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[SanctusTerrae]

It's been a while since I posted anything, because most of the ideas I've had have already been discussed. However, I think I've got a real gem here, and it came from
this sweet retro game I bought from Good Old Games: Darklands.

I won't go too much into the game, instead I'll get right to the point-Darklands had a character generation system where you chose your adventurer's family caste (Country crafts, noble blood, etc.), which determined their starting stats and items. Then, you could choose, in 5 year increments, their jobs-they started working at 15-and could advance through their job tree, gaining more experience and personal items along the way. E.g. if you told your 15 year old noble son to join the militia, at 20 he could be a militia captain complete with sword and armor, and have weapon skills and charisma to lead his men. If your family was poor, he could become a bandit and work on his strength and woodwise (To better ambush his victims with the wooden club he has). You could further personalize this life with EP-Experience points, making him stronger, faster, smarter...etc.

I don't think I explained it very well, but there are the basics. So, could we add this into DF, if not a mainline update, then as a mod?

I've read a post detailing how dwarves should be able to take personal items with them on their expedition, and that those personal items shouldn't detract from Mountainhome-issue equipment: http://www.bay12forums.com/smf/index.php?topic=139557.15 I agree that personal equipment shouldn't detract from embark points, and that dwarves should've had training/employment in the appropriate skill to own such personal items in the first place. I believe this system would work with that. I'm ashamed to admit that I've canceled many games before they even begun, because my embarking dwarves didn't have the personalities I wanted, or all of them were super weak and slow to heal...

Basically, at the embark screen, instead of having 7 procedurally-generated dwarves, you could have 7 "Select/create/choose new expedition member" slots, and maybe a hotkey for randomly generating dwarves. Selecting a new expedition member would take you to a screen letting you customize that dwarf's entire life. The longer they live, the more experience and personal items they accrue. Naturally, this should be balanced so you don't have a group of 7 20-year old legendary badasses. You'd have to balance experience with youth, perhaps making stats begin to decay at old age, like Darklands.

You could still have a (sharply reduced) pool of Embark Points-these represent how much support the Mountainhome government will offer your expedition. It shouldn't be too much, just enough for food, booze, whatever materials your dwarves didn't happen to acquire in their individual lives.

Basically, customizing your dwarves would be like a Create Your Own Adventure, and the dwarf's innate personality (which you should be able to at least randomize), and their attributes would open up or prohibit them from making certain lifestyle choices.

I can see it now...

The band of seven gathered around their wagon, ready to depart. One was an elderly miner, his finesse with the iron pick at his belt complimenting the mounds of muscle on his body. He didn't talk much and wasn't particularly comfortable with talking, preferring to be alone in the tunnels as he'd been for much of his life.

Another was a jovial brewer and tavern-keeper following in the profession of his father, a big flatterer with a belly to match. He wasn't particularly strong or agile, or smart, for that matter, but was bringing along a few kegs of his finest, to keep him warm during the cold Obsidian nights.

The third looked up from polishing his crossbow-a fleet-footed hunter from one of the surrounding hamlets, who fed his family with what he killed and butchered himself. He had a grudge against the fourth member, the younger son of the local Lord of that same hamlet, who was greedy and obsessive to a fault, not to mention jittery and easily scared. The lord had sent him here to avert a succession crisis, or to get rid of him-a bit of both, maybe. Nonetheless, the swine was good at writing and would at least make a decent scholar.

From another hamlet, a middle-aged farmer dressed in leather had a bag of vegetables with him, eager to plow new lands. Unlike most dwarves, he liked nature, and saddened after not seeing any animals for a time.

The sixth was a jack of all trades, a wandering vagrant who had tried his hand at carpentry, masonry, and even pottery without accomplishing much in either. One of those creative types, he was fickle and prone to fantastic ideas, and a shameless romantic to boot. If he would only settle down long enough to hone one of his crafts, he'd be a great addition to the fort.

The last member of the caravan was a scarred, disciplined militia commander. Joyless and utterly humorless, he'd lost more men than could count, and wore two sets of armor-one of iron, one of emotional detachment. He'd given an eye to the recent campaign against the Elves, and in return the elves had given dozens of skulls to him for his maul to shatter.

...And it can get so much more customizable than this. I'm not doing this justice in the slightest.

*Update* Toady's planning to add guilds into the game. There's a nugget of customizable background-have your dwarf join a guild and progress through it before coming to your fort.

[Dozebôm Lolumzalìs]

Meh, I don't much like the concept of embark-designing dwarves. I'd rather prefer to "buy" them with embark points, basically convincing them, by paying them, to come. You could bring a bunch of easy-to-bribe peasants and spend all the money on gold, or you could bring a master craftsman and not much else. The money you have could be part of the embark scenarios - and if you, say, are told to make a temple, maybe priests or nuns or whatever would come along for free.

You could still somewhat choose the dwarves, but you couldn't minmax them. Not so much "micromanage their histories" as "choose whichever of the dorfs at this tavern look good."

But for adventurers? This looks great!

Hell, I just got the best idea I've had yet: start adventurer mode-like, choosing a dorf's background - then go and recruit some dwarves, find some equipment! Super-fast-travel over to the embark site and STRIKE THE EARTH.

Probably not a new idea though.

[DG]

People should be able to play with all of the elements they most enjoy in their game, and the easiest way to achieve that is to let them specify what they want. If that means they end up mix-maxing their dwarves, more power to them. It's a single player game so it shouldn't (and doesn't) matter. I wish you could specify everything (everything), or at least re-roll on individual components to get a set-up that you want with time (rather than only being able to re-roll on very broad ranges and with having to abort and restart game etc, which is the same thing but just takes a hell of a lot more time). I also shouldn't need to generate the same world more than a hundred times with just the history on random because I want a dwarven pantheon with a volcano god and a water god that did not take the form of a dwarf (I eventually got a green tree frog god, which wasn't really aquatic, but I was exhausted so close enough). That's probably a big ask with the way the game has been programmed but I can still dream. I also re-roll until none of my starting seven have stupid preferences that don't exist, but most people aren't so masochistic. It seems that for now Toady is more or less against what I'd prefer in Fortress Mode but more open to it in Adventurer mode. Both modes are ever so slowly becoming more like the other so there's still hope for me. We got to choose our own local government symbol recently, how great was that? More All of that, please.

Anyway, I support OPs suggestion in so far as I support any suggestion that gives more control over the set-up rather than hand it all over to RNG. The people who care about it (pity us) just end up trying over and over again rather than playing the game.

[IndigoFenix]

In the future, it is possible that your starting party would be recruited from actual populations, so customizing them wouldn't be possible.  Dozebom's scenario seems to be most in line with the eventual goal of the game.

With adventure mode building in the next version, it is only a matter of time before we can switch straight from adventure mode to fort mode, so we will probably have the option to start a fortress by recruiting a starting party as an adventurer and traveling to the site with them.

[NW_Kohaku]

You could still somewhat choose the dwarves, but you couldn't minmax them. Not so much "micromanage their histories" as "choose whichever of the dorfs at this tavern look good."

But for adventurers? This looks great!

Why, exactly, should there be so much a difference between adventurers and the starting seven?

Now, I personally don't like the current "just buy stats" system of DF's adventurer mode, but I don't understand why these should be so different.

To be honest, I tend to just "reroll" my dwarves until I get ones I like when embarking on a "serious fort" by simply looking over my dwarves and cancelling the embark until I get a set I think are interesting.  It's user-unfriendly, but it accomplishes something of the same goals.

Anyway, to get back to the OP...

You might also want to look at the Mechwarrior 3rd Edition rules. In that game, you had "career paths" that worked somewhat similarly.  Start with a family background that gives certain changes to your stats and skills, then roll dice to see some random event happen that can further change things.  Then, pick a childhood that fits the types of childhoods that family background will support, followed by another random event roll.  (This being a sanity check to make the daughter of nobility not get a "school of hard knocks" as a street urchin childhood.) When you roll, it has random chances to make good things happen or bad things if you really crap out.  For example, a farm boy/girl childhood will have random rolls where you might "be a natural with the tractor" and get +2 piloting skill, while the lowest possible roll is a tragic combine mishap that costs you a limb.

It also, notably, however, allows you to negotiate certain things with your GM so that if you wanted to be a mechanic instead of a pilot, you could fudge the +2 piloting skill event for a +2 mechanics because you "really took to the mechanics of the tractor" instead.

Regardless, I like the system more than plain point-buy systems because point-buys tend to result in boring, same-y characters that are, yes, min-maxed for the purpose the player wants to put them to.  The mix of choosing life paths and then having some random events makes for a more interesting set of characters, and it also inherently involves forcing some role-playing into the otherwise dry and boring choice of making your character in a non pencil-and-paper RPG where nobody is there to share in your RP if you do it on your own.

This could, of course, play in well with starting scenarios: You might have, for example, some sort of suggested pool of characters, so, if we're buying some characters of different backgrounds, you might see that "military dwarf" careers are cheaper if you're starting a border fortress, while "craftsdwarf" careers are more expensive in terms of the "political capital" you are spending to set up the expedition.  (It seems odd to assume you're literally paying for skills.) 

Skills are generally trainable on-site in Dwarf Fortress, however, so they're not nearly as important as personality traits.  Hence, I'd be more interested in having personality traits shaped (pseudo-retroactively) via the type of backstory you craft for each dwarf, with a military dwarf life path making one more inclined towards valuing military and law and being more brave, violent, dutiful, immoderate, and persevere more while having less respect for tranquility, less hope, and less abstract-inclined.

In general, the most important thing I do in looking over my starting seven is select my mayor and eventual baron.  I need someone who is a good "people dwarf", and who has preferences that are easily fulfilled, like preferring turkey or goose meat, doors, plump helmet wine, and whose favorite gems and metals are at least on the trade list from my mountainhome. I also cater my jobs to the personalities of my starting seven, and will "reroll" if I get too lazy a set of dwarves.  (I saw a thread once of someone who had a starting seven so lazy they literally refused to dig or start work on a farm and almost starved to death until migrants came in to save them by actually doing some work.)

A set of backstory choices with events that further shape and randomize would be much more interesting as a way of putting together a starting seven, and help get players interested in their eventual fates when they're starting out, and these are otherwise just happy faces with names and a few skill points.

[SanctusTerrae]

To be honest, I tend to just "reroll" my dwarves until I get ones I like when embarking on a "serious fort" by simply looking over my dwarves and cancelling the embark until I get a set I think are interesting.  It's user-unfriendly, but it accomplishes something of the same goals.

Yeah, that's what I do too, not just with the dwarves, but with world generation as well.  I want a warm/hot Terrifying biome with a necromancer's tower in it that still has a bit of vegetation living. And flat. But I digress.

I know that in a lot of let's Plays-Boatmurdered springs to mind- that players give their dwarves backstories, and i was just proposing a way for that to become a reality.

Naturally, personality traits would be more important as a result of the backstory-the skills are a secondary effect, because it makes sense for the dwarves you create to choose jobs that match their personality. Like you, I look for a dwarf with a sense of duty and who can control their fear to be my starting swordsdwarf, because if they get scared easily, they won't last against the undead ravens and *shudder* Kangaroos roaming the tainted plains. ...I lost a fort to one of them, once. I had about 40 people, the walls were up, moat was filled...he swam across to my in-fort fishing pier, and then it got fun. Them kangaroos sure know how to box.

...And just a month ago, my two-year-old superchild took down an undead raven with a bite to the head. Again, I digress.

Regarding the random events that would happen-that sounds great, but people who want to detail their backstories down to the letter would do what many players do and reroll until they get the random event they want, making it not-so-random. Still a good idea.

...And all this will be moot if Toady decides to have us select the starting seven from existing populations. As Indigo says, this system could still be possible in adventure mode, because if you think about it, Fort mode is just the dwarves sending seven adventurers out on an expedition.

...There may come a time when both modes fuse into one, and then we have minecraft, but better.

[helmacon]

This could, of course, play in well with starting scenarios: You might have, for example, some sort of suggested pool of characters, so, if we're buying some characters of different backgrounds, you might see that "military dwarf" careers are cheaper if you're starting a border fortress, while "craftsdwarf" careers are more expensive in terms of the "political capital" you are spending to set up the expedition.  (It seems odd to assume you're literally paying for skills.) 

I always assumed that the paying for skills was the cost associated with finding and hiring a dwarf with the appropriate skills. I guess it really depends on how you view the process of founding a fortress. If it's a group of seven friends in a tavern who decide they want to do thier own thing, then limited and semi-predefined dwarfs makes sense. They are just who is available. Personally, I always assumed it was more along the lines of receiving a charter/commision to found a settlement from the ruling parties of your civ, in which case finding and hiring the specific dwarves you want skill wise (maybe even personality wise?) makes more sense, because you have the whole civ to pick from. Though, if that were the case it should probably re-roll personality every time you change the skill set of said dwarf.

I like the idea of a random roll for events though. It adds flavor and good RP to every game. It would go a long way in keeping people interested in playing multiple runs of adventure mode. There was a thread awhile back that mentioned a similar mechanic in fortress mode. The idea was basically rolls to determine what happened during the journey. Your wagon might show up with half your dwarves dead or wounded from a goblin raid, or you might pick up a few dwarves who ended up traveling with you. I thought it was a really cool idea. just my 2 cents.

[Dozebôm Lolumzalìs]

That's how I always saw it too!

My proposal:

• An option in d_init.txt or worldgen that allows either "tailored mode" or "bucket-picking mode".
• If "tailor mode" is on, you get to choose the skills and attributes of each dorf, like modern adv-mode. I don't care whether that costs points or not, I won't debate that.
• If "bucket mode" is on, you first use tailor mode on the expedition leader. In Soviet Russia the beginning, the expedition leader is you.
  
• Then there are quite a few options for how Toady proceeds. He could have an abstract form of Colossal Cave Adventure or a form of Oregon Trail, where you decide to go the tavern, and see the dwarves there. Or go down to the Guildsmaster to ask him who could come with you.
• Hell, you could even have an adventure-mode pre-embark thing! Ask people to join you, and they'd make up your starting... whatever number you like!
• But either way, you'd have a list of potential S7 members, and they'd require a certain amount of gold to convince. Peasants will need very little, drunks maybe nothing at all, skilled craftsmen or farmers quite a bit.
• Then you'd grab some equipment, which would probably be the same in both "tailor" and "bucket" mode. You could continue with the adv-like mode, or use a CCA/OT-like thing, or just say "here's the best prices on all the things in the mountain home" and just abstract away the actual buying.
• You'd have to use gold to buy stuff. Remember to buy extra food - perhaps a "required food for journey" thing that tells you the bare minimum to bring?
• Then you would travel to your embark site. Depending on the distance and supplies, you might even be able to carry it in backpacks and trek there, like in The Hobbit when the dwarves decide to reclaim the Lonely Mountain. But you also might need a medium-sized ship to get to that distant island with all your drunk laborers and bins and boulders.
• Perhaps an Oregon Trail-like means of getting food while on the journey? Herbalism, hunting would get used here. Probably abstract away, although the hunting could be done in-person in an adv-like way.
  
• Then you arrive, and the fortress begins like normal.

[NW_Kohaku]

...And all this will be moot if Toady decides to have us select the starting seven from existing populations. As Indigo says, this system could still be possible in adventure mode, because if you think about it, Fort mode is just the dwarves sending seven adventurers out on an expedition.

I don't see this becoming a problem because DF has "population pools". Or rather, non-historical characters. 

It's a Shrodinger's Gun situation; So long as there are any non-historicals from which you can hypothetically draw dwarves, you can just say this one character you just rolled up happened to be one of the dozens or hundreds of dwarves in the mountainhome that just happened not to be notable/historical until the point where they started adventuring.

After all, that's basically what adventurer mode does now: Your adventurer isn't supposed to be spawning in ex nihilo, they're supposed to be someone who was a population member of wherever they start the adventure who one day decided to leave it for an early grave along with maybe a side of fame and glory.

I always assumed that the paying for skills was the cost associated with finding and hiring a dwarf with the appropriate skills. I guess it really depends on how you view the process of founding a fortress. If it's a group of seven friends in a tavern who decide they want to do thier own thing, then limited and semi-predefined dwarfs makes sense. They are just who is available. Personally, I always assumed it was more along the lines of receiving a charter/commision to found a settlement from the ruling parties of your civ, in which case finding and hiring the specific dwarves you want skill wise (maybe even personality wise?) makes more sense, because you have the whole civ to pick from. Though, if that were the case it should probably re-roll personality every time you change the skill set of said dwarf.

I like the idea of a random roll for events though. It adds flavor and good RP to every game. It would go a long way in keeping people interested in playing multiple runs of adventure mode. There was a thread awhile back that mentioned a similar mechanic in fortress mode. The idea was basically rolls to determine what happened during the journey. Your wagon might show up with half your dwarves dead or wounded from a goblin raid, or you might pick up a few dwarves who ended up traveling with you. I thought it was a really cool idea. just my 2 cents.

I presume that an embark party is sent forth in an official capacity, or at least with some sort of official sanction by some sort of organized group of dwarves as an enterprise. Especially with starting scenarios on the horizon, there will be pre-defined reasons (at least, officially) for starting a fortress, and pre-defined scripted official support. 

You "buy" talent by arranging with the mountainhome for more talented dwarves to be allowed to go with you on your new venture, with the most talented dwarves being considered too valuable to send off on such a dangerous expedition.  Your starting dwarves are all notably ones who do not mind being caught out in the rain, so they're selecting again from within a select group. 

I see the pool of resources, then, is more of what sort of official sanction you have.  They're only willing to spare so much leaving the mountainhome at once on such a risk, so either you can have valuable goods or you can have talented dwarves, but you have to balance one against the other.

As for random rolls, there are fairly simple ways to deal with that becoming too powerful.  The first is to simply limit their odds of getting a really good roll, and limiting the power they can have when they are the best rolls.  Skills are pretty cheap in DF, it's not hard to train someone up to legendary, so getting a +1 skill rank wouldn't really make a huge difference, nor would +10 of a personality trait.  (And personality traits are already totally random and open to savescumming.)  Beyond that, DF Hack and simple modding allow players who are dead-set upon getting "perfect" character personality traits to simply mod or use the "brainwash" function to force a set of personality traits. Someone who wants to sit there rerolling their characters to get exactly what they want like someone playing 1st Ed D&D by rerolling characters until they get all 18s is free to do so, because all they're doing is wasting their own time and probably enjoying the game far less than if they just started playing before boring themselves half to death.

Which brings me to my last point: Randomness should be limited in impact. A game isn't fun if it seems like the dice are playing the game more than you are. The random events in Mechwarrior are pretty minor in scope - a plus one or two to a skill versus a minus one there.  Yes, there's the losing of limbs, but it's a futuristic setting, (it's all about piloting giant bipedal robots) and full-functionality prosthetics exist and are readily available to players in any but the most desperately backwoods or poor areas, so they're more like getting a scar that makes a neat conversation piece than a real detriment. Killing most of your dwarves and stealing your anvil before you even get to start playing the game is basically just grounds for deleting the save and starting over until you aren't arbitrarily screwed over for no reason. Likewise, you don't want to have random positive qualities that make the game simply better, or at least, far, far easier if you have them.  Whether you have magma on your map used to be like this - if you didn't, you were missing an important part of your game, and nobody wanted to play without it, so Toady eventually just made it so everyone always got magma, because people were just hunting for maps with volcanoes, anyway.

[Dozebôm Lolumzalìs]

Okay! I see your point. I propose an option:

[PRE_EMBARK_CHOICES:TAILOR]

and

[PRE_EMBARK_CHOICES:POOL]

as well as

[PRE_EMBARK_MOVEMENT:ABSTRACT_AWAY_AND_EFFECTIVELY_TELEPORT]

and

[PRE_EMBARK_MOVEMENT:ACTUALLY_HAVE_TO_MOVE_THERE]

(i suck at naming things)

Simple to understand, relatively easy (i hope) to code.

Happy?