Space Marriage & Space Children?

Dec 14, 2016 21:51:22 GMT GalentheYounger said:

I know that the majority of you who responded via post stated a strong "NAY" to the children, but it's leading first in the poll, so I must ask: should Ryder have children, what should they be like? Should they be like Ryder or the LI? Should they be boys or girls? (please don't make this about feminism).

I personally think it would be cool to have like a different gender for each Ryder - like if you play MRyder you have a son and if you play FRyder you have a daughter, or you could even switch it up and have MRyder have a girl and FRyder have a boy. I know firsthand, that father - daughter and mother - son relationships can be very, very special, pointing to the relationship I have with my own father. I like what they did at the end of U4 *SPOILERS FOR UNCHARTED 4* - with Cassie - the relationship between her and her father was very special.

or one could go with the crowd - pleaser of both a boy and a girl, maybe twins? I believe that I read somewhere that it is genetically more likely for a twin to produce twins. Or maybe an older brother / sister relationship or vice versa. Those can be special too. What are your thoughts?

I can't help but think about the old Star Treck show where the Doctor tries to engineer a perfect holodeck family only to find out that well, perfect is not what it's all about. Then, of course, that family conveniently disappears from the show at large, in an added ironic twist on a moral lesson it was trying to teach.

I would not mind the child's gender to be RNG, and make it look like the  LI, in order to accommodate the potential single protagonist later on.

In various films, children are often incorporated into sequels. In Film 1 the characters fall in love, and in Film 2, the character either finds Love Interest 2, or his or her children with Love Interest 1 reach the age when they can get into trouble. I think there must be a way to allow the Protagonist the choice of fast-forwarding to the Game 2 and seeing him/herself either married with a growing child(ren) or a single guy/gal open to the adventure and new LI.

If the child(children) are central to the plot in the sequel, I would then have them to be LI's children with other partners (and that partner either conveniently deceased or of a peaceful nature that precludes him or her from doing what the protagonist does best). Yes, tropes.

Overall though, making children a big part of the story might not be everyone's cup of tea. I've recently played Blade and Soul, which did not quite make the protagonist to have biological children, but uniquely resolved a conflict by turning the antagonist into a young child and placing it under the PC's protection and tutelage, effectively making him or her an adoptive parent. And added a few more kids to his "school". The plot revolved around the kids for a while... it had some comedic value (which I am certain Bio can milk better than the Korean developer did), but it was grating. To start with, the Koreans saddled the Protagonist with all the responsibilities of a father/mother of multiple offsprings and none of the fun beforehand with a romance. BioWARE would not do that to us, I am sure.

The trouble is to create the attachment to the child. In real life biology takes care of it. In Blade and Soul, some players did have a strong attachment and compassion for that antagonist-turned-their-daughter, so found it cute to have her transform into their daughter-figure. But if the child is born between the games, well, you will have to get to know him or her just like you do any other character. I guess, a period of separation can be engineered to create an urgent necessity for the PC to be away for a couple of years to help the process...

Overall, I think the concept can be handled, but it will be a hard sell, and a lot of people would not buy into it. Our current attitude towards having children is somewhat odd, as it is hard to fit having children with urbanized lifestyles, and we see them as much more long-term "project" than we did in the past, something to do very late in our lives, so we do not have the attitude towards having children as lineage, successors, success, quick win and actual relief of duties/help, etc which would fit with the game about colonization and less regimented and regulated lifestyle.

As much as we love to role-play the older mindesets like that will probably be hard for most players to get into. Most folks after all have troubles even with Jedi's Stoicism/Monasticism and prefer to play "exceptions" to Jedi, as emotion driven as the next person.

It also limits the number of potential romanceable NPCs, because well, how many sets of children can they produce if they want to make them plot-important?