I'd been lurking the DF wiki for a few days when I finally decided that Dwarf Fortress looked really cool and I wanted to download it. I read the guide, researched the creatures and learned about the controls. I thought that I was finally ready to start a fortress and get to killing forgotten beasts.
I was, as you can imagine, wrong.
When I generated my world and scoped out a place to build my first fortress, I neglected to really read anything and just went with what looked cool. I finally embarked in a cold biome with little soil and no flux stone.
I had no idea what I was looking at.
I mean, I knew that the little smilies were my dwarves, and the white punctuation marks scattered everywhere was the ground. I fooled around a bit in the menu, creating burrows, disabling labors, and designating stockpiles until I finally figured out how to order my dwarves to do stuff. Not wanting to waste any more time, I designated for a space to be carved into the rock and a few trees to be felled.
Skip forward to mod-autumn. My food stores are running out, and I have no idea how to farm, by the time I figure it out, my dwarves have eaten all my plump helmet spawn. I resort to gathering plants, and create a meager above ground farm.
Of course, that isn't my main problem.
I had run out of booze a while ago, but I didn't notice, mainly because my dwarves drank from a nearby pond. However, with winter on the horizon, I watched in horror as drink cancellation messages popped up stating that my dwarves couldn't find water. The pond had frozen, and my dwarves were doomed.
To this day, even as a moderately experienced DF player who has slain both forgotten beast and GCS, I stay away from cold places.
DF can be cruel to new players.