Post/Author/DateTime	Post
CitiesxOfxThexNight 03-05-08, 01:00 PM	Recently my half-elf fighter/warblade had gotten alittle intimate with one of the leaders of a organization that assist our characters. :) (I might add for whatever reason she was a beautifully built Tsunade-based character (Human Monk 7/Wilder 10/Sangehirn 3)) Now after there little event together, after sometime had passed after he had to be dragged into long lasting war between a tribe of barbarian's versus a empire of Yuan-ti. Then about four months later our party returned to the main-land to find out that the woman is now expecting. But my main question is, ever had a character to deal with children in a D&D game? :confused:
Tisi 03-05-08, 01:02 PM	It's new to me. The only time I've ever seen any combo of children and D&D is from jinx.com's shirt: http://www.jinx.com/minigeeks/baby/video_games/level_1_human_creeper.html?catid=12
Bacon and Eggs 03-05-08, 01:11 PM	I have... and it did not enhance the game one bit... then again, wer were all 16 year old numbskulls with no idea of the impact a tiny baby has on its immediate enviornment. Have never revisited it since. Now if it were the main plot and not a sub plot I might feel differently about it... i.e. the movie Willow.
Kensan_Oni 03-05-08, 02:12 PM	My dad and mothers campaign has a family tree. Dealing with children really isn't all that hard, really. Just remember not to take them with you into the dungeon. :)
Zombie_Babies 03-05-08, 02:37 PM	The simplest way we dealt with it was also the most obvious- cash money. You're a friggin adventurer. Buy her a place to stay and keep her in gold to raise the kid whilst you run off and save the world. That's what gold is for, my friend. Plus, you never have to change a diaper or wake up fatigued thanks to the lil' demon's nightly wailings. :D The other option is equally simple- retirement. Just hang up the swords and take care of the misses an lil' scamp. But that's no damned fun..... It's not a bad thing as long as you don't use it to hog "camera time". It can even lead to some fun hooks like having the thing kidnapped, etc. Nothing invests you emotionally like taking on the BBEG to save your family.
For_Mandalore 03-05-08, 03:04 PM	I had a long-running campaign at one one point where all of the PCs were decidedly evil. To complicate things though, one of the PCs was not just a power-hungry world-conquering sadist. He wanted to have at least one heir to leave his dark throne to, preferably an heir that would be able to surpass his own powers in time. So he went Abyss-hopping in search of a succubus demon lord and eventually found one, deposed her, turned her into his, ah, mistress, and then forced her to sire half-fiend children for him. Unfortunately, this PC was often away from his new personal layer of the Abyss, and he did not trust me as the DM to not give him the terrible surprise that, while he was out murdering the righteous and enslaving the weak, there just happened to be a revolt, killing all of his children and his baby-maker (his words not mine). Being an intelligent mage, this PC decided that his children would be safest if there were on a completely new plane, one that was accessible only to those who knew where to find its point of entry. Therefore, he created a plane with the genesis spell, brought his children and undead hordes to the plane along with some supplies, and left. He would occasionally return to the plane to resupply the few living creatures dwelling there and eventually discovered an artifact that could alter the passage of time, forcing his children into their late teens so that they could fend for themselves. So in the end, money might be the easiest way to solve the problem, but magic combined with intelligence is usually much much safer.
sakuradm 03-05-08, 03:21 PM	I have... just as a little thing to keep my players occupied when im busy durring game sessions... my boyfriend and i devised a little something.... you can hire a servant to watch the child while you are adventuring, or you can pay 100gp (+living costs) to adopt.
SilverFoxKnows 03-05-08, 03:47 PM	Yes. In my homebrew game. There's one arm of a church where the priestesses remain chaste until they pair with one of their Lord's diabolic servants. So there were quite a few Half-Fiend babies running around. Defense of the temple was a high priority. Dedicated fighters, snipers, double walls, staircases that could be pulled up (flush with the ceiling), beds with steel plates underneath that could be overturned and used for cover, small spouts for pouring boiling oil, in addition to cleric spells and the very real possibility of summoning the infernal fathers. From a role-playing perspective the players may have to worry about children who do not have full control of their spell-like abilities and their over zealous guardians. Chances for humor, too. Clerics telling their kids not to carry hot coals around (and taking all the rugs away) or having to cover them in thick leather because their body barbs poke people and tear up the furniture. A player from that church has had to deal with the little monsters quite a bit.
sakuradm 03-05-08, 03:57 PM	hehehe its also fun to experiment with 'evermead'.... It goes for 200gp per pint. found on www.crystalkeep.com it can be used to turn an enemy, a friend, or yourself into a child or infant... i believe the magic wears off in.. 6-10 hours? for that part ill have to get back to you on. then again... troy (my bf) tends to leave me in the mansion to look after the kids while he goes off to attain gold and glory... hehe then as i said, i just hire some servants to look after them, while i run and catch up :P
Zombie_Babies 03-05-08, 04:34 PM	Alternate answer to the question: Anyone ever have children in a game? Yes. And they were quite tasty.
Kayla_Silverhand 03-05-08, 04:57 PM	Currently my character is pregnant with twins. The plan is our characters will get married, and then tragedy strikes. At the wedding my mate will be mortally wounded and it will send me into labor, after they are born, a day or two I will pass my children on to a trusted ally and go seek revenge, i believe, with a -2 to CON, for a while. I hope it to be very dramatic :D
Tordak 03-05-08, 05:23 PM	I did, but like all adventrurous father I did not see her much in the game. I have to say that those thing happend while my character was being run by my friends on night I couldn't make it; they would of course get my character drunk and have him do 'stuff'. The kid was one of those stuff.
VulcanStormwrath 03-05-08, 06:47 PM	HOSTAGES!!!!
ChaoticIdealism 03-05-08, 08:21 PM	Yep. We rescued quite a lot of kids out of a village of gnomes that got taken as slaves. Said gnomes helped us do a fair bit of sabotage. It was fun. :)
Alkthash 03-05-08, 11:48 PM	My group ended up in an odd situation. After an odd sidequest to investigate/storm a succubus run orphanage, our party was stuck when two of the orphans decided to follow us, Tesh a 12 year old tiefling girl and Verm a 13 year old human boy. After several failed attempts to convince them that adventuring was not a viable lifestyle the group essentially adopted them. Knowing how dangerous their lifestyle was the group decided to teach them a few things to make sure they can better fend for themselves. Tesh decided to emmulate our group's rouge and psi warrior and is currently a first level lurk. Verm spent enough time around the warblade and sorcerer and ended up as a first level duskblade.* Since our campaign is right now island hoping, the standard tactic for keeping the brats safe is as follows. 1)Tell them to stay on the ship 2)Leave the psicrystal with them so they can call for help if them need it 3) Have to sorcerer cast teleport back to the ship and deal with it. *It should be noted that this depresses Sheena, the essential "mom" of the party. Nobody wanted to be a bard like her.
Shiftkitty 03-06-08, 12:30 AM	We had a player who forced us to make the rule that if your PC has children, they may not be mere clones of your current character. He'd declare that his PC had started a family (we didn't worry about such things at the time.) Then, when that character would die, his son would come up and was just a carbon copy of his old man. Stats, likes and dislikes, everything. He even insisted on starting off at least near to his deceased PCs level because "he was specially trained by his father". To us it was more like "My character's not really dead." My current circle of players runs it a little better. They regard their PC's kids as springboards to create new PCs from when they want to try something new. Like a jock father with an egghead son, one of the fighters is dying of embarassment because his oldest son wants to be a wizard. As far as time away from home, it's akin to an overseas tour of duty in the military. Letters home may take a long time to get there, but there's a bit of roleplay in trying to find a caravan or something that's going that way to deliver a letter or a package for you, kind of like it was handled in Colonial America. You'd go into a town and put up a post on the common bulletin boards in town, something like "Courier wanted to deliver letters to Waterdeep. Contact Grev Brokeneye at Five Winds' Tavern". A potential courier, most likely a traveller going that way who wants to pick up a few spare coins, would leave word at the tavern that he was available to negotiate a price, the two would get together and hammer out the details. There's always a chance that something may happen to the courier, or that he may just toss your letters and run off with your money, but that's the risks. That's how it was run in the RW. Fortunately, most travellers were honest enough. Unless it suits the plot otherwise, the players can assume their letters reach home safely.
Another Gnome 03-06-08, 04:36 AM	Children aren't a problem, it's getting to the point of having them. I'd be very reluctant to allow pregnant mothers go adventuring, because it pretty much forces the DM to wear kiddy gloves with that character, or end up with 9 out of 10 pregnancies end with miscarriage. Granted, at least some humanoids would go easier on a pregnant woman even without DM bias, but what are you going to do when said woman starts throwing fireballs at your child-friendly tribe of goblins? And let's be real, unless they can afford magical transportation, a pregnant adventurer would be in serious trouble simply from getting from point A to point B over a day's cross-country speed march, even if she wasn't carrying all of her own stuff. On the other hand, downtime for the entire party can be always done by simply fast-forwading, so as long as they can afford staying put and have a reasonably safe place to do so, it shouldn't cause too many problems either plot-wise or where the plausibility of the campaign world is concerned (and as an added bonus, it saves the need to even think about any rules associated with pregnancy). But yeah, anyway, children as such are simply means to flesh out a character like any other relatives. Sure, adventurers' relatives often end up being murdered by orcs or dragons, or at the very least kidnapped by a BBEG (who realistically wouldn't know even the names of the adventurers trying to stop him, let alone any personal information about them, but you can always explain it with pure happenstance) but all in all it's nice to have some relatives around to visit for a cup of tea every now and then.
Shadowshimmer 03-06-08, 07:16 AM	My barbarian half-orc Thunk ran an Orphanage in between each adventure because he had a soft spot for orphans being one himself. He was a carpenter who built the orphanage by hand. I had never intended for the character to go that route but sometimes the game takes you in different directions.
ColonelPanic 03-06-08, 07:23 AM	I haven't that experience so far in a game as a DM, but if that would happen to a important or liked fellow party member, my character would recommend that the young one would be put into a monastery (of a suitable god of cause), using some accidently pregnant farm girl as nanny/milkcow, giving very rich donations to the monastery (as someone earlier said, gold is plentyful for adventurers, most have the normal war chest for a mid sized country at home) to provide for the offsprings safety and well being. Then off to adventure again. On the other hand, if she was a disliked party member, I would just try to get the other party members to join an a "you need to stay home and watch that baby of yours, at least 10 years or so", so it's depending on the situation.
Avatar of Kokusho 03-06-08, 07:37 AM	Quite a few times, actually, as a player and as a DM. It gets interesting, particularly when one of the PCs in my game decided to have a week of fun with one of the preistesses of Eilistraee, and she turned up pregnant...wedding ensued, and I got to RP an interesting bunch of stuff to "prepare him for fatherhood". The player enjoyed it, the rest of the group thought it was hilarious, and it's a great springboard for future characters. I have a character whose daughter is also an adventurer and they don't get along, due to massively different worldview (read: alignment)...only thing I hate is trying to RP them both at the same time on the infrequent occasions where they meet up.
Bloodsoul 03-06-08, 07:45 AM	I've got a half-elf cleric pregnant with a dryad (currently into her second trimester). When last I played I was trying to set up a church not only for her desire to gather worshippers for her goddess, but as a permanent home for her daughter (I'm assuming that once Chrys is born, the tree she'll forever be attached to will immediatly start growing, as well). If ever I play in a monster campaign again, I've got two godlings looking for some fun.
Jutter 03-06-08, 09:01 AM	As a DM, I generally require a character background from my players. We're 6 months into our new campaign, and one of my players hasn't written a background yet. (In his defense: he's been awfully busy in his personal life, so I'm ok with it). Last session, I kinda helped him on his way when the party entered a town they haven't explored yet. His human wizard was greeted by a very enthusiastic half-elf boy of about 13 years old. "Daddy! You finally came home!" The look on his face was priceless :) We came to "the elven mother died at child-birth, kid was raised by his grandparents, because dad had to learn wizardry to harness the strange powers within him". The fact that this particular country is being threatened, and the party is on this quest to..... Well, it basically gives him an excuse to leave the kid at his parents to go off adventuring. As an added bonus, the child has strange visions. The fact that he's 13 and able to communicate gives me instant plot-hooks, while as a NPC the kid with his visions is an asset to the party.
sakuradm 03-06-08, 03:54 PM	Being a mother in the campaign can get to be a bit tedious. Not all enemies will be soft hearted, it is quite difficult to get around, and the stress of fights and such can give the child many problems. Actually... you dont exactally need a MAGICAL transport to get from place to place, there are such things as wagons and carts. For the mother, if she is unable to adventure, just by terms of the laws of nature and for the sake of the child, she could play an NPC untill she can adventure again. If you have an infant to a small child, a mother or a 'nurse' (nanny) should be around to raise them. Since I'm no fan of changing diapers, I usually just have one of my servants watch my daughter. Or, if you have a child that is old enough to take care of himself for a while, you could have them watch younger children for you. As mentioned in the above post, Teens are good to have an extra mind in the party, someone to do small chores, someone who isn't quite known by your enemies to spy on them, or to shimmy into tight spaces. Some may have unique aspects like the one mentioned above..
Hayabusa 03-06-08, 08:53 PM	I've only had two characters who have ever had children, neither of them getting to react to it on the playing table. One was a Star Wars d20 character who migrated to fan fiction after the game died. He had a Force-sensitive child who was conceived the night before the father was captured by the Empire. The woman didn't even know he was a Jedi. That could have been really interesting to play out with a group of people... The other was a Dwarven fighter who had left his wife and child with his own extended family to travel the approximate 400 mile journey north from Hlammach in Impiltur to Bloodstone Pass in Damara. The character never made it past the selection phase, however, due to the characters being chosen via die roll. (I had made the character due to me being in Baltimore when the selection would be made. If I had been picked, I wouldn't hold the other members of the online group up while I made my character.)
Shiftkitty 03-06-08, 09:05 PM	I screwed around with one of my serious campaigns just to alleviate some RW tensions building up within the group. (Poverty does that to you!) Everybody was at each other's throats except for when we were throwing dice. Then some of the personal conflict spilled into the game. To break it up, and realizing that at that point almost everybody in the party had at least one kid, the King declared that, as children can expect to go into their parent's line of work, it was "Demonstrate Unto Thine Offspring Thy Toils" Day. Better known as "Take You Kid To Work" Day. So there's the party, kids in tow (the rogue had no kids that he knew of, but snatched up a street urchin so as not to be left out), spelunking through a dungeon. The wizard was more than happy to show his daughter how to use magic items ("Okay, now point the wand at the orc and say those funny words I wrote down for you." **KABOOOOOOM!** "Yes! Daddy's little girl just threw her first fireball!") Everybody had fun, and we broke the tensions that had been mounting, especially when the fighter's toddler grabbed a small stick and charged the bugbear, giving out a high-pitched version of his father's battle cry, so that YAAAARRRRRRGHHH! came out more like YEEEEEEEEEGGGH! Yeah. Nearly lost the kid on that one! The rogue's "kid" turned out to be a bit more skilled than the rogue thought, and spent most of the game trying to rob the party blind. At one point the rogue asked him "Are you sure you're not my kid?" To really keep it fun, nobody played their own kid!
AaronDireBear 03-07-08, 12:51 AM	Elf rogue/fighter/super lech Firion Windrunner (later legally renamed Firian when he discovered that Ion is a female suffix) was married by his 24th level and his wife became pregnant for the first time shortly before he accidentally released his first ancient evil (oops), but luckily his traveling companions were able to eradicate the ancient evil before his son Raian (Rah-ee-ahn) was born. So yeah, all in all the whole "race against time to make sure my unborn half-elf doesn't enter a world without sunlight" worked out pretty well. Then there was Sirrus, my 50 year old 3rd level wizard who began play as a grandfather. If I recall correctly he only had one son and 2 grandkids. My friend's character in a game I ran a while back, you may have seen me mention him, Shadodoragon the half black dragon fighter, ended up breeding with a full drow ex-cleric of Lolth. In that same game, my brother's character started out married and halfway through the game was bless with twins; Stacy and Kyle.
OleOneEye 03-07-08, 02:30 AM	It all depends on what aspects of the game you like to roleplay. I like for my character to have a family. In one campaign a long time ago, my progeny saw a ghost and instantly became older than my PC. It was pretty funny.
Etarnon 03-08-08, 01:02 AM	We've done this for Birthright. Since time passes so fast in a Birthright Game, your character can live to see and play as the new generation of heroes. I set the standard of magic items by how much their scions will inherit. In classic fantasy, you've got the armor or sword and armor of your grandfather. How many D&D characters die with literally a pile of stuff? So I limited magic, early on.
Drackthor 03-08-08, 01:28 AM	I have... just as a little thing to keep my players occupied when im busy durring game sessions... my boyfriend and i devised a little something.... you can hire a servant to watch the child while you are adventuring, or you can pay 100gp (+living costs) to adopt. So if a Commoner worked for two years and never spent any of it, he might be able to adopt a child? Seems a little steep for adoption, like, if I were an orphanage in a world full of baby-devouring Half-Orc Barbarian Adventurers, I'd be so happy if someone got the kid out of the orphanage I'd probably pay THEM.
Catwhoplaysguitar 03-08-08, 09:54 AM	Well since you're the father and not the mother, it's the old, daddy's saving the world story, just try not to die in the process. None of my characters have ever had kids, might be fun to have one or two running round, plus it gives the DM plot hooks if required.
OldPaladin08 04-04-08, 07:21 PM	Once playing the Undermountain adventure I had a human female level 8 priestess of Osiris(don't ask). I couldn't play one session so the DM assigned a memeber of our gaming group to play her for me. It just happened to be the person controlling the 1/2 elf swashbuckler who was constantly trying to get underneath my plate mail. I come back, my character is knocked up! The DM lets what transpired ride (no pun intended). The same session I come back, we fight some Ilbrandlyn(sp) and I get hasted. Now in second edition being hasted aged your character one year. You figure it out....
Shiftkitty 04-04-08, 09:02 PM	Oh, man! As a DM I would have never let that transpire! No way. Life changing events shouldn't happen to your PC just because you're out for a session. Granted the humor factor could be potentially high. I'm thinking "Monty Python's The Meaning of Life", where the woman is washing dishes and the baby just drops out onto the floor. "Ooh, you wanna get that for me, luv?" eeeewww!
DyloniusFunk 04-05-08, 12:07 AM	You could allways have the BBEG be a follower of Rule 12 of the Evil OVerlord List (http://www.eviloverlord.com/lists/overlord.html). Then it's up to the PCs to decide what to do with the "adviser"
Decoy_Lockbox 04-05-08, 06:02 AM	My vigilante archer "Khaldrash the Mage Slayer" (not his real name) had a couple kids with a medusa he met on his travels. After the campaign was over, he and the medusa raised the kids at their newly opened "Mr. K's Marksmanship Academy". The kids hatched out of eggs, and we wisely decided to not fill them in on the...bizarre nature of their birth.
kelvinaw273 04-05-08, 08:32 AM	Well my wife and I had our first child during a World of Darkness campaign (we were both players) ... Oooh you meant In Character ... nope, can't say that's happened to me yet, although the site of my normally fiery (now ex-) wife with hormones and seven months gone chasing the Storyteller around his house after particularly stressful session for her character was amusing ... from a distance.
McPoyo 04-05-08, 12:42 PM	I had a character end up with a kid in one of my games once. It was very poignant, since the father (another of the PCs) ended up dieing. Best roleplay I've ever seen out of the player (and she hates children. I found that comical). Of course, that also provided the best plot hook ever. I had the little brat kidnapped :P
Demonpunch 04-05-08, 01:33 PM	Yes I found this bit of wisdom wonderful to know. Famous or Imfamous Dread pirate-good. Thankfull really good looking female captain of the guard that had been kidnapped by thieves guild. Good. Nine months later learning your choices are help raise the child and get married or she tells everyone that you are not just the Old sea captain you pretend to be while in port here and she has you hanged and collects the many, many, bounties on you to support the child Bad. though the two characters cared about each other they constantly faught and argued. The other characters found it really funny when this Terror of the seas would utter the following fraze. " Hunny can I go out and pillage? I promise I'll bring you back something nice."
beepaladin 04-07-08, 01:28 AM	Well, perhaps the best thing the BoEF did, was providing rules for pregnancy. It can be done, but it is a lot harder to have a child if you're going to be the mother during a campaign. None of my characters have ever wound up pregnant, but with a particularly devious DM and the right character, pregnancy scares are never out of the question ;)
Solauren 04-07-08, 08:20 AM	I've had characters have children before. But it was usually when they were ready to "retire" but since we almost always play elves and half-elves, are they ever really retired? We had a few adventures where the children were kidnapped. The PC's did make enemies you know. But mostly if there was an odd high level adventure we wanted to run the "retired" PC's on, it was just a matter of shipping the kids off to stay with family, or stay in the church that the family was a part of. But mostly the children were introduced for our next campaign, so we could play them, and still have some interaction with our previous characters.
RougeLeader13 04-07-08, 03:36 PM	None of you think it's weird roleplaying a sexual encounter? This thread sounds pretty creepy in some spots!
McPoyo 04-08-08, 10:31 AM	Depends on how far it's taken, who it's between, and whether its at the gaming table or on the gaming bed, really.
Kerelis 04-08-08, 01:13 PM	I had a human wzd in Forgotten Realms that got poisoned/corrupted by some kind of leftover Netherese power. This happened early in the game...and I forgot after a while because nothing happened immediately. Months later, the party discovers a "Pool of Ritual Purification" dedicated to an Earthmother-type goddess. It has the power to purify any corruption, cure any disease or poison, as well as redeem an evil being. Anyone bathing in it is 'transformed' in some way. My wzd bathed in the pool and received a vision from the goddess where she offered me the chance to do something very significant for the world. She tore the magical 'corruption' from my character's body--rather painfully--and then left me, having transformed the remnants of the alien power into....a newborn baby. :eek: Imagine the party's surprise when my male wzd climbs out of the pool carrying his newborn son. I got teased like you wouldn't believe about being a male giving birth. So here we are in the middle of a dungeon (the pool was rather hard to get to) with a newborn baby howling at the top of its lungs, and the DM begins rolling increased percentages of random encounters Later, the baby grew up to take a dead god's place (as the Earthmother apparently intended), but that's another story....
pigknight 04-09-08, 12:56 AM	I had a human wzd in Forgotten Realms that got poisoned/corrupted by some kind of leftover Netherese power. This happened early in the game...and I forgot after a while because nothing happened immediately. Months later, the party discovers a "Pool of Ritual Purification" dedicated to an Earthmother-type goddess. It has the power to purify any corruption, cure any disease or poison, as well as redeem an evil being. Anyone bathing in it is 'transformed' in some way. My wzd bathed in the pool and received a vision from the goddess where she offered me the chance to do something very significant for the world. She tore the magical 'corruption' from my character's body--rather painfully--and then left me, having transformed the remnants of the alien power into....a newborn baby. :eek: Imagine the party's surprise when my male wzd climbs out of the pool carrying his newborn son. I got teased like you wouldn't believe about being a male giving birth. So here we are in the middle of a dungeon (the pool was rather hard to get to) with a newborn baby howling at the top of its lungs, and the DM begins rolling increased percentages of random encounters Later, the baby grew up to take a dead god's place (as the Earthmother apparently intended), but that's another story.... Are you on Oprah? And as long as you don't talk about it sexy time isn't that akward. And who says they had sexy time, what really is in the mage's spare spellbook?
X0_Lt_0X 04-09-08, 01:26 AM	This Thread got me wondering, how do Fey breed? I remember I read something some where that Nymphs, while they can have intercourse, dont require it to birth children. I may be mistaken but whatever. I was just wondering because my current Character is a 1/2 Nymph, 1/4 Bamboo Spirit Folk(OA), and 1/4 Human, and quite frankly wonder how the, um, "union" of my characters parents worked.
Mock26 04-09-08, 01:50 AM	Never had pregnant characters or had characters get someone else pregnant. It just seemed desperate, and creepy. But, we once ran a campaign that happened 25 years "later" and we all played the then grown up child of characters from a previous campaign. I had Kurgen Redaxe who was a dwarven fighter and then there was his daughter, Tuvalla Redaxe, a psionicist/fighter who had an affinity with lions.