Discusion on how players of children should be selected

[Agar]

Children in cantr remains a hot topic, even though they've been accepted as a suggestion, people are still worrying about how they're going to happen.

Now, if you want to discuss about how children should result from sex, start your own thread. This is for disscussing how the players of children should be selected. Some players don't want to play kids, some people don't want other certain players to play kids, there are arguments for realism and fairness, there's lots to talk about.

To go into detail on the poll options:

All characters should start as children. That can't be applied retroactivly, so it would just mean all new characters would spawn as children from that time forth. No choice, everyone has to be a kid if they want to grow up. Much like real life.

Random characters should spawn as children. Just like some characters spawn being excellent fighters or poor farmers, characters could start at a younger age, randomly from 3 to 16 or so. Just younger. Different ages people become aware enough to be useful. Much like real life.

Being a child should be character creation option. When people spawn where they don't want to, they either suck it up, or try to die off. If someone spawns as a child and doesn't want to play one, they will be the most annoying, destrcutive, suicidal child ever, and that is in no way realistic. If you choose to play a child on your own, then you will play a child like children are, annoying and destructive, but rarely suicidal. Much like real life.

Players should be screened be fore being allowed to play children. Some people will play children simply to exploit the fact thier character is a child. Stealing, assaulting, disrupting the lives of characters and societies in game, just because they can. If players are screened with a survey of some sorts to deterimine if they can behave within reasonable limits, this will help curtail outlandish children. Children would be have with some manners, but still whine, beg, throw tantrums and pout. Much like real life.

Players should be nominated by other players to play children. This would be a peer system, where players would make it known who they would feel make an interesting child. Players could then spawn a child, or have the child spawned for them, that they would be able to play. How the player has the child act is up to them. They may wander off, talk to strangers, go places they aren't supposed to, poke lions, but it's all just how they would have the child act. Much like real life.

I'm sure someone else will have different ideas on how to get kids into the game (eggs ) so feel free to discuss them, but I can't add them to the poll. Vote and talk people.

[Racetyme]

It has to be a player choice, or I will never make another new character. I'm not kidding, I would hate it that much.

[SekoETC]

If my character had a child then I'd sure want to be someone who can play the role realistically. And you can't do that if you have no motivation for it. We can imagine spawned people coming from the space between locations, at least before free roaming is introduced. Since Cantr has had spawning this far, it would be irrealistic if it was totally replaced by an "all must start as kids" system.

I voted for screening people but how would you do it? If someone was known a lousy player, then they could be denied the option. But who defines what is a lousy player? Couldn't we easily lie in a survey and then go goof around and destroy someone's long-waited child with ridiculous goofing around? And besides if someone is known to be a lousy player then they would cause as much trouble as an ordinary newspawn as a child. In that case why let them play at all? I'm starting to question my vote.

Another thing you need to remember is that kids grow. If you start as a child, that doesn't mean you'll be stuck that way forever, and time goes surprisingly fast in Cantr. In a way some of my characters are still growing up in their thirties/fourties. They have many childish traits, blame the player or not.

[formerly known as hf]

I don't think screening or nomination is a good route to go down... We aren't screened to see if we can RP as 'adults' ?

It should be choice though - I wouldn't want to RP a kid, it just wouldn't appeal...

There are many more issues I have with children in Cantr - but I'll stay on-specific-topic

[Sunni Daez]

I think it should be players choice....as I don't wish to play a child...sooooo

[Missy]

As I don't have a problem playing a child but know that others would and would stop at nothing to sabotage them simply because they don't want them in game, I chose that people ought to have a choice.

Certainly then, even players who didn't want them could get them just to kill them and be asses, but I think there will be penalties for that just as there are when people get newspawns and kill them.

[Capt. Mobious]

I think it should be player choice. Have another radial button on the character creation page.

Is this new character a child (age 3-16) Yes or No.

What would be more difficult, I guess, would be the coding for who gets to raise the child. But that's a different thread. I'd say if Player X and Player Y decide they want to raise a child, then the next time a child character is created it will spawn in their location. My two cents. And yes, I know, this about the choice--not how it will be implemented. I'm simply trying to thinking coding wise.

And another nickel--no eggs!

[MakeBeliever]

I think it will be, get ready to see the first adoption agency or orphanage,
maybe kiddy workhouses get them working on the cotton looms early.

I think the option to play one would be better then joining a list of allowed players of kids.
Lets say you make this list, you get your first kiddy character, only to find
your parents have the RP skills of a Gnat.
Hmm who vets the Parents, thats what i want to know.
If it was a player choice then it would be up to you to thrive, learn or sleep till you drop, because your parents Sleep, Whisper and ignore your
cries for carrots.
Not to mention those lovely dreamy bedtime tales, of be good or i'll take you and leave you in Karnon Forest.
I can just imagine my married char going to an orphanage.
"we dont mind what our child looks like as long as they can do repairs and gather well"

[Stan]

Although I think being a child should be optional. Having one should happen randomly....I think. Maybe I should think more on it.

[the_antisocial_hermit]

Definitely should be an option...

Like it's been stated:

How can we decide who would be a worthy player that would be allowed to be a child? Who decides who's a good rp-er? Everyone has a different opinion on that.. Yada yada yada...

and then if the child's player is screened, the parents should be as well... and besides.. there's no screening or hand-picking when we decide to sign up now and get a random newspawn... all points that have been stated and I state them again because I think they are very valid and good points...

More yada yada yada...

[Nick]

Question; what if you play your own parent?

[Shaderon]

If I was to play my own parent I think I'd drive myself insane O_o.

I'd KNOW when I was going to do something unpredictable..... *whimper* NOOOO I don't want to play my own parent!!!! please!!!

I voted for screening but I don't think in the sense you mean, I would like character choice on children, but if enough viable complaints were made against a certain player playing non-real children (e.g. suicidal or just not getting the child bit right and cheating with it) then I think they should have the right taken away for a few months or forever. If it was for a few months it might enable people to watch how others play children and learn from that and try again.

[wulf]

It depends what children are going to be like but I imagine that the parent / child relationships are going to be quite important.

How about an option for a player to mark one of their available character slots as "child" (or, perhaps, "male child" or "female child"). They'd then be added to a queue of waiting children with the option of emptying the slot if they change their mind before being 'birthed'.

Back in the game, any two characters could subscribe to a special 'have child' project. The longer they keep the project going, the more chance they have of being assigned one of the waiting children. Since having a child is a specialised form of spawning, I don't see any particular reason for the parents to be male and female - two people with a shared desire to raise a child between them somehow affect the nature of things so that a being is prematurely spawned, becoming their child.

I'd also allow the parents to select a birth name for the child - perhaps the project could ask for "boy's name" and "girl's name". They won't be able to select the gender, whereas the child won't be able to change their name without roleplaying that through.

Of course, it will be very interesting to see how the notion of childhood develops when, unlike real life, it's not a compulsory stage everyone has to pass through!

Wulf

[El_Skwidd]

I think the implementation of children will add SO MUCH to Cantr, and I'm really looking forward to seeing it happen.

That being said, the player should choose whether they want to play a child. If some people that don't want to play kids end up playing kids, they're going to ruin the game. And I hate that. So, if you're going to be lazy, anti-child, or whatevery you want to call it, then you might as well not even try, or I'll... I'll... beat you up!

[Missy]

I wouldn't want to play my own parent. Then the child can never grow up un-influenced by the player. (Yes granted, childred are usually fairly impressionable and bound to love their parents almost unconditionally visa versa,) but parents still aren't the brain of their child visa versa. I'd want someone else to play the children, besides the parents of the child.