This came up in the name thread.  And honestly, I think it's funky!  It's the whole dream family stuff.

Now, like, I've always thought it was funky, and a tad soap operaish, especially when a couple has a baby (the dynamics behind that are still mind boggling), only to have the child a fully developed with a few spheres in 2 months.

I mean, I remember once in DoL, this was back before I had taken any long lengths of time off as The Striker.  So, a pair of higher ups had a child, and they somehow finaggle someone to come on and play the child.  I swear, within just a couple months, this guy had the same sphere as me.  I was suprirsed in a few ways.  First off I wondered how the hell he got hammered through his sphere tasks so dern fast, and I also wondered how I could be so darn slow. 

I recall pointing out to someone that it must be difficult to date when half the dream seems related to them, they they pointed out some rather iffy relationships that suggested incest.

I always grinned and beared it.  I figured that if that many people wanted to do it, then I really shouldn't be the stick in the mud.  But, I'm just curious, what do you guys feel about the dream family dynamics.  Should we be a tad more prudent on this matter with reclamation or should we just leave it? 

How does anyone have a dream child is my question? No, don't answer that...

Yeah, this struck a nerve with me...it's a huge pet peeve of mine in gaming. Personally, I feel like rpers are playing Barbie and Ken; supposedly playing at being married and having children is what you do when you're an adult. It's the same for games like these, I see the same things in other RPG's...hell, I even see supposedly evil races like the EQ2 Dark Elves running around saying "Darling" and batting eyelashes at each other....

Ick.

That sort of rp waves a "immaturity" flag at me about a mile high, and I stay away from it. Yes, I get flamed for it, I get ranted at by the couples who have met through an online game and are together in real life, but if I wanted to play a soap opera I'd play SIMS, or better yet I'd log off the computer and spend some time with the person playing with me online who also just happens to be six inches away on another computer! More often than not, however, the glaringly ridiculous family/couple rps are coming from people too young to have any idea how to pull it off properly, but I rarely have to worry overmuch as within a few months the rp relationship falls apart.

The having children in a game (if they aren't NPC's) is often crappily done, yes suddenly they age at lightning speed and are all grown up. It makes no sense and really stretches the "realism" that people go on about in roleplaying. I have a char in EQ2 who did the relationship thing and she's currently pregnant to explain my absense from the game; in other words, she'll be knocked up for a good year and then she'll be off taking care of the baby for ages more - THAT is realism; a pregnant woman wouldn't be in the thick of battle after her second semester, and then there's the childbirth (which again seems to take all of five minutes, usually in the rp equivalent of an elevator because that's what they saw on telly and it sounds more dramatic) and then the feeding every two hours and changing and not getting enough sleep and the doldroms from the hormones wearing off .... THAT is realism!

As the background has already explained, Dreamers are incredibly rare, and thus an entire family appearing in Dream would be impossible. I could see maybe a set of twins managing it, but only ONE set, not hundreds. I can imagine lovers perhaps meeting in Dream as it would be the only way to do so, but I get really tired of the same "gazes into ur eyez" sorts of emotes. If people maybe were able to play those originally, I'd be more clement to it; my husband and I played a couple which honestly couldn't stand each other (High Elf and Tier'Dal), and the insults and bickering we did ingame had us ROLLING out of game, and most people thought it was a hoot, though there were many who were appalled that we'd rp like that - in Neverland, everyone is in love and happy all the time and you should follow the proper cliches. I've played very alternative (and yet at the same time, very true to race history) characters and you'd be amazed at how many people were offended or took it entirely the wrong way. "You're a concubine?! Oh I'm going to totally treat you like dirt then because concubines and people in such trades are sickening - even though the Tier'Dal historically had much respect for that sort of thing, but it offends me personally!" *Uberd00d pulls girlfriend closer* Vary from the "accepted norm" even a little at your peril; stick to monogamous, heterosexual relationships - or play at being really transparent lesbians because blokes seem to like that sort of thing *gag*

I've played gay males who weren't campy, I've played concubines, characters who firmly believed in free love, and others who would just take whatever came along and use them to their own ends. I've played characters who hated the other love interest with a passion but for the personal gratification (which was NEVER rped out, thankyouverymuch), and lovers who knew they could never be together, and didn't even so much as touch. There's a way to do it which isn't hoky and trite, but it takes work and effort, and shouldn't be the entire rp you've got.

I'll stick to the same concept in some way in Rec - if someone is so blatantly into the relationship rp and creating what feels to me to be hoky, I'll stay away from them in future. If someone wants to approach having that rp with a character of mine, they'll find themselves really WORKING for my character's affection, and depending on their ability they may or may not win it (I sent one char on a quest which turned into its own story and it took MONTHS to complete). People are always going to play out Barbie and Ken, but that doesn't mean I have to stomach it, or rp along with them. Hopefully there's an ignore feature in place somewhere.

*places stick firmly into mud*

When I started playing UL, you could say I was immature and played my character like playing dolls, but I was young. Now I just laugh at it. If someone wants to play that way, whatever, they're paying to play how they want to and no one is twisting my arm to get into it.

As for playing a kid, I've been behind a couple of the characters of children and have really enjoyed it. One of them did have parents in ul, and the controllers asked me to do it. In my opinion, it was played out well and the character never even recieved first in the few months I played them.

Playing children is an iffy situation, and you shouldn't really control them if you just want to advance. I didn't because I had my main that took on advancement and wasn't going to go through it again. Kids in ul didn't have the same privilages either, as it should be to keep consistant.

If we're going to be able to choose a character's age somewhat though, between young, middle age, and old, then players again should know what they're getting into with a  young character.

I think there should definately be some more nailed-down rules on Cloudsbreak to Dream relations by Lyra, which do not interfere with dream beliefs in that they don't favor any particular belief 'evidence' over another. 'Blood' relatives in the dream should be banned IMHO, for that just blatantly disregards the fact that no two characters should be from the same shard anyways, better explained in the Character Names post. Also as stated in the other post, babies are just as blatantly a violation of dream roleplay. That would essentially prove the Illuminated belief...! How could there be children born in a Freesoulistic shared dream? On those notes, dream non-blood families, as in families in the dream of folks that just have mutual solid friendship that want to create a family atmosphere IC, should be allowed. My characters were never big into this, but it seems popular enough to not disregard it. But the folks in these families have to acknowledge IC that these families are just like a 'brotherhood' and not flesh and blood real families, for the protection of game beliefs and roleplay consistency.

Oh and please, keep any families small, not house or dream spanning as Strikes pointed out. :D