Pregnant Players & The Effect On Games

[Rel]

Maybe it's because I'm married and I don't know most of my players that well, or just that I'm easily distracted, but at the game I don't like to see my female players' legs, never mind their nipples! I remember one time a player turned up in a short skirt and threw me off my GMing quite badly. Baggy t-shirt & jeans is good.

I can tell that all of those words are english but put together like that I can't make sense of them.

 

[Mark Chance]

Given my group's "no girls allowed" policy, I imagine one of our players turning up pregnant would disrupt the game quite a bit. Fortunately, we continue to dodge that bullet.

 

[Silver Moon]

My wife suggested that I add this story to the thread:

When Kriskrafts was eight-months pregnant we went to a Gaming Convention. She's short, and as such the baby went way out, so she looked past due. The evening game slot rolls around and she's signed up for a Call of Cthulhu game, and the Gamemaster turns out to be a paramedic. About half-way through she starts to get Braxton-hicks false labor contractions, making the GM think she had gone into labor.....it's the only time that I know of in the history of C of C when a player terrified a Gamemaster instead of the other way around.

 

[Olaf the Stout]

Father of a 13-month-old girl here. My wife is a non-gamer so the pregnancy itself had a relatively small impact on the game. I am the DM of our group so the game went on hiatus after the baby was born. I had about 2-3 months off before we started playing again. I had the group around to "meet" my daughter and play some board games in this time but that was about it.

We play at my house so when we started again there wasn't any need to move the game. We only play once a fortnight so that also made getting back into gaming a bit easier. I don't think the wife would have been so keen if it was once a week.

As a newborn my daughter slept quite a bit so looking after her at the table wasn't an issue. We weren't overly quiet when we played but she seemed to sleep through it all anyway. Personally I wanted my daughter to get used to sleeping with a bit of noise going on, otherwise it would be impossible to get her to sleep when we were out anywhere.

Now that she is 13-months-old it is a bit more difficult. She likes hanging around the table when we play and is always trying to grab my books off my side table. Overall it's still fairly easy. It would be a bit more difficult if my wife also played in the game or if the game was at another player's house but I think it is still do-able.

As for the breastfeeding issue, I don't think it is a big deal. My wife was quite self-conscious about it when she first started feeding and would try and be as discreet as possible. Sometimes it's not always that easy though as babies don't always want to cooperate. If someone can't control their hormones enough to be polite and not stare I think they have bigger issues than what can be dealt with in this thread.

Olaf the Stout

 

[S'mon]

I can tell that all of those words are english but put together like that I can't make sense of them.

That's odd. I doubt it's the composition, perhaps the sentiment does-not-compute for you?

 

[S'mon]

If someone can't control their hormones enough to be polite and not stare I think they have bigger issues than what can be dealt with in this thread.

I don't like this attitude any more than I like the reverse "omigod she flash her boobies at me!!!". Clearly many men, especially younger men, are unable to not stare, and this is not a pathology. It needs to be taken account of.

 

[Rel]

That's odd. I doubt it's the composition, perhaps the sentiment does-not-compute for you?

Yeah. Congenital defect of mine.

Incidentally, your post above reminds me of one of the hazards of the ENW/CM GenCon games: You'll be GMing for beautiful women. And many of them pick that week to wear their favorite corsets. It's a challenge but I'm up for it.

 

[GQuail]

Incidentally, your post above reminds me of one of the hazards of the ENW/CM GenCon games: You'll be GMing for beautiful women. And many of them pick that week to wear their favorite corsets. It's a challenge but I'm up for it.

It's a tough job, but someone's got to do it!

Now that I think about it, I've GMed for some pretty ladies over the years, but none of them were wearing anything particularly silly at the time. Perhaps I should impose a corset-quota before I'll continue my game. ;-)

 

[Mercule]

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.

Bull. We traveled just fine with two kids. Get a Pack-n-Play. At a certain point, yes, you need to make arrangements, but the first year is a breeze. I'm not saying the parents should be inconvenienced, just that moving the game isn't a requirement. We had a "play at the DM's house" table rule and kept it. Fortunately, the DM also had a kid-proofed house (that's a side note, BTW), so we were able to continue gaming at his house for some time. I took over the game before child #3, so I can't tell you how that would work, but I suspect not as well -- both because of number and the age of the eldest.

Also, it seems we need to clear up what our local etiquette is for breastfeeding.

We've always played in an area that had a couch. My wife would sit on or behind the couch, facing away from the group while she fed. A certain amount of that was because it would have been understandably distracting to the 17 year-old male (among others) in the group, but it was also due, in part, to her own modesty and babies feed better when there isn't a bunch of movement around them.

 

[GQuail]

As a newborn my daughter slept quite a bit so looking after her at the table wasn't an issue. We weren't overly quiet when we played but she seemed to sleep through it all anyway. Personally I wanted my daughter to get used to sleeping with a bit of noise going on, otherwise it would be impossible to get her to sleep when we were out anywhere.

That's something worth considering. Being paranoid about helping the baby is no use if it actually makes life more awkward for the parents, who want a child capable of dozing through a D&D combat.

Given my group's "no girls allowed" policy, I imagine one of our players turning up pregnant would disrupt the game quite a bit. Fortunately, we continue to dodge that bullet.

Not only that, but I bet no-one ever has to make a Fort save vs Cooties!

Unless anyone knows Contagion, I guess...

My wife suggested that I add this story to the thread:

When Kriskrafts was eight-months pregnant we went to a Gaming Convention. She's short, and as such the baby went way out, so she looked past due. The evening game slot rolls around and she's signed up for a Call of Cthulhu game, and the Gamemaster turns out to be a paramedic. About half-way through she starts to get Braxton-hicks false labor contractions, making the GM think she had gone into labor.....it's the only time that I know of in the history of C of C when a player terrified a Gamemaster instead of the other way around.

That made me laugh. There's nothing that terrifies men quite like women goin g into labour.

No player has a nipple I haven't seen.

Just last month, I was roleplaying a drugged Half-Orc doing a sort of vision quest to my group, and lifted my shirt up to show the left side of my chest. This got an awful, awful, lot of negative reactions from the players - after all these years, we still can't handle each others skins. It'll be a decade or two yet before they can handle another nipple, I fear!

To be clear, I don't think this is necessarily true in the case of an infant. We gamed at our friends' houses all the time when our first child was less than 6 months old. They're pretty portable, they spend a fair amount of time sleeping, and they're immobile--spread a blanket on the floor and give them a few toys, and you're good to go.

Once they hit about 6 months of age, and can sit up and scoot around, your problems multiply and you probably will need to play at the parents' home.

I see what you mean - although of course, since first-time parents might not be in much mood to travel for the first few months, it's not necesarilly a huge boon. Still, I can see what you mean when you say that the baby's increasing mobility requires a more child-proof house later on.

The big issue I'd have with having a kid round is I live in quite a small flat (my girlfriend and I share it, but it's really just sized for one) and it's cramped enough with all eight of us there. Space for a baby to stretch out or sleep is going to be difficult to arrange in the actual game area.