Roleplaying pregnant

How you usually do it? Just suddenly curious :unamused:

The cushion is obviously a necessary thing :laughing: And appropriate clothes so that it has enough space for the cushion. If you roleplay being early pregnant then you probably don’t need the cushion but you have to make efforts to remember about your condition (at America Cup I totally forgot about it :blush: )

You can walk around in some funny way.
Stargate conversation:
“Damn, I keep stepping on my dress!”
"You keep stepping on MY dress! :smiling_imp: "
"Oh dear, I’m sorry! So that’s why you walk so funny, I thought you were just roleplaying being pregnant…"
But I did try to walk funny myself :laughing:

You can use motherly motivation, I guess, caring for your baby and such stuff.

And people are making some ado around you because you are special and so need special attention :laughing:

I also liked fainting as it puzzled the players and they didn’t know what to do (and the GMs were giggling evilly).

You can also do weird things to the father of the child (if you know who this is), like discrediting him in front of his teammates (which makes it a lot of fun for them).

More ideas?

Cameron, you too can join the discussion since you are going to come pregnant to Ravenholme…

Check this out:
empathybelly.org/

Highly hilarious.

Now, I’m not suggesting you break out the credit card and lose five hundred American dollars on this thing, but with a fitting pair of overalls, a few basic sewing tricks and a hot water bottle… pregnant you!

I’d suggest making a “baby expansion pack” that you wear underneath your clothes rather than a cushion moving around. You’ll also get the added bonus of getting sweaty and short tempered!

For the early stages of pregnancy, I found the smell of things really got to me. I had classic morning sickness, ie in the mornings, though some women get sick any and all the time. So if its an early stage I’m roleplaying, then I tend to use a quick run from the room to the toilet to throw up, along with avoiding alcohol, strongly flavoured food.

In terms of roleplaying later stages, along with a bump, you can do a waddle, floundering when trying to get up from a chair, or floor. (this tended to be in last month only) A classic posture is to lean back a bit, (the body needs to counterbalance the weight at the front) and just have one hand resting on top of the bump - like the classic painting use to indicate motherhood/pregnancy. In reality it is a convenient place to rest your hand.

Remember that you haven’t seen below your belly button for weeks/months, can’t do up shoes - so wander around with un-done laces.

Extreme tiredness, and inability to stand for long periods. Insist other people stand up so you can sit down.

Also complain about the heat (BTW which I would find rather hard to roleplay in weather like today ) because the body temperature really does increase. You could also complain of swelling feet, and fingers - take of your rings and wear them on a gold chain around your neck.

Also feel the baby kicking is an option - especially in response to loud noises/music. If you think it’s late in pregnancy, you can have worry about whether labour is starting - whether you have “your bag packed” to go to hospital (or whatever genre you’re in).

And go to the toilet really often - because the baby is squishing the bladder all the time - say you can’t sleep through the whole night as you need to go to toilet every 3-4 hours.

Generally, be more emotional about things, and cry at smallest hiccup or change in plan.
:wink:

I played a nine months pregnant woman earlier this year, in a game set in the Cthulhu mythos. I got dragged off into the woods by a zombie king who cut the baby out of my character’s stomach and left my char for dead. The baby was then turned into a zombie and proceeded to eat another player. Which, to be fair, wasn’t much worse a fate than what his mother had planned for him anyway :smiley:

I improvised a pregnancy suit out of an old bathing suit, a pillowcase and 7m of satin, which was actually really heavy. It was ridiculously uncomfortable after a while, and I got almost no sleep while wearing it.

However, I did have a great time wandering around with a maternal glow and rubbing my stomach with a protective hand, insisting the menfolk defend me from the monsters, demanding seats from other people etc. I also enjoyed people writing off my character’s vicious threats as “hormones” (they weren’t)

The waddling and floundering in chairs was a lot of fun.


^ That’s my pregnant character.

I sewed up a wedge-shaped cushion with ribbon ties. It had a belly button. :slight_smile: Should still be in the gearbox, actually.

From my experience with Meiling:

  1. Spend all the time either eating or sleeping
  2. Feel hot in the belly and cold in the hands and feet. Complain about this frequently.
  3. Go through wild mood swings and grumpiness
  4. Get all paranoid about being near people with germs, cigaretts, alcohol, anything which might or might not be possibly nonbeneficial to the little foetus
  5. get out of any sort of hard work by waving the ‘pregnant’ card
  6. get all worried about coping with pending sprog, then all worried about damaging sprog with too many worry hormones
  7. go to the toilet often, and belch and break wind frequently. Excuse any unladylike occurence by using the pregnancy card.
  8. get floaty and dizzy from lack of iron but refuse to eat more meat, instead preferring to stock up on pills
  9. tell husband its all his fault and you expect him to do all the work once youve squeezed the little parasite out at last

lol Steve :laughing:

An interesting viewpoint from the male perspective. I couldn’t possibly comment on how frequent this might be amoung the mother-to-be population, but it doesn sound vaguely familiar.

I also just remembered the ante-natal classes which is de-riguer in our culture these days. This is where groups of about a dozen couple (Yes both mother and father to be are expected to attend) have weekly meeting to talk over childbirth and early parenting stuff. The closest one gets to being taught about the topic. These usually lead to “coffee groups” after the birth of the babies, with ‘support’ (read comparisons) from others in the same situation.

Also there is the baby naming issue to ponder upon. At random times say “Do you like Ben? What about Ben as a name?” to the partner. And whether the ‘bump’ has any name it is referred to. I remember using parasite myself, but I had friends had theirs christened “Otto” by friendly flatmates. Others if they are confidant of the gender from the (3 month pregnant) ultrasound scan, can start calling it by its chosen name. But if you’ve had a scan and got a gender, there is always the worry about whether it is correct.

Hmmm, am I really the only female on this board who has had children? :open_mouth:

Actually, my last post was a bit tongue-in-cheek. The moodswings are nowhere near as bad as the normal PMT mood swings. And she is not as lazy as it seems to imply.

However it is all based on fact :slight_smile:

Our antenatal class was a complete joke, but unfortunately amid the hours of rubbish lay an occasional nugget of important info we needed. So, we stuck it out for a few weeks before giving up on it. Not bothering to go with #2 though!

For names we had to get one that works in Chinese and English, and when we’d finally set on one the in-laws came in and claimed they’d asked a fortuneteller or something and din’t like it. We ignored them.

We also had some additional complications I won’t go into which didn’t help with the relaxation index, either.

You may even be the only person on this board who has had children!

Err, I’ve had children, albeit by proxy. However she’s probably the only person on this board who’s given birth…

Don’t think so. Kara “theotherphoenix” has kids, for one. And Beccah, but she doesn’t post much.

Not including Derek, Mike, Steve, Raoul, David, etc?

I like how this is in the Gear forum. Children are an equipment issue. :wink:

Well, the pregnant belly aka cushion aka whatever else you use for it would be a gear, ne? :unamused: That’s how I thought when put it here, because I wanted to get more idea on how to roleplay pregnant, obviously realizing it’s not about cushion only. So now I know much more :open_mouth:

:laughing:
Childen are definitely an issue. Children need paricular equipment. But I also like the way that phrase turns too.

I am probably going to be making myself a proper pregnancy belly, and I don’t see myself having a permanent need for it, so would NZlarps like it after I’ve finished?

Yep :slight_smile:

Now I want to play a pregnant character! Unfortunately the next larp I’m in is Ravenholme, and I’m planning on wearing my corset which definitely does NOT leave room for a belly. And my St Wolfgang’s character is 15…

It’s 1230, how much of an issue is this?

In her particular case, quite a bit. She would be in serious trouble with her guardians (especially since they might themselves come under suspicion…)
Besides, she’s very much not the promiscuous type and it’s unlikely the Cabal are going to let her out of their site long enough for her to get friendly with a local farmboy.