Leaving aside for the moment those particular games like little fears where the PCs all supposedly play children, what do people feel about having some player wanting to play a child PC? For child, read, "under 14".  Have you ever actually seen this work out well?

RPGPundit

Quote from: RPGPundit;446679Have you ever actually seen this work out well?

RPGPundit

Not in thirty years.

Quote from: RPGPundit;446679Leaving aside for the moment those particular games like little fears where the PCs all supposedly play children, what do people feel about having some player wanting to play a child PC? For child, read, "under 14".  Have you ever actually seen this work out well?

RPGPundit

Nope.

Quote from: RPGPundit;446679Leaving aside for the moment those particular games like little fears where the PCs all supposedly play children, what do people feel about having some player wanting to play a child PC? For child, read, "under 14".  Have you ever actually seen this work out well?

RPGPundit

Yeah, I've seen it work out great, but I'm *really* picky as to whether I approve such a thing. The player has to be very clear as to why the character is a child and what they bring to the group, and it has to make sense with the game we are playing - playing a kid in a modern military game just would not work, but in a pulp game it could fit fine. It should go without saying that if I smell anything kinky it's out on its ass.

-clash

It could work really well in a Tough Justice game. Little street urchins, bootblacks, pickpockets etc feeding the barrister info. People tend to take less notice of children in those times.

I currently have 1 such PC, and have had 2 more in the past.

the Current one is Hamish Haldane, Boy Mage/merchant.  He's 13, about to turn 14.

I also had a pair of 14 year old PC's play a long campaign when they were supposedly still in school at the Collegium Arcana in Stenron, and much of the play involed their school time and their classes, as well as light adventuring, until they hit year 2, and were 15 yrs old, and actually did a little real adventuring.

Jailbait is the first named level for the stripper-ninja class.

Yeah, once. I played the char in question, and I did so only because the DM asked me to. It was the Dessinger campaign. Wayland Dessinger went from 8 to 18 over the course of the story before dying.

I have never done so myself but I suppose if you approach it in the right manner its possible to do

I've done it once, in a Shadowrun one-shot, and I talked about it with the GM and the other players first. Generally speaking I'm not a huge fan, and I think it gets harder to pull off if you're trying to do it in a campaign. Clash put it well. (I owe Clash a review. Argh.)

One of the unwritten rules in any game I've been involved in is no one is allowed to do this unless they are kids themselves.

Quote from: RPGPundit;446679Leaving aside for the moment those particular games like little fears where the PCs all supposedly play children, what do people feel about having some player wanting to play a child PC? For child, read, "under 14".  Have you ever actually seen this work out well?

RPGPundit

Sure! It can work really well. Now, whether we're talking of fairy tales gaming, Hogwarts-type games, and the like, you can have an campaign setup where the PCs are children and have it work great. It doesn't have to be creepy or anything. Same thing about having the occasional child PC amongst "adults" in a CoC campaign and the like.

I've had it work out neutrally. I'm not opposed to the idea, with the understanding that there will be drawbacks to being a child in a party of adults.

Seanchai

Quote from: RPGPundit;446679Leaving aside for the moment those particular games like little fears where the PCs all supposedly play children, what do people feel about having some player wanting to play a child PC? For child, read, "under 14".  Have you ever actually seen this work out well?

RPGPundit

Not once.  In fact, I've never even seen it not be ludicrously annoying.  

However, I'm willing to chalk this up to two factors:

1) People tend to play children not as children, but as hideously irritating cartoon caricatures of children
2) I hate children.

I think it is theoretically possible for someone to play a younger person without them being an obnoxious excuse for slipping a Kender into an otherwise Kenderless game, if they do not patronize the character and make it genuine.

However, I wouldn't allow any characters below the age of puberty regardless.  That way lies madness.

I don't mind kids for troubled wizards in rare magic games like Beyond the Supernatural. I also don't mind them for things like Vampire, where kids can be turned over. Anne Rice made that idea popular as far as I know.

You can have the same things in any magical setting really.

It hasn't ever happened, but I don't mind the idea of kids in science fiction that have adult reasoning and genius - like Ender for example.

I have has to slap down one or two people trying to emulate Japanese anime in one of my games by playing a magic girl. They always want to do it to emulate some t.v. troop, but then have to make Japanese kink jokes, which forces me tell them to knock it off, then run a game where it is PAINFULLY clear that everyone in the game world thinks of them as a plain little kid. If you kill the special snowflake feeling dead, people usually drop the kid characters.