Bay 12 Games Forum

So I tried to play Dwarf Fortress and that ended preaty badly for some of the dwarves. No, nothing big and angry killed them, the problem was far more elementaly of my own doing.
I don't know how to use stairs. In my thinking of "hey, stuff can fall down and hurt my dwarves. If only I could do something to prevent that. I know I will use stairs in an odd way, perfect plan, no way it could back fire." I got one miner drowned(there was an aquifer and I was trying to figure out how to get past it) and anouther resorting to hunting vermin(There was plenty of food he just didn't have ascess, didn't want to see it trough so I abounded the site and then deleted the world, it had way to many aquifers anyway). Stairs just don't work the way I would think they would(magical portals that deliver you up or down a Z level).
Any advice on how to ensure that my poor understading of stairs won't kill again?
I would prefer if someone could tell me some sort of design to prevent falling objects from striking every thing on the stairs on their way but I also want to understand these arcane constructs caled stairs.