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Author Topic: Looking for fun roleplay ideas  (Read 2829 times)

jimboob

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Looking for fun roleplay ideas
« on: September 05, 2016, 09:49:39 am »

Not like challenges or mega projects, though they could certainly involved both. I'm talking about forts with roleplaying in mind.

For example one of my forts was a "Dwarven retreat." I embarked in a nice location, chopped down a bunch of trees and built wooden inns around a lake, with an outdoor tavern on a pier over the lake. All behind the scenes stuff was done underground, out of the public eye. For defense there was just a small squad of guards.


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Silverthrone

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Re: Looking for fun roleplay ideas
« Reply #1 on: September 05, 2016, 10:37:26 am »

I'm fiddling with building a dwarven college, at the moment. A settlement mostly built around the library and the tavern. The scholarly gentry gets one wing, the servants gets another. Haven't really done much with the libraries so far, so I felt like focusing on them.

Maybe a dwarven prison would be stimulating? Far out in the tundra, with no comforts beside raw mushroom with mushroom vodka and a lot of rock crafting. All the trade income goes to luxuries for the warden and the staff, of course.

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jimboob

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Re: Looking for fun roleplay ideas
« Reply #2 on: September 05, 2016, 10:50:54 am »

Both very good ideas! Thanks!
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Silverthrone

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Re: Looking for fun roleplay ideas
« Reply #3 on: September 05, 2016, 10:56:18 am »

No worries, good luck. I usually prefer RP fortresses, I pick a vague scenario and go from there.

Another idea that would definately spark some Fun would be a temple fortress, run by a banished sect of heretics digging too deep on purpose.
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Derro

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Re: Looking for fun roleplay ideas
« Reply #4 on: September 05, 2016, 11:13:48 am »

A Foundation base. Build separate wings for safe (artifacts and kobolds), euclid (werebeasts, vampires, necromancers, evil critters) and keter (megabeasts) anomalies. No cages (except for capture and transport) or sealing them up behind solid stone: regular observation must take place!

Also, don't forget to conduct some pleasant experiments. How fast can the vomit titan run? Put it onto a long track with a dwarf and watch them go!
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Shonai_Dweller

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Re: Looking for fun roleplay ideas
« Reply #5 on: September 05, 2016, 04:54:57 pm »

A story idea for you in case you want to explore the game a bit further:

Build a fortress at one side of the world with basic metal industry and militia. Retire.

Then play Adventurer as an animal man from a far away civ who can't fit into regular armour (very small or very large, however you want to roleplay it). Have him travel to the fortress, building reputation as he goes. When he arrives, dwarves agree to build him a set of steel armour in exchange for 5-10 years of military service. Animal-man joins fortress military, retire.

Further fortress play for 5-10 years (or until fps death), retire (hopefully your animal man has survived, but maybe the story ends here with him destroying the place as a were-beast).

Play animal-man now clad in steel. Travel back home, save town from surrounding beasts, beat up those racist bullies from his childhood, however you want to end the story.

Variations might include making the armour first and hiding it in the basement (useful if you think the fortress might be invaded before your adventurer arrives). Or retiring the adventurer in a site he builds in the wilderness and have dwarfs embark on top of him.
 
« Last Edit: September 05, 2016, 05:08:00 pm by Shonai_Dweller »
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mikekchar

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Re: Looking for fun roleplay ideas
« Reply #6 on: September 05, 2016, 06:39:04 pm »

Yeah.  I think the hybrid game (going in between fortress and adventure mode) is really ripe for exploring.  My current game started with an adventurer in year 5.  An unfortunate hit from an alligator left him without the use of his right arm.  He's retired for the moment.  In the mean time I'm building a hospital/library complex for studying health sciences.  The idea is that the adventurer will move there (he's going to have to unretire and build up some reputation I think) so that he can study to be a doctor.  Very likely after working as a doctor in the hospital for a while, he will hear about the healing powers of were beasts and track one down in order to restore his arm ;-)

While being free to build whatever you like is liberating, having some context for the back story is quite fun and I think this is the power of the hybrid game.  The real question is whether or not bugs will devour the game eventually.
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Pirate Santa

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Re: Looking for fun roleplay ideas
« Reply #7 on: September 06, 2016, 04:47:28 am »

Surface forts are always a fun change of pace, whether you allow underground living or go for a human village.

You could build a segregated fort where the ruling elite (nobles, master artisans, the guard, medical staff, honored guests) live in palatial above ground residences while the underclass toils away in the underground. Like a prison fort without the difficulty of completely containing dwarves.

Also I've found with my current surface village that I like using wall grates for fencing balconies and fields. Blocks pathing but is destructible and still allows line of sight. It's more realistic than indestructible walls.
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Welcome to Dwarf Fortress. Where peaceful death of old age is something nobody sees coming.
it turns out Dog Bone Doctors aren't very good at doctoring.

Spectre9000

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Re: Looking for fun roleplay ideas
« Reply #8 on: September 06, 2016, 09:24:38 am »

Create a fort till it's self sustaining. Then create an adventurer that's a Vampire Necromancer, that becomes leader of that fort. Then unretire that fort. The possibilities are endless. Bonus points if you get a werebeast and make a 3 caste system (Vampires, then Werebeasts, then dwarves for slave labor). Even more bonus points for each of those castes that are a different race than dwarves.


Another option to this idea would be if the dwarves are extinct and you slowly replace the dwarves that currently exist in the fort with other races. I believe it would still be counted as a "Dwarven" fort. You could then pretend the new race(s) are "Dwarves" and start a new mythos. No one would be the wiser as no true dwarves exist in the world.
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Sanctume

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Re: Looking for fun roleplay ideas
« Reply #9 on: September 06, 2016, 09:36:35 am »

Quill18 has a fun fortress Ironborn based on Game of Throne's.
No farming. Seize all trade caravans not from dwarves. Trade iron mugs only as export items. 

I had an "Ironborn" rule but not based on GoT and focused more on military equipment based on skill levels.
Iron weapons only for starters, steel for reaching level 10 in weapon skill, and candy only for kill count.