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[Ihtomyt]

Hello DF players! I am very new to the game. I shamelessly look things up, so I had been doing fairly well on my first real attempt at a fortress, until I neglected to look something up, and opened a tavern with some performers, because I wanted some social and performance skills for the dorfs not to go to waste.

I realize now there are other topics about this, and it might be a bug, but I did have a LOT of mugs and barrels of booze around and multiple performers, so... within 20 seconds real time, there were 2 deaths, and more on the way. I thought they might just fight a bit, and maybe someone would get hurt, but they drowned in vomit before I could hardly even pause the game! I had a hospital set up, without much provision, but with a doctor with adequate in all the skills assigned as head doctor, with labors on, but he just stood there, continuing to socialize while people drowned in their own vomit. FUN! aside, was there anything I could do to save these dorfs once they started drowning in their own bile and unable to breathe? I have not had any other injuries up until this point, and I was not able to figure out any command or interface that would actively let me give orders or encourage giving them medical attention.

Anyway, I guess this is a two part question, the first I may have figured out for myself... never stock a tavern with any cups or booze unless you want FUN! but the second question is as I asked above... how do you do health care? I have been able to figure out quite a lot of other things just from reading and playing on my own, but I am totally at a loss how to prompt medical care activities from reading the wiki or any Googling. Was it just because these dorfs were so far gone there was no treatment available?

Thanks for reading, and I hope to keep learning and enjoying this game I was missing for all these years!

[Fleeting Frames]

It's because alcohol has [SYN_NO_HOSPITAL] tag. (See alcohol raws on the wiki, for instance.)

If a dwarf gets taken to hospital for another reason at the same time, like being stung by a bee, they'll get diagnosed with inebiration, but the booze on its own wont cause hospitalization.

Also, dwarf healthcare is largely physical: Cleaning, binding wounds, setting splints, excising rotten tissue...They don't have CPR, which means once someone's lungs are destroyed or nerveous tissue for spine mangled they'll suffocate.

Though alcohol lung damage isn't permanent so if a dwarf heals up before that they'll survive and heal fully. It can take from third of a day to a full day to suffocate, depending on dwarf's attributes (suffocation trains toughness and endurance).

[Ihtomyt]

Wow, thank you for the quick and accurate response! I don't know why I didn't think to look up alcohol for an alcohol related death, I guess I was kind of panicked like the dwarves were and was just thinking about the ways to save them, not the injury type itself. Well, now I know better, and in the future I will either stock no booze and cups at all in a tavern, or maybe just experiment with small amounts for some less lethal excitement since there's nothing that can be done past a point. Thanks again!

[PatrikLundell]

The way to avoid alcohol related deaths (and lethal "non lethal" fighting ones) in the tavern is to refrain from assigning any personnel (tavern keeper or performer) to it (resident performers are automatically assigned to the fortress as a whole, and that's fine). I assign a single mug to the tavern for the sake of it, but it's never used.
As opposed to humans, dorfs drink with moderation (at least usually) when they're left to self serve.

Also note that performers assigned to taverns are useless when it comes to performing, as they're not performing any more than patrons or the tavern keeper (and shove booze down the throats of patrons at the same rate as the tavern keepers do).

[Ihtomyt]

I thought I saw that about performers on the wiki or in another article/thread, but I didn't quite understand it. Thanks for following up on this with more detailed info, it really helps. Now this is changing the question away from the topic a bit, but it is related since I do want performers in my tavern... I think, as long as it won't kill folks. So, if I assign performers, but don't assign cups or booze, or just very few (as in just one), should that be safe(ish)? When you say performers are useless, do you mean that there is no practical benefit, or that it actually does nothing at all other than serve more drinks? I ask because I was trying to figure out how to get them to do things like recite poetry, do public story telling, and stuff... but when I had them just idle in the tavern, they just kept meditating and praying (the tavern is also my temple, I have a very small fortress right now). It wasn't until I made them into performers that, while a couple of them killed people with drink, the other 3 of them immediately started doing performances.

So, the short way of asking this two part question is...

1) is performing and related skills worthless (including it being worthless for the dwarf who is doing it?) because I thought it would cause happy thoughts in the performers and the listeners and

2) does assigning them as a performer really not increase the odds they will do a performance? (because it seemed like they started performing right away as soon as they were assigned that way, whereas I saw them recite poetry only 2 other times the whole year prior)

Thank you for your patience, sorry if my posts are a little long, I'm very new to the game and am unsure how to ask the question in brief.

[PatrikLundell]

1. Performances can give good thoughts to the participants and spectators (as well as not so good ones if it's a poor performance). Thus, they are useful to some unknown extent (I don't think relative impacts have been researched). However, performances are started spontaneously by patrons (and visiting performers, as well as accepted resident ones, don't have any jobs, so they'll spend their time in the tavern or temple (and library, in the case of residents).

2. Yours is the first indication I've heard about assignment of performers actually having any effect on their chance of actually performing. Restricting the number of mugs in the tavern restricts the rate at which personnel can shove booze down the throat of patrons, and so ought to restrict the rate of incidents. However, I believe they tend to target the same individual for booze shoving again and again, probably because the target selecting logic consistently finds that individual to be the closest target for the task.
Having no mugs at all assigned to the tavern ought to be safe, and ought to allow for an experiment of whether personnel may actually perform if relieved of booze shoving duties.

I have no problem with the length of posts as long as they're reasonably on topic (and I'm quite a rambler myself), but if you start with a long paragraph about the awesome exploits of your fantastic fortress I just stop reading (others might not, though). There's a sub forum for that for those who like that kind of thing (which is fine by me, as long as I don't have to slog through it).

[Ihtomyt]

Thanks again for the response, and if my fortress ever does achieve anything "amazing" I'll be sure to keep from strutting around about it outside a thread dedicated to that fact hehe.

I only have one patron in the tavern so far, I embarked in a Serene environment to learn the controls and mechanics of the game. He's the liason, and he doesn't do much. I also wanted my dorfs to do the performing, so their skills don't get rusty... not violating the first sentence in this post talking about my fortress, it isn't "braggin'" just info, their civilization seems to highly value poetry and speech, and they all came with good skills in those things without me paying at embark for them, so I thought I'd roll with it, but wasn't sure how.

As for it not actually impacting the likelihood of performances, I am sure my game is nothing special, so if it doesn't, it doesn't, and my evidence to the contrary is just anecdotal and not from a large enough sample size of data. Maybe it has to do with the fact that the dining hall/meeting hall was a temple, so they were always meditating and praying, and now that it's also a tavern, they are doing other things, but it's not because they are performers, just because it's a tavern.

In any case, thank you for your continued responses! I think I have a handle on this topic now... just 10000 things I don't know I don't know left to learn!

[mikekchar]

I often give this advice, but I'm always hesitant because it is not fool proof.  The key to keeping the deaths down for tavern keepers and performers is 3-fold:

1. Give them a consistent high priority job.  Serving alcohol is usually low priority, so if you have something that happens steadily in your fortress you tavern keeper will be called away.  Making them a grower is a good option as is having a workshop with a job that resets every day.  I suspect that making them your manager will also drag them away every day, but haven't tested it.

2. Move the alcohol stockpile far away from the tavern.  Dwarfs can walk about 120 tiles a day unencumbered.  This means that if you alcohol stockpile is 50-60 tiles away from the tavern, then the tavern keeper is limited to about 7 drinks a week.  Usually this is enough to stop harm.

3. Limit the number of cups.  They can't serve a drink unless a cup is available.  This one is tricky because you need cups around or else you will get bad thoughts, but you can get creative about how they are deployed and it helps a bit.

The main thing as PatriKLundell said is that the tavern keeper targets their customer/victim based on proximity *when the get the job*.  If you move the tavern keeper around between jobs, then they are much less likely to serve drinks to the same dwarf time after time.

I've had fortresses that have gone years and years and years with tavern keepers and no deaths using this system.  But it's not foolproof.  Eventually you are likely to get a death.  I still enjoy them for RP purposes.  I haven't used performers, though.  I should try that...

[PatrikLundell]

A couple of comments regarding mikekchar's advice:
- Number of cups: You should definitely have a good number of cups in the fortress, but the ones used by tavern personnel are the ones dedicated to the tavern itself, unless I'm wrong. Non personnel will not use the cups dedicated to the tavern, but rather the "free" ones (that are then dropped in the booze stockpile: don't bother to keep them in a cups stockpile, as that just results in additional hauling), and as far as I understand tavern personnel will only use the tavern's cups for serving.
- The big problem with mikekchar's advice is that it clashes with the desire to have performers perform. If they do, that's bound to be a job of lower priority than booze serving.

However, a single cup with the closest booze stockpile a fair distance away but with a fair number of tavern staff without other jobs ought to allow for testing if the bugger perform or just hang around.

Some more booze death background, unrelated to the above: In most cases patrons fall to the floor unconscious, spilling the cup's content on the floor (mixed with vomit), but eventually the patron recovers and gets up, stumbling away with some lung damage (from suffocation: the modeling isn't perfect). However, if a patron is hit again while still recovering from a previous injury the risk of death is considerably higher. Also note that dorfs are more tolerant to alcohol than elves and goblins because of their oversized livers, while humies are larger, and thus more tolerant than elves and gobbos.

[Killgoth]

Also, dwarf healthcare is largely physical: Cleaning, binding wounds, setting splints, excising rotten tissue...They don't have CPR, which means once someone's lungs are destroyed or nerveous tissue for spine mangled they'll suffocate.

 Can you imagine if dwarfs invented iron lungs?  You could have a fortress of 300 hundred where 280 of the bastards were on life support and the remaining 20 were tasked with maintaining their life support and too busy to visit the bar.  What an end to a fort.

[Ihtomyt]

Thanks for the additional advice! I will give these ideas a shot, either much further down the road in this fortress when I can handle some bad things without it crippling me, or on my next fortress. I am not looking for as much FUN! right now, just still trying to get the hang of the game, controls, and survive to the point where I can try out some more advanced and unintuitive mechanics, so I am trying to avoid any risky business. I dumped ALL cups in places away from the tavern and make sure none get in there, and the performers still perform occasionally, but no one is dying of booze. The dorfs still drink just fine away from the tavern for normal drinking behavior. It seems like taverns that actually serve alcohol are only there for RP and FUN! and are really just a bad idea with little to no practical benefit if you are trying to "win".

As for iron lungs, you could probably hook up a power source to them. Maybe better to just start converting them all to vampires if possible at that point.

[PatrikLundell]

Well, there is at least one practical benefit to booze serving: Neither vampires nor goblins drink unless served. However, I don't think tavern staff take patron's preferences into consideration (although I don't know if it's been investigated), but at least alcohol withdrawal can be "treated" with a staffed tavern.