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[Lord Vetinari]

Currently, a dwarf that has a mood can only gather the items that he has in mind and build his artifact or fail, go insane and die (and maybe kill some fellows in the process).

I was thinking that maybe Urist McMoody can complete his work with what the fortress has in stock, even if it's not exactly what he was thinking, and make a lower quality artifact, gain a lower amount of experience or no experience at all, all at the cost of some serius bad thought. Maybe he could be miserable for loosing his lifetime opportunity (but not at the point of dying of starvation and thirst), even refuse to work for sometimes, but he recovers after a couple of months.

Possessed moods should work as usual.

[Sheb]

I think anything that make a Dwarf's life shorter is good. An Artifact has to be perfet, there is no such thing as an half-artifact.

[Lord Vetinari]

Wll, generally, yes. But when it happens when the population is low and the goods production barely started, it can trigger large amount of fun too early.

Also, irl when you grow attached to a great idea (in game terms, fey and secretive mods, not possession), you can accept to dumb it down a little to see it realized, instead of let it fail.

[PecosBill]

I made a suggestion a while back for one way to make mood failures more interesting, at least: "Slayers".

The dwarf strips down, picks up a melee weapon of some sort and does nothing except eat, drink and look for things to kill, targeting the biggest and most dangerous things first.  He doesn't kill dwarves or start wars with neutral civilizations, but if a Titan shows up, he's going after it solo and naked.  If a siege shows up, he'll run out and try to kill the entire siege by himself.


That would be way more interesting than just wandering around and dying of thirst.


Other forms of directed psychosis could be interesting too.  A crazy miner just starts mining and mining.  Maybe up.  Maybe down.  Maybe he doesn't care if he hits water or lava...

Or he just starts making things.  Takes over the blacksmith and just keeps working.  You can't tell him what to build or what materials to use up and he ignores burrows and restrictions.

Some psychosis might even be considered beneficial.  Endless engraving.  Endless smoothing of stone (everywhere, over the entire map, one tile at a time...)


I don't necessarily think mood failures should be "non-lethal" but the current ones just aren't that interesting.

[sonerohi]

Trade related depression. If a dwarf fails his mood, in armoring for example, he will refuse to make armor and the profession will be un-enableable, and he will receive a slight unhappy thought when doing the other smithing jobs.

[neek]

As it stands, a failed strange mood will result in death. A very sociable dwarf's death may result in a tantrum spiral if things aren't kept in check. Making failure far more personal to the dwarf in question is... well, more an attractive idea. I'm a fan of the forms of psychoses, to be honest, as a solution.

[Pilsu]

A dwarf picking up the wrong types of gems, insisting on doing at least something, failing hard at it and then becoming perpetually depressed and ending up with a cursed item or just a plain failure that he latches onto would be interesting. Morose, half-insane dwarves certainly shouldn't be perfectly productive though.

[Silverionmox]

I think it's fine to have a dwarf valuing his life less than completing the artifact. However, they should do more than just sit in their workshops and scream/brood until someone else produces a suitable item. If a dwarf lacks a component, he can:
- start mining in appropriate soil layers, in the hope of finding something
- harvest/cut/hunt/fish the item or raw material himself
- do processing of raw materials himself
- repeat the above until the quality of the obtained item is satisfactory
- steal (caravan or other dwarves) or dismantle existing objects, buildings or items
- grab some equipment an go adventuring in search of the right component. He then features as an adventurer in the legends, and might even return someday, rich in skills and with a finished artifact; or alternatively, with the components, reclaim a workshop and finally finish his mood.