This is actually two different questions/thoughts that came up in the same game I play in the other day, with a system that a friend of mine was playtesting (not PF, so it's in Gamer Talk).
I won't go into the finer details of the system or setting beyond what's necessary, but suffice to say it was a fantasy game that was trying for a more detailed system for combat than d20.
Since it was a playtest, we were rolling for most of our character options, which included age. In my friend's (we'll call him Jim) system, your age could be anywhere between Child ( in the 5-9 range) and Venerable.
This was a problem for me. The fact that a child could be even remotely as physically and mentally capable as the 3 strange adults she was following (seeing problems already?) divorced the system from the realism it was going for outright. Furthermore, I could not imagine anyone that was not either completely irresponsible or totally heartless just being OKAY with allowing this 5yr old girl to go on a bandit hunt or get involved in any sort of combat.
I tried to point this out everytime an NPC or fellow PC tried to argue that she should be allowed to come. The first portion of the game, I had locked the girl in our room at the inn and asked the people who worked there to keep an eye on her because, trying to roleplay like a real human being, I wasn't going to let a 5yr old get into a situation where she would get killed. She was stuck in there for awhile until Jim managed some sort of narrative magic to allow her to get out.
The next time we make characters to test out the game I'm going to have to bring this up before we start and tell him I am going to respond this way every time there is a child PC in the party. The fact that these kids have a PC banner floating over their heads isn't going to change the fact that they are children.
This one is a really minor rules blip that I want some yay-or-nay confirmation on:
In Jim's system, Parry and Dodge are two different actions that do essentially the same thing, but are based on different combinations of stats, so I ended up being better at parrying than dodging. At one point, I got knocked on the ground and had to defend myself while on my back.
Jim had said I would take a penalty to my parry, but be abel to dodge just as easily. I called foul. I felt that, while it should be more difficult to do either, it would be easier to parry blows with my moderate sword (like a PF longsword I'm pretty sure) if I'm lying on my back than it would be to roll to the left and right of his sword attacks. This is all theory of course, but do you think I'm right here? Ultimately I passed a Fortune roll so he allowed them both to be the same for THAT time, but this will definitely come up again.
on the last point...I feel like from movies/tv, I have seen more examples of someone rolling or jerking to the side to avoid a sword/axe blow while they were on the ground,to parrying with a sword. In fact I am thinking parrying, unless you are really strong, would be pretty difficult to do while on your back.
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I think your points on child PCs are all valid.
The issue falls under the "don't make participants uncomfortable" rule for gaming.
It seems like your fellow players were inconsiderate (or maybe immature?) to insist on portraying something that made you uncomfortable.
Hopefully you can get your message across.
on the last point...I feel like from movies/tv, I have seen more examples of someone rolling or jerking to the side to avoid a sword/axe blow while they were on the ground,to parrying with a sword. In fact I am thinking parrying, unless you are really strong, would be pretty difficult to do while on your back.
Doing a log-roll is more dramatic, which is probably why you see it more often... but you have to break eye contact to do it, and you have less control over how far/quickly you roll than where you move your weapon.
I also must wonder: in how many specific examples is the person on the ground:
A) armed
B) fighting something they actually CAN parry, i.e. someone on relatively the same level of strength, not a giant spider's stinger (Return of the King) or something similar.
I'm not really that concerned with proving it should be easier to do one than the other, but that, at least, they should be on the same level in this PARTICULAR case., or at least close enough that it doesn't translate to a 10% less chance of success on the d% roll.
I think your points on child PCs are all valid.
The issue falls under the "don't make participants uncomfortable" rule for gaming.
It seems like your fellow players were inconsiderate (or maybe immature?) to insist on portraying something that made you uncomfortable.
Hopefully you can get your message across.
While I'm definitely not comfortable with child PCs, that's mainly because being okay with it in-character can only be justified by "Well she's a PC so we have to allow her to come", and I tried to demonstrate that. The next time we make character for the game I will bring it up outright before we start, and see what happens.
Character creation was also unintentionally (but considerably) racist for the first wave of characters (different racial abilities for humans from different regions) and that was nixed after it was brought up, so the creator is not stubborn about this sort of thing.
This is actually two different questions/thoughts that came up in the same game I play in the other day, with a system that a friend of mine was playtesting (not PF, so it's in Gamer Talk).
I won't go into the finer details of the system or setting beyond what's necessary, but suffice to say it was a fantasy game that was trying for a more detailed system for combat than d20.
** spoiler omitted **
** spoiler omitted **...
Some people really want to throw in child pcs. I've known a dm like that, he was all over it. I don't get it, I don't want child heroes, it seems ridiculous, and I blame Harry Potter.
To Ellis,
One dm threw a child kobold at us. As we went to move past them, this kobold child turned out to be a sorcerer, at which point he roasted us up. I congratulated the dm and expressed puzzlement at the choice, and asked how the child could cast a level 1 spell before being able to learn it.
Then my pc cut the child sorcerer down.
So I don't get why he did it.
I think your points on child PCs are all valid.
The issue falls under the "don't make participants uncomfortable" rule for gaming.
It seems like your fellow players were inconsiderate (or maybe immature?) to insist on portraying something that made you uncomfortable.
Hopefully you can get your message across.
While I'm definitely not comfortable with child PCs, that's mainly because being okay with it in-character can only be justified by "Well she's a PC so we have to allow her to come", and I tried to demonstrate that. The next time we make character for the game I will bring it up outright before we start, and see what happens.
Character creation was also unintentionally (but considerably) racist for the first wave of characters (different racial abilities for humans from different regions) and that was nixed after it was brought up, so the creator is not stubborn about this sort of thing.
Tying feats and abilities to regions isn't exactly racism. It can be more about province specialisation and what the people of that region, or yes, the tribes, have mastered.
Golarion does it. Regional feats are something that actually makes a lot of sense.
On child pcs, don't feel constrained to let the child pc join. If your char would really not want to adventure with children and expose them to likely death, roleplay this up. See where the party goes. A united party is far stronger than a dm.
On child PCs: I think it depends on the mood and style of the campaign. If there's a fairy tale feel to it, or maybe a Lone Wolf and Cub feel, it can be doable, and even fun.
This is actually two different questions/thoughts that came up in the same game I play in the other day, with a system that a friend of mine was playtesting (not PF, so it's in Gamer Talk).
I won't go into the finer details of the system or setting beyond what's necessary, but suffice to say it was a fantasy game that was trying for a more detailed system for combat than d20.
** spoiler omitted **
** spoiler omitted **...
Some people really want to throw in child pcs. I've known a dm like that, he was all over it. I don't get it, I don't want child heroes, it seems ridiculous, and I blame Harry Potter.
It's one thing to have a PC that is 11-14 and another thing to have a PC that is five (the former being categorized as "young", not "child"). Kids in the 11-14 are close enough to being adults to make accomplishing things possible.
On child PCs: I think it depends on the mood and style of the campaign. If there's a fairy tale feel to it, or maybe a Lone Wolf and Cub feel, it can be doable, and even fun.
I think there's definitely a time and place for child heroes; we read about them all the time after all. The problem is when you try to have child heroes and adult heroes in the same story.
In child-hero stories, either the stakes and dangers are low enough to young children to handle (Rugrats), or it's JUST the children, no adults to save the day, and most of the time whatever danger there is not result in the children being killed, and if they are, not in a gruesome way. A low-risk kids-vs-witch type of game COULD be refreshing to play sometime.
In this case, we have a game where characters fight with lethal weapons and can die gruesome deaths, and there's a child just there. A child realistically wouldn't last 5 second against a monster that would give an adult trouble, so just having them on the same level already hurts my suspension of disbelief, but then there's the fact that, unless the game is run unfairly, that child could die a horrible, violent death the same as me, which is not something I want to think about as a player or allow to happen as a character.