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[Ihtomyt]

I haven't asked a question in a while, but I am unable to figure this one out. I have a temple set up to no specific deity. Dwarves are using it to pray and meditate, and are successfully getting the need met and happy thought associated. However, there is the one dwarf, nicknamed "Grouchy", who is in a constant state of internal rage, and generally refuses to do anything except purple Pray to Deity! or Meditate on Principle! over and over again unless I take extreme measures with burrows and labors. Despite his repeatedly doing this activity, he does not get a happy thought or the need met, and keeps getting more stressed. In general, I may have to send him on a suicide mission before he throws a tantrum near the other dwarves anyway, but... is there a way to address this issue, or is this a bug?

[Leonidas]

This is a known problem with the stress system, which is discussed at length here. Right now, the dwarves are allowed to belong to too many gods, which means that they can't worship them enough. It'll be fixed someday.

[Moeteru]

It's a known bug. He probably worships several gods and just keeps praying to the wrong one. In the current version dwarves are absolutely awful at satisfying their own needs. There's more discussion of the topic in the stress thread.

The good news is that meeting needs like that isn't necessary (nor sufficient) to have happy dwarves. The real danger comes from recurring bad memories ("dwelling upon" in their thoughts) and the associated personality changes. To avoid those you want to avoid any strongly negative experiences (rain, sunlight, miasma, sapient corpses, pets being killed, etc) and give them as many strongly positive ones as possible (having kids, talking with family/friends, watching performances, being near waterfalls, etc.). You can see the strengths of various emotions on the wiki: https://dwarffortresswiki.org/index.php/DF2014:Emotion. It varies from dwarf to dwarf exactly what things cause the best thoughts, so a bit of experimentation is required.
If he's spending all his time trying (and failing) to pray, it might be a good idea to temporarily assign him to a burrow which doesn't include the temple so he can focus on doing other mood-enhancing activities. On the other hand, praying can give the very strong (+1) "enraptured" emotion. It all depends on the dwarf in question.

The bad news is that many dwarves can't be saved once they reach a certain level of accumulated stress, bad memories, and negative personality changes.

[Ihtomyt]

So far, in this current fortress, this is the only dwarf suffering from significant stress, but it's early yet. I do try to manage dwarf stress as best I can. His "internal rage" modifier (is that the right word?) is probably contributing significantly to the stress problem I imagine. However, it's more the fact that he won't stop praying to no effect that is concerning me than that he is stressed. Even if I can fix his stress but he keeps doing that activity over and over I will try to be rid of this dwarf anyway.

As for worshiping multiple deities, is this information not listed in the description? It only lists one deity for this dwarf, saying he is an ardent worshiper of that deity, but listing no others. He is also praying to that listed deity. I'm going to try setting up a temple specific to this deity and see if it fixes it, but if not, he may have to go wrestle some elephants or something.

[anewaname]

If using burrows and labors has some effect, then lock him in an isolation room and give him work to do. A door, a short corridor to dump stuff into, another door, a 6x6 room with a bed, table, barracks, temple, and some type of workshop. Get him inside and keep at least one door locked all the time.

This will protect your other dwarfs if he tantrums. If he trying to get over trauma of some sort, it will give him time to do that. The time he spends on working or training should be spent on new skills, and on skills or effort that he values.

Check on him each season or so.

[Ihtomyt]

Well, it doesn't count as valid !!Science!! by any means, with a small sample size and just anecdotal evidence, but as soon as I built a temple specifically for his deity, he was able to successfully pray. Technically he also still meditated on other nonsense first, but once he prayed, the need was finally met. He prayed at least 6 times at the shared temple and no luck, but at the dedicated temple, the need was met on the first try. I think can maybe be explained that he was getting interrupted while being near to the central meeting hub (I was NOT interrupting him, I mean somehow getting moved around or something) or that it was just truly a bug of some kind.

 
In any case, the below is off topic from the original question, but why not rant?

-----

As for keeping him unstressed, thanks for the advice. Nothing FUN! has happened in this fortress yet, not really. It's only early in year 2 on this fortress. It is a high savagery world in a savage jungle, so there's the opportunity for it, but nothing so far. There was a close call with a pack of giant dingos, elephants, and giant insects... but somehow no one got hurt, and no one, including this dwarf in question has had any "trauma" since we've burrowed to safety. The worst thing that's happened to this dwarf is being in the rain and getting in an argument. I am aware dwarves really can hate these things, but other dwarves in the fortress have had the same types of issues, and not a single other dwarf has over 0 stress and several are even in the negative thousands of stress (I am using Dwarf Therapist and don't mind getting this extra info while playing). This dwarf has stress that is constantly climbing, and has these modifiers in his personality:

"He is in a constant state of internal rage. He finds helping others very emotionally rewarding. He is given to flights of fancy to the point of distraction. He is quick to form negative views on things. He has a tendency to consider ideas and abstractions over practical applications. He is stubborn. He is very humble. He tends to make a small mess with his own possessions. He is not particularly interested in what others think of him. he tends not to be swayed by emotional appeals. He generally finds himself quite hopeful about the future. He finds obligations confining, though he is conflicted by this for more than one reason. He has a greedy streak. he blows his breath out when he's annoyed. He needs alcohol to get through the working day."

And despite everything going wrong with his praying, he has more satisfied, content, euphoric, etc. emotions than frustrated and angry ones. I don't know what the mechanics are behind these things like others here might, but reading the above at face value makes this guy sound like an absolute powder keg if anything bad were really to happen. He has been in the fort for less than a year with no real trauma and he is already at 4k stress while everyone else is at 0 to negative. All of those modifiers sound like a grouchy, unhappy person, and the ones that are potentially positive or capable of producing good emotions are things that are very hard to control like giving water to help somebody... there were several instances where water was being given, but what was he doing? Praying uselessly. He isn't taking it upon himself to go and grab new possessions from finished goods or other. Hopeful about the future Ibruk's skeletal foot!

If he doesn't improve and starts getting above 9k stress he's going for a nice stroll to a farm somewhere up jungle I think. Not worth the effort with such a naturally unhappy dwarf.

[DwarfComic]

as soon as I built a temple specifically for his deity, he was able to successfully pray.

Awesome! Happy you saved that dwarf.

[Moeteru]

It's good to hear you resolved the praying issue.
The "help someone" need can be satisfied by teaching another dwarf something, either as part of military training or in a guildhall.

[Ihtomyt]

Thanks for that, it is good to know that that need can be met that way. There's so much in this game even if I had read something before I could forget, or maybe I never did. No guildhall yet, but soon, and only 2 military units so far, but it's good to know when these get online that need will be easier to meet.

[Ihtomyt]

Well, even though the original question was about the praying activity not seeming to work, this became about this dwarf's stress levels. To follow up, I was micromanaging "Grouchy's" needs and activities, and things weren't working, but eventually I found a solution. At first, he was just getting more stressed. There aren't any guilds he can lead demonstrations in, and I didn't have enough armor for sparring to be safe yet, so his need to help somebody was a problem. His need for friends and family, of which he has none, not just none in the fort but none anywhere, was a serious problem too. By the time I could have tried to micromanage those needs and get him training, a friend, or a wife, he would have long since gone insane. His stress was skyrocketing, gaining hundreds of stress a day, constantly exasperated remembering being caught in the rain in addition. I tried having him craft armor, since he had some skill in it, but he just kept getting worse.

Then, I noticed that my happiest dwarves were my miners. I even noticed that the absolute happiest dwarf had similar modifiers to Grouchy, internal rage, negative views on things, etc. This dwarf had even been knocked out in a cave in multiple times, and was perfectly fine at -27,000 stress. So, I immediately put Grouchy on mining duty and started creating strip mines. The satisfaction from work with mining stacks so quickly, Grouchy has already lost over 1,500 stress in just a week, and things are looking hopeful for the future for him after all! He even had a personality change in which he now believes sacrifice is the highest ideal, and actually gets a minor relief of stress now having that rain memory now. I'm not sure if that is related to the mining, but it's also good. Anyway, Grouchy may yet live to see the megaproject completed, who knows?

[Moeteru]

I didn't have enough armor for sparring to be safe yet

As far as I know sparring is perfectly safe under almost all circumstances. Even if they're naked and wielding steel battle axes, they'll still only "lightly tap" each other. I usually start my military training before I equip them with proper armour.
The one time I have had sparring-related injuries was when there were still some pools of 1/7 magma on the floor of the barracks. A couple of dwarves dodged the wrong way and vanished in puffs of smoke before I noticed the problem.

[Ihtomyt]

Oh? I was under the impression that there's always the chance that they will decide to throw each other and someone could split their skull, even if they have weapons. If not, that's helpful.

[HrumpfOfDoom]

Urist McGroouchy also sounds like a good candidate to become a scholar. His deposition toward abstract thought and all...

[Iä! RIAKTOR!]

If you want to make temples management simpler, you can make dwarves monotheistic. In current game this need to change religion from pantheon to regional force. This needs generating new world, also in this world will be less necromancers.

[Ihtomyt]

Unfortunately Grouchy's fortress was a failure. I've since built a new fortress in a new world that is going much much better. I have some new grouchy personalities, but this is a good suggestion regarding making them scholars. I just set up the library and have designated some scholars. Now if only anyone would start writing a book too!

I would not like to start another new world at this point, as I have gotten a lot of progress now again. I'm not sure I want to change the religion mechanics or reduce the chance of necromancy either. That being said, I don't entirely understand how the monotheistic vs pantheistic thing works. In game none of my dwarves seem to be listed as having more than one deity. Do they have hidden non-primary deities that aren't shown in their personality? Is that a bug where it says they are trying to pray to one god, but are actually praying to one mismatched for the shrine they are in or something? I haven't really been having the same level of problems in this new fortress anyway, everyone seems to be praying ok when they get the time off... of course I'm not giving anyone much time off, get those defenses built NOW!