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[Angela Christine]

Dwarfs get an unhappy thought when a friend or family member dies, or when they actually see someone die.  But they don't care at all when strangers die in another room, no matter how many deaths there are.  In fact, if the dead person had nice clothes yo may get some happy thoughts from the dwarfs that make satisfying acquisitions of the dead man's pants.     :p   An occasional death might not worry anyone, the frontier is a dangerous place, but when you have 10, 20 or more deaths in a single year, you'd think people would start to worry.  If not out of compassion for the fallen, at least out of concern for their own safety.

I propose that each death (whether due to accident, animals, invaders, crime, suicide, etc.) should have a chance of generating an unhappy thought.  In general it would be a very small chance, like 1%.  (So if 1 dwarf dies in a fortress of 100, chances are that 1 dwarf would have an unhappy thought about it, even if no one saw it, and no one knew the dead dwarf).  This would be a milder unhappy thought than if a friend dies.
Possible modifiers:

• A death is more likely to generate an unhappy thought in members of the same profession.  If several trappers die in a year, the other trappers aren't going to be happy about it, even if they weren't friends.  If people in your profession are dying, you may suspect that your own working conditions are not safe.

•  The death of nobles in a related profession is more likely to generate an unhappy thought, and vice versa.  True Nobility will be upset about deaths in the Royal guard, and vice versa.  The Carpenter's guildmaster will be unhappy about the death of carpenters, and carpenters would be unhappy about the death of their guildmaster.  Members of the Fortress Guard might be unhappy if the Captain of the Guard or the Hammerer die.

• The death of a child is more likely to generate unhappy thoughts, especially in parents and other children.  

• The deaths of legendary and famous dwarfs are more likely to generate unhappy thoughts.  People who have made artifacts, people who have become legendary, particularly notable nobles like the King or Queen, any sort of person that could be considered a celebrity.  The "if it could happen to HIM, are any of us safe?" factor.

• People who are used to tragedy and don't care anymore may be immune to these distant death thoughts.  

[ June 03, 2007: Message edited by: Angela Christine ]

[Tamren]

Some good ideas there. In the future i would like to see more realistic dwarven psychology.

The problem with the system right now is it is there is not much room between "blissfully happy" and "apeshit factor 10".

Dwarves can even shift between those extremes in the blink of an eye as is the case with artifact attemps.

[Sharpshot]

I do think they go to "Apeshit factor 10" way to easily, I mean look at what us humans have to put up with.
The "What We Have To Put Up With" List
1. Lazyness
2.

[ June 02, 2007: Message edited by: Sharpshot ]

[Zomg]

I've thought that dwarves with children should get serious negative thoughts when the children of other dwarves die or are kidnapped.

"Why, what if little Cog had been kidnapped? I demand that all goblins, everywhere, die."

[JT]

One way we might be able to make this a little closer to real life is to make it exponentially increase and linearly decline.   I would also make it more of an inclination to emigrate, since unhappy thoughts would cause people to go berserk, melancholy, etc. -- which always results in death in a pre-Sheriff fortress.  While I can see some people killing themselves if a bunch of their friends and co-workers die, most people are collected enough to get on with their lives.  Thus, no matter how many people were killed, it'd probably be best to have unhappiness affect only a few dwarfs a month.  The rest would simply become dissatisfied with their safety and consider quitting or changing jobs.

There would essentially be two pools: "danger points" reflect the number of dwarves that have been killed recently and reflect the immediate threat of being killed while on the job.  "Worry points" reflect the lingering distrust that dwarves gain for the given situation.

When a dwarf is killed on the job, the given profession receives one danger point.  Then, the given profession receives (two to the power of the number of danger points minus one) (mathematically: 2^(dp-1)) in worry points.  [edit]The base of this exponent (2) is quite obviously very high and would probably be modified down to some floating point value during testing.  E.g., 1.2 makes for a considerably-shallower increase.[/edit]

For instance:

If you kill one dwarf, you gain one danger point and worry point.

If you kill two dwarves, you gain one danger point for the first and 2^0 (1) worry point, and one danger point for the second and 2^1 (2) worry points, for a total of three worry points.

If you kill sixteen dwarves, you gain 16 danger points, one for each, and you gain 1+2+4+8+16+32+64+128+256+512+1024+2048+4096+8192+16384+32768 worry points, for a total of 65,535 worry points... [edit]fixed 32768 typo (was 32668)[/edit]

Every month, you lose one "danger point" and one "worry point".  Thus, in the case of a sixteen-miner-massacre, it'd take hundreds of years for miners ever to want to work there ever again.

Various schemes and nobles could be used to decrease the worry points, such as increasing wages to the given profession, offering reparations, etc.

[ June 03, 2007: Message edited by: JT ]

[Devastator]

Lets go kill six jewellers so they stop coming to my fort.

[Angela Christine]

Oooh, I like it.

quote:

Every month, you lose one "danger point" and one "worry point".  Thus, in the case of a sixteen-miner-massacre, it'd take hundreds of years for miners ever to want to work there ever again.

Various schemes and nobles could be used to decrease the worry points, such as increasing wages to the given profession, offering reparations, etc.

Military professions should probably lose worry points faster.  They know that their job is dangerous, but they should also have the training and equipment to deal with danger.  Possibly this could be modified some how by the value of their equipment.  A guy in steel plate armor toting a masterwork sword is going to be more confident than a guy that has tattered kitten leather armor and a pointy stick.

So if your Legendary Mason has 97 worry points and is freaking out, you can recruit him into the fortress guard, give him some fancy armor, and maybe he can work off all 97 points in one year, instead of 8 years.