Is there any way to block certain dwarves from getting out of the fortress?

[H3LLM0oN]

I have lots of goblin raids in my fortress, so I made a small fort with doors to block... but my dwarves love to go outside to get logs, fishes and "being outside"... my dwarves are a bit crazy.
And when goblins come they hunt lots of fishing dwarves or even children playing in the forest or rivers...
What should I do?

I would love to have a door with a filter to let pass certain dwarves or something...

[clarkeveritas]

lol if it was rimworld id tell you to put someone under anesthesia, or lock them in a room with a bunch of alcohol or opium. The more evil ones would make them….. unable to walk.
Sorry I can’t help- I’m still on the “I can’t figure how to make things happen” in dwarf fortress.
Oh- in rw you can assign off-limits areas but I imagine you would have tried that.

[Fel]

You can use burrows to tell dwarves where they can do things (not "go" technically but close enough if they are not allowed to do anything outside of it).
You can asign dwarves to them and toggle them on and off as needed.

Most people typically design their fort to not need it much (or at all) because it can easily create problems as well.
For example, you can tell your fisherdwarves where to fish instead of letting them go wherever they want, making it a lot easier to secure the place against enemies.

Children tend to go to fairly specific places, either where there are other dwarves running around or where there are a lot of items on the ground.
With a bit of tweakings you can often have them stay near the bedrooms, tavern or stockpiles for example.

Of course, you have the possibility of building a moat and/or wall around the place where your dwarves (and animals) are when they go outside, it is usually good enough for most threats (especially with the wall blocking vision, meaning enemies can't just shoot at your dwarves).

[HueSatLight]

I put walls around my central area, with a river forming one of the sides. Fishing zone on the inside, fishing set to zones only. Anytime I cut trees outside the wall, I put a temporary log stockpile inside the walls closest to where they were. I have gates periodically along the wall, and when there's an attack, I station my squads at the gate closest to where the goblins come in. Or just rely on traps at each gate, but that less thrilling. Also, the river side is vulnerable to archers, more thrills.

I make both the walls and gates out of bridges. The walls are one tile long, but up to 31 tiles wide. Link all the walls to a single lever, and you can toggle them up and down for when they're inconvenient. The gates can be longer, especially if they go over the river or a pond.

It doesn't keep everyone out, some enemies can swim. or climb. There's more complicated wall designs to keep out climbers.

As far as kids, sometimes they'll decide to play pretend way out in danger. Even if you assign them to a barrow, they'll just keep playing pretend. Don't assign them any tasks out in the wilderness to reduce the chance they'll be out there to begin with.