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[Rathen]

Hey guys,

I hope this is in the right place! Basically, I'm a huge DF fan and have played it since 2D. I've just begun teaching a class of 8/9 year olds and we've actually been playing DF for a few hours to show how people settle in a new area. We've found that if you ignore the fantasy aspect and find a decent biome with wolves rather than goblins etc. it's an excellent simulator of the strife people go through when they start in a new place - needing water, shelter, food etc.

That said, I'm having to supervise it carefully to avoid seeing dwarves being torn from limb to limb. As much as I don't think it would ruin the kids, I'm not sure those in charge of me would be too thrilled to hear about how Settler 1 lost both his legs. Sure, it's realistic, but I'd prefer not to have it on the screen in graphics.

What I'm asking is twofold:

1. Is there a way to turn blood/chunks off? We're in a peaceful area which means the biggest threat is basically wolves, but they can still cause major issues!
2. Can you play "Human Fortress" by swapping sprites/graphics/raws to have humans instead of dwarves under your control? I'm trying to get them to focus on "Ok this is tough to do" rather than "HAHAH DWARVES COME ON LEGOLAS".

Any suggestions?

[Glacies]

Seriously? You're using dwarf fortress as an educational tool? Somehow, I doubt that's a good idea or will go over well with yer commandants.

Play Dwarf fort on your own time.

[Aqizzar]

You sir are awesome.  God I wish I was a school-age kid in the 21st century.  Dwarf Fortress is going to become the next Oregon Trail.

To your questions -
2. This is quite simple actually.  Go in entity_default , change [INDIV_CONTROLLABLE] to [CIV_CONTROLLABLE] under humans, and the opposite for dwarfs.  Now you're playing Human Fortress.  The title screen though is hardcoded, so they'll see that much at least.  Have any asked what words like Avarice and Cupidity mean yet?

1. This would be possible by way of extensive modding, by giving everything in the game [NO_BLOOD].

Come to think of it, this would make a fantastic community modding project, turning Dwarf Fortress into a moderately kid-friendly, more educational game for teaching purposes.  Just imagine the kind of critical thinking and problem solving skills they'll learn.  Anybody else up for something like this?

[Refar]

There might also be existing mods that will save you the trouble of doing it your self...

I just red in some other thread about the "Rome" mod. Tho i never played it myself... The modding area might be good place to look.

[IndonesiaWarMinister]

Actually, I guess it would be OK if they see blood. We are not fighting ESRB here

[Yanlin]

DF is rated Ao due to severe realism.

[IndonesiaWarMinister]

No, it's E because the ASCII-ness

[Kagus]

That's debatable.  If something naughty is being represented, it doesn't matter how poorly it's being represented.

Besides, he might have installed a graphics pack for all we know.


Anyways, chunks are a little tricky.  The [NO_BLEED] tag will stop critters from bleeding, but it won't stop chunks from appearing.  Also, bleeding is an important part of the game, seeing as it's the only way certain injuries can be fully expressed (if you can't bleed, getting your heart pierced doesn't do a whole lot).

I think it's rather silly, but if you feel "blood" is just a little too close to home, there are alternatives.  It is possible to get a creature to bleed the mysterious white "ichor", a dark grey "goo", or even a verdant "slime".  I think it's even possible to get magenta blood.

Those are the slightly less disgusting alternatives.  Being Dwarf Fortress, it is also possible to get a creature to bleed vomit.  Or pus.


These are all just bloodtype tags.  [BLOODTYPE:W] will give you white ichor, [BLOODTYPE:0] will give you blackish goo.  The others are "M" for magenta, "G" for green, "B" for blue, "C" for cyan (it's more of a teal, really), and "Y" for pus.  "VOMIT" and "SLIME" values are self-explanatory.


There is probably some way to keep critters from losing their component parts, but I don't know what that would be. 

[FluffyToast J]

Noo.

Its rated D for Dwarfyness.

[Ivefan]

Turn of invaders and play in a good biome. And if you've aint got no aggressive animals on the map the only deaths you should be having would be to caveins or starvation.
Well, that is if you dont get your dwarves to tantrum and go berserk

[Yanlin]

Noo.

Its rated D for Dwarfyness.

That comment is rated R for retarded.

It's only funny if it's a real rating.

[Ezuku]

I feel misled by the topic. I read it as:

Making dwarf-fortress-school safe

Disappointed that there is no dwarf fortress school under attack by carp that need our input for a devious system of traps.

[Kidiri]

Well, that is if you dont get your dwarves to tantrum and go berserk

And these are only the consequence of death and/or really bad managing. So the best thing to do is to eliminate moods (delete [trANCES] from the entries of whatever person you're using) to even still minimize the chance of death and downward spiralling. And in real life people don't go: "Hey, I know, I'm going to grab some shells, raw adamantine, steel, cut rubies and feather trees and claim this workshop to make a silly sceptre worth over 9000 monetary units!"

If you wanted to increase reality and minimalize the fantasy input, you could always make the Dwarves Caucasians, the elves Asians, the humans Africans and the goblins Middle-Eastern (yay for stereotyping!). Or to whatever peoples you're using the setting in. You could even use Adventure Mode as an example of nomadic people. roaming the lands in search of food, but that would be a bit hard to do, since there are still cities and such...

The only downside to this type of game is the length of it all. I'm assuming it'll (nearly) all be aboveground, so it would take ages to make the houses: first the walls, then the roof, other walls, another roof... But then with mass-build implementation, it'll take a lot less of time (at least to designate).

Also, (relatively) unrelated: it's rated A, for Armok's blessing.

[Drunken]

This is a really thought provokiong question for me.

From what I know about children schools learning etc. (I worked as a teachers assistant for a year but thats about it.) The problem is not what the kids see at all. I have always been against censorship and don't really have issues talking with children frankly at any age about any subject. But this is not the issue facing the OP. The issue is if after playing dwarf fortress they go off and tell their parents/other kids/other teachers about it AND being kids they talk about the most exciting things in the game which are usually death, destruction and funny names. We focus mostly on the same things on these forums and we know how fun it is to talk about the hammerdwarf who beat a goblin to death with her own baby.

If the kids see this kind of thing they will tell someone about it and it is likely to get to some troll with the authority to kill your wonderful education project.

It has already been listed here how to make human fortress and no blood. (You only have to change the humans I doubt the animals bleeding is going to cause anywhere near as much stress). As far as the chunks go you could tell them when the people get hurt in fight it makes them sick and they 'blow chunks' chunks are just a more chunky form of vomit. But then kids talking about people vomiting all over a wolf might also not help your credibility. But as talking about vomit is a very childish thing anyway it might slip by unnoticed. Death can also be modded out of the game (in fact if you make your settlers invincible you shouldnt get chunks coming off either) but teaching a kid about settlers in the wilderness without any element of death is overdoing the censorship. Censoring death is a childish thing parents do when they see their children as cuddly toys in fantasy land. Such parents hould be shot so it can be patiently explained to their children what death is in a frank and honest manner.

Whatever happens you will be walking a bit of a tightrope. Your best bet would be to post in the modding forum as above and see if you can get a 'happy friendly' version, this is not actually too hard you could do it yourself if you have some time. Also if you can try and introduce the game to the people in authority in your school, assuming they are open minded enough (hey heres this thing I want to use for teaching you should check it out to make sure you agree its suitable - principle plays dwarf fortress - principle gets addicted because DF is freakin great - parents complain - principle does the explaining for you and reassures the parents that it is a highly educational peice of software etc. - profit) But this may depend on your teaching staff and authority figures.

Sorry for the rambling post, and good luck.

PS. Keep us posted as to how it goes.

[Kagus]

I'm troubled by a certain moral dilemma...  On the one hand, crushing Snowball with a homemade "drawbridge" is likely to be a very traumatic experience for all involved.  On the other hand, it's an amazing feat of engineering.

I keep finding evidence that genius and insanity are very closely related.


But when it involves Dwarf Fortress (or Tarn Adams in general), it's best if your students aren't the most impressionable.