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[mobuttah]

(Apologies if this is a common suggestion, I searched a few similar keywords and didn't see anything offhand.)

Nobles should offer reports to the player which summarize useful information based on that nobles' skills and preferences. A chief medical officer might complain about the lack of soap, because all of his surgeries end in infection. A bookkeeper might suggest that the tavern close to strangers because too much drink is being drunk and things are being stolen. A king with a sweet tooth may mandate hives be built.

If we expand this idea even further, we may allow for some interesting other noble roles to play out to canonically automate some industries. The farming guild liaison may work with the manager to order more barrels, or an 'armorer' noble might order more helmets for the Wings of Shoveling.

This sort of stuff is a great way to build in troubleshooting to the game and at the same time encourage exploration. An untrustworthy bookkeeper may say that gremlins are stealing figurines, but really it's her. A popular mayor might mandate his citizens' favorite foods.

[PlumpHelmetMan]

Something like this would be cool, with nobles writing reports to the mayor/king/baron/whoever the highest authority in your fort happens to be that the player can then view to get ideas on how to improve things, but TBH I don't think it should be the fourth-wall mechanic that this suggestion seems to be putting forth. IMO having NPCs communicate directly with the player runs a very high risk of "cheapening" DF into something more like a traditional building/management sim and just doesn't really mesh with the kind of game it's setting out to be.

[Eric Blank]

Don't have to direct the nobles thoughts towards the player, just make those thoughts visible to you, say, as the first line on the nobles' thoughts and preferences screen. Like "we really don't have enough goblets around here" or "I need more cages or chains for prisoners" which are things that are already listed in their thoughts, but players have to dig through them. For nobles these sorts of thoughts could be displayed also as a pseudo-mandate, where there's no time limit or jail sentence for anybody, just display a need for more whatever.

[PlumpHelmetMan]

Ok well that could also work, guess I misunderstood the suggestion

[mobuttah]

No worries! I mean it's all the same thing, just the matter of stylish presentation. The real nut would be that checking in on nobles' activities could give clues to what's happening 'at a glance.' I agree that some sort of pop-in 'Hey, Player! Try gathering webs!' is not quite the style that Dwarf Fortress is going for. Perhaps 'Urist is concerned seeing most of his subjects are unclothed' is more in line with The Style Guide. The real nut of the idea is that nobles could be used to allow the player to generalize and make their play more abstract if they so chose. So in the OP I listed a couple fictional noble roles- these could be entirely optional and up to the discretion of the individual player. Let's say I don't like dealing with food, my *pantry lieutenant* could be in charge of butchery and stuff.

As the above poster mentioned, maybe a soft mandate option could be listed in the Nobles screen- recommendations or something like.

The very simplest implementation of this idea, now that I'm thinking of it, is with the broker. Considering how often I forget what my export agreements look like, it would be nice if the broker reminded me of it through soft mandates. I try to role-play a savvy commodities trader, so it would be cool if the broker would say something like 'the mountainhome would pay a premium for goblets, let's make goblets.'

[FantasticDorf]

Id be personally against "tutorializing" the game because it'd appear to be trivalizing the "throw them out in the wilderness" approach which if someone plays DF blind, serves as more of a incentive to encounter !Fun! realize they dont know what they're doing, then return to the optional tutorial they chose not to read going in rather than gating

It'll hit for more impact, and i have a creeping suspicion that game journo's and streamers unfamiliar with classic DF for the first time are going to fly straight in, and you dont want to offer them a experience of saying the game is designed badly because its hard; but rather gently point out that there is a tutorial without trying to make them feel silly.

If they make something novel out of their first spectacular failure, then that's a good thing, if they don't then there's the safety net.

[mobuttah]

I suppose tutorial would be an imprecise word to describe what I'm going for with this idea. Gatekeeping through unavoidable prompts is not really this idea. I get what you're saying though.

I would even counter that an unhelpful noble could cause !FUN! in themself through this mechanic. A militia captain with a voracious candy appetite might trick the player into digging too deep. An angry king might demand you seize the contents of an elf caravan.