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[WertyMiniBot]

Right now, in DFAM (Dwarf Fortress Adventure Mode), there is one "Difficulty setting" for a new character, to set the general strength. This can be set to Peasant, Hero, and Demigod, in easing order. This influences allowance of starting increase to both skills and attributes. However, lets say one wanted to start out with a fresh recruit, but still have that character be strong and eager. This couldn't happen in current DF because the difficulty effects both bodily strength and experience. What I am saying is, have 2 options: experience (new recruit, hardened recruit, seasoned warrior, veteran), and strength (average, strong, powerful, extraordinary). This will allow more freedom in choosing what character someone wants to start with, be it a peonic recruit, a battle master, a newcomer with potential, some average strength person who was just lucky and could build up skill, or simply a well trained soldier.

[Orange Wizard]

Or, you could start as a demigod and just not allocate all of the skill points.

[WertyMiniBot]

Wouldn't there be no point having a difficulty select if you allocated as much points to a demigod as a peasant? If they bothered to have difficulty, then why couldn't they add too it?

[Orange Wizard]

Most of the difficulty in the game comes from self-imposed challenges anyway. Like choosing to embark on a haunted glacier as opposed to a peaceful grassland. As such, "difficulty" doesn't really apply in the traditional sense.
In premise, I like your idea. I would like to be able to choose certain starting situations for my adventurers beyond "random peasant" or "soldier". However, having your starting situation act as a difficulty setting seems fairly arbitrary.

In all honestly, I don't really like the difficulty setting for adventure mode at all. If the system as-is were to be redesigned, I would like to see no option for difficulty, but rather options for things like who my parents where (gods, rulers, farmers, never knew them...), the kind of upbringing I had (urchin, raised on a farm, brought up in a noble's court...), and so on. That's also when we bring in what you suggested, but as far as I'm concerned, having a linear progression from weak to strong is very, very dull.

[EinsteinSatDown]

It seems that a backstory for our adventurers is planned by Toady.

From what I could garner from the tracker, though, is that this may very well be a randomly generated backstory aiming simply to integrate the adventurer with the world.

One thing that may apply to difficulty is where one starts one's adventure. Instead of starting in a friendly hamlet or fortress, would it not be entertaining if your starting position is rangen?

This means that you can start on a ship, or as a goblin captive or a soldier marching in an army. This will make things quite interesting.
The question is, will it be completely rangen, thus giving you no control over the difficulty of the starting situation, or will you be able to choose "Easy"(Hamlet) all the way up to "Very Hard"(Tied to a necromancer's slab)?

[Orange Wizard]

That sounds interesting. I'd like to see a more general approach, so you get one or two questions to direct the game towards an appropriate figure. "I'm a skilled soldier, and I'm fleeing justice". "I'm a pansy, and I'm an important local leader". Enough so that the player can choose the flavour, but the game decides the specifics.
Playing as actual historical figures would be fantastic. You have a history beyond just spawning into the world, a story behind that missing arm of yours, the otherwise throw-away silver scimitar has a list of kills... Little things, I guess.

[WertyMiniBot]

That would be interesting, being able to take the role of an important historical figure. It could be one of your veteran dwarves that escaped your fortress as a cat demon burned it with it's fire breath. Maybe it could even be the mega beast that destroyed your other fortress.

However, I do have a problem with this. What if you started a game as a person who had his arms cut off and his lower spine tissue cut apart? Then it wouldn't be so fun. What I'm trying to say is, you should not begin a game already permanently crippled.

[Orange Wizard]

I guess that's something that could have some kind of toggle. Personally, I wouldn't mind starting the game injured. Crippled, not so much, but missing an eye or an arm would be kinda fun.

[WertyMiniBot]

Sure. There should be an option to exclude or include cripples. It would be normally set to exclude, but you could leave it on include if you want to challenge yourself by starting with a crutch, or without a shield arm. Perhaps you could even set it to force you to start with a cripple. Of course, you should still never start with SNT (Spinal Nervous Tissue) damage, or both arms cut off.