What happens if I separate a dwarf from his favorite shield

Slaves to Armok II: Dwarf Fortress is a single player, tile based, real time strategy, city building, and adventure game by Bay 12 Games developer Tarn Adams. The game is playable on PC, under Windows (XP+), Mac (OSX), and Linux (Most distros, contains a text only mode). Most game content is procedurally generated and the game is highly moddable. One unique feature is the continuity of the world you play in. You can play many games of fortress and/or adventure mode in the same world, each building up it's history.

It features three modes:

• Fortress Mode (real time strategy, city building)
• Adventure Mode (adventure/roguelike)
• Legends (read only view of generated history)

So to answer your question about genre, it doesn't fit into any one genre.

Resources:

• Dwarf Fortress Wiki
• Forum
• Download Page

Very few buildable things in Dwarf Fortress block movement. As you witnessed yourself, Tables and chairs are casually ignored. There are two principle items that block movement (nothing slows movement, unless the dwarf is carrying something particularly heavy, like an elephant cage)

• Constructions -- specifically walls. Dwarves can't go through walls, natural or constructed (duh!). Also included in this category are Flood Gates, Bars (horizontal or vertical, for their respective directions), raised bridges, and locked doors / hatches. Statues, windows, etc.

• Workshops -- The specifics of which workshops block which spaces varies greatly based on the workshop itself. Do mind the jeweler's workshop, one of the few workshops to block the three leftmost squares of the workshop's 3x3 grid; more than one dwarven overseer has accidentally locked their poor jeweldwarves inside 3x3 rooms when they arrived to construct the workshop.