Pregnant Players & The Effect On Games

[GQuail]

Another topic related humorous story:

The single funniest moment in our gaming group did not occur as a result of a gaming situation but rather a snack at the table. In our household my wife and I can never agree on milk, as I prefer the taste of whole milk or 2% while she goes for the healthier skim milk. Consequently, whenever either of us uses milk in a recipe we use the kind that we prefer ourself.

One day, a few weeks after our daughter was born, she cooked up a batch of brownies for the weekly game. After they were served the group began to devour them, complimenting her on how good they tasted. She then said "And they're even healthy for you, because I made them with my milk." As everyone began to either gag or spit out their food she realized what she had said, and quickly explained that she meant skim milk.

That one did indeed give me a chuckle.

 

[talien]

Okay this is a true story.

When my wife got pregnant, we decided that her character would also be pregnant. However, circumstances being what they are in Arcanis, a human male (my character) cannot impregnate an elven female (her character). Which meant the child wasn't his. This had all kinds of interesting implications, since the two characters had an on-again, off-again relationship. I was at alternate times a player and a GM, but had switched to full GM duties at that point (thus my player was relegated to NPC for guest appearances only).

At one point, my wife's character refused to go through a magical portal (if I remember correctly... it will all be in my story hour) because it meant potential harm to her child. At that point we stopped the game for a moment and explained to everyone that her character was pregnant, and that she was pregnant in real life as well. To me, this seemed like a fun way to share our pregnancy with our friends.

The other players, all males, didn't say anything. They didn't manage to get out a congratulations, or anything. They were like, "Oh." And then we went back to the game and nobody mentioned it.

I expected your aforementioned "hugs, pats on the back, and general goodwill" but didn't get anything. Just a lot of awkwardness.

Once I realized that my wife wasn't going to be playing in the campaign any longer, I decided it was a good place to wrap up. We hustled to finish, playing the entire Black Sails of Freeport in the span of a few sessions, but we DID finish the game and (barring one character's loose ends) gave everyone a satisfying ending.

My advice: the first phase of realizing your campaign is ending is grief. But then you get over it. Then you start to really enjoy the idea of finality. This is the opportunity for heroic deaths, sad departures, and conclusions to storylines. At nine weeks pregnant, you've got plenty of time to wrap up before the baby arrives (although her tolerance will go down for sitting for long periods of time well before that).

To my surprise, being forced to do Black Sails of Freeport quickly was a blessing. It actually made the game much more interesting.

We finished the campaign, baby came, and then, three months later, I started up my D20 modern game without my wife. And everyone was okay with that.

 

[Olaf the Stout]

I don't know if announcing the pregnancy "in-game" was the best way to go about it. My wife wasn't a player but if she was I still don't think I would have made the announcement "in-game".

A lot of guys don't really know how to handle pregnancy stuff. In my group there was a divide. One of my players, who is married with 2 kids himself, was very interested and always asked my wife how things were going. Another player was very happy for us and also asked how everything was. Both of these players bought us presents when the baby was born.

The other 2 players said "congrats" and that was about it. Other than that they showed no interest whatsoever, even in seeing the baby after it was born.

So depending on what sort of people your players are, expect to get (possibly vastly) differing reactions.

Olaf the Stout

 

[GQuail]

I don't know if announcing the pregnancy "in-game" was the best way to go about it. My wife wasn't a player but if she was I still don't think I would have made the announcement "in-game".

I will confess that I didn't entirely appreciate it as a GM: we were in the middle of a tense combat which was all that keeping the team alert at a late hour, and it really stole my thunder. Selfish, I know, but that was one of my (many) thoughts.

I appreciate, of course, that it's hard to find time to casually drop in mention of something as big a deal as that. Still, I think something like that is important enough to warrant quite a bit of time, potentially - and for the sake of the mother, you don't want people half-distracted by thoughts of how that Bulls Strength changes their attack roll when you drop it into view. ;-)

A lot of guys don't really know how to handle pregnancy stuff. In my group there was a divide. One of my players, who is married with 2 kids himself, was very interested and always asked my wife how things were going. Another player was very happy for us and also asked how everything was. Both of these players bought us presents when the baby was born.

The other 2 players said "congrats" and that was about it. Other than that they showed no interest whatsoever, even in seeing the baby after it was born.

So depending on what sort of people your players are, expect to get (possibly vastly) differing reactions.

This is all very true. It's slightly different if you're friends outside of the game, but even then there's no guarantee everyone is going to light cigars and ask to come to the baby shower.

George Q