I've seen a few posts talking about how messed up it was that the qsmp put the players in the position where they bonded with a digital egg child, then risked suddenly losing their egg child (and contact with their roleplay buddy) if the egg died. Not to mention suddenly being forced to roleplay unexpected child death live in front of thousands of people. I agree, that was messed up.
This lead to me thinking back on a tumblr post I saw a while back, while the qsmp was still running, about alternatives to the egg life system, since people were starting to realize that the system kind of sucked. The post mentioned an idea for some sort of CPS system where the parents had to take parenting classes if their egg died. If you wrote that post and see this, please let me know so I can credit you for the inspiration.
EDIT: The creator of the tumblr post with the idea for egg CPS is anonymous-dentist. Thank you for inspiring me to create this!
I liked this idea, and decided to flesh it out a bit, since I've seen that some people are making their own minecraft servers with eggs. The way I see it, the egg life system as it was on the qsmp isn't great for the reasons mentioned above, but having the eggs be just as immortal as players takes away from the dependency the eggs have on their parents and the need to protect/take care of the eggs outside of their role as designated children. Why not let your egg go fight the warden, if there aren't any consequences for doing so?
Thus, I have created my own system for egg 'death' which I call the EPS (Egg Protective Services), which people can use on their own servers if they find it interesting or appealing.
I haven't actually played minecraft in a long time, but I do play a lot of D&D and spend way too much of my free time thinking about minecraft eggs, so I feel like this is a pretty good system for roleplaying.
The EPS (Egg Protective Services)
The EPS operates with the standard 2-life system for eggs. If an egg loses one life, well, accidents happen, but the parent receives an admonishment of some sort from the EPS. This can be a strongly-worded letter, a visit from an EPS agent, or a required meeting with an EPS agent at the EPS office at a specified date and time, depending on whatever works best for your server.
If an egg loses two lives, however, this is where the fun begins. The egg in question is deemed ‘critically injured’ and has to stay at the egg hospital for a week in order to recover from their injuries, during which time the egg isn’t able to interact with any other players.
Note: this can be a way to add additional ‘stakes’ to specific plot-specific encounters. For example. XYZ plot-relevant threat is SO dangerous, that if an egg loses their second life to it, they have to spend additional time in the egg hospital to recover. Or the threat hurts the egg in a specific way that they have to be in the egg hospital until the appropriate macguffin can be retrieved to heal them, or until the threat that killed them has been dealt with, or any number of other things to raise the stakes of any specific enemy or threat.
Note: this can also be a way to deal with deaths that were ruled ‘unfair.’ Instead of having to roll back time, or declare what happened to be non-canon, just say that the egg made a miraculously quick recovery and EPS has investigated and decided that the parent is an acceptable caregiver for their egg and can retrieve their egg immediately.
If a parent does not retrieve their egg from the egg hospital after more than four weeks from when the egg has recovered from their injuries, the egg can be transferred to the egg adoption center and become open for adoption by other players. This can be a way to deal with players who are too busy to be parents, or have decided this whole ‘minecraft parenthood’ thing isn’t for them.
However, the egg hospital isn’t the only ‘punishment’ for an egg losing both of their lives. If an egg’s parent(s) are sufficiently negligent that their egg loses both of their lives, the EPS must intervene to ensure that the egg is being raised in a safe and loving environment. That means the parent(s) have to take parenting classes from the EPS before they can retrieve their egg from the egg hospital.
These classes will take different forms depending on how the egg lost their second life. Note that this is entirely based around the death message in the chat, and is not depending on the surrounding circumstances. Meaning, for example, if an egg dies in lava while running away from mobs, the parent(s) will have to take the safety class, and if an egg is killed by their own parent due to a misclick, the parent will have to take the PVP class. The EPS is not a perfect system.
Feel free to have the players take as many classes as are deemed necessary (or funny/dramatic), but unless you have an extremely active server, I personally wouldn’t recommend requiring more than one class before the egg can be retrieved.
The types of classes are as follows: safety classes, caretaking classes, and PVP classes. Safety classes are for if an egg dies to a safety hazard, such as lava, drowning, or fall damage. Caretaking classes are for if an egg dies of neglect (assuming you’re using some kind of task system for the eggs), and PVP classes are if the egg dies to a mob or player.
For safety classes, the parent(s) must either completely safety-proof their egg’s home, or build an entirely new home that meets the safety standards of the EPS agent. These standards should be intentionally somewhat ridiculous. Try to have fun with it!
For caretaking classes, the parent(s) must perform a standard set of egg tasks for an inanimate object (an actual dragon egg, a block of white wool, a custom egg dummy, whatever you feel is most appropriate), under the supervision of the EPS agent. They need to be able to prove that they can take care of an egg. Once again, this should intentionally be somewhat ridiculous. If one of the tasks involves giving the egg a specific food, throw the food on the ground next to the fake egg. If one of the tasks involves taking the egg to a dungeon, bring the fake egg to the dungeon and set it on the ground for a little while. The EPS agent can be as nitpicky as is desired to make the scenario more interesting/dramatic/funny. If the parent(s) fail to complete the tasks in a way that meets the standards of the EPS agent, make them do the tasks again.
For PVP classes, it’s exactly what it says on the tin. Teach the parent(s) the basics of PVP, have them fight some mobs, then have them fight the EPS agent. This one’s pretty basic. Where it gets interesting, is that if the egg died to a player instead of a mob, then the parent(s) and the player who killed the egg must have a ‘counseling session’ lead by the EPS agent, to resolve any conflicts and ensure that the egg won’t be killed again. If the egg was killed by a parent, this may mean a counseling session with the other parent(s) or it might mean a personal therapy session. These can be as messy/dramatic as is desired, or they can just be silly.
Note: if your server doesn’t have people on hand to roleplay as NPCs to serve as the EPS agent, maybe have the currently recovering egg play the EPS agent, since they’re in the hospital and don’t have anything else to do.
Note: before actually having the parenting classes, discuss with the parent(s) what tone you all want out of the scenario. The class can be a sad scene, where the parent(s) mourn their injured egg and lament what terrible parent(s) they were, while the EPS agent is harshly critical of their failure as a parent, or it can be a goofy scene where increasingly frustrated parent(s) desperately try to meet the increasingly ridiculous demands of the EPS agent, or anything in between. Make sure everyone involved is on the same page about the tone before the class is held.
Once the parent(s) have completed their parenting class and a week has passed, the egg can be retrieved from the egg hospital and is restored to two lives. If an egg frequently ends up in the egg hospital, feel free to increase the amount of time the egg spends in the hospital or the number of required parenting classes as desired. While I do use the word ‘punish’ a few times when describing the EPS, the point here is not to be serious punishment for the players/eggs. If people aren’t enjoying the EPS system, feel free to adjust it or just stop using it. The purpose of the EPS system is to create an opportunity for dramatic/funny/interesting roleplay moments and add stakes to egg deaths without permanently killing off eggs.
If you decide you want to use this system, you don't need to slap a big "created by parvalunaskitty" on it, but I would appreciate if you at least told people you got the idea from a tumblr post, and I'd really appreciate it if you told me about your adventures with the EPS system, since I'd love to find out how this system works in practice.
