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[peacefortress]

How can I make a world less pointlessly violent?

I'm basically imagining like in the Adventure Time Cartoon. Violence still exists, but theres a sense of "meaning" to it.

You don't just get randomly killed over a horribly long period of time by some wolf or something like that.

Are there any mods for a more "Adventure Time"-like Experience? Here's what I'm looking for:


* Wolves aren't just crazed beasts looking to cause death. They actually want to avoid injury, and will avoid attacking a character they THINK is able to harm it. (Pretty realistic really). In real life, acting aggressive and unafraid to a large animal (like a bear), unless it is very hungry or angered, it will actually AVOID YOU. (Not as true for aligators as they are driven by instinct more than mammals are, but I've seen even cats scare off aligators.) There's plenty of videos on youtube of people scaring off bears...

In game, animals could "Read your stats" and decide "no I don't want to walk away with one foot missing from this battle". And didn't attack you, unless it thought you are a threat. (or it was enraged or disturbed for some other reason.) The reason is simple, a missing foot for any animal is a death-sentance. Its not a "win" unless they come out with nothing more than scars.


* Pretty much the same for people too. Most people (unless mentally disturbed/hateful/etc), don't want to get into an encounter that can leave them crippled for life. In fact, in MOST historical sword battles (before guns), only 10% of an army would die before the army would run off. (More would be killed DURING the retreat, but you get the point.) People don't really want to die, even during a war! (WW2 and WW1 obviously were very different, but we don't have tanks, machine-guns, missiles, and factories, chemical-warfare and all this modern stuff in DF.)


* Fights between members of a fortress, wouldn't normally be a battle to the death unless theres some serious grudge going on. Most people, if they think they are beaten, will want to RUN AWAY. If they can. in Dwarf fortress everyone fights like they are demons... they don't care how many body-parts they lose they keep fighting. It makes no sense.

Assuming a losing-fighter knows he is the aggressor and the other person doesn't even really WANT to fight... it would make more sense he runs away (again, unless they are mentally disturbed).


* Magical healing items or herbs that can stop people spending their entire life with horrible injuries. More "healing" magical professions. Perhaps even quests to find those items... Or have ingredients scattered to different "regions" so that dwarves have to make expeditions to actually get the healing ingredients.


* Forgotten beasts don't just all hate each other. it makes no sense. You would think if they are all sort of "earth-spirits" of some sort, most of them would team-up or at least avoid each other. Again... "THEY WANT TO SURVIVE". Fighting everyone you see is not how you survive.

...

You get the idea. Here are some other ideas:


* Forgotten beasts could cause all sorts of "Random magical effects" all over. That have both positive or negative impact.

Like... tornadoes popping up nearby, or some might increase plant growth speed by 30x nearby, some might cause everyone near to go to sleep. Or turn people ridiculously romantic. Or make people uncontrollably dance (even to death). Make them more annoying or trouble-some than fearsome. (still can be deadly if it causes someone to go to sleep during a dangerous building/mining expedition).

This would give you a reason to maybe WANT to kill a forgotten beast, or at least "drive it off". Assuming now that they are more peaceful and unlikely to randomly attack.

* forgotten beasts could also sort of "beleive some area of land belongs to them", and not like anyone altering that land-scape. So that would make conflict with them more "meaningful". You could avoid developing that land if you were weaker, or if you think you are stronger, you could try to kill it. Or maybe try something more creative.

* perhaps some forgotten beasts would be strengthened or weakened by their surroundings. Like fire-monsters can heal in magma, and gain speed+strength in fire too.

* Maybe some way to make friends with forgotten beasts. Not control, but more like "allied". Like building them a shrine or temple according to their tastes. Or just altering the land-scape to their liking.


...

Just some ideas and things I'd like to be able to use in my DF play.

Are there ways to do this by editing files, or modding?

Anyhow thanks for listening to my ideas.

I'm a big fan of both Adventure Time and Dwarf Fortress. So it would be cool to see them combined somehow... like with a mod or maybe some user-config settings.

[Egan_BW]

I don't think most of this is really possible to do with a mod in the current version, at least not easily. Part of the complaint I think is that DF isn't very good at making violence meaningful or explaining why it's happening, and certain bugs and janky features probably contribute to that. Such as when I'm walking around town and suddenly some human attacks me with no-quarter level of escalation and I have no choice but to kill him because he won't stop fighting unless one or the other of us are dead. There are probably legitimate reasons why this might happen sometimes in real life, but the game does nothing to explain why it happened to me or what it means, or if this is the result of the simulation or some strange bug.

It's planned that at some future point the game will have different sliders you can set when making a world to set the level of fantasy/magic, randomization, and violence/grimness. Maybe at the point that's implemented you'd prefer to play in a world where violence doesn't usually result in people dying. That would be years in the future though, if it's even implemented in that way at all.

For modding in the current version, you might be able to reduce the bravery of various creatures, which should make them yield or run away from fights earlier. Forgotten beasts are mostly hardcoded and impossible to mod, IIRC. They're basically just eldritch monsters which try to kill everyone because they're monsters. Modding can stop them from showing up, I think.

[peacefortress]

I don't think most of this is really possible to do with a mod in the current version, at least not easily. Part of the complaint I think is that DF isn't very good at making violence meaningful or explaining why it's happening, and certain bugs and janky features probably contribute to that. Such as when I'm walking around town and suddenly some human attacks me with no-quarter level of escalation and I have no choice but to kill him because he won't stop fighting unless one or the other of us are dead. There are probably legitimate reasons why this might happen sometimes in real life, but the game does nothing to explain why it happened to me or what it means, or if this is the result of the simulation or some strange bug.

It's planned that at some future point the game will have different sliders you can set when making a world to set the level of fantasy/magic, randomization, and violence/grimness. Maybe at the point that's implemented you'd prefer to play in a world where violence doesn't usually result in people dying. That would be years in the future though, if it's even implemented in that way at all.

For modding in the current version, you might be able to reduce the bravery of various creatures, which should make them yield or run away from fights earlier. Forgotten beasts are mostly hardcoded and impossible to mod, IIRC. They're basically just eldritch monsters which try to kill everyone because they're monsters. Modding can stop them from showing up, I think.

Thats a shame, but DF is a very inspiring game. Who knows what will happen in the future!

Thanks for the reply. I guess I just have to wait 3-10 years lol. I better stock up on youth potions.

Shame about the forgotten beasts. It would be really interesting to have things like a "fire spirit" that keeps the land warm, but considers the land it's own, and if you kill it, the land turns cold... (for a region of like 100 miles). That kind of thing could create more interesting stories.

[Egan_BW]

I think that sort of thing is more what Titans are supposed to be, rather than Forgotten Beasts. And that's certainly the sort of thing that should happen with myth and magic. If you'd like you could make a thread in suggestions along those lines.

[Shonai_Dweller]

Not sure what Adventurer Time is, but every critter in Dwarf Fortress makes a judgement about how likely it is to be injured in a fight before taking you on (generally ends up with entire bandit camps running away from you, because calculation bugs). Where lethal force isn't necessary, critters can decide to simply brawl (escalates quickly, because loyalty and calculation bugs).

So what you're asking for appears to be, Dwarf Fortress without bugs, which is a reasonable thing to ask for.

Not sure why a flaming ball of vomit would automatically be friends with a death-dust breathing scorpion though. Guess I need to check out Adventure Time.

[IndigoFenix]

Most creatures in DF have a reason for starting fights.  What the game isn't good at is telling you what those reasons are.  Someone might attack you, for instance, if they heard a rumor you killed a bandit, and that bandit was originally a member of the civ that the attacker belongs to, and the person didn't know (or care) that they became a bandit.  (It is very rare to get attacked randomly if you have a generally non-violent playstyle - except by bandits, of course).  You can try asking what the person thinks of you, in which case they will sometimes tell you their reason for hating you, but you generally can't ask this in no-quarter combat, so there's often no way to figure out the reason.

The outcome and escalation of a fight can also correlate with the personality of the creature in question.  Average personalities of creatures can be adjusted through modding, which can lead to a vastly different gameplay experience.  (I usually aim to create MORE senseless violence, but to each their own!)  Drunks can sometimes randomly start fights for no reason, if they have aggressive personalities, but this generally won't escalate above a brawl unless you let it.

Forgotten beasts and titans are hard-coded though, you can't really do much to impact their behavior.  It would be cool though.  I generally see titans as being Shinto-type vengeful nature spirits (like in Princess Mononoke), so it makes sense that they'd be prone to attacking typical dwarven fortresses, but it would be neat if you could get on their good side by living in harmony with nature, or communicate with them in Adventure Mode.

[peacefortress]

Most creatures in DF have a reason for starting fights.  What the game isn't good at is telling you what those reasons are.  Someone might attack you, for instance, if they heard a rumor you killed a bandit, and that bandit was originally a member of the civ that the attacker belongs to, and the person didn't know (or care) that they became a bandit.  (It is very rare to get attacked randomly if you have a generally non-violent playstyle - except by bandits, of course).  You can try asking what the person thinks of you, in which case they will sometimes tell you their reason for hating you, but you generally can't ask this in no-quarter combat, so there's often no way to figure out the reason.

The outcome and escalation of a fight can also correlate with the personality of the creature in question.  Average personalities of creatures can be adjusted through modding, which can lead to a vastly different gameplay experience.  (I usually aim to create MORE senseless violence, but to each their own!)  Drunks can sometimes randomly start fights for no reason, if they have aggressive personalities, but this generally won't escalate above a brawl unless you let it.

Forgotten beasts and titans are hard-coded though, you can't really do much to impact their behavior.  It would be cool though.  I generally see titans as being Shinto-type vengeful nature spirits (like in Princess Mononoke), so it makes sense that they'd be prone to attacking typical dwarven fortresses, but it would be neat if you could get on their good side by living in harmony with nature, or communicate with them in Adventure Mode.

Thanks for the reply! Its very interesting.

Dwarf fortress is such a huge game it really is one of a kind... Unless we had another group that also wanted to "put their entire lives work into one game", and give up on graphics and care more about text and simulation.

In a lot of cartoons/films... the badguys will attack while screaming accusations. Or just reply if the 'Good guy' is asking them questions. (Think Anakin vs Obiwan on planet Mustafar)

A lot of fights have conversations. (Anime-fights are the worst, its mostly conversation and very little fighting. lol.)

"You did XYZ and now I am going to make you pay!"

anything like that would be enough!

In fact, you could work it into a battle-system. "Speaking your strongest emotions" will "Give you extra attack power". Makes sense? Being angry strengthens you? And why not speak the things that make you angry?

In fact you could make it more sophisticated. Like that "people with extra poetic/speach skills" will gain EXTRA attack power, for speaking things that make them angry. So someone kinda clumsy with words, won't gain so much attack power. Although it only needs to be "good at speaking things that make you angry" in the first place.

Like a rapper isn't a novel-writer but hey it's got it's own thing going on. You might imagine trolls would be good at coming up with hateful imaginative speachs or chants. Part of their "culture".

Its a good idea.

...

I'll take a look into personality modding! thanks. agreed on FBs and titans.

[peacefortress]

In fact, you could work it into a battle-system. Like "Speaking your strongest emotions" will "Give you extra attack power". Makes sense? Being angry strengthens you? And why not speak the things that make you angry?

In fact you could make it more sophisticated. Like that "people with extra poetic/speach skills" will gain EXTRA attack power, for speaking things that make them angry. So someone kinda clumsy with words, won't gain so much attack power. Although it only needs to be "good at speaking things that make you angry" in the first place.

That could be kinda funny actually. Having roving bands of poets/bards that give eloquent remarks while striking down their foes.

I mean, in earthly reality.... gangster-rappers are kind of "roving bands of poets/bards" already.

[Sajiky]

In fact, in MOST historical sword battles (before guns), only 10% of an army would die before the army would run off.

War casualties back then were actually quite high.  But most were from infections after battles (a minor wound today was often fatal in the long run then), and disease (thousands of men all shitting in their water, then wondering why they got sick).

They were a lot more than sword battles though, but I get your point.