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[Phex]

Motivated by the upcoming movie I was going to re-read Tolkien's The Hobbit. And after a few pages it struck me like a slade war hammer: This short little fairy tale is actually a really good description of how dwarf fortress could play in a distant future! (May contain spoilers for those who really dont know the story.)
It would go like this:

• Start a new dwarf fortress game, mode: "Reclaim a fortress captured by a forgotten beast".
• Choose your character: Some kind of halfling.
• The game starts as an adventure type game with a NPC magician visiting you at your home and introducing you to the adventure. You can then select the starting dwarves.
• You wander around on the world map and fight through several challanges: trolls to outsmart, weather to withstand, orcs to flee from, monsters to riddle with, beastmasters to coax, giant spiders to slay, elves to hide from etc. The magician appears from time to time at major plot points and helps you either to find the right way or to win in battle. Finally, you reach the fortress.
• Find a secret passage to the fortress by means of an ancient map and outplay the forgotten beast against a neighboring civilization. Watch as hell unleashes on them. The beast is slain.
• Defend the fortress treasures against various counterparties in an epic final battle.
• Retire your halfling, now master-thief, and gain control of the fortress. The game switches to the usual fortress mode.
• Become king under the Mountain.
• Afterwards, the game log of your adventure could be read like a well-written book in legends mode.

For me, the possibility of playing a bug-free game of this scale is probably a measure at which I may consider dwarf fortress to be "finished".


PS: Oh, and if you like fantasy books and havent already read The Hobbit, I really recommend you to do so.

[Awessum Possum]

Have you looked into the back story of Moria? Perfect DF. Dwarves found greatest mountain hall ever. Dwarves dig too deep. Terrors from the depths destroy settlement. Dwarves reclaim, all are killed. Dwarves reclaim again, killed by goblins. Adventurers kill goblins/eldritch horrors. Dwarves reclaim. The cycle is complete.

[Mesa]

The Hobbit - the only good book I HAD to read.
Aside from some others I can't remember...

[Putnam]

Have you looked into the back story of Moria? Perfect DF. Dwarves found greatest mountain hall ever. Dwarves dig too deep. Terrors from the depths destroy settlement. Dwarves reclaim, all are killed. Dwarves reclaim again, killed by goblins. Adventurers kill goblins/eldritch horrors. Dwarves reclaim. The cycle is complete.

DF was designed from the start as a "Moria simulator"

[Anathema]

Well, I doubt we'll ever get legends mode that reads like a 'well-written book' - there's a difference between the actual events and how you describe them, the real magic is in the second part. That being said, I definitely could see legends mode reading like a plot summary of a well-written book, i.e. like a cliff's notes version of The Hobbit.

[0cu]

This thread made me buy "The Hobbit". Thank you.

[Pyro627]

giant spiders to slay, elves to hide from

I think you got this backwards, but other than that,you have a great point. I'd love to be able to play DF like that.

[Ruhn]

I think this is missing:
Step 0. Start a new fortress and embark on a "Lonely Mountain" near a lake and human village.
It seems like they might have only dug 5 or 10 z below the surface on this one?

--
Getting this scenario setup in time for the movie would be real fun.
Moria would be much harder IMO, with larger embark size and 15z+ ceilings.

[ed boy]

Also, relevant.

[Noise_]

I just read the hobbit a week or two ago, and it struck me as well how much like Dwarf Fortress the book felt in tone. I know it's because DF takes a lot of influence from Tolkien but still.

[Phex]

I am reviving my own thread after several years as a reaction to Toady's new devlog entry:

Larger world gen beasties can play with the items now. There was an unfortunate elven civilization called the Distant Oak that lost three druids in three years. The last one was killed by goblins and had their body hung from a pine tree, which must have made the goblins happy since they organized a yearly candlelight procession commemorating the event back at their tower. On the 110th occasion of the procession, the dragon Niweni attacked, killing several goblins and dwarves. Finally the beast entered the tower and stole the Renowned Gill, a legendary crossbow created by a dwarf for the chameleon demon 20 years before, bringing it back to the cave. 180 years later, the crossbow is still there, along with the dragon. There weren't any attempts to recover it -- such civilization-level quests are the last step for these world gen changes.

These new features seem to introduce greedy dragons which are a major story element of The Hobbit. Therefore, I guess that replaying at least certain parts of the novel might actually be possible in a not so distant future. This is great news!

Also note that there have been small remarks about The Hobbit in part 20 and part 21 of the Dwarf Fortress Talk. So I guess Toady is clearly aware of the similarities between DF and The Hobbit.

PS: Happy Birthday, DF! 

[pikachu17]

Well, the HFS actually is a reference to Moria.