RPGs and Dwarf Fortress

[zakarntson]

Not a lot of RPG stuff happening at the moment. What's in the works (which is always subject to change or abandoment):

• An RPG. Combining the old-school Red Box D&D sense of wonder, a focused Goal system inspired by Burning Wheel's beliefs, and my own gaming sensibilities. I'm most excited about a quick start-up time granted by easy character

Comments

[princezilla]

Man your fortress looks RAD. I only played for a few hours and got a bit frustrated. You'll have to show me how to play the game a bit better this summer.

Let's playtest your game too! Sounds like a lot of fun. If you want to test it sometime on a Skype type of service we could play some online chat roleplaying.

I have my fourth Rifts session tomorrow, I'll let you know how it goes!

[zakarntson]

This is what I did. Go to the Dwarf Fortress wiki. Keep that webpage up.

Follow this tutorial. It took me several days to get through this tutorial.

Now, use the wiki and watch all your dwarves die of starvation or thirst.

I know how that sounds, but it's totally worth it.

[zakarntson]

Also, if you think my fortress looks rad now, just wait until I post updates. I divereted a river to drown out the antman & troglodyte lair. I also dug out tombs shaped like gigantic skulls.

[gillan]

I heart this game. When you get a bunch of DF nerds hanging out, the depth of the anecdotes is crazy.

I've been wanting to work on my own Roguelike also, but man, I don't know C and I can't find a good Java Curses-esque package. I'm sure one exists but I'm not in the know. Good luck.

[zakarntson]

There's something amazing about how DF gets you to fill in so many details that aren't really there.

As for making your drawing part easier, here's what I've done:

Create a Renderer interface class for your RL engine to interact with. And then you can implement that interface concretely for whatever library you like.

My C++ class is just an abstract rendering class. I started on CursesRenderer, but I've abandoned it for a new OpenGLRenderer class. I think I may have to write a StdioRenderer (using printf's) just to get something on screen while I figure out OpenGL.

Right now my interface looks like:

class IRenderer
{
public:
  virtual void startUp() = 0;
  virtual void shutDown() = 0;
  virtual void update(DisplayInfo const & displayInfo) = 0;
}

Where DisplayInfo is a gigantic bunch of stuff, like the visiblity map, light map, entity list, etc. etc. Granted, it's not yet up and running ...

[crnixon]

Man, Dwarf Fortress looks *awesome*. I'm super-afraid I'm about to have a new game addiction.

[zakarntson]

RUN! Don't walk!

It's the best thing ever. Seriously. I even had a dream the other night where water flooded my poor fortress from above and all my little dwarves were drowning!

And here's why you should play it: Last night I received some migrants. I don't yet have a military, so I made four of them recruits and had them in the barracks wrestling for practice. One of them gets into a "fey mood," takes over my mason's workshop and demands bone and shell (I have access to neither). So now I have the other three soldiers patrolling the workshop's entryway so this stupid insane dwarf doesn't inevitably lose it and go on a killing spree. I can only hope that some traders hit my depot soon with the right raw materials.

And no, I'm not embellishing one bit. All that actually happened.

[david_chunn]

Just last night I dreamt that I'd been hired to create and compile a "Classic D&D" that incorporated bits from every edition into the BECM line. I woke up slowly and found myself going through a whole bunch of cool ideas. There were no bumps from dream thought to waking thought about the project, except the realization that of course no one had hired me to do any such thing.

Came up with some wicked cool ideas of how to simplify and streamline, though. I'm in the process of writing them down now. Will use them in my next Classic D&D campaign once the current wraps up. (If I like it enough, I'll file off the serial numbers and publish it in some format.)

I think every RPG designer, in some way or another, revolves around that one little red box.

[zakarntson]

It was so gorgeous and friendly. And the solo adventure was great! But then, when I recently played it straight-up, no house rules, it totally fell flat. We spent way too long looking up AC ratings and the Cleric had a Constitution of 4.

I want my rose-colored glasses back! I also want to see your streamlines, and compare them with what I'm planning.

[david_chunn]

Ah, an information exchange.

Yeah, we use a number of house rules like class-based damage. Max hit points at first level. Stuff that seems common judging by the posts on Dragonsfoot. (Plus, for the current campaign I had to make custom classes because it was translated from another system. But that's a long story.)

I got so excited about my notes today that I've decided to file off the serial numbers and make a game of it. There's certainly enough difference. A goodly bit of my inspiration comes from the best D&D campaign I've run which used conversions to the BattleSystem Skirmishes rules, which played much faster.

I scribbled notes whilst waiting on our realestate agent, so I'll try to type them up tomorrow morning and send them your way.

[fifth_beatle]

Dude, I just learned today of two new games coming soon for Nintendo DS:

Star Wars: The Force Unleashed!!
Ninja Gaiden Dragon Sword!!

I can't wait.

[zakarntson]

I tried a Ninja Gaiden demo on my DS. It's alright. A bit weird because it's ALL touch-screen control.

I'm curious to see Star Wars on the DS. After seeing the amazing tech videos for the console/PC versions, it'll be hard to make an impressive DS title! I'm looking forward to the Wii version, though. LIGHT SABER WIIMOTE!

[fifth_beatle]

Ooh. That may be what finally gets me the Wii!