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[Dirst]

Yes, insta-game-over is not really fun to most people.  The game Mage had a fantastic mechanic called Paradox, and I think a deep list of effects related to each Sphere could do the job of a mediocre GM.  But it would also need the infrastructure of assigning Sphere associations to every creature, plant, item, etc. in the game (side-effects can be based on the target).  Basically, a crap-ton of work that only makes sense if almost every one of the building blocks is useful to some other facet of the game.  Sphere effects could make FB syndromes more thematic, creature/plant associations can get us away from the Good/Evil/Calm/Savage grids, and so on... but the bits and pieces will need to come organically from DF development.  It's a bit silly to insist that Toady make some ginormous Magic System™ that sits completely apart from everything else in the simulation.

[Urlance Woolsbane]

The GDC myth-generator video shows that randomized races are in the pipeline. Will users be able to influence the random elements, and if so, by how much?

What does the SUPERNATURAL tag do? The wiki claims that it gives a creature access to all secrets of a corresponding sphere, yet it doesn't seem to do that in 42.xx.



RE "Chaotic" magic: It seems to me that the most feasible implementation of this would be a sort of a magical quality system. An Archmage with unlimited regents could always cast ☼masterwork☼ spells, while an apprentice with a paucity of supplies would be quite prone to misfires. This way, while your fortress wouldn't go up in flame without warning, it could still do so, if you're not careful enough.

EDIT: The logical extension of this would be a magical ease-slider, allowing anything from a world with no chance of spells failing to one where the chance of success is never more than a coin-flip.

[Untrustedlife]

Yes, insta-game-over is not really fun to most people.  The game Mage had a fantastic mechanic called Paradox, and I think a deep list of effects related to each Sphere could do the job of a mediocre GM.  But it would also need the infrastructure of assigning Sphere associations to every creature, plant, item, etc. in the game (side-effects can be based on the target).  Basically, a crap-ton of work that only makes sense if almost every one of the building blocks is useful to some other facet of the game.  Sphere effects could make FB syndromes more thematic, creature/plant associations can get us away from the Good/Evil/Calm/Savage grids, and so on... but the bits and pieces will need to come organically from DF development.  It's a bit silly to insist that Toady make some ginormous Magic System™ that sits completely apart from everything else in the simulation.

(we should definetly avoid turning this into a suggestions thread)
We already have spheres and magic associated to spheres, so it seems the potential is already there (wasn't that the intention) .

There is a great table in the d&d user manual that talks about creating settings with chaotic magic, its less "immediate destruction lol" and more a "be careful, because you are messing with a force you dont fully understand, something that can be unpredictable in the wrong hands,"  its not instant death, its more like moderated death and toady has talked about how he wants to avoid "the industrialization of magic", so a chaotic magic setting would have magic, and that magic would by nature have far reaching effects and could be reliable most of the time  but only very very specific people could "harness that" without bad things happening otherwise, you are inviting horrible things to happen. It could still be common in its raw form in this situation aswell. It could be as simple as making miscasts much more common aswell.
I think it fits the nature of DF quite well tbh, but I still think we should have  a slider, because sometimes you want a hard world, with crazy things happening, and sometimes you dont. Sometimes you want magic to be really dangerous but powerful.   Sometimes you don't.
Very few people would want a world without dwarves in dwarf fortress, but the myth generator has that at magic settings 0-1 so why not have chaotic magic slider with similar desirablity. Yeah its more work, but I think it would be worth it.

The current myth generator leans more towards magic has a cost, but it is reliable, and while that works for certain settings, it doesnt work for all settings, and I hope that df will eventually be able to generate more varied settings.


better explanation:
https://drive.google.com/file/d/0B4E22DL0XscIMDM0MmUyOTktZDc2MS00NzU3LWE3MDYtMTUwYTY5NDgwYTUx/view


funny thing is DF actually leans towards "magic is rare and magic is chaotic" right now, we have evil regions that turn you into thralls, and do other horrifying things , powerful dangerous necromancers, and powers that have a huge cost (you want to see people through walls, you need to be  a vampire and you need blood)

RE "Chaotic" magic: It seems to me that the most feasible implementation of this would be a sort of a magical quality system. An Archmage with unlimited regents could always cast ☼masterwork☼ spells, while an apprentice with a paucity of supplies would be quite prone to misfires. This way, while your fortress wouldn't go up in flame without warning, it could still do so, if you're not careful enough.

EDIT: The logical extension of this would be a magical ease-slider, allowing anything from a world with no chance of spells failing to one where the chance of success is never more than a coin-flip.

This I like

----------------
perhaps we should avoid the hijacking of the thread here.

The GDC myth-generator video shows that randomized races are in the pipeline. Will users be able to influence the random elements, and if so, by how much?

What does the SUPERNATURAL tag do? The wiki claims that it gives a creature access to all secrets of a corresponding sphere, yet it doesn't seem to do that in 42.xx.

I have seen demons with the death sphere that  know like 24 versions of necromancy in the legends viewer in this version (you know SECRET_01, SECRET_02) what it calls the necromancer secrets, so it does work, at least for them.

[NW_Kohaku]

Yes, insta-game-over is not really fun to most people.  The game Mage had a fantastic mechanic called Paradox, and I think a deep list of effects related to each Sphere could do the job of a mediocre GM. 

Mage: the Awakening also had a very nuanced set of circumstances (as in extremely difficult to have a computer GM it) under which Paradox would ever apply, and made it a punishment for misuse of magic, rather than mere use of magic. Mage allowed for a wide variety of ways to avoid Paradox, including through a large list of "covert" spells that run no risk of Paradox, and, for that matter, the fact that magic was often better used simply augmenting natural abilities over direct action. (Why shoot lightning bolts from your fingers for 6 dice of damage and threat of Paradox when you can boost your firearms skill and dexterity, and then shoot a gun for 13 dice of damage and no threat of Paradox?)

funny thing is DF actually leans towards "magic is rare and magic is chaotic" right now, we have evil regions that turn you into thralls, and do other horrifying things , powerful dangerous necromancers, and powers that have a huge cost (you want to see people through walls, you need to be  a vampire and you need blood)

Actually, DF right now is absolutely on the "industrialized" side of things.  Players can straddle "raises the dead" evil biomes so that dead are raised only on one end of the map, allowing for stockpiling of corpses that can be thrown into revivifying areas as weapons against other threats like sieges or FBs.  Players can make "vampire fortresses" by making vampires bleed into water sources and infect target dwarves at will for immortality. Players can not only weaponize enemy necromancers against other enemies, there's a whole thread on how to literally turn necromancy into industrial bacon production.

The only thing slightly unpredictable is were-creatures, because it's hard to know exactly when you contract those, but even then, Loud Whispers had an "elite werecivet team" that took advantage of monthly transformations to instantly heal all damage, turning werecivet military squads into nigh-immortal warriors that regenerate from all damage once a month at the relatively small price of having to quarantine them from the rest of the fortress. 

However, yes, this is enough for a spin-off conversation.  The Xenosynthesis thread was my last "magic thread" (although it's a DF General, not Suggestion if you want a suggestion) and specifically is about magic that has rational guideline and consequence.

[Dirst]

Yes, insta-game-over is not really fun to most people.  The game Mage had a fantastic mechanic called Paradox, and I think a deep list of effects related to each Sphere could do the job of a mediocre GM. 

Mage: the Awakening also had a very nuanced set of circumstances (as in extremely difficult to have a computer GM it) under which Paradox would ever apply, and made it a punishment for misuse of magic, rather than mere use of magic. Mage allowed for a wide variety of ways to avoid Paradox, including through a large list of "covert" spells that run no risk of Paradox, and, for that matter, the fact that magic was often better used simply augmenting natural abilities over direct action. (Why shoot lightning bolts from your fingers for 6 dice of damage and threat of Paradox when you can boost your firearms skill and dexterity, and then shoot a gun for 13 dice of damage and no threat of Paradox?)

Paradox is not the "misuse" of magic, except in the sense that young mages are told not to use magic in a way that creates Paradox, which is somewhat circular reasoning.  Paradox results from doing something utterly unbelievable in the eyes of the witnesses.  That origin is well beyond the capabilities of a DF engine, which is a shame because it leads to some of the best nuance in the what-is-reality thread running throughout the game (especially when a static magician stumbles into Paradox blindly).  But in the hands of a mediocre GM, Paradox can be a list of context-sensitive side-effects of varying levels of seriousness.  That, I think, DF can do.

Anyway, I hope that we end up with three or four degrees of control over magic, but I'm happy to see us making at least the first baby steps along Cado's Magical Journey.

[Random_Dragon]

Either way, I'll love to see how much of it one can fuck with in modding. I mean, back when I was a CDDA contributor I took a few rather basic ideas and stitched together a half-baked magic item mod for a post-apocalyptic roguelike, so imagine how much more one could do with the upcoming features...

[KillerClowns]

RE: Wild Magic: I was planning to disagree with NW_Kohaku, but I've come to agree with them. Now I consider it realistically, I probably wouldn't touch unstable, unpredictable magic unless the risk/reward was both known and favorable (to the fort, not necessarily the poor caster) or doing so was fundamentally part of the challenge. True untamable magic requires a DM with express permission to break any established rules, and a sense for both fair play and narrative to do so wisely.

Then again, Dwarf Fortress is fundamentally about the sometimes glorious, sometimes Sisyphean, and sometimes simply farcical endeavor to carve structure and meaning out of chaos and mystery. To even start playing Dwarf Fortress, one must turn an alien, seemingly arbitrary system of ASCII soup into a mental representation of a living world. After that, turning an alien, seemingly arbitrary system of magic into a tool is a logical next step.

[Tiruin]

funny thing is DF actually leans towards "magic is rare and magic is chaotic" right now, we have evil regions that turn you into thralls, and do other horrifying things , powerful dangerous necromancers, and powers that have a huge cost (you want to see people through walls, you need to be  a vampire and you need blood)

Just to ask, did you mean 'magic' as in being able to be manually manipulated by the creatures of the world, or magic in a sense of environmental/natural/deity forces? Because the latter seems to be a more common sort than the former, which that statement could apply. And as NW mentioned (understandable systematic magic), it's controllable by terrain and biome currently.

Which as far as I remember in reading the development of DF, it makes sense in the progression of deities and how they affect the planned world.

Tiny question, unsure if it was addressed before but a cursory search doesn't show:
Will it be possible to overlap trade depot zones with inn/tavern zones?
Unsure how to write that. It's my first time posting here in a thread like this. ._.

[Random_Dragon]

Tiny question, unsure if it was addressed before but a cursory search doesn't show:
Will it be possible to overlap trade depot zones with inn/tavern zones?
Unsure how to write that. It's my first time posting here in a thread like this. ._.

This would presumably require trade depots to become zones first, rather than constructions. Personally, if we could have an outsiders-only tavern option, that would be useful. Otherwise, I see no real value in a tavern that's also a trade depot, because how can you use visitors as meat shields if your dorfs keep mucking about out there too? o3o

[Untrustedlife]

The Lord Darcy series does a good job of making magic seem tameable, but not yet tamed, as if it was a new science.  I especially liked the explanation of why an 'invisibility' spell was infeasible (you're really preventing everyone in the area from looking in your direction... or at any reflective surfaces).

I'm not familiar, but that doesn't seem like it would translate into a computer simulation with little by way of established lines of sight, much less mirrors or the concept of reflections...

I understand from this statement you don't play adventure mode much?

Line of sight, with actual vision cones, including periifferal vision and which direction people are facing and how dark clothing one is wearing is all taken into account. And many many other factors.

So that's in.

[NW_Kohaku]

that doesn't seem like it would translate into a computer simulation with little by way of established lines of sight, much less mirrors or the concept of reflections...

I understand from this statement you don't play adventure mode much?

Line of sight, with actual vision cones, including periifferal vision and which direction people are facing and how dark clothing one is wearing is all taken into account. And many many other factors.

So that's in.

Vision cones in this game are very, very minimal. Toady doesn't even have the capacity for allowing graphics to show gender, much less something as specific as facing, and facing is basically "which direction you moved in last", without people looking left while walking forward. 

There is no real capacity for a distinction between "I am looking directly at a mirror" versus "this mirror happens to be vaguely in the direction I am walking". It's so anathema to the current interface and control scheme that anything other than having a "look character action" (as opposed to the player interface tool) you manually punch and then target the mirror would basically be impossible. Compare this to something like a 3d game where you just, you know, point the camera at the mirror.

[PatrikLundell]

If you're going to mess with peoples' head for invisibility (as opposed to manipulating light, or whatever) you could use either the Hitchhiker's Guide to the Galaxy's SEP field (Somebody Else's Problem) or Discworld's disbelief system (only fools, magic users, cats, and really small children see what's 'impossible' to see, because the brain refuses to accept it).
After all, illusionists are quite good at making people fail to see what's there, and make them see what's not there, and they're not even using magic.

[Untrustedlife]

that doesn't seem like it would translate into a computer simulation with little by way of established lines of sight, much less mirrors or the concept of reflections...

I understand from this statement you don't play adventure mode much?

Line of sight, with actual vision cones, including periifferal vision and which direction people are facing and how dark clothing one is wearing is all taken into account. And many many other factors.

So that's in.

Vision cones in this game are very, very minimal. Toady doesn't even have the capacity for allowing graphics to show gender, much less something as specific as facing, and facing is basically "which direction you moved in last", without people looking left while walking forward. 

There is no real capacity for a distinction between "I am looking directly at a mirror" versus "this mirror happens to be vaguely in the direction I am walking". It's so anathema to the current interface and control scheme that anything other than having a "look character action" (as opposed to the player interface tool) you manually punch and then target the mirror would basically be impossible. Compare this to something like a 3d game where you just, you know, point the camera at the mirror.

If the mirror is in your peripheral vision (which is tracked and distinguished) then the mirror is vaguely  in the direction I am walking.


Also you don't need graphics to say I am walking one direction and looking left you just move the vision cone. You act like this is some impossible possibility. It's coded in there visually you can look at the vision cones.vision cones also look different for each animal based on the Raws so you can have creatures for example which can we 180 degrees around them. It's very in depth.

There is 8 directions, and you see this in game while sneaking
Directions are clearly distinguished now.in fact I know for sure I have seen animals "sweep" their vision cones it can make sneaking behind them a bit more difficult sometimes.

It's about as good as you can get with ascii.

Though details like the person described (with creatures looking away instead of just having something be invisible is needlessly complicated.

[Dirst]

After all, illusionists are ... not even using magic.

What?! O.o No, the magic has to be real. I saw it...

[HenAi]

If you want Wild Magic, I think the key to making that work is putting a level of "what you're doing" between the magic and the actual consequences. For example, say you want to create fire at a certain point. You could look at that as "you're putting energy into the atoms at that location, causing their temperature to raise". So one way that could go wrong is you do put energy in there, but instead of making them vibrate more, you cause them to move in a particular direction, causing a gust of wind instead of fire. Or you focus the energy on too small an area and cause nuclear fusion, which I guess would fall into "and then your fortress was obliterated", but you could easily fudge that to get "instead of a fireball, there's now some pretty hot iron and other materials lying at the area you targeted".
Or you could go a different direction and say "making a fireball means you're working with the element of fire", so maybe instead of a fireball you open up a portal to a different plane associated with fire. Perhaps some creature is going to emerge from the portal. Again, you could say "and there goes your fortress", but if the strength of the creature is tied to the strength of the mage working the spell, perhaps it's really weak. Perhaps it's not necessarily hostile, either. So now you've got a burning cat walking around your fortress.

So I think if you want that, the way to do it and make it interesting is instead of just randomizing the spell from a list of premade effects and/or their strength, you put a level of "how does that spell work/what does that spell do" in between, randomize from there and limit the resulting strength according to the strength of the original spell.
The obvious downside is the work needed to actually build that system, of course.