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[pbnjoe]

Spent a good hour on my first fort (with ASCII) trying, and failing, to designate a stairway the first z level down. No matter where or what size I did, I just could NOT make it. I regenned worlds, made new forts, went to the wiki repeatedly, trying to find out what I was doing wrong.

...

Then I realized I was going up z levels, not down. I was trying to dig stairs in the sky.

[keyreper]

when i started playing dwarf fortress i thought "oh it must be a GOOD idea to embark on Aquifers, FREE WATER!!" and that Abandon fort was the only option to stop playing dwarf fortress ;.;

[Megaman3321]

Sticking a proof-of-concept DWR in my dining hall and not understanding the importance of pump orientation.
Hollowing out massive rooms.

[EpeeGnome]

I was following the old Mayday tutorial back in 40d. The game impressed me over and over with how it modeled so many things. I though, "Hmm, I wonder if it models fluid flow?" So, I designated a tunnel to mine out the side of the brook and sat back to see how the game handled it.

The water slammed my miner into a wall and then drowned him. It then rushed down the corridor and into my giant open crafting/stockpile room. I tried to build walls to contain it, but it filled the room too fast, and spilled past before they could all be built. It took me 2 more tries, the flooding of all but a few of my stockpiles and workshops and the drowning of two masons to finally contain it.

That was when I fell in love with DF. I spent a long time after (and another miner's life) digging a back-drain and cistern to drain the room (and the still connected brook) into so I could finally wall off the flood corridor . My stockpiles where covered in mud for the rest of the life of that fort. Now I put redundant cut off flood gates connected to levers on the other side of the fort any time I dig near water. I haven't had a problem with flooding since.

[brainfreez]

didn't know that everything can travel diagonal .

[misko27]

I thought: Oh, just a goblin, must be the first and easiest enemies coming to a fort. They probably won't even be a match for my unarmed dwarfes.

This. The metal industry scared me, so I went with whatever I could salvage from traders and gobbos. This led to me frantically trying to figure out how to strip a caged goblin. I also assumed 8 or nine cage traps were good enough.

I assumed breaking into the caverns from above would be fine.

I sent un-armed dwarfs after a wild yak. So much trampling and goring ensued. Worst part was they lulled me into security by being friendly, and not attacking until they were enraged.

[Pon_Katt]

I had real trouble with getting farming to work.  4 forts later, I had a functioning fort that had some walls, a gate, and a hall of traps.  I was scared of the military, though.  Then a Forest Titan with wings showed up.  I thought, "Oh, my gate and walls will keep him out!  And if somehow makes it over that, my traps will take care of him."  Next thing I knew, it was a blood bath in the dinning hall.

[Viking]

In a distant past where I was not quite as familiar with the physics of Df as I am today I assumed that the same laws would apply there as they do in reality. This resulted in me being extremly paranoid about my forts simply caving in on themselves, to counter this I fortified all of my tunnels with supports and added large pillars in the bigger rooms...

I leave columns of stone in the big rooms for aesthetic reasons lol. It just feels wrong otherwise.

[Nyxalinth]

I put all my workshops outside.

My first battle, I had no military, so I just ordered everyone outside en masse.

I embarked in a terrifying biome thinking I'd have enough time to get everyone settled inside.  Harpies proved me wrong.

[pisskop]

I built my frotress to be 5 levels deep, at max.  Worked really well until I got 20 migrants a wave.

[weenog]

I paused the game every time I had dwarves idle and insisted on finding a job for them to do, fearful of time pressure and accumulating wasted dwarf-hours.

[Xob Ludosmbax]

I thought traps would be a waste of time, and I didn't realize military dwarves needed to train. 

[celem]

Some of mine span years, you've all seen the learning curve image (or should have).  You are always starting out in DF.  If anyone doesnt know what im talking about with that pic then pipe up and someone will link it, its part of our heritage   I started playing right after the move to 3d.

Also spent an eternity micromanaging my first fort to ensure no idlers.
Had no standing military, took an approach where whoever is idle gets drafted and grabs a weapon.
No mechanics traps, obviously no engineered traps first fort in.

Made excessive assumptions about water physics and flooded 90% of it trying to build a well (unlike most who assume water is more accurately modelled than it is, I assumed water wouldnt ubend, just about the only thing vaguely right with it)

Vertical stair-cored fort, i wasnt totally moronic and could see that was win, but did i wall it in?  nah, goblins sound wussy.

Never found out if they were or not, enragable wildlife in dining room ended us around the time of first dorf caravan.

Later forts I learned all the basic slipups but continued to fail with epic style.  I often had much of a z-level dedicated to animal stockpiles, saving up masses of pet exotics in readiness for my animal training noble. (hes never worked since i started DF, was a year before I found out)

The very first time I found candy I met the clowns, this is true for most people who dont trawl wikis and forums and therefore genuinely didnt know.  I only looked up stuff as it came up.  Well, I sure did my homework after that one, also site of my first spiral...ahh, we all remember the first tantrum spiral.

Once missed the elf and human caravans due to ambushes and distraction by magma workings.  So I hadnt got to steal lots of goodies this year and booze was short (I traded/stole all food/booze for the first 30-odd forts i made, farming looked difficult) so I jumped the dwarves in the autumn.  I drafted the entire fortress pop and had them fall on the depot.  Yeah...

As soon as I hit 100 dwarves I just throw my hands in the air and giveup micromanagement, playing mainly the meta-game of militaries and touching industry only when a line collapses or I need something specific right now.  I still do this and it means hauling is a twisted nightmare, I have no clue how many piles i have or where, if i need booze on a particular spot then i just keep building more and more food stockpiles till someone puts booze not food there, cant be bothered profiling the pile.  I tend to build multiple redundancies in terms of piles and workshops, often nowhere near each other and use many repeat orders.  Reason I still do this is that I have a tendancy to automate my forts fairly quickly through pressureplates revealing marksdwarf batteries behind forts so i can play them with no alert pauses without being at keyboard.  This takes some time to establish so i cant be bothered with the rest till its ready.  I like to sim

Refused to ever embark on evil biomes until recently, I thought they were scary and had enough heartache building forts.  Finally summoned up the courage and a patch was almost immediately released making them the badass monstrosities I always feared.

[Noobazzah]

I bought a breeding pair of cats from a caravan. I ended up with 200 cats running around.

[Loud Whispers]

I thought: Oh, just a goblin, must be the first and easiest enemies coming to a fort. They probably won't even be a match for my unarmed dwarfes.

I was too busy being mauled to death by giant badgers to notice the ambush slaughter everyone :/