Romance happens pretty frequently in my gaming circles, and babies have cropped up a number of times over the decades.  The first time it happened to me as a PC was the result of a drunken post-adventure screw with another PC, and the two of us being aristocracy in a formal culture, we decided it'd be best to get married.  It wound up being a relatively happy marriage, and we handled our young son like most aristocrats do: nannies.

That's turned out to be something of the usual approach (and it's not as if most adventurers aren't loaded).  Another important factor's simply been plenty of downtime between adventures.

Quote from: kosmos1214;866063makes sense for pendragon

Makes sense for any long-term game where the PCs aren't playing Imperial Eunuchs in an ancient empire, you mean;).

I've seen a character or two get pregnant, but never an in-game birth, simply because of time scales.  Most RPGs I've played in or run have tended to cram adventures together back to back, with just enough time in between to heal up, so I can't recall any campaigns running more than several months in-game, and most less than that.

I'm currently planning a campaign that I intend to run on a time scale of "one adventure per season" or "one adventure per dX seasons", so I've been rereading Pendragon's "winter phase" rules to work out how exactly I want to handle things like births, aging, etc.

Quote from: nDervish;866118I've seen a character or two get pregnant, but never an in-game birth, simply because of time scales.  Most RPGs I've played in or run have tended to cram adventures together back to back, with just enough time in between to heal up, so I can't recall any campaigns running more than several months in-game, and most less than that.

I think this just must be a stylistic part of gaming circles.  The ones I've been in would find the concept of relentless action-action-action to be stultifying, quite apart from that the world turns around us at its own pace.  I'd consider a campaign lasting less than a couple of years game-time as an abject failure, and one of my two groups is currently at 16 years game-time and running.  (Interestingly enough, given the topic, with the lead PC's children now 14 and 10 years old respectively.)

Quote from: BedrockBrendan;866035Do your player characters have offspring? This has come up once or twice in my campaigns and I'm curious if and how other GM's handle this sort of thing.

Male PCs often have children by their NPC spouses. One female PC I can recall had twins, but the (male) player had already semi-left the game. No female PC of a female player has ever had offspring.

Yes, it's happened quite a bit. Gets handled like other things, mostly.  It can be handled by roleplaying and GM discretion, and how that works depends on the characters and the situations, of course (well, I say of course - I like games that make sense and mostly work like real life, when not involving fantasy races and magic - some characters have begotten or borne some interesting offspring). Some may decide to actually raise their children, which may change their "lifestyle" quite a bit (e.g. might give up habitual combat). Others may litter the world with bastards and perhaps do them  a favor by staying afield and getting themselves killed off.

It can also involve rules systems. (I have roleplayed with the author of Naughty & Dice as GM (she's a very good GM), though AFAIK the rules didn't get very crunchy, though I was tallying my PC's erotic experience.)

I have usually had game time passing at about 4:1 to real time, so it has been more significant for longer-term players (who can see children born in-game grow to adulthood).

In my Ars Magica campaigns, which in game time, went over a 50 year period, the PCs had kids and grand kids.

Definitely in superhero games and a few times in Legends of Five Rings, but I don't remember PC babies showing up anywhere else. Dead babies in PC backgrounds, but not living ones.

Outside of one L5R campaign, I haven't had a group very interested in RPing family issues and having them intertwined in the campaign.

Quote from: Ravenswing;866125I think this just must be a stylistic part of gaming circles.

Most definitely.  Rules play into it a bit, too (try playing an Ars Magica or Pendragon campaign without multiple years of in-game time passing), but I think group style plays a much bigger role.

Quote from: Ravenswing;866125The ones I've been in would find the concept of relentless action-action-action to be stultifying, quite apart from that the world turns around us at its own pace.

Interesting.  The world turning at its own pace is, in my experience, the main thing that tends to push for back-to-back-to-back adventures.  "We need to form an alliance with the wizard living to the northwest ASAP, but the orcs to the west are fortifying and we don't want to let them get any further with that than we have to.  Plus the trolls to the south might attack again at any time, so it would be good to launch a pre-emptive strike before that happens..." tends to make extended voluntary downtime seem unwise.

Just like in real life, I find PCs having children inconvenient. If one of my players would choose to go in that direction with his character, I'd be fine with it, but I'd make sure it'd be inconvenient for their adventuring "career". So far no one has ever suggested it, tough.

Quote from: AsenRG;866107Makes sense for any long-term game where the PCs aren't playing Imperial Eunuchs in an ancient empire, you mean;).

There are ways around producing offpsring that don't involve becoming a eunuch, you know.

Quote from: 3rik;866227Just like in real life, I find PCs having children inconvenient. If one of my players would choose to go in that direction with his character, I'd be fine with it, but I'd make sure it'd be inconvenient for their adventuring "career". So far no one has ever suggested it, tough.


There are ways around producing offpsring that don't involve becoming a eunuch, you know.

I thought about the inconvenience factor but honestly with the cash flow most adventuring parties have compared to other people in the setting, I'd think it would be pretty easy to hire people to take care of your children and make sure they have the best of everything. Of course depending on what society they come from and the setting, there may be social expectations that come with having a child and going off an adventure could be frowned upon. If family is considered important in the setting that might present some challenges depending on the particulars. But in terms of the inconvenience, it seems fairly easy for PCs to work around. I suppose when the children are old enough, mom or dad could always take them with them and show them the ropes.

Quote from: 3rik;866227There are ways around producing offpsring that don't involve becoming a eunuch, you know.

There are, but people, and by extension PCs, tend to eventually decide to produce offspring if they're able to;).

Quote from: AsenRG;866232There are, but people, and by extension PCs, tend to eventually decide to produce offspring if they're able to;).

Some cases make me wonder if it's really a decision rather than a conformist Pavlov reflex, but you're probably right. Still, in my experience players don't seem very interested in including it in RPGs, maybe because the game is a way for them to get away from their real-life offspring for a couple of hours.

Quote from: 3rik;866234Some cases make me wonder if it's really a decision rather than a conformist Pavlov reflex, but you're probably right.

Whether the decision taken by some people is due to conformism, to their enlightened decision, or anything else, is frankly a topic I'm absolutely uninterested in.
What I know that if I was a conformist in real life, I'd probably have had no kids. Luckily, I have a very unflattering opinion about the common sense of most people, so I'm a proud dad instead!

QuoteStill, in my experience players don't seem very interested in including it in RPGs,

Our experiences differ strongly on that account:).

Quotemaybe because the game is a way for them to get away from their real-life offspring for a couple of hours.

If that was true, it would make more sense that people who have real-life children would be less likely to have children in the game, and vice versa.
Since it's in my experience the exact opposite, I can only conclude your conclusion is untrue, and due to a previous post of yours, probably influenced by your real life views;).