Are all of these crazy stories genuine?

[Flickmann]

People say the main selling point of DF is the crazy, organic stories that the game generates. There are stories of dwarfs going crazy on murdering sprees, soldiers distinguishing themselves in battle and single-handedly taking down goblin hordes and of desperate dwarfs sacrificing themselves to save others from demonic monsters. Do all of these stories emerge organically from the gameplay or do they contain heavy embellishment from the imagination?

Boatmurdered and Hamlet of Tyranny for example - did all of this insane madness just happen for one reason or another?

[strikebackstudios]

No. Most, if not all of the stories are embellished to varying degrees.

While very specific events in the stories MAY have happened, there is a generous amount of creative storytelling that comes only from the person writing the story, and not from the game in any manner.

[Deadweight]

depends on the story and who's sharing it, there's some wacky stuff that's not embellished at all

[Multihog]

No, they're not. Neither are the "it's the most complex and amazing simulation of all time that models the fat layer under the skin atom to atom!" Most of this stuff you'll never even see in the game in any meaningful way.

Not only are the stories embellished, they're also affected by survivorship bias. There are many fortresses that go smoothly without any problems; you just don't hear about these. From my experience, these successful, problem-free fortresses are indeed norm rather than the exception. And even regarding Boatmurdered, if you look at it critically, you'll notice that stripping away all the intense language and other external factors, most of the time it's nothing happening outside of regular management stuff. The interesting parts are comparatively few.

I find the "it's not a game but a story generator" rhetoric frankly ridiculous, and that's why I've spoken quite a bit about it on these forums. It's genuinely baffling to me how we arrived at this point where this became the prevailing notion.

[Sinclair]

The basis of the story is always the game's events. However, there is also a healthy amount of storytelling that comes into this. The logs are very detailed, which helps. From your examples:

* Dwarves can absolutely go on crazy murder sprees if they go insane.
* Soldiers that are skilled enough, well-equipped, and if the rng god smiles upon them, can absolutely single-handedly paste a goblin squad, or even wrestile down an attacking titan. Some of these are no longer possible though, due to game rebalances.
* The tales of heroic sacrifice are probably heavily embelished, as the AI basically operates on 'see enemy > evaluate own chances based on personality and state (civ vs military) > choose to either charge or flee'. So the events that led to this can absolutely happen, only without all the drama that the eventual story has.

[Testikles]

Originally posted by Multihog:

Most of this stuff you'll never even see in the game in any meaningful way.

.

That's a simple lie, but it seems that you are dead set on your opinion without any hope of redemption by now.

OP: The game generates a lot of wild stories, and the more you care about the world and your Dwarfs the more interesting they can get. Ultimately though, it's like any roleplay game out there. You are given the tools to craft the stories, but without a bit of imagination and work you won't get to the meat of it.

Of course, you won't have the wild stuff all the time. You might get ordinary fortresses were everything stays steady. Or others were all hell breaks loose 5 minutes after embark. You never know what's going to happen, and that's what people love about it. The whacky stories you can get out of it are just the icing on the cake.

[Vivisectus]

For me, the fun is to take some of the weird randomness and turn it into a story. I currently have a major that seems to be obsessed with socks. He mandates the production of socks all the time, and forbids their export. As it so happens, we even created an Artifact Sock, made of the finest Alpaca wool, decorated with Alpaca wool, and embroidered in Alpaca Wool with the image of a Forgotten Beast. Should it get stolen, I will of course determine that the Major will be on the case and require a full investigation by the Captain of the guard. No stone will be left unturned, and everyone will be interrogated no matter how much it takes. If required, we will got to war to retrieve the Sock of Destiny. Darn the consequences.

[The Hat]

Originally posted by Multihog:

I find the "it's not a game but a story generator" rhetoric frankly ridiculous, and that's why I've spoken quite a bit about it on these forums. It's genuinely baffling to me how we arrived at this point where this became the prevailing notion.

Adventure Mode.

[The Hat]

I mean reviews like Seth contribute to the mythos.

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=0FW23bamIZI

If you want fortress mode to have 'FUN' in it, try very large projects that you've not done before, as that will take you far out of the routine.

[PsyMcDeath]

Originally posted by Multihog:

No, they're not. Neither are the "it's the most complex and amazing simulation of all time that models the fat layer under the skin atom to atom!" Most of this stuff you'll never even see in the game in any meaningful way.

Not only are the stories embellished, they're also affected by survivorship bias. There are many fortresses that go smoothly without any problems; you just don't hear about these. From my experience, these successful, problem-free fortresses are indeed norm rather than the exception. And even regarding Boatmurdered, if you look at it critically, you'll notice that stripping away all the intense language and other external factors, most of the time it's nothing happening outside of regular management stuff. The interesting parts are comparatively few.

I find the "it's not a game but a story generator" rhetoric frankly ridiculous, and that's why I've spoken quite a bit about it on these forums. It's genuinely baffling to me how we arrived at this point where this became the prevailing notion.

"Diamonds aint real boys! There is no such thing as Diamond! I keep asking people for proof of Diamond, and all they show is carbon!"

[The Former]

Originally posted by Multihog:

No, they're not. Neither are the "it's the most complex and amazing simulation of all time that models the fat layer under the skin atom to atom!" Most of this stuff you'll never even see in the game in any meaningful way.

Not only are the stories embellished, they're also affected by survivorship bias. There are many fortresses that go smoothly without any problems; you just don't hear about these. From my experience, these successful, problem-free fortresses are indeed norm rather than the exception. And even regarding Boatmurdered, if you look at it critically, you'll notice that stripping away all the intense language and other external factors, most of the time it's nothing happening outside of regular management stuff. The interesting parts are comparatively few.

I find the "it's not a game but a story generator" rhetoric frankly ridiculous, and that's why I've spoken quite a bit about it on these forums. It's genuinely baffling to me how we arrived at this point where this became the prevailing notion.

For me, this is how.

https://steamcommunity.com/app/975370/discussions/0/3716063566027747367/

It’s all about how you interpret it most days, but I think the caps make it clear to see that I did very little interpretation in this post. (Though I did do some small amount.) A coherent story was generated by the game and tied into my first run before I even realized it had.

Whether that story matters is up to what a given player is in it for. If you’re not one to dig through Legends and connect the threads, it sure won’t feel like a story generator. If, however, you like to read and you have an active imagination, there’s a lot to story content in this game’s simulation aspects just waiting to be tapped, engaged with, and expanded over time.

Edit: Plus the devs themselves said it was a story generator.

[RefuseOrchestra]

Originally posted by Multihog:

No, they're not. Neither are the "it's the most complex and amazing simulation of all time that models the fat layer under the skin atom to atom!" Most of this stuff you'll never even see in the game in any meaningful way.

Not only are the stories embellished, they're also affected by survivorship bias. There are many fortresses that go smoothly without any problems; you just don't hear about these. From my experience, these successful, problem-free fortresses are indeed norm rather than the exception. And even regarding Boatmurdered, if you look at it critically, you'll notice that stripping away all the intense language and other external factors, most of the time it's nothing happening outside of regular management stuff. The interesting parts are comparatively few.

I find the "it's not a game but a story generator" rhetoric frankly ridiculous, and that's why I've spoken quite a bit about it on these forums. It's genuinely baffling to me how we arrived at this point where this became the prevailing notion.

It's ok. Some people have a thing called aphantasia. I'd look into it.

[Rever]

The game is telling a story and many people are creatively filling in some details.

[Multihog]

Originally posted by The Hat:

I mean reviews like Seth contribute to the mythos.

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=0FW23bamIZI

If you want fortress mode to have 'FUN' in it, try very large projects that you've not done before, as that will take you far out of the routine.

I watched it, and his examples are quite cool indeed.

Why then is it that my game is nothing like his? I just keep winning, with nothing but stability. Either it's RNG or the dev nerfed the game into oblivion since 2018 to accommodate the new players. I think that's what happened because I remember struggling in like 2010 when I played this game for the first time. I had tantrums among other issues.

[The Former]

Originally posted by Multihog:

Originally posted by The Hat:

I mean reviews like Seth contribute to the mythos.

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=0FW23bamIZI

If you want fortress mode to have 'FUN' in it, try very large projects that you've not done before, as that will take you far out of the routine.

I watched it, and his examples are quite cool indeed.

Why then is it that my game is nothing like his? I just keep winning, with nothing but stability. Either it's RNG or the dev nerfed the game into oblivion since 2018 to accommodate the new players.

Crank up your difficulty by fiddling with the settings and/or pick a more dangeorous starting position. For sure the game’s been made more accessible for dirt noobs like me, so for vets, their intimate knowledge of the game will make it far too easy on them without tweaks. You might have to actively try to destroy yourself at the world gen phase to get a challenge.

[suejak]

I noticed there's an actual difficulty setting that supposedly "adjusts the wealth triggers and frequency of invasions, thieves, and beast attacks." (This is from a pre-release interview in May, not the game, so I don't know what it actually does.)

These can be adjusted for any existing fortress mid-run, so I encourage you to go crank up the difficulty immediately (or customize it however you want, since it's got a million customizable settings).

This implies: 1) Maybe you need to crank up the difficulty to make more Fun happen; 2) the people who claim DF is a simulator that doesn't care about you as a player are wrong, because there are actually wealth triggers for things.