how o-old are you? How o-old are you?

[Anonymous]

Your face looks like a monkey, and you smell like one too...  </song>

I love the subjectivity of the code in many cases. However, I find that it often works against me, both OOCly and ICly.

I have played characters who arebarely old enough to drive by american standards, though their description is just "woman" or "man" because I don't like the subjectivity of changing from teenager to the adult description - and in certain circumstances, the distinction is negligible.

However, I find that playing youthful impetuousness or changes in mood/personality are often misinterpreted as character inconsistencies by people who ass -v my character and see "she is younger than you" without realizing ICly or OOCly that means 16 or 17.

Does this happen to anyone else? Would it make sense to be able to look at someone and see "This person is but a child" or "This person is a mere babe" or "This person looks like s/he is in his/her teens." or "This person looks like s/he is in his/her twenties" or "this person looks middle aged" or "this person looks old" or "this person looks ancient" instead of "He/she looks older than you" or "He/she looks much younger than you"?

Does the subjectivity go a little far here and make it difficult to gauge reactions to certain people or am I daft?

[Marauder Moe]

I agree that assess -v should describe age objectivly, if that's what you mean.

[Gimfalisette]

I also agree. Teen, young adult, adult, etc. I can tell those things about people usually in RL--at least a heck of a lot better than I can judge their weight relative to mine. Although it might make lying about one's age less feasible to do.

But yeah, I hear what you mean about the possibility of a teenage character being seen as idiosyncratic when in truth they are just whacked out by hormones, transition to adulthood, inexperience, etc. like any  teenager. (Yes, even the Zalanthan ones, they are still going through all of this stuff even if technically they are "adults.") There is such a huge amount of development from the age of 13 to 20, it should be indicated somehow better than "they appear younger than you."

I also don't like using "teen" or whatever in the sdesc, though I think "young woman" or "young man" is fine. And then just arbitrarily getting it changed at some pre-determined point.

[Hymwen]

Yeah, I think the way you see age could be changed a little. Once people are much younger or older than you, you can't tell with any kind of accuracy. If your PC is 45, people who fall into the "very young compared to you" category are people from like 13 to 25 or so. Anyone should be able to tell the difference, and I know people who have been OOCly bummed because they mudsexed someone they thought was just a "young woman" but turned out to be 13.

Same way from young to old - a 15 year old PC won't be able to tell the difference between a 35 year old and a 60 year old, and sometimes descriptions are written too poorly or vaguely for that to suffice.

[Cegar]

Who in Zalanthas would be bummed for kanking a 13 year old? Those things sell for three small in the bazaar.

Was that too IC?

[Gimfalisette]

Who in Zalanthas would be bummed for kanking a 13 year old? Those things sell for three small in the bazaar.

Was that too IC?

Hymwen said "OOCly bummed" not "ICly bummed."

[slipshod]

My own IRL ass -v command doesn't return very reliable results.  I am terrible at guestimating someone's age by looking at them.  
The best I can do is "obviously younger than me", "about my age", and "obviously older than me."  Even then, I'm wrong 8 times out of 10.  The biggest problem for me is thinking that young girls are over 18. hehe.  Can't people just wear age-tags?

[grog]

My own IRL ass -v command doesn't return very reliable results.  I am terrible at guestimating someone's age by looking at them.  
The best I can do is "obviously younger than me", "about my age", and "obviously older than me."  Even then, I'm wrong 8 times out of 10.  The biggest problem for me is thinking that young girls are over 18. hehe.  Can't people just wear age-tags?

That's what driver's liscenses are for.

[Vesperas]

Unless the person has had plastic surgery of sort or is just particularly lucky, I can usually tell about how old someone is.  Always exceptions, but there's the room for interpretation of the main desc.

Something no one's brought up yet is assessing people of another race.  Obviously, it would be a little harder, but it shouldn't be so hard that it returns weird results (like the 13-year old 'young woman').

I can look at a dog and tell if it's a puppy, grown puppy (1 yearish), middle-aged, or just plain old (they grey like the rest of us).  And its not even a humanoid.

I think it would be a little bit better to just add some more 'categories', maybe, to the aging descriptor, instead of just 'younger than you' or whatever.

[John]

I've never had any discernable reaction when I play young characters over older characters. It could be that I play them fairly much the same (for my chars puberty hits at 11 so by the time I'm playing I've overcome the difficulties that the new hormosed present), with the exception being that they simply don't know as much, haven't had as many experiences, are physically weak and aren't as sure of themselves (although this may or may not be able to be told by non-psionists). Oh and they don't like kanking old farts (unless that's what they're into).