I've seen children/teens as a playable option in a few games, some where it mattered and most where it didn't. I-War 2, for instance, had you escaping pirates after your father was murdered (though it made no impact on gameplay, you just controlled a ship). I'd like your thoughts on playing as a child/teen, where the (optional) gameplay unlocks character-specific abilities and bonuses in an adult that are otherwise inaccessible. The gameplay would be a mix of the vignettes idea I've been floating, which condenses situations into story text and pictures with critical choices; and actual gameplay using a character to climb over stuff, fight, sneak and use inventory. What I'm thinking might be possible to capture is various "slices of life" which give your character an epic experience. Grossly, I imagine the settings to be determined by environment and parents, but with fantastical options to keep your interest. Both would determine what you have available to you to build your character. Some settings might be being the child of a family of thieves and pirates, which could be either romantic or brutal depending on how desperate things were. Another similar origin might be playing as the children of scavengers or explorers. Colonists would pose the most interesting situations, as you'd deal with a new world from a child's perspective. High position would be another, where the child of a starship would automatically inherit command provided he or she survived long enough. Since you'd be playing with weight, knowledge and access penalties, the idea only works if it strongly affects your character. In gameplay, I'm thinking critical successes in making friends, fighting / conflict resolution, and relationship to parents or adults would be a major factor that bolsters your character's personal story. Early friendships could result in lifelong alliances or rivalries, for instance. Conflict resolution choices could make learning certain skills later easier or harder, depending on your personality. Parents or adults could become future mentors, or could block your access to opportunities if relations are poor. What kind of gameplay would you need to make this experience worthwhile? Assume gameplay would be the same as for an adult, except your relations and responses from NPCs would be different.

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Moral question: This opens darker possibilities, such as being a child soldier or a slave in the mines. (I'm thinking a system of grudges and favored enemies would work here, so if you saw your colony murdered by pirates, pirate tracking and killing would come easily to you as it is fueled by your memories and hatred) Are these fates too dark, even if they grant you strengths otherwise inaccessible? (Such as an iron-will, or immunity to pain)

Just to elaborate on actual choices:

Being a bully / trouble-maker: Makes coercion and intimidation skills go up faster, increases ability to contact underground elements later in life, perform crimes and smuggling.

Being a good student (not actually played out, but abstracted in vignettes): Increases science and tech skills, increases chance of further skill boosts and lucrative starting jobs from attending prestigious academies.

Being a runaway: Toughens survival skills provided you survive a few actually played out segments, such as finding food or shelter.

Distanced from parents: Lessens chance that family will intercede on your behalf financially or politically later in the game. Not a problem if they're poor, but very bad if they're rich.

(This is the general idea. It's a lot already, but I can elaborate further on actual gameplay details if people want)

I haven't seen many games that build on the lifespan of a person from beginning to end. For a specific example of such a system you could check out Alter Ego: Male/Female at The Underdogs. The games rather interesting since it allows you to be a bully, play "doctor" with a friend, get into fights, or just not bond with your parent. Its mostly in text and it doesn't go that deeply into questionable grounds.

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Moral question: This opens darker possibilities, such as being a child soldier or a slave in the mines. (I'm thinking a system of grudges and favored enemies would work here, so if you saw your colony murdered by pirates, pirate tracking and killing would come easily to you as it is fueled by your memories and hatred) Are these fates too dark, even if they grant you strengths otherwise inaccessible? (Such as an iron-will, or immunity to pain)

Getting into such dark territory involving underaged characters can be rather delicate for various reasons. It has been done but most of the time its through implication (a childs skull on a shelf on some sicko's torture room in one of the resident evil games) or suggestion (Silent Hill). There would have to be some rather extensive debate on what elements would be considered acceptable.

I find it interesting when games have the background affect the character (arcanum pretty much directly, morrowind in a different way come to mind) but at the same time I don't like any limitations applied to my character (i.e. I'd rather be mediocre at magic and combat than to be adept at one and suck at the other)

As far as playing the actual game while a child, I think you could do some really interesting things in the non-linear sense, where you could expose many options for completing the game based on how you spent your time as a young'un.

And also in being able to kind of define your character in that time you played. Instead of having the typical character sheet where you distribute points, you play as a child and have different opportunities, say breaking into a warehouse, helping a librarian find an old text on magic, or solving some puzzle for a scientist, which would help determine your interests and aptitudes (although how many such interests and aptitudes you're allowed may be tricky to deal with).

As far as gameplay goes it wouldn't be much different I imagine, with the obvious exception of how the world is going to perceive you.

Children have access to places that adults do not. They can also be considered unimportant and can therefore infiltrate areas not available to adults. The villian of the piece could divulge important plot information, believing that the child would not understand or be able to act on it.

I can envisage a situation where as a child you discover a large alien atrifact deep in some caves.

"Yah! I found a cool alien artifact. Boo! I can't use it."

Few hours game time your an adult.

"Yah! I remember that alien artifact in the caves I should be old enough to use it now. Boo! I'm too big to get in."

After some devious puzzle solving.

"YAH! This alien artifact is so COOL."

It would be like your dangling a carrot in front of the player nose.Getting the alien artifact is made all the more fantastic for waiting and the player needed remember all that they learnt as child.

One of the 'Tomb raider' games had you play out a childhood memory.

I find it difficult to imagine how you could make it to work, this whole thing about playing with things as a child and allowing for additional points on your sheet.

Imagine, you are offered, say, 5 minutes per intellectual trick. If you successfully complete the initial mini-game in time, you will be awarded the additional skill, or odd point. But what if your player himself is NOT smart enough to understand the trick? What if you REALLY outsmart him? hmmm? What will probably happen is that he will throw the game and make a bad publicity.

Now imagine that you propose some twitch based things, as a child, like go get that cat in the tree, or throw a stone at that thing over there, or win the race with the other children of the town... What if you CAN'T win those tests? Imagine this race a little like that ol' Track'n Field, where you had to pump that button like there would be no tomorrow (and that usually was the case, for the joystick, at least...) being played by someone who is handicapped? Who has only ONE finger, like my girlfriend, or who is simply slow in his moves, like many other crippled persons? Why add some more weight to their already heavy burden? Why grief them some more? This would make them feel their difference even more.

I'll agree that, when they DO succeed, it gives them a sense of NOT being handicapped anymore. But when they fail, they are NOT numerous to say "well, I don't care if I did not do it, I am only handicapped after all". They mostly say "this game is stupid. A game should not make me feel handicapped". And they would be right.

And this is only for those that can be identified as handicapped. Imagine what if feels for those that are NOT handicapped and simply don't hit that button fast enough? Why wouldn't they get that point in speed on their charactersheet? Just because the PLAYER is not fast enough? Where is the point? Where is the relation between the Player and the character? A RPG should NOT act as a twitch game, or should it?

Sounds like an interesting way of doing character creation [smile]... I actually discussed something very close to this with a friend of mine yesterday.

I personally don't like Morrowinds way of doing it. In that case you're basing the current character on the morals more than the background. IIRC you had to answer what you'd do in some theoretical situations rather than that they actually happened to the character in the past.

The way I thought of doing it was to let the player choose what happened to the character at various stages of his earlier life. This included his parentage and siblings and other things that he wouldn't have any chance of actually choosing himself. In short the player plays god with the earlier life of the character. Actually playing some parts of it rather than just choosing would be cool, but my plan was to avoid any random factors as much as possible. The choices would decide the starting characters abilities, such as STR, INT, DEX, APP etc. and most of these should be locked during gameplay. Choices would also decide the starting skill points, economy and status, but these will be more dynamic during game play. A son of a noble would have a lot of status and good economy and probably good education, but would be more lacking in strength and dex. If he had no siblings he could be pampered and turn out as arrogant and with bad social skills but having even more wealth. Or something. I haven't really starting to design it so I don't know yet what choices there should be and what the results should be.

I don't see any problems with such dark possiblities as having been a mine slave or child soldier or anything else really. If it could happen in real life I don't think it should be impossible in a game world. Of course you shouldn't be too graphic about it and when you're designing it you shouldnd go out of your way to choose bad fates rather than good ones. It does open up some interesting posibilities in the main game, such as revenge against oppressors or an abusive father, having become a criminal or many other things.

I think it would be a good idea, but you should be careful so that you don't end up with too many totally different stories. Replayability is great, but if you try to make 20 games in one it might never get finished and published.

The only problem I could see with this would be that, Wesley Crusher aside, it seems unlikely that children would be allowed to drive large vehicles or pilot ships. I don't want to have to spend ten years of game time walking about in 0.00001% of the game world because I need to get old enough to explore the rest of it, and it doesn't seem at all likely that a ten year old would be allowed to fly a heavily armed and armoured space ship between star systems.

I don't see being a child soldier or slave as a moral question. Child soldiers are not themselves automatically immoral (unless you believe that all soliders are automatically immoral), and whilst slavery is universally condemed, nobody would say that slaves are evil. The moral question is about how the game represents those responsible for your condition, and it doesn't sound like you intend to represent them positively.

Child soldiers and slaves have been thought to be perfectly acceptable by huge numbers of people in the past. In Frontier, you can buy and sell slaves in Imperial systems, but slaves are contraband in Federal systems. It doesn't raise any moral questions, instead allowing you to come to your own decision.

@Nathan Baum: I don't think the plan is to play for a long time as a child. It's just a sort of prelude and character creation before the main game. I'd think about 5-20 minutes will be enough. My "version" will be even shorter, as I was just planning on using text screens and a total of five or so choices.

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Original post by Nathan Baum The only problem I could see with this would be that, Wesley Crusher aside, it seems unlikely that children would be allowed to drive large vehicles or pilot ships.

This would depend on the interface posited for a given time, which in turn would depend entirely on the gameplay mechanics of a skill and permission requirement. But in most cases, yes, no battleships for babies. [grin]

OTOH, what's the aesthetic that's involved in this gameplay you're talking about: Freedom of movement and some form of manipulation of the world. So what's a child's analog for vehicles? Jetboards? Origami gliders? Gossamer-like solar-sailing dragon fly wings? (Who's to say that spacers don't let their kids fly in enhanced suits as part of a rite of passage?)

I don't think the idea doesn't work solely because of restrictions. How many times are you stuck fighting rats with a rusty dagger when you're supposed to be the badass hero in your typical RPG? There might be better reasons why it can't work, but limits don't seem likely.

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I don't want to have to spend ten years of game time walking about in 0.00001% of the game world because I need to get old enough to explore the rest of it, and it doesn't seem at all likely that a ten year old would be allowed to fly a heavily armed and armoured space ship between star systems.

If I understand you, you're saying that because you're a child, you'll be sheltered in one boring location. But I think you're applying a comfortable American / European ideal of childhood when I'm using a much more rugged model that would have been common in the past. In the past, children were expected to take up a larger amount of responsibility for survival of the family. Consider the model of a family farm or family merchant caravan, and apply that to a culture of independent ships that might have generations on board, sort of like celestial homesteads. The same might go for ground homesteads, which could be tiny, high-tech villages plunked down in hostile wilderness.

Poverty introduces another dynamic that opens possibilities. Dense arcologies of wastrels might give rise to gangs and survivalist warrens. The homestead model MIGHT also be applied to cities broken up into dynasties that control vital water/power/recycling infrastructure.

In short, think less sheltered (and remember that the teenager is a 1950s invention).

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The moral question is about how the game represents those responsible for your condition, and it doesn't sound like you intend to represent them positively.

Very good point, but if people can't see the game taking an immediate moral stand they may freak.