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Keep the vanilla ones

Use an expanded vocabularly

Start entirely from scratch

Cull the words that don't make sense from vanilla, then add words as we go

Other(post it in the comments)

[Urdothor]

I was tempted to recreate a civilization I worked on for the first DF From Scratch. It's a glacier based civilization, with a hard outer ice shell, that melts away when in warmer climates, leaving them exposed.

Edit: The issue is they're a pain in the bum.

Double edit: To keep everyone informed, I'm working off and on with making a few templates and things to save future modders some trouble.

[Bearskie]

Would you consider using the vanilla templates/detail/variation plans? I always felt they were tools to assist the modder, and not actual content as per se. The original two's insistence on making everything from scratch may have been detrimental to their adding of real content such as creatures/metals/entities.

[Urdothor]

Well, I already have a number of templates done, and more or less functioning, even though they don't apply to what I planned to build. And making the body plans, etc, I found always strengthened everyone's abilities in the end, even if it there was some fire along the way. I don't mind tossing them back in, if a large enough crowd agrees with you.

I do want to correct some errors the original two made along the way, but at the same time, some things aren't necessarily a bad thing. Building new templates does give the opportunity for a player to go beyond vanillas way of doing things, which was in spirit with the goal of this.

I'll make a poll, and see what people think.

[Cerapter]

Honestly, not using original templates just results in one thing: people copying in the original templates.

But it doesn't matter to me. I guess we could use some tweaking mod's new values regarding material definitions and such, so I guess there's merit in using new templates, too.

[Urdothor]

Honestly, not using original templates just results in one thing: people copying in the original templates.

But it doesn't matter to me. I guess we could use some tweaking mod's new values regarding material definitions and such, so I guess there's merit in using new templates, too.

True, but it tends to be frowned on. At the very least, I will (hopefully) have a plethora of templates in place once I get everything up and running with minimal screaming from DF.

[Cerapter]

Posting to check on template progress. Also because I don't want this to die and be forgotten.

[Urdothor]

Sorry. I'm working on all the templates, and some basic creatures, etc. Basically, laying the ground work, and I haven't posted anything, because I'm still testing how everything is working.

I liked having the non-vanilla templates Halfling made as our base(and he made quite a few) because they had some fundamental differences to vanilla ones, and it changed the feel a bit. If we did non-vanilla templates, I would have a large number of them in place(I've already made a number of them) so that there wouldn't be much need to draw from vanilla. Depending on how the poll goes, I don't mind tossing them however.

Since these things tend to have a vanilla-ish first race, i.e. a race that players kind of like dwarfs put isn't exactly the same, how about this for a first race?
3 Castes. 2 are the breeding males and females. They're better craftsman, and improve those skills better, but are horrid at combat, and retract into a shell or other body part when threatened. The genderless caste is sterile, but are strong fighters, and also have this shell, but use it more as an armor, and not as a shield.

Edit: Just looking through the creature tokens, and I got curious.
Can you put [THICKWEB] on a web making vermin, and have the same annoying effect?

[Cerapter]

No need to apologise, I was just checking up.

And as for the first playable race? I'm on the opinion of "we'll see when we get there".

[Urdothor]

I'm just trying to come up with something with a normal enough play style to welcome new players, yet with enough of a twist to be interesting. I just noticed sometimes the new races in the previous attempts were a bit hard on new players, when you don't know how to play them.

Edit: On that front, I'm open to ideas.

[Urlance Woolsbane]

3 Castes. 2 are the breeding males and females. They're better craftsman, and improve those skills better, but are horrid at combat, and retract into a shell or other body part when threatened. The genderless caste is sterile, but are strong fighters, and also have this shell, but use it more as an armor, and not as a shield.

What would they look like?

Also, how about giving the male and female castes the [PET] tag? That could be interesting...

EDIT: I seem to recall reading about a being made of bees. So, if composite creatures are still a thing, we should really try them out.

[Urdothor]

The issue is pets not being allowed to do jobs, I believe. Kinda forfeits the whole "Protect the useless craftsman" idea.
I intended them to be mostly humanoid, many either reptilian, or mammalian like a pangolin.

If you can find a way to do composites, sounds like fun. Maybe as the second race? A juxtaposition between a relatively normal species and a relatively whacked up one, would make quite the difference, as opposed to everything being weird. Weird surrounded by weird, is just normal, ya know?

[Urlance Woolsbane]

The issue is pets not being allowed to do jobs, I believe. Kinda forfeits the whole "Protect the useless craftsman" idea.

If memory serves, it's not that they can't work, but that their allowed labors can't be toggled. Still, it is an impediment. I suppose they could be baseline skilled in everything, but yeah, it's probably more trouble than it's worth.

I intended them to be mostly humanoid, many either reptilian, or mammalian like a pangolin.

Pangoliny sounds good.

Weird surrounded by weird, is just normal, ya know?

Agreed, though I'd like things to be at least a step removed from Vanilla DF. I'd prefer it if there were no pseudo-humans, for example. If you're going to do that, why bother replacing raws in the first place?

[Urdothor]

Probably.

Pangolin's are so much fun. I get to make them hide inside their tails.

I agree on the step removed. I was thinking a humanoid figure, just as something familiar to ground them, if that makes any sense? It's not going to be straight humans, or dwarfs, or anything.
Edit: There are going to some similarities here and there, for the sake of assisting people in learning how to play.

[Urlance Woolsbane]

Edit: There are going to some similarities here and there, for the sake of assisting people in learning how to play.

Such a thing is, as they say, inevitable. I'm more worried about things being made in the generic D&D mould. It strikes me that the purpose of this endeavor is to reimagine DF from the ground up.  If something slots comfortably into Vanilla, why not release it separately from this mod?

[Urdothor]

Such a thing is, as they say, inevitable. I'm more worried about things being made in the generic D&D mould. It strikes me that the purpose of this endeavor is to reimagine DF from the ground up.  If something slots comfortably into Vanilla, why not release it separately from this mod?

That's a very good point. Most of our previous submissions, in my own opinion, fit comfortably just outside of vanilla. Nothing spectacularly insane, to the point of being off-putting, but different. Dirigible Gazelle, the "elves" from the first thread, etc.


Edit: An egg laying civilization. That's a new one for most people.