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If you played interactive fiction in which you had to control the dayly life of your character, would you prefer if the game spawned children for you, or if you could choose when to have them?

Choose when to have them.

I don't understand the question.

Do you mean that the story might suddenly say, "Oh, by the way, that kid over there is yours?" Or would you control/have options around "Choose to sleep with that person over there" and then there is an option that says, "Were you successful in having kids?"

I guess its more around the option of doing something in the story to have kids. You say that the reader would have total control of the daily life of the character, and if the reader feels they have total control, some kids just showing up out of the blue would seem quite odd. If, on the other hand, the character selects an option to get married, the reader shouldn't be surprised if kids show up.

Have I sufficiently totally avoided answering the question?

Yes, but I'm sure you gave the OP some insight.

Thanks for the answer, it was nice to get some insight.

(Of course the character will be married before the player is allowed to have kids. I assume real children will play my game, am I'm not teaching them to go around and carelessly "spawn" children.)

 

What would be a good chance of randomly having children? 25%? 10%?

 

What effect will having children have on the game? If one has children, will that spawn a whole different path in the storygame that is not accessible if one does not have children? If not, then what is the point of the children in the story? If they are going to be nothing more than some random text on the page, then you could just include it every time and not worry about percentages, let them always have children.

On the other hand, it might be neat to have a story that completely splits into a different path if the reader does have children. If that were the case, I think it might be best to have it be a 50/50 chance so that if I play the game again, I would have a good chance of seeing the different path.

It is set in medieval age. Children will be inheriting their parent's lands.

Uhh, Rafe? No child above the age of seven is going to spawn children because a CYOA story told them to.

It sounds ridiculous when you describe it like that, but think about this: Someone makes a cyoa story that describes lock picking in detail. Would you hold the idea that no one in the world will use it as a learning tool?

I'm supporting the idea that if you describe a concept somewhere, at least one person in the world will try to apply it to their lives.

Besides, I know several children that jumped out a window because the were dressed in blue and had a red towel in their shoulders, just like superman, or believed they could make brooms fly, like witches do. All of them were over seven.

You don't know who is reading your stories, so expect the worse and save people the grief.

A fictional story in which a man and a woman have children outside of wedlock? How disgraceful! *monocle pop*

You're being absurd, and you bloody well know it. Nobody is going to plan their life based off your life-sim game. You're taking yourself a little too seriously.

Both. You can choose to have a child, but some random event also could spawn them. Some kids are planned, some aren't.