Crazy ideas. Stupid dwarf tricks. Ways of achieving unusual effects through mundane means.
Share your ideas on how to do something absolutely dwarven, even if you're not sure if it would work in reality. Bonus points for usefulness and for not using exploits (though this is optional).
I'll start.
Crime generator
Build two adjacent rooms, 3x3 or so. Make tantrum-proof doors/gates/bridges from each room into corridor and between the two rooms, activated by levers. Put a dwarf into one of the rooms and drive him to the point of tantruming. Place the item to be tantrummified in the other room. Then open the door and hopefully the dwarf will kick some butt, generating crime in the process. Only citizens of your fortress are capable of crimes.
Inputs - crimes:
Dwarf - murder of a dwarf
Tame animal (e.g. kitten) - murder of a tame animal
Workshop - destruction of a building.
Door/bed - toppling furniture
Once the dwarf ends up in the second room, lock the door between the rooms. The now-unoccupied room becomes the input room.
The dwarf screws things up and generates a crime. Why would you want a crime? To convict somebody, of course! Convicted dwarves can be put in cages, chained to restraints, beat up or murdered without causing a loyalty cascade (though there are easier ways to do the latter).
Upgrade 1: give the dwarf military skills for advanced butt-kicking.
Upgrade 2: berserk vampire dwarf. They never stop destroying stuff!
Upgrade 3: werewolf vampire berserk dwarf. Restores full health every full moon (if the fictims fight back)
Upgrade 4: dump things from the ceiling or deliver victims by mine-carts.
Upgrade 5: lever to drown/melt/carbonise/atom-smash the dwarf inside (because safety is important!)