Mini-Plot: Egg Baby Assignment

[codicies]

Who: Teens Attending Lofty Heights (or anyone, really. See inside for an opportunity to let adults participate)
What: Egg Baby Assignment
When: February 6 through February 13
Where: Lofty Heights & anywhere else
Content Warnings: Simulated child care



Valentine's Day is coming up, and love is in the air —

— And on a completely unrelated note, the faculty of Lofty Heights has deemed this the perfect time to educate their high schoolers about just how difficult childcare can be.

Students will be partnered up, either with another player character or an NPC. The pair will get a baby doll that will keep track of how well they're taking care of it. A day or two into the assignment, the doll will develop a random superpower that the parents will need to manage without harming the doll.

In addition to caring for the baby, students will be expected to budget for supplies, as well as the cost of any damage their baby's superpower might inadvertently cause.

---

So What is This Doll Like?

The simulation doll is a human-shaped baby doll. Its skin comes in a variety of colors to match the parents' preference, even distinctly non-human colors. Assume whatever color your character prefers is available.

It is designed to feel like a real baby, and thus is much heavier than the average doll. The baby will come with a plastic bottle and 2 cloth diapers, all equipped with sensors, so students can go through the motions of feeding and changing without needing actual baby supplies.

It is enhanced with both magic and technology, and is designed to keep track of how well it is being cared for. While the doll can track when it is being nurtured, neglected, or abused, it is not sentient and does not have thoughts or feelings. It is only collecting data.

The doll has a shrill cry, and must be tended to and soothed to make it stop. Sometimes a bottle or a change will do the trick, other times students will have to get more creative -- holding it, rocking it, singing to it, et cetera. Of course, the doll will make other noises, too. When the doll detects that it's been dutifully nurtured, it will laugh and burble happily.

Around one or two days into the assignment, the doll will develop a random superpower. This can be anything you want. Maybe it starts spitting fire, maybe it starts teleporting short distances, maybe its shrill cries suddenly become percussive blasts of sound. These superpowers may cause minor damage at worst, and students will need to find a way to manage those powers & minimize damage without doing anything that would hurt an actual baby.

(For example, if your baby is spitting fire, you cannot simply cover the doll's mouth to keep the fire in as that would suffocate a real baby.)

Being powered by both magic and technology, the doll cannot be hacked or altered. Any attempt to hack the doll will cause it to shut down, effectively "killing" it for the remainder of the assignment. Needless to say, this will result in failure.

At the end of the assignment, teachers will take the dolls back and load their stored data to determine students' scores.

So What's This About Budgeting?

The Lofty Heights faculty worked so hard on this assignment... they can have a little Pro-Guild Propaganda, as a treat.

Students will be given a workbook to go along with the doll. They must keep track of how many times they feed or change it, and track how much these supplies will cost based on the prices listed in the workbook.

(Obviously, players aren't expected to ACTUALLY keep track of these numbers. Unless you're into that, I guess. But this is 100% flavor text.)

Interestingly enough, there are two sets of prices listed in the book. In one column, there's the actual price for the item listed on store shelves. In the second column, there's a significantly cheaper price listed -- guild members get the cheaper price, as the guild will help subsidize the care of metahuman children.

Moreover, there's also a guide to budgeting for any damage your doll's superpower may have caused. For unaligned, there's a chart for calculating the hypothetical cost of damage based on what your doll's superpower is and how well you've been able to manage & keep it under control.

Alongside that chart, there is also the option for insurance to pay for any damage the baby causes, based on real-world prices at that time. However, the insurance premium is extremely expensive for unaligned parents, while the guild rates are far more affordable.

The workbook elaborates on the affordable guild rates, providing statistics and actuarial analysis on parents of metahumans. On average, unaligned parents are far more expensive to insure, due to the unaligned parents having fewer resources.

What resources, you ask? There is information in the workbook detailing all kinds of resources guild members have access to, including subsidized childcare, access to affordable health care and counseling, and a number of others.

All in all, the two main takeaways from this assignment appear to be: 1. Childcare is difficult, and 2. If you do decide to become a parent, you're gonna want to join a guild.

Wow! This Plot is Dumb and I Don't Want to Do It!

That's fine! Here are some options for you:

• Your character cared for the doll offscreen.
• Your character's partner is an NPC who decided to do 100% of the childcare themselves.
• Your character declined to do it this semester, and will be required to do this assignment at a later time.
• Your character just ignored the doll and failed the assignment.
• Your character is paying someone else to care for the doll.

Wow! This Plot Sounds Fun and I'd Love to Do It, but My Character is an Adult!

 

Rich students will pay you to take care of the doll for them.

 

Comments

[fluttersinoceanswind]

[She frowns, because yeah he did have a point there. ]

Yeah, I don't know why the rest of them aren't more upset about this.

[But either way, he's at least okay with the whole switching thing, so that's good. Means that she'll actually manage to get some sleep. ]

Okay. Want to take it first or should I do that?

[demigoth]

Because it's February. They've been going here for over 5 months. Their spirits are broken.

[ It sounds like the same teenaged grumble, but there's something in the delivery that might be a sense of humor. If you squint. ]

Which do you think is worse?

[fluttersinoceanswind]

...Oh, right, summer break is between years here.

[Sorry Nico she's used to the school year ending in March and beginning in April. As for the question about which one might be worse, well...]

I think both of them are going to be just as bad. [Only difference is she doesn't get sleep tonight or tomorrow. ]

[demigoth]

[ Nico looks confused - summer break is between years doesn't make sense from his perspective. Summer break is in the summer, duh, not sandwiched between December and January, and he's never lived anywhere where the school year didn't put the massive break in the summer.

But it's not important. ]

So I'll take the first night, and we can switch tomorrow in class. So give me Nyx.

[ He holds out a hand for the baby, which he's naming after the Greek goddess of the night unless Erika stops him. ]

[fluttersinoceanswind]

[Erika's not sure why he's so confused by what she said, but honestly, it doesn't really matter too much. Especially since he's fine with taking the baby for the first night.

So she goes ahead and hands the doll over to him gently, but even so she can't help but ask a question.]

So, why are we naming her Nyx? [She doesn't mind, and honestly it's probably better than any name she could come up with. But she's still curious!]

[demigoth]

Because Nyx is terrifying, and they're obviously going to make the baby behave during school and be awful at night. They're not going to let them disrupt class.

[ Nico is holding the doll in an odd manner that can best be described as like a vertical football. ]

Half the class is going with Brayden or Olivia.

[fluttersinoceanswind]

[Yeah, he's got a point. There'd be no reason to make this assignment if the baby was going to be a weird mutant who actually slept through the night.

Anyway speaking about the baby, she frowns at the way he's holding their "daughter". ]

Don't hold her like that. If you're holding her you have to support her head. [She pauses, moving closer to Nico to help him adjust to hold a baby properly. ] At least, I'm pretty sure we do if it's keep track of what we do for our grades.

[demigoth]

It’s a doll.

[ He adjusts the doll anyway, but Nico does try to sidestep her hands. He can hold the doll himself. There’s no need to make it feel even more childish by correcting how he’s playing house. ]

So how do we know what it keeps track of? It cries; we pick it up and give it its fake bottle. Change its fake diaper. Do you think it knows if it’s warm?

[fluttersinoceanswind]

[Nico, come on this is their grades on the line! She can't afford to lose more points on easy stuff! ]

Yeah, well, with all the super powers and alien tech stuff, I wouldn't put it past the school to have these dolls have super sensors that keep track of how we hold them. Or how warm we keep them.

[demigoth]

We have to keep it warm?

[ Now he looks worried, and then glares down at the baby. ]

So I can’t shadow travel when I’m babysitting? Teleport, but it feels cold.

[fluttersinoceanswind]

I mean, maybe? They didn't mention anything about that but if it were a real baby we'd have to do that.

[She pauses, thinking for a moment. ]

It might depend on how cold you get when you do it?

[demigoth]

Kinda cold?

[ Not North Pole cold, but definitely frosty. ]

The people I take with me complain about it more than I do.

[fluttersinoceanswind]

[Well, that's vague. But then again it's not like she's mentioning anything about (most of) her powers to people, so she can't really blame him. ]

Well, you're probably used to it so it makes sense it doesn't bother you as much. [Another pause, then... ]

Maybe it'd be a good idea to hold off on using it with the doll unless you have to.

[demigoth]

[ It might even be subjective, how cold a shadow is. ]

Or immune to it. I think most people can’t get hurt by their own power. Imagine being able to summon a zombie that didn’t listen to you.

I guess I can stay in one place for a few nights.

[fluttersinoceanswind]

[Yeah, that's something that Erika has never even considered before and she ends up wincing a little at the mental image. ]

Right. Yeah, that makes sense. [ Of course, it sucks for him that he can't use his powers while's babysitting the doll though.]

At least we're going to be alternating days?

[demigoth]

Yeah. We'll alternate days and write a report saying how much we learned about working together and diaper pins.

[ He's still going to grouse about it under his breath. ]

I knew I should have knuckled down until I got expelled, but then someone told me about in-school suspensions. I chickened out.