Childrensss

[Inks]

I need some advice on bringing up a vnpc child please. What are the techniques that people use? Obviously apart from not hunting and sparring while looking after it etc.

[Malken]

Kill it with fire before it turns.

Or before it consumes all of your rp time and drives you to pure madness! (Thanks a lot Greasygemo!)

[MeTekillot]

emote coddles the cloth-swaddled infant, shielding her from the brawling mercenaries in the bar you brought her to for some reason.

emote guides the curly-haired, pale-skinned toddler around the room by the hand.

emote passes by the curly-haired, olive-skinned teenager in the crowd, smiling in a matronly manner.

[Inks]

So far so good, keep em coming 

[Lizzie]

Mul mix, childhood trauma resulting in sterility, asexuality, homosexuality.

All fine ways of dealing with teh childenz.

[Inks]

I know how to prevent a vnpc child thank you, I was more after RP advice on having one. Not after pregnancy advice though, but thanks for the contribution.

[Tainted Love]

My last whore committed infanticide.

My d-elf had three.

If I added my real children to my rl childrenz I think I'd be up to +10.



How you roleplay your infant should fit the world you're living in. Aide to foofypants? Ask if they can help with a nursemaid. Solo hunter? You wanna play hard core? Give half your pay to a vnpc nurse. When you're having sex, hear the baby cry, wait six weeks before you put out again. Alone in your apt? Play with it, nurse it, change it. Are you foofy? Pass that baby off, visit it every once in a while to pass on your wisdom.


Do what you want, it's your baby.

[Patuk]

I don't particularly feel one way or the other, but reading this may be helpful.

[Inks]

Thanks for the advice. Was genuinely helped.

On a somewhat related note has anyone watched the classic Lone Wolf with Cub series of samurai movies?

[valeria]

I had a dwarf with kids.  She killed the first one because it was a mutant and it upset her focus.  She quit her life (ie, I stored her) so that she could take care of the other one (eventually two).  She was family focused.

I had a human with a kid.  She had a vNPC family who took care of it while she was busy doing important things.  She occasionally paraded it around to show off.  Mostly she ignored it.

I had a desert elf with a kid.  She passed it off to other desert elves while she was running the desert, and brought it out for the other elves to coo over.  She was enamored of being a parent, and would sometimes watch her vNPC friend's vNPC kids.  I RPed having the kid around a lot, especially during solo RP in the clan tents.

Ultimately, my advice is that you should treat it how your character would treat it.  If you would be having the vNPC kid with you a lot of the time, I recommend coming up with an sdesc for it, putting it in your emotes, and maybe having a prop item (a basket, a cloth) to carry the kid around in and drop-desc if you're in the room.

[Inks]

That was extremely useful valeria. All the kudos to you.

[FreeRangeVestric]

Indeed. I've never had a PC have kids, but that post (almost) inspired me to want to do it!

[Barsook]

Indeed. I've never had a PC have kids, but that post (almost) inspired me to want to do it!

[slvrmoontiger]

I've been inspired for a while to have children... None of my male characters can ever find female PC's that are low drama/high free time enough to make it work. Seems non-drama women characters actually have real lives, jobs, a sense of dignity and pride in their work, etc... Who could have known?

[Malken]

Indeed. I've never had a PC have kids, but that post (almost) inspired me to want to do it!

I'll be in the booth tonight from 7pm to 10pm Server time for any ladies who want to have children ^_^

[greasygemo]

Kill it with fire before it turns.

Or before it consumes all of your rp time and drives you to pure madness! (Thanks a lot Greasygemo!)

Hey! It takes -two- to generate VNPC bebes, Malken. Be a man about this. 

[Malken]

Hey! It takes -two- to generate VNPC bebes, Malken. Be a man about this. 

You're banned from my booth bebes giveaway (super highly) RPT!

[Kaineus]

Child rearing RP gets old very quickly for me, but I encourage anyone who wants to try it to try it.

In this game it is acceptable to have personal relations with VNPCs (relatives, whores of choice, etc). But typically child VNPCs requires more involvement than any whore on the side or relative realistically would, unless you sell that baby VNPC into slavery or some shit.

Usually after about an in game year of child rearing RP, I inevitably start feeling like this character from a crappy SNL skit:

Tenant #2: Oh! Question! Question! Do you have children? Because I have one! I just had her!

Nancy: Oh! Congratulations!

Tenant #2: Thank you very much! I love my REAL baby! [ she holds up a broccoli head ] Isn't she beautiful? She gives my whole life meaning! And the BEST part is: Oh, you're never alone when you have a baby!

It's an unavoidable limitation on the game that kids are going to be VNPCs, lifeless objects that have to be animated by other players. And often because the kid VNPC was *made* by your character and another character, other PCs will feel uncomfortable including them in their emotes, at least to start with. This can run the risk of the VNPC kid being something that *you* have to tote around, animate, give a personality to exclusively. To me that can feel power-emotey, lonely and creepy, like the lady with the brocolli child above.

That said, I've had some very cool scenes with VNPC children in the mix, and I've been around other RPers comfortable enough to deal with VNPC kids so that it didn't feel like the child was any player's exclusive burden to animate it. So if anything my advice is that the experience might be better for you if you are around players who would be down to participate in such RP.

[greasygemo]

Hey! It takes -two- to generate VNPC bebes, Malken. Be a man about this. 

You're banned from my booth bebes giveaway (super highly) RPT!

That's fine. I will set up a booth next door and we'll see who gets more participants. Worse case scenario I end up really high and don't care what you are doing and then steal all the pants you guys drop.

[ShaLeah]

Hey! It takes -two- to generate VNPC bebes, Malken. Be a man about this. 

You're banned from my booth bebes giveaway (super highly) RPT!

That's fine. I will set up a booth next door and we'll see who gets more participants. Worse case scenario I end up really high and don't care what you are doing and then steal all the pants you guys drop.

I suspect the booth without children will get more play.

[MeTekillot]

I very very very much hope it would.

[Malken]

I very very very much hope it would.

Stay classy, Tuluk.

[Yseulte]

I've been inspired for a while to have children... None of my male characters can ever find female PC's that are low drama/high free time enough to make it work. Seems non-drama women characters actually have real lives, jobs, a sense of dignity and pride in their work, etc... Who could have known?

There are pros and cons to vNPC children and these pros and cons vary by the player's preferences.

I prefer the vNPC child policy due to things witnessed on other muds:
1. Players eat your baby for OOC hilarity.
2. Players junk your baby for OOC hilarity.
3. Extra work on staff reimbursing eaten/junked babies.
4. Extra work on staff having to update descriptions from infant to toddler to child to teen.
5. The sudden disappearance of said teen NPC when reaching adulthood.
6. The silly, unrealistic play from an NPC infant/toddler/child.
7. The weird allowance of players to play children despite the game(s) policy on no child characters being played.
8. Abuse of NPC children making the game world very uncomfortable to some and bringing to question a variety of consent arguments.

The things I have done or known others to do with their vNPC children:
1. Use BIOs for conversations with their child that had some bearing on their PC's life or personality - such as explaining the child's father or mother perished or that they're being sold to a House for apprenticeship or somesuch thing.
2. Spent solo-rp aka 'quality time' with the family doing domestic things that would be normal like cleaning them up, changing them, playing games, rolling up balls of yarn, etc.
3. Use their existence in long descriptions such as 'the wind-burned man is here, a small boy at his side' or 'the wide-hipped woman is sitting here, holding a baby'.
4. I have seen some players use the existence of an infant in their temporary description too such as: A small, pink-cheeked boy rests in the sling over this woman's shoulder, his hair a wispy nest of black curls and his eyes, when open, the milky blue of an infant.

What I love seeing players do with their vNPC children but rarely get to witness is 'real' behavior:
1. Vomit. Babies do this. Alot.
2. Changing small-clothes or using linen scraps to wipe poo-splosions that can happen anywhere.
3. Screaming, crying, fit-throwing, hysterics. Children do this. Alot.
4. Teaching them skill-trades early on or having their children do manual labor from very early on.
5. Carting their infant every where when they're still breastfeeding because that is what you do without the existence of baby formula and bottles.
6. Using escru milk and milk-bags for babies that men are raising without women to breast feed.
7. Junking food and water when 'feeding' their vNPC children.
8. Having toys for their vNPC children.
9. Giving their child fears and likes and wants - helpful with BIOs.

[greasygemo]

One thing to be aware of on an OOC level, it that it is sometimes -hard- to emote scenes with VNPC kids for a long period of time, especially if you are not a very fast typist. This is because you basically have to tack on the actions of a whole other PC to your own, so if you want them to do anything other than sit in your lap, you're looking at some serious keyboard action at times.

This is true for any VNPC's... but with kids, ..at least realistic kids.. they are always barfing, crying, trying to touch sharp things, sneezing on people, choking, asking why why why why, whining, fighting with their siblings, staring openly at peoples faces, eating beards.... (i could go on) It gets intense. So I wouldn't recommend trying it unless you are pretty comfortable with your typing capacity or it might get annoying pretty quick.

[Lizzie]

The emoting out the vnpc child asking why why why I believe is against the rules. You're not supposed to nest verbal communication within emotes.