The purpose of this suggestion is to make work and combat more interesting by making experience a little less straightforward.
Every creature gets a number (not an attribute) that represents how concentrated they are the lower it is, the more likely they are to make bigger mistakes or not to notice something. It can only reach some maximum, which might be lowered by fatigue, sobriety, illness, brain damage, or blood loss (at least to the brain). Its rate of change is (or is based on) the focus attribute minus the current amount of distraction, which is caused by the following:
current activity working, moving, fighting (specifically attacking and reacting), eating, talking, vomiting etc.
surprise (would only affect concentration for the instant)
thought e.g. grief, fear, excitement maybe daydreaming in the future
sensation pain, bright light, loud noises, bad smells/tastes, heat/cold
loss of a sense
Generally, the amount distraction one of these things causes depends on personality and is lowered by frequent/extended experience of it, which may be lost (especially experience of things like bright light). What mistakes can be made depend on what is being done. Mistakes while doing nothing or walking might include dropping held items, accidental movement, or falling to the ground, with or without appropriate injuries. Mistakes while working would mostly result in lost progress, but big ones might damage items, even buildings, being used, injure the worker, or start a fire. Any task could be set to take the same amount of actual working time for any dwarf, but novices would have to pause longer and more frequently than experts to regain their concentration or else make mistakes that create more work. How concentrated a dwarf chooses to stay could depend on their patience attribute and/or sense of urgency. Combat mistakes, which I imagine would come primarily from fear, injury (pain and blood loss), fatigue, and inexperience with and/or frequent use of equipment, mostly fall under the category of failing to react wisely or quickly, but might also include dropping, throwing, misfiring, injuring oneself with, or breaking held or worn items, or switching targets. I'm not sure what should happen to someone whose concentration has run completely out, but complete incapacity for voluntary action and loss of sense of the world sound appropriate.
This would allow caftsdwarfship skills to be divided into experience and talent. Talent might be a result of personality and/or attributes, or talent in specific professions might be assigned randomly at birth. A dwarf who has been making clothing for a long time with no natural talent would have learned to bang out a sock a minute without thinking, but would be incapable of producing very high quality clothing. Talent could even be divided into production quality and learning speed.
It would also help make combat more realistic: instead of taking turns inflicting small, ignored wounds that build up, fighters would avoid or block each other's attacks until one of them makes a mistake and the other takes advantage well enough to inflict a substantial wound, which should debilitate its recipient at least for the battle if it's not fatal. Good soldiers would then need experience with the fears, unhappinesses, and pain combat entails in addition to experience with the actions involved. A long list of combinable fears would add realism, but a short, general list or no list at all would work well, I think.
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Topic: Concentration, distraction, and mistakes (Read 994 times)