Family rules?

[jeremy]

I've read that, at some point at least, Dave Arneson's campaign had rules for characters who married and had children. Is this accurate? How did it work?

[bravewolf]

I have a copy of the Judges Guild First Fantasy Campaign play aid and don't remember seeing such a thing in it.

FYI, the Pendragon RPG, which recently was available as a free PDF, has rules for marriage and children.

[Mighty Darci]

Jun 3, 2017 1:58:04 GMT -5 bravewolf said:

I have a copy of the Judges Guild First Fantasy Campaign play aid and don't remember seeing such a thing in it.

FYI, the Pendragon RPG, which recently was available as a free PDF, has rules for marriage and children.

I am sure that games that run long enough like need such rules, maybe some of our members can share about that.

[bravewolf]

Jun 29, 2017 7:46:28 GMT -5 Mighty Darci said:

Jun 3, 2017 1:58:04 GMT -5 bravewolf said:

I have a copy of the Judges Guild First Fantasy Campaign play aid and don't remember seeing such a thing in it.

FYI, the Pendragon RPG, which recently was available as a free PDF, has rules for marriage and children.

I am sure that games that run long enough like need such rules, maybe some of our members can share about that.

The way Pendragon does it is in winter a knight may petition their lord to marry. Once a marriage has occurred (or a consort taken), at set intervals one rolls to see whether any children result from the union. There might be other chronological conventions to move game time along the span of Arthur's reign.

To advance campaign time in my AD&D game, I follow Gygax's advice: for every day that passes between sessions in real time, a like amount of time passes in the game. I freeze game time if we stop a session in a dungeon or the like, though.

[Secrets of Blackmoor]

The entire family concept likely predates Blackmoor.

In BLackmoor, the most likely person to first have a "family" is David Wesely. He succeeds in rescuing the elf princess and then marries her. His next charcter is the a half elf son from that marriage.

Wesely, not only plays another character from his character family, he is probably the first person to play an elf.

This probably happened in 1971.

[Admin Pete]

Glad to have you post Secrets of Blackmoor; however, guest posting is not supposed to be enabled anywhere on the forums and this must be one that I missed. Hope you start an account.

[Mighty Darci]

Secrets of Blackmoor, please register, we don't bite much!

[limeodyssey]

My house rules for inheritance:

List the parents' attributes, powers and abilities. Including heatvision, primary statistic scores (as rolled not modified), any special powers or weird magical things, and so on.

For each item on the list - roll 1d6. 1 = father's score or power at father's actual numerical value; 2 = father's score power at new random value, rolled up as per whatever rules applied to father; 3 = father's score or power at numerical value of average of actual father's score and random roll; 4 = mother's score or power at numerical value of average of actual mother's score and random roll; 5 = mother's score or power at new random value; 6 = mother's score or power at actual mother's score.

So if a character is the son of a father with strength 17 and a mother who is a member of a race with a maximum strength of 16 who roll up Strength on 2d6+4 and whose score is 12, a roll of 1 = Str 17, 2 = Str (3d6), 3 = Str (3d6) averaged with 3d6, 4 = Str (2d6+4) averaged with 3d6, 5 = Str (2d6+4), 6 = Str 12.

For attributes like eye colour same type of thing. For attributes like pointed ears where only one parent has them - same type of thing. For class abilities, only if the class is a race. For gifted powers like "only you may wield the ubbydubby of infinite pain" same kind of deal - whichever parent has that gifted power, the child will need to roll 1 if it's the father or 6 if it's the mother to wield the same artefact. rolling 2 or 5 (depending if it was father or mother) would mean they are going to be able to wield a DIFFERENT but similar artefact; 3 and 4 in this case mean nothing is inherited.

It means that children will resemble their parents, will possibly inherit a "family trait" like exceptional strength - or not - and for hybrids like human-dragon interbreeding it means they could look completely human, somewhat human, somewhat draconic, or totally dragonlike. And so on.

It works.

[hengest]

Jul 27, 2017 4:11:41 GMT -5 limeodyssey said:

My house rules for inheritance:

List the parents' attributes, powers and abilities. Including heatvision, primary statistic scores (as rolled not modified), any special powers or weird magical things, and so on.

[...]

I like this thread, and particularly this last post.  Here is my extremely crude version.

Domain Play - Inheritance of Acquired Characteristics (Tact)

Production of children a la Pendragon or handwaved (obv, there must be two sexes involved and in most settings a marriage for any PC of domain-level power).  

The PC (level-having) parent may choose to spend significant time raising the child.  If a domain-level PC wishes to see the child inherit some of the PC's acquired characteristics, this may be accomplished through child-rearing and "quality time."  If significant personal investment is made during the critical ages of 8 to 15, likely to the detriment of the domain-level character's other dealings, the child may inherit a degree of experience, which we will call "tact" here.

The inheritance of tact is not certain and the investment must be made before it can be known whether it will be successful.  

So what does the investment look like?  

Mechanically, it looks like this: the character takes a guaranteed but randomized hit to their ability to run their affairs.  The simplest way is a percentage decrease in revenue.  Roll 3d10 for each year in which the child-rearing takes place.  If this causes too much trouble for the PC, the project may be abandoned, but then there is no chance of success and the previous losses become sunk costs.

Roleplayed, it might look like any number of things, ref's and player's choice, of course.

If the investment is made, what happens then?

Two rolls are made: one by the player for the PC, one by the ref for the child.  Player tries to roll 3d6 under CHA, ref rolls 3d6 under child's INT.  

If neither roll succeeds, the investment has been wasted (in mechanical terms).
If one roll succeeds, the child inherits some tact and may become a PC at age 16, starting at level 1 with a 10% bonus to experience until reaching level 3.
If both rolls succeed, the child inherits more tact and may become a PC at age 16, starting at level 1 with a 10% bonus to experience until reaching level 6.

The new PC may be of any class.  What has been learned is not the skills of the class but something more subtle, a kind of orientation to experience.  

Of course, if both rolls fail, the ref may permit the child to become a PC anyway, but with no bonus to experience.  Or the child may remain an NPC or take an NPC class.  

[hengest]

Wow, I forgot entirely about this thread. Everything on here, maybe even my post, is cool.

[The Perilous Dreamer]

Sept 30, 2021 18:06:27 GMT -5 hengest said:

Wow, I forgot entirely about this thread. Everything on here, maybe even my post, is cool.

I have found virtually all of your posts are cool. There is a lot of good stuff here to be found and expanded on.