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

[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.

[Kyle Aaron]

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

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... :)

[Ragitsu]

Originally Posted by Kyle Aaron

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... :)

I would be very interested to hear more, if you're willing to share.

[Dragondog]

I planned to do that in one of my campaigns, but it never got that far. So the answer, in my opinion, is yes.

[Turhan's Bey Company]

Originally Posted by Kyle Aaron

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

This is the big one. Also be sure the other players will be OK with one of the PCs taking a sharp turn into parenthood, if that's the way its likely to go. If the campaign has the other PCs involved with complicated personal lives, this is just another interesting angle. If it's a Dungeon Fantasy campaign where they might have to put off fighting the balrog because someone has to arrange for babysitting, they'd be justifiably miffed.

[Anthony]

It depends on the game, the character, the player, and the GM. It's the kind of feature I'd be most likely to use in game settings where heredity is very important, such as Pendragon or Legend of the Five Rings.

[Kyle Aaron]

Originally Posted by Ragitsu

I would be very interested to hear more, if you're willing to share.

Check out the journals, then.

What made it doubly interesting was that the GM had had me create me as a character - a cinematic me, to be sure, but still.

For example, once a violent warlord asked if I wanted to volunteer to go and kill a rival of his. The implied threat was that if I didn't, my daughter would be harmed. But of course, what's a daughter going to think of her father murdering someone? So I was being forced to choose between my daughter's safety and her respect.

The team gathered their things. They walked off, each giving me a look as they went. Jeremy thoughtful, the Lt regretful, Cameron scratching his large belly, only Wong not looking at me, avoiding my gaze. I waited quietly as they tramped off into the forest. "I'll miss them," Zarah said.

"You'll miss Wong, eh?"

"Yes."

"Do you miss," I said in Hebrew, "him kicking heads in and breaking necks?"

"That is the same as you, abba."

"No!" I said. "Not the same! When I wound men, I perform first aid afterwards. He breaks their necks." She became quiet and looked at her bag, picking with her nails at a thread coming from it, but I don't know if she really absorbed my words. Some people, especially young people, are so repelled by violence of all kinds that they can't see a moral difference between killing a man in the heat of battle to save your daughter's life, and killing a helpless man who's no threat to you. To them, all violence is too abhorent to admit of degrees; it is all equally vile.

I don't wish to be vile in the eyes of my daughter. I hope that she will come to understand. I do live by a kind of code; there is reason for all. I wish I could express it clearly.

It brought a new aspect to things, that's for sure.

[Agemegos]

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.

Not necessarily. If you run campaigns that cover long periods of time it is possible for PCs' children conceived in play to come to term and even grow up some way in the course of the campaign. For instance, Pendragon recommends one adventure per year of game time, and suggests that players ought eventually to replace their original PCs with those characters' heirs. Bushido also at least provides rules for a campaign game in which months and years slip by, complete with rules for finding bad, good, and excellent wives, devoting time to "matrimony" to maintain a character's marriage and engender heirs, etc.

That aside, in one of my campaigns (perhaps the most successful) one PC fell in love with a princess, begat a pair of twins on her, married her, and was left holding the babies when she died of complications of labour. (The PC in question was a member of a race similar to Tolkien's Noldor, and in GURPS would have been verging on gigantism. The princess was not diminutive, but rather petite. Not a good combination.)

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.

[Ragitsu]

Originally Posted by Brett

Not necessarily. If you run campaigns that cover long periods of time it is possible for PCs' children conceived in play to come to term and even grow up some way in the course of the campaign. For instance, Pendragon recommends one adventure per year of game time, and suggests that players ought eventually to replace their original PCs with those characters' heirs. Bushido also at least provides rules for a campaign game in which months and years slip by, complete with rules for finding bad, good, and excellent wives, devoting time to "matrimony" to maintain a character's marriage and engender heirs, etc.

I should have specified that i'm going to run a campaign in which the events leading to the child's conception happened up to a decade before, so it would have to precede the actual start of the story due to necessity.

Sorry about that :-).

Your experiences sound intriguing, but unfortunately I don't believe this lineage (should I go through with it) will be quite so spanning. Well, it may become that way, just not for now.

[Dragondog]

Though just because it's possible, doesn't mean it should be done. That depends on the impact of introducing that NPC (both IC and OOC) and to what degree the child will take part in the game.