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[Fleeting Frames]

For the second, if it is something in particular you want, Kisat Dur is closest currently, though it's 30+ pages are players teaching players rather than NPCs. Though, yeah, procedural magic means teachers and unique uses.

For the third example, I think as far as past years go one would have some struggle thinking of added features that don't take hours to explore the possibilities. My first thought would be that weeks or months would work better as time unit, but I've got the feeling that merely spending long time on something isn't what you mean on minigame, which I imagine to be something more self-contained.

[KittyTac]

Will magical artificial landmarks appear on the map during worldgen, e.g region-wide explosions showing up as ASCII craters?

[superbob]

For the second, if it is something in particular you want, Kisat Dur is closest currently, though it's 30+ pages are players teaching players rather than NPCs. Though, yeah, procedural magic means teachers and unique uses.

For the third example, I think as far as past years go one would have some struggle thinking of added features that don't take hours to explore the possibilities. My first thought would be that weeks or months would work better as time unit, but I've got the feeling that merely spending long time on something isn't what you mean on minigame, which I imagine to be something more self-contained.

What I consider a minigame here are all the little rules and relationships that might exist in a system that would, in a cooking system, take some ingredients then process and combine them in some way that lets the player tap into all the procedurally generated goodness.

The inputs come from the main game, like ingredients, ways of processing them and crafting stations, there's the output in the form of a meal, but most of what goes on in between is contained within the cooking system. For example frying some flower petals in butter made from some weird animal's milk produces a sought after seasoning, but only if stirred with a spoon made from some specific wood and cooked on a copper pan. Then someone makes an excel spreadsheet of how the taste is composed to find out a steel pan and a copper spoon would work better, provided they add a drop of resin. At some point, assuming the player is into that stuff, creating new recipes and advancing the cooking skill becomes the focus while the rest of the game is just an awesome backdrop that facilitates getting what's needed and rewards the player for making better food. In case the player doesn't care about cooking and just want to keep the character fed, they could learn some basic recipes and only worry about the ingredients, never looking into how any of this works.

[DarthCloakedDwarf]

Hi! First time posting here.

I heard there will be transformation and polymorph sort of stuff

1: Will there be new skills to accommodate unique abilities associated with transformations? Like, if I gain the magical ability to turn into a poison-spitting snake, will I be able to, with practice, become a Spitmaster or something? Can I become a master flier if I turn into a bird and practice for a long time?

Will there be different methods of transforming, with different results? Examples:

• Can I turn into an anthropomorphic wolf, with some of my usual appearance traits and can be recognized as me but also a tail, and scent powers, and a bite attack-- Wolfman style. Or:
• Can I turn into a wolf, but I retain the ability to speak, and no one can tell me from a normal wolf unless I say something. Or:
• Can I turn someone into a newt, leaving them no less intelligent, but unable to do things newts physically can't do, like talk and use magic that doesn't involve speaking or movements newts can't do? Or:
• Can I turn them into a newt, with all the physical and mental repercussions thereof, leaving them helpless unless someone changes them back?

[KittyTac]

Hi! First time posting here.

I heard there will be transformation and polymorph sort of stuff

1: Will there be new skills to accommodate unique abilities associated with transformations? Like, if I gain the magical ability to turn into a poison-spitting snake, will I be able to, with practice, become a Spitmaster or something? Can I become a master flier if I turn into a bird and practice for a long time?

Will there be different methods of transforming, with different results? Examples:

• Can I turn into an anthropomorphic wolf, with some of my usual appearance traits and can be recognized as me but also a tail, and scent powers, and a bite attack-- Wolfman style. Or:
• Can I turn into a wolf, but I retain the ability to speak, and no one can tell me from a normal wolf unless I say something. Or:
• Can I turn someone into a newt, leaving them no less intelligent, but unable to do things newts physically can't do, like talk and use magic that doesn't involve speaking or movements newts can't do? Or:
• Can I turn them into a newt, with all the physical and mental repercussions thereof, leaving them helpless unless someone changes them back?

Probably depends on the specific world! No unified magic system!

[GoblinCookie]

With all the wealth of procedurally generated content and simulations that make it all work together in meaningful ways, do you foresee various aspects of Dwarf Fortress becoming interesting enough to be a (mini-)game in itself?

Examples:
For the economic aspect, a fantasy trading game where the player can go from town to town, buy cheap and sell high, buy wagons or ships to move more stuff, eventually create a trading empire that has to deal with world politics rather than bandits.

For the combat aspect, a martial arts game where the player can learn various moves and techniques, fight other warriors who might use different schools, seek out masters to learn new ways to fight.

Similarly for all sort of magic/art/cooking/crafting, do you foresee these becoming interesting enough at some point that a player might simply spend hours exploring the possibilities? Wandering the game world following leads and rumors to find new masters or schools to learn from or challenge, perhaps even have deities teach them some seriously awesome stuff.

All those things sound like adventure mode to me.

[ZM5]

I might be wrong, but I think there's currently a gender variable both in the soul and the body.  But we haven't really addressed what differences mean, since it doesn't generate trans people (if that's the right model for it), and there are no soul swapping spells.  I don't think it's a straightforward implementation, overall -- trans characters in games generally lean on the fact that their in-game societies also have strong gender norms, which we don't have in DF to any meaningful degree (eg, gender-restricted clothing etc.).  There's a sort of trans-erasing assertion sitting there, which is bad (ie, it asserts trans people don't exist without such norms), but I think it's complicated to sort out the way things are structured, and I don't have a clear road forward (eg, how do we handle pronouns in the heterogeneous body/soul case without it looking like a simple bug to report -- the character needs a larger world model within which to state their identity).  The first chance we'd have is with the status groups after the myth release, though basic soul swapping/stacking/merging/etc might happen earlier.

I don't know if this is a can of worms that should be opened, wheter for realisms sake or otherwise - especially since, as you said, it wouldn't make sense in the current setting which has no sexual dymorphism or gender roles.

I admit if this was added alongside dymorphism, "castes" in the traditional sense of the word and not the in-game one, gender roles, gender expectations (clothing, behavior, etc.) and so on it could lead to a lot of interesting interactions on the internal workings of cultures. I.e having one dwarven culture only accept queens, but her only heir being a male it'd cause the local nobles and court to be displeased, creating complications, or a human civ only having female priestesses in their temples, who also get certain privileges due to their role, or another civ having a military caste consisting entirely of males, etc. etc. Then there's breaking of traditions and so on leading to other dynamic changes - the whole thing just gets more complex and in-depth from there.

However, on its own, I do not see what the addition of trans people would add at all to the game. I don't like politics of any sort in games, wheter right or left, but with the issue having been so heavily politicized in recent years (and with you yourself saying you didn't add dymorphism in order to "not upset people" - a trap a lot of game devs have fallen in already) I cannot help but feel highly skeptical and mixed towards this.

My main message regarding this though - if you want to have the game be realistic, then adding in the nastier parts of realism and history that people dislike - prejudice, dymorphism, gender roles, and so on - is pretty much required. Most fantasy games already do this, and its not like the playerbase hasn't done their fair share of atrocities - compared to outright mermaid genocide I'd say prejudice or dymorphism are both rather tame.

[Fleeting Frames]

That example works if it is a choice to engage the issue, whatever the issue is (kinda nonplussed myself). (Plus, that thread was pretty lacking in people actually implementing industrialized designs - dwarven childcare, or the way some overseers aim to protect every dwarf while others are all "we've got reserves" might be better options for arguable atrocities.)

Plus, magic may remove or deepen the issue; as superbob above demonstrates being in wrong body means something else when you're turned into a newt and have no mouth to scream with.

Soul swapping spells, though, now there's an idea for a (relatively simple) mod. So simple that somebody probably already tried it - what were the results, kinda similar to the god possession thread I assume?

[GoblinCookie]

I don't know if this is a can of worms that should be opened, wheter for realisms sake or otherwise - especially since, as you said, it wouldn't make sense in the current setting which has no sexual dimorphism or gender roles.

I admit if this was added alongside dimorphism, "castes" in the traditional sense of the word and not the in-game one, gender roles, gender expectations (clothing, behavior, etc.) and so on it could lead to a lot of interesting interactions on the internal workings of cultures. I.e having one dwarven culture only accept queens, but her only heir being a male it'd cause the local nobles and court to be displeased, creating complications, or a human civ only having female priestesses in their temples, who also get certain privileges due to their role, or another civ having a military caste consisting entirely of males, etc. etc. Then there's breaking of traditions and so on leading to other dynamic changes - the whole thing just gets more complex and in-depth from there.

However, on its own, I do not see what the addition of trans people would add at all to the game. I don't like politics of any sort in games, wheter right or left, but with the issue having been so heavily politicized in recent years (and with you yourself saying you didn't add dymorphism in order to "not upset people" - a trap a lot of game devs have fallen in already) I cannot help but feel highly skeptical and mixed towards this.

My main message regarding this though - if you want to have the game be realistic, then adding in the nastier parts of realism and history that people dislike - prejudice, dimorphism, gender roles, and so on - is pretty much required. Most fantasy games already do this, and its not like the playerbase hasn't done their fair share of atrocities - compared to outright mermaid genocide I'd say prejudice or dimorphism are both rather tame.

Yet this is *not* a question of realism.  A world with no sexism is not less realistic than a world with rampant sexism, it is simply different.  Realism is contextual, not imitative; a world without gender roles and a world with gender roles are both inherently equally realistic.  The issue is not what is in there but how it works, a lack of realism is when despite a certain thing being the case the logical consequences of this being so are not developed at all or in a way that makes sense.  In a society with no gender roles (the DF Status Quo), having transgender people is unrealistic because when it is socially meaningless which gender you belong to, there is no psychological motive to consider yourself to be the other gender, as that carries no meaning.  Equally it is unrealistic to have a seperate word for queen and king in a society with no gender roles, the language to be realistic must also be gender neutral. 

To put the boot on the other foot, in a society with established gender roles it is unrealistic to free the player character from any expectations *of* gender roles.  This unrealistic situation is rather common in computer games along the lines you seem to approve of as realistic.  We are allowed to play as either gender, which does nothing at all to alter how the rest of the world treats us, in spite of the fact the whole world around us treats other people quite differently according to gender for some reason that is not really explained.  If we actually try to be realistic we end with a situation where nobody plays as a female character unless they are deliberately trying to handicap themselves. 

The bottom line is that societal nastiness is a quite different thing to realism and nothing about adding said nastiness necessarily increases the realism of anything.

[ZM5]

-snip-

A world with absolutely no prejudices or expectations of any kind for different groups is not realistic in the slightest if you want to have differences in physical and psychological qualities between the genders of various races - in that case it'd be utopian, at best - it'd only be realistic for a race of gray blobs with no differences between any of their individual members.

The entire reason human history developed the way it did, with gender roles and so on, is because of early days of civilization pretty much requiring people to play to their biological strengths. For now, dwarves and other races do not have those differences at any significant level, for whatever reason - if Toady wants to keep the game to be realistic and add more depth to the histories of various civilizations, he is more than likely going to have to add them.

I don't see how this would be different if you want to have civs start from small tribes and eventually developing into large, prosperous nations - after periods of only sending fit young men to war, sooner or later of course traditions would be broken, it would be a dynamic worldgen change, perhaps even a result of player meddling. Thats already a way for the player to have some significant impact on the world and actually feel the change.

It is exactly why I think it would be neat to have this sort of thing in-game. It adds depths, it makes things like different titles for monarchs make sense, it adds nuance to the history of the world and the general stories being presented for each generated world.

[PlumpHelmetMan]

I'd just like to point out that we already have a topic for discussing the possibilities of in-game prejudices, so it'd probably be better to move this discussion over there.

So with that said, is there any chance that different regions might eventually have more unique and distinct assemblages of flora and fauna (perhaps to come somewhere around the time randomly-generated wildlife is implemented)? It gets a bit repetitive and immersion-breaking to see camels in every desert and grizzly bears in every temperate forest, regardless of whether or not they're at opposite ends of the world.

[Fleeting Frames]

True, and yes. Though for creatures and plants that are not UBIQUITOUS there's already only chance they're present - you can get an embark with giant, but not regular rhinoceros for example, or no plants at all in 3 dry caverns due bloodthorns being missing, or have goblins not get trolls because they're not present in the caverns.

[Runaway_char]

As for what trans dwarves would add to the game (such a weird question, no one cared as much when kakapos and kiwis were added), a bunch of people who play the game are trans, a bunch of us have trans friends, and we'd like to dorf them and tell them how they got eaten by a skinless capybara fiend just like everyone else in our friend group (or is that just me? ).  It really is a pity its a "political" topic - some would say having gay dwarves is political (and a couple decades ago having dwarves of color would have been political), but maybe one day things'll be different.  I'd really like to see procedural generation of genders in culture - it would be neat to see nb genders ala the Egyptians, Mayans, or the Maori.
I completely agree with Toady here - the game isn't quite ready for that sort of thing being implemented quite yet, although i'm hopeful once more procedural culture stuff is in.

[Putnam]

-snip-

A world with absolutely no prejudices or expectations of any kind for different groups is not realistic in the slightest if you want to have differences in physical and psychological qualities between the genders of various races - in that case it'd be utopian, at best - it'd only be realistic for a race of gray blobs with no differences between any of their individual members.

The entire reason human history developed the way it did, with gender roles and so on, is because of early days of civilization pretty much requiring people to play to their biological strengths. For now, dwarves and other races do not have those differences at any significant level, for whatever reason - if Toady wants to keep the game to be realistic and add more depth to the histories of various civilizations, he is more than likely going to have to add them.

I don't see how this would be different if you want to have civs start from small tribes and eventually developing into large, prosperous nations - after periods of only sending fit young men to war, sooner or later of course traditions would be broken, it would be a dynamic worldgen change, perhaps even a result of player meddling. Thats already a way for the player to have some significant impact on the world and actually feel the change.

It is exactly why I think it would be neat to have this sort of thing in-game. It adds depths, it makes things like different titles for monarchs make sense, it adds nuance to the history of the world and the general stories being presented for each generated world.

you're taking "realistic" to mean "similar to reality" while goblincookie is taking it to mean "self-consistent"

As for what trans dwarves would add to the game (such a weird question, no one cared as much when kakapos and kiwis were added), a bunch of people who play the game are trans, a bunch of us have trans friends, and we'd like to dorf them and tell them how they got eaten by a skinless capybara fiend just like everyone else in our friend group (or is that just me? ).  It really is a pity its a "political" topic - some would say having gay dwarves is political (and a couple decades ago having dwarves of color would have been political), but maybe one day things'll be different.  I'd really like to see procedural generation of genders in culture - it would be neat to see nb genders ala the Egyptians, Mayans, or the Maori.
I completely agree with Toady here - the game isn't quite ready for that sort of thing being implemented quite yet, although i'm hopeful once more procedural culture stuff is in.

Yeah, Toady's specific comments on pronoun usage appearing like a bug is exactly how it would be if he were just to slap on a thing that lets soul gender be different from body sex--pronouns are all over the place there, as I've seen when testing it myself by just sort of changing soul gender.

[Egan_BW]

It does seem kinda like a rabbit hole that will have to be jumped down in some form along with the big magic update, as that will probably involve soul swapping and body changing shenanigans. At the least Toady will have to decide between using body pronouns and using soul pronouns once they start not necessarily matching due to magic.
With the third option of changing everything to use plural they, I suppose.