Currently dwarf children exist in a world with no responsibilities, running around harvesting plants and deconstructing buildings and pulling levers but not much else. They emerge into adulthood with either no skills, a rank or two in grower from harvesting crops, or as legendary craftsdwarves because they were inspired to make an artifact when they were ten.
a better and more realistic system would be this: When a dwarf grows from a baby to a child, they will occaisionally (preferably about a quarter of the time) pick an active workshop and start apprenticing. Preferably they would choose a workshop based on their likes/dislikes or personality by some method. Once at the workshop, they would watch the dwarf working and slowly learn his trade, and if he had another project in que after the first, the apprentice would fetch the materials for him. whatever the skill gain is, it should result in the child reaching adulthood somewhere between novice and competent in the craft they have apprenticed in. This way your legendary metalsmith isn't wasting his time running to the stockpiles to get his coke and metal when he could be spending that time working.
The new Teacher and Student skills can obviously come into play here to determine the rate of skill gain, and apprentices might develop close bonds of friendship with their teachers. (or grudges, if it turns out their personalities are at odds.)
This is maybe a simplistic system, but I think it's preferable that the system not reach to far in it's first attempt at something.
Author
Topic: An idea for apprentices (Read 812 times)