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[Alenth Eneil]

I was discussing Dwarf Fortress with a couple other players just a moment ago, and one of them (The one who doesn't actually play the game yet, incidentally.) said that "Imaginary" should be a material.  I think that that would be rather odd and would not fit, but it brought out another idea;

What if dwarves, when they get repeatedly scared/have sufficient head injuries/some other situation that someone can probably come up with (Here's one; alcohol deprivation.), will start to hallucinate things?  It could be just another problem in settling haunted and terrifying areas, since not only do you have to deal with the real monsters, you might also have to deal with having your dwarves run away from things that aren't even there.  If they don't get out of it quickly enough they could always go crazy just like a dwarf who is trying to make an artifact.  How long that takes would depend on the dwarves' personality and how insecure they feel.

I'm not sure about how this could have a counterbalance, aside from the usual making the dwarves really happy.  Unless this connects to a new bit of information about how "safe" each dwarf feels.  In which case more traps, doors, and military would help reduce it.  Some of the "social skills" dwarves have could also play into this.  A leader with good leadership qualities (As in they are sure of themselves and all that good stuff.) could also help to prevent this sort of madness.  Aside from preventing the madness, maybe it could cause a sort of mood, not one that results in artifacts, but maybe results in them suddenly teaching themselves to fight with whatever they can find, and exercising to up their stats.  When they feel strong enough/safe enough/get hit over the head hard enough they could exit the "mood."

This would also tie in with the dwarves personality traits that already exist, like imagination and such.

I have no idea what this might do to Adventure mode, other than you might run into some lunatic Don Quixote-esque NPCs.  Which I think would be funny enough alone.

Feel free to help me clean up this idea.  I'm not the greatest at this game and I am far from knowing everything.  Particularly about Adventure mode, and late-game mechanics in Fortress mode.

[Idiom]

This would be interesting. Haunted areas would be much more challenging.

[Elitay]

Urist cancels fishing: had vision of Cthulhu.

[SirPenguin]

quote:Originally posted by Elitay:
<STRONG>Urist cancels fishing: had vision of Cthulhu.</STRONG>

That's not a half bad idea. Dwarves could hallucinate creatures that are drawn from the Legends table. So if you have some Cyclopes everyone knows and fears, then they could think they saw him, and freak out.

Also, I think this could potentially be a neat addition to the Insane characteristic. Something like Insane: Schizophrenic or some such. They'd wander around the halls, babbling go themselves, such as being "mad", but every so often they'd think a fellow Dwarf was a monster, and fight/flight accordingly. Or maybe they'll think that lava moat is actually water, and try to drink from it...etc.

[Neonivek]

I always like the theme of "Insanity has its place in sanity" and stuff like that... which I call "Insanity is real"

So every once in a while... your insane babbling dwarves... should actually do impossible things or actually see an invisable creature.

So that Item their holding that is fake... turns out it was actually invisable the whole time.

Of course I think I written a better blurb on insanity a while back... Let me see if I can bring it up again... Though it is more about Adventure mode

Edit: Found it, here it is...

"How about if a person in Adventure mode walks around in the wilderness long enough without any contact with civilisation he will start hear voices.

Soon you will swear you hear a animal speak but you will be unable to talk dirrectly... However after a while you will have no problems speaking to animals but they won't talk back...

Eventually animals will start talking about and asking you philosophical questions and how your day has been

Later, trees will speak to you and you can talk back... Then objects... Your sword says you havn't been taking very good care of him lately.

In fact images of Dwarves, Elves, Demons, Wolves, and Goblins will come to life and attack or speak to you. If you fight back you will hurt yourself on the ground and find that you were in fact fighting no one.

Soon you will be able to speak to things that arn't even there in any sense of the word being able to talk to the "Others" and spontanious other beings.

This will go on until you reach civilisation and your ordeal is finished with. However you weren't completely mad. If you were nice to your sword, it appears it has gone up one quality level... The Animals you spoke to if you made friends are still your friends... and those voices were in fact gods and otherworldly beings.

Perhaps if you speak to animals long enough during this stage of insanity, they will allow you into their fold and you can become an animal yourself... Either instantly retiring you as a magical legendary animal or opening up a new state of being. Maybe you don't turn into an animal, maybe only half-animal.

A long with this perhaps towns that are not really there. The Sword you got there could end up being a stick, however there is a small chance that it is actually a sword. When your sane again the town won't be there... but the sword will still me.

The voices in your head will sometimes ask you to do horrible things, and if you do... They may reveal themselves to be demons who will then give you boons for your service.

If you retire in a imaginary town while your insane another character can meet you in the wilderness in which your character will be chaotic and mad but every once in a while he does something so profound that it makes you question if he is truely mad. He will say that the "Symbol of Food in the temple is actually a door" and when you go there, it turns out he was right.

Also perhaps the voices in your head could fall inlove with you, and ask to be wed. If you do, soon you could have a child on your hands with exceptional powers. Then once you die a Demon or Whatever the good equivilant of a demon will be named (if there ever will be one... which I hope there is) after your character a year after his death on the dot.

If your character falls inlove with plants he can chose to become one, instantly retiring him. However the tree will not only have a name, but the wood is considered of great quality second only to Adamantium (as a single tree wields a single peice of wood). However the tree is much more useful to keep around as while it is there, plants will grow in much greater abundance making it a VERY useful tree to keep around for your fort"

Ill apply this to Fortress mode in a bit

[ May 30, 2008: Message edited by: Neonivek ]

Edit: Got rid of the Bold that was apperantly hurting people's eyes

[ May 30, 2008: Message edited by: Neonivek ]

[umiman]

Argh! Mine eyes! Bright font... gurk...

Anyway, I pretty much agree. It sounds fun, gives more reasons to execute foolish dwarves. However, there must be a way to smack some sense into hallucinating dwarves, either via solitary confinement or counseling with the mayor or some sort. Perhaps the game could establish some sort of system where if a dwarf sees a mirage or hallucinates a megabeast of some sort striding around outside, you as the player should see said megabeast wandering outside.

Thus, you could easily disprove it (or find out it was real) by sending your hardened military out to face it and discover it was a bunny rabbit or something, thus quelling the fear. This way, not only do the dwarves feel afraid, the player might get jittery too. What do you think?

[Alenth Eneil]

Maybe imaginary monsters (*Imaginary Seige*, ahaha), could be "killed" be sending in the military.  From the remark you made about the rabbit, maybe hallucinations would actually be connected to objects in the game world, and destroying them or scouting the area would be a way to reassure the dwarf.

Even better if a bunch of dwarves get slaughtered in some area, and after that all dwarves who are sent there are creeped out and might freak at the snap of a twig.  Like if they got ambushed by goblins while chopping wood in a particular glade, and anyone near there after that is likely to get interrupted by the slightest thing.

Another idea was working with the Consoler skill as part of dealing with hallucinating dwarves.  I think someone mentioned a possibility for a new noble who deals with worried dwarves, although the expedition leader would probably have the same use in the absence of that noble.

Dealing with them could be anything from slaying their imagined beasts, waiting until they excercise and pratice themselves up in combat skills and physical stats to the point that they feel able to defend themselves.  (Higher requirements when they are more disturbed, maybe in terrifying areas you'll be punished for not having enough traps and military dwarves by your dwarves all stopping their work to train themselves.  In a way, if you don't protect them, they will try to learn to protect themselves, at the expense of their usual work.)  I feel sort of bad not knowing this for sure, but if different stones/woods are stronger as doors than others, maybe installing better doors on their room or the fort entrance (if there were a way to code a detection for what that is) would help too.

It's pretty much either making them feel safe, waiting it out, or maybe they will sometimes go and get bashed enough to forget that they were seeing things.
Which could provide random and unexpected drains on your alcohol reserves.

They might also start refusing to go outside.  Maybe this sort of thing should happen most to dwarves that are forced by their job to go outside (fisherdwarves, hunters, woodcutters).

code:

Tulon strikes at the skeletal elephant with his =imaginary steel shortsword=.
Tulon has been struck down.

Poor dwarf thought he was a hero.  

[Techhead]

Urist McHeadTrauma has created a legendary artifact!
Emneginaetion "The Ethereal Barrel"                                     Value: 0*
This is an imaginary barrel. It menaces with spikes of imagination. It is encircled with bands of imagination. On the item is an image of a dragon in imagination. All craftdwarfship is of the highest quality.

[Psyco Jelly]

quote:Urist McHeadTrauma has created a legendary artifact!
Emneginaetion "The Ethereal Barrel" Value: 0*
This is an imaginary barrel. It menaces with spikes of imagination. It is encircled with bands of imagination. On the item is an image of a dragon in imagination. All craftdwarfship is of the highest quality.

Yes.

The spinning imagination coin strikes the goblin in the upper body!
It explodes in gore!
The goblin is propelled away by the force of the blow!
Xik Uruwhatsit, goblin, has been struck down!

Imagine the looks on the other goblin's faces.

[Lazer Bomb]

Has this been said?:
If your adventuer is having hallucination, he can "see" things that arent real, and you see them too, but when you get close, it dissipears. So its more like the player is hallucinating, and makes decisions based on that.

Then if the player thinks that theres no way a GCS is in front of his adventuer, he could think "its just a hallucination" and decides to ignore it. Then he finds out.