Print

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

[Nikov]

"Slaughterrumors the Annals of the Conflict of Scorching"

This is a superior leather-bound book. It is encrusted with sapphire. On the cover is an image of an elf and a dwarf. The dwarf is striking down the elf. This image relates to the slaying of Ilwe Embracepines the elf by Urist Vaultcaverns during the Conflict of Scorching.

The first chapter is a geneology of Urist Vaultcaverns. Urist Vaultcaverns was born to Rovod Cleftshield and Monom Lostbucket in the year 359. His place of birth was Tombswarden. His paternal grandfather was Likom Hammerforge. His paternal great-grandfather was Dikot Caverndelved.

The second chapter is a geneology of Ilwe Embracepines...

The third chapter is an account of the Conflict of Scorching...

The fourth chapter recalls the battle between Urist Vaultcaverns and Ilwe Embracepines...

(And so on. Chapters rather than pages give an illusion of real depth to the book, and using cloth or leather with embelishments on the binding makes the book feel like a real object. )

[Andeerz]

What is your view on instead of skill boost, it simply provides a source of experience (at least up to a certain level).

Currently, anyone can do any reaction at any workshop provided the right ingredients are available.  I propose that a dwarf needs to have an initial bit of knowledge about how to do certain crafts (like carpentry, smithing, tanning leather, extracting venom)  before being able to do them and gain skills in them, unless they get a strange mood or somehow discover the knowledge on their own through trial and error or it is something obvious (swinging a weapon, operating a pump, skinning an animal, cooking basic foods).  So, this knowledge would be separate from skill and would be something able to be recorded in a book or passed down through word of mouth.  Does this make sense?   

[Pilsu]

It's a good idea. Mind you, your list of simple skills is a bit small. I doubt you'd need instruction to be able to make a basic crappy table. It could be more sophisticated than that, allowing custom results. An untrained, uninformed carpenter might not be able to get past skilled. An herbalist without a guide wouldn't be able to extract roots or leaves and would only pick unidentified berries which could be poisonous. A cook couldn't reach the highest levels or make fancy dishes without knowhow (generated recipes are a planned facet of cultures). Each skill could be treated individually so books wouldn't be useful in everything. Smithing for instance would require apprenticeship.

[Andeerz]

Yeah!  That's pretty much what I meant.  The list of skills I put down were only examples and not comprehensive. 

[PsyberianHusky]

Can I add to this and say the books should be reflective of legends and the legends should be able to decay overtime. I'm not sure If I got this idea from an already existing bloat or if I heard it in my humanities class but the perceived history should be able to be rewritten, and I should be able to keep the elves weak by killing the people who keep their stories.

[Iasnek]

I would use books as a balancer.  Low level dwarves wouldn't be able to do everything instantly (as right now even a dwarf with no experience in a skill can do everything in the skill, if shoddily), but books could could be an easy and quick way of boosting a dwarf to, say, level 3 in a skill, where he could now do everything related to that skill.  For example, if you put a cow in front of me, I would have no idea how to milk it, but if I looked it up on the internet first, at least I would know how to start.

[Chicken Launcher]

I would like it if aside from books about professions, scribes and dwarves with high social skills would write their own novels and books about history and philosophy. You could also buy some of these from traders, and your more intellectually inclined dwarves would read them during their spare time and get a happy thought. Perhaps if schools of thought are implemented, reading books could influence dwarves' opinions.

I can see "artifact books" becoming classics especially if books can be copied.

[Iasnek]

I'm looking forward to randomly generated fantasy novels and chick flicks

[Nikov]

I just want books retelling histories, geneologies and other such 'legends screen' information and the associated happy thoughts a dwarf gets from visiting a library.

[Andeerz]

I like what a lot of you are saying.

Ultimately, I think we all agree that books should be a vessel for knowledge in the game, able to pass down information through generations and across cultures.  But I also think that books should also be vital for tasks such as record keeping of stockpiles, wages, and government related stuff, as I think that's a big part of why writing came about in the first place.  Basically, writing should serve as it does in real life as a technology or tool to help one to "remember" something they otherwise couldn't efficiently, like large amounts of mind-boggling numbers in mathematical operations, data during experimentation, code of laws when administering justice, histories of entire civilizations, etc.

I would use books as a balancer.  Low level dwarves wouldn't be able to do everything instantly (as right now even a dwarf with no experience in a skill can do everything in the skill, if shoddily), but books could could be an easy and quick way of boosting a dwarf to, say, level 3 in a skill, where he could now do everything related to that skill.  For example, if you put a cow in front of me, I would have no idea how to milk it, but if I looked it up on the internet first, at least I would know how to start.

So, I like this idea as well, but I don't like the idea of books providing a skill boost, or only a skill boost (which I understand may not be exactly what you are suggesting).  What I would like is for books in DF to do what they do in real life (or at least as much as possible) which is present and transfer (through reading) a bit of knowledge to the reader; not just a skill point in, say, soap making, but the knowledge (and through it the ability) to use lye and other ingredients in the right procedure to produce soap, and the ability to disseminate this bit of knowledge to other entities.  Without this knowledge the person would be left to figure out the process on his or her own or be shown the process by someone else.

Knowledge transfer would lead to OODLES of emergent-behavior awesome!!!

Also, with regard to record-keeping and books.  I think that books should be the medium of storage of such information as stockpile info, wealth, criminal records, and trade agreements, in addition to the other things mentioned and that if they are destroyed or lost, the data should be lost with them.  So, for example, if a fire broke out in the library and stockpile records were stored there, one would no longer be able to access accurate stockpile information if the books were burnt up.  The same would go for historical documents and the like...  Knowledge could be lost in a convincing and realistic manner in this way!  Maybe having records written down could also allow the player to monitor trends in production output and the like if a record keeper was told to record such data.  I dunno.  I think that would be cool.  :3

[warlordzephyr]

it sounds excellant, but instead of making new jobs for libraries, wouldn't it be better to use the record keeper to write the history and stocks in books and use the philosopher for everything else?

[Krumbs]

I would be good if books could be written on things like wrestling that recruits could read in their spare time while 'on break' to gain experience. Also books on the history of the fortress, sort of like legends but more jazzed up. So say humans sieged twice and the first siege you killed the leader causing the siege to end, a book could be written which you could read like this:

"In the spring of 205 the humans laid siege to Trumpet Shark, the army led by Charles Xavier. After a month of fighting the human leader Charles was decapitated by the swordsdwarf Ingot. Lifting the siege.

However the humans would soon return."

I'm sure things like that would not be too hard to implement, sort of a splice between legends and engravings with extra words to form some exiting short stories. it would also be good to look in abandoned fortress' (this would be better when Toady makes the AI fortress' a bit better than a stone pit in the ground) in Adventure Mode and finding books on the forts history. Like the battles that took place, the artifacts created, and maybe even the forts downfall. I'm talkin' Mines of Moria shit here.

[warlordzephyr]

indeed, it would add a whole new thing to reclaiming, does anyone do somthing where people who have had to abandon a fort due to starving or goblins can send to people who want to do a reclaim?

[dizzyelk]

It would also be nice for adventure mode. Speaking to the dwarven king and get a quest to get the records. "We haven't heard from Granitebasements the Angel Anus in some time, go and recover the records of their downfall."