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[Aquillion]

It seems like a logical thing for him to do, at least -- dwarves go to the Philosopher to yell at him because their lives suck, and he philosophizes at them.  If his social skills are good, they come away feeling better about themselves.  If they're bad, they get angrier...  pretty much like the mayor.

Anyway, this seems like one logical role he could take, which doesn't seem like it'd be too hard to add.

[dizzyelk]

It also would stop Urist McSad from following the mayor and not working until noticed. I approve

[Sphalerite]

It appears that the complete redesign of the position system in the next rev should allow this kind of thing.

[Fieari]

Yes, this will apparently be possible to at least mod into the next version.  As for an actual suggestion then...

It would make more sense if am unskilled philosopher would have no effect on your dwarves at all, while a skilled one could make your dwarves happier OR sadder, depending on the predilection of the philosopher.  Some very skilled philosophers were pretty big downers, after all.

Maybe philosophers would move dwarves towards the fortress average?  Or maybe even make them move towards "middlingly" happy, so ecstatic dwarves would be made uphappier, while unhappy dwarves would be made happy.  As an added benefit (and a reason not to just kill him for making happy dwarves less happy), maybe the philosopher would have the ability to snap melancholy dwarves out of their suicidal depression.

That's something I don't think is able to be done yet.

[Footkerchief]

It appears that the complete redesign of the position system in the next rev should allow this kind of thing.

We'll see.  It really depends on the specifity of the "responsibility tokens", or whatever the position raws will use to assign responsibility to entity positions.  In other words, there'll probably be a hardcoded list of duties that can be assigned to a position, but we don't know whether there'll just be a single COMPLAINT duty or more specific stuff like WORK_COMPLAINT, PERSONAL_COMPLAINT etc.

e: crossposted the above as a question in the List thread

[Craftling]

Shouldnt the philsopher be like a therapist? Tell the dwarves how to work stuff out etc.?

[chucks]

Philosophers are scientists, scholars, artists, engineers, theologians, musicians, playwrights, authors, mathematicians, craftsmen, and doctors.  To limit their capacity to one subject would completely subjugate their spirit.

Public discourse and teaching and consultation are a very common trend among historical philosophers, depending on which specific philosophers you envsion when you think of the term.

I think that they perhaps could be a dwarf that somewhat repeatedly gets fell moods, but there is a strong variable chance that they will never be upset for not honing their trade.  Perhaps they could only get a little sad, but something happy could quickly draw their attention away.  Perhaps another time, they could just decide to pick a pick and mine out a random shaft with you for 10-30 tiles, and then be gone.  Perhaps they could go to fell trees with your woodcutter.  Maybe randomly decide to carve some bones.

I would think of a philosopher as someone who would have all non-military jobs turned on, heavily socialize with dwarves they encounter, occasionally get in a rare fell mood and become some legendary something, probably not even get upset that they dont complete their masterpiece thesis.  Perhaps a philosopher could even be inclined to train with your warriors to become a fighter, if he so wishes to.

Aristosthenes, Socrates, Plato, Aristotle, Nitsche, Sir Isaac Newton, Alan Turing, Galileo Galilei, Copernicus, Kant, Voltaire, Thomas Paine, Ben Franklin, Nicola Tesla, Homer, Ovid, Einstein, Da Vinci, Monet, Van Gogh.

A diverse group of men and women throughout history that have contributed great things to the world at large were great philosophers.  Philosophy is simply raw, unbridled thought and contemplation profounding containing either masterpieces and discoveries or silly and thought-provoking commentary on life.

Perhaps a philosopher is just a dwarf that rolls the dice _way_ more than anyone else.

[thobal]

I think the scientists, scholars, artists, engineers, theologians, musicians, playwrights, authors, mathematicians, craftsmen, and doctors might have things to offer us.

Afterall, with such a backlog of features, the language may yet speak.

[smjjames]

Or maybe the philosopher can act as a counselor to help with moral troubles or even advice. There have been mention of priests (mainly for other civs), so, depending on the philosophers discipline, they could act as a sort of religious counselor. Like a chaplan.

There aren't any negative thoughts yet that could be attributed to religion (aside from death, which can be dealt with religiously), but with alot of things to be put in, who knows.

Also, maybe we can have more than one philosopher noble? They aren't as bad as the other nobles and as long as there are enough dwarves to keep the fortress going....

[Silverionmox]

Philosophers should uphold and defend virtues according to their character: so if you have an empiricist philosopher (is grounded in reality) then your fortress as a whole would be a bit more inclined to the hard facts and less towards fantasy. If you have a cynic philosopher, your dwarves will be more inclined to lie in a barrel all day .

[smjjames]

In that line of thinking, maybe a martial philosopher (think Sun Tzu) could actually improve military training, defenses, weapons, or whatever. Which, considering how dwarven discipline is sometimes, can actually be a good thing.

[chucks]

Well, as political interactions between dwarves begin to be modelled in more depth, the philosopher could pose a very interesting political conundrum in your fortress depending on how highly he values civic order and authority.

Someone like Sun Tzu, Confucius, Shakespeare, Aristotle, etc. could improve political cohesion and reduce civic unrest.

Someone more like Galileo, Socrates, Thomas Paine, Voltaire, etc. could cause some serious division in the fortress between their followers and the established political authority.