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Old 01-15-2021, 03:05 AM
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StainlessSteelCynic StainlessSteelCynic is offline
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Quote:
Originally Posted by wolffhound79 View Post
I find this post interesting as just yesterday I was considering having a party encounter a lone child or teenager as the only survivor of a marauder ambush.
Just to see what they would do.

Would they make him part of the group, or drop him off at the next nearby town?

or is the child a elaborate ruse to get the players to drop there guard as he leads them into an ambush?
This is a technique used in some horror games, a lone child apparently in need of assistance. But the child is really just a façade, something to lure the protagonists into more trouble. Sometimes it's a monster in it's own right, using the appearance of a child to more easily fool the adults into letting down their guard before the monster strikes.

Like Targan, I have no problem at all putting these sorts of things into a game. I have no problems separating what's fodder for the game and what's real life so encountering child soldiers or monsters who look like children in a game is not something that upsets me or disturbs me.
You're playing in the ashes of the apocalypse, the ruins of the world, there's cannibals, there's people suffering terrible diseases or radiation sickness, there's slavery, bandits, people willing to kill just to survive another day.
Child soldiers as a game concept is no worse than any of the above.

I see their use in game as a way to create moral quandaries for the PCs, a way to show that the game world is not the simplistic black & white morality that Hollywood movies are made of. There's many shades of grey and if the PCs defeat such a situation and do so from the moral high ground, then they will have a much more positive impact on the gameworld because of it.
They can rightly be considered not just heroes, but the "good guys".
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