Print

Please login or register.
1 Hour 1 Day 1 Week 1 Month Forever
Login with username, password and session length

[Soadreqm]

The topic was mentioned back at the List of Remaining Items -thread some time ago, and I started thinking about it. Probably more deeply than is healthy. I was never able to resist the siren call of xenosociology. Anyway, I think it could be implemented, but in a way that would address none of the reasons people would want it implemented in the first place. That's the reason I'm posting this here, by the way, and not the suggestions forum. I guess this would be sort of neat but there's not that much to be gained from actually putting it in the game. And unless I post it somewhere, my head might explode.

So. On one hand it was mentioned that ordering a dwarf to go and kill another dwarf goes against the design philosophy of controlling the fortress, not the dwarves; while on the other hand, it might be really useful and fun sometimes, and there are ways to kill dwarves whether or not it's "allowed". And to be fair, examples of governments choosing to arbitrarily murder some of their own citizens aren't that hard to find in the real world. If the player wants his fort to be a fascist nightmare state, I don't see any point in stopping him.

All that needs to be done is to make sure that there are appropriate repercussions for trying to kill everybody. Running a fascist nightmare state shouldn't be easy.

Only the ruling class is allowed to kill people.
Examples of peasants putting their masters to death in a calm and organized manner are significantly less frequent than the other way round. In practice, this would mean that you can't order any nobles to be killed, and you need nobles around to kill anyone. You would at least need a hammerer, and some high-ranking noble. Maybe if the execution orders came from someone ranked below the king, the higher ups might disagree with this and do something.

(This would render most dwarves the player would actually want to be rid of untouchable. Especially the hammerer, since he's the one performing the executions. Clever, huh?)

Killing people causes a lot of unhappiness.
The duke signing the imperial proclamations would obviously not take any action against anyone he likes. The hammerer lives only for justice, but he wouldn't like it. And the rest wouldn't get just the usual unhappy thoughts that can be removed with a pretty waterfall and a nice dining room. Abducting people and hammering them to death for no reason at all should cause deep-seated resentment against the government that wouldn't go away within a reasonable timeframe. The people might forget and forgive eventually, but it would take a few decades. And that's assuming you stop killing them.

The guards, and other people directly employed by the dwarven government might refuse to work if you oppressed any of their friends. The guards would be necessary, too; unless you make a show of being more powerful than the underclasses, they'll just start rioting, thinking no one will stop them. And the citizens would be constantly angry, temporarily kept docile by the pretty waterfall and the nice dining room, but ready to turn into an angry murderous mob if things suddenly took a turn for the worse. You might even get occasional assassination attempts on the ruler.

And if you let the situation get out of hand, you'd have a bloody civil war on your hands. If the nobles, backed by the guards and hopefully the jaded veteran members of the army, manage to win, you've just lost a good share of the actually useful dwarves who get things done in your fortress. If the peasants win, you've still lost a lot of useful dwarves, your military is quite possibly decimated, and the mountainhomes will be distressed at this new turn of events, and try to fix the situation by sending a new batch of nobles. and if the new nobles are not accepted and obeyed by whoever was in charge of the newly liberated anarcho-syndicalist commune, a siege.

All this might even occur without the player intending it, as a natural result of all those hammerings from failing to fulfill a mandate. So the punishments for those might have to be toned down a bit, with the noble in questing getting to choose whether he wants to punish anyone, and punishments ranging from a disciplinary hearing to jail time to death. Actually, maybe this should be done even if the reactions aren't worsened.

---

The framework for some of these things might actually exist after the army arc is done. One of the stated goals is allowing conflict over succession, schisms and contested claims to entity positions, and this might potentially include the concept of a civil war, perhaps even inside a single site.

All this would probably just result in half the players running fascist nightmare states just because they can and frequently having their population wiped out by revolutions and tantrum spirals. So, new ways to be evil and new ways to lose. Just what the game needs.

[Armok]

seconded.

[Timst]

Sound awesome, but this is strange cause it offer more control to the player on the dwarves and less control to the fortress at the same time.

[Rowanas]

hmm. Allocating a dwarf for death makes sense, just like any of the job or weapon specifications. I don't see that it takes shifts any focus, it's just another job. It does make the destruction of strange mood dwarves without materials far too easy though.

Seconded.

[Dakk]

Well, i do think the "kill orders" shound't be handle like "You! Guard! Kill this guy!", but more like employing an assassin. Innocent dwarves should only be killed through assassination, but criminal or ex-criminal dwarves should be susceptible to kill orders.
A way of taking some control from the player's hands and giving it back to the dwarves themselves would be assassination orders from nobles because they don't like someone, said decision taken without the player's mind being involved, he could employ an assassin to get the job done, and maybe even do it himself while no other dwarves are around (sneaking in someone's room while they sleep).
Of course, if the assassin is caught, or the noble himself, they'd be jailed or even put to death by hammering. This would give the players more noble related problems to solve like:
"O SHI- the mayor's sneaking in that dwarf's room, and he HATES him!, i better lock it before he gets himself caught".

Though this could prove to be more an annoyance then a feature.

[Name Lips]

I think what people were asking about was the ability to extend the "flag creature as hostile" tool to work on ALL creatures, including dwarves. I don't see any need at all for an elaborate system where you designate individual dwarves for execution or assasination or anything - just switch them to Hostile targets and let the archers shoot them down like any other unwelcome guest.

I don't really think it's necessary to come up with a plausible, story-driven reason why we would want to do this. If you don't want to use the tool, there's nothing compelling you to do so. If you choose to role-play a dwarven splinter sect that believes in killing all foreign dwarves, I see no reason you should be prevented from doing so. Eventually migrants will stop coming on their own because it is "too dangerous."

Note that this tool could also be used to flag goblins or demons as "not hostile." Meaning your dwarves would refuse to attack them, even while under attack. Why would you want to do this? I have no idea. But it allows for more role-playing type situations, where you might want to do things that have no real tactical benefit, or that might be too much "fun" for most people.

[Dakk]

Because just putting it in with no limitations is against toady's views on DF?

He did say many times he doesn't want to put too much direct control of dwarves to the players, dwarves can make decision and act according to their personality and culture, this is what makes DF awesome and not some ASCII RTS. Toady is trying his best to keep the game the way it is without making the player a dwarven hivemind.

I'm not saying they should question every job designation you make, but a dwarf should be at least reluctant when ordered to kill his own family, or needlesly killing someone if his personality says otherwise.

[Ampersand]

Killing an innocent dwarf, if any dwarf can be called that, shouldn't cause unhappiness in any dwarf that has a grudge against that dwarf.

[Deimos56]

You'd think they might even want to volunteer to perform the kill order if they had a grudge.
Depending on their personality.

[Kilo24]

I disagree partly with this.  Historically, there's been quite a spectacle of sorts to executions and punishments.  Christians in with the lions, severing limbs for theft, shopkeepers setting up stalls around the gallows, that sort of thing.  The timeframe of DF suggests that quite a few dwarves would enjoy a watching a good grisly punishment, to show that the government is protecting them from thieves or murderers or whatever have you.  Indeed, I'd argue that the hammerer should be more likely than anyone else to love a good punishment.

Even if you think that dwarves, elves, or humans should be less bloodthirsty than that, goblins should still like it messy.  At least, I'm guessing so based on the heads-on-spikes predilections of them currently.  And modelling it in those societies allows easy transfers to letting Vlad McUrist the Impaler pop up in dwarfdom.

This does extend to a point, however.  Ideally, I'd like the dwarves to run a mental comparison with themselves and the punished; the more similarities that are found, the more uneasy they should be as a result and also weight friendships/grudges with the  punished heavily.  That way, we could model related tensions for class, gender, appearance, species, and whatever else that you can think of as cause for dissent.  Tossing goblin slaves to their deaths shouldn't matter to all but the most kindhearted (or squeamish) of dwarves -- unless they share the same lowest rung in society.

[IndonesiaWarMinister]

Vlad McUrist the Impaler

Hey! That's my grandfather! [/roleplay]

Kidding aside, seconded.

[StealthArcher]

(This would render most dwarves the player would actually want to be rid of untouchable. Especially the hammerer, since he's the one performing the executions. Clever, huh?)

I was going to second until I read this, then it was filed under the "Dumb*** Masochist Ideas".  I hate having to deal with them not listenening to me as much as they do already.

[Im_Sparks]

All that needs to be done is to make sure that there are appropriate repercussions for trying to kill everybody. Running a fascist nightmare state shouldn't be easy.

It shouldn't be, but it really is. Easier than running a democratic/senate/republic state is.

[Enzo]

The timeframe of DF suggests that quite a few dwarves would enjoy a watching a good grisly punishment, to show that the government is protecting them from thieves or murderers or whatever have you. 

And as much as the timeframe suggests this, so does "dwarven temperment". Public execution at a masterwork gallows seems like the kind of thing a lot of dwarves would enjoy. I mean, dwarves generally take joy in slaughter, don't they? Perhaps this is only available when the Executioner noble arrives? I think this whole train of thought opens up a lot of fun possibilities.

[mickel]

Manually selecting a dwarf to be punished (perhaps by execution) sound like a good idea, although I would think it wouldn't happen immediately, but rather that it would be an order for the appropriate noble to give the order to the guards. This in keeping with the player not having direct control over anything (but doors).