I guess I've come into this discussion a little late, but I would like to add my two cents in because I agree as I think everyone here does, that RPing or not RPing babies is a major thing that must ultimately be resolved somehow, hopefully.
I'll start off by telling people where I stand on this issue. Firstly, I greatly respect people who are able to role-play out the birth and raising of a child, especially in community efforts such as in Longinazy or Siom. I put it in the same category as RPing out relationships in Cantr. Love cannot be programmed into the game, but players take it upon themselves to act out relationships between each other that the game does not provide rules for, and it is a successful and accepted thing because all party's involved are sentient players. The "Rub" obviously is that an RP'd baby in Cantr has no (what I like to call) soul.
People who RP babies are indeed roleplaying adoration and care for an artifact not of the programming design. I see no problem in the intention of such role-play, and I think those who do it are brave souls indeed, but you MUST be able to make it work.
I really would like to see it work. Honestly. But right now, with no foreseeable method of giving these children "souls" when they reach the magical age of 20, I have to cast a vote of concerned disapproval. What are the methods of giving the child a personality?:
Role-play the child as a grown-up?
-Impossible, creates an ethereal character, and no one in there right minds should want that.
Give the child's history to a randomly spawned individual?
-Possible... but lacks much sense and is incredibly dangerous, mostly for the people who have gone to such great lengths to give the child it's rich and well RP'd upbringing.
Do you give control of the new character to a player of one of its parents? It could possibly take forever to spawn a new character in the exact same city, or even region.
Maybe you put up an OOC notice (PLEASE READ: Any Newspawn want to be my kid?) I'm afraid that won't go well. You could easily get a bastard noob who takes your 20 cantr years of hard rp labor and flushes it by ignoring every thing you told him/her about the child's upbringing. (Hate to bring up Murphy's Law, but s*&@ happens.) What do you do then? Make an OOC announcment: (KAY, that really wasn't our child, just an insane person... now accepting new child applicants)
...I'm sure you get my point by now.
If there were a way to program in a successful system whereby, children are "officially" born, then that would immiediately solve this dreadful "you're insane, no you're insane" debate. (ie: they can be physically seen [She seems strong and is in her fourties. She wears a crown of woven roses, a wool dress, and is holding a child in her arms.])
The way I see it... the child should be an object, have a weight (which should get larger as time passes) and should be in the possession of somebody at all times until a certain age (let's say age ten, arbitrarily). (For those who need a RP reason for needing to "carry" a ten year-old child: think of it as the child NEEDS supervision until this age, and therefore is enough of a hassel as to encumber the person watching over it)
After age ten, the child should be roleplayed, by a human player. From a role-playing standpoint, this is the age when identities begin to be formed. A child under twenty should have limitations. It should deal half-damage with all attacks. Shouldn't be able to use shields. It's weight limit should be significantly reduced...yada yada yada.
In othere words: children should have enough limitations so as to turn away power-gamers. Those individuals who are in this game purely to get a saber/crossbow as soon as possible. A person should be able to control one child character at a time, and there should be a separate button on the mainscreen for this.
When you make a new character, you can sign up to play a child in the same way as you choose which language area you want to be in. If there aren't any children at this point, oh well, play normally or keep a character slot open.
I'm not a programming wiz, but I feel like they've made Cantr so well, I'm sure they could tweak it enough to accomodate these ideas.
I'm not sure if this post should go into suggestions. But I was inspired to write it from this topic, so do with it what you will.
Respectfully,
~AoM
