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Creative Projects / National Novel Writing Month 2023

« on: October 21, 2023, 10:13:06 pm »

I waited a bit too long to post this partly out of not realizing how close to November we were, but it's almost that time of year again.

Given that we've been getting less than two full pages of posts in the last few threads, I've been considering if going forward I should just necro the thread each year as the time comes around, but for this year at least it's a new thread.

Obligatory copied content from the last few years:

In case you aren't familiar with NaNoWriMo:

What is NaNoWriMo?
NaNoWriMo is an informal challenge to anyone who wants to write. The idea is simple: you simply have to write 50,000 words of a story during the month of November. You don't necessarily have to finish the story, so long as you write that many words, and it doesn't matter what the story is. This isn't going to be published anywhere without you doing it, so it can be fanfiction for all that the challenge cares.

The point is to just get words down. A lot of writers agree that this is the hard part, and you can easily get stuck trying to edit or world build. From experience, I can say that it's very true, and anyone who wants to give this a shot is strongly encouraged to not fret about the quality of your work and just focus on getting a first draft down. I did last year and hate how it turned out, but I'm still glad I did it since it puts me in a better place to try it this year.

Is this a competition?
Not really. You're only challenging yourself. You can certainly compare your progress to others, but it's informal and you won't get anything but a warm, fuzzy feeling for beating someone else.

Is my writing safe?
Sure. You don't have to publish anything you write, and nanowrimo.org just has a tool for inputting word counts. They have a word count utility as well, which supposedly scrambles the text so that nobody could possibly steal it, but in seriousness there's no reason to be afraid of whatever you're writing getting out in the wild without you doing it.

Can I win anything?
Only personal satisfaction, which is a surprisingly good thing in my experience. Supposedly you can get some discounts on software or other sponsored goodies if you "win" by hitting 50K words, but I don't actually know how this works.

Can't I just cheat and enter whatever I want in the word count tool then?
Sure, but you're only cheating yourself in the end. The whole point is to make something of your own and prove to yourself that you can do it.

Official website:
https://nanowrimo.org/

Links to previous years:
2022
2021
2020
2019
2018
2017
2016
2015
2014
2013
2012
2011
2010
2009

Following on from my last few years, I'll say that each year continues to get easier on a technical level. Setting the time aside to write 1,667 words per day is pretty easy now during November.

The hard part continues to be getting ideas for stories. I've spent a fair bit of time this year trying to revise and recycle older ideas to get something to a state that I would consider self-publishing it, but so far that hasn't panned out.

At the moment I have two ideas that I'm debating between:

A space fantasy story based on a failed RPG setting. The story would be about a vezel, which is essentially a space kobold / space velociraptor, who was genetically engineered into a magical super soldier but who decided she didn't want to be part of it. She was going to be fleeing from the government that originally hired her, taking her genetically engineered son (or maybe just egg) and trying to find somewhere safe to stay. I unfortunately have little more to work from than that.
Continuing a solo RPG game using the Starforged rules, which was based on the setting of Stars Without Number effectively crossed with Star Fox. I've already written about 160,000 words so I have plenty of material to work from, and committing to 50,000 more words would probably get me jumpstarted again.

So, the vague new idea, or the sure thing? Tough choice.

Creative Projects / National Novel Writing Month 2022

« on: October 05, 2022, 02:10:37 pm »

Well, it's almost that time of year again already, and is technically the first week of "preptober." As before, Bay12 is pretty slow these days so it may end up just being me talking to myself, but I'll post weekly updates as I go.

In case you aren't familiar with NaNoWriMo:

What is NaNoWriMo?
NaNoWriMo is an informal challenge to anyone who wants to write. The idea is simple: you simply have to write 50,000 words of a story during the month of November. You don't necessarily have to finish the story, so long as you write that many words, and it doesn't matter what the story is. This isn't going to be published anywhere without you doing it, so it can be fanfiction for all that the challenge cares.

The point is to just get words down. A lot of writers agree that this is the hard part, and you can easily get stuck trying to edit or world build. From experience, I can say that it's very true, and anyone who wants to give this a shot is strongly encouraged to not fret about the quality of your work and just focus on getting a first draft down. I did last year and hate how it turned out, but I'm still glad I did it since it puts me in a better place to try it this year.

Is this a competition?
Not really. You're only challenging yourself. You can certainly compare your progress to others, but it's informal and you won't get anything but a warm, fuzzy feeling for beating someone else.

Is my writing safe?
Sure. You don't have to publish anything you write, and nanowrimo.org just has a tool for inputting word counts. They have a word count utility as well, which supposedly scrambles the text so that nobody could possibly steal it, but in seriousness there's no reason to be afraid of whatever you're writing getting out in the wild without you doing it.

Can I win anything?
Only personal satisfaction, which is a surprisingly good thing in my experience. Supposedly you can get some discounts on software or other sponsored goodies if you "win" by hitting 50K words, but I don't actually know how this works.

Can't I just cheat and enter whatever I want in the word count tool then?
Sure, but you're only cheating yourself in the end. The whole point is to make something of your own and prove to yourself that you can do it.

Official website:
https://nanowrimo.org/

Links to previous years:
2021
2020
2019
2018
2017
2016
2015
2014
2013
2012
2011
2010
2009

I've been doing NaNoWriMo for a few years now and ironically I think only the first year that I did it led to anything that really felt satisfying at all, even if I ran out of story ideas near the 50K word mark and never finished it. Every year after that has been easier on a technical level as I've gotten used to the writing, but less satisfying with the end results.

To help combat that, I've spent time writing a few stories during the year to help shake out plots and prepare for NaNoWriMo, with the plan of redrafting them and fixing problems I found. I haven't decided for sure which I'll go with, but had a few ideas. Most likely I'll go with the story I've been working on the past few months, which was a futuristic fantasy story about space farers who find the first known alien space station and as a result the answer to the Fermi paradox: where are all of the aliens? Magic allows FTL space travel, but also allows... certain self destructive possibilities for civilizations.

Failing that, I may try to redraft one of my stories from previous years. The idea of rewriting last year's story from the perspective of the main villain's depressed assistant is appealing, even if I don't think the story will really work from her perspective. Or I could fall back to a couple of years ago with the sapient dragons in the undead apocalypse. I don't have a great second half for that story yet, so probably not.

Creative Projects / National Novel Writing Month 2021

« on: October 24, 2021, 03:15:31 pm »

NaNoWriMo nearly caught me by surprise this year so I didn't start this as early as I did the last few times I remembered to create the thread, but here we go. A little over a week remains before it starts so that's time to think about potential topics.

In case you aren't familiar with NaNoWriMo:

What is NaNoWriMo?
NaNoWriMo is an informal challenge to anyone who wants to write. The idea is simple: you simply have to write 50,000 words of a story during the month of November. You don't necessarily have to finish the story, so long as you write that many words, and it doesn't matter what the story is. This isn't going to be published anywhere without you doing it, so it can be fanfiction for all that the challenge cares.

The point is to just get words down. A lot of writers agree that this is the hard part, and you can easily get stuck trying to edit or world build. From experience, I can say that it's very true, and anyone who wants to give this a shot is strongly encouraged to not fret about the quality of your work and just focus on getting a first draft down. I did last year and hate how it turned out, but I'm still glad I did it since it puts me in a better place to try it this year.

Is this a competition?
Not really. You're only challenging yourself. You can certainly compare your progress to others, but it's informal and you won't get anything but a warm, fuzzy feeling for beating someone else.

Is my writing safe?
Sure. You don't have to publish anything you write, and nanowrimo.org just has a tool for inputting word counts. They have a word count utility as well, which supposedly scrambles the text so that nobody could possibly steal it, but in seriousness there's no reason to be afraid of whatever you're writing getting out in the wild without you doing it.

Can I win anything?
Only personal satisfaction, which is a surprisingly good thing in my experience. Supposedly you can get some discounts on software or other sponsored goodies if you "win" by hitting 50K words, but I don't actually know how this works.

Can't I just cheat and enter whatever I want in the word count tool then?
Sure, but you're only cheating yourself in the end. The whole point is to make something of your own and prove to yourself that you can do it.

Official website:
https://nanowrimo.org/

Links to previous years:
2020
2019
2018
2017
2016
2015
2014
2013
2012
2011
2010
2009

I'm in a better mental state this year than last year so I've spent a bit of time considering what I'll write this time. While I originally planned to once again take a crack at my Ashen Scales setting that consists of sapient fantasy dragons in an undead apocalypse, this year I decided to try to change pace a bit and salvage a video game plot I was working on instead.

The gist of the idea would be a near future fantasy universe of anthropomorphic mythological creatures where a sociopathic dragon has taken control of a medical alchemical device that transforms people into mind controlled robotic slaves in her bid to conquer the world, while a ragtag group of rebels try to defeat her. You get exactly 2 brownie points if you can guess which setting this is inspired by and essentially a spiritual successor to.

Creative Projects / National Novel Writing Month 2019

« on: October 26, 2019, 08:10:32 pm »

Didn't start it as early as last year, but since nobody else started a thread on it, here's 2019's NaNoWriMo thread. Copying most of the material from last year's intro post.

In case you aren't familiar with NaNoWriMo:

What is NaNoWriMo?
NaNoWriMo is an informal challenge to anyone who wants to write. The idea is simple: you simply have to write 50,000 words of a story during the month of November. You don't necessarily have to finish the story, so long as you write that many words, and it doesn't matter what the story is. This isn't going to be published anywhere without you doing it, so it can be fanfiction for all that the challenge cares.

The point is to just get words down. A lot of writers agree that this is the hard part, and you can easily get stuck trying to edit or world build. From experience, I can say that it's very true, and anyone who wants to give this a shot is strongly encouraged to not fret about the quality of your work and just focus on getting a first draft down. I did last year and hate how it turned out, but I'm still glad I did it since it puts me in a better place to try it this year.

Is this a competition?
Not really. You're only challenging yourself. You can certainly compare your progress to others, but it's informal and you won't get anything but a warm, fuzzy feeling for beating someone else.

Is my writing safe?
Sure. You don't have to publish anything you write, and nanowrimo.org just has a tool for inputting word counts. They have a word count utility as well, which supposedly scrambles the text so that nobody could possibly steal it, but in seriousness there's no reason to be afraid of whatever you're writing getting out in the wild without you doing it.

Can I win anything?
Only personal satisfaction, which is a surprisingly good thing in my experience. Supposedly you can get some discounts on software or other sponsored goodies if you "win" by hitting 50K words, but I don't actually know how this works. I "won" last year, but didn't investigate that part.

Can't I just cheat and enter whatever I want in the word count tool then?
Sure, but you're only cheating yourself in the end. The whole point is to make something of your own and prove to yourself that you can do it.

Official website:
https://nanowrimo.org/

Links to previous years:
2018
2017
2016
2015
2014
2013
2012

I actually have a solid topic this year, but fear it's a little too ambitious: a CYOA story about a dragon paladin and his cleric friend (also a dragon) who go digging in the ruins of their collapsed civilization to learn and destroy the source of the undead plaguing the world. The twist is that despite it being a CYOA, you're actually not playing the paladin or cleric and instead an outside force guiding them, which will be a late story plot twist.

I can't decide at this point if writing a CYOA for NaNoWriMo is a good idea because you can get lots of words in by rewriting scenes along different decision paths, or a terrible idea because CYOAs require a lot of planning and I'm historically bad at doing that. Time will tell.

Creative Projects / National Novel Writing Month 2018

« on: October 01, 2018, 04:21:02 pm »

It's a touch early to be starting a thread on National Novel Writing Month (NaNoWriMo) 2018, but in the interest of carrying on the tradition of having an annual threat about it here, I'm starting this one today. It was on my mind since I was talking to friends about it, and it never hurts to start planning early, right?

I suspect most people who are clicking on the thread here are already familiar with NaNoWriMo, but in case you aren't...

What is NaNoWriMo?
NaNoWriMo is an informal challenge to anyone who wants to write. The idea is simple: you simply have to write 50,000 words of a story during the month of November. You don't necessarily have to finish the story, so long as you write that many words, and it doesn't matter what the story is. This isn't going to be published anywhere without you doing it, so it can be fanfiction for all that the challenge cares.

The point is to just get words down. A lot of writers agree that this is the hard part, and you can easily get stuck trying to edit or world build. From experience, I can say that it's very true, and anyone who wants to give this a shot is strongly encouraged to not fret about the quality of your work and just focus on getting a first draft down. I did last year and hate how it turned out, but I'm still glad I did it since it puts me in a better place to try it this year.

Is this a competition?
Not really. You're only challenging yourself. You can certainly compare your progress to others, but it's informal and you won't get anything but a warm, fuzzy feeling for beating someone else.

Is my writing safe?
Sure. You don't have to publish anything you write, and nanowrimo.org just has a tool for inputting word counts. They have a word count utility as well, which supposedly scrambles the text so that nobody could possibly steal it, but in seriousness there's no reason to be afraid of whatever you're writing getting out in the wild without you doing it.

Can I win anything?
Only personal satisfaction, which is a surprisingly good thing in my experience. Supposedly you can get some discounts on software or other sponsored goodies if you "win" by hitting 50K words, but I don't actually know how this works. I "won" last year, but didn't investigate that part.

Can't I just cheat and enter whatever I want in the word count tool then?
Sure, but you're only cheating yourself in the end. The whole point is to make something of your own and prove to yourself that you can do it.

Official website:
https://nanowrimo.org/

Links to previous years:
2017
2016
2015
2014
2013
2012

The challenge is still a month away, but you've got time to plan. I've tried many times in the past and have always failed to plan out stories of any significant length, so I think I'll skip doing substantial planning this year and just discover my story as I go.

I'm currently debating redrafting my attempt from last year, since I hate how it turned out, or just trying something new in the same setting. Or, as a friend suggested, trying to convert an RPG setting we've worked on into a story. Lots of possibilities, and not a ton of time to work through them.

Feel free to discuss the challenge or any prospective stories here, and when the challenge starts, note your progress. I'll post again the day before it starts as a reminder. If anyone already has a Discord or other chat server set up for it, they can note that too. I'd link other writing resources, but based on my meandering comments above about getting lost with editing or world building, that might be counter productive.

DF Community Games & Stories / Shadytrails (My Little Fortress)

« on: February 02, 2015, 01:28:56 am »

Welcome to Shadytrails

As I promised a few weeks ago, here's a new community fort for those who were itching for another My Little Pony: Friendship is Magic fort. Set in the same universe as my previous two games, it would be helpful if you're familiar with them already. If you're not and have a lot of time to kill, have a look at Dawnpick and Duskfields. Unfortunately, Dawnpick has suffered over the years and has had a lot of the early images rot and some of the posts have been vandalized for unknown reasons, so you can check out Paaaad's very nice edit of it on FiMFiction: Dawnpick. It's nowhere near done, but I greatly appreciate the huge effort already put into it.

If you're not familiar with either Dawnpick or Duskfields, that's okay too. This game takes place in the same world, but 30 years prior to the events of Dawnpick. Some of the same characters may exist, somewhere, but this is a story completely unrelated to Virtue and her family. The important thing to take away from it is that this is a fort based on My Little Pony, but the canon is very different from what is in the cartoon.

This is not a succession fort, despite the fact that it's a successor to my previous fort. Don't be confused, it's just a community fort.

The Story Begins

Thirty years before the events of Dawnpick, the world is in a relatively peaceful, if fragmented state. The ponies, griffons, zebras, diamond dogs and others live in relative isolation, trying to stay out of each others' ways. There are the few merchant guilds that span the gaps between their lands, but most find the work hard, unforgiving, and oftentimes not profitable enough to extend their reach deep into the various kingdoms.

To remedy this problem, many are seeking to set up permanent trade routes and trading posts to supply them. The Prestigious Confederacy is one such group: a large merchant organization staffed by a wide variety of creatures from many lands and seeking to bring them together in the name of economics. They have chosen several key sites, chosen the most eager of their bright eyed and bushy tailed upcoming officers, hired the needed help, and sent them on their merry way to fortune or ruin.

This is the story of Isolde Hookbill, a young adult griffoness, and her team, set out on the road to found Shadytrails. Deep in the south, it's near enough to several old trade routes and rivers large enough to handle shipping, so it seems to be a promising site.

Will she bring fame and fortune to her employers, or will disaster strike first?

So cold. Hopefully this wasn't a mistake!

Expedition Team

Here's the expedition team. Click on any avatar to get a full sized image. Note that most of these characters are already taken, so if you're looking to join, check the next post!

- Isolde Hookbill - She's the expedition leader

- Silver Rush - A batpony (treated as a Pegasus in game) and the team's miner

- Jack Pine - The team's woodcutter

- Shooting Star - A soldier specializing in archery

- Tunda - The team's farmer

- Patina Dreams - The team's mason and metal crafter

- Rosewood - The team's carpenter

- Gunther - The team's doctor

- Kiume - The militia commander and swordszebra

- Shortstack - The team's cook and brewer

Isolde's Diary, 15th Granite, 222

Today, we came to the join of two small rivers and decided to call the traveling to a stop. There's snow as far as the eye can see, so I don't see much point in trying to go much further. According to the map, we should be where we were headed anyway, or close enough.

Someone higher up in management wrote the word 'Clusterbuck' on my map, which I'm hoping was a mistake. I'm going to say it was, anyway. I got everyone together last night and had a little vote on what to really call the place, and the name that came out of the discussion was 'Shadytrails.' Shortstack's idea I think? Anyway, I like it. It's sure better than 'Clusterbuck' anyway.

Right now 'Snowytrails' would be a more appropriate name, but I'm sure it'll start warming up soon enough and all of that will be gone. Last year had a particularly hard winter, so I'm not too worried about the snow still being around. In truth, this is a good thing, since it means that any merchants traveling nearby will want to come here to resupply and rest. That should be good for business, both ways, since they'll be able to travel further and should have much better morale with a hot meal and warm place to sleep.

But I'm getting ahead of myself. This is probably literally the hardest moment in this whole expedition: getting started now that we're here. There's nothing but work to do, and even though there's ten of us able to pitch in, it's going to be a while before we have anything remotely like an outpost here.

For now, it's time to get the wagon unloaded, get something warm cooking, and get some shelter set up. Everyone's pretty tired, so we can start working hard tomorrow. Until then, we can all relax a bit and be happy that we made it out here without any incidents.

DF Community Games & Stories / My Little Fortress Interest Check

« on: January 12, 2015, 12:19:37 am »

So, it's been almost two years since the last time I started a My Little Pony community fortress, and the itch is back. I've been planning this off and on for a long while now, but I think it's finally getting about time to actually try it. I also figured that this time I might give some of the potential players a bit of forewarning while also gauging interest in the potential fort.

Here's a little preview of what I have planned:

Shadytrails

30 years before the events of my first community fort, Dawnpick, an entrepreneuring merchant guild, holding members of ponies, zebras, griffons, horses (Saddle Arabian style) and other diverse species, is looking to capitalize on the untapped trails traveled by merchants between the countries. They're hoping to establish frontier towns where these trails meet or at other strategic locations, boosting their own profits and extending the range that the merchants can travel. Lead by the griffon Isolde Hookbill, this will be the story of one such (un)lucky travelers looking to make a few bits and set out on the ~~Oregon~~ trail.

Game Information

The game is going to be much lighter in tone and have a much less railroaded story than Duskfields. Expect it to be much closer to Dawnpick in tone, with some danger but no persistent threat of sieges or unexpected random deaths.

It's going to be a pretty standard community fort otherwise. It's not a succession fort. People just claim ponies (or whatevers) and write journals or RP like in the other games.

As of right now, I have no terminal conditions in mind, so it'll probably just run until it feels like it's time to end it, like Dawnpick.

Speaking of characters, here's a preview of those lovely equines (and whatevers) that you could be playing. Please note that only the last 3 are still available for claiming, but new migrants will of course be available as the game goes along. Click any of the avatars to see the full image!

Characters - Claimed already, you can't have these!

- Isolde Hookbill - Claimed by Telgin (me) - She's the expedition leader

- Silver Rush- Claimed by Kryptid - A batpony (treated as a Pegasus in game) and the team's miner

- Jack Pine - Claimed by DVNO - The team's woodcutter

- Shooting Star - Claimed by vkiNm - A soldier specializing in archery

- Tunda - Claimed by Amorack - The team's farmer

- Patina Dreams - Claimed by KingStrongbeard - The team's mason and metal crafter

- Rosewood - Claimed by (no forum handle yet) - The team's carpenter

Characters - Unclaimed, you can have these!

- Gunther - The team's doctor

- Kiume - The militia commander and swordszebra

- Shortstack - The team's cook and brewer

Claiming a Character

If you want one of the three unclaimed characters above, great, you can express interest here or after the game begins and they're yours. If you want to claim a migrant, that's great! No restrictions there. In fact, you can even make some small tweaks if you want. Silver Rush is a batpony, but is really a Pegasus in game, for example. Donkeys and mules are easy to do too, since they're really just renaming earth ponies.

What about the art though? Kryptid was kind enough to do all of the images you see above, and I'm super thankful. You can get one too if you want, but read below on his rules for getting something:

Quote from: Kryptid

Due to the extra effort required for drawing in this style, I am trying to avoid wasted effort by drawing characters for people who rarely or never use them. Yes, this has happened in the past: A person claims a character, I draw the avatar, then it never gets used.

So before I draw an avatar for a character, the person who claimed said character must participate in at least two separate scenes (or substantial character journal posts) before an avatar will be drawn for them. Once again, due to the extra time it takes me to draw these portraits, full-body pictures will not be done for any characters other than the starting 10.

I will make an exception for this on the condition that the person who wishes to have a full-body picture pays $15 US as a commission fee. If you so choose, a free avatar will be created immediately upon completion of the full-body portrait whether or not you have participated in any scenes. If requests become excessive, the price for a full-body picture may be raised.

Another note from me: In the past, important characters have been claimed, then their player disappears or just stops playing or whatever. If you claim a character and never do anything with them, they'll probably be made available again at my option. If you've done a lot with them and just want to drop out of the game, I'll probably not do this, but I don't want to risk having starting characters lost to people who impulsively claim someone in a fort and never post.

Great, when is all of this starting?

Soon. Within the month I seriously hope. Right now I'm largely waiting on DFHack to update to work with .40.24, since it'll be needed for a lot of things. Specifically, I'll need it to prevent griffons from laying eggs that hatch into zebras, and similar nonsense.

So, stay tuned!

Also, if you hate ponies, great. No need to let us know.

DF Community Games & Stories / Duskfields (My Little Fortress)

« on: February 07, 2013, 10:58:25 pm »

Welcome to Duskfields

A few of you will probably recognize what this is off the bat. For those of you who don't, this is a direct successor to my old community fort from late 2011, Dawnpick. If you're not familiar at all with Dawnpick, that's okay! I do recommend that you go back and read the fort updates if you get a chance though, which are linked from the first post. They will help place the setting. The bottom line is that this is a fort based on My Little Pony, but the canon is very different from what is in the cartoon.

This is not a succession fort, despite the fact that it's a successor to my previous fort. Don't be confused, it's just a community fort.

The Story Begins

It's been five years since the events of Dawnpick came to a close. A few things have happened since then in that little mining town, but this is a story about another group of ponies. This is the story of the Fellowship of Hope, a group of ten brave ponies who heeded the call of the king and queen of Coupledye.

The populations of Coupledye and its attendant lands have grown considerably over the past decades, and resources are starting to be spread a bit thin. Twenty years ago Virtue Cookales led an expedition to seek out new sources of rich minerals to fuel the economy. But ponies do not live on steel alone.

This is the story of Virtue's younger brother Temperance Scribebakes, and his expedition to fulfill a more basic need. Coupledye needs more food, and new farming communities are being established throughout the land. Temperance volunteered for the most distant and challenging of the new sites, eager to prove himself to the royalty and everypony in Coupledye.

My, what a nice place you've picked out to journey to, Temperance.

Temperance and his band have traveled for three months to reach the rolling plains that they were promised, and in celebration of arriving he has christened the lands Duskfields. Will he succeed and bring more honor to the family and himself?

Or is he doomed in ways he cannot begin to imagine?

Huge thanks to Kryptid for all of the artwork you see here!

From right to left, Smoothblock, Case Study (on the rock), Flamberge, Maize, Temperance, Crosshair, Wood Chips (way in the back), Cream Puff (on the ground), Holly and Veneer (way in the back) settle in after a long journey and prepare to put in the hard labor to build Duskfields up strong. This is their story. Hopefully, it won't be a short one...

Temperance's Journal, 1st Granite, 269

We're here. It's not as impressive to look at as I expected, but we're here all the same. After three months of slogging our way here, we've made it. At least it's warm. Trudging through snow the whole way here wouldn't have been very fun at all.

There's so much work to be done. I've talked with Virtue a dozen dozen times about how she started things out in Dawnpick. I've heard every last little detail. She even let me read some of her diary to see what decisions she made, and which were mistakes. I think I know how to proceed. It's going to be a huge amount of work, but I'm ready. I'm not scared to put in some effort. And I know the others aren't either.

Which is good, because I've already got work laid out for most of them, and there's plenty of lugging stuff around for the rest. The land's fairly level, thank goodness, but there's still a bit of earth moving to be done so I've asked Smoothblock to look into it. That ought to give her something to do to get her out of my mane for a little while. Holly too. I don't think the two are getting along too well, which is somewhat understandable. I'll get Holly to start knocking some of these trees down to let her vent a bit, and to get us something for Veneer and Wood Chips to start working with.

As for me and the others, there's a lot of unloading to do.

I'll probably keep reciting all of Virtue's warnings in my head as we unload everything. That keeps coming back to me whenever I don't have anything else to occupy my mind. She begged me not to come. Begged me. I know she means well, but I'm a thirty five year old stallion. I can handle myself.

Anyway, I did some debating and I think I'm going to name this place Duskfields. It's kind of a small nod to her and Dawnpick, even if she didn't like the idea of me coming out here. Maybe she'll get a kick out of the name when she gets my letter. But more to the point, it's getting dusky, and the name just stuck with me. Far off to the north, I can see what looks like a small dust storm sweeping the land. I didn't expect that out here, but it's a minor inconvenience. We'll weather a dust storm with no problem.

Tomorrow is going to be a long day.

DF Modding / Debugging interactions

« on: January 25, 2013, 10:48:13 pm »

I'm trying to create a new megabeast to act as a sort of "boss" encounter that will hopefully turn up in a new fort of mine. Part of that means making it have a few very dangerous interactions. I'm having a lot of trouble getting them to work properly though. First, to the meat of things.

Here's the relevant bits of my creature definition:

Code: [Select]

	[CAN_DO_INTERACTION:NECROSIS_STRONG]
	[CAN_DO_INTERACTION:PARALYZE_STRONG]
	[CAN_DO_INTERACTION:UNCONSCIOUS_STRONG]
	[CAN_DO_INTERACTION:DIZZY_STRONG]

And the relevant interactions:

Code: [Select]

[INTERACTION:NECROSIS_STRONG]
	[I_SOURCE:CREATURE_ACTION]
	[I_TARGET:A:CREATURE]
		[IT_LOCATION:CONTEXT_CREATURE]
		[IT_CANNOT_TARGET_IF_ALREADY_AFFECTED]
		[IT_MANUAL_INPUT:victim]
	[I_EFFECT:ADD_SYNDROME]
		[IE_TARGET:A]
		[IE_IMMEDIATE]
		[IE_ARENA_NAME:Necrotic]
		[SYNDROME]
			[SYN_NAME:necrosis]
			[SYN_AFFECTED_CLASS:GENERAL_POISON]
			[CE_NAUSEA:SEV:100:PROB:100:RESISTABLE:SIZE_DILUTES:START:5:PEAK:10:END:30]
			[CE_PAIN:SEV:60:PROB:100:RESISTABLE:SIZE_DILUTES:START:5:PEAK:10:END:30]
			[CE_OOZING:SEV:40:PROB:100:RESISTABLE:SIZE_DILUTES:START:5:PEAK:10:END:30]
			[CE_NECROSIS:SEV:100:PROB:100:RESISTABLE:SIZE_DILUTES:START:5:PEAK:10:END:30]
	[CDI:WAIT_PERIOD:150]
	[CDI:ADV_NAME:Necrotic]
	[CDI:VERB:sneer:sneers:NA]
	[CDI:TARGET:A:LINE_OF_SIGHT]
	[CDI:TARGET_RANGE:A:25]
	[CDI:USAGE_HINT:ATTACK]
	[CDI:MAX_TARGET_NUMBER:A:1]
	[CDI:TARGET_VERB:beginning to feel ill:begins to feel ill]

All of the interactions look exactly the same, aside from the flavor text and the CE_X syndrome tags for the effects. The problem is that it appears that my creatures are hitting themselves with the interactions for some reason. I can spawn one, then an aardvark, and immediately the aardvark and the creature are suffering from anything from paralysis to dizziness, and soon suffocate. Have I screwed something up in the targeting that's causing that?

Also, for my paralysis attack, I've been trying to prevent complete cheap shots by suffocation and added a [CE_ADD_TAG:NO_BREATHE:START:0:END:30] tag to the syndrome. I'm not sure this is working though, since victims still suffocate. I think they may be suffering complete paralysis that outlasts the NO_BREATHE token however. Is that what's happening, or does this not work this way at all?

Thanks for any help. I'm still debugging these, so I'll have more soon I imagine.

DF Modding / Worldwide undead

« on: November 21, 2012, 12:17:08 am »

I've been kicking around the idea of trying to generate an undead apocalypse type world in DF, but I'm not quite sure what the best way to go about that would be. There are a few ways I've thought about going about doing this, but having never attempted this before I could use some assistance.

First off, I'd like any embark to have a large proportion of undead on it, if not entirely undead. However, I don't want to have to deal with zombies standing back up every 15 seconds, and the possibility of other annoying evil region clouds and rains are kind of offputting.

It's possible to create custom regional interactions to reanimate, correct? Would it be possible to copy the example from the interaction examples directory and change the reanimation from weekly to monthly? If I do that, I need to fiddle with the advanced worldgen parameters to get rid of the built in reanimation interaction, correct? Do I just reduce the number to 0?

The other way I've considered doing this is through the creature variation system used for animal people and giant creatures. You can add and remove tags this way, but would it be possible to replace tissues this way? To say create ghost variations for creatures? None of the existing creature variations do that to my knowledge, but would it just be a matter of adding the appropriate tags? Is that possible?

I also don't want caravans, but that's a different problem altogether. I think it would be simple enough to add an undead civilization to get ambushes and sieges from, but preventing your own civ from showing up is another problem altogether. Perhaps I should just embark on an island, does that prevent the home civ caravan from arriving?

Thanks for any help.

DF Dwarf Mode Discussion / Broken Invaders

« on: October 27, 2012, 05:02:28 pm »

I have an interesting dilemma in my current fort. No enemies are showing up.

I know that people have speculated a lot on how invaders work in general, but I can't seem to make much sense of the current situation. In this fort, I used to get ambushers every season, sometimes several squads per season. I'm sure that was tied to me producing lots of steel weapons and armor, and after that tapered off I started only getting ambushers once a year or so. Okay, fine.

Now, I used to get thieves and snatchers mixed in with this all the time, as I expected. That seemed to be about normal.

Now, in my 14th game year, I haven't seen an ambush in five years, nor am I receiving any thieves or snatchers of any variety. I have received two megabeasts: a giant and a cyclops, but that was many years ago in game. I have gone at least five full years without seeing a single hostile thing show up, despite having 114 citizens and about 4 million fort wealth. Artifacts are turned off for RP reasons, so fort wealth is a tad low, but it still seems like it should be enough to at least receive ambushers.

Invaders have not been turned off. I'm not sure why I'm not at least receiving thieves and snatchers.

What's very strange however, is that for giggles I dug too deep to meet Fun, and when I did this I immediately received an ambush thereafter without increasing my fort wealth. I savescummed and started mass producing steel discs to drive up my wealth, and a year later I've seen nothing. Not even a forgotten beast.

Is this possibly a bug? Are invaders "stuck" somehow perhaps, and digging too deep fixed that? Has anyone else seen this sort of behavior before, or know of anything I can do to possibly alleviate it?

I think it may somehow perhaps sort of be related to another bug I've experienced where my count went on break about 6-7 years ago and never came out of it. I've got a ton of diplomats dallying about in my dining hall now waiting on a meeting that will never come. I can't help but wonder if the behavior is loosely related.

Any ideas?

Creative Projects / Tabletop Wargame Design

« on: September 19, 2012, 12:27:17 am »

I've seen a few threads in this forum about RPG design, but nothing about this topic yet. I've been working on a tabletop wargaming system not unlike Warhammer Fantasy Battles or Warhammer 40,000, and I'm still pretty early in the overall design phase such that I can throw away large parts of it without much sadness.

One part I'm currently stuck on, however, is how to model leadership in a satisfying and gaming friendly matter. This is something that has always been a sore spot for me in Warhammer 40K. I understand the game is supposed to be over the top with heroes leading from the front, but I'd like to model something a bit more tame where leaders only advance as far as they are needed, and focus more on actually leading their army than eviscerating the enemy themselves.

I won't go into details on how Warhammer and 40K handle this, but in general I want something more realistic. I think this is actually a few problems instead of just one, but I'm a bit lost on how to model it. Leaders need to be valuable to the army somehow, and in a way other than killing potential. I've wrestled with this idea a bit, and one of the embryonic concepts I came up with was to use abstract command points.

Command points would be generated by a unit (say a squad of infantry men generate 1 point), and actions require command points to execute. Leaders generate extra command points. So, if your squad has a sergeant, then it can perhaps do two things since they get 2 command points (1 for the unit, 1 for the sergeant as long as he's alive). That sort of adds some tactical edge to the game, but quickly leads into nonsensical situations when I tried to add in a command chain concept. A quick patch to allow that was for commanding units to have subordinate squads they could give spare command points to. This would encourage you to keep squads close to their leaders (or in contact anyway), and to keep your leaders alive. But it's utter nonsense when you try to use command points as an action point type system. Imagine your squad can suddenly do a third thing because the lieutenant is standing nearby... A possible patch to that was to only allow command points to allow you to do certain things (like split fire between two target units), but that's getting complicated.

So I'm thinking I'm going to throw that out and do something completely different. I've considered just using a leadership system similar to 40K but with patches. So your unit has a leadership value they have to roll against to avoid fear and the like, and commanders just give them a boost to that if conditions are met (such as being in range). But then I don't know how to integrate higher levels of command in a useful manner...

So, I'm pretty sure my problem stems from the fact that I'm only really familiar with these two systems. Does anyone have any suggestions on another way to model these aspects of leading an army? There's the commissioned officers in the command chain giving out orders and passing them down (presumably as you, maybe lower units don't get your orders if the leaders are dead?), and NCOs in squads keep the squad together and moving toward the objective (i.e. passing leadership tests). Is there an existing game system that handles any of this well?

DF Dwarf Mode Discussion / Dealing with ambushes

« on: August 05, 2012, 09:09:12 am »

So in my current fort, I'm getting ambushes every season, usually at least two squads and sometimes up to four. This is causing an unacceptable number of casualties, and I want to do something about it, but I'm not really sure where to start.

The ambushes are normally detected by my hapless woodcutters, who promptly die before my soldiers can get anywhere close to the ambushers to deal with them. To help deal with this, I started stationing military squads near the trees I designate to cut down. This helps, but in order to keep their casualities to a minimum, I have to send about 20 soldiers, otherwise I'll lose half of them. This despite the fact that they're all wearing full suits of steel armor (and not complete noobs), which is again quite frustrating.

Anyway, that means that I then don't have enough troops left to guard my entrance to the other squad or three of ambushers that are sure to show up and kill someone before the military can go deal with them.

Yes, I know this is DF and lots of carnage is sort of in the spirit of the game, but losing one or two civilians and one or two soldiers almost every season is taking me dangerously close to tantrum spiraling, not to mention the fact that I sort of would like to actually get some skilled soldiers instead of burying them.

So, does anyone have any particular tactics they use to mitigate the damage of ambushes? I've heard of things like chaining up animals around the map to hopefully encounter the ambushers before something important does. Any other ideas? I suppose I could just stop cutting down trees altogether, but I really need the charcoal and all.

DF Modding / Relationships Utility

« on: February 15, 2012, 06:20:52 pm »

After having been part of two community forts, I've seen some frustration in the difficulties with getting two specific dwarves to get hitched. Might seem like a small thing, but I like to be able to influence this sort of thing. Burrowing them together usually works, eventually, but takes forever and a day.

Is there a utility that already exists that allows you to force relationship statuses between dwarves? My attempts at searching seem to indicate that you can do a lot of stuff with some utilities like Runesmith, but not this.

I've been attempting to find a way to do this myself with a memory trainer, but it's turning out to be an arduous process that won't likely yield useful results any time soon. I presently know nothing about Dwarf Fortress's memory layout (in either 31.25 or 34.01), so I'm stabbing in the dark here. If there are no utilities, have any of you who have worked on one of these utilities got any advice on how to proceed?

I assume that it should be a matter of forcing some memory values to a high number and letting the dwarves talk to each other, thus triggering a move from friend to lover or lover to getting married, but you know what assuming does...

Edit
There is now a way of doing this for those interested
I figured out how to do this the hard way, but even better are two DFHack Lua scripts I wrote to handle forcing marriages and divorces. For more information, see here.

DF Dwarf Mode Discussion / No breastplates?

« on: December 03, 2011, 02:42:43 am »

So now that I've finally got some steel to make decent stuff out of, I notice that I have no option to make steel breastplates (actually, steel peytrals, using the pony mod). I can make flexible breastplates, and hard metal armor of all other types. I was able to make hard metal breastplates in another fort with the mod.

This is caused by my civilization not having access to these items, right? That seems kind of... mean... of Dwarf Fortress. I wouldn't think that you could be randomly denied a piece of armor like that. An important one at that.

I take it that there's nothing I can do about this? Will I just have to wait until I get down to adamantine to make adamantine breastplates? In the meantime, will I be hugely disadvantaged by using mail shirts instead? I had intended to layer the two, but I guess that won't be happening now.

I'm not averse to using an external utility to change this, but I'm going to guess that no such thing exists, right?

Edit: Eh, just realized this should have probably gone in the little questions thread, but what's done is done.