#That and dwarf fortress

[i-am-dulaman]

Decided to start collecting out of context post titles from PDX games and

[skipperling]

I feel like if I had more time to myself SS14 would be a game I got wxtremely into

[the-least-undefinable-ordinal]

Reading the dwarf fortress wiki page for Irrigation, much to learn.

[pastrypurgatory]

Dwarf Fortress is riduculous. a world I generated contains a manual on adhesives called "It Is Glue". it's 103 pages long and the game describes the writing as "completely serious, yes overflowing with sadness".

[prokopetz]

Dwarf Fortress isn't so baffling when you understand that there's a whole subgenre of mostly-roguelikes out there that have been in what amounts to early access since the 1980s and still have no functional endgames in spite of having been in development for thirty goddamn years, but they do have twelve distinct ways to die by vending machine, and by gosh folks like it that way.

[likehalfofuswillmakeitidk]

Thinking about kidnapped Dwarfs in Dwarf Fortress again.

Goblins can kidnap dwarvern children. It's not known why they do this, but they can.

What's stranger is that the goblins don't do anything nefarious with the children. They just appear to raise them.

Common theories range from amusing (they're saving the children from the horrors of Dwarf Fortresses) to reasonable (dwarfs are bigger and stronger than goblins on average, they can be used as metalssmiths or warriors)

What's probably most striking from the player's perspective is that adult dwarves that have been raised by goblin civilizations can join their raids and sieges of your fort.

Nothing appears to be forcing them to do this.

Imagine growing up with goblins, learning the goblin language, worshipping their gods and observing their customs.

You know you're different, the other children make that clear enough, but your belly is full in the summers and just as empty as anyone else's in the cold.

When you grow, you're a full two heads taller than anyone else. They try to put you to work in the forge, they think you should be good at it, you dont understand why. You're not. Your fingers fumble over the steel, you drop the tongs, you burn yourself on the flames.

You've let your family down, you're ashamed.

They put an axe in your hand, you start felling trees. It's easy for you. They send little hauling squads with you to collect the lumber, you free up half a dozen workers. Your family is proud of you, you're proud of yourself.

A set of armour is smithed for you, you don't need to put your name on it, no one else could wear it.

Suddenly, you're drilling, but it's no problem, people salute you in the hallways, you get choice rations with the other warriors. You're respected. It took you some time, but you've found a place in your home.

You keep shaving your beard out of habit.

Now your squad hauls back jewels, instruments, and armour that even you couldn't fit into.

One day you hit a hole in the ground. Defended by walls and traps your brethren fall to hidden blades and arrows. By the time you breach the dining hall, you've taken serious casualties.

In front of you is a hall of shrouded mirrors, they don't recognize you in your full helm, you don't even know what they are.

Your mother doesn't even recognize you as she cleaves your head in half.

You're laid to rest in the refuse pile, outside the fort with your brothers.

[volno]

Dwarf Fortress is a very good game with a very good community.

[flawseer]

#16 - "Cyber"

Smaugust 2024

Later that night, after Qibli went to sleep, Winter tried the game himself. He played for two hours, got stuck on top of a tree, and died of starvation. He then prodded Qibli awake, angrily exclaimed "I hate trees!", and went to bed without another word.

[spookylilraven]

[3liza]

the new Down the Rabbithole video is on Boatmurder and once again we must pause and offer our respects to Something Awful for being one of the most singularly influential websites of all time, but also because every time I'm revisiting forums lore I am impressed all over again at how ahead of the curve the SA username culture was. current year Tumblr username sensibility is about where SA was in 2006ish

[wainwrightjakobshammerlock]

i cant be the only one who finds it incredibly funny that theres (to my knowledge) not a single colony sim that simulates capitalism within the colony. there is frequently inter-colony trading and currency, but never inside of it.

oxygen not included's dupes have no currency and no ruling class. rimworld lets you run an honest-to-Horax organ farm but the people running the organ farm work for the common good of the organ farm, the alternative is impossible. dwarf fortress, the granddaddy of them all, used to have capitalism but it caused infinite baby debt and fps death so now dwarves yet again work according to their ability and receive according to their need

could there be a colony sim that had capitalism within the colony? maybe. would it be fun? absolutely fucking not, it would suck massive ass, i would like my colony sims to stay commie and actually fun to play

[tanadrin]

until i started rooting around in the world data with dfhack i didn't realize that dwarf fortress randomly generates dance forms for each civilization and they can spread via trade and contact. you cannot really engage with this system at all in fortress mode, and adventure mode is still in beta, so this is hilarious to me. it's like the procedurally generated musical instruments. the things that tarn adams chooses to simulate in excruciating detail are really random.

and yet each species still has only one language, the name generation system is patently ridiculous, and the topography is pure perlin noise. this is why dwarf fortress will always have a charm its imitators can never match. it's just completely idiosyncratic in terms of its concerns and aesthetic.

[dungeonmalcontent]

Im remembering where I left off on my long term d&d campaign before we all realized our holiday seasonal schedules would make it incredibly difficult to play.

My players had made it to the dwarven city of my homebrew setting. And I had added on a detail from dwarf fortress to help enhance some of the weird culture they have. These are weird dwarves, after all. They have been grafting uranium into the skin for generations.

I added strange moods.

For those unfamiliar with dwarf fortress, you manage a colony of dwarves. You tell the dwarves what to do and they try to do it. You can micromanage just about everything. But every now and then a dwarf gets a "strange mood" or a "fey mood" (there's a few names for it in game). You can't stop this. When it happens the dwarf stops what they're doing, enters a trance like state, hijacks a workshop in the fortress, steals a bunch of materials, and crafts what is usually an incredibly valuable artifact.

So I described this to my players, as part of the city was being cordoned off due to a particularly troublesome strange mood. And a player responded with "so. Crafting heat. Got it."

And it killed a me a little. In a good way, of course. I had to stop and think about it for a minute before I could laugh but I did laugh.

Anyway, this is now the canonical way I think about it. The dwarves have a heat cycle, and it is not sexual in nature. It is for making cool and useless things. Like hats made of bone and rocks.

[watercolormagicalgirl]

[quantum-mechan1c]

Dwarf Fortress is truly the game of all time.

These are all distinct skills. How in gods name am i meant to intuit the difference between Stone Carving and Stone Engraving

Come to think of it, asking a dwarf a question like that is liable to attract some strange looks. In dwarf culture you'd have to be a special kind of idiot to not know the difference between carving and engraving, after all. This is just Dwarf Fortress providing the authentic culture shock experience