The Special Child

[Graf]

In HS one of our recurring (young insecure male) DM's various games invariably included a young attractive boy/teenager with special powers. Sometimes this NPCS was the "most gifted jedi ever" other times "he was a young mutant who could destroy an entire city if he wanted to" or even "the compassionate mage son of a powerful ruler of a megacorp". The character was usually successful with women without trying, possessed powers that were completely beyond the scope of the rules and generally fulfilled the other critria of an ego-gratification character.
I have to admit I recall those campaigns fondly, but like many things from HS games I'm glad to have left them behind. Or I had been, but....

The DM of our new game has recently and aggressively introduced a beautiful blond child, an orphan who appeared mysteriously and has mysterious powers. (yeah, I used mysterious twice in one sentence. It's that kind of character).The DM later announced this character was "very important to the plot" and explained that he was upset people hadn't cared more about the kid.* Which makes me wonder...
*Given the non-good player characters, the situation (in an entire village of slaughtered people whose bodies were growing much-higher-CR-than-our-party-monsters who had already wiped out the local authorities) and the deliverer of the message (a homocidial mage who had bushwacked us the day before) we weren't really going to drop everything to go hunt for the blond bundle of perfection.

Are these kinds of characters more common than I thought? Aside from Eddie Murphy movies, have other people encountered the special child?

 

[Teflon Billy]

I've crossed paths with it before (both of the examples you've given). The NPC Supercharacter is annoying and I have nothing else to add on that.

But as a Gm, I've used the "Special Child Who Needs Your Help" to poor effect in the past. I run generally pretty "Grey" morality games, so i don't know why this is a big shock to me

I still recall when the PC"s rescued a young princeling from the clutches of an evil orc tribe and immediately sold him to the (human) enemies of his father.

 

[Liminal Syzygy]

Hmm sounds like the Black Company and the White Rose. Maybe the DM is going with that theme.

 

[dave_o]

Hmm sounds like the Black Company and the White Rose. Maybe the DM is going with that theme.

That's totally what I thought. It just seems like your DM has done a half-assed job of showing how vital this little Dave (I'm blond and perfect!) is.

I mean, in the Black Company, the White Rose has an anti-magic field around her so strong that it can even defeat artifect level magic -- without batting an eyelash.

 

[Mark]

The DM of our new game has recently and aggressively introduced a beautiful blond child, an orphan who appeared mysteriously and has mysterious powers. (yeah, I used mysterious twice in one sentence. It's that kind of character).The DM later announced this character was "very important to the plot" and explained that he was upset people hadn't cared more about the kid.* Which makes me wonder...
*Given the non-good player characters, the situation (in an entire village of slaughtered people whose bodies were growing much-higher-CR-than-our-party-monsters who had already wiped out the local authorities) and the deliverer of the message (a homocidial mage who had bushwacked us the day before) we weren't really going to drop everything to go hunt for the blond bundle of perfection.

What? No unexplained tattoo/birthmark complete with cryptic omen in verse form...?

 

[Arravis]

I loathe stuff like this. It's why I actually interview people before they join our gaming group. Ugh...

 

[Henry]

Never used 'em. I have used "poor weak defenseless child needs your help," but I made sure there was at least two or three people with good alignment in the party first...

But I never needed "wish fulfillment" in my games, unless you count slaveringly wicked and depraved overlords looking to extinguish all opposition to his vile plans as "wish fulfillment."

 

[nimisgod]

I loathe GM's who use the special child all the time, especially so when the child is just an ego trip and not important to the story.

I admit though that I've used a similar concept once. An evil goddess disguised itself as a child in order to sneak into a holy city. She posed the role of the poor orphan who wanted to be the paladin's squire. She got in and some deicide followed.

Suckers. hehehe

 

[Aeolius]

In my current campaign, one PC is in possession of an unborn mechanatrix, suspended within the hourglass of an inevitable. The child is the offspring of the PCs grandmother, once a night hag but now an unliving spectral hag who inhabits a construct she alternately refers to as Grandmother Clock or the Iron Hag. The child is destined to become the Silver Sorceress, one of a number of powerful beings in my campaigns.

In my offline campaigns of old, my friends and I noticed that we always seemed to place a similar NPC, whom we began calling TOMOTS; The Old Man of the Scenario. Sometimes he was an ultra-powerful archmage, at other times he was an odiferous and supremely annoying (albeit powerless) beggar.

 

[diaglo]

this always reminds me of Cutter from CM3 Sabre River.