Lol, I am writing it as a simulator. Heck, I'm writing it assuming that it's a real thing, subject to real cultural, ethical, and engineering leadership theories. I'm going to have to write a short risk management report on the building of whatever engineering projects (the reservoir being the most significant, I guess). I'm not so much focusing on the player's interaction style, though. No extra points for that; anyway writing a fat essay on DF is much more fun than inspecting the IEEE Code of Ethics or another dull review on the leadership skills of heroes in literature. It's a lot more work than it'd otherwise be, but meh, it makes learning the boring stuff much easier
Oh.. and thank you guys, because there was a test earlier yesterday which touched on duty, virtues, rights, and utilitarianism (the "greater good"). Because I spent so much time trying to explain it in short words here, it was pretty darn easy to do in a test.
Muz, do you intend to explore how much of this is the creator's intent, versus to what extent ethics emerge from the gameplay?
I'm going to somehow consider it like a real world, that spawns its own ethical rules. I mean, in a sense, there are things like ethics like children not being killed and stuff.. but players decide to play the game unethically and the creator decides to let it happen. Nothing wrong with that; it's just a game after all :p
Anyway, everyone did give good points of bravery. It's hard to say, but yeah, it seems a lot more useful for real people who understand the concept of bravery, even though cowardice is a term not in the dwarven dictionary :p In a similar way, I guess dwarves wouldn't get the concept of abstaining from alcohol.