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[Sabreur]

Newbie here as well.  It took me awhile to get into it, but the others are right.  Dwarf Fortress is basically a sandbox game, if sandboxes were filled with manic-depressive alcoholics and magma.  One of my early forts failed because it got too boring - I walled it in with insane numbers of traps, walled off all cavern access, didn't do anything with magma, didn't dig too deep...  In the end, the only fun thing that happened was accidentally letting an entire goblin siege force loose in the dining hall (moving caged prisoners is a little tricky, as it turns out).  The "Losing is Fun" motto isn't a joke - half the fun of the game really is seeing what can go wrong.

The best way to have fun is to just go crazy.  Confiscate everything from the elven traders and try to sell them wooden carvings of burning trees.  Try to make a magma cannon.  Relocate your entire fort 80 Z-levels underground and make traders drive down a bridge over a magma lake to reach the depot.  Experiment with using water pressure to launch vampires at goblin sieges.  Train several hundred war dogs and link them to a single cage right in the path of invaders.  Or just keep playing for another few game years and rest assured that the game itself will find a way to solve the 'what now?' problem.

[Malarauko]

My "base" for a fort is a hospital, jail, quarters for everyone, kitchen, farms, food storage, workshop rooms for all workshop types, offices, catacombs, a militia of at least 30 and a defensive structure for any entrances to the fort. Then I start building for shits and giggles. Oh and a resevoir and wells usually. Also storage space. And a trade depot area. After I have all that I usually start megaprojects. My latest is a replica of helms deep complete with a huge dam.

[Lordraymond]

Another fun thing to try, in all seriousness, are "challenge forts", where you put certain restrictions. Someone before me gave a few suggestions, but I wanted to put in one of my own that I had particular fun with.

The Military Dictatorship:
Your expedition leader must also be appointed as your broker, sherrif and militia commander (assuming those two aren't mutually exclusive, I forget now...) and eventually the Captain of the Guard. You may not have any jails, and all dwarves who aren't used in fortress production either farm or are immediately drafted into the army whether there's equipment or not. The dictator must also become your baron/count/duke, and you may optionally kill/lock away your king to show that the dictator is the only one in charge. As a !!FUN!! twist, if the dictator dies and doesn't have any heirs, you must immediately abandon. No questions asked, no tasks done, no reclaimation. Considering he's also going to be the head of your military, there are certainly a plethora of ways he could bite the dust, especially before he's legendary.

[MehMuffin]

Sort of new here too, how do ramps and such work? I used stairwells for a while, but I decided to try to make a rampway in my latest fort, and I'm unable to get dwarves to go up it. The go down, but they don't come back up...

[RabblerouserGT]

World size and age (and thus number of historical figs etc) play a big role in how quickly your fort will begin to suffer FPS problems.  I'm sure there are other things too, but I tend to go with medium worlds with short histories just so I can play the forts longer without atom-smashing all the rocks to rescue the FPS.

I always wondered what the hell "Hist figs" were.
Thought it was some horrible human-pig-like race.

[RabblerouserGT]

Sort of new here too, how do ramps and such work? I used stairwells for a while, but I decided to try to make a rampway in my latest fort, and I'm unable to get dwarves to go up it. The go down, but they don't come back up...

I think the game just bugs like that. If it's a miner that's bugging up, go designate something to work on.