Male PCs and a very unexpected surprise...(any system)

[BLloyd607502]

I've seen it done (With a PC who had never had sex actually (His daughter froma paralell dimension)), it went very well and was a total superise. Althought to be fair the Player had agreed before hand with the GM that the GM had a right to throw any amount of strangeness into his life (He didn't specify what, just gave the GM total control.) It was very well done.
You need to find the opinion of the Player first and foremost (We have one player who thinks Children just slow the game down and he hates them in RPs, another it totally happy to do it as it adds another aspect to the game and gives his PC more motivation.) if they're okay with it then it doesn't matter so much IC even if the PC would be against being a father.

[jeff_wilson]

Originally Posted by Brett

Another PC in that campaign was nobly born, tall, strong, silent, athletic, a notable dancer, extremely handsome, a formidable warrior, famous, and rich, and a total pushover for women. Owing largely to a complete lack of resolve when being vamped, he ended up begetting a half-sister to the princess his comrade married, begetting a demigod with the goddess of a lake, begetting an heiress for an amazon queen in distressed circumstances (after ridding her queendom of a plague of werewolves), and married to the daughter and only child of a scary-powerful kingmaker. I think that character's eldest son (the demigod) was nine (and being raised as a foundling) when that campaign came to a conclusion.

Super!

I've also participated in a generational, dynastic game, where a period of about eight years of play under a succession of GMs extended over a century of game time and 4-5 generations. The domestic plots made for a nice change of pace and in many ways were some of the biggest challenges, and went some places no game had ever gone before in my experience. Most of the surviving original PCs were trying to enjoy their retirement as "regular people" in their old age, while their youngest children and grandchildren were the current world-savers and -endangerers, born from unions between former enemies and uneasy allies.

[sgtcallistan]

Hm. The opposite is happening to a character of mine, and I think it's tasteful: may be instructive.

First, some background: in our celto/viking games' culture, it's considered normal and lucky for people to have wild flings in their youth, then settle down with a significant chosen other (the best description we have found).
This is akin to roaming, then 'choosing a path' for true adulthood.
Change is possible on all paths, and may be caused by death, incapacity, inability, loss of status, mutual agreement, or even acknowledging a mistake.
Ulitmately people are individuals of variable status making alliances.

Given this, if a character has a son or daughter arrive to find them, it is considered a pleasant suprise, time for a feast, making new friends, telling tales, all the things the culture prizes.
Even if they are here for revenge: hospitality is considered the highest virtue.
Then they travel together and see if the want to stay together.

A character of mine has had the opposite happen: in adult life, he asked for his fortune to be told: making the mistake of asking for something he dearly wanted (home, family, wife, children), he was told he 'will never have an heir to call your own'.
Destiny is taken seriously, so he has found another path to follow.
He marries anyway, for love, and this woman survives a battle wound that prevents her from bearing a child. She later is able to become charioteer to a queen, and helps raise the queen's boy to become a prince.
My PC and his wife have now been seperated for longer than they have known each other (not an unusual state for adventuring types in this campaign).

Then he hears a female druid 'of his acquaintance' has a growing boy child; then hears news of a woman he knew in his home village who has travelled widely, along with her daughter (who is about the right age).
He doesn't know the truth of any of this yet; perhaps it's just his friends teasing- but yet...

[quarkstomper]

In a space-based CHAMPIONS game, I was playing an alien ambassador named Borj Ganthros who happened to look like Frankenstein's Monster. He was a big, jovial guy, fond of practical jokes, who as I said looked like Frankenstein's Monster.

Anyway, the GM's of the CHAMPIONS games liked to incorporate character bits and what they called "the interpersonal stuff" into the campaign, so when we were putting together the character, the GM asked me to flesh out Borj's family life. I decided he was a widower, with a teenage daughter named Elsa currently attending the Mary Shelly School for Girls on his homeworld of Karloff-7. A bratty teenaged daughter. Yeah.

I didn't give it much thought. Any more than the time I made up a character sheet for the grown-up Dr. Jonathan Quest and as a throwaway gag said that he was dating Penny Gadget. Which eventually led to the legendary Dr. Zin/Dr. Claw Team-Up. But the less said about that, the better.

You can probably guess what happened. A few sessions into the campaign, Elsa showed up at the hero's base, announcing that she'd been expelled from Mary Shelly and was moving back in with Daddy!

My goofy, easy-going trickster suddenly had to face up to some parental responsibilities and delve into some personal angst about exactly why he had neglected his daughter for so long.

It was fun.

[Kaldrin]

Originally Posted by Kyle Aaron

If the player's happy with big plot twists, then sure.

I'd rather tell them about it ahead of time. I would avoid not informing them because players have a problem sometimes with getting a disadvantage out of the blue and subsequently dropping their point total.

I've had a GM toss that in, it really turned the campaign in a new direction. It was a postapocalyptic one, and a 13 year old daughter showed up. Suddenly I found myself more hesitant to blow people away with indifference... :)

Hesitant? Nah, that's when you embrace the roll and try to pass it on to the next generation. Nothin' brings a family closer together than capping muties in the wasteland. "Today Daddy's going to teach you how to be a spotter."

[whswhs]

Originally Posted by Ragitsu

In your opinion, is it possible to believably and tastefully introduce a child NPC that turns out to be the son/daughter of a male PC? The event that led to their creation would, of course, have to have happened prior to the adventure's beginning.

Keep in mind the potential character's player would generally accept the idea of such a plot twist.

I've not had that specific situation occur. But in one of my campaigns, I introduced a PC's unsuspected twin. And in a campaign I'm playing in now, during the first session, a guest player showed up in the role of the established girlfriend of one of the PCs, who turned out to be carrying his child. We could see the player start to sweat. . . .

I'd say this sort of thing is fine, if it's consistent with the established character background.

Bill Stoddard

[Witchking]

Hmm never really ran into this one IC...

The campaign I have the most experience with the GM had under his "ground rules" that PC's would only become pregnant through "choice." (IE the player tells the GM that that is the goal then it moves to ) Intitially it was intended for the PCs playing Females (being pregnant from all I have seen and observed does have some...limitations) tho as I am not aware of this having ever being sprung on a male either I would infer that it covers both sides of the PC coin.

As always YMMV...

the times I have GMed I never felt the need to "go there" but none of my PC's really ever played a particullarly social animal. I guess I would be very careful about considering it and I would be very unlikely to do it as a "surprise..."

[Anthony]

Originally Posted by Witchking

the times I have GMed I never felt the need to "go there" but none of my PC's really ever played a particullarly social animal. I guess I would be very careful about considering it and I would be very unlikely to do it as a "surprise..."

The closest to this I've seen in a campaign was probably one PC who decided the first thing he'd do in any new area was find female companionship, and then, surprise of surprise, his girlfriend got pregnant and her family came by with the shotgun (he could have skipped out, but it would have certainly created awkwardness).

[sambudak]

It really depends on the player. That's right-- I'm saying it again. Oh, and the style of game.

Having the kid show up in swaddling clothes in the midst of the megadungeon could be a killjoy for some folks. Others would just dump their pack out and haul the kid along.

For a more nuanced campaign where interpersonal relations are at least a consideration it'd be best to know your player likes surprises.

[whswhs]

Originally Posted by Witchking

The campaign I have the most experience with the GM had under his "ground rules" that PC's would only become pregnant through "choice." (IE the player tells the GM that that is the goal then it moves to ) Intitially it was intended for the PCs playing Females (being pregnant from all I have seen and observed does have some...limitations) tho as I am not aware of this having ever being sprung on a male either I would infer that it covers both sides of the PC coin.

In my Zimiamvia campaign, one of the PCs became sexually attracted to another, and was concerned about consequences. At one point the character exchanged letters with her half-sister, a fashionable courtesan, asking for advice:

Sister,
I hope I am not rude in asking your advice. But I thought you would likely know. If one engages in certain activities with the opposite gender, how may one avoid the embarrassing consequences? I speak specifically of finding oneself with child. Forgive me if I am rude to ask, but there is no one of whom I can pose this question.
Cassandra Parry

Later she figured out that they had gained access to a magical place where things were as they desired. So she and the other PC went there to pursue their desires.

And still later, they made a journey across country, sharing rooms in an inn and later sharing a tent, which in fact became the scene of a rather exciting quarrel and reconciliation. And the player of the woman had made a point of her character having gone to the House of Heart's Desire because she didn't want to have a child. So I figured that if she was now being active in the mundane world . . . and I told the player that her character's next menstrual cycle was interrupted (which was unheard of given the character's godlike good health), and left the two PCs to negotiate. We got some very good scenes out of that.

My campaigns almost always have sexual encounters, and for the ones in low-tech settings, pregnancy is a possibility that has to be dealt with. This leads to some interesting roleplaying, which my players generally seem to like.

Bill Stoddard