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[SixOfSpades]

Dwarves with certain combinations of traits (low Decorum, high Merriment & Humor) should enjoy playing practical jokes on their friends, family, romantic interests, etc. Once hobbies & other free-time activities become implemented, I for one would like to see dwarves:
Put vermin creatures into somebody's bed
Throw buckets of water at each other
Tie someone's beard & mustache together while they're asleep
Lead livestock animals into rooms where they don't belong
Use fluids (blood/dye/etc.) to scrawl graffiti on walls
Carve figurines that are less than flattering, and/or depict their subjects in dubious circumstances
Knock on bedroom doors & run away
Smear tallow or soap onto floors, to make others slip & fall
Do the same with doors, so they can't be opened until they're Cleaned
Steal all of somebody's socks, & scatter them around the fort
Steal somebody's spare clothes & replace them with garments that won't fit them
Build an entire workshop in somebody's room (area permitting, of course)

The pranksters should receive a positive emotional return from this stress release, and their victims' reaction should vary according to their own personality--perhaps altering their relationship with the prankster. These behaviors would be most commonly seen among children.

[PlumpHelmetMan]

I'm for this, dwarf pranks could prove amusing. However, I do think this kind of behaviour should ideally be limited to a very particular combination of personality traits so that it doesn't happen often enough to be frustrating.

[Moeteru]

Some of these sound like fun. Others would be a major annoyance for the player and could easily lead to numerous deaths. Imagine you've got a 100+z central stairwell and some prankster puts tallow on the stairs in a heavily trafficked area. Suddenly half your dwarves are splattered into pieces at the bottom. Or imagine the prankster smears tallow on the door to your main lever room right as a megabeast shows up. If the consequences can be too severe then players will just make it a rule to always pre-emptively expel any migrants who are liable to pull pranks.
There's also the issue of what visible effect they'd have for the player. Would there be an announcement that Urist McPrankster had tied your mayor's moustache and beard together?

Anyway, those issues aside I do really like some of your ideas. Dwarves with little respect for authority absolutely should go around engraving graffiti on the walls from time to time. If they have a grudge against a dwarf who detests rats, sneaking into his room and leaving a dead rat on his bed or engraving a swarm of rats on his walls would be entirely reasonable and entertaining behaviour. The same goes for things like throwing water over a dwarf or putting a live cow in their bedroom.

[Pillbo]

These sound fun, except the inability to open doors, that combined with the difficulty of getting dwarves to clean things would drive me nuts and just lead to deconstructing and reconstructing doors instead. If you could easily mark things to be priority cleaned I'd be ok with it.

Do dwarves slip on grease or tallow right now? I've never noticed but it sounds entertaining.

Pranksters could have a handful of modus operandi, so at least then it will feel more individual instead of just random chaos. It could work similar to ghosts, with pranks ranging from innocuous whoopee cushion type pranks to malicious dangerous pranks like greasing the stairs. Pranks that hurt people should be a crime too, punishment could make the behavior worse or stop it.

Dying people's clothes would be funny too. I'd get a kick our of children becoming skilled dyers because they think it's funny to make everyone wear red.

Trying to scare people by impersonating goblins/enemies would also be entertaining, if the mechanics could be worked out.

[PlumpHelmetMan]

Outside of fort mode, pranks would also be a fitting attribute of certain fey beings. It'd be fun to have your adventurer sleep in an elven forest and wake up to discover that satyrs have tied his feet together with a hempen rope.

[DwarfStar]

We do have the MISCHIEVOUS tag, but it’s only on gremlins, and the only prank they know is to randomly pull levers.

[Mobbstar]

Maybe pranksters would only play pranks if some of their needs are unfulfilled, and conversely not play pranks if you give them a fun and exciting schedule.

That way, most "damage" and collateral disasters can be handwaved as mismanagement

[SixOfSpades]

Imagine you've got a 100+z central stairwell and some prankster puts tallow on the stairs in a heavily trafficked area. Suddenly half your dwarves are splattered into pieces at the bottom.

Which is precisely why I specified floors, not stairs. In the OP, I was careful to include only pranks whose effects would be harmless and/or easily reversible . . . although, admittedly, I'm not sure how "easily" a rude word painted in dimple dye can be reversed out of a wall of engraved orthoclase. Although I should have been more specific than the word "vermin"--there's a huge difference between finding a toad in your bed, and discovering that your room is infested with bedbugs.
These harmless pranks would be the jokes played by dwarves with, as I said, low Decorum and high Merriment & Humor.
But what if a dwarf has low Decorum, and high Cruelty & Humor? Then we might potentially see some harmful or irreversible pranks, ranging from cutting/shaving another dwarf's hair in their sleep, to defacing/destroying artworks, to dumping barrels of Forgotten Beast blood into the well just to see what happens, all the way up to greasing the main stairway & the door to the hospital.

There's also the issue of what visible effect they'd have for the player. Would there be an announcement that Urist McPrankster had tied your mayor's moustache and beard together?

The Justice screen would show a crime of Disorderly Conduct, an assault against the mayor. The mayor's thoughts would display that he was recently enraged to discover himself the victim of a prank. And the prankster's thoughts would reveal that he recently felt mischievous to tie an authority figure's beard & mustache together.
(Or something roughly along those lines.)

. . . the difficulty of getting dwarves to clean things would drive me nuts and just lead to deconstructing and reconstructing doors instead. If you could easily mark things to be priority cleaned I'd be ok with it.

Yeah, the OP mentioned that this was a back-burner suggestion, to give the dwarves more things to do (such as hobbies) during their downtime. I'm assuming a feature as commonly requested as "allow us to designate areas for Cleaning" would be implemented before that.

Pranksters could have a handful of modus operandi, so at least then it will feel more individual instead of just random chaos.

Good point. (Flashback to the Ass-Crack Bandit from Community . . . )

Trying to scare people by impersonating goblins/enemies would also be entertaining, if the mechanics could be worked out.

I imagine it'd be the prankster(s) simply crying wolf, resulting in a "Snatcher! Protect the children!" message, with a zoom-to-location revealing . . . nothing. If not dealt with quickly, this could easily result in the player dismissing a real goblin threat as "just those damn kids again."

[Azerty]

Children should be more likely to do this.

And the Justice system could have to deal with praks going wrong: trials for stuff like dwarfslaughter, assault and arson might be held.

[King Zultan]

And the Justice system could have to deal with praks going wrong

"Its just a prank bro!"

[voliol]

+1

[delphonso]

Urist has pulled Deduk's pants down in the Trade Depot! The elves find this hilarious!

[brewer bob]

+1

I love this idea.