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[Doomduckie]

If this strikes your fancy, it has an eternal voting slot

A fact about the current wound system:

1- Having your brain destroyed instantly kills you (almost certain).

" Damage to the brain is fatal at a certain point, [...]" --Toady One, two years ago.

This is almost assuredly due to a property of the brain which is an invisible [THOUGHT] or [CAN_THINK] tag or something, and a hardcoded 'if brain = heavily damaged, kill brain's owner'

In the newest wound system, this probably will be apparant, assuming lungs have the [CAN_BREATHE] tag and heart has the [PUMPS_BLOOD] tag and so forth designating their function, allowing custom organs. Further, damaging lungs should damage one's ability to breathe, but having your lungs destroyed doesn't necessarily instantly kill you- you just suffocate later. Further, damaged lungs don't heal, meaning dwarves with damaged lungs are going to be alive but disadvantaged and somewhat disabled due to low stamina or propensity to start suffocating.

What if the Brain operated like that? Damage to the brain directly or damaged skulls could cause major damage (damaging the skull is more common and rather dangerous in itself since sharp fragments of bone might be loose in there). Assuming the brain doesn't start bleeding (which itself could cause a stroke, but that's another issue for another day) too badly, you could get... brain damaged dwarves.

" [...]  but I've left minor brain damage alone so that I can do some personality disorders later." --Toady One, 2 years ago

Thus you could have this happen:

A dwarf is smashed in the head, fracturing his skull and damaging the brain, but not ruining it completely.


As far as brain injuries, you could divide the brain up into lobes (very simplified model:
Frontal Lobe- does conscious thought, conversation skills, etc.
Parietal Lobe- gives dwarves some sensory info and handles handles coordination and 3d handling of objects
Occipital Lobe- handles sight
Temporal Lobe- handles smell, sound, and complex images like faces
Cerebellum- handles motion
Brain Stem- handles autonomous functions, damage = death

Notice- only one of those technically will kill you to be damaged if it isn't severe. Dwarves with damaged frontal lobes could have changed or vanished personality readings, happy thought/unhappy thoughts, moods, etc. Parietal Lobe damage could wipe skill levels. Cerebellum damage could make a dwarf constantly fall over, go unconscious, etc. Temporal Lobe damage could potentially wipe out some of a dwarf's relationships, causing major anguish among former friends and family. Some of them like cerebellum also are very easily placed into 'death' compared to 'disability' categories, but still, it could be interesting.

The Body Part Size system of the new wounds system is perfect for animals- animals can have much, much smaller frontal cortices. Further modeling of the brain such as specific areas would rapidly grow complicated and it's far less certain than anatomy in terms of being able to easily model 'hit this, break this piece, cause this', so a simple lobed model would probably be ideal.

Now, granted, 90% of strikes hitting the brain via cutting and half the bludgeoning ones will kill a dwarf outright. So why would a complex model of the brain be good?

Well, it's fun. I think it'd be awesome:

Brain Damage simulation!
Dwarven Lobotomies, with varying 'success' rates!
Trepanning (not technically brain related, but still)!
Urist McPhineasGage (a man who had a railroad spike driven through his brain completely, somehow not killing him, but irrevocably altering his personality due to destroying part of the frontal lobe)!
and, above all else, more ways for your dwarves to die/be horribly permanently maimed!

* Purposefully destroying the frontal lobe in order to destroy capacity for strong emotion at the cost of thinking ability dates only from the late 19th century for our world, but there's nothing preventing it having been invented beforehand- it just requires knowledge that damaging the brain does that, and a pair of metal ice picks, and a really strong stomached 'doctor'. And a way to knock a dwarf out, so that he doesn't move accidentally or struggle.

[Footkerchief]

Strange, I was just thinking about posting this thread last night, complete with Phineas Gage.  Mine wouldn't have been as thorough as yours though.

I did find these powergoals which shed some additional light on Toady's perspective.  Disclaimer: I think this thread has loads of potential for discussion, so this isn't a "fuck you, use search" thing at all.

# PowerGoal141, BROTHER BATTLE, (Future): The younger brother strives to take control of the Holy Office of Emperor of the World. His supporters are arrayed in giant battlelines against the emperor's forces, and he challenges his older brother to single combat on the field. As the would-be usurper rides out, the righteousness and splendor of his brother's office in its rightful place causes the younger brother's horse to rear back and throw him to the ground, where he is brained on a rock. The younger brother spends the rest of his life in the dungeon suffering from severe personality disorders due to his injury.

# PowerGoal158, NEVER THE SAME FOREVER AFTER, (Future): The goblin and the troll have fun in the snow, throwing snowballs at each other. The troll puts a rock in one of his snowballs and hits the goblin in the side of the head. For the rest of his days, the goblin can only speak from the left side of his mouth, and he is no longer able to relate to his goblin friends as the brain damage has robbed him of his taste for blood and violence.

[Doomduckie]

argh, unfortunately the powergoals were the one thing I didn't search to see if more detailed wound effects system for organs was in there, as I hadn't expected it to be there.

I'll admit I'm no psychologist or neurosurgeon, so my description of what can happen with a damaged brain is somewhat DF-related and simplified, but I think it's a pretty good start.

For instance, one thing that can be done is simply list what a dwarf can know/do with his mind.
Relationships; Moods; Knowing Info; Memories of Past Events (used in Engravings); Knowledge about a Civ (symbols); Language; Communication Skills; Trade Skills; General life skills (pathfinding, walking, using items, etc.) etc.
and you figure out where each one goes and assign it a lobe, and make damaging a lobe have a random chance of doing bad things to anything "contained" in that lobe.

For instance, damage to a bit of the brain that controls short term memory being simulated by a dwarf constantly changing jobs or occasionally pathfinding to random areas when trying to find something instead of going to where it should be, with a 'confused' blink status on him, would be a fascinating one.

On the other hand, this would require concretising knowledge and the dwarven mind, perhaps with some kind of fact-based 'inventory' of what dwarves have- If DF doesn't already have this, that is, since I don't know what Toady has done for now- but that would be rather useful as a preface to the last few Cores on bookwriting/scholarship.

As a final added bonus, you could simulate personality disorders, mental disorders caused by inbreeding or bad fortune, etc. as damage effects applied without there being any damage, at least for some disorders.

[bjlong]

While I like how this is going, the nature of brain damage is so bizzare that some just absurd examples can be named, such as not being able to recognize people by sight, but by hearing, and concluding that the people living in one's house are actually aliens. Perhaps it would be good to include a list of known quirks from previous cases, and have those selected by the RNG when mild trauma happens in certain places.

Another good idea would be trying to match up brain damage behavior in game with brain damage patients out of game.

[Heron TSG]

maybe, by using this system, I could invent a machine that would remove the frontal lobe, turning my elven prisoners into mindless slaves! 

[Christes]

Somehow, forced lobodomies of prisoners seems quintessentially DF to me...

[Theoclymenus]

It would be cool to have a dwarf lose their artistic ability and just end up engraving images of squiggles.

[Draco18s]

It would be cool to have a dwarf lose their artistic ability and just end up engraving images of squiggles.

"It's an elephant eating my cheese I tell you!  AN ELEPHANT EATING CHEESE!"

[LegacyCWAL]

Somehow, forced lobodomies of prisoners seems quintessentially DF to me...

Especially if performed with a battle axe

It would be cool to have a dwarf lose their artistic ability and just end up engraving images of squiggles.

This is an engraving of a squiggle and squiggles.   The squiggle is surrounded by the squiggles.  The squiggles are squiggling.

[father_alexander]

i agree lobotmies in elves would be AWESOME

[Granite26]

i agree lobotmies in elves would be AWESOME

How would you tell?

[Heron TSG]

i agree lobotomies in elves would be AWESOME

How would you tell?

That was one of the most racist (yet HILARIOUS) statements ever. Maybe there could be a 'torturer's workshop' where a dwarf can remove fingers, toes, and other various parts of the body, such as the lobes of the brain!

[madjoe5]

I like this a lot!

But, the only think I see amiss here is that the brain you describe here is structured based off of human anatomy.

Correct me if I am wrong, but lobe function, brain layout etc. may vary between species. Who's to say the brain of a dwarf is the same as a humans? Whose to say it isnt anatomically backwards? No one knows, of course, but then again it could be.

Assuming that dwarves are primates, such as humans, I can assume that they are also +95% alike to monkeys, gorillas and the like. Thus if human brains are structured and can be easily compared to that of another primate (or even mammal) then it would be safe to assume what you have as brain layout is completely acceptable.

If anyone can find something comparing a human brain to a monkey's brain (in relation to the lobes, how they function etc.), that would be super, since if they are strickingly similar, you can consider my point moot.

[Darkond2100]

There's a reason it's called humanoid, don't cha' kno'.

[Muz]

If you made this suggestion in any other game, I'd say that it's ridiculous. But in DF it makes sense, and sounds like it'd be more Fun