Print

Please login or register.
1 Hour 1 Day 1 Week 1 Month Forever
Login with username, password and session length

[Space Wizard]

I'm not really sure if there's an official answer to this, I'm doubting it, but who are "you" in terms of your position in the fortress when you play? Do you imagine yourself as a sort of dwarven overseer without a physical character? Do you nickname a dwarf after yourself? I'm curious as to how people sort of roleplay this position.

I've always thought of myself as a sort of strange lesser-deity, with indirect command and influence over bands of dwarves. I think I'd like to start basing myself in a dwarf that's part of the fortress, and having his death be the end of my reign over the fortress. Anyone play in this way? I feel like it would add an interesting dynamic, and I'd be much more careful with the me-dwarf, and with doing things in general.

[Haspen]

We are Armok, and dwarves are our slaves.

[omniclasm]

You are consciousness

[Chief10]

I always imagine myself as an off-the-map liaison from the homeland type of character. I basically have total administrative power over the fort, and my wishes are communicated to the general populace via my nobles.

This sort of breaks down when you become the mountainhome..

[Max™]

We are individual hairs which collectively make up a fraction of the full glory which is the Beard of Armok. A single hair is sufficient to direct and ultimately completely screw up the lives of a fortress full of dorfs.
Coiling a hair around a single soul lets you directly control their every action, but it is rather traumatic, hence the constant crying of our helpless adventurer puppets while we murderhobo around.

[Albedo]

We are the collective Dwarven unconscious, the will and drive to build and create.

At least I am.

[Orange Wizard]

We are Armok. We are legion. Etcetera.

[Skullsploder]

Tradition has it that the player is Armok or some part thereof, since we create worlds to amuse ourselves, play with them, then get bored if there's not enough bloodshed and destroy the whole world to start a new one.

When it comes to succession games, almost everyone renames a dwarf after himself.

It would be an interesting mechanic to play so that you have to retire the fortress the moment your named dwarf dies in single player games. It might be more fun to have a Crusader Kings 2 style system of inherited overseership. So your dwarf's direct descendants automatically become overseer when he dies, and you retire if the entire family is wiped out.

I know there is that program for mapping dwarves' family trees, but did anyone ever write a script that would rename every member appropriately? As in giving them a nickname that replaces their entire dwarven name and comprises their given first name and hereditary surname. Or would I have to do that manually?

[Orange Wizard]

You might be able to convince Putnam to make a script for that.

[Insert_Gnome_Here]

It would be cool to make a really long sucsession fort where each time the overseer's dwarf gets killed, you pass to the next player & next of kin.

[Naryar]

We are not Armok. That would be blasphemy !

We are merely a lesser spirit/god under his orders. And each of us is in charge of a few specific worlds, while Armok lords over all.

Everything that happens in a game of DF is either your will, or the will of Armok.

And Fun is created when both collide, and it happens all the time.

You say that Armok, as the higher-up, would not allow his underlings to go against his will ?

Nah. He lets them do that because he is bored. It is all a game to him.

The "slaves to armok" is a double reference to both the dwarves and us, for we are all slaves to the god of blood. Us, the spirits, and the dwarves.

And dwarves are our slaves (although I loath to see them as such) as well.

[angelious]

i just see myself as sort of administrator for the fort. a senior officer who is not quite above nobles or mayors and such and is under their whim. but is still in charge of what goes on in the fort and what happens in it and so on.

[Gojira1000]

I am a jealous and fickle god, and the dwarves are my pets.

I have to go to the pet store a lot.

[fearlesslittletoaster]

I always pictured myself as sort of an old-testament style god, except with a really sick sense of humor. My forts tend to not be very happy places to live...

[gunpowdertea]

Probably "spirit" or "lesser god" captures it quite well. Not all-knowing (but usually pretty well informed, though close to burnout), not almighty, but close to it and trying hard. If the underlings do not do as you want you can make them burn - but this ultimately reduces their numbers...
ah, the "small gods conundrum", while fire, brimstone, ash might renew belief it also reduces the numbers of followers, a bit "Black-and-White"-ish (if anybody remembers that game)