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[NeonDarkness]

Hello everyone, I'm a rather long time appreciator of Dwarf Fortress, I've known about it for a fair few years and see it as a very important part of gaming history. However, I've never actually properly played it. You see, Dwarf Fortress is incredibly complex (I'm sure you all know), and to get into it without a tutorial is practically madness. Now, there are many tutorials on the net, but here's why my main problem lies.

I'm no doubt going to get a ton of hate and insults for this, but here goes. I want to learn to play the game without a tileset. No mods, no tileset, no pre-made world, nothing. I just want to learn to play the game the way it was meant to be played. I've tried playing it with just the in game instructions, but this has proven to be insane, and as soon as I get into a world (that I don't understand anything about anyway), I can't figure out simple things like how to move, let along build a goddamn fortress. My mind still gets blown every time I remember the game is actually 3d, just drawn in a 2d manner.

However, as many would have noticed, pretty much every single tutorial worth a damn uses a tileset. I've searched through online guides, youtube videos and such, and every single one is either a very old version of the game with a tileset, or the newest one using the Lazy Newb Pack. So I came here. My question is rather simple after all this explaining, but, does anyone here know of any sort of tutorial that can be an effective way of teaching me how to play, that DOESN'T use a tileset, mods, the LNP, or anything of the sort. One that just focuses on teaching the basics of the game without forcing me to download a pack just to let me understand what on earth is happening on the screen. The parts of Captain Duck (might not even be spelling that right) I've watched have him mention something along the lines of "These videos will be dependant on you downloading this pack" or something or rather, so I'm looking to avoid anything like that. Heck, even if the tutorials do use a tile pack, as long as I can understand what they are doing and translate it back to the regular game, that's golden.

[bluwolfie]

I would suggest you do what I did, which is to obsessively read the wiki. There are starter guides on there as well to get you started.

Not sure why you assume people are just going to insult you for using native. TBH the bay 12 community is one of the better ones I've ever come across, and many people swear by ASCII.

I do have a question though, why do you feel the need to play native without the LNP? Or anything to help streamline the process? I'm just curious as to why you would want to make the game even harder to access than it ALREADY is.

[NeonDarkness]

I've tried out the wiki, it still recommends you install that damn LNP! Although it is still incredibly complex with no video supplement that I sort of want, I do understand it's probably my best bet, so if all else fails, I'll return to that. Thanks for the answer.

As for why I am making things harder for myself, well, it's more personal reasons if anything. For one, I really enjoy the aspect of the ASCII graphics, to me, it leads to heavy use of imagination, and frankly, I just think it looks fantastic. I'm a big fan of the heavy blackness and darker colours. Funnily enough, it just seems as though it would really help the atmosphere.

I also believe that a game should be experienced the way the creator intended it to be, as is. This causes me a lot of problems as many games I play have small issues which annoy me and make me outright stop playing, but I don't want a misrepresentation of what the creator intended. I want my proper experience with Dwarf Fortress to be one of its pure sort of nature and presentation. The same way I don't generally install mods on games like fallout, for example (not that I'm a big fan of it or anything, just heard its heavily popular in the modding community), at least until I've heavily played the game. If I play a game, I want to, at the end of my experience, have an idea on the game and not on the mods that came with it.

If I can give you a quick example of what I mean, say I bought a game, say... a typical platformer. Now, imagine if the entire game is fine and dandy, but it has one issue. Every 5 minutes, a enemy comes along to make you hurry up and stops you from staying in one area for any longer (to anyone who mentions spelunky, shhh, I love that game, this is another example). Now, lets say I've been heavily enjoying the game until I find out that issue, and this issue is so annoying to me, that I just begin to hate the game for it. Now, add the situation that there was a mod released for the game that removed this enemy coming after 5 minutes. Yes, installing it would make the game easier, yes, it would make it much more fun for me, but I still wouldn't install it, at least until I'd played through the game as it was supposed to, because I want to get an idea of how the game was supposed to be played and decide whether I think it is good, bad, all around worth it or not. I don't want a mod changing my feels on how I feel on the original product.

Hopefully that wasn't all too confusing. But it is a bit of a crazy behaviour of mine.

[bluwolfie]

Not confusing at all. Sounds a bit masochistic though. Welcome to dwarf fortress! The ultimate test of your patience.

[Kirkegaard]

You know that you can play LNP with the basic graphics right?

Will I do understand most of your reasons I personally can't really play without LNG since I loose a lot of information's with the basic graphics + I think there is a lot of bugs in the game, and LNG + dfhacks can fix some of them, and I don't think the game is supposed to be played with bugs.

Personally I see LNG + DFhach as a kind of patch to the game.

edit: typo

[NeonDarkness]

Same sort of deal though, the bugs that exist in the game right now will effect how I feel about the game. Basically, no mods/patches for me. Then again, it would be crazy for me to make the current version of the game the same treatment as a fully completed game... oh well, my previous points still apply.

[Garath]

I learned to play using nothing but the wiki quick start guide and browsing the wiki whenever I found something I didn't understand, plus later reading the forums. You can download a previous version in order to get complete compatability, but I think most of the things they mention there are still the same and apply to the current version.

[Trif]

Dwarf Fortress is perfectly playable without extra programs. The excellent wiki guide uses ASCII graphics, and if you have questions at any point, you can ask here. Welcome to the forums!

[Raphite1]

I play without graphics. At the beginning I watched Captain Duck's tutorials to get a feel for the game, and the difference in how his game looked didn't really affect anything for me. Afterwards, I just learned from the wiki.

I also don't use DFHack or Therapist, and the game is perfectly playable without them. I usually do some minor modding to work around bugs or tweak game balance, though.

[Sirbug]

I used some kind of tile pack, but then decided it's easier to use letters and all. Tiles sometimes creped into text, that was annoying. Although now I still can't get over the fact that tiles are not square.

I used quickstart guide on wiki. By the time I don't all described, I understood all basics.

[WhimsyWink]

~

I also believe that a game should be experienced the way the creator intended it to be, as is. This causes me a lot of problems as many games I play have small issues which annoy me and make me outright stop playing, but I don't want a misrepresentation of what the creator intended. I want my proper experience with Dwarf Fortress to be one of its pure sort of nature and presentation. The same way I don't generally install mods on games like fallout, for example (not that I'm a big fan of it or anything, just heard its heavily popular in the modding community), at least until I've heavily played the game. If I play a game, I want to, at the end of my experience, have an idea on the game and not on the mods that came with it.
~

this is almost, word for word, my position on why to play the game totally 'vanilla'

Two things for you: when they say "losing is fun", they are trying to warn you that the world generation and embarks are not necessarily 'survivable'.  No attempt is made to make it fair.
And no one is counting how many fortresses you have to abandon; just try to learn something from each one.

good luck

[Zanzetkuken The Great]

I've tried out the wiki, it still recommends you install that damn LNP! Although it is still incredibly complex with no video supplement that I sort of want, I do understand it's probably my best bet, so if all else fails, I'll return to that. Thanks for the answer.

Honestly, I don't recall running across anything in the guide that really required the LNP.  If you use the guide, you'll do just as fine without it as with it.

[DarkArtemisFowl]

All you really need is your trusty DFWiki and your imaaaaaaagination!

Seriously, though, just use the wiki to get a basic grip of the game and the basic functions, and learn from there! I learned how to play the game without the wiki or the tilesets or mods etc.
And remember: even when your dwarves are dying of thirst on a glacier as far away as possible from the rest of the civilized world, HAVE FUN!

[greycat]

when they say "losing is fun", they are trying to warn you that the world generation and embarks are not necessarily 'survivable'.  No attempt is made to make it fair.

And remember: even when your dwarves are dying of thirst on a glacier as far away as possible from the rest of the civilized world, HAVE FUN!

Reminds me of this passage from Heinlein:

"The results should have been predictable, since a human being has no natural rights of any nature."

Mr. Dubois had paused. Somebody took the bait. "Sir? How about 'life, liberty, and the pursuit of happiness'?"

"Ah, yes, the 'unalienable rights.' Each year someone quotes that magnificent poetry. Life? What 'right' to life has a man who is drowning in the Pacific? The ocean will not hearken his cries. What 'right' to life has a man who must die if he is to save his children? If he chooses to save his own life, does he do so as a matter of 'right'? If two men are starving and cannibalism is the only alternative to death, which man's right is 'unalienable'? And is it 'right'? As to liberty, the heroes who signed the great document pledged themselves to buy liberty with their lives. Liberty is never unalienable; it must be redeemed regularly with the blood of patriots or it always vanishes. Of all the so-called natural human rights that have ever been invented, liberty is the least likely to be cheap and is never free of cost.

"The third 'right' -- the 'pursuit of happiness'? It is indeed unalienable but it is not a right; it is simply a universal condition which tyrants cannot take away nor patriots restore. Cast me into a dungeon, burn me at the stake, crown me king of kings, I can 'pursue happiness' as long as my brain lives -- but neither gods nor saints, wise men nor subtle drugs, can insure that I will catch it."

A bit preachy, but still good stuff.

[FrankMcFuzz]

I'm no doubt going to get a ton of hate and insults for this, but here goes. I want to learn to play the game without a tileset.

Nobody's going to hate you for wanting to play the game the same way that more than 50% of the fanbase* plays it.

(* Statistic is entirely made up but seems reasonable)