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If Dwarf Fortress was an RPG what kind of of theme or setting would it have? Would it be grimdark, lighthearted, comical? What system would be best to represent it?
We already know that the top God, Armok, is basically Khorne, and all other deities are lesser gods. We already know that Armok destroys the world and remakes whenever it becomes stale and boring.
We don't know where people go when they die, we don't know if there's a heaven, but we do know that there are angels and demons, and both of them seem to be hostile to all life. We know that destroying temples causes the gods to curse the heretic with vampirism or lycanthropy (which is really more of a blessing in this setting) and that necromancers can learn to raise the dead from death gods.
We know that the world is extremely hostile, but it is possible for people to become extremely powerful, to the point where whether you win or lose a battle more or less depends on whether you have that one guy who can kill tens of thousands of people without getting so much as a scratch on him. We also know that there are "blessed" and "cursed" lands, where the "blessed" lands have high quality and generally friendlier creatures, whereas the cursed lands are hostile to most life and frequently the dead will rise in those lands.
Finally we know that Humans, Dwarves, and Elves all get along fairly well. The Humans live in walled cities and hamlets with mead halls, and practice slavery and torture (but only if its recreational torture). The Dwarves live in mountainhomes and hillocks (which are basically the Shire), and the elves grow their weapons and armor from the ground itself, abhor the cutting down of trees, practice cannibalism, are friends with the animals, are immortal, and are about as big as Dwarves.
So what kind of system would we run this on? And where would it fall on the noble-grim and bright-dark spectrum?
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>>53436331
I think it would be a bit like Paranoia. Impossible by design and laughing about it, with crazy, inane adventures you're woefully unprepared for but might manage to trudge through, somehow.
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>>53436331
I'd say you want to recreate the feel of Boatmurdered without it relying on the specifics of Boatmurdered. Animal invasions, societal collapse, mechanical mishaps, bizarre artwork, occasional giant monsters.
System wise, DF has always had a gritty combat system that tracks damage to individual body parts. DF with hit points would be shit-tactularly unDorfy. I think a complex damage system is 100% essential.
It should be a system where the players are the underdogs, like in Shadowrun, rather than the local Kings of the Hill like in most DnD campaigns. Honey badgers and carp can kill dwarves. The players should learn to be cautious.
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>>53436683
>I think a complex damage system is 100% essential.
Absolutely, playing Adventure mode gives a feel of something just barely out of the reach of a tabletop due to some of the probability calculations. Just a slightly simplified version of the combat system already in the game would be great.
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>>53436331
GURPS with supplements
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>>53436331
>Would it be grimdark, lighthearted, comical?
Yes.
I tried to come up with a media reference that would fully encapsulate how this could work to capture the absolutely unique feel of Dwarf Fortress.
I came up dry.
Nothing else quite matches.
The closest I could come up with was imagining Dobby the House Elf wearing the skulls and flesh of the fallen, in layers.
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>>53437006
It's important to remember that the players contribute a large amount to this unique feel.
Like that one time that players would create mermaid breeding rooms, where they would breed mermaids and then drown them and butcher them for their bones, which were apparently very valuable.
Or the "childcare training system", where rabid dogs are dropped into small rooms with children, the dogs attack the children and the children fight and kill the dogs to survive, training combat skills and become immune to negative feelings from death (in other words, becoming sociopaths)
Or heck, the entire story of boatmurdered.
Now, all these examples would be absolutely horrifying and not a fun matter at all, if they weren't so over the top violent that they just barely border on the absurd. That's what Dwarf Fortress is good at, teetering on the edge between comical and horrifying.
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>>53436832
more like gurps with 3.5 supps.
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>>53437964
DF can be fantastic played straight, too. I mean, hilarious death and catastrophe is good for laughs, but I've had some serious emotional experiences in adventure mode, man.
It all depends on your ability to get in character. The bleak reality of DF worlds helps with either perspective.
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>>53436571
fippy bippy
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>>53436331
early wh40k over-the-top-grimdark, played for laughs. We need some sort of Dorf Fort bible with ideas for horrible shit
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