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[Bomepie]

KHORNE DEMANDS SACRIFICE!
BLOOD FOR THE BLOOD GOD!
SKULLS FOR THE SKULL THRONE!

[Urist Imiknorris]

KHORNE ARMOK DEMANDS SACRIFICE!
BLOOD FOR THE BLOOD GOD!
SKULLS MAGMA FOR THE SKULL VOLCANO THRONE!

[twwolfe]

As it should. It's really deep, you know. And with hidden layers and extra superificial meanings and sarcastic critique of something, I think.

We're not just plain sadists, we're Philosophical sadists

[warwizard]

I was recently presented with a moral choice in the game: weapon smith had a mood going and needed leather and I had none, and no hunting, no cages.
and no traders due for another season, and 40 puppies yapping happilly to see me...

  So now I have a tin crossbow with a dog leather glaze, 38 puppies yapping happilly and one that growls when I get near.




I'm sorry little fella, but if you don't stop growling at me, you're next!

And so we go down the slippery slope into true evil, one choice at a time

[Bdthemag]

I was recently presented with a moral choice in the game: weapon smith had a mood going and needed leather and I had none, and no hunting, no cages.
and no traders due for another season, and 40 puppies yapping happilly to see me...

  So now I have a tin crossbow with a dog leather glaze, 38 puppies yapping happilly and one that growls when I get near.




I'm sorry little fella, but if you don't stop growling at me, you're next!

And so we go down the slippery slope into true evil, one choice at a time

Well the road to hell is paved with good intentions.

[malimbar04]

Some of it is because of annoyance and need too.

here I am, trying to be a good overseer and make all my dwarves happy, when some dwarf decides that she's just TOO depressed after I temporarily took away her burial ground for renovations. She tehn goes crazy and starts attacking people. For the good of the fort, she has to die. The same goes with nobles who ask for spoiler-made mini forges and are willing to beat the crap out of people if they don't get them. They need to die for the good of the fort.

Elves have a lot lower mortality rate since they stopped bugging us about trees I think. However, when you painstakingly go through all your artifacts and accidentally let one wood-decorated bauble escape your keen eye - and then they start to leave with all their tame giant eagles... what are you supposed to do. Reason with them? Slaughtering them and taking the eagles is more satisfying.

Let's see... what else. Migrant waves ruin hours of planning. Lazy dwarves can cause the downfall of a whole fortress (we NEED shroom wine to survive yo). cats and dogs can outbreed your computers ability to track them (and provide a highly-necessary and tasty meat).

And then there are just accidents. "oh, that warrior has a baby? so? I'm a feminist and she's awesome" turns into "holy crap, she carried her baby and used it as a meat shield against the spikes! Is she crazy!?" until it happens about 30 times and you just don't care anymore. The baby had it coming.

And then there are benefits to a bit of sadistic thinking. Like the spartans, trained from birth to kill, these dwarves are hit by siege after siege after forgotten beast and titans until FUN happens. If you are harsh and kill the unnecessary dwarves/animals, then your dwarves get used to death. Then when some freaken beast tears through half your fort, the other half doesn't start throwing fits. Instead, they just become awesome.

[Sutremaine]

Elves have a lot lower mortality rate since they stopped bugging us about trees I think. However, when you painstakingly go through all your artifacts and accidentally let one wood-decorated bauble escape your keen eye - and then they start to leave with all their tame giant eagles... what are you supposed to do. Reason with them? Slaughtering them and taking the eagles is more satisfying.

Order the eagle cages for dumping as soon as they appear on the map. While they're still in the trader's inventory they're fair game for marking, and I think dwarves will dump them even if the cages get to the depot first.

Or trade undecorated goods. Or sieze the eagles and let them leave. Or use the Additional Options part of the stockpiles screen to disallow plant and animal items from the stockpiles closest to the depot.

[CinnibarMan]

I was recently presented with a moral choice in the game: weapon smith had a mood going and needed leather and I had none, and no hunting, no cages.
and no traders due for another season, and 40 puppies yapping happilly to see me...

  So now I have a tin crossbow with a dog leather glaze, 38 puppies yapping happilly and one that growls when I get near.




I'm sorry little fella, but if you don't stop growling at me, you're next!

And so we go down the slippery slope into true evil, one choice at a time

Well the road to hell is paved with good intentions.

And in this case, puppy leather.

[MarcAFK]

As a serious answer, I think the community as a whole is seemingly monstrous for a few reasons.

The biggest one, I think, is the lack of real graphics.  Think on it this way; if DF was ultra-realistic 3D, do you think everyone would be quite so willing to pull a magma lever and watch as a mass of people melted horribly right in their faces?  Or would Adventure Mode players be so earnest in tearing the limbs off an elf and then crack his head open with it, watching as the guts and brains oozed out?  I sort of doubt it.
DF has opportunities for this sort of terrifyingly awful stuff, but the reason we aren't totally disgusted and horrified is because it's all in ASCII.  A kitten being systematically taken apart for meat is probably an incredibly disquieting and violent thing to watch, but around here it's practically standard protocol.

I don't think it's because everyone around here is a hideous person that is just full of sadism, more like we see this sort of thing happening onscreen and it's just so over-the-top ridiculous, it comes across as humorous.  And it is.  Kitten biscuits feeding an entire city of people, seeing your bookkeeper go nuts and claw a goblin's eyes out, etc.  The community has sort of cultivated this culture of crazy unnecessary grotesque violence for comedic value.
And it's okay, since it's not like we're slaughtering real kittens or anything.  It's just a game, after all.



Anyway, that's my theory.  It's probably dumb and wrong, but take it for what you will.

good point, tagged

[malroth]

So I shouldn't leave my migrants and nobles in a pit undernieth the bridge to my main entrance, sleeping on the dirt and eeking a meeger living off of moat water and prickle berries, so that goblin bowmen waste their arrows before they get to my archer towers?

[Evil One]

As a serious answer, I think the community as a whole is seemingly monstrous for a few reasons.

The biggest one, I think, is the lack of real graphics.  Think on it this way; if DF was ultra-realistic 3D, do you think everyone would be quite so willing to pull a magma lever and watch as a mass of people melted horribly right in their faces?  Or would Adventure Mode players be so earnest in tearing the limbs off an elf and then crack his head open with it, watching as the guts and brains oozed out?  I sort of doubt it.
DF has opportunities for this sort of terrifyingly awful stuff, but the reason we aren't totally disgusted and horrified is because it's all in ASCII.  A kitten being systematically taken apart for meat is probably an incredibly disquieting and violent thing to watch, but around here it's practically standard protocol.

I don't think it's because everyone around here is a hideous person that is just full of sadism, more like we see this sort of thing happening onscreen and it's just so over-the-top ridiculous, it comes across as humorous.  And it is.  Kitten biscuits feeding an entire city of people, seeing your bookkeeper go nuts and claw a goblin's eyes out, etc.  The community has sort of cultivated this culture of crazy unnecessary grotesque violence for comedic value.
And it's okay, since it's not like we're slaughtering real kittens or anything.  It's just a game, after all.



Anyway, that's my theory.  It's probably dumb and wrong, but take it for what you will.

Well, I don't think it's a dumb theory, but it's certainly wrong... At least it is in my case (I can't speak for anyone else).

I still do enjoy setting the zombies in Half-life 2 on fire just to hear their screams, I also used to enjoy using a shotgun in both Soldier of fortune games to see exactly how many piece I could blow apart and whether or not the intestines once exposed could actually be removed (they can't BTW which is a shame).

Would I still enjoy being needlessly sadistic in DF if it were full 3D... Hell yeah!

Do I do it in real life... Hell no!


I think the problem with your theory is that the real distinction between real people and computer people is the nature of their lives, computer generated people (be they HL2 zoms or DF dorf) are just created on the spot to serve a purpose in the game, they don't actually have a life to speak of, their memories, family, ETC are just coded variables, real life people however have lived their own lives and have their own memories (they may even have lived a life similar to your and equally enjoy torturing elves in DF) and so are truly alive and thus it's not so easy to be horrible to them (with a few exceptions of course)...









... Besides Magma's a bitch to work with in real life!

[Urist McGyver]

KHORNE ARMOK MAGMA DEMANDS SACRIFICE!
BLOOD MAGMA FOR THE BLOOD MAGMA GOD SEA!
SKULLS MAGMA FOR THE SKULL VOLCANO THRONE MAGMA!

[Komus]

arkhometha, please refrain from calling troll on these forums. It is perfectly acceptable to have a moral or ethical stance in a discussion on the topic.

You registered 15 days ago, so maybe you havent picked up on the fact that the vast majority of posters here are real people who pay bills and have informed, reasoned arguements and opinions. And beards. The only troll in this thread posted a massive wit placeholder...

Shame, I wasted my word count with a wrist slapping... i have to agree with those leaning towards 'the kittens arent sentient, im not a bad person, armok made me do it'

[MisterLich]

Because it's the edgy thing to be right?

On the other hand, I tend to try to play fortresses that attempt to be the gleaming example of morality and rationality in a grim world.  I like setting up fortresses in Terrifying biomes like my dorfs are virtuous defenders of righteousness.  I've even released goblin prisoners before to give them the chance to redeem their lives by surviving the zombie infested wilderness, or earn their freedom back in an arena.  Stuff like that.


But also sometimes I just play a random fort and shoot whatever just because sometimes the game gets boring if you don't provoke it.  It's a game that can become very slow paced if you don't do anything to spark an event of interest on your own.

[Evil One]

arkhometha, please refrain from calling troll on these forums.

Hey, it could've been worse... At least he didn't (Armok forbid) call elf.