Children during T2k...

[natehale1971]

How many people use kids as NPCs during their campaigns

One of the campaigns that we did, one of our guides when we got to the Free City of Krakow was a 16 year old Polish girl who's dad had been a professor at one of the unversities who fell out of favor with the Soviets (he had actually said that the Poles should have done the same thing the East Germans were doing and kick the Soviets out so that Poland could handle their own internal affairs and not send troops to fight an imperialistic war against China). The GM based her off one of the girls from Red Dawn, and she was always giving little gifts to one of the PCs she had a 'chrush' on... In fact she was the one who provided our group at that time with the "Going Home" message. Poor girl was in tears and didn't want to tell us what it was, when she finally told us... we promised to take us back with us as a dependent.

[95th Rifleman]

I like to create moral and ethical conflict by using child soldiers. How will the PC's react when the enemy are 14 to 18 year old kids consripted from the villages and towns

They make interesting marauders aswell. The PC's find out that those "bandits" who have been raiding the supply lines are just hungry kids, admittedly hungry kids with automatic weapons.

[Tombot]

I used a 14 year old girl in krakow as the leader of a band of kids, which carved out a living outside of the citywalls as thiefs. They sometimes worked for the DIA-Boss and (after trying to steal some stuff of the PCs) as guides for the search of the hideout of Warsawskie-Marauders.

And about children-soldiers... that is a hard one, but that kind of soldier would surely turn up in T2k-times. I did not use them yet, but thought about doing it in the future in the desperate vincinity of the "Zone Morte", where life is even cheaper than elsewhere...
VERY mean topic, surely a brutal twist for the players. Every good man, who stops shooting back for a second ("These are KIDS!"), could bite the dust very fast. Or earn some mental problems, after "overcoming" these attackers... (especially the soldiers which already had children themselves).

And i recently had a group of a dozen children following a fanatical catholic priest, which the players encountered on their way to bremerhaven.
The priest called his group "flaggellants" and they prayed and whipped themselves "for the sins of the past", begging for food, on their way.
(Off course he used em as thiefs, and there were hints about sexual abuse, too).
The T2k-world is harsh place, and kid-soldiers are another (real evil) facette of just that.

Addition: Ah - almost forgot! The Warsawskie-Marauders within the citylimits had kid-soldiers! They armed a gang of tough street-urchins to watch the main-entrance of the abandoned trainstation above their HQ! They gave them some weapons and spread the word among the homeless/refugees living in the ruins there, "to shut up or die" about the place and its residents. The kids acted as forward observers, and had the mission to scare away the civilians.
Above that "Adam Zmiski" (one of the marauders) recruited them sometimes as spys for ORMO-activity.
My players managed to rush the kid-soldiers and take them alive, before they surprised the russian deserters in their hide-out.

[natehale1971]

The Role-playing game "Year of the Zombie" had feral children as an encounter group...

[Raellus]

In my PotV PbP, part of the group on a salvage mission to Nowy Huta (an industrial suburb of Krakow) was attacked by a band of kids living among the ruins. They called themselves the "Kings of Nowy Huta" and their motto was "f*** America, f*** the Soviet Union, f*** Germany- long live the Kings!" It was all very post-apocalyptical Lord of the Flies. They were armed with slings, slingshots, and crude clubs, spears, and bladed weapons. The players were able to fend them off without killing any of them (one of the older kids got his knee destroyed by Snakeye's South African mercenary PC, though).

The kids were originally from a couple of towns further east. A few months before my players met them, were sent to Krakow by their desperate parents but their bus was stopped and ransacked by marauders so they walked to Nowy Huta where they established themselves, subsisting mostly on scrounged canned goods and small game. By the time the PCs met them, a few were already suffering from accute radiation poisoning.

[Legbreaker]

Most memorable child NPC encounter I ran was when the PCs holed up in a townhouse for the night. Around midnight a serious thunderstorm struck and the lightning flashes illuminated a figure crawling across a wire from the neighbouring building to the roof of theirs.
The PCs had set up an RPK observation post in the attic with a view out a hole in the roof. The PC on guard (female) opened up with a burst at the relatively short range (maybe a dozen metres) and scored a hit. The body fell several stories and landed with a splat.
Meanwhile the two PCs outside guarding the vehicles (a BRDM and BTR) fended off what can best be described as a probe by poorly armed bandits (crossbows, spears, etc) with one being saved from almost certain death from a bolt by his body armour.
Wisely, the PCs battened down and waited until dawn.
The body that fell from the wire turned out to be a girl of about 13 - about 3-4 months pregnant. The firing PC was rather screwed up by that for quite a while.

[StainlessSteelCynic]

One thing we in the Western World (particularly the English speaking Western World) almost always fail to recognize is that we allow our offspring to have an extended childhood. In many parts of the world, a boy of 14-16 years is considered old enough to be working and helping to support his younger siblings or even taking over from his father if the father is less capable.
In those same countries, a girl of 15-17 years is often thought of as old enough for marriage or work.

Even in some Western nations up to the 1990s it was not unusual for a similar attitude to hold sway, countries like Italy, Greece, Spain you could still find boys of 14 leaving school to learn their father's trade.
I'm making a very broad and generalized statement I know but in some parts of Europe, what we would consider as a boy of 15 would be viewed as a young man of 15. We would see him as a child were they would see him as eligible to hold down a job and support his family.

It would not be too much of difference to them have him join the military (voluntary or otherwise) in such circumstances - it wasn't that many years ago when a "boy" of 15 could legally (as long as he had his parent's consent) join the Australian navy as a 'junior recruit' and "boys" of 16 could join the Australian army as trades apprentices.

[Raellus]

One thing we in the Western World (particularly the English speaking Western World) almost always fail to recognize is that we allow our offspring to have an extended childhood. In many parts of the world, a boy of 14-16 years is considered old enough to be working and helping to support his younger siblings or even taking over from his father if the father is less capable.
In those same countries, a girl of 15-17 years is often thought of as old enough for marriage or work.

Even in some Western nations up to the 1990s it was not unusual for a similar attitude to hold sway, countries like Italy, Greece, Spain you could still find boys of 14 leaving school to learn their father's trade.
I'm making a very broad and generalized statement I know but in some parts of Europe, what we would consider as a boy of 15 would be viewed as a young man of 15. We would see him as a child were they would see him as eligible to hold down a job and support his family.

It would not be too much of difference to them have him join the military (voluntary or otherwise) in such circumstances - it wasn't that many years ago when a "boy" of 15 could legally (as long as he had his parent's consent) join the Australian navy as a 'junior recruit' and "boys" of 16 could join the Australian army as trades apprentices.

This is a really good point. By 2000 (T2K), it wouldn't be uncommon to find boys as young as 14 in 15 in some European armies (or at least militia units)- especially the Polish and Soviet armies, I am sure.

Most other kids in war zones would be forced to help their families survive by doing some kind of work.

[95th Rifleman]

The British and American attitude is interesting, especialy in regards to children and the ages they are considered such. We have some of the highest ages of consent and legal ages for alcohol.

[pmulcahy11b]

The British and American attitude is interesting, especialy in regards to children and the ages they are considered such. We have some of the highest ages of consent and legal ages for alcohol.

I've always thought it was an interesting bit of hypocrisy that we will allow our kids to go to war and possibly die before we'll allow them to buy a beer.

[Legbreaker]

In WWI and II boys as young as 15 were being routinely passed by recruitment selections for training and subsequent deployment to the front. Officially every last one was over the minimum age, but many, many blind eyes were turned when evidence of youth was available.

It's unlikely to occur in today's world though with the masses of identification methods available to establish a person's true age. In T2K, once the nukes fall though, I'm fairly sure we'd see a large increase in youth recruitment as identification such as drivers liciences, birth certificates, etc became lost, or stolen for the ability to enlist and get a "free" meal ticket.

My guess is that once 1998 comes to a close, and transport to Europe is slowed to nearly the point of complete stop, the risk of being sent to combat would radically diminish in the eyes of somebody far from Alaska or Texas. could well be a surge in volunteers at this time.

Could also be a reason why CivGov were able to cobble together units to send to Yugoslavia. Half may well be conscripts, but a sizable chunk might be volunteers eager to keep food in their bellies and give a littel payback to those they perceive nuked their homes and families.

[Webstral]

I've always thought it was an interesting bit of hypocrisy that we will allow our kids to go to war and possibly die before we'll allow them to buy a beer.

And we'd prefer that these boys die virgins, if we can have it. Can you imagine the domestic backlash if the command in a given theater set up licensed brothels that could be managed by proper medical and security authorities The seamy underside of war among American soldiers is that sex, which we'd prefer to pretend doesn't happen, is a massive black market which, like all black markets, breeds the worst kinds of behaviors and generally breaks down the fighting capacity of the force.

[95th Rifleman]

And we'd prefer that these boys die virgins, if we can have it. Can you imagine the domestic backlash if the command in a given theater set up licensed brothels that could be managed by proper medical and security authorities The seamy underside of war among American soldiers is that sex, which we'd prefer to pretend doesn't happen, is a massive black market which, like all black markets, breeds the worst kinds of behaviors and generally breaks down the fighting capacity of the force.

We laugh at the old French and Italian army brothels, but I reckon they where smarter than people realise.

[atiff]

This is a really good point. By 2000 (T2K), it wouldn't be uncommon to find boys as young as 14 in 15 in some European armies (or at least militia units)- especially the Polish and Soviet armies, I am sure.

Most other kids in war zones would be forced to help their families survive by doing some kind of work.

A few working assumptions I used in my own campaign are:
- children as young as 8 play at least a partial role in the economy (simple jobs, fetching, runners, feeding livestock, etc., on a daily basis)
- from 15 years old, they are playing a 'full' role in the economy, and that may include fighting (and 'underage' is definitely possible too)

Another note, though, is that I inserted a trough in the population demographics for 2-12 year-olds. The reasoning is essentially that while it is possible for a parent to survive the death of a child, the reverse is not always true.

[Mahatatain]

A few working assumptions I used in my own campaign are:
- children as young as 8 play at least a partial role in the economy (simple jobs, fetching, runners, feeding livestock, etc., on a daily basis)
- from 15 years old, they are playing a 'full' role in the economy, and that may include fighting (and 'underage' is definitely possible too)

I'd suggest that these ages are actually a little old based on what actually happened during the industrial revolution. Kids as young as five might well be doing simple jobs and by about 12 I would imagine that kids are working as a full adult. For example a 12 year old girl will probably be nearly as productive at sewing as an adult woman.