Dear Game Developers, I don’t want to be a rapacious colonizing blight on the world.
I like a pretty wide variety of games, but one general thing I’ve always been particularly keen on is the sort of game where I start off just kinda naked in the wilderness with nothing and have to build up a bunch of infrastructure to accomplish something. So you know, RTSes, Civ clones, survival games, sandbox-y Minecraft stuff, Dwarf Fortress and similar things, but these all have this really annoying habit of making my character the biggest existential threat to the entire world, and I would really like them to stop doing that all the time.
how does dwarf fortress fit in to this?
Don’t normally do the awkward tumblr reply threading but this actually is an interesting case to look at in regards to this.
Dwarf Fortress honestly largely sidesteps this particular issue by not really inherently specifying WHY we’ve got 7 dwarves heading out to start a new settlement somewhere, and kinda leaving that much to your imagination and personal choices. Maybe we’re heading out to straight up do some colonialism. Maybe we’re refugees fleeing a homeland that’s in the process of getting wiped out in a huge war. Maybe we’re setting up a trading post to encourage friendlier relations with neighboring civilizations. Maybe we’re a bunch of irritable curmugeons trying to get away from it all. Maybe we’re a military outpost. Maybe we’re looking to safely secure an adamantine deposit. Maybe we took a drunken bet to see if we can thrive on that one island where it rains acid and undead whales keep crawling up on shore looking to murder people.
And honestly, the way world gen works, what story there is to the world coming in can legitimately push you towards one of those. Usually, there’s a big ol’ army of goblins lead by a demon somewhere just kinda generally waging war on the whole world, but, sometimes there isn’t, and what goblins exist are just ordinary friendly citizens back wherever you’re heading out from. Maybe there’s giant monsters rampaging through the countryside, maybe there aren’t. If there’s elves around, they might be your best friends, or come to hate you, largely depending on how many trees you’re clear-cutting honestly.
What does consistently happen though is you’re basically never displacing any locals (as you generally can’t choose to settle in places people are already living, any close neighbors you have are going to form some kind of relationship with you. Being a warlord conquering everyone is… possible I think these days but a huge pain and certainly not a focus or even something with clear practical rewards. And whatever it is you decide to do, you are almost certainly going to become embroiled in global politics, if only from other people’s wars getting brought to your doorstep or immigrants rolling in because your place is really thriving.
And any sort of end-game goal you might have is kind of inherently predestined to tragic failure, honestly. Keep things small and stable, neighbors are going to eventually force you to expand or defend yourself from invaders. Dig down to get rich off hidden resources, you might poke through to hell, or failing that, a cavern full of flaming flying jellyfish that drop dust that makes people’s skin fall off or something. Go all militant, and people will get into a depression spiral from the horrors the see, etc.
So… it’s not a game that tends to make me feel guilty about being a colonizing blight on the world, if only because I’m not forced to play it in that fashion and if I try I’ll probably be punished for it, but it’s also a game that can really only end in boredom or tragedy, and I do personally like to have a real end goal with these things to work towards.
kayinnasaki