Derail of Discussion of Pregnancy Article

[tortall]

I have to agree with Lizzie here in the whole pregnancy thing. It is a lot of work to pull it off realistically.

Sadly I see a real common habit of players who are instantly pregnant and know that day ICly after just having sex or I see pregnancy that is too quick, no side effects, practically a cake walk or even more often I see vNPC babies played wrong. Sorry, but a two month old does not laugh at jokes, wave cheerfully, or able to grasp and eat meat on their own. So PLEASE can someone add a emboldened section of realistic stages that vNPC babies go through, what babies can and cannot do in both physical, mental and emotional means.

I would like to see pregnancy require consent. This is a game, and I will make it real clear that this desire has nothing to do with my off-game views on the matter. My only concern is that if I was to play a male PC, my entire enjoyment of the game could potentially be altered for better or (likely) worse because this other player decides that he/she would like their character knocked up. Yes, I could just avoid the offspring, but if its not IC for my character, then I am stuck in a position I don't want to necessarily be in as a player.

Bolded disagreement part. If you don't want to "accidentally" have kids, then don't kank IG. Simple as that. Or if your PC is freaked out by kids, make SURE the woman is taking mul mix, and takes it BEFORE EVERY time.


I have more arguments against what has been said in that thread, but I'll leave it at that.

[Wyx]

Sell your vChildren into slavery. Or kill them, because they're gonna suck a lot of your sid.

[tortall]

Sell your vChildren into slavery. Or kill them, because they're gonna suck a lot of your sid.

I like the slavery idea. That sounds pretty cool, actually. Have a baby, don't wanna keep it, find the nearest slave trader! They'll pay good coin to whip that little bag of skin and water into shape to be the slave who cleans the stables at the noble estate. :-D

[MarshallDFX]

Can I wish up to sell my virtual baby for coin?

[Wyx]

Virtual babies go for virtual coin, which you can spend virtually on virtual booze, virtual food, virtual water, virtual whores, and virtual sand tonic to clean up your virtual STDs, just like the virtual goods your crafter virtually sells when you're logged out, or the virtual hides and meats your ranger virtually hunts up when you're logged out.

[Jdr]

Can I have your virtual babies Wyx?

[FantasyWriter]

I still wish there were an optional system for pregnancy dice rolls.
That if you actually WANT to get pregnant you would be encouraged to only do so after a "successful' role.

It would automatically take into account age and race.
It would have questions that follow to provide other modifiers.

Because (from a man's POV) it sucks to have another characters PLAYER decide something that 'nature would have'.  (not to mention having an entire type of roleplay thrust apon you that you may not -as a player- want to deal with. Not that I have anything against 'mush'y ideas like this, I believe Armageddon's code/RP balances is one of its greatest qualities.

Code Select Expand


>ooc concent to pregoroll?

the tall, muscular man says OOC:
"Sure."

>pregoroll amos
You had sex with the tall, muscular man? (Y/N)

>yes
Did you use 'mul mix' or another herbal birth control?

>no
Did you practice coitus interruptus?

>no
You are about to pregoroll.  If you become pregnant, you will get reminder
when you log in as to how far (in Earth time) along your pregnancy is.  If
you become pregnant, but as some point wish to no longer be pregnant,
you are encouraged to roleplay an abortion/cause a miscarriage and send
the log through the request tool to remove the coded reminders or just
ignore them.

Are you sure you want to pregoroll?

>yes

<suspenseful dice roll delay>

You are now pregnant, sucka!



Edited to add: The woman would still have the right to lie about the results, of course.

[AmandaGreathouse]

I still wish there were an optional system for pregnancy dice rolls.
That if you actually WANT to get pregnant you would be encouraged to only do so after a "successful' role.

It would automatically take into account age and race.
It would have questions that follow to provide other modifiers.

Because (from a man's POV) it sucks to have another characters PLAYER decide something that 'nature would have'.  (not to mention having an entire type of roleplay thrust apon you that you may not -as a player- want to deal with. Not that I have anything against 'mush'y ideas like this, I believe Armageddon's code/RP balances is one of its greatest qualities.

Code Select Expand


>ooc concent to pregoroll?

the tall, muscular man says OOC:
"Sure."

>pregoroll amos
You had sex with the tall, muscular man? (Y/N)

>yes
Did you use 'mul mix' or another herbal birth control?

>no
Did you practice coitus interruptus?

>no
You are about to pregoroll.  If you become pregnant, you will get reminder when you log in as to how far (in Earth time) along your pregnancy is.  If you become pregnant, but as some point wish to no longer be pregnant, you are encouraged to roleplay an abortion/cause a miscarriage and send the log through the request tool to remove the coded reminders or just ignore them.

Are you sure you want to pregoroll?

>yes

<suspenseful dice roll delay>

You are now pregnant, sucka!


+1. I love this idea.

I already use a D&D dice roller and roll a d100 for it. But it would be great not to have to navigate away from Arm to do it. Plus the reminders on logging in about how far along your PC is would be awesome.

[Yseulte]

Because (from a man's POV) it sucks to have another characters PLAYER decide something that 'nature would have'.  (not to mention having an entire type of roleplay thrust apon you that you may not -as a player- want to deal with. Not that I have anything against 'mush'y ideas like this, I believe Armageddon's code/RP balances is one of its greatest qualities.

You're very right. It is not right to force a player to be a parent just because another player decides OOCly they want to have their girl be pregnant. Would it be fair for Staff to see you mudsexing and go 'pregnant' even when you didn't want to be? No. Would you be happy if Staff said 'Oh I decided to kill your baby or you're PC died to labor."? It would not be fair, you would not be happy. So why do it to other players if they don't want to be in that position?

Mul-Mix is not 100% as we all know, so a roll system would be really neat for those wanting to chance it, but that still doesn't safeguard those who allow IC relationships but don't want to play being a parent. It shouldn't be forced on a player.

[FantasyWriter]

Did you not see the consent request before the roll in my example?

[Yseulte]

Did you not see the consent request before the roll in my example?

Actually no, now that I have though, its that much better.

[HTX]

I still wish there were an optional system for pregnancy dice rolls.
That if you actually WANT to get pregnant you would be encouraged to only do so after a "successful' role.

I like it.

Maybe with the option to create a non-descript baby object at the end of the pregnancy period? Perhaps an object which can be sold to NPC (or PC of course!) slave traders. If I recall right, staff stopped creating baby objects for players a long time ago, so why not bring them back but make it automated to lift the burden off the staff?

Also, I've had many a characters who would have loved to profit from stealing babies to sell them, or kidnapping them and demanding ransoms, or murdering them as revenge, or otherwise using babies for their own benefit. These activities would be made much more easier and simpler if the babies were coded, not just virtual. Think of the possibilities and plots which could stem from this!

[FantasyWriter]

http://www.zalanthas.org/gdb/index.php/topic,30315.msg334943.html#msg334943

Thanks loon!!!!





lol to those of you who fall for this

[Yseulte]

If I recall right, staff stopped creating baby objects for players a long time ago, so why not bring them back but make it automated to lift the burden off the staff?

Sanvean says why it stopped and why it will not come back here: http://www.zalanthas.org/gdb/index.php/topic,5956.0.html

Just steal vNPC babies from mother PCs. It can be done.

[HTX]

lol to those of you who fall for this

EDIT: Ahh, you're quick - fixed it already!

Sanvean says why it stopped and why it will not come back here

All of these problems can be solved with coded solutions and new policies, especially in Armageddon 2. Maybe I should make a thread in the Armageddon Reborn, if the staff would be willing to review and consider changing this policy in the next game?

[FantasyWriter]

I fixed it, damn it!
lol

[Marauder Moe]

Virtual babies go for virtual coin, which you can spend virtually on virtual booze, virtual food, virtual water, virtual whores, and virtual sand tonic to clean up your virtual STDs, just like the virtual goods your crafter virtually sells when you're logged out, or the virtual hides and meats your ranger virtually hunts up when you're logged out.

If House Borsail was still open, and I was playing in it, I would totally give out real coin for virtual babies.

I would haggle too.  Oh it would be so much fun!

[path]

I miss Borsail.

Once I had a pc who was pregnant and she was planning to sell her baby, after she was unable to find someone with the know how to abort it. At the time I remember that request really freaking some of the other PCs out. Anyway, then she was killed. Slowly, with a knife. So that goes to show about that.

I think magickers should be considered, for the most part, sterile. 

[Lizzie]

What I would love, is for the stigma attached to popular opinion on mages in general, to be exponentially higher among the monsters born unto pregnant mages. So like..in the north, they think all magicks are evil and horrible and not tolerated in their walls...the baby of a mage would be..the equivalent of a thrall. Something so monsterous..vile, scary..world-changingly lethal..that it cannot be allowed to survive. Mages in the north would do everything possible to AVOID ever getting pregnant, assuming they can. And if they were stupid enough to get pregnant anyway, they'd run away and hide their pregnant selves until they could abort the fetus or bury the newborn.

Southern mages, gemmers, would either be affected by the gems and rendered infertile, or their children would automagically be declared property of the Highlord, and whisked off to the Tower, never to be heard from again.

I would also like to remind players that selling babies in the world of Zalanthas is NOT something hideous and unheard of, shocking to discuss, or distasteful in pleasant conversation. It should be considered almost as common as having sex. I've seen RP scenes where a pregnant woman is told not to worry about what's gonna happen to her kid, just sell it..and the pregnant woman invariably goes apeshit asking if the person is heartless and has no love in her soul.

The -kindness- would be for a lower commoner to sell her kid to a higher-class family where the kid could actually be fed, and have less of a chance of being locked in an apartment starving to death because Mommy went out hunting and never came back, and Daddy never wanted the kid in the first place.

So please remember - the notion of selling children in Zalanthas is a perfectly reasonable one, no matter how distasteful it might be in real life. Zalanthas is NOT realism.

[tortall]

Please note that any itchiness or biting/burning sensations that suddenly crop up after an encounter are likely a coded effect, and you should seek an In Character solution to the problem.

I totally had an imm give me crabs before. You guys should do that more often, for the people that sleep around a lot.

I mean, there's not way for the PC/player to know who the other person has been with. If you ask, they'll just lie. Lying the the Zalanthan way. :-D

[Comrade Canadia]

Frankly, if you go back and look at any society we can hope to approximate to Allanak/Tuluk - the most popular way to deal with unwanted children was exposure. Take them out, place them on a rock, and leave them.

Players should just decide if they're pregnant or not. Rolling for pregnancy seems very dungeons & dragons, which is something i feel this game needs to move away from. Not everything needs random rolls.

Let's try to talk child care.

The mindless ravings about how all babies should be sold into slavery or killed because the rp of child care annoys her does have some worth beneath it all. I don't think the game culture really accounts for child care enough, and I'd like some suggestions. My PC has a virtual baby, and I have to beat people up for a living. What do I do with this kid in my spare time? I can't take it -everywhere-.

Ideas:

• Most pre-industrial cultures had community ways of looking after children, often by the elderly. So in tribal cultures, or even in many merchant houses/noble houses, there would likely be facilities to just care for children of employees/tribemates until the kids are big enough to start doing work.
• Apartment buildings may have similar facilities. One virtual space where children of denizens are dropped off like a day care, possibly included as part of the rent. This is less realistic, but would be awfully convenient and wouldn't really be game breaking - just useful for PCs with kids.
• Really vicious places like the rinth would be -more likely- to have these sorts of facilities. In the nastiest, most brutal environments, there's generally more of a sense of community as people need to stick together to survive.
• Players often have family, even extended. Drop the kid off at your parents' place - they've been living near the Barrel for decades now.

Any other ideas?

[FantasyWriter]

I though this thread was about the OOC issue of the female's -PLAYER- getting to force a mature/unwanted situation on the male's -PLAYER- without consent.

Getting rid of babies is no problem IC... if nothing else, cook them and enjoy a good, tender meal.

[brytta.leofa]

If you don't want to "accidentally" have kids, then don't kank IG. Simple as that. Or if your PC is freaked out by kids, make SURE the woman is taking mul mix, and takes it BEFORE EVERY time.

This; also:
  Strongly disagree that consent should be expected here.
  Strongly agree that people shouldn't be ridiculous about pregnancy (well, or anything else).

[Comrade Canadia]

What Brytta said. Requiring parental consent is ridiculous. Not being a moron should be a reasonable expectation though.

[Zoltan]

The idea of a "pregoroll" coded into the game made me gag a little. Players of females: you make the final decision whether or not your character gets pregnant. The pregnancy is virtual, the offspring are vNPCs -- you can use any excuse as to why you get, or avoid getting, pregnant. Players of males: if you get "saddled" with a pregnant lover, just deal with it IC. Again, they're vNPCs... there are myriad ways to deal with things.