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[LShadow]

This is a subject I love. Something being unpredictable is different than being random (which I think is really cool). An example of this would be the digits (as opposed to the value) of pi. There is no discernible bias, they are considered truly random, but they are easily predictable. Random.org has some good information about all these different nuances. Be warned: the subject can suck you in.

I still think The Dwarven Index is controlled by the disproportionate number of available "bad" decisions. Even if a dwarfy decision is based entirely on logic (just go with it), the logic doesn't have a complete view of the entire system; WE are part of the system when we are playing. So, I suppose we could describe everything in terms of comparing the goals of the logic to the goals of the player. In that case, I would rephrase my original statement as: The number of goals that both the player and the logic agree are good have a very small overlap. So, when the logic decides, odds are it picks something that's not in that nice overlapping area.

[Buttery_Mess]

Options--
1. Step into magma.
2. Place hand in magma.
3. Stand still and get engulfed by magma.
4. Swim in magma.
5. Casually ignore magma until engulfed.
6. Taste magma.
7. Attempt to fight magma.
8. Start up a conversation with magma.
9. [Insert countless more stupid magma-related decisions here]
10. Place Elf in magma, then leave.

Text Adventure games for 8-bit microcomputers in a nutshell, I might point out.

[Gatleos]

Text Adventure games for 8-bit microcomputers in a nutshell, I might point out.

Someone needs to make an extremely difficult Sierra-style adventure game where the plot is that you're a Dwarf in a fortress. There is one way to win and 267,187,245 ways to die.

[Max White]

>Take sock
You don't see any sock here, perhaps you will find one above ground.

>Go up stairs.
You climb the staircase.
You arrive above ground. There is a +Pigtail Sock+ here.

>Take sock.
You take the sock.
A goblin strikes you with he's -Iron Mace-.
You have been struck down, would you like to try again? (N/Y)

[Aramco]

>Take sock
You don't see any sock here, perhaps you will find one above ground.

>Go up stairs.
You climb the staircase.
You arrive above ground. There is a +Pigtail Sock+ here.

>Take sock.
You take the sock.
A goblin strikes you with he's -Iron Mace-.
You have been struck down, would you like to try again? (N/Y)

>Yes
You start over

>Throw sock after picking it up.
You pick up the sock and throw it.
The spinning +Pig tail fiber sock+ strikes the Goblin in the skull, smashing the skull through the brain and bruising the brain.
Goblin Maceman has been struck down.
You win.
Play again? (N/Y)

[Anathema]

At this time we believe that certain quantum effects and radioactive decay are truly random.

I'll have to look that up - interesting, if so. But anyway, insofar as the topic of randomness relates to DF: I suspect that dwarven decision making is not random, but it could be.. and even if it isn't, it's at least complicated enough that it can't easily/reliably be predicted and thus seems random to the player. That is to say if there is a logic to it, the logic is so unrelated to what the player would actually like the dwarf to do, that for all practical purposes the dwarf may as well be making a random decision from a pool of a few 'good' (desired by the player) choices and many other 'bad' (less-than-optimal) ones, often giving a bad result. The relatively few simple decisions that can be reliably predicted (i.e. which side of the wall the mason chooses to build it from) are exceptions to the above, of course.

Edit: I think LShadow stated it better than I, at any rate, I agree with this:

I still think The Dwarven Index is controlled by the disproportionate number of available "bad" decisions. Even if a dwarfy decision is based entirely on logic (just go with it), the logic doesn't have a complete view of the entire system; WE are part of the system when we are playing. So, I suppose we could describe everything in terms of comparing the goals of the logic to the goals of the player. In that case, I would rephrase my original statement as: The number of goals that both the player and the logic agree are good have a very small overlap. So, when the logic decides, odds are it picks something that's not in that nice overlapping area.

[Interus]

It's come up often enough in this topic that I'm getting a bit annoyed for some reason.
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Availability_heuristic

I'm not sure how much of it is random either.  Especially when things like eating, drinking, sleeping, and breaking can be considered negative choices when you want a dwarf to get a task done.  It's not like whether or not a dwarf needs to eat is random.  Now, when it's "My miner caved the floor in under himself" that can seem random.  But it's probably because of the North/West rule too.

I do wonder what percentage of artifacts are bad choices though.  Those would be the exceptionally useless ones or strange ones.  Like rope reed swords.

[rex mortis]

It's come up often enough in this topic that I'm getting a bit annoyed for some reason.
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Availability_heuristic

I'm not sure how much of it is random either.  Especially when things like eating, drinking, sleeping, and breaking can be considered negative choices when you want a dwarf to get a task done.  It's not like whether or not a dwarf needs to eat is random.  Now, when it's "My miner caved the floor in under himself" that can seem random.  But it's probably because of the North/West rule too.

I do wonder what percentage of artifacts are bad choices though.  Those would be the exceptionally useless ones or strange ones.  Like rope reed swords.

Mostly, I find artifacts that are not spoiler metal arms and armour worthless. As far as I know, the total number or artifacts that can be created in a fortress is hard capped (by the embark size).

[Urist_McGamer]

-snip-
As you can see, the number of incorrect decisions vastly outweigh the one logical decision. Point proven correct.

My problem with your theory, and Anathema's, (I quoted you because you typed less) is that you're assuming that the dorfs' decision making process is largely, if not completely random. The number of possible wrong decisions doesn't matter one bit if decisions are made based on anything but random chance.

Well, I don't necessarily mean to imply that the decision process is "random," as in the game produces a random number and goes from there, it's just that it seems random. Any sufficiently complicated system you don't understand can seem random - I mean, there are no truly random events in our universe, you could theoretically calculate the result of a dice throw if you knew every possible variable about weight, distance, force, air resistance, elasticity, etc., it's just that the calculations are so complicated and so prone to change drastically from even small variations/inaccuracies in the starting conditions that it's not practical to predict it - so it seems random. The word "random," as we commonly use it, really just refers to things that are "too difficult for us to predict," which many dwarf decisions qualify as. By the way, read up on chaos theory if interested, it goes into more detail about how many simple predictable factors can add up to seemingly random (i.e. unpredictable) results.

And the number of wrong decisions does matter very much even if the decision process is not random. Say, for example, that when choosing items to haul the dwarf always picks the closest one. If you want him to haul a particular corpse, and that corpse is the only thing that can be hauled, you're good - if the corpse is one of 1,000 items slated for hauling, odds are it won't be the closest item. See, even though the Dwarf is applying a logical and practical method to choosing the item to haul, there's an element of randomness, i.e. where the item happens to be in relation to the dwarf. The astute reader will note that this is not really "random" either, but like the dice example it depends on so many variables - all the items that need to be hauled and how they got wherever they are, whatever job your hauler did previously and where it left him, all the possible paths connecting said dwarf to said items you may or may not have dug/constructed, and so on - so like the overall dwarf decision process, it would appear somewhat random to us who don't know every detail of how it works or every variable that affects it.

Well, only the bookkeeper truly knows these kinds of things, even for years into the future.