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[BirdoPrey]

Maybe crazy dwarves could have a higher chance for strange moods?

I kind of like this... it's a truism that madness and genius aren't so far apart.

[LegoLord]

See now, those are modern kids that are given free range to explore; medieval times, kids didn't wander too far from parents.  Too many bad things could happen.  Like say, if kids did behave as you describe, all sorts of horrible things.  Children used to be beaten if they were disobedient, meaning no lever touchy.

And frankly, I didn't poke random buttons when I was little and neither did my brother.

[Hectonkhyres]

Shadowex3: And once again my forum brain-squeezings have been sigged: My small contribution to the corruption of the next generation.
...
Awesome.

LegoLord: That is probably because you led a sad, sheltered childhood under the eternal watchful eye (like Sauron's, that eye is) of one parent or another. Some of us had parents who figured that it was safe to ignore a child right up until the point where he is breaking something sufficiently expensive or he is bleeding on the carpet.

I put mashed potatoes in the VCR to see what would come on the screen. I scaled doorframes in order to sit on top of the door and wave at passing family members. The family cat (named Nike... after the diety, not the shoe) taught me to catch birds in the backyard: I gave my mother a live grackle for mother's day.  I later put hairgel on the cat and tried to invent the porcupine. I chewed on TV remotes compulsively. I ripped apart assorted pieces of electronics and tried randomly wiring the components together to see if I could make them do anything interesting.

Life was... interesting. Chinese proverb interesting.

[Zulaf]

And frankly, I didn't poke random buttons when I was little and neither did my brother.

Yes but you see me, my brother and sister called 911 and made prank calls when we were kids.

Shadowex3: And once again my forum brain-squeezings have been sigged: My small contribution to the corruption of the next generation.
...
Awesome.

LegoLord: That is probably because you led a sad, sheltered childhood under the eternal watchful eye (like Sauron's, that eye is) of one parent or another. Some of us had parents who figured that it was safe to ignore a child right up until the point where he is breaking something sufficiently expensive or he is bleeding on the carpet.

I put mashed potatoes in the VCR to see what would come on the screen. I scaled doorframes in order to sit on top of the door and wave at passing family members. The family cat (named Nike... after the diety, not the shoe) taught me to catch birds in the backyard: I gave my mother a live grackle for mother's day.  I later put hairgel on the cat and tried to invent the porcupine. I chewed on TV remotes compulsively. I ripped apart assorted pieces of electronics and tried randomly wiring the components together to see if I could make them do anything interesting.

Life was... interesting. Chinese proverb interesting.

A... are we related? iv done most of what you said there sep for the cat part.

EDIT: oh and i like this suggestion.

[LegoLord]

LegoLord: That is probably because you led a sad, sheltered childhood under the eternal watchful eye (like Sauron's, that eye is) of one parent or another. Some of us had parents who figured that it was safe to ignore a child right up until the point where he is breaking something sufficiently expensive or he is bleeding on the carpet.

I find that highly offensive.  A parent that's willing to let a child do something really dangerous (like the OP suggestion; pulling a doomsday lever just because it's there), then they are bad parents.  It'd be like leaving a gun in a baby's crib and leaving the room.  Smashing potatoes in the VCR is small potatoes compared to getting a hold of daddy's gun and pulling the trigger.

That said, I had some similar adventures when I was two.  I drank Ajax, pulled a table over on my foot, broke into a bottle of aspirin and ate it like candy (the latter of which my parents were out and someone else was supposed to be watching me)

[Hectonkhyres]

LegoLord: No offense was intended. It was just that your previous post hinted at an existence utterly alien to the one I endured and in fact remember fondly. I, quite plainly, can not imagine a child that wouldn't poke random buttons just to see what happens.

[LegoLord]

And I can't see Urist McDaddy not saying to his son:  "That lever's fer killin' goblins.  Flip it when ye ha'en't been tol' an' it kills dwarves.  I'll tan yer hide if ye pull it when ye ha'en't been tol'."

[Rakeela]

I didn't do any of those crazy things when I was a child.  The most interesting things I did were to attempt to scale a coffee table at one point, and to jump off the back of the couch at another (while wearing a cape).  The coffee table scaling required stitches, but the many times I couchjumped produced no injuries.  (I was already pretty sure I wouldn't be able to fly and had prepared accordingly for hitting the ground.)

I racked my brain for something destructive I did as a child, and I think I might've produced a few potholes by trying to cut bits of the road out.  Fun fact of the day: Asphalt can be peeled away, especially if you use a sharp rock while you're working at it.  I was doing that because I liked the sticky, stretchy texture our road construction materials had, I wanted to play with it.

[Duke 2.0]

And I can't see Urist McDaddy not saying to his son:  "That lever's fer killin' goblins.  Flip it when ye ha'en't been tol' an' it kills dwarves.  I'll tan yer hide if ye pull it when ye ha'en't been tol'."

And that is a calm warning. Imagine them when angry.
 "BOY! I TOLD YOU NOT TO PULL THE LEVER! I'MA TAN YER HIDE, MAKE SHOES FROM THEM AND KICK YER ASS WITH THEM!"

[Hectonkhyres]

And I can't see Urist McDaddy not saying to his son:  "That lever's fer killin' goblins.  Flip it when ye ha'en't been tol' an' it kills dwarves.  I'll tan yer hide if ye pull it when ye ha'en't been tol'."

Forbidding something essentially makes it light up like a neon sign for a little kid. But there is a way around child instigated disasters.

The trick is to put the doomsday lever in a room behind two different locked doors, each of which requires a different key. One goes to the mayor and the other goes to the king. Its what submarines carrying nuclear missiles do.

[Rakeela]

If unwanted leverpulling by children is implemented, then whether a child will pull a lever they're not supposed to pull should be related to their personality scores.  I wasn't the type of child who would pull a lever randomly.  If I was fascinated by a random lever I would've caressed it, studied it all over, gotten a crick in my neck from trying to examine bits of it I couldn't easily see, but I wouldn't have actually pulled it.

I only ever really screwed with things if they were labelled unimportant.  Forbidden stuff was fascinating, but unless the reason given was ridiculous, I respected that it was forbidden.

[Warlord255]

I'd love to see recovering/latent forms of insanity; for example, a nervous wreck who only flips out when exposed to unicorns. PTSD?

That said, children ought to act more like children in general; playing with toys, et cetera. Then lever pulling could be fitted in.

[Ranzear]

The trick is to put the doomsday lever in a room behind two different locked doors, each of which requires a different key. One goes to the mayor and the other goes to the king. Its what submarines carrying nuclear missiles do.

If you're equating naval commanders to little children scurrying about... you're about right.

Children flipping levers at random I could disagree with, because I barely ever notice when one of the freshmeats hits that age and the last thing I need is a magma douching of my great hall by any of the seventeen little buggers running about at any time.

OTOH: Giving crazies something else to do besides wallowing in their own little world and otherwise wasting pathfinding cycles sounds like a good plan to me, and that chance at extra artifacts (maybe only 'intuitive' 'artful' crafts like bonecarving, obviously not weaponsmithing) that the creator won't carry around for eternity is worth the chance of utter disaster if I don't secure my doomsday machine.

A lever to open a door (and maybe the same behind it, ad infinitum) to access the dangerous-if-thrown-at-wrong-time lever comes to mind.

[Bromor Neckbeard]

At the moment, there's no use for toys except as a trade good.  I think that, depending on their personality, children ought to get bored and maybe open random doors to see what's behind them, "accidentally" unlock cages, and, yes, pull levers.  However, if the children in your fort have a few mini-forges and drums to play with, they will have something besides your magma intake controls to keep them occupied.

(Am I the only one who puts his REALLY important levers behind multiple layers of floodgates controlled by other faraway levers?  I've never even SEEN a gremlin, but I've heard enough stories about them to consider what would happen if levers were pulled accidentally when designing my forts.)

[MercDraco]

Having little kids pull levers that'd open the front gate to my fortress and/or open up the flood gate to ulitmately flood said fortress..... BRILLANT!!!  my only consideration of a possible bad outcome for this is ... <.<  >.>  when the kids start pulling the lever for the "golden wall of noble smashing"... after all  if they destroy my fortress its cool... if they turn themselves into a finely minced dwarf-roast it ain't cool... because that'd be one less way to ultimately destroy my fortress...