the molten rock makes them disappear, regardless of whether they are magma-safe or not.

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Now who's hypothising about what would happen IRL? And no, since raw adamantine is A. not purely adamantine strands and B. not under that much pressure, as a dwarf can dig a hole right next to one in the magma sea and not et flooded with pressurised magma.

In real life I don't think there are giant spires of adamantine down in the asthenosphere. And "not under that much pressure"? The weight of the entire crust is pushing down on them. The fact that a dwarf can dig right next to it and not get flooded only further supports my point, which is that adamantine wouldn't being partially molten under extreme heat, but rather stay impossibly hard and immoveable. And raw adamantine probably doesn't have much impurities in it, because there aren't that many materials that could stay solid so far down into the earth.

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What's your point? If I had to choose between a bunch of legendary dwarves armed with adamantine, plus all of the other things I could make with dozens of bronze bars and stuff, and a bronze colossus, the choice would be easy. I'm not sure if it would fall towards "An invincible super-soldier!" or "An army of nigh-invincible soldiers!", but it would be one or the other. Not "Hm, I wonder, if I make a BC I'll have to do X to make sure it doesn't turn, but the results may be worth it..." or something.

Once you get admanatine stuff you're pretty much invincible anyways, I'd just build a colossus or ten for the hell of it. If you want to talk about making the game still have some sort of challenge other than not breaching into the clown house, make a separate thread about that.

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No, no, no! Catch a BC, release it onto the goblins, use cats to bait it back onto a cage trap! Do I have to think of EVERYTHING for you?

Wouldn't using a cat as bait be wasting precious food?

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Danger =/= use lots of resources. And, like I mentioned, handling a potentially-ready-to-snap BC (whether by "tricking" it to only be near things you want it to kill when it's out, or by placating it somehow) would be a challenge, and certainly not "impossible to overcome." On the other hand, with getting adamantine, the only challenge is not mining out the one stone that...spoilers. If you can get enough adamantine without spoilering, you make a siege-busting bronze man of doom; if not, you break your fortress. It's like Minesweeper, except you lose more than a couple minutes of game if you choose the wrong square. But if you succeed, you have a nigh-undefeatable soldier! What Fun...risk your entire fortress for a way to protect it forever! What any system that hands you a "Defeat Siege" button like that, you need more of a challenge than "Don't spoiler the adamantine until you get enough, then you're golden. Maybe you should try building a big middle finger to pass the time until the next release."

Fair enough, you've convinced me.

I think you're being a little too negative, GWG. It's reasonable to point out that there are many possible permutations of prophecy that wouldn't work well in the game, but it's no reason to ignore the ones that could. I should make it clear that creating "real" prophecies and proving that a prophet was right all along is not the aim of the suggesion at all. It's not the "point" you're after, as ebbor explained. As mentioned in the op the aims are plot, genre and fun. Fun is no doubt the most important aspect but I put it at the end because it's subjective and I don't want to suggest that this would be the best thing since the z-axis. And fun is really just a result of plot, anyway.

So let's get back to your classic example of the kid forecast to kill his dad. I don't agree that it would be too problematic. As I see it, there should be two main ingredients to the prophecy. Is the prophecy something that you could only know by supernatural means? "Hai guise, I divine that if you knock down that support, the ceiling is going to fall on your heads and you'll all die." That's not a prophecy, it's logic obviously. The other important ingredient is that the predicted outcome is possible. The chance of it doesn't matter so much, just that it's possible. For example if you have a prediction that a son will soon kill his father who already peacefully died years ago, it's problematic. Your classic example ticks both those boxes so long as it was made early enough in the childs life for it to be supernatural knowledge. If the prophet waited until the son was a 20 year old violent drunk with a grudge against his father, it's not so amazing to predict that he'd kill him. Making the prediction before conception or birth or while only a child is fine though.
Once you confirm whether it's a prophecy and whether it's possible you just need to list what could happen. In this case lots could happen.
- prophet is ignored, killed or exiled (this option is not mutually exclusive with any of the following)
- the king decides to be celibate and never have children (bonus possibility for war of succession later because of no clear heir to the throne)
- the king sends his son far away and forbids him from visiting (bonus possibility of son being kidnapped, does the king pay a ransom or attempt a rescue)
- the king imprisons his son (you decide to try and free the prince with your adventurer)
- the king kills his son (distraught mother poisons the king, arguably the son caused the kings death)
- the king raises the child normally despite the prophecy
With a little imagination and five minutes I've come up with a handful of options and just some of many examples of plot opportunities arising from them. In none of those does it matter that the child actually kills the king. It doesn't really matter that the prophecy is realized or not, that's not the aim. Intricate prophecy which seems to predict one thing but ironically means something entirely different while still validating the ancient poetry with all it's seemingly contradictory clauses like many you find in the books is not the aim. Having prophecy in the game, partly for its own sake and partly (more actually) as a driver for plot is the the point. If that's not enough reason to add it, then that's where we differ in opinion.

I do agree that there at least should be some prophecies that are specifically put in just so that they are fufilled. That sort of thing would be best settled in worldgen. "In the year 4 it was foretold that King Urists' son would kill him. In the year 5 Prince Urist was born. In the year 5 Prince Urist was sent away to live with the elves by King Urist. In the year 30 the elves of the Flowery Skunk lay siege to the Dwarf Fortress Unlucky Births. The conflict was caused by a dispute over logging quotas. The attacking force comprised 30 grizzly bears and 400 elves, led by Prince Urist. The defenders comprised 50 dwarves led by King Urist. In the year 6 the Flowery Skunk defeated the dwarven defenders and sacked Unlucky Births. King Urist died in the fighting." Just a poor example of what it could look like in legendsmode.

Maybe Urist McLaius doesn't need to be killed by his own son. One of the reasons why the Oracle of Delphi, and Nostradamus, even, were so successful was because their prophecies were vague. "his son" might mean something like "one of his people" or "a younger male close to him" or "one of his Twitter followers". Once you look at it that way, the prophecy becomes much more likely. Urist McLaius might be killed by Urist McRobespierre and his merry gang of coup d'etaters, or maybe Urist Mc@Laiusfan1995 accidentally drops a rock or pulls a level and accidentally the whole king. The possibilities become endless, but there would still be a criterion, obviously.
The thing I'm getting at is that the criteria need not be so clear-cut. That's what makes prophecies so prophetic in the first place. Nostradamus, for example, didn't say, "Guys, in September 11, 2001, the WTC will be by planes! YES! THE WHOLE WTC! PLANES!" Nostradamus said some vague shit about towers and metal and fire. For a long time people thought he was talking about the Blitz, but now apparently it's about 9/11. Come another disaster, it's going to be about that. Same with DF. I think we should have intentionally vague prophecies as well. You guys get what I'm getting at? I think that would be a bit harder to code though...

McLaius hires an adventurer to kill his son, the adventurer then beats McLaius to death with the son's corpse