Babies and children

[El_Skwidd]

There you have it, as told by Seko.

And now you know.

[wichita]

Can we please sticky a link to that post? *hugs Seko*

[SekoETC]

Aww come on, it's just a matter of seconds umm minutes umm hours before CD comes down on me like a hungry pack of wolves because I said PUSSY! It's not quite appropriate but it's realistic. And sure caught your attention.

[Ramidel]

Okay, to sum up my opinion on the arguments presented:

First, I'm probably someone who might not like the idea of playing a baby, don't ask me why. But, I'd go further on the toggleness, due to the baby-time problem.

Allow newspawns as many slots as they want. (Relax, I'm slipping in an incentive for babies here...) However, newspawns have the experience and skills of a ten-year-old...they're the non-bright part of the society. Here's the breakdown (this will be coding hell...):

"Babies" are pure object. They're heavy, a female must breast-feed them (causing hunger and tiredness) or they must be fed mush. They die easily. They are prime targets for infanticide in hard times, which is as simple as placing them on the ground and waiting a couple of turns (exposure). They reach age three in a year.

Kids from 3-8 are Children. They may be played by players who opt for this age category, or they may be objects. If they're objects, they are "carried" weightlessly (but slow movement by half) and may be assigned to work on (but not start) projects (at about 1/4 the speed of Average Newspawn, since I'm not an expert on what that means, I'll leave it to the professionals to determine a child-object's skill level). They consume from their owner's food supply (half-amount). They die easily. They age at double-speed. They can survive being left on the ground.

If taken over by players, they have 1/2 a newspawn's skills but learn skills at 4x adult speed (yes, 4x). These are the Ender's Game geniuses with IQ 150+. (Bean from Ender's Shadow doesn't exist, sorry.) They are weak and die easily, and function at half their actual skill level (which can still be quite impressive...), and have halved carrying capacity. They move at half-speed and eat half an adult ration, have half-strength. May use tools and machines. Expect the Empire of Lad to order the execution of children "possessed by demons." They age at normal speed. (Inconsistent? Deliberately.) They may be dragged by one person.

Ages 9-14 are Young Adults (I would say Teenager, but wrong connotation). May be objects or chosen by players. If objects, they're carried weightlessly and slow movement to 75%. They may be assigned to assist projects at half-speed and eat an adult ration, and don't die that easily. They can be given stuff to carry (75% adult capacity) and use tools. Age at double-speed, and vanish at age 15 with all they're carrying. Don't die so easily.

PC Young Adults, if starting at that age, get 3/4 a newspawn's skills. Young Adults learn at 2x adult speed. Move at 75% speed, have 75% strength, eat like an adult, function at 75% effective skill.

Age 15: You're an adult. Enjoy 5 more years of adult life than a newspawn.
Age 20: Newspawns start here.

When picking your character, pick your life stage as well as sex.

As to sex and making babies: I'll present two ideas. One's an academic suggestion that may be worth spinning off into another thread (but is not useful in an unrefined state), one is my temporary real idea. (Fake) apologies to all and sundry who may be offended by any mention of particular modes of sexual activity ^_^

Academic and theoretical: Sex is another need for all adults, resulting in decreased functionality if not performed regularly. The sex act may be performed homosexually or heterosexually between consenting adults or (possibly) a consenting adult and a captive adult (while it is possible IRL to have sex with someone under 15, we'll avoid discussing that further to avoid legal entanglements and general ickiness. Heterosexual anal and oral sex may also be an option for filling the sex need). Heterosexual intercourse, if no contraceptives are used, has a random chance of getting the female pregnant (pregnancy lasts 15 days and is a pain on tiredness). Homosexual couples may feel free to adopt.

...now, while it is true that most adults would qualify as "needing sex," it's too far from a universal and spins things away from realism, given the small but statistically significant number of lifelong virgins who are quite happy with themselves. A "fun" need may be possible but that's for another thread (and may include heterosexual nonreproductive sex). (I think I'll spin that off somewhere, another time.)

The real idea:
Nonreproductive sex is RPed out if the players care to. "Reproduce" is a command requiring two opposite gender adults (consent requirement discussed above). Pregnancy as above. Once more, any homosexuals who want a cute widdle beast of doom may feel free to kill the former parents and take the baby...or just adopt the nice little child.

Comments? Questions? Flames?

[Sho]

Good, solid specification - one of few I've seen for the implementation of children.
I'm not sure about the division between played and automated children, and the large amount of automation this leads to, but it may well be that we need this sort of incentive to make babies popular. The obvious danger is that everyone starts making dozens of babies and using them in child labor factories, while nobody plays any of them. Balancing babies created and babies played is going to be difficult.
One technical problem: What happens if a child reaches age 15 without being taken by a player? Do they just stand there?
One RP problem: What is a mother going to think if her passive labor-saving device (even if the player makes an attempt to RP it as a real child) suddenly becomes a conscious individual? Also, how will this be handled interface-wise?

But overall I like this.

More comments to come soon after I eat dinner.

[wichita]

I like it. There could be some tweaking, and the transitions will prove to be awkward, but overall I think this is pretty much how I would like to see it handled.

As for baby labor factories, I think that is an in game societal aspect to be explored. It will be interesting to see what happens. Having the effects on movement and tiredness will provide a nice con to procreation for a lot of players. Given the right level of effect, I think it might be effective in preventing abuse of having lots of babies.

As for the what will happen to unclaimed 15 year olds idea, I think if we just go without the option to take a fresh newspawn, we will be doing alright.

The biggest downside is what happens if your child is suddenly given over to some jackass Mike Jacobs type of player? It will be devasting if Chauncey and Bessie get to spend all of this time raising their little baby together, only to have it turn 15 and say: "scroo u gyz this game sux" then punch everyone and grab all the notes. Of course, that does have an element of real parenting experience to it I suppose.

[Crosshair]

Owch... well as i said, a new player should not be given the option to do such a thing... only experienced players who actually send an email to ProgD expressing that they would like to be a baby charry should get the choice. Suicidal newspawns is one thing, but anything else that actually takes time and work on other players parts shouldn't be tolerated as something to just throw away.

[Hellzon]

As for the what will happen to unclaimed 15 year olds idea, I think if we just go without the option to take a fresh newspawn, we will be doing alright.

Brr. I don't like the idea of forcing people to play a kid, rather than have it as an option. Besides what if there are more players than "unclaimed" children? (Like, say, around christmas.) Then you get the opposite problem.
Personally, I vote for unclaimed 15-year old to just "zone out". Perhaps go into stasis (hanging around as a non-aging, non starving, non-productive "man in in his twenties" until someone wants to play a new char (giving villages that spend time making babies a population advantage). Or just disappearing.

...now, while it is true that most adults would qualify as "needing sex," it's too far from a universal and spins things away from realism, given the small but statistically significant number of lifelong virgins who are quite happy with themselves.

Not to mention the multitude of singles who do just fine with Mister/Miss Right. The sex need doesn't require two people to fulfill, ya know.

/Hellzon - sure uses a lot of twisted smilies today...

[SekoETC]

Ahem, I'm sure most 15-year-olds believe to be totally capable of surviving on their own, to be smarter than adults and since there are so many teenager players, it might even be easier for them to play a 15-year-old than a 20-year-old. They might be a tad weaker in the average but other than that there wouldn't be limitations compared to current newspawns.

The only reason for newspawns today being 20 is that it's a nice round number, and you don't need to worry about the maturity issues, like how to deal with stupid kids - it says 20, therefor they can be trialed as adults. And probably also to avoid charges of child abuse if someone was playing a 15-year-old and wanted to play sex with an older character. It's all off-game influence.

Another game I once played, called Survival of the Fittest, allowed choosing any age between 15 and 60. But there were people hunting down and killing all the young ones, telling them OOC (there really was no IC communication) to start off as 60-year-olds since those get the best skills.

In Cantr, once kids are implemented, we don't have to go along with real life views of how fast kids grow and what skills they have. I think "babies" would be allowed to walk and talk right from the start, even though if the player so wishes, they may rp a learning process for how long they like. Children would start with high restrictions and would be very much dependant on the aid of their parents / other elders, but there should be given enough room for trying things so that people wouldn't get bored of playing.

Some suggestions for limitations I've said before but feel like repeating:
1) Children could be picked up by adults.
- While placed in someone's inventory, the child can still see the events and communicate, but they couldn't move independantly or deal with projects.
- The child would have a button for squirming free, the chance of success determined by his/her age, tiredness level and the carrier's tiredness. Every attempt increases tiredness slightly, waiting lowers it.
- The carrier would gain tiredness determined by the child's weight. (And kids would gain weight while they grow, therefor the older the kid, the harder they are to carry.) When/If tiredness reaches 100%, the child is automatically dropped.
- The previous point probably leads into that kids could not be picked up at all once their weight goes over 15 kilos, which happens... damn the kids these days, they're so skinny. Ok, it might be very much dependant on how well they're fed. I'd think it would be better in general if being over-burdened would become an option, just like in Nethack, only that it slows down travel speed and increases tiredness.
- A fun twist to this I just thought of... since the child is in someone's inventory, they could take things and/or drop them on the ground. (But see number 2.)

2) A child's inventory is not untouchable
- The younger (and weaker) the child, the easier it is to take items and resources from them. While the person grows, "stealing" from them would turn ever harder. This is a thing that I'd like to extend to adults as well, exept that in their case the chances of success would be much more limited, say, 5%?
- Attempts would increase tiredness on a rate determined by the target's strenght, therefor they would be effectively limited.
- For "babies", age 1 (in the beginning the baby would be automated), taking things from their inventory would succeed automatically and add no tiredness.

3) Inventory size is limited.
- Babies would start from less than 1 kilo and it would then increase exponentially, max capacity reached somewhere between 12 and 15 years of age. A 7-year-old could carry max 4 or 5 kilos, maybe that can give some direction to how the arch goes.

4) Newborns are NPC-entities.
- The period of automation must be less than a month real time, this to avoid frustration by the players of parents. This avoids the heart-ache of raising your kid for 15 years only to find out the player is an idiot.
- If there are less players willing to play children than there are babies in game, this is naturally solved by a higher child mortality rate.
- A baby should get a player somewhere between the age of 15 to 30 days. Babies that haven't found anyone to play them die naturally in the end of this period, but may die even sooner if the amount of willing players has been low lately.

[Ramidel]

I think I said this in my idea...

"and vanish at age 15 with all they're carrying." The "become newspawn" option also works.

Anyway, as for baby-factories...Historically, IRL, that's what children were: economic assets of their parents. There will be random babies turning into independent little critters who do things for themselves, such as take over the world at age 11, and players who make babies just to see them turn into independent kids who don't love mommy anymore might be an eye-opener.

Also, NPC babies become stealable objects. You know, so those Amazons can steal girl babies to adopt into the clan. So there could be an industry in kidnapped baby slave labor.

[UloDeTero]

Since babies and children are basically useless until about 15 or so, and are merely learning about the world... How about making it so that child characters are only created by those who want to learn another language. Say an English speaker wants to learn Esperanto. He creates a baby character in the Esperanto section, then he has 10 Cantr-years of pure learning and observing what happens around him (he can talk and move around, write things, etc). After 10, he can work to a limited degree while still learning. Then after 15, he becomes a full citizen (ie: full work ability). He can still learn since his fellow Cantrians teach him anyway, not any kind of game mechanism.

Quick calculation:
10 Cantr years = 200 days
15 Cantr years = 300 days

So that's basically a year he's had to learn a new language, and of course he'll still be learning all his 'life', just as we all do, but this will give him a good head-start, and gives him something to do in all those formative 'years'.

The only problem is that people most likely won't want to learn a whole new language with every new character, and therefore babies could become quite rare.


To change topic slightly: Instead of characters just inexplicably dying when people get bored of them or whatever, how about if the character goes into a 'coma' and then gets taken over by a different player? The different personality is easily explained by the coma!

[Pie]

topic slightly: Instead of characters just inexplicably dying when people get bored of them or whatever, how about if the character goes into a 'coma' and then gets taken over by a different player? The different personality is easily explained by the coma!

Ah... hehe.... no.

[Coramon]

Yeah the above idea would ruin Cantr. People would come in and take power after a day of playing.

4004-4: You see Town Leader say, "hello im back from a coma, and i'm here to rule ur town. so listen to me and give me some food because im hunry."
4000-4: You say, "I wonder where John has been lately."
3983-3: You see Town Leader say, "For those of you that don't know me I'm John Green the local Town Leader. There is a new law that no one will be able to make Iron in this town without my specific consent. Thankyou."

Number 222 and I'm in a shoe!

[UloDeTero]

Pie: Your comment is not helpful.

Coramon: I disagree. I don't think it would ruin Cantr so much as change it slightly. People would have to figure out how to deal with sudden personality changes (which do happen).

Apart from anything else, the new player wouldn't know anything about the character's earlier life, and would rely on the people around him to tell him who he is/was. And unfit leaders can always be deposed and replaced, especially after "health issues".

Presumably, though, this kind of changeover wouldn't happen very much anyway, because 'cancel requests' don't happen very often. (Though I may be wrong...)

[Coramon]

They can't necessarily be disposed of. In many towns there is one charachter with a steel sword, and shield. And 5 other newspawns with boneclubs. That's a really dumbas.s Idea.