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[Atrixium]

TL;DR:

I want to use old embarks, complete with data, as DnD adventures without manually transcribing each cell, or running DF. Something like the viewer at http://mkv25.net/dfma/ would be perfect if it would also allow me to interrogate cells to see what they contain (descriptions of engravings, furniture, loot, etc.).

/TL;DR

Spoiler: Explanation (click to show/hide)

I want to use Dwarf Fortress as a sort of dungeon/world generator. Essentially I would take my previous fortresses, export them, use the tile graphics as the map itself and use the tile data (Engravings, loot, furniture, etc.) as the content of the map. That would basically allow my players to ask any question they want and I will have an answer that doesn't have to be A) made up on the spot because I wasn't expecting it and B) remembered afterward.

As anyone who has DM'd a game will know, players have a tendancy to do the unexpected, which is all part of the fun of the game, but if your not quick on your toes (I'm not) then it can really de-rail a game in a hurry. Having a player ruin your painstakingly laid out adventure because they found a simple loop hole that bypasses all your hard work can be incredibly frustrating. Using Dwarf fortress embarks as towns, castles, dungeons and the like would allow me to much more easily create a living world that has it's own history and organic locales.

I know that I can export images of the zlevels which would allow me to import them into my DM program and use them as maps, but that's only half of what I want. I don't know of any way to get at the cell data aside from leaving DF running and looking at that cell to see what the contents are. Has anyone developed an app that will allow you to look through an embark and interrogate the cells, preferably with a mouse?

If nothing like this exists I'm considering trying to develop it myself but I'm not much of a coder 

[Greiger]

As far as I know no such tool exists.  Unlike some other tools I heard of, it seems within the realm of possibility at least.  But if art (what the engravings are usually listed as in legends mode) is stored outside of the memory I imagine it would be very difficult if not impossible to retrieve the data.  The data would be there in that case, you would just have to figure out how DF stores the data in the save and how to find the pointer that says which art it's supposed to be in that particular tile.

Even if the art is loaded in memory, I don't think DFHack currently has that data, so you probably wouldn't be able to use that as a shortcut like many others do.  At least not unless DFHack ends up finding what yer looking for.   

So it sounds difficult.  Might be easier to just keep DF running.  I mean really, all I had open in my short stint of computer assisted DMing was a few text files, some relevant reference materiel, gimp and an open source dice roller(because I'm cheap and lost my old dice).  Not much for DF to steal kernel time from.  Especially if DF replaces the image program for the map.

[BigD145]

Any utility you use/make will be version dependent. You might as well just use DF.

[Atrixium]

Good insights! I'm still new to Dwarf Fortress as a whole and I'm not entirely sure what I'm getting into. I kind of took it as a given that the information I want would be able to be grabbed with dfhack but now that you mention it, that may not be the case! That and the version dependancy could be problematic.

My main reason for not wanting to use DF is that I would rather use the mouse to examine the cells rather than the keyboard, which I suppose isn't really a big deal, certainly not insurmountable, just irritating.

[Granite26]

You might do better with a map and a printout of the legends.

Use the map for movement, and use a likely legend to describe what the players see for the engravings.  Exactly what is engraved where is unlikely to matter.  I imagine you'll do a better job of picking topical stuff than the RNG does.  As far as 'what's the stuff that's in the square' in terms of items, players are unlikely to care about the general stuff (rock bracelets and whatnot), so it's better to give a general 'dwarven crafts are strewn about the room' than a laundry list of items in each square.  Especially when you pre-age everything (swords are rusty, crafts are beaten up, basically it's useless).  From a cinematic storytelling point of view, allowing your players to pick up any non-valuable item at any point encourages creativity on their part.  As far as the actual valuable stuff goes, I would say run a kobold filter over the fort.  Anything valuable and not nailed down or hidden should be gone, or moved into the hoard of a creature living in the fort.  As it stands, the effects of abandonment are more akin to a tornado than years of animal/thief traffic.

I see you mention that your players look for loopholes in order to catch you out.  My advice?  Find better players.

[Atrixium]

Very good points Granite, it seems I may be over thinking this, which isn't really all that uncommon for me

Your suggestion of the kobold filter makes perfect sense, unguarded treasure would of course be absent.

As for my players tripping me up, they don't usually do it on purpose, it's usually just something I overlook or an avenue of atack that I didn't anticipate. I actually really like it when the players attack things in completely unexpected and unique ways, it keeps things interesting, it's just a bummer to either see your hard work go unexperienced or to have to railroad your players, or worst, have a 2 hour capaign turn into 2 minutes   

[Greiger]

Heh sometimes they don't have to look for them.  Sometimes it just ends up happening.

"Theres a thin pit with a short wooden bridge crossing it.  Your side of the bridge is still in shadows, but there is a small fire in the corner of the cave on the other side that lets you make out 2 orcs.  The bridge is well enough illuminated to make sneaking across it nearly impossible. On the other side the tunnel appears to continue. (quick stealth roll)The orcs haven't noticed you."

*q&A session about the cave layout and lighting details*

Player: Ok I'll jump the pit to the dark corner on their side and try to stay hidden.  *rolls natural 1* *manages to grab onto the ledge and due to the miracle of warrior listen checks the orcs don't hear the noise*

*describe that the pit isn't incredibly deep (out of mercy not wanting to kill him from one bad jump roll I hadn't planned it out any farther than "it's a pit") and the player decides to climb down to avoid alerting the orcs.*

Player: So what's down here?

"Uh..."

[Atrixium]

Lol, exactly. 

[Terrahex]

my friend tried getting me to play DnD, and I totally bombed it. I don't know if it was terrible luck or something, but the dice didn't want to cooperate. either way, I like GM'ing RTD's better, but if DF was involved...

[Granite26]

Meh, pits are D6 per 10 ft, roll 3-4d6 behind the screen, say '10' (no matter what you roll), and start a fight where the fleshy bits of the party are trying the throw the orcs down to the fighter.

This works best if the rest of the party stays hidden while the orcs gather around the pit to look down at the silly trapped human. 

Bonus points if you start singing 'It's raining men orcs' at any time during the proceedings.

[Hyndis]

There is a fine art of being a GM, you need to fudge a lot of rolls to keep the story going, sometimes not even using dice at all. Do not slavishly follow what the dice say, as luck is a cruel mistress.

As far as DF goes, many forts are a great inspiration. Take a fortress and mentally age it a few hundred years.

You now have an abandoned, rotting fortress that may or may not be plundered, with some collapsed tunnels or flooding in the lower section. The plunderers may still be around, and some of that old machinery might be on the verge of failure.

[Cthulhu]

The trick isn't fudging dice.  Sometimes the dice fuck the players over.  Don't get rid of that.  The trick is fudging just enough to keep things going, without eliminating the danger, and never ever letting the players know you're fudging.

[Granite26]

The trick isn't fudging dice.  Sometimes the dice fuck the players over.  Don't get rid of that.  The trick is fudging just enough to keep things going, without eliminating the danger, and never ever letting the players know you're fudging.

ayup

[Nivim]

Player: So what's down here?

"Uh..."

This is why it helps so much to know the history of the place beforehand. Was it an aquaduct, a buried treasure's resting place, an abandoned siege tunnel, or a trash pit of the besieged? It gets easy to generate the right details when you know what you really aught to call something (the "what?", although its much better to have the "why?" and "who?" as well). Heh, like those times when you're describing to the players something like "a small stone of sky blue marble" and simultaneously thinking "a dwarf who ascended to godhood died heroically some 74km northwest of here and this is his kidney" followed by suppressing a chuckle as they pass it around and one of them tastes it.

[BigD145]

The trick isn't fudging dice.

The trick is making a die roller in DF that runs on kittens.