Generally speaking, this is a very friendly forum, despite the subject matters like
Also, "FUN" is generally used in this forum as meaning something dangerous that could very likely end your fort -- it comes from the "Losing is FUN!" motto. The floodgate I used to hold back the magma was not made of a magma-safe material, so it resulted in plenty of FUN. The more mundane use of the word "fun" is usually written in lower-case.
Note: "!!fun!!" (literally "fun on fire") is a synonym for FUN.
Similarly, "!!science!!" (especially "!!SCIENCE!!") doesn't so much refer to literal science on fire (and hardly ever science of fire) as to so-called Dwarven Science, which usually refers to either attempts to figure out the details of the game's mechanics or attempts to develop applications of cruelty.
- To be happy, a dwarf needs: a bedroom, alcohol, food and a dining room. Everything else can come after.
Alcohol comes before food. Food comes before bedrooms and dining rooms. In fact lots of things come before bedrooms and dining rooms, but some nobles want bedrooms and will eventually pitch a fit if they don't get them (or don't get them good enough; and regular dwarves' moods will occassionally be the better for having a real bedroom somewhere that's not near active mining or construction), and a dining room of sufficient quality or with the right decorations (gem windows, high quality statues, or best of all a "mist generator" -- you can wiki that, but beware flooding your fort... it's !!fun!!) can be a good mood booster for the whole fort if you wait a little before breaking up a party. Rooms, by the way, are created via the (q) menu applied to certain pieces of furniture (which are actually "buildings", more on that below).
This, incidentally, brings me to another point: learn the ways to boost your dwarves' moods, as it can mean the difference between death by your enemies and death by your disgruntled
citizens denizens.
Finally, a note on a topic I haven't noticed highlighted yet (at least, skimming...): there is a distinction between making a chair (or door or other piece of furniture) and "building" the same object. "Building" refers to placing it in a location for use, whereas they are typically made at a workshop (which workshop depends what you're making it out of; note that beds, outside of Strange Moods, can only be made of wood... used to be nobles could demand otherwise, and this resulted in the deaths of many nobles) so that you have some to "build" in the first place. Also distinct are "constructions", which are truly indestructible and distinct from buildings (beyond the indestructibility) in that they are essentially artificial terrain.
Another topic, touched on above: if a dwarf gets in a Strange Mood (I think they're Fell, Fey, Macabre, Secretive, Possessed and I might be forgetting one, but if you don't mind having it spoiled you can always check the wiki), give him whatever he asks for. The resulting artifact (an object of any type but of random material and absurd value) may or may not be worth it, but the consequence of failure is at least one dead dwarf (namely the one with the mood, who will go insane in some manner if he is unable to complete whatever he is trying to make -- and between the chance of the insanity being the violent Berserk and the mood impact on the other dwarves, that's a larger danger than it at first seems). As a bonus, moods other than Possessed will result in the dwarf becoming legendary skill in whatever skill is most closely relevant to the making of the artifact.