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[Gloster]

What element or entity is the player supposed to represent?

I think this is a crucial question in relation to the economy and the motivation of dwarfs. Why do they do what I tell them to do? Why should they? What would make them refuse orders? What would make them leave the fortress? If they get paid for their work, who pays them?

I have always imagined the player in a sort of a HAL 9000 role; incapable of direct action, but coordinating the operations of other autonomous persons. So is the player some sort of a guiding fortress spirit?

[major_sephiroth]

I'd wager something along the lines of Armok.

[Korgus]

I think it's the mayor/expedition leader.

[irmo]

What element or entity is the player supposed to represent?

I think this is a crucial question in relation to the economy and the motivation of dwarfs. Why do they do what I tell them to do? Why should they? What would make them refuse orders? What would make them leave the fortress? If they get paid for their work, who pays them?

The player doesn't represent an entity. Traditionally we've explained the player as the "collective will of the dwarves" or something along those lines. That is, when I designate a room, my miner digs it out because that's where he's decided to dig a room. If he gets injured and a different miner comes to take over, she digs it out because she sees what the first miner was trying to do and decides to finish it. It's important to the way the game works that the player's orders don't have to be mediated through anything.

Back when dwarves did get paid for their work, "the fortress" paid them, in the form of credit which they could spend on fortress goods. In theory the bookkeeper handled this, but nobody ever had to visit the bookkeeper to get paid or anything like that, and it was possible to pay them for any amount of work because it's just imaginary credit money.

[Supercharazad]

What element or entity is the player supposed to represent?

I think this is a crucial question in relation to the economy and the motivation of dwarfs. Why do they do what I tell them to do? Why should they? What would make them refuse orders? What would make them leave the fortress? If they get paid for their work, who pays them?

The player doesn't represent an entity. Traditionally we've explained the player as the "collective will of the dwarves" or something along those lines. That is, when I designate a room, my miner digs it out because that's where he's decided to dig a room. If he gets injured and a different miner comes to take over, she digs it out because she sees what the first miner was trying to do and decides to finish it. It's important to the way the game works that the player's orders don't have to be mediated through anything.

Back when dwarves did get paid for their work, "the fortress" paid them, in the form of credit which they could spend on fortress goods. In theory the bookkeeper handled this, but nobody ever had to visit the bookkeeper to get paid or anything like that, and it was possible to pay them for any amount of work because it's just imaginary credit money.

Unless you had coins.

Coins.
Coins.

ARRGGH

Stacks and stacks of them, dwarves doing no work at all just to stack their precious coins!

[NW_Kohaku]

Our eventual goal is to have the player's role be the embodiment of positions of power within the fortress, performing actions in their official capacity, to the point that in an ideal world each command you give would be linked to some noble, official or commander.  I don't think coaxing is the way I'm thinking of it though, as with a game like Majesty which somebody brought up, because your orders would also carry the weight of being assumed to be for survival for the most part, not as bounties or a similar system.  Once your fortress is larger, you might have to work a little harder to keep people around, but your dwarves in the first year would be more like crew taking orders from the captain of a ship out to sea or something, where you'd have difficulty getting them to do what you want only if you've totally flopped and they are ready to defy the expedition leader.

You are the expedition leader, the mayor, the manager, the broker, the militia commander, and basically all the appointable noble positions, as well as possibly the baron/count/duke during negotiations.

When you appoint nobles, those are the positions appointable from the position of mayor or expedition leader.

When an election happens, and a new mayor is selected, or an old mayor or expedition leader dies, "you" change dwarves.

[Brotato]

Our eventual goal is to have the player's role be the embodiment of positions of power within the fortress, performing actions in their official capacity, to the point that in an ideal world each command you give would be linked to some noble, official or commander.  I don't think coaxing is the way I'm thinking of it though, as with a game like Majesty which somebody brought up, because your orders would also carry the weight of being assumed to be for survival for the most part, not as bounties or a similar system.  Once your fortress is larger, you might have to work a little harder to keep people around, but your dwarves in the first year would be more like crew taking orders from the captain of a ship out to sea or something, where you'd have difficulty getting them to do what you want only if you've totally flopped and they are ready to defy the expedition leader.

You are the expedition leader, the mayor, the manager, the broker, the militia commander, and basically all the appointable noble positions, as well as possibly the baron/count/duke during negotiations.

When you appoint nobles, those are the positions appointable from the position of mayor or expedition leader.

When an election happens, and a new mayor is selected, or an old mayor or expedition leader dies, "you" change dwarves.

Then WHy not be able to control that dwarf like in adventure mode? I'd love to grab some weapons from the armoury and go a swinging when the next siege appears!

[Zesty]

I like the "Collective Will of the Dwarves" explanation.

But really, this game requires a little imagination. It's whatever you imagine it to be.

[PCpaste]

You are a flying invisible creature, capable of pausing time and bending space to see underground. You release a cloud pharamones that the hairs on the common dwarf's beard or other head areas connected directly to the pleasure center of the brain will react to. Not to be mistaken with the depth hairs, the ones connected to the pleasure senses that react to pressure from being deep underground, eventually resulting in an orgasm when they hit the HFS.

The ammount that you wish to mine is controlled by the quantity that is on the tile, very little for simply smoothing, and a heavy coating of the pheramones to make them channel the tile.

As for the objects you wish to be created... You release a controlled spray of an extremely powerful hallucinogen that gives them vivid images of what you are thinking of them creating at the time.

[GreatWyrmGold]

I think that the player represents the fortress management-the expedition leader and the consensus of the other dwarves. The woodcutter decides to clear-cut the map, the herbalist decides to pick every plant in sight, the carpenter makes as many beds as he thinks the fortress needs, the stonecrafter makes mugs at the expedition leader's request, etc.

[GhostDwemer]

Well, I think dwarves are just plain insane, and we, the players, are their hallucinations, the voices in their heads telling them what to do.

[dragoncurse]

We are Armok's representative commander.
We order dwarves to build mega construction to honor Armok.
We order dwarves to kill forgotten beast, even though it got a syndrome.

We order those dwarves in the name of Armok.

[blue emu]

You are the expedition leader, the mayor, the manager, the broker, the militia commander, and basically all the appointable noble positions, as well as possibly the baron/count/duke during negotiations.

So when you give a Noble a "Magma handshake"... you're committing suicide?

[Oliolli]

We are Armok's representative commander.
We order dwarves to build mega construction to honor Armok.
We order dwarves to kill forgotten beast, even though it got a syndrome.

We order those dwarves in the name of Armok.

And we try to convince them that it is not necessary to go get that Xpig tail fiber sockX.

[NW_Kohaku]

You are the expedition leader, the mayor, the manager, the broker, the militia commander, and basically all the appointable noble positions, as well as possibly the baron/count/duke during negotiations.

So when you give a Noble a "Magma handshake"... you're committing suicide?

Yes.

I actually played that up a bit in the suggestion thread on expanding control over nearby satellite Hill Dwarf settlements under the control of your noble.