Print

Please login or register.
1 Hour 1 Day 1 Week 1 Month Forever
Login with username, password and session length

[chucks]

I was going to post this idea into http://www.bay12games.com/forum/index.php?topic=37094.30, but realized that it actually was an idea worth it's own thread.  After searching, I couldn't find anything regarding honorable and dishonorable deaths.

All this the of dwarves dying of old age turning into stone statues reminded me of Orson Scott Card's Speaker for the Dead with the piggies turning into trees at the end of their lifecycle.  Not the point I wanted to make, but I wanted to share the path of logic that brought me to my point.

Perhaps there could be such a thing as honorable deaths (ones that give their relatives and friends only a mildly bad thought or maybe even a good thought) and dishonorable deaths (definitely give their friends and relatives a very bad thought).  Getting killed by a megabeast in defense of the fortress, dying of old age, very few things should be considered honorable deaths.  Being killing by the fortress guard during a tantrum, being killed by a weak goblin wrestler in a wave of only 3 goblins, dying in a cave in, getting killed by the hammerer for not meeting a mandate, starving to death should all be dishonorable deaths.

Depending on how religion and the last rites and burial rituals are implemented, there might be a way to comfort the mourners.

Urist McEmo witnessed the dishonorable death of a loved one recently.
Urist McFancyrobes performed the eulogy for Urist McGoblinfodder.
Urist McEmo was comforted by an honorable burial of a loved one.

[Samus1111111]

you should add failing to make an aritfact and dying because of it under the dishonorable deaths

[Zulaf]

Actually there was something about this(sort of) before, It was basicly just if  Urist McCheese maker dies from over smelly cheese then his loved ones would be less impacted by his death cause it was from something he loved doing, something to that effect anyways.

I cant remember what topic it was from but i think it started as something and went more towards death.

[Sensei]

lol, dying a cheesmaker should be dishonorable...

Anyway, this might have interesting reflections on worldgen. Perhaps a king that dies a dishonorable death won't be replaced by their heir, but instead by the head of another family.

[irdsm]

I dunno about cave-ins and accidents causing dishonorable deaths per-say. I think most should be neutral, while "dwarven justice" deaths and dishonorable military service (as well failed moods, because it would be seen as a failure to society and the gods who gave them the "test" or what have you). But the miner dying while expanding the fortress? That's at least neutral, maybe even commendable.

I also think that the victims' family/friends should be taken into account. Families/friends of victims of tantrums would get a happy thought if the perpetrator was struck down, a neutral thoughts if the perpetrator was jailed, and a bad thought if the perpetrator is let free if the perpetrator was a dwarf. If the perpetrator was a sieger/megabeast and it was struck down they'd get a happy thought, if it escaped they'd get an extra bad thought on top of the death, and if it is caught they'd get a neutral thought followed by a positive or negative thought depending on whether the creature was disposed of in a certain time period (maybe a season). This would add incentive to take care of prisoners early.

Just some thoughts.

[Craftling]

Being killed by skulking filth should also be dishonorable.

[chucks]

Well, other things I were thinking that:

Urist McPointysticks was an axelord of epic proportions, with abundant abilities also in swordplay, dagger throwing, and unarmed combat.

Urist is in a squad of 4-10 dwarfs composing a military unit.  In a recent seige upon the fortress composed of orcs and trolls and mounted riders, Urist McRedshirt falls in combat.  It has an immediate effect of morale on his squadmates, but they stand firm.

Shortly thereafter, this squad of mighty champions are relieved by a fresh squad of unscathed elite fighters.  Urist's own squad drags his body back inside with them, and they lay him up in the hospital.  They prompty return back to the thick of battle.

As Urist's squad is returning to relieve the winded juniors, they return back to the fray of battle with a new bloodthrist on their hands!  They must avenge their fallen comrade and they strike down the last of the invaders nearly to a handful of the leaders, subduing them into chains and restraints to descend into the bowels of the dungeon to await execution.

After securing the prisoners, attention is placed upon Urist McDaisypusher.  His body is wrapped in fine linens, noble armor, and he is laid to rest with a ceremonial golden sword upon his chest.  A stately old Dwarven cleric of some sort leads the eulogy, commending this great champion to continue to fight on for eternity upon the slopes and caves and tunnels and hils of the afterlife.

The weapon he used in the battle of his death is passed down to his firstborn son to own, potentially leading his progeny on a path of honor and duty in serving the family, the fortress, the Mountainhome, and all of Dwarvenkind.

Urist McDaisypusher now is cold, the blood of ancient kings and nobledwarf fighters flowing through his veins no more.  His son, Urist McBlessedchild is fortold to be a worthy champion as well by the seers and wisemen of the fortress, but he is unsure if he is capable of living up to the proud memory he has of his father.  Can he too have the honor to be put down at the hands of a worthy foe as his father did before him?

I'm not exactly sure how one would model a system of honor, but it certain plays out to be quite a bit of an interesting operating mechanism for politics and favor in an empire.

[Aquillion]

The thing is that you'd expect dwarves to react differently.  They're not all going to share one idea of honor, and they're not all going to care about it equally.

For instance, one old father, when told that his son died honorably fighting off in Goblinistan, might answer with a cry of anguish, raging "I ONLY HAD ONE SON, AND I DID NOT RAISE HIM TO DIE FOR FOLK AND FATHERLAND."

Another mother, when told that her son has been killed by the guards, might be grief-stricken but accept that he had gone wrong.

[Thanshin]

IIRC, the first post contains quite a spoiler about the novel.

[bjlong]

^^^ A spoiler that you should predict 50 pages in.

[chucks]

edit: rabble rabble rabble

[Blargityblarg]

53 to abuse the correcters of spelling mistakes...

Correctors, no?

And yes, I get the irony in saying that.

I think a rerail is in order?

[Pilsu]

Grief could cap the dwarf's maximum mood. Helps to make dwarves actually care about significant losses instead of being ecstatic all the time

[SirHoneyBadger]

I can see an especially "honorable" death being appropriately honored. But most of what's being mentioned are just unfortunate accidents. If a dwarf betrays the Fortress, and is executed, that might be worthy of a special designation, but I'd suggest that dwarfs just be used to death, as a part of their daily lives. It should really take something special to make them--in other words--think ill of the dead.

[Aquillion]

Grief could cap the dwarf's maximum mood. Helps to make dwarves actually care about significant losses instead of being ecstatic all the time

A thought that caps a dwarf's maximum mood wouldn't actually do anything meaningful right now.

My understanding is that a dwarf's mood is dynamically generated from all their active thoughts.  So let's say you have a dwarf with thoughts whose net total puts him at +1000 mood; but his grief caps it at 500.

Then something happens that gives him a 500-mood hit.  What happens?  Nothing, because his mood is immediately recalculated with this new thought included.  Since mood isn't "accumulated" in the form of points, but dynamically generated from thoughts, the cap is effectively only hiding the dwarf's actual mood, not changing it.

This is also unintuitive to players -- the most important purpose mood serves (its only real purpose right now, I think) is to show how close a dwarf is to snapping.  If you put a cap in, you end up with a dwarf who looks depressed and about to snap, but who isn't actually as close to tantruming as a dwarf with that low mood usually would be.

You could obtain a slightly better result by applying a grief cap to the dwarf's total gross happyness value (before it's combined with all their negative modifiers).  But there's still a problem -- here, it's the removal of a good thought that will suddenly unintuitive stop mattering.  I don't think that that would be an improvement on the system...

Perhaps a multipler (a multipler of less than one) that's applied to all happy thoughts.  Or a multipler above one that's applied to all negative thoughts.  Or both.

But it might be best just to handle all bad thoughts through the straightforward existing + / - system, and focus on balancing them.  Ultimately that's going to be much more intuitive than having a bunch of special thoughts that add odd factors or multipliers or whatever, I think.

Ultimately, the real purpose of the thought system is to give the player feedback and results for things that happen in their fortress.  If it isn't making it clear what's causing a dwarf to behave the way they're behaving, then it isn't doing its job.  Complicated multipliers and caps and so on aren't really necessary for what it's intended to do.