Pregnancy

[Lizzie]

I always thought of pregnancies as one last ditch effort to put some "excitement" in two characters' life or a character.

One character who I had like 2-3 children (+ inheriting like two previous children from random dead hunters) with drove me to the edge of insanity with her perfect role-playing of what having babies in a world like Armageddon would be like, so kudos to that, but krath did I go insane each time I would log in and be way'ed that the child's fever wouldn't go down and I had to drop everything to come and take care of the baby or that the little bastard had puked all over my favorite shirt and she had to junk it.

And of course, she didn't want to just leave those 4-5 kids in our tiny apartment so we could go hunting, so we had to cross halfway through Tuluk just to go drop five screaming children to my virtual PC's mother and then the virtual mother wouldn't just let us leave, she'd invite us in for a meal while my PC's mate and her discussed life and and.. Urgh!

Ahh but it's so fun when bebe gets his first bludgeoning weapon.. toy.. er.. *cough* Zalanthian Parenthood. Sometimes, it's awesome.

VNPC kids and pregnancy, are only great, if you sign onto it with full intent to attempt to keep that brood alive, know they will barf on people, cry, get sick, get hurt, hurt you (especially if you're a woman, you best be puking and mewling sometimes from all that heat and the smell of those midden heaps!) And just like in real life, some people will go omg stay away with those monsterous brats, and some people with be bloody delighted with them.

It is -HARD- to consistently RP it, but holy damn it can be fun as hell. Not everyone will enjoy the style of play, but I personally love a really vile and hilariously awful VNPC family if I so choose to start with or obtain one. ^^

I knew my parenthood horror story would summon you, you masochistic rper you

and Lizzie, really, there are tons of stuff that can be screwed up majestically due to the virtual world that surrounds our PCs, your example is just another example of what ifs that could include so many other stuff.

and like I said, it wasn't in our habits to just leave the virtual children without supervision by either us or another virtual character, so unless that burglar also decided to kidnap my PC's mother (something I wished for so much!), that just wasn't going to happen.

People also have virtual brothers and sisters and no one bitches that you can't attack or kidnap these people..

Because most of us are content for our virtual families to be virtual, and not try to bring them to life as non-virtual people by using emotes and ldescs.  My virtual brother and sister might die, or get kidnapped, by virtual killers and kidnappers. And I'll roleplay my reaction to learning about it. But I'm not going to emote their presence in a bar, I won't be emoting that they're talking to me or someone else, I won't be emoting that I'm walking around with them up the street. And they're all of an age that they can get up and leave when they're in a virtual apartment, so I don't have to worry about who is taking care of them when my character isn't at that virtual apartment taking care of them.

My virtual family is a roleplay device to explain my character's existence. Beyond that, they are just that: virtual. Non-existent. Out of sight, not available for PCs to interact with. They are the people off-camera in the TV show called Armageddon.

[Malken]

I always thought of pregnancies as one last ditch effort to put some "excitement" in two characters' life or a character.

One character who I had like 2-3 children (+ inheriting like two previous children from random dead hunters) with drove me to the edge of insanity with her perfect role-playing of what having babies in a world like Armageddon would be like, so kudos to that, but krath did I go insane each time I would log in and be way'ed that the child's fever wouldn't go down and I had to drop everything to come and take care of the baby or that the little bastard had puked all over my favorite shirt and she had to junk it.

And of course, she didn't want to just leave those 4-5 kids in our tiny apartment so we could go hunting, so we had to cross halfway through Tuluk just to go drop five screaming children to my virtual PC's mother and then the virtual mother wouldn't just let us leave, she'd invite us in for a meal while my PC's mate and her discussed life and and.. Urgh!

Ahh but it's so fun when bebe gets his first bludgeoning weapon.. toy.. er.. *cough* Zalanthian Parenthood. Sometimes, it's awesome.

VNPC kids and pregnancy, are only great, if you sign onto it with full intent to attempt to keep that brood alive, know they will barf on people, cry, get sick, get hurt, hurt you (especially if you're a woman, you best be puking and mewling sometimes from all that heat and the smell of those midden heaps!) And just like in real life, some people will go omg stay away with those monsterous brats, and some people with be bloody delighted with them.

It is -HARD- to consistently RP it, but holy damn it can be fun as hell. Not everyone will enjoy the style of play, but I personally love a really vile and hilariously awful VNPC family if I so choose to start with or obtain one. ^^

I knew my parenthood horror story would summon you, you masochistic rper you

and Lizzie, really, there are tons of stuff that can be screwed up majestically due to the virtual world that surrounds our PCs, your example is just another example of what ifs that could include so many other stuff.

and like I said, it wasn't in our habits to just leave the virtual children without supervision by either us or another virtual character, so unless that burglar also decided to kidnap my PC's mother (something I wished for so much!), that just wasn't going to happen.

People also have virtual brothers and sisters and no one bitches that you can't attack or kidnap these people..

Because most of us are content for our virtual families to be virtual, and not try to bring them to life as non-virtual people by using emotes and ldescs.  My virtual brother and sister might die, or get kidnapped, by virtual killers and kidnappers. And I'll roleplay my reaction to learning about it. But I'm not going to emote their presence in a bar, I won't be emoting that they're talking to me or someone else, I won't be emoting that I'm walking around with them up the street. And they're all of an age that they can get up and leave when they're in a virtual apartment, so I don't have to worry about who is taking care of them when my character isn't at that virtual apartment taking care of them.

My virtual family is a roleplay device to explain my character's existence. Beyond that, they are just that: virtual. Non-existent. Out of sight, not available for PCs to interact with. They are the people off-camera in the TV show called Armageddon.

You're sounding like someone here said that you should be forced to role play pregnancies in game.. I can understand your hatred for it and respect it, there are roles and things I'd never want to role play in the game as well.

I'd take a pregnancy role play over sparring all day long anytime, but that's me, so to each their own fun, yeah?

[Yummri]

I'm pretty sure it is expected that you do include them in some way if the are alive from time to time to create a better background. So while you may choose not to do this, if you turned around and openly refused to rp with someone introducing their brother, mother, uncle or daughter to you then you are acting against the spirit of roleplay.

Babies happen or else the game's population would die off and there would be no game. Peoples brothers and stuff could be kidnapped and I'm sure an admin would, if they were able, create an npc for this temp mini-plot to allow for a further branch of roleplay.

The babies while vnpc can't be targeted but an admin could maybe do this too. Especially when that baby is then old enough to be played by a player. But I would whole heartidly encourage people to play these things out more. It gives more of a story and more of a realistic feel than to suddenly never see your parents or siblings again and anyone doing this I personally feel is bad form.

Though anyone playing out these details you have my deepest thanks. Hopefully I will get to enjoy the  in depth roleplay you wish to provide. But it is to each their own.

[Delirium]

Keep the gameworld in mind, think outside the codebox, and you'll do just fine. Geez.

[greasygemo]

No way! VNPC's are awesome for a flavorful world! I've seen people do wonderful stuff with VNPC's. I knew a half-breed with a neglectful, brutish VNPC mom who worked in a bar and we'd visit them and the breed would get cussed out even as they tried to curry her favour, or the hilarious siblings of other PC's who we're always just so displeased with the PC's actions and chiding them constantly... or the VNPC hookers that PC's would emote leering over and paying and then taking a trip to a booth..

Done well, a VNPC can make a scene just that much more amusing.

EDIT: Not to derail, but it's all about remembering the game world has a way larger VNPC population than a PC or NPC population. As it's been said, all our PC's are just the unfortunate VNPC's we elected to give more prominent lives. And since we can't roll a baby PC, then VNPC's it is!

[Malken]

If I wanted to spend my time babysitting a bunch of real crybaby PCs who have the average IQ of a five year old, I'd play a Byn Sergeant anyway.

*ducks and crawls out of the thread*

[Tenua]

I miss the days of coded babies.... That you could eat.

[ale six]

Keep the gameworld in mind, think outside the codebox, and you'll do just fine. Geez.

I love that term. Wanna have my babies?

[Barzalene]

I miss the days of coded babies.... That you could eat.

I like you, Tenua.

[Tenua]

I miss the days of coded babies.... That you could eat.

I like you, Tenua.

Thanks! I like you too!

Also, the days of coded babies there wouldn't been none of this "virtual" issues arrising. People could actually STEAL the babies. But then the Imms(as staff was called at the time) had to code all these baby items. First food, then as weapons....

Code Select Expand

etwo baby

>You brandish the blue-eyed baby in both hands.

[boog]

Just es a blanket or something. Bam. Stealable bebe.

[Lizzie]

Just es a blanket or something. Bam. Stealable bebe.

Except when noob burglar #479 comes along and steals the blanket. Or when the game crashes shortly after the ldesc was set, and comes back with "a blanket is here, on the floor." Or when mommy grabs the wrong "brown" by mistake and logs out. And when the ldesc'ed baby IS there in the apartment, playing on the floor - where's mommy? Where is someone to feed the kid, diaper the kid, water the kid, make sure the kid doesn't crawl into the hammer-carved wooden chest filled with 47 obsidian daggers?

And what happens if you es it, and someone just wants to steal the blanket? If you're sitting at a table, you can't set your ldesc to show that you're carrying a baby. Noob maxed master pickpocket #862 walks into the bar, peeks at a few people. Sees the obsidian-bladed blanket of doom in your hand, and before you can throw down an emote to make sure everyone in the bar knows, for the 400th time, that you are holding a baby (since you have to do that EVERY time someone walks in or they won't know), your blanket is gone. But the baby is not? Or is it? How would you know? How would anyone know, other than the thief, who knows damned well he didn't steal any baby, because he only stole a blanket?

[perfecto]

I too found it extremely challenging to keep coming up with different things to carry or emote to show the world I was supposed to be caring for an invisible baby. Even more challenging were the first couple years of its life when it should be up and walking and learning to talk and now it doesn't even make sense to carry a blanket around! I found that I had to come up with a sdesc which I had to physicaly type out every single time I was refering to my invisible young infant child. Which was a pain in itself, though even after I did that, anyone who knew what I was using as the sdesc could use it just the same way like ~ the dastardly elf holds out his arms for the waddling fat-headed infant, scooping it up and running out the door! ~  I guess it boils down to much of what is parenthood in real life, you gotta keep yer fecking eyes on those kids at all times!  Still, I think it would have been a lot easier to RP with if they still had coded baby objects.

[RogueGunslinger]

This is a roleplaying game, Lizzie. You sometimes have to suspend disbelief and go along with things for the sake of fun roleplay.

All I see you doing is bringing up obscure problems that I've never seen happen in the game. If you want to steal someone's VNPC baby coordinate with staff. It has been done before in this very game, so maybe stop coming up with crazy scenarios that make interacting with VNPC's a bad thing. VNPC interaction is a good thing.

Like someone else said there are numerous problems that might arise is someone isn't corroborating with others over a virtual thing... But I've never seen that happen. Usually everyone gets what's going on and get to have a little fun and interact with the VNPC too.

I've never even remotely heard of the situations you are describing arising.

[ShaLeah]

I found it easy to foreplay crumb snatchers in a tribal environment, where I found it appropriate to follow the "It takes a village to raise a child" philosophy.  

I don't see Zalanthas doing that in most places. It's you and your mate and whatever vNPCs you manage to create. I think there would be a lot less babies if we had to get an object but the roleplay would be so much more realistic because it forces the PC to be accountable.  Remember, don't log out with your babies left in the room unattended! Hah.
I highly doubt staff would want to deal with that shit.

[Ourla]

I found it easy to foreplay crumb snatchers

[ShaLeah]

I found it easy to foreplay crumb snatchers

Damn you autocorrect! Roleplay not foreplay!

[Kalai]

One of my characters got pregnant, I realized I had a crippling fear of any possible outcome aside from being assassinated and had to store.
Probably should have gone with being assassinated now that I think about it. But the stress got to me.
I admire anyone brave enough to roleplay such things.