>Not really surprising that David Dunham and I would have something
>like that in our games, is it?
>
>My only complaint right now is that I haven't figured out a good
>HQ "childbirth system". It would be neat to have something that
>could be modified by magic, bad spirits, etc.
Is this another thing from Pendragon? If so, then you've lost me somewhat; I don't remember that part of the game.
That said, I can see two things here potentially. The first simply child delivery. That is, if a character is having a child, the question of the mother's health and the child's are pretty important. Interestingly, I had a player in one of my games create a midwife as a character. Devotee of a healing goddess, the player chose an aspect that represented childbirth, and we went with that. Nifty Affinities, IIRC, but I don't think that we ever came up with Feats. Though I can imagine them.
In any case, I think that such contests would be beyond cool to include in a game. So, what's the basic difficulty of giving birth? The mechanician in me says that it's a 14, but dramatically I think that it's likely much harder - and I'm sure the womenfolk will be telling us that it's waaaay higher as well (especially those who've been through it). Could be a ton of modifiers for this sort of thing. Given the relatively high death rate for both mother and child during birth in ancient societies, perhaps the ratings would be much higher. Magic acting as a counter to said problems. And, yeah, guardians and spirits and such could play a big role, depending on the belief system about where the child comes from.
The various injuries that can be suffered in childbirth should be easy to come up with.
The other general area of interest here that I can see might be in determining if a child born was well aspected in terms of, say, astrology. Lots of things could go into this, but if you included something like this, then lots of people in the game could have abilities like "Warrior Aspected," which could be a general augment towards doing warrior stuff. Fun, because it means that players can make characters who are either in synch with, or who run against their "natures" as foretold by such auguries.
Seems like it would be rather random, however. Or are there things that can be done to affect the aspect? Like trying to have the birth at a certain time? "Don't push woman! If he comes after midnight, he'll be a mighty warrior! A mediocre shepherd otherwise." :-)
Mike
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