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GeekNights 20100504 - A Bunch of Dwarves

edited May 2010 in GeekNights
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  • edited May 2010
    For those who don't have anyone to play BW with, I bet Grey would GM a Burning Dwarf Fortress game if you guys show the fuck up.

    Also, I just remembered, the song Ilmarinen and I made in the "Good Hip Hop" thread is a perfect example of flamewar-cum-creativity. The conversation went something like this:

    Me: The music you listen to sucks.
    Ilmarinen: No, it's awesome, but the stuff you listen to isn't so hot.
    Me: Nuh uh.
    Ilmarinen: Yuh huh. By the way, I wrote some lyrics.
    Me: I did too.
    Ilmarinen: Nice, I wrote some more with the same concept.
    Me: Let's record a song.

    So we did. And to Ilmarinen, my man, I haven't forgotten about that song. Now that I've got all computers running and where they should be, it is going to get re-recorded.
    Post edited by Walker on
  • edited May 2010
    I might have missed it, but I don't think Scrym said that DORF is in the forums.
    Post edited by Omnutia on
  • I'll probably buy the BW books soon. Maybe I'll get in on that shit.
  • For those who don't have anyone to play BW with, I bet Grey would GM a Burning Dwarf Fortress game if you guys show the fuck up.
    Damn right I would.
  • So, Scott fails at Clash of Heroes. Oh, and Dwarven Hammer makes the knights awesome, though it also sometimes makes your turns long as hell.
  • edited May 2010
    For those who don't have anyone to play BW with, I bet Grey would GM a Burning Dwarf Fortress game if you guys show the fuck up.
    Damn right I would.
    I'd prolly be down. I have the books, and they're just sitting there.
    Post edited by Sail on
  • I'm about to play my first game of Dorf Fortress. 'Ere we go.
  • OHGODWTF, GREY, GÃœNTER AND I TOTALLY HAVE TRIED BURNING DORFS AGES AGO ALREADY. It just utterly failed due to low numbers, and no BW knowledge. I would like to try it again.

    As for Scott's accusation, I never claimed DF was programmed good, so do not say such foolishness. I said the way you played ignored the knowledge of the game being programmed by an amateur writing mediocre code, resulting in the game AI calling its mediocre code constantly and in large quantity trying to find alternative routes that did not exist. I then pointed out in response to Rym that pathfinding is still slow, especially in a 3D grid with A* path-finding when there is no path.

    And then later others repeated it and suddenly people listened.
  • As for Scott's accusation, I never claimed DF was programmed good, so do not say such foolishness. I said the way you played ignored the knowledge of the game being programmed by an amateur writing mediocre code, resulting in the game AI calling its mediocre code constantly and in large quantity trying to find alternative routes that did not exist. I then pointed out in response to Rym that pathfinding is still slow, especially in a 3D grid with A* path-finding when there is no path.
    It's not mediocre code, it's shit code.
  • It's not mediocre code, it's shit code.
    bool qualityOfCode;
  • Git hates windows...I hate developing on XP. >_>
  • Git hates windows...I hate developing on XP. >_>
    Ubuntu + VirtualBox.
  • I'd prolly be down. I have the books, and they're just sitting there.
    I totally would too, if the timing is right.
    I'm about to play my first game of Dorf Fortress. 'Ere we go.
    I hope it went well for you. Remember, when you're new to the game, just surviving through the first winter is a major accomplishment (although, that was more of a milestone in the original, Boatmurdered-era version. Goddamn did winters suck back then).
  • Ubuntu + VirtualBox.
    I was complaining more about work than this. Curse you federal government and your ancient windows boxes!
  • edited May 2010
    On the subject of hard FPSs on consoles: Lapboard; Always an unknown quantity when making predictions.
    Post edited by Omnutia on
  • I hope it went well for you. Remember, when you're new to the game, just surviving through the first winter is a major accomplishment (although, that was more of a milestone in the original, Boatmurdered-era version. Goddamn did winters suck back then).
    It took forever for me to understand loadouts and stuff; pretty sure my dorfs are going to starve. I don't know how to check the time, so I might direct the dorfs to break an aquifer and start over.
  • It took forever for me to understand loadouts and stuff; pretty sure my dorfs are going to starve. I don't know how to check the time, so I might direct the dorfs to break an aquifer and start over.
    It's hard to starve your dorfs once you know how to get food. As for the date, check your [z]tatus. It's quite feasible to start with nothing at all on a temperate location with surface water. Just scavenge for plants, make some farm plots, make meals, trade meals for axes, picks or ore and get diggin'.
  • Here's a couple Burning Wheel GMing tips, based on the troubles it sounds like Scott was having:

    1) Never suggest something easy to a player. Any solution that you, the GM, offer should be harsh, difficult, and/or in conflict with one of their BITs. Leave it to them to come up with the easy clever workarounds
    2) Once an obstacle leaves your mouth, don't lower it due to player suggestions. If they come up with a valid reason it should be easier in this context, give them a bonus die, two in extreme cases. You can also make them justify "the easy way" mechanically through use of FoRKs and linked tests.

    Finally, Luke suggests something in Burning Empires that has held up pretty well in BW for me: if you're really in doubt what the obstacle of a task should be, it's Ob 3. Set the obstacle lower for things that are clearly trivial and higher for things that are clearly difficult, of course, but it's a nice middle ground with enough room for failure AND success to make people think about it.
  • I want to run Burning Firefly.
  • 1) Never suggest something easy to a player. Any solution that you, the GM, offer should be harsh, difficult, and/or in conflict with one of their BITs. Leave it to them to come up with the easy clever workarounds
    2) Once an obstacle leaves your mouth, don't lower it due to player suggestions. If they come up with a valid reason it should be easier in this context, give them a bonus die, two in extreme cases. You can also make them justify "the easy way" mechanically through use of FoRKs and linked tests.
    This times a lot.

    Taking it out a little broader, though, I can offer up a very valuable piece of GM'ing advice. Once you've made a call, go with it. Never, ever, ever, ever stop to argue about the call you made during gameplay, and do not go back on it during the game. It doesn't matter if what you did is correct by the RAW; it is far more important that your rulings stick and are applied equally to everyone during the game.

    If you made a particularly bad call - and you will make bad calls - revisit it after play with the players and come up with a way to handle it in the future. You can do the referee thing - make a different bad call later on to make up for it - but I would do that sparingly. This also goes for the players; if the GM makes a bad call, voice your concern but roll with the call. Play now, be correct later.

    So, basically, be consistent. It's more important than being correct. Obviously, the best scenario is to be consistently correct, but that won't always happen.

    And remember, the rules are, at their core, suggestions. That's it. If it doesn't make sense, do something else that does make sense. So long as you do it consistently, everyone will be on the same page and the game will run smoothly.
  • I want to run Burning Firefly.
    Ooh.
  • I once planned Dwarf fortress style Burning Wheel game, but I haven't got around playing it. In my vision I didn't use the [number of players] dwarfs strike the earth to build (dig) a fortress. Instead I thought having about 50 to 100 dwarfs and PC as a leaders and people in charge. I think that, that kind of situation could lead some interesting drama, filled with greed and hunger for more power. Also dice-roll failures could bring up such situations as: "Because you wanted miners work faster, safety of the tunnel was compromised and the tunnel collapsed, killing tens of dwarfs, also prince is coming to see the fortress, how will you explain this to him?"

    And because other people are giving their guidance for BW, I'll say my opinion too. In my opinion digging a hole in the wall is ob 0, no roll. That's because just digging a hole is boring and we don't waist rolls on boring stuff. If there is something else in the situation like digging a hole before goblins attack, then it's different thing.

    I think that in the podcast there was a mention about possibility of some kind of public forum thread for the Burning Fortress game, I'm interested to know more details about the campaign, like PC;s believes and such.

  • And because other people are giving their guidance for BW, I'll say my opinion too. In my opinion digging a hole in the wall is ob 0, no roll. That's because just digging a hole is boring and we don't waist rolls on boring stuff. If there is something else in the situation like digging a hole before goblins attack, then it's different thing.
    This shows you clearly just don't ge tburning wheel. The obstacle and failure to do this simple thing, dig a hole in the wall, resulted in the cave in and all the awesomeness of our entire session stemmed from that one awesome failure.
  • That's because just digging a hole is boring
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  • edited May 2010
    And because other people are giving their guidance for BW, I'll say my opinion too. In my opinion digging a hole in the wall is ob 0, no roll. That's because just digging a hole is boring and we don't waist rolls on boring stuff. If there is something else in the situation like digging a hole before goblins attack, then it's different thing.
    Sure, digging a hole in the wall is Ob 0. Digging a hole in the wall so that the entire cave doesn't collapse? Ob 3. The skill wouldn't be in the game if you weren't intended to roll it.

    Digging a hole before goblins attack is a perfect candidate for using one of the time complication bonuses. Fail to dig the hole in time? Goblin'd!
    Post edited by TheWhaleShark on

  • And because other people are giving their guidance for BW, I'll say my opinion too. In my opinion digging a hole in the wall is ob 0, no roll. That's because just digging a hole is boring and we don't waist rolls on boring stuff. If there is something else in the situation like digging a hole before goblins attack, then it's different thing.
    This shows you clearly just don't ge tburning wheel. The obstacle and failure to do this simple thing, dig a hole in the wall, resulted in the cave in and all the awesomeness of our entire session stemmed from that one awesome failure.
    This is why we need campaign/session reports when we talk about specific game, I did not know how that roll affected your session. But I also say that I don't take back anything I said. All you said that happened, was, that someone failed a roll and that had consequences, witch drove the rest of the session in new direction, and that is what should happen in Burning wheel, failures bring interesting consequences. The thing is that the fact of what the initial test was about isn't that important here, the fact that the test failed made it interesting and important, changing the direction of the session. Personally I still feel that dwarfs should just be able to dig how they want if there isn't anything to put some pressure there, need for speed or quality. But again this is difficult thing to talk with this little knowledge, maybe the digging player had "I will dig the greatest tunnels ever" believe, then all possible digging tests for that character are (somewhat) important.
  • Actually i think part of the beauty of Dwarf Fortress is that it IS open source, just not open source in the part you're used to. You talk about on another episode of Geeknights how most coding nowadays is just banging two or more black boxes of libraries together until it works. With Dwarf Fortress, the libraries aren't the black box, the glue coding is. You can modify the libraries to your heart's content: they're just text documents. That makes it more accessible, and fun, to the players like myself who don't know shit about coding but want to have fun modding the hell out of DF.

    Now I'm not making excuses, yeah the code is utter shit, even from my perspective.
  • With Dwarf Fortress, the libraries aren't the black box, the glue coding is.
    No. He put core functionality in the glue code, which is bad design for numerous reasons. The game is far from open.
  • With Dwarf Fortress, the libraries aren't the black box, the glue coding is.
    No. He put core functionality in the glue code, which is bad design for numerous reasons. The game is far from open.
    You're both wrong. Dwarf Fortress is open data, which is true for almost every PC game. It's almost a necessity. The only PC games that aren't open data are ones that have obscure and obfuscated data files. Even those are easily reverse engineered if anyone puts any effort into it.

    For example, in the Civilization games since Civ2, all the game data is just in regular old audio, graphics, text files, and python scripts that make modding incredibly easy. That's open data. However, the source code used to build Civ.exe is completely closed. This makes it easy to make mods of Civ, but it puts strict limitations on how far you can go. For example, I can make a Gundam version of Civ, but I can't do anything about the shitty netcode.
  • Fair enough.

    However, I think DF as a whole isn't so much the Toady One saying "Okay I'm gonna make the best possible generic fantasy world simulator," as he is saying, "Okay, I'm going to make a fantasy world simulator, the best I know how." This is a labor of him proving to himself he can do something like this, and all the versions of DF have been phases in the continuous beta test.
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