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.
I've done it a few times before, but those players were usually kids themselves. It can be a handy way of integrating newbies into a group very quickly. The "kid" can simply be a 0-level man-at-arms or even a normal human equivalent who tags along with the rest of the group. The advantage of doing this with newbies is twofold: 0-level types are the easiest to play for beginners (no stats to worry about other than AC and hit points) and can be promoted to 1st-level PCs if the player wants to continue with the game. If not, the group will not have wasted a lot of time on a beginner PC that is only used once.
It was often a tradition among the ancient Germanic peoples, as well as medieval nobles, to send a youth to apprentice under a male relative on his mother's side of the family (a constant theme in Beowulf). The "kid" might simply be the nephew of one of the fighters (or especially knights/nobles/cavaliers) sent to learn the family trade. I always assumed this was what the 0-level cavaliers were.
Quote from: J Arcane;4467191) People tend to play children not as children, but as hideously irritating cartoon caricatures of children
To be fair so do most child actors. I've been watching the Robocop TV series recently. It's so much easier to get through all the cheese if you imagine Pudface smashing Gadget's brains out all over the police computer console.
Quote from: J Arcane;4467192) I hate children.
I'm with you there but look on the bright side. In RPGs you get to beat the crap out of them without being arrested.
Quote from: Benoist;446702Sure! 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.
Pundit actually specifically excepted the "all-children" game - it's why I didn't mention the "Midshipman campaigns" for In Harm's Way: Napoleonic Naval.
-clash
Quote from: Thanlis;446699(I owe Clash a review. Argh.)
That you do! :D
-clash
Quote from: flyingmice;446763Pundit actually specifically excepted the "all-children" game - it's why I didn't mention the "Midshipman campaigns" for In Harm's Way: Napoleonic Naval.
-clash
Oh! He did? Oh okay. :)
Well there's nothing wrong with having a kid in a group of Call of Cthulhu, or using the actual Kid template in Star Wars d6, is there? I've seen guys carry characters like this pretty well.
Quote from: Benoist;446786Oh! He did? Oh okay. :)
Well there's nothing wrong with having a kid in a group of Call of Cthulhu, or using the actual Kid template in Star Wars d6, is there? I've seen guys carry characters like this pretty well.
Nothing wrong at all. It suits some genres wonderfully.
-clash
I'm the player of Hamish Haldane in Vreegs Steel Isle game. I didn't actually chose for my PC to be that young, char gen is 100% random and I rolled the lowest possible age , 10+3d8 where I rolled triple 1s.
All that being said, I don't play him as ridiculously childish. He's a fairly sober and mature individual, he's seen and been through a bunch. But he's still got some youngster qualities, he's can be greedy, not use his common sense and is terrified of girls.
I think'd it be similar to people back in earlier generations who started working at 12 years of age, they had to mature a bit faster then current people do.
Wasn't Cybergeneration from R.Tal supposed to enable this in a big way?
I've seen it work well, and I've seen it be a disaster. It primarily depends on both the GM and the player. The players who seem to play "kids" the best are those who IRL work with kids, or are parents, or are kids themselves. I've played "kid" characters in Cthulhu by Gaslight, OWoD, and currently in a GURPS Horatio Clubish campaign. I've GMed it in a GURPs Marco Polo in Space campaign (suggested by Ed C/Koltar that went over well) and am currently planning it for a GURPs double blind Atomic Horror inspired/ Infinite Worlds crossover in the works. I've also seen it in a Traveller campaign. When it works, it's a fun addition, when it doesn't work it's very bad.
Quote from: thedungeondelver;446846Wasn't Cybergeneration from R.Tal supposed to enable this in a big way?
Yeah, you played a teenager. It doesn't apply because it was suppossed to be an all teenager group you were with. I think the main question is about mixed PCs who are children and adults.
Quote from: jeff37923;446853Yeah, you played a teenager. It doesn't apply because it was suppossed to be an all teenager group you were with. I think the main question is about mixed PCs who are children and adults.
Also, I wasn't defining teenagers as "kids" in my OP. I had specified "under 14s".
Anyways, the answer is no, I have never seen this work well.
Its always either:
a) creepy
or
b) annoying
RPGPundit
Quote from: RPGPundit;446931Also, I wasn't defining teenagers as "kids" in my OP. I had specified "under 14s".
Anyways, the answer is no, I have never seen this work well.
Its always either:
a) creepy
or
b) annoying
That's probably because kids of that age most of the time are either:
a)creepy
or
b) annoying
or both.
Quote from: RPGPundit;446931Anyways, the answer is no, I have never seen this work well.
Its always either:
a) creepy
or
b) annoying
Weird. I've seen it work without being creepy or annoying. *shrug*
Does a dragon hatchling count? Or only human children?
The dragon hatchling experience wasn't creepy, but was annoying. The player did inhale the scenery with all the subtely of a character in Tiny Toons the first time out. However, like most PCs, the characterization quickly dulled over time and became the player's actual personality (seriously - there's a reason most RPG players aren't actors).
IME, children in RPGs tend to get played as bad as people write children in most films - completely cartoony in behavior yet with the intellect of an adult.
Granted, children are creepy and annoying in real life. But not in the way they are displayed in most fiction (RPGs included).
To accurately roleplay a child, you need to mix in a Hollywood Retarded stereotype with a psychopath. That might get you the right mix of really stupid with cunning, combined with narcisistic and often quite mean but naively empathic.
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
Yes, actually. From long ago, late 80's.
A Hero System game(actually using the Danger International ruleset before it was fully merged into Hero) heavily influenced by Call of Cthulhu(books, not the game). The campaign was a Middle School/High School based game of "Monster Hunters" who actually hunted real monsters/weird happenings. Think the Frog Brothers from
Lost Boys. Wanted to be serious but a undertone of Dark Humor to it. It didn't last to long cause the GM moved away but it was fun. My character was "Weird Willard", a kid who was actually an orphan after his Uncle(only living guardian) died. Willard lived in his uncle's big house that was almost completely surrounded by a cemetery. He hid the fact that there wasn't an Adult in the House cause his Uncle was a known recluse living off an inheritance. The campaign started off with some weird creatures(Willard called them Goblins) were found digging in his basement... turned out they were some kind of Intelligent Zombies...
About half the characters were 13/14 the others of us were 15/16. Willard was the oldest. The younger characters though worked quite well...
Its only 'creepy' and wrong because adults shouldn't be playing children characters in an RPG.
The only children characters in an RPG are normally the NPCs played by the GM as they happen to occur in the campaign's ongoing events.
- Ed C.
I don't see why you should forbid an adult from playing a child if it fits the theme and that is what they want but clearly it takes a skilled roleplayer to play a child well.
In a 1930s Vampire the Requiem game I played in, a friend of mine basically played Shirley Temple as recently turned vampire. I was skeptical, but she made the character ludicrously fun, deadly and chilling in turns.
Mind you, she also made the character with the understanding that probably wouldn't come to a good end.
I've been in a ShadowGURPS game where one of the players portrayed a runaway kid from a rich environment who was also a mage. The character actually was a lot of fun, though the fact that it wasn't meant to be too serious or realistic has a lot to do with that.
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
In games where inhabiting the character is central to the experience I have seen awesome child character play. But someone who always wants to play the young adolescent or younger character in any game does make me uncomfortable.
Quote from: Koltar;447045Its only 'creepy' and wrong because adults shouldn't be playing children characters in an RPG.
- Ed C.
I've never seen it work out well, mostly due to the annoyance factor, but to say that it is creepy or wrong? How do you figure?
Quote from: Koltar;447045Its only 'creepy' and wrong because adults shouldn't be playing children characters in an RPG.
Why is it inherently "creepy" and "wrong"? You've never seen someone play with a "Kid" template in Star Wars d6, ever? How about someone with Down syndrome? I played a character with Down syndrome in a Call of Cthulhu game once. Is that inherently "creepy" or "wrong," too, though I actually knew people for real with Down syndrome and didn't use the character as some sort of way to make fun of handicaped people?
Is it wrong for me to play an addict in an RPG? Does that mean I'm inherently making fun of addicts in real life, no matter how seriously I might play the character?
How about women? I can't play women as a male player because if I do that'll be creepy and wrong
automatically?
How about playing an agent of secret services? Is that inherently wrong and creepy because I'm trivializing people who work in intelligence services for real and put their real lives on the line? No matter how believably I might want to play the character?
Fuck that!
It's only "wrong" or "creepy" if you suck ass as a role player and use these types of opportunities to wreck the game. It's the player's fault, and that is wrong, stupid, or creepy depending on circumstances, but that doesn't invalidate these types of character choices for other players who actually can role play them believably.
ITT: people engage in a notoriously futile activity.
Quote from: Benoist;447116Why is it inherently "creepy" and "wrong"? You've never seen someone play with a "Kid" template in Star Wars d6, ever? How about someone with Down syndrom? I played a character with Down syndrome in a Call of Cthulhu game once. Is that inherently "creepy" or "wrong"?
It's only "wrong" or "creepy" if you suck ass as a role player and use these types of opportunities to wreck the game. It's the player's fault, and that is wrong, stupid, or creepy depending on circumstances, but that doesn't invalidate these types of character choices for other players who actually can role play them believably.
Because he's Ed. All the testimony in all the world won't sway Ed, it's impossible. This from someone who genuinely likes Ed, BTW.
-clash
Added: Different people have different levels of tolerance about different things. I think these things may indeed be wrong
for Ed without being wrong for J. Random Roleplayer.
Quote from: flyingmice;447120Because he's Ed. All the testimony in all the world won't sway Ed, it's impossible. This from someone who genuinely likes Ed, BTW.
-clash
I too like Ed! :)
Sometimes I'm just not getting where he's coming from, though. This is one such instance.
Quote from: HombreLoboDomesticado;446936That's probably because kids of that age most of the time are either:
a)creepy
or
b) annoying
or both.
No. Its because people's motives are wrong. And they don't play them in a credible way.
I've seen a 16 year old trying to play an adult, and it is often kind of bad, because they have no context by which to effectively play someone in their 30s.
But its far, far worse to see someone in their 30s trying to play a 10 year old. What you get is some kind of absurd caricature.
RPGPundit
Quote from: RPGPundit;447130No. Its because people's motives are wrong. And they don't play them in a credible way.
I've seen a 16 year old trying to play an adult, and it is often kind of bad, because they have no context by which to effectively play someone in their 30s.
But its far, far worse to see someone in their 30s trying to play a 10 year old. What you get is some kind of absurd caricature.
RPGPundit
When I was in medic school, we had to read a bunch of crap about pediatric development, and then do some clinical time at Childrens' Hospital. I was a bit surprised by how little I knew about the cognitive development of children, how they act, or what you can expect from them. I don't see why that many gamers would know more about children than I do.
Maybe what people who seriously want to portray a child need to do is read a little on the subject first, just like anything else.
Yeah, I get that it doesn't usually go very well, and that playing a child well would take a skilled player. I have no real desire to play a child in any RPG (with maybe the exception of playing a weirdly adult child--like Alia from Dune). But I don't at all understand why it would be considered inherently or morally wrong. What gives?
Quote from: Benoist;446786Oh! He did? Oh okay. :)
Well there's nothing wrong with having a kid in a group of Call of Cthulhu, or using the actual Kid template in Star Wars d6, is there? I've seen guys carry characters like this pretty well.
I saw the Kid in Star Wars thing go badly, but it was ENTIRELY the GM's fault...to the point that he soured the player on EVER playing Star Wars again, under ANY GM.
Quote from: two_fishes;447137Yeah, I get that it doesn't usually go very well, and that playing a child well would take a skilled player. I have no real desire to play a child in any RPG (with maybe the exception of playing a weirdly adult child--like Alia from Dune). But I don't at all understand why it would be considered inherently or morally wrong. What gives?
Who said it was?!
RPGPundit
Quote from: RPGPundit;447284Who said it was?! [ considered inherently or morally wrong to play children ].
Koltar certainly, danbuter maybe, J Arcane said he never allows it, you seem to be skirting close to the idea that because it cannot be done, it should not be allowed.
Quote from: RPGPundit;447284Who said it was?!
RPGPundit
Ed did. (http://www.therpgsite.com/showthread.php?p=447045#post447045)
Quote from: two_fishes;447285Koltar certainly, danbuter maybe, J Arcane said he never allows it, you seem to be skirting close to the idea that because it cannot be done, it should not be allowed.
Not allowing something at your table is not the same thing as declaring it "morally wrong".
That's such an obvious false equivalence on it's face I'm surprised even you attempted it.
Quote from: J Arcane;447302Not allowing something at your table is not the same thing as declaring it "morally wrong".
That's such an obvious false equivalence on it's face I'm surprised even you attempted it.
I said morally or inherently wrong. That is, if not morally then in some other way inherently wrong. You don't allow it, you said, and (I presume) you must have a reason. I don't think it's a big leap to imagine that since you don't allow it, you must think there is something wrong with doing it. You're free to clarify your reasons for not allowing it. Same goes for danbuter. He said he doesn't allow it without giving any reason. I presume that's because he thinks there is something wrong with adults role-playing children that it should never be done.
Quote from: J Arcane;447302Not allowing something at your table is not the same thing as declaring it "morally wrong".
That's such an obvious false equivalence on it's face I'm surprised even you attempted it.
Actual quote: "
Its only 'creepy' and wrong because adults
shouldn't be playing children characters in an RPG."
That's what Ed actually said (link to the actual post is in my previous one). He did spell out that to him, adults should not play children characters in an RPG because it is creepy and (morally) wrong.
Quote from: Benoist;447307Actual quote: "Its only 'creepy' and wrong because adults shouldn't be playing children characters in an RPG."
That's what Ed actually said (link to the actual post is in my previous one). He did spell out that to him, adults should not play children characters in an RPG because it is creepy and (morally) wrong.
And that would be a fair defense if he hadn't dragged me into it.
As I said in my very post, I don't reject outright that it can be done, I just don't allow it, because experience has shown it unlikely, and so I'd rather avoid the trouble all together.
It's the same reason I don't allow chewing gum. There's nothing "inherently or morally wrong" about chewing gum, it's just thar experience has shown that it tends to wind up stuck to the underside of my tables, and that "gum mouth" is not conducive to clear communication.
Quote from: J Arcane;447308And that would be a fair defense if he hadn't dragged me into it.
Ah okay. You're objecting to Ed, you and danbuter being lumped together, while you actually don't allow children PCs for reasons that have nothing to do with whatever is morally right or wrong, but what actually works and doesn't work from your POV.
I see it now.
Okay, you don't see anything inherently wrong with it. Neverthless, there is at least one person in the thread who for certain sees playing children as inherently wrong, and perhaps a couple more. I still wonder why they think that.
Quote from: two_fishes;447311Okay, you don't see anything inherently wrong with it. Neverthless, there is at least one person in the thread who for certain sees playing children as inherently wrong, and perhaps a couple more. I still wonder why they think that.
Fair enough.
I can sort of see how it could be creepy if it's a regular pattern of behavior. I had a group of Changeling players in a LARP group once who persistently played horrible little kid characters and it struck me as an innate refusal to act like a grown human being. The fact that these were the same sort of grown women who still wore Pooh T-Shirts and collected Disney Princesses memorabilia rather reinforced that conclusion.
The 4channer in me also knows there's some /tg/ folk, particularly Maid players, who tend to take it in a creepy pedo direction.
I don't think I could see such faults as inherent to the concept though, more something I'd be concerned about if it was a regular pattern with a particular player. IOW, it's a player problem, not a problem with playing kids per se.
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?
The primary experience I had with it involved a player playing a child in a superhero game where the other PCs were adults and it was a problem because it made no sense to me that the adults would hang out with the child without their parents knowing, expose the child to all sorts of nasty criminal stuff, or continuously allow the child to put themselves in mortal danger. So before I'd consider playing in a game with another player playing a child PC, it would have to be a setting where putting or leaving children in danger (as opposed from trying to remove them from the action for their own safety) would make some sort of sense. Perhaps something like a post-holocaust setting with only a handful of survivors. But as a general rule, I'd prefer to not go there again.
Quote from: John Morrow;447333The primary experience I had with it involved a player playing a child in a superhero game where the other PCs were adults and it was a problem because it made no sense to me that the adults would hang out with the child without their parents knowing, expose the child to all sorts of nasty criminal stuff, or continuously allow the child to put themselves in mortal danger. So before I'd consider playing in a game with another player playing a child PC, it would have to be a setting where putting or leaving children in danger (as opposed from trying to remove them from the action for their own safety) would make some sort of sense. Perhaps something like a post-holocaust setting with only a handful of survivors. But as a general rule, I'd prefer to not go there again.
Or the super-hero genre, where putting children in danger is routine, in the form of side-kicks.
I take the bland and unhelpful position that there is no inherent problem in roleplaying a preteen character, but I do not recall having seen it done well.
Why am I remembering a 'boy mage' pregenerated character in the original B1 module?
Quote from: J Arcane;447302Not allowing something at your table is not the same thing as declaring it "morally wrong".
That's such an obvious false equivalence on it's face I'm surprised even you attempted it.
Quite, I wouldn't let someone play a gully dwarf either (to bring up a topic from another recent thread), but that wouldn't make it morally wrong, its just significantly disruptive.
Now a Gnome, on the other hand, THAT is morally wrong.
RPGPundit
An interesting factor in modern theatre production is that it is often far more cost effective to have adults playing children. Equity and it's equivelents across the civilised world have placed such rigid restrictions on child actors that for all but the biggest of stage musicals it isn't financially viable to have anyone under 16 on your stage.
Quote from: Benoist;447307Actual quote: "Its only 'creepy' and wrong because adults shouldn't be playing children characters in an RPG."
That's what Ed actually said (link to the actual post is in my previous one). He did spell out that to him, adults should not play children characters in an RPG because it is creepy and (morally) wrong.
Jeez I got 'out of town' for 3 to 4 days to a convention and then I get quoted or referenced for two pages.
Yes , I think its strange/weird and more than a bit odd for adults to play underage characters.
(morality wasn't really, technically the main concern)Teenage characters with MENSA-level intelligence or creativity might be alright for adults to play - but NOT characters under the age of 13 or so.
You might wonder about the motivation for that or if they are working out issues at the game table that maybe should be done elsewhere (at least not at the game table)
Whats wrong in their eyes with playing adult/'overage' characters ?
- Ed C.
Quote from: Koltar;447546Jeez I got 'out of town' for 3 to 4 days to a convention and then I get quoted or referenced for two pages.
Yes , I think its strange/weird and more than a bit odd for adults to play underage characters.
Teenage characters with MENSA-level intelligence or creativity might be alright for adults to play - but NOT characters under the age of 13 or so.
You might wonder about the motivation for that or if they are working out issues at the game table that maybe should be done elsewhere (at least not at the game table)
Whats wrong in their eyes with playing adult/'overage' characters ?
- Ed C.
Maybe they just wanna try something different?
Not everything is "working out an issue at the game table", guys...sometimes people just wanna do something different in a game.
Now if you have a player who ALWAYS wants to play a 7 year old, or a LesbianStripperNinja or what have you, there might be cause for alarm...but if you're putting a game together and someone goes "You know, I always play Big Damn Hero Paladins...think I wanna be a 10 year old, lovable scamp thief this time", I don't think it's a big deal...nor do I think it's a big deal if they're not 100% Authentic 10 Year Old...'cause they probably weren't 100% Authentic Big Damn Hero Paladin either.
Koltar - I'd like to believe that you have an argument, but you haven't presented it yet. You can certainly find examples of people role playing a character different from themselves for creepy/wrong reasons, but I submit that the extremely common case of a player playing a character who kills large numbers of sentient beings without being traumatized by the experience should be considered a much more worrying warning sign than a player playing a character who is ten years old.
Quote from: two_fishes;447363Or the super-hero genre, where putting children in danger is routine, in the form of side-kicks.
Generally speaking, in the supers genre kid side-kicks tend to be in their teens. And as I said in the OP, that's different from playing an under-13 kid.
The main difference is that an adult can basically get away with playing a semi-convincing portrayal of a teenager by basically playing him as an adult with varying degrees of immaturity (some teenagers are very immature, others fairly mature).
But you can't just do that extrapolated and end up playing a believable child; pre-adolescent children aren't like "immature adults". They're completely different.
Beyond that, the pragmatic fact is that players tend to play teenage characters that aren't just there to be utterly special-snowflake annoying fucks; whereas with kid-PCs that's almost always what you get. Barring those cases which are expressed by Koltar's complaints of "creepiness" (which are I think the considerable minority of kid-PCs), the vast majority of players who want to play child-PCs do so because it is a cheap way of demanding special attention in the game.
RPGPundit
I haven't encountered any players who wanted to play children. I have been in games where the PCs had to make child characters (such as a one shot horror scenario). It was effective in the later case (because we were at such a disadvantage), but it was hard to role play IMO.
I played a 12 year old super hacker in a sci fi game styled after cowboy bebop, it went well for the 10 or so sessions we played for. I can see how some people would take the piss with it though.