How young is too young

[Desertrising]

Hello all it's me again with another weird question. How young of a PC is too young? I just had a request for the Ravenloft pbem I am starting where the player wants to run a nine year old girl. I am thinking it over and while I think there are some merits to this idea I also have some reservations.

Merits: There is something very horific about children involved in horror tales. Can work in a sixth sense/The Ring kind of feel to the story with the wizened child bit.

Drawbacks: I don't like portraying the victimization of children and they are vulnerable, Ravenloft tends to be a more mature setting and I am not sure a child character would really "fit".

I mean I started playing at nine but at the same time I have never run or thought of running a child.

Let me know what you all think.

Desert

[ScS of the Fraternity]

I'd say nine is too young.

Playing a spunky sidekick, or a little scap may be fun, but nine years old is just way too young. Their movement speed would be too low, their strength, intelligence and wisdom scores would be in the 6-8 range.
That and the player would have to roleplay the character as an ignorant child.
I'd say bump the age a little further.
Perhaps 12?

[Lucius]

It´s too young, unless your player do as a contributor of my webiste netbooks.

He created a NPC, in truth a 9 years old girl. But she was veeeery older in mind(like the little Claudia from Interview with the Vampire), she was a sorceress that was cursed to live in a infant body, but she had some great arcane skills, and she had a friend, a Caliban who acted as her protector.

[Dominique]

I'd say nine is definitely too young. The realist in me is wincing because nine-year-olds generally haven't even developed the capability for abstract thought, so a nine-year-old would be super hard to roleplay properly and would be fairly useless if they were roleplayed properly. The gamer in me is wincing because the stats would be pretty awful; there are the physical problems that ScS pointed out, plus a nine-year-old would have very little force of personality (low charisma) and, "from the mouths of babes" testimony notwithstanding, probably not a lot of common sense (low wisdom). Eleven or twelve would be the youngest to be at all playable.

[Jester of the FoS]

12 is the youngest I would like to have in my game. 10 maybe, and even that's on the young side. 9, unless they were very mature for their age, would be pushing it.

Of course, people did grow up faster back then...

[Gemathustra]

Of course, people did grow up faster back then...

With or without help from being attacked by a ghost?

[Jasper]

Also how would you put a class on her? Too young to attend wizard school, too small to swing a good sword, too young to be trained for anything other then a petty pick pocket and 90% of sorcorer abilities don't come out till puberty.

[Charney]

I actually think that a 9 year old would actually be TOO powerful. Look at all those movies (Mummy returns for instance) where the bad guys are thwarted by a puny average 10 years old. How many master villains had their evil world dominating plans foiled by "meddling kids"? Even Azalin couldn't handle it...

[MatthiasStormcrow]

I suppose it *can* be made to work - what class would they be playing, etc.? I'd have to rule a 9-year old barbarian right out, for instance (that horrible old D&D cartoon notwithstanding...) whereas, over in DeepShadow's epic game that I also happen to be in, the PC Ciera is a sorceress who...did some kind of crazy magic to make herself a little girl again. (Full story on that bit not yet revealed.) She's halfway ancient wizened crone, and halfway little innocent girl - and it's been a really interesting characterization. And besides, spellcasters don't *need* physical stats, right?

[Troile]

Physical stats are really important to spellcasters.

Constitution is almost as important to a wizard as intelligence...

A wizard with a +3 con modifier will have the equivalent of a d10 hit die and with the combat casting feat be able to survive a lot better...

[Gonzoron of the FoS]

I've got a 14 year old right now, but I don't think I'd go much younger. Unless of course there was a really good story too it.

I'd probably let them choose any class they can justify (9 year old barbarian? How bout one raised by the wolves of Verbrek? Sorceror? How about the "demon child" run out of her village in Tepest for having powers she doesn't understand?)

But I would work up some age-based stat modifiers. (didn't we do that once here?) If you can live with low stats in Str, Con, and Wis, go for it.

[DeepShadow of FoS]

I agree that a normal nine-year old would be out of a normal campaign, but there are ways to tweak things to make them fit, if you are willing. As suggested by my opening sentence above, there are generally two ways to do this: change the child or change the campaign. If you wnat, you could even do both.

Changing the child means a) giving the kid powers that a normal child doesn't have AND b) giving the player an in-game excuse to play the kid as unnaturally mature. As Matthias pointed out, Ciera of the Reckonings game is an excellent example--he only knows the half of it! While I won't give any spoilers into Ciera's background, I will tell you of an original concept the player was forced to discard: a reincarnated hero. The original writeup of Ciera had her as a the latest of many incarnations of a powerful sorceress. Early in each life she rediscovered her old talents (skyrocketing through the lower levels) and then sought to add a little to them before she died the next time. In annother game that I wrote, one of the PC's was an immature clone: all the mental statistics and memories of a 40-year old human...with the physical statistics of a halfling...


If you don't want to go that far in game stats, the Reincarnated feat alone should give you the in-game reason for a super-mature 9-year old; in our world we call them 'old souls.' The Redhead, Ghostsight, Cold One, and Haunted feats also offer powers that could satisfy the first requirement, if not the second. The burden of such powers at an early age might cause a speedy maturation that stretches the limits of normal child development.

I can see a child with the Ghostsight feat in a tiny rural town; by some miracle the villagers who discover the child's powers embrace it as a boon to the village, and bring their questions to the Child Seer for to commune with the dead. After his mother dies and his stepfather begins beating him and demanding he give the 'right' visions, the boy is forced to flee. Of course, his mother watches out for him along the way....

The alternative is to alter some or all of the campaign around the child. This means there are pre-planned parts of adventures that work best with a child present. A recurring bogeyman villain, a trip to Odiare, an assassin hireling who balks at killing a child; all of these are adventure elements that naturally revolve around a child PC.

The best way is probably to do both. Have a subtly or drastically altered child PC, and include some minor and major plot elements that work in the PC's favor because a child is present.

[DeepShadow of FoS]

Come to think of it, I did have a 12-year old PC once, a fledgling paladin whose Ancestral Legacy was a powerful holy sword. She was also a psychic (2E kit), so she could tell someone's alignment by touch. We used the paragon rules, and she gained levels pretty fast.

[DeepShadow of FoS]

I suppose it *can* be made to work - what class would they be playing, etc.? I'd have to rule a 9-year old barbarian right out, for instance (that horrible old D&D cartoon notwithstanding...)

I'd agree about the D&D cartoon, but IMO one of the Wild Children of Sebua might make a good child PC. Unaging, so they might have developed some cognitive ability above their physical development.

[Troile]

I would think 14 would by my absolute minimum age.

Though for someone wanting to play someone young I would encourage 16.

Unless of course the campaign was designed around it. I could see having a party of 14-16 yr olds doing some small stuff until they gain their first real PC level. That could be a lot of fun.

I can see it now...an orphanage is attacked and overrun by {insert enemy here} and some of the older children escape maybe even saving some of the younger ones too...and thus begins their adventure for survival. They have to make it in the scary world together as they are the only family they have.