DF2014 Talk:Bogeyman

Bogeyman appearance conditions

My experience playing adventure mode in 43.05 is that bogeymen haven't appeared most nights I've slept outside or travelled after dark. At first I thought that it was because the "sleeping inside a circle of campfires" trick from previous versions was working. Then one night a group of bogeymen appeared despite my campfires, jumped into the middle of the circle with me via a tree, and killed me.

The night this happened was the new moon, so my tentative theory is that bogeymen only come out on moonless nights. I haven't played through enough in-game days to get to another new moon yet, but I have slept outside, completely unprotected, while the moon was up without any bogeymen appearing.

Does anyone else have data on this? --Mintaka (talk) 23:58, 25 February 2017 (UTC)

I've had similar observations when trying to seek out the bogeymen. Note that because my goal was to find the bogeymen, rather than avoid them, my data isn't necessarily reliable for avoiding them. Based on save-load tests, the exact appearance conditions/times seem rather random. Creating a ring of campfires definitely lowers the probability by a ton. My guess is that it has something to do with available pathing to you. Sleeping in a tree is less effective than campfires, in my experience. I slept with one opening in a ring of campfires in an attempt to control the bogeymen fight, and didn't spawn any bogeymen. The temporary abodes traveling people sleep in sometimes are clearly safe from bogeymen, leading me to believe that if there is below a certain number of possible pathing approaches for the bogeymen, they don't spawn. This would explain bogeymen climbing trees to get over campfire rings.

The other thing that I noticed, which I added to the page but would like verification on, is that traveling continuously is 100% safe. As far as I can tell, traveling alone at night, never sleeping, without ever returning to a spot you've recently visited, will prevent all bogeymen spawns. What is almost certain is that the longer you stay/visit an area, the more likely you are to get attacked. It can be very hit and miss though. Being further from civilization also seems to improve their spawn rate.