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[BlueSam]

http://mccaine.org/2013/10/09/dwarf-fortress-a-marxist-analysis/

Just thought it might be of interest to someone.

[WaffleEggnog]

Lol... you guys should know we here at Bay12 can't read that many words before passing out.

[Remuthra]

Ooh, look, words! I can read those without passing out!

[Glanzor]

Oh wow.
I was expecting something silly but this was actually quite insightful!

[Nasikabatrachus]

My first thoughts are that this analysis suffers from minor problems relating to gaps it fills in that aren't filled in by the game itself. There isn't really a direct relationship with a "mother fortress". That particular relationship is abstracted to the civilizational level. I've also never seen any indication that skills are passed down through families as family trades. In-game experience doesn't mesh with that. Not even viewing legends mode reveals that kind of pattern.

It also accounts too little for player choice, in my opinion. Many players set up their forts with "bee hive" divisions of labor, with every dwarf doing every labor. The underlying structure of the game does lend itself to certain patterns of labor, meaning that metalsmiths are most optimally used as metalsmiths, but it's not necessary to do so. Since DF is an interactive medium, how user choice is shaped by such structure does need to be taken into account in order to yield a deep analysis.

Personally, I've gotten been used to thinking of fort-mode dwarfs as having more or less anarcho-socialist organization, which "nobility" essentially being caked on top for no particular social reason. This would explain why many players are accustomed to to outright murdering most nobles so many dwarf nobles get into such unfortunately lethal accidents. However, perhaps that's too simplistic of a view.

Overall, I liked the piece and it deserves at least a couple re-reads.

[Remuthra]

I like to think of a fortress as a meritocracy. Every dwarf has a social status based on their usefulness to me. Particularly useful dwarves might get custom-built quarters, or a legendary tomb to their name. Sort of like Alpha Complex.

[BlueSam]

Yeah, I agree with you, Nasikabatrachus, in that the author does take the liberty to fill in some gaps. The whole thing is a bit tongue in cheek, however, and it does raise some very interesting points. While it is possible to run your fort in very many different ways, the very mechanics do tend to push into some forms of organization rather than others.

I've been playing for some 3-4 years, so I wasn't around then the economy was still in. Being graduate economics student (should be whipping up some proofs right now!), I find the questions it raises pretty intriguing.

I liked how he relates the tradicional aspect of the division of labor with dwarves' claim for wealth and luxury, and how we can understand the role of the player:
"The player is not a god, but the concept of the gods, and is not the commander of the fortress, but the ideological authority of its social relations and the need to reproduce them. In effect, the player is lordship – (...) the social and ideological glue holding feudalism together." Sounds pretty good to me!

I would say that, in the very least, it is a cool example of emergent behavior: how the "simple" rules of the game create something that can relate so complexly to the structure of a real historical mode of production.

[fractalman]

[doesn't even go and read it]...as things curerntly stand, communism works all too well in dwarf fortress.  11x11 bedroom, overlapping personal designations...yeah.  And that's not even getting into the fact that dwarves are so insanely good at growing above-ground crops which makes NO realism sense even though it makes game-balance sense...[/hasn't even read it yet]
[goes and reads it]
...
one thing the analysis seems to leave out:
YOU CAN DRIVE THE MOUNTAIN HOME TO EXTINCTION FROM WITHIN YOUR OWN FORT.
...not sure why I felt that needed to be in caps.  I think I'll go to bed now. 

[mastahcheese]

Usually, when I make my forts, I don't do the communist communal bedroom plan, rather, I give everyone their own 3x3 room, complete with bed, chest, cabinet, table, chair, and whatever else I feel they need, even a personal nest box for their pet goose in their own room. I then never build a big dining room, or set up a meeting hall, so idle dwarves will instead always go into the solitude that is their rooms, never making friends, never having outside knowledge. I keep them ignorant, and happy in their cubicles until I need them for something.

[misko27]

I have to admit this filled in some of the wholes in my knowledge regarding how things were run. I didn't really think about it from a feudal point of view. I too was expecting something stupid, so it also managed to break down that skepticism. Parts of it at least are now Head Canon, so I congratulate the Author.

[darkflagrance]

While the author tentatively advances a prediction of absolutism (which does not appear grounded in fact) he might have fruitfully analyzed two concrete sources that signal the creator of dwarf fortress's eventual intent: the original version, with its guildmasters and potentially revolutionary philosophers, as well as the notes for the coming implementationof more meaningful trade relations and political opposition with the home fortress. While the current relationship between the player and home fort is almost equivalent to that of equals rather than a colony, the future will bring the opportunity to break from your home fortress and potentially, in rejecting the imposition of feudal relations, start a communist revolution.

[pisskop]

So, ive long held that df is about the freedom of choice, and more specifically your choice.  The player.  Reading this article once, what often came up is competition, or the lack thereof.  Dwarves in this version are capable of hating another, but it is my experience it has minimal effect on play and ambition is limited to military practicality (and the frequency of work, but in the larger context no dwarf arrives at your fortress expecting to be a bookkeeper, nor do they receive thoughts for it either way).

This fleshing out of personality is something Id like to see, albeit the micromanaging. . . To have them aspire or have specified ai packages.  this is something. we are expecting, along with a revamped economy.  The economy is simple exchange, but presumably we will eventually see better economics waaaay down the line.  What, I have less clue.  Most likely world economies will stay more or less like they are, with goblins trading occasionally, perhaps trojan horsing or w.e., and we can expect 'situational specialists and whonot, but on the global scale the economy works.  The key reason is wars are not driven by monetary gains.  I hope for this along with intra-factional fighting.


Fort wise, a commun-ity is part of its evolution.  It does begin a a 'pure' device that gets mucked by nobility, but also the innefficency of a (rapidly) growing population.  I would like to see economic mandates and such, and also the option to stay self governed, as opposed to my vision of an integrated part of an empire, with conscripted soldiers leaving the map to fight and all that.

Feudalism is how I see the spirit of DF, not communism, and although I see the value of feudalism as Marx put forth they are not the same.  Feudalism isnt the holy grail Marx thought it was, imo.

Just . . . thoughts.

[Dutchling]

Awesome read.