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[Uristocrat]

As the title suggests, whats your definition of Dwarf Fortress?

I think I heard someone call it the world's most advanced homeless shelter simulator, given that all your dwarves are half-naked with tattered clothing and they smell of booze.  Oh, and they never (willingly) shower.

But if you want them to play the game, show them some megaconstructions.  Over here, we have a giant dwarf someone made.  It can pee magma onto your enemies.

This is the "orbital magma cannon."  Someone built a tower with a magma chamber at the top covering the whole world.  There are grates all over the bottom that can be activated by remote control, causing it to drop magma on ones enemies anywhere on the surface of the world.

This *was* an elven civilization.  Someone built a wall around it and a roof over it, then flooded them drowning everyone.  Finally, they drained it via a hole at the bottom.  We call it "Armok's toilet."

This is the fortress where someone pumped enough of the ocean dry to build underground domes out of glass.  People dream of doing this with the magma sea someday.

Or just show them some of the funniest dwarf moments.  I mean, it's always classic when someone on fire decides to head to the booze stockpile...

[iEpinephrine]

I have actually had friends refuse to play DF because it sounds too awesome and they don't want to lose their life to it like I have...

[dogstile]

How come I never hear anyone talk about Syrupleaf?
Sure the two stories before it were great but Syrupleaf is almost novel quality.

Syrupleaf was hilarious until that one dude went on about the clownite and let the queen die whilst neglecting most of the fortress. Seemed like a dick move.

[Uzu Bash]

I think the 'facepalm' and 'Dear Urist' threads would be convincing enough to get someone interested.

[Musashi]

My definition:
The Sims. Only there's a lot of Sims. Generally. And they are always in free mode. And you gotta make your own stuff, including furnitures and food, yourself, without any plan. Also, water. And magma. And everything is out to kill you. In fact, there are more ways to kill yourself than external hostile things out to get you.
In the Sims, you play until you stop being interested in a family. In Dwarf Fortress, you play until you die, and then you play some more.
... maybe the Sims isn't the best comparison after all. It's more like the game I would have wanted Spore to be.

Look, it's really hard to describe, so yeah, Boatmurdered is an excellent starter, so is this page. It took me a long time to even want to check this game though because all I had were screenshots and very obscure examples (about mass slaughter of cats, and the odd way economy used to work, a feature that is now absent); it's best to show an epic saga outright.

[DukeOfVandals]

Dwarf Fortress is the only game in the world that fully emulates an entity on the very brink of complete insanity.

There's no other way for me to get at the core of it. Even without the input that we, the players, provide, you have dwarfs who go on murderous rampages because their pet kitten was crushed in a bridge that was intended to keep out a band of 20 goblins who all happen to be on !!FIRE!!. Or you'll be working on getting your farming and brewing industries going when you suddenly discover a cyclops in some random unused room in your fort, who then proceeds to rip the arm off the dwarf who discovers him and beats another 4 dwarfs to death with it. You'll have a dwarf gather piles of gold, jewels, adamantine, steel, and a goddamned bone and he'll have made a single bone crown with an engraving of itself that is worth less than the sum of it's materials, meanwhile the next guy makes a massive golden statue of his pet cat.

And then you introduce the player into the mixture and it's like taking an incredibly unstable substance, and introducing it to every set of variables that could lead to it's combustion, simultaneously.

DF as a game is the equivalent of sitting down and having a conversation with the homeless guy in the park who screams about flying children trying to rip his skin off.

[kapusta]

I think I once compared it to a mixture of Sims and Settlers that was about 100 times more violent.

[rephikul]

Knights and Merchants on steroid. Especially regarding bugs, hauling lulziness and AI inefficiency.

[Argonnek]

It is a simulator of the complete instability of the minds of its residents. The dwarves are either committing murder/suicide or they're so happy their grins defy the boundaries of their faces. Unless someone just migrated to my fort, they are miserable or ecstatic. There is no middle ground.

[TicklemeFeather]

Ive tried all those but my friends pretty much react with the same thing. They dont like RPG's but they love micro-managing RTS games, which i should prob mention that it has that then.

[durbu]

A cross between Settlers, NetHack and The Sims with endless production chains and infinite possibilities.

[caknuck]

Moviewise, it's like "The Little Mermaid" crossed with "Schindler's List", but with the prison guards replaced by naked alcoholic midgets. And there is no list this time.

[nordak]

Dwarf Fortress is the only game in the world that fully emulates an entity on the very brink of complete insanity.
DF as a game is the equivalent of sitting down and having a conversation with the homeless guy in the park who screams about flying children trying to rip his skin off.

Sigged

[TicklemeFeather]

Can I sig

"DF as a game is the equivalent of sitting down and having a conversation with the homeless guy in the park who screams about flying children trying to rip his skin off. "

[Eugenitor]

If ordinary computer gaming is Edison, Toady is Tesla.