Exploring the Ascension
In our last post, Ashahell suggested a nice little twist on the ascension question – ascension through progeny. We think it’s a pretty cool concept – gives a bit more of a “logical” feel to the whole ascension thing (which, let’s face it, has never made much sense). So every character will have its own skillset to expand and work on, and starting from a certain age (read: rank) they will be able to find a mate and have a baby, which will be the “ascended” character. The offspring will have a starting skillset based in some manner on its parents’ skillsets (though, since we haven’t even brought up the topic of traits, skills and skillsets, that’s not saying much…).
Some points to ponder:
Will mating only be between two player characters, or will there be an option to have a baby with certain NPC’s? I’m thinking we should allow both.
Should there be any inherent advantages and disadvantages to having a baby with a PC/NPC? My thoughts on this are, there should be several “levels” of matable NPC’s. The basic ones will not be as good as a player character, but some of the “better” ones will be able to outdo some, maybe even most or all, of the prospective player-made moms/dads. These high-end spouses should not be readily available. Maybe have them be part of some quest chain or another?
Should finding a spouse only be useful for the purpose of reproduction, or should we provide some other content revolving around it?
How exactly will the offspring be affected by its parents’ traits and skills? I know we haven’t talked about skills but this begs asking 
How can this be exploited? And how can we stop it from being exploited? Assuming the offspring’s starting traits & skills will be calculated by some formula involving percentages of the parents’ traits, players can theoretically create “super kids”. Maybe we should introduce menopause? 
Seriously though – I’m thinking put a cap on the mating age. I’m not saying that if a character passes a certain level don’t allow it to ascend – I just mean that it will ascend as if it did so at the level cap.
Meh. Enough rambling for now. As always, your thoughts and comments are appreciated.
Krazny
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A few more things to consider, I guess:
. Offspring is nice and all, but in te real world technology progresses with new generations. This lead to the consideration of what to do with technological progress. Will it be slowed down, non-existant or like real-life?
. Offspring suggests generations. How long should parents be allowed to live after they have offspring? Or will characters live indefinately?
. Not happy to bring this up, but whatever you do: prohibit incest
. Not sure how it was in the real Wild West, but I’d limit the amount of kids a couple can have
. Interesting issue: a couple decides to have offspring. Nice and dandy, but who gets to play that char? The father? The mother? Or will offspring allways come in the form of identical twins so there can be no disputes?
. With regards to content specifically aimed at couples: I’d sugggest to implement progeny first and then see what your player base wants
. A cap on the mating age makes sense IMO. There should be a cap on the starting stats of the offspring as well, or you implement a rule that offspring cannot mate
Sorry for the delayed answer – real life got in the way yet again.
So let’s tackle your points one at a time:
1. Technological progress: We’re thinking non-existant. At least not noticeably so. That is, we might announce a technological advance every now and then, but it won’t be an integral part of gameplay.
2. Generations: None. Offspring will be more like reincarnations of the parents – once the offspring is born, the parent who ascends ceases to exist to all intents and purpose.
3. Incest: Looking at it as actual mating and birthing does indeed bring up this hackling “little” issue. Not entirely sure how we’ll deal with it though. Even if we prohibit it between player characters, there will only be so many NPC’s available for this purpose, so it might be a problem still.
4. Kiddie count: See 2.
5. Either we decide flat out that mating results in ascended offspring for both the parents (assuming they’re both player characters), or we give the players the choice to decide who stays and who ascends.
6. Couples fun: Point taken.
7. Caps: Yes, the starting stats will be capped (through the maximum mating age). I lost you on that second bit – offspring cannot mate? Back to tricky #3 again?