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[Reasonableman]

I have a wee bit of a problem. It isn't related so much to any particular aspect of DWAAARF FORTRESS as it is to the whole of the thing; you see, I have never gotten past a population of about 50. It isn't that it grows laggy, or that I get murdered by a siege... It's just that I kind of run out of steam. I don't know how exactly to explain it, but I just sort of... get bored. I'm not sure how exactly to remedy this, but my current idea is something like this: what I need is some sort of framework that I can build an entire fort on, a basis for a roleplaying type fort, where everything is done in-character according to the personalities and backgrounds of the dwarves who inhabit it. So I turn to ye more experienced fortressers to provide me with a situational framework, if you would be so kind, to build a tale of intrigue and excitement upon.

A few simple guidelines for suggestions, so that I don't die a miserable death:
First of all, this will be done in 38c, or, if a version with some of the more vital bugfixes pops up before I start, that version.
Secondly, nothing too dangerous. I don't have too much experience, as I've said before, and don't want to be murdered by a horde of ruthless skeletal carp before I can even dig a moat.
Thirdly, if you fellows should like, you can request dwarves and this could become a community fort sorta thing. Still, it might flounder eventually due to my serious lack of focus, so I won't make any promises.

So, ideas, anyone? Please? DON'T LEAVE ME ALL ALONE HERE!

[Kagus]

Well, .39b seems to have fixed most of the gamekillers.  I haven't doodled around with it all that much, but it seems relatively solid.

As for the story, inspiration comes in many forms...  I have to say though, I would not recommend a community fortress.  You feel beholden to keeping the claimed dwarves alive, and that they all get equal amounts of "screen time".  Not something that someone unaccustomed to writing should undertake.

Instead, just make a story fort.  No succession, no community, just story.  You are playing the fort, you are transcribing the events of the fort, whether they be fictional or not, and your only interaction with the "audience" is letting them read it.  Freedom makes writing so much easier, as you are "allowed" to do whatever you damned well please with your characters.


Secondly, all grand tales have started from adversity.  Never pick a peaceful or bountiful area unless you have some massive aboveground construction in store, and with your comments about patience I would not recommend that.  Pick some place that will require a lot of blood and sweat in order to survive.  It's not quite as impressive when you're taming a wild land that's already pretty damn docile.

Third, everybody loves magma.  If you have magma, make sure it features prominently.  If you don't have magma, substitute blood and water (think about it for a moment).

Another useful tip is that areas with magma, a flux layer and magnetite deposits are much more interesting for the player, so you'll be kept mentally fresh for a longer period.

Finally, remember to give characters interesting personalities.  This is not so much for the benefit of the readers, as they can be entertained quite easily with "means to an end" characters.  The reason for having interesting personalities is so that they can have conflicts, ideas, and actions that will avail themselves to you.  For a "means to an end" character, you have to write everything that they do.  For a character with a personality, you just have to let them tell you what they're damn well gonna do.

That's a rather advanced method, but it won't come by itself.  Work towards establishing different personalities that you can clearly see and understand, and the rewards will be great.


But I suppose you were hoping for something a little more direct that general writing tips...  The best thing would be to take skeletal plot devices and then wrap your own ideas around them.  Treachery, dark secrets, mysterious wanderer, oppression, struggle, you know the drill.  Find a very basic plot device, and set out a goal of fleshing it out.  And don't worry about drawing things out to last longer, you can always just pick another device.

[Paulus Fahlstrom]

Kagus gave some great advice there. Ever since I discovered DF and began playing it there was a story that I wanted to tell in my mind. So I'm doing a community/story fort at the moment as well. I definitely recommend having some sort of challenge. Goblins, haunted, untamed wilderness, harsh climate, no water source, no fuel source, no iron source, things like that. I played an awesome fort once that I loved. The only problem? There was not a drop of iron on the whole map, and it was a 6x6. I had to resort to smelting down goblin equipment for iron. Made it challenging but it would have provided great story to write with. I see a lot of maps with magma/iron/flux materials to start with. Sure, steel is great, but having a lot of metal doesn't necessarily mean a good time. So like Kagus said, try making it challenging and let the story write itself. That's the great thing about DF. The game provides all the details. The author can provide all the motivation and plot. The dwarves themselves even provide a lot of their character. If you want a story/community fort read try my thread. Dorenemal:Rise of the Fahlstrom clan. It's a work in progress but I love writing it and it makes playing the game much more interesting too. I keep meticulous notes on a piece of paper next to me as I go so I can think about it and write it later. That way I have some idea of what's going to happen before it does (technically) and it incorporates into the story better. So good luck.

P.S. If and when you start if you want it to be a community fort feel free to sign me up. I'll keep an eye on the thread and provide character details if you'd like at some future date.

[Reasonableman]

While both of your ideas are greatly appreciated and will certainly be taken into consideration (whenever I actually get around to doing this) I don't know if you quite understand what I'm looking for. Not so much a fully formed plot, not a real goal or predetermined story, but just a setting, a starting point. Like, say, a group of dwarves lost in the wilderness find themselves beset by foul creatures and are made to dig in; or maybe, you have been selected for a dwarven "Reality novel' that your troupe will star in wherein they must cooperate to complete a certain task in the next decade, lest they lose their reward completely.

While both of your comments will indubitably be useful, I just wanted to clarify for other peoples.
EDIT: I'm not sure that I succeeded, but oh well. I just got back from a workout and my freaking fingers are tired.

[Kagus]

Like I said, the best thing is to find a skeletal plot device and wrap something of your own around it.  You can't write someone else's story, it just doesn't work out. You need a base device, you need your personal "flesh" around that device, and then you need to lead up to it.

I know what you're asking for, but I can't give it to you.  That part is up to you.

[Reasonableman]

Like I said, the best thing is to find a skeletal plot device and wrap something of your own around it.  You can't write someone else's story, it just doesn't work out. You need a base device, you need your personal "flesh" around that device, and then you need to lead up to it.

I know what you're asking for, but I can't give it to you.  That part is up to you.

Well, I mean, that's what I'm kinda looking for. A basic plot device. I want, basically, a situation to drop a random group of dwarves into. Nothing over-complicated, just a simple framework to build around.

[Kagus]

These are frameworks:  Treachery, dark secrets, mysterious wanderer, oppression, struggle.  They are generic descriptions of a large event.

Take Nist Akath, for instance.  In the beginning, it was "struggle".  Later on, with the evil cult, we had a "dark secrets" device. 

Shifting over to Migrursut, we have a couple "mysterious wanderer" devices with Bertrand and Rolland.  There are also strong elements of "oppression".


From there, you add on your "flesh".  Take treachery as an example.  To flesh it out, we could have a noble ruler betrayed by a trusted lieutenant and being overthrown by the military.  Or it could be two old friends, one of whom deliberately harms the other for personal gain.  It could just as easily be an honorable spy within a totalitarian government that assassinates the evil ruler in order to aid the people.

Oppression could come from within, like said totalitarian government, or it could come from without, in the form of a goblin overlord or a tyrannical dwarven king that demands excessive tribute.

[Reasonableman]

I still don't know if I'm coming across with the right idea... The plot will take care of itself. What I'm really looking for is, for all intents and purposes, my starting situation. The reason behind my initially setting out to build a fort. Basically, a situation to determine my starting dwarves, goods, and location, rather than letting me pick those things. The real reason behind this is that I have an annoying tendency to always choose precisely the same starting setup. That's kinda what I'm going for here.

EDIT: Still, your advice will be of great help after I get the ball rolling, as it were.

[Christes]

If you want a new starting setup, you can just use the PLAY NOW option.  That's what I've been doing.  Though I suppose that doesn't give you a backstory.

For added fun, try to build your fortress so that the random fortress name makes sense.

[Haven]

Exiles from the dwarven homelands? Convicts? Former desert nomads? The Cult of the Treekillers? The Mountainhome National Zoo?

...On a side note, I'm finally gonna read Nist Akath. Evil cults!

[1138]

Okay, Haven posted as I typed, so I'm not ripping off his idea. Really!

How about a dwarven cult? Driven out from the mountain homes, seven demon worshippers take refuge in the mountains under which they know their gods to lurk. There they work on a great shrine and observe their rituals which the closed minded dwarves back home shunned (thinking up and observing those should be fun) and train for the day when they can release their gods from their slumber and venture out together to conquer the world. Immigrants either convert or are sacrificed.

Alternately, you could have a fortress where the dwarves are warrior monks of Armok: again they are there because of the demons, but this time to destroy them and wipe out the pestilence they had previously entombed. All dwarves of the monastery are trained in the sacred martial arts; new acolytes are welcomed with open arms.

The catch being, of course, that both require knowing you're in a location with adamantine.

[Paulus Fahlstrom]

If you're interested in more of a community fort type feel and less danger you could just get drunk and win a ticket to dwarven prison for a brawl you started. You some of the others are offered the choice: Stay in prison for a 100 day sentence (freakishly common if you ask me) or serve the kingdom by setting up a new outpost and serve there, atoning for your crime.

You get 2060 points when you start a new fortress. So give each person 290 points that joins your group to spend as they please on skills or equipment (keeping in mind they're serving misdemeanor sentences as well). Use the rest on what you think the group needs to survive. That way you start completely differently almost guaranteed. Just an idea. And good luck.

[Mephansteras]

Here are a couple of basic starting plots to get you going:

Military outpost. Goal here is to create a fortress that builds up a very strong and large military. Set yourself up in-between the homelands and a hostile force. Probably goblins, if you're unmodded and using the last version. Best if you can find a valley or other mountain pass type area. Rivers work well too, especially if you bridge them. Bring several dwarves with military skills.

Farmlands. Goal here is to create and export a huge amount of food back to the homelands. Cloth works well too. Most of your dwarves should be farmers of some sort.

Fishing village: Related to farming, but situated on a coastline. Bonus points for making large piers into the water for your dwarves to fish off of.

Oasis. Dwarves set out to create a thriving oasis in the desert. Probably best if you have a specific goal in mind, like a gem mine or a major trade route between civs. (even though trade doesn't work that way yet)

Chasm exploration. This is actually a challange I read about, but the idea is to create a mini-fortress that hangs over a chasm. You fill it with supplies and some brave (stupid) dwarves, and drop it into the abyss for the sake of science.

[Kagus]

A note about building piers:  It's a pain in the feckin' arse. 

As the dwarves move out to the end of the pier in order to add on another section to it, a wave will come by and twirl them around a bit.  This causes them to drop the log, which then is treated as a "lost object" because it's not in the same tile as it used to be.  The dwarf then goes home.

The log is not forbidden, however.  So you'll receive a never-ending tide of job cancellations from dwarves moving out to get the log, only to be stopped when another wave hits and moves the log out of the tile again.

[Haven]

Chasm exploration. This is actually a challange I read about, but the idea is to create a mini-fortress that hangs over a chasm. You fill it with supplies and some brave (stupid) dwarves, and drop it into the abyss for the sake of science.

Oooh. I did that one. It's a straight up double named carp to pull off precisely. But the new designations may make it easier.