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Teaching and Apprenticeship

Design Goals

Teaching should help new or weaker players catch up in a world without character levels. It should also give advanced players a meaningful social and economic role.

Core Rule

Teachers should accelerate learning, not replace practice.

No teacher should be able to directly transfer mastery into a student. The student must still perform the relevant actions, crafts, drills, or expeditions.

Browser-Fit Rule

Because this is a browser game, teaching should be asynchronous and system-supported. It should not depend on both players being online and chatting live for long periods.

Teaching Modes

Free Mentorship

Friends, guildmates, or helpful veterans can sponsor lessons with no fee.

Teachers can list training offers for a fee. This creates a legitimate social market for expertise.

Apprenticeship Contracts

Longer mentorship agreements can track goals over several days, jobs, or production cycles.

Guild Academies

Guilds can sponsor communal training, loan tools, and subsidize teacher fees for recruits.

What Teaching Can Do

Teaching should be able to:

  • improve early and mid-band skill gains
  • unlock guided practice tasks
  • reduce waste on beginner crafting attempts
  • improve safety on early combat or gathering drills
  • let students learn better combat habits, recipes, or route methods sooner
  • increase retention by giving new players direction

What Teaching Should Not Do

Teaching should not:

  • grant raw mastery without action
  • bypass material or tool requirements
  • replace expedition or crafting practice entirely
  • power-level alts infinitely through one repeated loop

Teacher Requirements

Teachers should need:

  • a strong proficiency band in the target skill
  • a minimum Teaching skill band
  • acceptable local or guild reputation
  • no recent abuse or fraud flags

Some advanced instruction may also require a training building, guild hall, workshop, or field school.

Student Requirements

Students should need:

  • lower proficiency than the teacher in the target skill
  • access to the required tools or training site
  • available time window for the lesson or apprenticeship
  • agreement to the fee and duration if the lesson is paid

Lesson Types

Drill Session

Short training aimed at one skill, usually in a town or guild facility.

Examples:

  • shield wall practice
  • archery form correction
  • apprentice forge basics
  • herb sorting and medicine prep

Guided Field Work

The teacher links a real activity to a lesson plan.

Examples:

  • escort a novice on a wolf-control hunt
  • supervise a first ore extraction job
  • guide a student through a short caravan route
  • coach an apprentice through ration preservation

Apprenticeship Track

A longer relationship with progress goals, milestone rewards, and teacher review windows.

Examples:

  • apprentice smith
  • trainee surveyor
  • junior caravan clerk
  • novice warden healer

Fee Models

Teaching can be:

  • free
  • fixed-fee
  • per-session
  • milestone-based
  • guild-sponsored
  • tool-loan plus revenue share

This lets benevolent players teach for free while still supporting a professional teacher economy.

Skill Gain Model Under Teaching

Teaching should apply modifiers such as:

  • better early proficiency gains
  • faster understanding of role habits and combat decision patterns
  • fewer beginner mistakes on craft or drill jobs
  • increased quality floor on supervised output
  • safer failure outcomes in training contexts

The largest benefit should be in the lower and middle proficiency bands. Once a student approaches the teacher, the gains should taper.

Reputation and Lineage

Teaching should create social signals.

Potential records:

  • teacher rating
  • completed apprenticeships
  • notable students trained
  • guild academy prestige

This helps legitimate teachers stand out from exploiters.

Anti-Abuse Rules

  • no direct mastery transfer
  • diminishing returns for repeated teacher-student spam
  • lesson benefits capped by skill gap and student progress band
  • fee and lesson logs recorded for moderation
  • lesson effects only apply to relevant actions
  • same-account or linked-account abuse should be monitored

Technical Model

Core Records

Store:

  • teaching_offer
  • teaching_session
  • apprenticeship_contract
  • lesson_plan
  • teacher_reputation
  • student_progress_checkpoint
  • skill_gain_modifier

Command Flow

Support commands such as:

  • create teaching offer
  • accept lesson
  • start training session
  • attach lesson plan to activity
  • complete apprenticeship milestone
  • settle fee and reputation updates

Resolution Pattern

Teaching sessions should resolve like other jobs:

  • validate participants and requirements
  • reserve fee or sponsorship if needed
  • attach lesson modifiers to the targeted skill actions
  • settle the session on completion
  • write skill gain and reputation results

Teaching Use Cases by System

Combat

Veterans can coach weapon handling, shield use, healing discipline, or combat drills.

Gathering

Experts can lead supervised extraction, route finding, survey work, and safe salvage.

Crafting

Masters can teach recipes, workshop flow, material roles, finishing steps, and repair logic.

Trade and Governance

Experienced merchants or stewards can teach appraisal, negotiation, bookkeeping, and town reserve management.

  • skill catalog
  • character progression and roles
  • guilds and clans
  • social, trade, and governance