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[Chevaleresse]

The idea is simple. I suggest that children take up apprenticeships with the older, more skilled dwarves in your fort, so that when they come of age they have more skills than "Dabbling Grower."


To go into detail, an apprentice would (ideally) choose an adult dwarf, preferably the one of the highest skill in a randomly chosen profession, run a quick check to see if their tastes match the job and (less importantly) the adult's tastes, and become an apprentice. They would do things like hauling the occasional item to a workshop and getting food and drink for their master, and otherwise just kind of following them around as they do their job. The apprentice would gain skill based on the teacher's level in the appropriate skill, any applicable preferences, and the teacher's, uh, Teacher skill. The master would gain Teacher from this, so any future apprentices would gain more skill. The children of nobles could become squires instead, and hang out in the barracks watching drills to gain combat skill.


This system would reduce player frustration, increase productivity in the fortress by virtue of not having your legendary metalsmith spending two weeks running across the entire fortress for a -plump helmet roast- and some *whip wine*, and mostly eliminate the need for dwarven child care and the dwarven baby grinder.

[Uristsonsonson]

Support, just like I've supported every other variation on this suggestion over the years.

[Shazbot]

I think the age at which the child begins work should also be considered. If their [CHILD:14] variable were divided by two, that would give us age seven for stock dwarves (unless I've been running a mod for longer than I recall). This seems about right, and can flex to suit any species. Short-term, even opening the hauling labors proper to children would be better than the current system.

[yxe]

+1

I would add, they could take some time and office (with more chairs) (and teaching skill enabled) and teach anyone interested.

[Chevaleresse]

Default dwarves have [CHILD:12] iirc, which gives you six. It's a bit young, but so is 12.

[Witty]

Support, just like I've supported every other variation on this suggestion over the years.

[SixOfSpades]

Support, but with reservations. More important (IMHO) than allowing child labor, or even allowing children to simply observe labor, is to evaluate the ages at which work can be done, on a job-by-job basis. I don't know which is more ridiculous, slapping full plate armor onto a 12-year-old and telling her to go fight goblins, or pretending that an 11-year-old can't milk a goat.

Granted, these are dwarves, not humans. Dwarven lifespans are almost exactly twice a human's, but then dwarven babies learn to walk a bit sooner than humans, so their age progression is not simply "Human x2". For now, I'd like it if all of the professions were given a Minimum Age rating, which took into account their difficulty, requirements in craftsmanship & attention, chance of injury, and of course requirements in size & strength. I can easily see children as young as 5 years old doing really poorly at things like Growing, Weaving, Milking, Cooking, Pottery, Wax Working, etc. But they should be around 20 years old before they'd be capable of doing the real heavy work like Mining, Blacksmithing, Masonry, Woodcutting, and of course the military, or the more exacting work like Gem Cutting and Suturing. The child's individual size and strength could/should also be taken into account, and affect "eligibility times" accordingly.

But this thread is about assistants, not workers. I really like the idea of using them to fetch things, although instead of food & drink (they can't carry drinks anyway, unless they're strong enough to take the whole barrel), I would have them collect the job components. So the instead of having the Legendary Furnace Operator run around collecting the iron, pig iron, charcoal, dolomite, and charcoal (which can take all day if you have far-flung stockpiles), he can simply say, "Gophers! Go fer." While they're away, he can either talk to his remaining students (if any), or just stay in his workshop On Break, deducting (at least some of) the time thus spent from his next scheduled break. Professionals with fewer apprentices would help collect the items themselves, like an Armorsmith picking out her next steel bar for herself, but sending her one helper for the much less important bar of coke.

Children should select their masters based on their preferred working materials, if working for that master would actually bring a chance to work with that material. For example, a child who likes giant jaguar tooth might gaze longingly at the Legendary Bone Carver's handiwork, before heading to the Carpentry shop to try her hand at working with willow wood instead. They should also have a predilection to their parents' professions, if their mom & dad does something they can learn at a young age. If not, they might apprentice in a related field first--Engraving, then Stonecrafting, then finally Masonry or Mining. But it's the master who actually decides to accept the student or not, and of course the overseer can boot apprentices (as well as deciding how many pupils a master can accept). But I think it should be the apprentice who has to initiate contact, and not even the overseer should be able to force that. After all, a child does as it pleases.

[dudlol]

Agree with this totally, bust suggest that the overseer have the power to order a specific dwarf to take a specific child as apprentice (possibly with a negative thought based on the masters preference or a contrast in the dwarves preferences). Also that adult dwarves be possible to be madE into apprentices, as designated haulers and assistants could be useful.

[SixOfSpades]

Also that adult dwarves be possible to be madE into apprentices, as designated haulers and assistants could be useful.

Another needed dynamic would be to adjust dwarves' learning rates based on instruction. Dwarves should not learn their profession simply by doing it; it should be 50% how much actual practice they've had with that skill, and 50% the difference between the master's level & the student's. All work not done under the tutelage of a master of superior skill should provide only half of its potential experience. Probably with a modifier for age, as well, so we don't have little kids outstripping their parents in less than a year.

This might make embarking (with unskilled or minimally skilled workers) slightly more difficult, but only slightly. All it really costs you is a bit of time.

ADD: A master with at least 1 apprentice should take longer to do his job, although probably not dramatically so. I'd say that a master teaching students should work at the speed of a Novice (regardless of his actual skill level), in order to explain what he's doing while he's doing it. In addition, job time is increased by 5% per apprentice watching the lesson, because each one will have questions.

Children that spend time studying under a master, but not actually doing the work, should gain experience that they can't actually access until they come of age and that labor is enabled (which should happen automatically, really). Once that happens, they don't get the benefit of that experience all at once--it would be unrealistic for someone to wave a magic wand and *BING!* the kid is suddenly a Talented Surgeon--instead, the new worker must still acquire hands-on knowledge, but because of her training, the work she does increases her experience at greater than the normal maximum rate (exact 100%+ determined by how much book-learnin' she had under her belt), until her actual level rises to meet the level of her tutelage.

[TheHossofMoss]

Excellent ideas posted here!!!

[GavJ]

I think the ideal, like with most things, is having a tag in the raws for every job and activity about age it can be performed at.

If that's not too much work (it might not be, especially compared to a fairly complex apprenticeship thing), then just do that.

If it would be too much work by comparison, then the OP would be a decent step in the right direction, yes.

[Scruiser]

Instead of a single value indicating child-to-adult age, there could be several values indicating young child, child, and teenager ages.  The apprenticeships could be keyed off of these values. 

Some other suggestions related to OP:
    Skilled dwarfs could write books.  The quality and value of the writing is a function of the dwarf's skill as a writer, a teacher, and of the actual skill itself.  The max level that can be gained from reading is capped by the quality of the writing and skill of the writer.  So a reading a book by a legendary weaponsmith who is also a skilled teacher and skilled writer could let a dwarf develop into a competent weapons smith.  A book by a proficient weaponsmith who is a competent teacher and competent writer might only allow up to novice skill to be developed by reading.  A book by a legendary weaponsmith who is also a legendary teacher and skilled writer, could allow for all the way up to proficient skills from just reading.  Both children and adults could read, it would provide a way for dwarf children to start learning a profession, and it would provide a low material cost way to get dwarfs at least up to the novice stage.
    When dwarf children start playing with toys, the toys could have tags for small amounts of skill the children get.  Like with books max skill growth should capped for balance and realism.  The cap could vary with type and quality of toy.  For example, playing with a no quality mini-forge regularly, a child might be able to get up to dabbling in furnace operator, weaponsmith, armor smith, metal smith.  If the mini-forge is masterwork in quality, they could get all the way up to novice skill. Playing with dolls could provide social skill, puzzle boxes could boost mental stats, etc.
    How about outright classes with teachers?  You allocate the room for teaching, set age and skill boundaries, set max and min class sizes, and then allow/disallow certain dwarfs to teach the class.  Again, skill cap determined by teaching skill, the teachers' relevant skill level, and the students' student skill.  As opposed to apprenticeships, this would allow the player to explicitly designate certain things to be taught.  Classroom teaching would also allow large groups to be all taught at once.  The trade-off would be increased learning time, and lower skill caps both for balance and realism (less can be learned in a class than in on the job training).

[Skullsploder]

I like the idea of both apprenticeships and schools in DF, but I think Toady should focus on schools first.

It would probably be fairly easy to modify a hospital zone to use stools instead of beds, and for children to go there automatically and generate a "teach class" job for dwarves with the teaching labour enabled. The type of lesson taught would be determined in the zone menu, with options for assigning a particular teacher to the classroom or allowing it to task jobs to all teachers, an option for which skill to teach, and also an option for "all" which cycles through the skills (or toady could leave that out and simply force players to make multiple classrooms).
The skill gain system would be tough to set out and balance, but the actual mechanics of it should be pretty easy.

Apprenticeships, on the other hand, would be just as difficult balance- and skill gain-wise but would also be more difficult mechanically, because there is no existing game mechanic that could be easily adapted for it. So while I'd like to see both things implemented, I think Toady should spend his time working on schools first.

[§k]

Child labour makes fort look boring. Roaming, idling, party-throwing, occasionally tantruming or getting kidnapped is what a child should do.

[GavJ]

If there is to be a sharp transition, they should at least have some sort of  harrowing coming of age ritual.