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[black-cat13]

My fortress doesn't have a lot of... variety. All 19 of my dwarves have burnt umber skin, ochre eyes, and golden yellow hair. Some have gray or white mixed in their hair, presumably due to age. Even the 7 visiting merchant dorfs look like this.

Is this normal?

This is a big world with multiple living dwarven civs (though only one or two can reach my fort)
I can understand that the majority can have these features, but it seems excessive to have everyone with the exact same skin, eye, and hair colors.

Spoiler (click to show/hide)

Zan Vesselsoothed   M   55   Burnt Umber   Ochre   Golden Yellow
Nil Wheeldives   M   64   Burnt Umber   Ochre   Golden Yellow
Dakost Ringedumbral   M   65   Burnt Umber   Ochre   Golden Yellow
Ustuth Splashtreaty   M   71   Burnt Umber   Ochre   Golden Yellow
Kib Twistedcanyon   M   78   Burnt Umber   Ochre   Golden Yellow
Tobul Paddleyell   M   87   Burnt Umber   Ochre   Golden Yellow/Gray Flecks
Dîshmab Taxedshot   F   65   Burnt Umber   Ochre   Golden Yellow                  
Tobul Chuckdaggers   M   31   Burnt Umber   Ochre   Gray/Touch of White
Dastot Rackflaxen   F   138   Burnt Umber   Ochre   Gray/White
Sigun Pillarclinch   M   80   Burnt Umber   Ochre   Golden Yellow
Kib Helmedtrussed   F   130   Burnt Umber   Ochre   Gray/Touch of Golden Yellow
Vutok Dentedhatchets   M   138   Burnt Umber   Ochre   Gray/White                  
Zefon Crymirror   M   67   Burnt Umber   Ochre   Golden Yellow
Led Mirrordive   F   66   Burnt Umber   Ochre   Golden Yellow
Ònul Oardweller   M   7   Burnt Umber   Ochre   Golden Yellow
Zuglar Glazedrooters   F   83   Burnt Umber   Ochre   Golden Yellow/Touch of Gray
Ùshrir Tendergirders   M   33   Burnt Umber   Ochre   Golden Yellow
Etur Lionguild   F   30   Burnt Umber   Ochre   Golden Yellow
Datan Muteoars   M   93   Burnt Umber   Ochre   Golden Yellow/Some Gray

What do you think?
Is this a common thing that I've only just now noticed?
Did the rng simply get lucky while rolling appearances?

[nimbus25]

The way I understand it is dwarves from the same civ all tend to look similar. So, as far as I know, it's relatively normal, maybe a bit unlucky.

[Telgin]

This is a common occurrence and is caused by the shallow nature of DF's genetics simulation, although I don't know the specifics on how that comes to be.

[Shonai_Dweller]

Every dwarf in your fortress is from the same civ, the merchants too (90% of the time), and probably the abstract populations of the world don't mix much. Adds up to a samey look to members of the same civ. And that means the variety of dwarf civs in your world is irrelevant as you're not meeting most of them.

Take an adventurer out to the other civs and see what they look like.

It could definitely do with more variety, it seems to be a problem of simulating the diversity of a dwarf civ that don't mix much in a world only a few hundred years old rather than adding hundreds of thousands of years of a time-before-time generation, like the land generation does. Would be nice to see Myth-Gen add something there.

[JAK]

I know for a fact this isn't unique to dwarfs. Humans exhibit it too. IME it gets less and less pronounced as citizens from different strains of appearance show up.

[Tinnucorch]

If you pick an adventurer from a determined civ and roll their appereance over and over again you can also see that there is very little variation, usually over just a couple of traits (unless you unrestrict the appeareance, of course, for which there is an option).

[Telgin]

It might be worth noting that the uniformity seems to be on a per-caste basis.  Mods could help fix this by creating a couple dozen duplicate male and female castes for dwarves and whatever other sapients you care about.  You wouldn't notice any difference in game except that there are more variations in appearance, even though there would still be little mixing.

[Tinnucorch]

It might be worth noting that the uniformity seems to be on a per-caste basis.  Mods could help fix this by creating a couple dozen duplicate male and female castes for dwarves and whatever other sapients you care about.  You wouldn't notice any difference in game except that there are more variations in appearance, even though there would still be little mixing.

Doesn't the OP example, in which both males and females have the same appereance, proves that false? Or it's a coincidence?

[JAK]

It might be worth noting that the uniformity seems to be on a per-caste basis.  Mods could help fix this by creating a couple dozen duplicate male and female castes for dwarves and whatever other sapients you care about.  You wouldn't notice any difference in game except that there are more variations in appearance, even though there would still be little mixing.

Doesn't the OP example, in which both males and females have the same appereance, proves that false? Or it's a coincidence?

No, absolutely not, because in vanilla the appearance coding is applied across castes. I made my own mod where different castes have their own eye and hair colors, where those appearance variables are defined on a per-caste basis. It works as intended with the different castes having only their distinguishing eye and hair colors.

Ergo, no it is completely normal to observe male and female vanilla dwarves having the same characteristics.

[black-cat13]

It could definitely do with more variety, it seems to be a problem of simulating the diversity of a dwarf civ that don't mix much in a world only a few hundred years old rather than adding hundreds of thousands of years of a time-before-time generation, like the land generation does.

I must get weird civ gens or something. The original list is from a max size world that's 569 years old, but I just checked the dwarves in a pocket island that's only 127 years old and their hair and skin are decently varied. (It should be mentioned that the worlds were probably made in different versions, but I don't think anything changed since 44.07)

Spoiler (click to show/hide)

Hair                         Skin                   Eyes
raw umber                cinnamon           raw umber
brown                       brown                raw umber
tan                           pale pink            raw umber
charcoal                    sandy taupe       raw umber
black                        burnt umber       raw umber
dark brown/gray        brown                raw umber
auburn                      peach                raw umber
chestnut/gray            peach                raw umber
black                        burnt umber       raw umber
gold/gray                  brown                raw umber

I'm not expecting amazing genetics or anything. But I also wasn't expecting a kind of master race to show up.
Again, I can accept a trait being common, but it's a bit jarring to see everyone have the same colors for everything.

[DG]

It could in part be due to the R in DF's RNG being poor. You tend to notice when you have reason and opportunity to re-roll something a ridiculous number of times. Like I do with embark dwarves (specifically when trying to avoid incongruous preferences across 7 individuals).

Here's a very old post, but I haven't heard that anything in the RNG has changed: http://www.bay12forums.com/smf/index.php?topic=2947.msg48476#msg48476

Shame the Op failed his charisma check.

[Loam]

I must get weird civ gens or something. The original list is from a max size world that's 569 years old, but I just checked the dwarves in a pocket island that's only 127 years old and their hair and skin are decently varied.

I think the variance in skin/hair/eye color is just another possibility. I've seen a few civs with varied colors in one or two (not all, I don't think) of these traits, alongside civs with only a single color for each, which seems to be the more common possibility.

Personally I rather like the single-color type: it lets you tell at a glance what civ the person belongs to, or at least where their ancestors are from. Useful for adventure mode when you're like me and want to understand the world more deeply.

[BoogieMan]

I had something similar awhile back, the vast majority of the population was much taller than average.