10 players... sharing a world...
You will all die of anger fits before the dwarves do.
-odd berserk text snip-
7, not 10, now. And that's precisely the idea. You don't get at the dwarves, you get at the players controlling the dwarves,
through the dwarves. That's epic.
Oh, and how about this: if something goes horribly wrong and everyone decides it's your fault, you're out.
Expanding on some of the ideas already presented, such as dwarfing and struggles between players, how about this:
Every player gets to name a dwarf after themselves upon playing. The next person along in the rota must keep that dwarf alive no matter what happens during their turn, but the more suffering you can put that dwarf through the better.
Eventually if this ended up being some kind of rotation based game we could build up quite the few grudges and see elaborate projects developing just to get back at the player who exposed you to the kitten-rot and kept you hospitalised for the better part of a year.
A lot of succession games end up with players inflicting all kinds of fun on previous overseers, so I am sure it could work here.
That sounds like a reverse of a lot of different games I've heard of, namely the "screw the next player over" theme. Nice idea, I kind of like it... though I'd honestly prefer the madness of a 7-overseer fortress.
edit: Either way, I can't take a turn - I don't have a good enough connection for it.