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[Leafsnail]

It depends.  If they like violence, a list of things that happen in Adventurer mode could be enough.

"Friend cancels play dwarf fortress: bored
The friend's head flies off it a bloody arc!"

[Kogan Loloklam]

Here's what I've found to be useful; warn them beforehand about "lame" graphics. They'll assure you that they aren't that shallow (EVERY HUMAN BEING WILL DO THIS), and proceed to download the game. They then feel obliged to play, because they don't want to look like both shallow and lying jerks. This worked on my family, and then it worked on my friends. I think I found the ultimate solution.

This works surprisingly well.

The other alternative is to point them at some of the more spectacular community fortresses or show them an adventurer getting eviscerated in loving detail.

If they are fans of fictional worlds with lots of depth, show them the legends section, and let them know it was all randomly generated and its a new world every time.

And finally resort to our last refuge if all else fails. "It's only an alpha version." 

[Footkerchief]

I thought you were suggesting we use the magma on everyone around toady to get him to have a FELL MOOD.

Won't work.  He is a hardened individual.

I once yelled at a friend's party about how much I hated immigrants because they came and ate all my food an drank all my beer.
That did not convinced any of the people there, most of them being Asians and Indians and all that. I got a big awkward silence out of it.
And I looked even more of an idiot when trying to explain myself with descriptions of the game.
I think I should have just kept my mouth shut and remained perceived has a huge racist.

Also, I think I'm starting to annoy my coworkers with my constant blabbering of what goes on in my fort.
I'm probably being worst than those other guys who keep talking about WoW and their leet PVP skills.

I'm the perfect example of doing it wrong. 

Good lord.  Yeah, I DFangelize only to close friends who are also gigantic nerds.  That seems to work okay.

[BloodBeard]

I'd agree with referring them to Boatmurdered and generally telling them some of the crazy stuff that goes on without getting into the mechanics of the game. They may be motivated to play long enough to find out what you're talking about and before they know it, they're hooked.

Things like adventure mode are hard to get into without being told the horrible things you can do, the same probably goes with fortress mode. The first time I heard about DF was in r.g.r.n with someone mentioning the 'unique' combat mechanics and that got me to look into it.

[shadow_archmagi]

It helps if just from time to time you launch into complex narratives of fencing, fighting, torture, revenge, giants, monsters, chases, escapes, true love, miracles...

then at the end cite Dwarf Fortress as the source.

[Leafsnail]

I've introduced it to two friends so far.  One of them had too short an attention span, wheras the other read Boatmurdered and thought it sounded awesome.  He likes it.

[Lexender]

Linking them to the illustrated tutorial that was on the forum not long ago is also a good idea; this way, for their first playthrough, they don't have to bother with technical details, like how to install a tileset or get the intro movie to stop playing.

EDIT: Also, world-generating and site-finding when you don't understand a thing of what is going on is a real pain in the ass. Here's the tutorial.

[DeadlyLintRoller]

I wrote this elaborate email to my friend trying to get him into DF. He admittedly doesn't have time to play any games. The graphics and interface are the biggest problems in introducing people to DF. But that is beating a dead horse. Here is the email I sent him, changed around a bit, I'm not smart enough to create a hyperlink in a forum post without the web address showing. So I had to re-add the links.

It is directed towards someone who is more graphically minded, so I tell him to download the Mayday set after watching the intro. Please don't throw me into a magma chamber.

Spoiler (click to show/hide)

Yo Steve,

I wanted to give you some info about that game we were talking about. Basically this one guy programs it by himself and lives off of donations from people who enjoy the game. I really like it too, so I have an interest in introducing it to other people. But like I said, the game's learning curve is nothing short of daunting. But it is free to download. Once you get over the learning part, you will see what I am talking about.
 
I think the best way is to just list out all the links you will find helpful.
 
The Main website. Where to download speaks for itself http://www.bay12games.com/dwarves/
 
After downloading and extracting. launch the program and watch the intro video, feel free to play around to see what the "pure" version of the game looks like. Afterwards, close out and go to this website http://mayday.w.staszic.waw.pl/df.php and download and install this other version of the game. Basically, what this guy has done is added graphics. This will help, because things like, oh, I don't know, a bucket, will look like a bucket.
 
Okay, Now for the real resources.
 
You will probably not be sure what to do. there is a lot to learn. So the first thing to do may be to visit the wiki, http://dwarf.lendemaindeveille.com/index.php/Main_Page You will see some tutorials to check out that will help you in getting started.
 
But, the thing that helped me the most, was this series of videos that I found on youtube http://www.youtube.com/view_play_list?p=5A3D7682BDD48FC2 each video is labelled, so you only really need to watch what you want to learn at that moment.
 
Also, from the main website I listed earlier, there are some forums, which can be useful if you have a particular question. perhaps someone has asked it before and you can search for it.
 
Did I mention that this game is still in its alpha stage of development? They guy who is making it is making new developments every day. Right now we are in a long spell between releases, but that is a good thing, because he is doing a lot of work on it. The guy keeps a development log http://www.bay12games.com/dwarves/dev_now.html which I admit, I read every day. If you check it out you will see a glimpse of just how detailed this game actually is.
 
Various fun stuff.
 
Sometimes people playing DF will do what is called a succession game. The most famous of which is called Boatmurdered. People play the game for one in game year, then pass it off to the next player who will play it for the next in game year. in this one, they kept track of the game on a forum, with some in-character narration. It gets pretty funny. http://lparchive.org/LetsPlay/Boatmurdered/
 
I'm not sure what else to include, so Here are some links to some articles about the game.
 
Dwarf Fortress: cramming innovation into two dimensions
http://media.www.theskylineview.com/media/storage/paper619/news/2009/02/05/Entertainment/Dwarf.Fortress.Cramming.Innovation.Into.Two.Dimensions-3624919.shtml
-I just like the title of that one.
 
OK, I'm out of time to hunt down anymore articles. Hope you like it. See you later.

Dwarf Fortress needs a public relations department. Basically, we need to hi-jack DwarfFortress.com and have a similiar description to what I said in the email. Directions to resources, articles, everything a newbie needs to get intersted and play the game. Once that is up and running I have half a mind to make business cards and pamphlets that simply saw www.dwarffortress.com and hand them out to strangers who may appear to be inclined to like this type of game. don't hold me to that. I'm always just all talk.

If anyone has suggestions on how to make this message more convincing don't hesitate to let me know and I can add it in. Also, I know there are more articles out there, I just didn't have the patience to hunt them all down, but if you post them here I will add them.

[SolarShado]

Your talk of handing out business cards triggered an idea: we could try to start a world-wide viral (i think that's appropriate) ad campaign for dwarf fortress! Randomly rent billboards and put something like this on them:

Spoiler: 3 minutes in MSpaint (click to show/hide)

Everyone try to get/make t-shirts with the same design on them (not necessarily my design, but something similar and vague).

Anyone here a graffiti artist?

Most half-baked idea i've had in months... but it just might be crazy enought to work.

[Mount]

I find the use of "buzzwords" and hot phrases to be helpful: 

"kitten-tallow execution tower"

"orbital magma cannons"

"CARP oh jeeezus we're dead..."

Ask them for the most outrageous thing they can think to do in a game (e.g. "pave the sky with obsidian!") and then tell them "in DF, you can do that."

[Lexender]

Blah blah blah

Great picture

Blah blah

I totally approve of this, although I'd just put stickers and/or sheet of paper, instead of paint. We're kitten-killers, not vandals.

[shackleton]

I'd say simple is best, for things like DF t-shirts. People don't want to walk about with an advert on their front, but a pixelated dorf-asci could look pretty cool. Toady should start a cafe-press or something, it'd pay for coffee.

Still, I figure Dwarf Fortress reaches a pretty enormous number of people as is. It's only really an attractive prospect for those that can stand looking at ASCII.

I've tried to persuade my friends a few times - they really like the idea, and are totally enthusiastic, until they see it. Then they go 'holy moley', and run for the hills.

[Henrietta]

Get them to read boatmurdered.... it works

Quoted for truth. The first time I played Df I only put up with floundering around in it for 30 minutes before quitting and leaving it alone for a month. It was only after I read the Boatmurdered saga that I gave it another shot and started to love it. There were some tutorial videos on youtube that were really helpful for the first couple days of playing too.

[Sir Finkus]

It may take a few tries.  I know I downloaded and played it a few times before something just "clicked" for me and I got addicted.

[Sharpshot]

I've read all these reasons as to why people get into DF. Did anyone else just saw someone playing this and fell in love when they said what they were doing? (I saw someone playing this at a LAN party and thought he was hacking the server or something  )

I managed to get one guy to try this by telling him how I turned one of my nobles into drawbridge paste.