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So my group and I have finally gotten around to running Burnt Offerings (RotRL 1), and we're still quite close to the beginning.
So, the players rescue Aldern Foxglove quite handily, and afterwards he bows and kisses the hand of a lovely young lady in the party, and heaps largely undeserved praise upon her, in what I as the GM at least thought was a mildly creepy manner.
The thing is, the girl who was the recipient of the flattery not only basks in the creept flattery, she likes it so much that she shows up at the Rusty Dragon that night, before even the boar hunt (which we'll be getting to this Saturday), and has her way with him, so to speak...
SO, I'm just wondering how or if this might affect happenings in The Skinsaw Murders? I mean he's already going to be obsessed with her, but I'm trying to decide if he might get even more personal then he already is supposed to be. For example, there's actually another NPC that she's set up as a long time friend and occasional love interest, and my first thought was that he'd logically be one of the Skinsaw Man's first victims...
Anyway, I was just wondering if anyone had any thoughts on how the weird acceleration of the relationship might affect things, game-wise...
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I've seen several references around the forums to games where something like this has happened. My impression is that it doesn't change much except that the betrayal will be all the nastier when they figure out who is behind the killings.
I could easily see him killing the other NPC, but it may not be obvious that he has done so unless the NPC is the greedy sort and actually earns the sihedron rune. I suppose if the other NPC rises as a ghoul it might be a different story, though...
Also, you really should have [SPOILER] in the title of this post.
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When he returns to Magnimar, I would play up his promises to see here again soon - "Parting is such sweet sorrow," sort of thing. A promise to write perhaps.
Maybe even have a letter in which he does write back just before he leaves Magnimar saying he plans on seeing her in a day or two.
Then nothing. She probably thinks hes been hurt, killed or something.
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Well maybe he will write her. As he does leave nasty notes on his victems. Perhapse in a way, unknown to even himself, that is how he writes to her. I also personally enjoy the idea of a PC getting pregnate by him, and the role-playing it would envolve.
"Mommy where's daddy?"
"Dead."
"Why?"
"Because he tried to eat mommy, so I cut his head off."
"Oh.....can I go outside and play?"
"Of course honey"
*Kid goes out and kicks a strangly humanoid looking head arround like a soccer ball.*
Oh crud, think I just gave Logue or Pett ideas for another adventure. James start your Editing.
Somebody else dealt with this by having the PC get pregnant; super-mega betrayal by Aldern!
Making a PC pregnant can really wreck a game for a player. It's more likely than death to sideline the PC permanently, in some ways. I suggest that you make sure your player will be okay with this plotline before springing it on him/her.
Making a PC pregnant can really wreck a game for a player. It's more likely than death to sideline the PC permanently, in some ways. I suggest that you make sure your player will be okay with this plotline before springing it on him/her.
I agree with Tbug. "Get the PC pregnant" looks good on paper, makes sense from the point of view of a novel, but rarely goes so well in the actual execution of a game.
I agree with Tbug. "Get the PC pregnant" looks good on paper, makes sense from the point of view of a novel, but rarely goes so well in the actual execution of a game.
Making a PC pregnant can really wreck a game for a player. It's more likely than death to sideline the PC permanently, in some ways. I suggest that you make sure your player will be okay with this plotline before springing it on him/her.
Oh please, it is not like there isn't an abortion provider in Sandpoint. What kind of unenlightened folk are you guys? ;)
Oh please, it is not like there isn't an abortion provider in Sandpoint. What kind of unenlightened folk are you guys? ;)
I take you at your literal point Pres, lol, but if you think I'm going to go there, with a player?
Nah uh. No way.
Not with your ten foot pole. :D
Hey, if the PC's going to role in the sack, she's going to take her chances. I say you offer her a saving throw just to make it sporting.
Ten foot pole? He must spend a fortune tailoring his pants!
What's so bad about a pregnant PC? There are NO rules for pregnancy hampering the PCs adventuring ability that I'm aware of. (Gee, I wonder why they left that out?) Nothing on labor and delivery either. So there's no reason to give the PC a bunch of negative combat modifiers or make the PC sit out for six months.
Let the PC continue on as normal. Make a few morning sickness jokes, but don't cause the PC to be nauseated during a boss fight or other important events. If the PC wears armor, maybe they need to spend a little extra for masterwork maternity armor that expands.
You could assume that none of the damage taken by the PC hurts the baby if you don't want to deal with the consequences. Besides, healing magic would probably hit the baby first. No worries, unless you flat out splatter the pregnant PC.
When the baby is due, just assume it pops out quickly, no marathon labor, etc. Try to time it between adventures, eh? No births during combat, please! That's just too Monty Python.
Then, drop the baby off with Father Zantus and hope he does a better job with the kid than Father Tobyn did with Nualia!
The kid starts out as Pure Adventure Hook GOLD (We've got to save...THE BABY!!) Seriously, you could get the PCs to do anything, go anywhere.
He or she can grow up in to a little NPC, and then if he eats all his veggies, maybe he'll be a PC someday!
I got to admit Michael F. brings up a great point. And unless you run your campaign long, the adventure might only take 6 months (if you complete a book per month) so she wont even have the kid yet if that is the way you go.
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What's so bad about a pregnant PC? There are NO rules for pregnancy hampering the PCs adventuring ability that I'm aware of. (Gee, I wonder why they left that out?) Nothing on labor and delivery either. So there's no reason to give the PC a bunch of negative combat modifiers or make the PC sit out for six months.
OGL Book of Erotic Fantasy:
1st Trimester - No penalties (maybe occasionally waking up nauseated/sickened though. I'd make it like a DC12 fort save each day2nd Trimester - Movement reduced by 1/4th (round down) -2 penalty to Dex
3rd Trimester - Movement reduced to 1/2, -4 penalty to Dex, -2 to Str
Not having any effects of pregnancy just kills any sense of immersion and defeats the purpose of having a pregnancy. Which considering a lot of the beliefs involving Lamashtu is outright silly. You might even want to have some negative effects on the child if she spends too much time near the runewell while pregnant.
Maybe it's just because most of my players are female, but when we've had pregnancies in-game it has affected pretty much everything that all the PCs did. My players just aren't comfortable taking a pregnant woman into the sorts of dangerous environments that populate the typical D&D adventure, so the dynamic of our games really changed.
Obviously your players might be different. I'm just saying that it pays to be sure. :)
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Not having any effects of pregnancy just kills any sense of immersion and defeats the purpose of having a pregnancy....the purpose of having a pregnancy?
DO IT FOR THE CHILDREN!!!
Maybe it's just because most of my players are female, but when we've had pregnancies in-game it has affected pretty much everything that all the PCs did. My players just aren't comfortable taking a pregnant woman into the sorts of dangerous environments that populate the typical D&D adventure, so the dynamic of our games really changed.
Obviously your players might be different. I'm just saying that it pays to be sure. :)
Just freeze the campaign from the end of the first trimester to some point in time after the baby is born. Karzoug has waited a thousand years or more, nothing says he can't wait a few more months to unleash his evil plans.
why not carry out the pregnancy ? As pointed out, campaign time only moves as fast as the GM wants it to, and actually, with the group finishing "Hook Mountain Massacre", they will likely be caught up in the mountains in autumn and might consider wintering there (especially so if they take over the keep from the Black Arrows ). Good opportunity for that - and approximately five or six months for the mother to carry her child to term through the winter.
Before then... have her experience strange sensations before then, and keep an eye on such stufff as poison etc. affecting her. mild bouts of "nauseated" or "sickened" condition, with a medium fort save to avoid
After ? Ahh, yes, I do actually wonder if and how she will leave her newborn child with a nursemaid and adventure on, possibly turning it into a fully-fledged orphan ? And how will knowing the Truth about Aldern Foxglove affect her view of the child.....
from a roleplaying PoV, an interesting dilemma, but nothing much of a hassle before that, rules wise.
Unless you want to make it so..
I've certainly had this happen in a game before.
Honestly though, there is no simple answer. It entirely depends on the maturity of the player involved. Of course Sheepskin condoms did exist in Roman times, so likely they are available in Sandpoint from the alchemist.
If the players has no such thing, too bad for them. Figure out the characters chances, but to be fair, its not a really great chance unless you are going to start assigning PCs a "Fertility" score or something.
The pacing of the adventure can be handled depending on where they are at the time of the latter part of the pregnancy, should it happen.
Its a good way to remind players that sometimes frivolous actions have consequences, a good thing to remember for the latter part of this adventure path. PF5 anyone?
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If you really want to go crazy with the pregnancy then you could look to Salvatore for inspiration (sorry if anyone has come out in a rash). His drow matriarchs use the pain/spiritual forces/whatever of labour to empower spells (and sometimes follow that up with a sacrifice of the child). He's riffing on lots of mythology about births and magic (most folklore magic seems to involve liminal events/states).
You might not want to kill the baby, but the idea that only a pregnant woman can use the runeforge (is that the name, i forget) is pretty cool. Or if the PCs are having trouble seeing what to do next perhaps the old Varisian woman in Sandpoint can take some blood from a pregnant mother and use it to see distant and/or future events?
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Let the PC continue on as normal. Make a few morning sickness jokes, but don't cause the PC to be nauseated during a boss fight or other important events. If the PC wears armor, maybe they need to spend a little extra for masterwork maternity armor that expands.
When I get off work, I'll post a hilarious picture with this concept in mind.
Besides, it would be the perfect opportunity for our favorite town slut (Shayliss? Can't remember her name) to have a side quest adventure, where she makes the mistake of letting the Goblin King take the PC's baby while she was babysitting, and she has to go rescue it.
Jareth: You remind me of the babe.
Goblin: What babe?
Jareth: The babe with the power.
Goblin: What power?
Jareth: The power of voodoo.
Goblin: Who do?
Jareth: You do.
Goblin: Do what?
Jareth: Remind me of the babe.
OGL Book of Erotic Fantasy:
Dang, I was worried that book might make me a liar. I saw it on the shelf at Borders once, leafed through it a bit, snickered, and put it back. I figured that the book would mention babies were the possible consequence of a successful seduction, but I didn't notice that they went so far as dex penalties by trimester...
I should have know better!
That said, the penalties are a bit harsh. I've seen a lot of variabliity in how women are impacted by each trimester. I suppose a higher CON could mean lower penalties.
Like other posters have said, it all comes down to the maturity of the players. If they can handle it, there are a lot of interesting role-playing possibilities that folks have put up here.
Aren't there potential nasty consequences mentioned in Pathfinder #2 for members of Aldern's family that hang around in particular locations, thanks to the ancestor who tried to make himself a lich- including for unborn children???
Yeah, hopefully the PCs will defeat that problem long before the baby gets born. But you do have a point. Does exposure for as little as a few hours have a lasting effect? I guess the DM has to make a ruling. Not sure if the haunts will do anything differently if one of the PCs has a Foxglove bun in the oven.
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Yeah, hopefully the PCs will defeat that problem long before the baby gets born. But you do have a point. Does exposure for as little as a few hours have a lasting effect? I guess the DM has to make a ruling. Not sure if the haunts will do anything differently if one of the PCs has a Foxglove bun in the oven.Aren't there potential nasty consequences mentioned in Pathfinder #2 for members of Aldern's family that hang around in particular locations, thanks to the ancestor who tried to make himself a lich- including for unborn children???
Plus remember how
Like other posters have said, it all comes down to the maturity of the players.
And it depends on what "maturity" means in this context. One of my players (not in RotRL) has been pregnant six times, and many of the other players have kids (or at least nieces/nephews). I think that to several of them pregnancy would indicate that it was time to move to Magnimar and buy and house and retire from adventuring in order to give the kid the best life possible. But then these are players in their thirties or forties, which might make a difference.
There was a time when we would have dumped the infant with the temple and carried on playing, but we're not those people any more.
There was a time when we would have dumped the infant with the temple and carried on playing, but we're not those people any more.
There is of course always the possibility of going down the "Lone Wolf and Cub" fork of the road.... now _that_ might actually be aan interesting/challenging archetype to play.
As an aside, a character in nother campaign left her baby (born inter-story-arc) with her sister, and returned to saving the world from the Elder Evil we faced. But that was a different type of campaign there and then...
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Let the PC continue on as normal. Make a few morning sickness jokes, but don't cause the PC to be nauseated during a boss fight or other important events. If the PC wears armor, maybe they need to spend a little extra for masterwork maternity armor that expands.When I get off work, I'll post a hilarious picture with this concept in mind.
The site that this picture is from isn't safe for work, but the picture is... if your boss doesn't mind you looking at expecting mothers lacing up for battle.
I tell you, that kid has a level in rogue.
Daigoro totally does!
There was a time when we would have dumped the infant with the temple and carried on playing, but we're not those people any more.
When thinking about this, I realized that families with members in the armed forces deal with this all the time. My dad was in the Air Force when I was born. I was actually born on a military base in Okinawa, so I guess my Mom was lucky that she was able to be relatively close to where my dad was serving. But he was off navigating his C-130 on the day I was born.
I've got two kids, and there are other dads in the group. I have to dump my kids places all the time, cause my wife and I have jobs. And Truancy laws. And R rated movies and fancy restaurants.
So they go to school and day care 5 days a week. They go to overnight "lock-in parties" at the Tae Kwon Do studio. They go to slumber parties at friends houses. My wife and I had to travel on business at the same time to two differnt states. So they stayed with Grandma and Grandpa. Grandma cooked them crepes for breakfast every day! WTF? I only get crepes once per trip when I visit!
So I don't think dropping off the kids is that big of a deal. And we probably tend to underestimate the "support network" of trusted family and friend that a PC might have access to.
If the PCs are in the business of saving the world, won't the kids be safer in the long run if the world gets saved by Mom and her friends? Why assume someone else will step up if Mom retires?
Now, saving the world might take a bit longer than my 5-day trip to Chicago. But I don't think the kids would wither and die if they were left a bit longer. Military families deal with it all the time.
I guess I figure that the PCs "delicate condition" isn't a reason to force the player to retire that character and make a new one. Especially if the player in question didn't think the DM was likely to allow the PC to get knocked up.
Although, I looked over the original post, and he didn't actually say the PC got pregnant. (Poster #3 brought it up) So we're really on a major tangent here! O_o
The OP wanted to know about love triangles, and we went all procreative on him!
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So I don't think dropping off the kids is that big of a deal. And we probably tend to underestimate the "support network" of trusted family and friend that a PC might have access to.If the PCs are in the business of saving the world, won't the kids be safer in the long run if the world gets saved by Mom and her friends? Why assume someone else will step up if Mom retires?
Now, saving the world might take a bit longer than my 5-day trip to Chicago. But I don't think the kids would wither and die if they were left a bit longer. Military families deal with it all the time.
Minor Threadjack, here, but relevant to the turn this discussion has taken...
There is an excellent portrayal of the "Do-I-Save-The-World-Or-Take-Care-Of-My-Kid?" question in the novel "Jennifer Government" by Max Barry. It isn't D&D at all, but if your PC ends up with this dilemma it might inform the game well. It's a quick read and there would be value for the PC and the DM both. And it's a great read to boot. :)
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There is of course always the possibility of going down the "Lone Wolf and Cub" fork of the road.... now _that_ might actually be aan interesting/challenging archetype to play.I tell you, that kid has a level in rogue.
hmm, so I have to take the leadership feat to account for the brat *frown* ? I had thought of the "kid" as something more akin to a familiar, probably because of the possibility of shared saves, evasion etc. (ok, that's maybe because of the Usagi Yojimbo version of "Lone Wolf"... "Lone Goat and kid").... perhaps a homonunculus.... or hmmmm... some form of animated undead ?
Guess I have the entirely wrong attitude for being a dad !