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[thegoatgod_pan]

i got a housemate to play. he is a starcraft guy. first time i showed it to him he didnt get it.
next time i got him to set up a little fort with my supervision.
he was hooked when a weregoat showed up in the middle of his trade depot and brutally killed a hunter before turning into a human child and running away

he stayed up all night
the next morning he told me of how his fort fell to the undead and how the last thing he saw before it crumbled was a necromancer sitting down in the nice office he set up for his manager.

its hard too hook somebody, but if they get hooked, it is over

[JimmyBobJr]

Two people; One guy who took a look at it and immediatly gave up, and the other, a Closet CODkid who thought that it was way to dificult. He gave up before getting to the world gen MENU.

Fools.

[Shinotsa]

My favorite reaction was when a guy at university leaned over my shoulder and said, "ah shit man you programmin. I was gon ask you sumtin but you look busy." At least he was polite.

A few friends tried, but most just like the stories. It feels like reading bedtime stories to kids sometimes, knowing they are DF illiterate.

[rtg593]

I've yet to get anyone hooked on DF, but I've come close with Hazeron. Free 3D 4x space mmorpg, learning curve so steep DF is just a gentle rise after it (still steeper, but only a little).

Once I get them going on the slightly easier game with modern graphics... Then I'll reel em in...mwahahaha... :p

[rex mortis]

I have not had much luck yet. All of my friends who have tried Dwarf Fortress already knew of it.

However, I will not give up. One day my brother will give in and try it.

[GavJ]

Steps for hooking friends:
1) Introduce game by going on about delightful stories that showcase its intricacy, without sounding too crazy, if possible.
2) Once they are intrigued, send them a link to the BoatMurdered story, or your favorite other succession or Let's Play series which is well written and/or has hilarious things goin on.
3) If they complain about the graphics, ask them what their favorite novel is.  When they tell you, scrunch up your nose and look disgusted, and then say "[Lord of the Rings / or whatever]?!  Doesn't that book only have ASCII graphics??!  Gross."
4) If this does not work, then begrudgingly tell them about other tilesets.
5) If that also does not work, and/or if they don't read books, then get better friends, and return to step #1.
6) Once they start playing, make sure they know you are available to help them with confusing interface things, etc.  And maybe nudge them a little for updates very occasionally to not be too pushy (once a week or so), so that if they had given up in frustration, they will now have to tell you, and you may be able to address the problem.

[masquerine]

I got three friends playing, and a forth we'll force to play (though I'm sure he'd do so willingly) if he ever gets his internet back. We plan to do a succession game once they get a little more used to all the things you can do.

I started them off with some of my dwarfish tales of lunacy and they wanted to give it a go. They are not fans of ascii, so I hooked them up with the phoebus tileset and the masterwork mod (because I was having fun with it and they wanted the fun too). I told them they could customize it any way they want with the mod, and the first thing they do is set most of the extra enemy civilizations to ON. What better way to start playing dwarf fortress than to have 15+ enemies?

One of them played a round a bit with it before looking up a tutorial to get a grasp on the game. The other just asked what the main controls are, which are space bar to pause, d to designate, b to build and q to queue things up. The last guy just asked questions as he needed them to figure it out.

First guy got food and booze production going, had an encounter with some undead that made his dwarves nauseous. His fort was covered in vomit, his dwarves were upset and he was loving it. Vomit in the bedrooms, vomit on the food, vomit everywhere. Even the vomit had vomit on it.

Second guy started off with growers and strawberry farms. He wanted his dwarves to be fat on strawberries and strawberry wine. He ended up with a good number of dwarves and defended against some early invaders before encountering a forgotten beast with fire breath. He forgot to seal the entrance to the caverns and shortly after no two dwarves were not on fire. The ensuing death spiral of burning dwarves, strawberries and war dogs made for an amusing story. He did manage to have a couple dwarves be isolated from the incident, and started a second fortress beside the old one with the intent to rebuild and conquer the old fort and the fire breathing beast.

Third guy had some trouble getting food production going, got swarmed with a wave of 30+ dwarves and ended up getting killed by an early ambush. He re-embarked a few times until he got the basics down. He was determined to learn and to not let the game beat him so easily.

They have me to answer any questions they might have, and to give them tips and advice on how to do things (or not do things, like flooding your fortress). The second guy really liked the idea of everyone being in a military squad, even if they are not set to training. That way everyone always has a weapon/armor equipped and they can fight back against petty monsters that would otherwise cause cancellation spam or a slow wave of death because everyone is too scared to fight. He had that happen with a kobold that got trapped in his fort, slowly knifing everyone.

[NTJedi]

Steps for hooking friends:
1) Introduce game by going on about delightful stories that showcase its intricacy, without sounding too crazy, if possible.
2) Once they are intrigued, send them a link to the BoatMurdered story, or your favorite other succession or Let's Play series which is well written and/or has hilarious things goin on.
3) If they complain about the graphics, ask them what their favorite novel is.  When they tell you, scrunch up your nose and look disgusted, and then say "[Lord of the Rings / or whatever]?!  Doesn't that book only have ASCII graphics??!  Gross."
4) If this does not work, then begrudgingly tell them about other tilesets.
5) If that also does not work, and/or if they don't read books, then get better friends, and return to step #1.
6) Once they start playing, make sure they know you are available to help them with confusing interface things, etc.  And maybe nudge them a little for updates very occasionally to not be too pushy (once a week or so), so that if they had given up in frustration, they will now have to tell you, and you may be able to address the problem.

7) Assign them to a barracks as ZTIQ where they can train their dwarf fortress skills.

[Chaos Armor]

I convinced my cousin to start playing when 31 had almost come out. He still plays it. On regular basis too.

[Telgin]

Tried once, failed on account of graphics.  Novel concept, I know.

[Jelle]

Yep, but only one person. Most of the time they give up before they even figure out what the game is all about, people are often shallow and impatient like that. 
It's a shame to as I'm usually very eager to explain or help in any way since there's really no one else I can have a DF chat with outside teh internets, but they all seem to prefer minecraft for their sandbox fix.

[Malarauko]

I got my little sister to play Minecraft but I think DF is a step too far. A few friends have tried DF and I know some people who play. I'd like to introduce someone to it though.

[Urist McBeanie]

Got my bro to try it today. He's been playing Adventure Mode for a while. Pretty soon I'm gonna get him started with Fortress Mode.

[Halconnen]

I've been very careful about who I advertise the game to, and the ones I did advertise it to, about six people (all people with some experience with Roguelikes) all liked it.

I'm not sure how many are still actively playing, though. I know one stopped because of FPS issues.

[dizzyelk]

I got my little sister to play Minecraft but I think DF is a step too far. A few friends have tried DF and I know some people who play. I'd like to introduce someone to it though.

I always knew minecraft was Dwarf Fortress for little girls...

My cousin got me hooked on DF, and I played it constantly, and one of my roommates saw and wondered what the hell I playing. I got him to install it. He played it for awhile, the 4-5 months he stayed with me anyways. Haven't seen him in 5 years or so, so I don't know if he still plays. I got my brother dabbling with it. He downloaded the 34.01 and got hit with the giant mosquito waves. But he goes even longer between bouts of playing than I do. I got him to install it by saying it had the most complex world generator ever. Then he told me that all his dwarves drowned for some reason, and he couldn't figure out why. That was back in the .40 days.