A question for the women...a pregnant PC?

[talien]

As you will eventually see from my story hour, this happened in our campaign:

http://www.enworld.org/showthread.php?t=103252

I actually announced my wife's character's pregnancy as a means of announcing the fact she was pregnant in real life. It pretty much dumfounded the players, who didn't know how to react.

There were a few factors that made the pregnancy different from a human pregnancy:
* She had been playing the character for about four years.
* Her character is an elf.
* Elves in Arcanis are reborn souls of other elves. There is no unplanned pregnancy with elves (in my game anyway), and the soul chooses to be born.
* Elven pregnancy takes much longer and is much less inconvenient. We based the pregnancy off of Aeryn Sun's pregnancy from Farscape: http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Peacekeeper_(Farscape)#Reproduction

The reproductive biology of Sebacean women differs from their human forebears in that after the 2nd cellular division following conception the pregnancy enters a state of stasis that can last for up to 7 years; within this period the pregnancy can only continue through medical intervention, though whether foetal development naturally restarts or aborts after the stasis period is unknown. Peacekeeper women experience a massively accelerated pregnancy that lasts only a few weeks rather than months.[10]

This is a convenient means of stalling a pregnancy until its convenient for the plot.

* Half-elves are not possible in Arcanis, so even though Ilmare had a love interest (my character, Quintus) the baby wasn't his. The question of who the father was made things very interesting.

I spoke with my wife well before we implemented these plot-changing issues. It helped that she was actually pregnant and didn't plan to game after the pregnancy.

 

[Rafael Ceurdepyr]

I had this happen to my character once, but it was in a Call of Cthulhu game. My husband was the GM (and a wicked man, just sayin'). After a particularly harrowing experience and brush with death, my PC and another PC on whom she had a crush (the PC, not the player, I hasten to add) fell into each others' arms (cue dim lighting, train into tunnel, etc.). She soon was found to be with child (hey, this was a 1920s game). Morning sickness accompanied it, which I had to roll for each morning to see how/if it incapacitated my PC.

It was fun, but then I'm heavily into the roleplaying aspect of the game. I really think it would depend on the group.

 

[Thornir Alekeg]

My wife absolultely hated it when a DM made roleplaying decisions for her character. She would have gone ballistic if a DM had done this to her character without discussing it and giving it an OK first.

I've only dealt with one pregnancy in a D&D party: it was the players decision and was a way for her to bow out of the game gracefully, but with the option to return at a later date.

 

[Oryan77]

Also, FWIW, I wouldn't see his treatment of NPC baby as a representation of his own paternal instincts or even the situation itself as a subconscious desire to bun up my oven. That's kind of silly.

Yes, it's silly for people to try to accuse me of ulterior motives. I'm glad that you know your SO well enough to know he's not a loon

For people that are bringing my real life relationship with my wife into this "D&D question" of mine...please stop trying to judge me as both a husband and a DM. My wife is a brilliant woman and very strong. She also understands the difference between a game and real life. What I do in the game is not going to affect my real life relationship with her. So no worries, she won't be waking me up at 3 AM to discuss a game

I really appreciate the advice, but can we please keep this discussion directed at "in game" related possibilities? I'm not a complete moron, just a slight moron...that's why I came here first

 

[Oryan77]

It was fun, but then I'm heavily into the roleplaying aspect of the game. I really think it would depend on the group.

It seems like the few people who liked the pregnancy in their game was also heavily into roleplaying. That's a good sign. That's why I considered this, because my wife really only likes the roleplaying part of D&D. She participates in combat but for her, combat is the downtime

So I think I'll ask her about this then and see what she thinks. I do plan to wait awhile before asking her though to see if she continues a relationship with this NPC. If he impregnates her, I want her to feel emotional towards him rather than thinking of it like a fling (since they just met). That would make him a more meaningful antagonist later on.

Thanks for all the advice so far!

 

[Elf Witch]

If you do have a pregancy in your game that does not mean the pC has to stop adventuring and take up knitting. As someone pointed out Xena kicked butt while she was carring Eve.

Unless the player wants to face the consquences of being pregnant like morning sickness and stuff like that you don't have to use it.

You can hand wave it away a lot like we do other things in game like having to go to the bathroom.

It is a game and you can choose just how much reality you want to add to the it.

 

[krissbeth]

If you do have a pregancy in your game that does not mean the pC has to stop adventuring and take up knitting. As someone pointed out Xena kicked butt while she was carring Eve.

Unless the player wants to face the consquences of being pregnant like morning sickness and stuff like that you don't have to use it.

You can hand wave it away a lot like we do other things in game like having to go to the bathroom.

It is a game and you can choose just how much reality you want to add to the it.

Hey, hey now. You can knit without being knocked up and while being a bad-ass warrior princess.

(Knitting needles are pointy, after all. "Hey, BBEG! I have a pair of Addi Lace Turbos with your name on them!")

 

[roguerouge]

Yes, it's silly for people to try to accuse me of ulterior motives. I'm glad that you know your SO well enough to know he's not a loon

For the record, that SO is... me: one of the people who suggested you formulate a response to the question of whether you have unexamined motives for finding this plot line so seductive.

 

[Oryan77]

You can hand wave it away a lot like we do other things in game like having to go to the bathroom.

Yeah that's exactly what I planned on doing. I was surprised to see someone question me about how I'd handle morning sickness & the munchies. I've never made her roleplay her menstrual cycle so I don't know why people would expect her to roleplay everything that comes with a pregnancy. It would be funny if she did roleplay it every so often, but we could hand wave it fine I'm sure.

For the record, that SO is... me: one of the people who suggested you formulate a response to the question of whether you have unexamined motives for finding this plot line so seductive.

Now that's funny man haha

Your own SO assumes you're better than that and basically thinks it's silly for someone to even question a DM thinking an in-game pregnancy as a plot device/character development might be an out-of-game motive

Honestly man, possible out-of-game motives never even crossed my mind. Everything I do in-game I do for the campaign and because I think it might be interesting for the storyline. I thought something like this might pull her into the world even more and make her PC seem more real to her. If I was a bad enough DM to have ulterior motives like that, I wouldn't have questioned my plot device and I wouldn't have come here asking for advice before doing it

 

[Graf]

It has potential to - in our campaign the party's senior druid once used both 'Fertilize' spell and that spell's reverse to impact the outcome where the King was sleeping with three women with plans to marry the first to give him a male heir - that druid is now the Prince's Godmother and is raising the child at the boarding school run by another of the playing charaters.

That is very cool. I somewhat inapropriately probably, presume that your group is older and fairly experienced? And you run fairly detailed stories with lots of continuity and at least some generational devleopment?

That's awesome stuff.
But the vast majority of games/gamers -don't- unfortunately include that.

If Oryan77's game does then obviously he's got a lot to play with. But if it's just like "fast forward nine months", "birth scene", "leave kid with grandma so we can go back to the dungeon" (maybe with a fight or roleplaying scene thrown in for good measure), which is what it would wind up being in most of the games that I've played in, then I'd tend to think that there's no reason he or she needs to have a pregnant PC.

Honestly?
Sleeping with a guy once (after 5 years of celibacy) and getting pregnant seems like it could stray slightly into moralization. You know, punishing someone for one "bad choice" that she didn't even know about.
I think you can get a lot of story millage out of "sleeping with Mr. Evil" without having to add a pregnancy. (See Also: Buffy)