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[Xyon]

I kind of imagine DF being transferable to a TT board game rather than a RPG.  Like a city management game with some kind of continuity of 'end game' events that carry on to the next fortress you run which make your civ stronger or weaker the next time you start a new fort.

[Disgrunt]

Can a TT game beat DF as a city builder type game? I feel like DF has it on lock pretty hard.

[Xyon]

can a DF themed RPG beat any other RPG out there? Probably not. Can it still be fun? Yes.

Likewise.  Can a DF themed TT board game city manager still be a fun game? Yes.   Can it be as in depth/range of possibilities as actually playing DF? No.   Can it still be fun? Yes.

[Disgrunt]

What city builder would you point to as a point of inspiration?

[Xyon]

I would say I haven't played any board games that influence my idea of what a DF board game of managing the fortress would be. But "fallout shelter" is a game that kind of gets the layout of how I think the board would look.  A 2d board that represents a cross section of the area of the fortress, tiles representing the 'dug out' areas,  maybe some decks of cards that represent sediment layers that you draw whenever you dig a new level down, and lay them on the board.   Some resources and workshops abstracted, like "Food" generally representing drinkable/eatable food , "Farms" being a combination of farms/stills/livestock, etc. 

Each sedement layer you draw for that level determines if any ore can be found.   Maybe some random cards drawn at the start to represent what surface features are on site, like ponds, rivers, trees, mountain, volcano, etc.

[Robsoie]

I think randomness is still an important factor to get in a DF tabletop type of game as it's a very important element to the actual game.
And because DF is something that has even managed to surprise its developer (remember the carps ) so whatever is going on during a DF "planned" game may be able to surprise the DM too, and not only odd decision from the players.
A DM rolling some tables and observing his important planned NPC going insane from the sight of a shoe of the wrong size would force a fun attempt at adapting on the fly his story to the unexpected situation.

For that i think giving a focus on writing lots of tables is a good idea to introduce some of the random crazyness.
A bit like what the people at the massive Table of Tables have done.

using that table of kind of tables collection you have brillant things like this to generate results for you instead of manually roll the dices like in the table of tables : https://autorolltables.github.io/  by example.

And to get farther, why not go with DM-less gameplay and let tables and other possible DM-simulating tools actually oversee the players adventures, emulating a bit more the actual DF completely freeform gameplay from adventure mode.
Though in that case you would need a massive amount of tables.

[Xyon]

A shuffled deck of cards seems to be the preferred modern board game method of randomness instead of tables

[Disgrunt]

I’ll check those links out tonight.

What about a migrant-focused game? A mix between Oregon Trail and The One Ring?

Tables are useful, but the more there are the more bogged down it can get.

[Robsoie]

I think cards is a good idea on a smaller scale boardgame like a dungeon crawl in the vein of Heroquest/WarhammerQuest/Descent etc... , but if you go a tabletop rpg and try to keep at the df scale and level of details, that's going to be expansive in amount of cards.

Now if you cut it down and focus on an aspect of DF and decide to go with a board game, cards is surely the way to go.

[Pvt. Pirate]

well, the scope of the game, the length of the sessions and the level of detail are most important.
if it's going to be like heroquest, then there's no need for detail or characterdevelopment and randomness can easily be achieved by cards, while if it's like DnD you can basically go into as much detail as you like and tables are much better for randomness of events.

also the leveling up of skill could be a cobination of any method and the necessary times using the skill for leveling up should be adaptive. maybe 5 successful uses from level 0 to lvl1 would be better...
or always 10 fails for each lvlup? rewarding each try and yet making it harder to raise skill as it takes fails to raise.

[Disgrunt]

In a TTRPG situation I think the attempt approach to skills wouldn’t really work. Can’t be exactly like the DF system without being really bloated.

[Robsoie]

There's certainly a lot of the DF skills that can be merged for streamlining and unbloating purpose .

[Starver]

Skills-tree?  General stone-afinity is a thing that gets used for all stone-related stuff, with distinct sub-stubs of carving (masonically) and crafting and smoothing and engineering¹ being useful in more specific situations. Crafting being the most important component in what DF would consider the stonecrafting skill, where available, but does not help with bashing together a stone coffer which would use the masonry-derived sub-branch if available, but falling back purely on the basic 'stone affinity' (not the same as preference for a type of stone, though that would add basic bonuses too if applicable) if the more specific skill is not above a given baseline (zero, or perhsps the parent-skill level).

Whatever the source of the skill-check, practice in an actvity gives a chance buff to anywhere on the covering skill tree(s).

It could be tuned to approximate (as it appears we don't want to mirror) the DF binary's system but require a more simplified record (unless you deliberately cross-train across every leaf node of all the skill trees available to practice, which would be an awkward mode of play if the whole group and GM isn't really keen on mostly content-free grinding sessions) by forcing a few specialisms dug down from a small range of root-skills (combat, making, socialising) and sidelining most of the other branches.


¹ Instead of, or in parallel with Engineering being sub-stubbed by different materials of mechanical devices and/or maybe subsumed Architecture under the branch of Civil Engineering?

[Disgrunt]

I've started drafting a loose port of Dwarf Fortress into Barbarians of Lemuria. It is rule light enough where we can be flexible in the future, and add other features. Magic and religion are loose enough to be mutable as Toady expands the systems. As it stands a good part of it will rely on the DM and players being imaginative more than any tables. I hope this naturally leads into an OSR feel. It's a process, and as I've started writing it's encouraging in that it has significant obstacles that will require creative solutions, but also that a lot of it fits so well. Hopefully I can post screen shots of snippets I need help on.

All brainstorming/help is appreciated, especially if you have any specific ideas on converting Barbarians of Lemuria.

[Pvt. Pirate]

All brainstorming/help is appreciated, especially if you have any specific ideas on converting Barbarians of Lemuria.

never played it, so can't help there.