Pregnant Players & The Effect On Games

[GQuail]

One of my players played through most of the her pregnancies, we had to hurry the last two games to avoid an early birth. Her second child was born also early, and we dropped the last session from the campaign, handling it through e-mail instead. I advise ending at least a month before the birth, and doing one-shots or card games.

Yeah, this seems like the way to go. If nothing else, I live on the top floor of a four-storey block of flats - it's bad enough climbing it normally, let alone when you're carrying a passenger!

My Wife Adds:
Remember to celebrate the fact of pregnancy with her instead of moving straight to how it effects the group. She says she got tired/frustrated with peoples reacting based on how it would affect them.

I can appreciate that. While one of the first things I thought of was how it might affect the game (pathetic, I know!) the group all made a big deal orf congratulating and talking about it during the session, and game-effect stuff only game up a few days later - like I said, we've all been chums outside of the game, and a few have shared flats & stuff with each other so they're all pretty good mates. But yeah, I guess I'll have to be careful how I phrase it - I don't want to sound judgemental, like I'm blaming her for not consulting me!

This reminds me: when the lady in question said she was pregnant, it was in the middle of a fight and about two or three hours into the session - it came quite out of the blue. That doesn't excuse the first thing anyoen said, after stunned silence, being what one of my players said: "Um... is that in or out of character?"

 

[GQuail]

if you wish to game together it is inevitable that some people may have longer drives. We've always had players willing to travel up to 45 minutes away for games.

This is inevitable, yes, and to be fair I do travel roughly this far for another game I play in - every monday I go from Glasgow to Hamilton by train, which including the walk from either station to house is about an hour's journey. So it's not like I'm going into virgin territory!

The problem for me is more that when I'm running D&D I use quite a few books - books I like to reference between sessions. So I either cart them that distance every week (which is a bit of a pest without a car) or I leave them at the place i run from (and possibly have to invest in PDFs for using them from home). When you've gotten used to running from home pretty constantly for a few years, this isn't something that you have much patience for. ;-)

To be fair, three or four of us live very close together: chipping in for a taxi every week wouldn't be that expensive in that case. It's perhaps something I'll need to consider closer to the time

Well, I've known several groups where that works. For example, Piratecat's group always has two separate games going on simultaneously, playing each one every-other-week, with some players who only participate in one or the other. That also allows each DM an opportunity to also play. So if weekly is too much for this couple you might consider an every-other-week game including them and alternate with a second game without them.

That's a pretty smart idea, actually. I quite enjoy running other games besides D&D from time to time, and there's another player who's run games for us before as well - having a regular D&D slot at the couple's house and a rotating guest slot (even if it's just a card or board game night) at mine might be a good way to make the most of the situation.

 

[GQuail]

My feeling is that paternity/maternity will disrupt but shouldn't necessarily mean a permanent end to participation in the campaign. There are babysitters, if both parents play. There are evening games at their house.

Both have living parents and one has a stupidly large collection of brothers and sisters - I don't think they'd want for people who could babysit now and again.

That said, given how long your campaign has run, it might be a good idea to run a finale over the next few months. You should keep connections open to the new parents though in case one or both would like to rejoin a new game once things settle down.

I'm still a bit wary about running a finale in the time given, but at the same time it might be better than the game hitting a permenant hiatus it never recovers from. I'd prefer a good ending to a rushed one, but a rushed one might still be better than none at all. And as you say, either way, we'd want to keep in contact with them - they're friends I've known for about eight years, so I'd at least be visiting the baby every so often. ;-)

My girlfriend reccomended I probably should speak to the couple first alone, and then to the group as a whole - essentially, to avoid them feeling pressured by a group consensus to one thing they aren't comfy with. I'll see what they want first - although as CharlesRyan says, they've still got about half a year to go so they might not have given it all that much thought! ;-)

Edit: Breastfeeding - I'd recommend either do it discretely, which takes practice, or do it away from the table. It took my wife a few months to be able to breastfeed completely discretely.

Loathe as I am to get involved in what seems quite a heated topic - I'd be inclined to say much the same thing. If nothing else, the woman in question might feel a bit shy about doing it in front of us all at first - I'm sure with a bit of time, though, she'd get over that.

 

[Volsung]

While we haven't had pregnant players at our table, pregnancy and birth has had an effect on our game.

When my wife gave birth to our first kid, I wasn't able to work gaming back in for almost a year. Unfortunately, our group was so small at the time that it put the whole game on hold for the duration.

We recently had our second child, and my wife’s estimate of how long I'd be away from the table was three sessions (we play once a fortnight). I thought seemed a little generous and I was expecting a few months, at the very least. In the end I missed one session.

I think one of our player's actually gamed the weekend after his third was born.

If you're gaming with an infant around, two things jump out at me as issues: First, the game would likely be at the new parents' home, just for access the baby-stuff. And if they dislike having a cluttered place when company is over this could be a deal-breaker. Second, the infant's feeding schedule (or lack thereof) will certain pull the parents away. If their bottle feeding, it might be less of an issue as the task can be divided.

Children around, or even at, the table haven't been a really issue for us. Those of us that are parents have been pretty lucky with well-behaved kids. And those who aren't parents are pretty tolerant.

 

[ferratus]

Our D&D game took a hit because two people got pregnant at the same time. My wife, and another player's wife. So D&D became less common for a little while adjusting to the baby.

We tried playing with the baby in the room, but she was scared at one of our more jovial players. She also resented the attention her mother paid to the game instead of to her. Finally, she found it hard to sleep with strangers talking in the house.

So not only did my wife have to drop out of the game, the game was exiled from my house. Both myself and the other player with a baby had to miss more games, so we were effectively down 2-3 players.

It took some work to get it back together. We recruited another player and as the kids got older the other dad and I were able to play more often. If it wasn't for 4e giving the games something new, I don't know if we would have kept up playing.

 

[justanobody]

Sorry, I've got to go with Tewligan(a) on this one.

According to the situation you've described, either the woman was using the care of her infant as an excuse to flash her breasts,

Right, so it is always the guys fault(a) when a woman just slings her bare O_O's openly around huh?



If it had not happened prior to the need to expose them it might be a different thing.

 

[pawsplay]

Getting through the middle part of the pregnancy, the sleepy part, was rough, and sometimes one of the other players had to take partial control of my wife's character. But other than that, no big deal. We have three young children together, and I have a six year old from a previous relationship. The kids go to bed 9ish.

I think we took off about three months for each birth from the game. As for the breastfeeding thing, my wife is on our third, and if anyone is still uncomfortable with that, they don't show it. It's way less disruptive to have a sleeping, sometimes nursing baby at the table than for mom to have to get up and sit down to take care of the baby, and dad to also take turns with trying to get the little thing to sleep on the bed, etc etc etc. Let sleeping dogs lie, is what I say. People have often failed to detect when the baby is nursing anyway; it's not something that really shows a lot of breast. You might see a nipple now and then if you look the wrong way at the wrong time, but that's life.

The campaign I'm running has lasted two years now, from 1st level to 15th, with a number of player changes. The only PC that has survived the entire time is Max, my wfie's dwarf scout.

 

[GQuail]

Thanks to everyone who has replied thus far. I didn't realise how many "me too"s I'd get, but then, I should have - ENWorld's average age being what it is, we're definatly in the family-raising territory. :>

I've also been quite interested by the different stories - the people whose wives getting pregnant necessitated years away from D&D and other non-essentials vs the people who spent a few weeks chilling and then got back to business. It's definately something that varies a lot by personal circumstances, and not something that you can easilly guess before it occurs.

The key thing in a few people's stories, though, is that running a game with a baby really requires running in the house of that baby. That's perhaps the biggest shift my own game will need to consider. Also, it seems we need to clear up what our local etiquette is for breastfeeding.

 

[S'mon]

Right, so it is always the guys fault(a) when a woman just slings her bare O_O's openly around huh?



If it had not happened prior to the need to expose them it might be a different thing.

IME it's very unlikely a new breastfeeding mother is doing so in order to show you her breasts - her focus is on feeding the critter. It takes time and practice to learn how to do this with minimal or no exposure. Plus she's likely very tired and her sex drive low to non-existent.

Since some people (apparently including you) freak out at the sight of breastfeeding though, I recommend it be done away from the table until it can be done completely discretely.

 

[PapersAndPaychecks]

My experience with pregnant players--and pregnant DMs!--was, the game keeps right on trucking.

If you have the kind of players who'll freak out at the sight of a nipple, then you do possibly have an issue.