Please Make Arm 18+

[Dar]

How about we codify the consent request.

To grant consent the player needs to ooc "I'm of legal age and I grant consent"

That guarantees the person read help consent and is aware of being 18 requirement for it. And reinforces the matter each time the consent is given.

If a person is not of age, no sexual scenes can happen.

[LindseyBalboa]

Porn sites have 18+ click throughs because they're focused on sex. MUDs have 18+ requirements when they're focused on sex.

While all text-based role playing games have their own sexy time loving people, not all MU*s have 18+ requirements. Violence means
basically nothing for an age rating in America, where this MUD is based, so violence does not indicate an 18+ requirement.

I would argue that Arm is not focused on sex. I'm also going to suggest the onus of responsibility is on the players to
(why the fuck do I have to type this) not mud sex under age people. If you're worried you are possibly doing this,
stop doing what you're doing, just like elsewhere in life.

tl;dr Please don't make it seem like it is, or it will end up that way.

[Tiktak]

Porn sites have 18+ click throughs because they're focused on sex. MUDs have 18+ requirements when they're focused on sex.

While all graphical role playing games have their own sexy time loving people, not all MU*s have 18+ requirements. Violence means
basically nothing for an age rating in America, where this MUD is based, so violence does not indicate an 18+ requirement.

I would argue that Arm is not focused on sex. I'm also going to suggest the onus of responsibility is on the players to
(why the fuck do I have to type this) not mud sex under age people. If you're worried you are possibly doing this,
stop doing what you're doing, just like elsewhere in life.

Please don't make it seem like it is, or it will end up that way.

Absolutely agree. I am not a fan of flagging the game 18+ only, either. I am very much an advocate of child safety and thus I believe that Staff can implement a better mechanism for Staff-only flagging of underage accounts that will be monitored by said Staff to ensure they are not being inappropriately targeted, sniffed out, or being exposed to content unsuitable for their age within the consent rules.

[Barsook]

I agree here with the idea of staff-only flagging, but how would they know. It's the Internet, people can lie of the their age.

[Delirium]

The consent rules in place are enough. If this is something you are personally worried about as a player, then bring it up when asking for consent, or don't engage in that sort of roleplay, period. This goes for any mature content.

[lostinspace]

I'd rather lose the sexual RP and keep the younger players and characters.

[Nameless Face]

I do think there is room for improvement on how we, as players, treat public rooms and initial contacts with unknown PCs.

The biggest area for potentially giving an unwelcome experience are in these initial experiences.

I have caught some /very/ graphic hemotes unintentionally in open taverns.  Didn't ruin my day, but being aware that we might not want  to have that happening occasionally to any random player (perhaps underage) is probably a good thing?

I'd also suggest that if your character has the hots for some other PC that Waying or whispering to them with super-adulty jiggy stuff as your first contact with them might not be best.  Get a scene with them where you can OOC if there is consent (including affirmation of adult status) before.

Either we need to understand that the game doesn't have to include that type of thing for everyone and make sure it is not forced upon them just by playing or we have to accept that we are actually creating by our play a MUD where those type of things are an accepted and expected part of nearly every player's experience.

If we take the second choice, then we might have to tag ourselves "enter at your own risk" and declare ourselves exclusively adult-play with it's trappings. 

Shrug.

[Khorm]

I have caught some /very/ graphic hemotes unintentionally in open taverns.  Didn't ruin my day, but being aware that we might not want  to have that happening occasionally to any random player (perhaps underage) is probably a good thing?

this sort of thing, if sexy in nature, strikes me as pretty abusive. probably shouldn't happen at all without a check for consent.

[Heade]

We've been fine for 20 years without putting the entire game behind closed doors.

This isn't exactly accurate. Before Arm made it's last server move, the homepage for the MUD explicitly stated that Armageddon MUD had an 18+ age requirement. That doesn't exactly "close the doors" to the potential for people to lie, but it set the expectation for the rest of the people playing.

Personally, I'd prefer that they brought that simple line back, making the game adult-only. I don't think each individual player should be held responsible for confirming the OOC age of the people we're RPing with when so much OOC communication is frowned upon or outright forbidden. This is especially true since people who would lie about their RL age during character creation would also likely do so in a verification from another player. So making players do it just adds a further level of real life responsibility to players who play this game to escape real life responsibility.

Furthermore, by stating that this game is specifically for 18+ adults, we won't feel so compelled to make game content and behaviors witnessed in the game "kid friendly", and hopefully the game can start to shift back towards the gritty, harsh place it once was. I personally blame "kid friendly" and "politically correct" changes to the game for a significant portion of the negative change to the atmosphere over the years.

While having an 18+ statement might not keep minors from lying, it sets the stage for dealing with any potential problems. It protects the creators of the game from liability. It protects the players of the game from liability. It sets an expectation that there may be things in the game happening that aren't appropriate for children. As it is now, things can happen in the game that aren't appropriate for children, and we really haven't given any warning to that effect, so an angry parent would have a lot more ammunition. And asking for consent between 2 people isn't even covering our bases, because you ask the consent of the PC that you can see. That says nothing of the PC that might be hiding or invisible watching the scene unfold without OOCing at all. They could be a minor, but you'd never even know they were there. If we had the 18+ requirement, we'd at least be seen to have done SOME due dilligence.

Unsupervised minors are able to do a lot of things they aren't supposed to. But if we add an 18+ tag to our homepage and an 18+ acknowledgement to character creation, we've given parents the tools they need to understand that this is a game with mature content in order to prevent their children from playing if they so choose. Right now, if a parent does a cursory review of the website, there is nothing that would really send up red flags as to why they might not want their kid to play a game that on the surface looks sort of like themes similar to that of Zelda or the Elder Scrolls, or any other mainstream RPG out there.

If said minors are left unsupervised with unfettered access to the internet, they're going to look at things they shouldn't. They're going to interact with people in ways that they shouldn't. But it is the parents responsibility to supervise their children. All we can do is make it easy for said parents to understand WHAT IT IS that their child is looking at.

From a legal perspective, an attorney that specializes in adult websites said this: "While the First Amendment has prevented the US from enacting a constitutional online age verification law, good faith efforts to prevent minors from accessing explicit material is recommended."

So even if you can't completely prevent them from accessing said material, making the effort by requiring them to verify that they're over 18 before having access is legally recommended. We aren't going to "fix" the internet, but we can legally protect ourselves using the same online methods used by sites that offer far more graphic content than we do: An 18+ acknowledgement.

NOTE: For anyone researching the legality or liability involved in operating a website with an 18+ requirement, please understand that there are a lot of websites out there with outdated information. The Child Online Protection Act (COPA) was put under an injunction as to be unenforceable in 1999. It would have required online age verification. It was appealed several times by the government before effectively being shut down by the 3rd circuit court of appeals as being unconstitutional, in violation of the 1st and 5th amendments. The supreme court of the United States refused their final appeal after that ruling in 2009, effectively barring the law from being enforced, despite it still being a law on the books.

I'd rather lose the sexual RP and keep the younger players and characters.

If we move this game further towards a kid-friendly environment, the game will have lost all appeal to me. People tend to say things like this, with the unstated insinuation that they won't lose other players. I think it's worth noting that armageddon was at it's player-number peak when we didn't have nearly as many "kid friendly" or "Politically correct" rules in place. And they had an 18+ requirement on the website at the time.

I think it'd be a very interesting experiment for the staff to allow a second instance of the game for a period of time. One with the kid friendly rules and a ban on sexual RP, and the other rolling back all of the PC/Kid friendly rule changes that have happened over the last 20 years. Let them both run for 2 years, and see which one has more players participating. If they'd allow their code to be used to perform this experiment, I'd even be willing to pay for the server to run the game for those 2 years. I expect we'd see a resurgence of growth on the rollback server.

The issue with discussions like this, on a forum made up mostly of people who have recently played the game(in the last several years), is that you get sort of an echo chamber setup, where players who didn't like the changes are generally no longer a part of the conversation.

[Narf]

Is the plan to force everyone wanting to play to submit three forms of I.D.?

Driver's License
SSN
Proof of Address?

While I understand and agree that the game isn't intended for minors nor should they be playing it, unless you actually plan to enforce something like the above, then the liars are still going to lie. It's the internet, and it is the ugly side of it, but the truth. You don't really know that the person claiming they're 18 is really 18.

No, I think the plan is to pretty much half-ass it like most everyone else does.

I'm in favor of it. If the MUD ever gets sued or undergoes legal action over "corrupting a minor" having something on the website that says 18+ will be a good thing to point to. I doubt it'll have much more effect than that, but given how little investment it takes I'd say that's enough.

[Bebop]

Heade hit it on well... the head.  This isn't really an optional thing.  It's a legal thing.  I think there's a disconnect here that Armageddon is some how beyond these kind of regulations because its skirted them thus far when that absolutely is not the case.

I have the perspective of someone who has worked in HR the past year, and been responsible in securing our processes is as an organization to protect minors that we both host, service and occasionally hire.  We can't even pull a minors background check with a signed disclosure form from their guardian.  If you think engaging with minors is a non-issue, frankly you're wrong.

I am also heavily involved in social media.  YouTube has increasingly created guidelines forcing videos to disclose if they are not meant for children.  They have also removed a ton of videos that were not sexual in nature but STILL thought to exploit minors.  They have ended monetizing content directed towards minors completely.  How we treat minors is important ethically and legally.  We are growing up collectively as a society and realizing more must be done.

This is an issue we really need to address before someone addresses it for us.  At present, this represents a real issue and risk that could even get the game shut down if something were really to go awry.  As mentioned, I am not just talking about direct role-play sex.  I am talking about engaging in general role-play of torture, gore, drug use, flirtation with people that could be ANY age.  Thirteen, sixteen, ten years old, behind the keyboard, who knows?  Not okay.

These arguments of, well I did this as a youngin' aren't good enough.  It doesn't matter.  I was looking at BDSM porn at age sixteen.  I turned out just fine too.  A few persistent kinks aside.  But guess what, the porn sites I accessed had eighteen plus on them.  Yes, you can get into shit you're not "really" supposed to as a kid.  But we still have laws and things in place where things like sexual rp, violence and drug use must be stipulated online, in movies, video games and so forth that they are not intended to be used by minors.

As Namino said, you can't even play this game without getting propositioned for romance/sex and flirted with.  Having to OOC "Are you eighteen" if someone so much as winks as your character is not a good standard.  Requiring the game to be eighteen plus is.  Allowing minors to engage in romantic role-play then stopping them at the door of hardcore sex isn't good enough.  Minors should not be RPing romantic relations with adults behind the keyboard.  Just because it's a MUD and there's a perceived extra step of removal via the game doesn't make it anymore right.  You wouldn't RP romance with a fourteen year old on Facebook chat, it shouldn't be done in the MUD.

I'm really surprised at the amount of people willing to turn a blind eye to what seems to be a very simple ethical and legal choice and advocate that a game who's tagline is "Murder. Corruption. Betrayal." is intended to be a playground for minors.

[LauraMars]

I was always a little confused by the fact that there wasn't a quick question baked into chargen (are you over the age of 18?), which disconnects the chargen process if the answer is 'no'.

All the kids who want to play this game will lie and say they're over 18. But that's on them/their parents, not on the people who run this game.

[Namino]

I was always a little confused by the fact that there wasn't a quick question baked into chargen (are you over the age of 18?), which disconnects the chargen process if the answer is 'no'.

All the kids who want to play this game will lie and say they're over 18. But that's on them/their parents, not on the people who run this game.

This is correct.

There is a major ethical and legal difference between having someone verify their age and click 'confirm' versus saying 'btw this game has naughty bits don't play those bits if u a beb' and then turning a blind eye and assuming it's all going swimmingly.

[Veselka]

I mean, likely over half of the player base started playing the game before they were 18. I certainly did, started at age 14-15.

I don't think having a disclaimer of 'Mature Content ahead, we recommend (or even require) you are 18 and over' is going to deter anyone, and there's no way to safeguard against people under the age of 18 from playing the game. It's also a free game which is an important distinction.

I can't see any way for Staff to verify Players' age. Do you have to link your Facebook account? Even that can be faked.

I don't think it is turning a blind eye as not really having a solid solution for ensuring people under the age of 18 don't play the game. Furthermore, if we consider that a plethora of players started playing the game when they were 15 or even younger, what are we trying to do to our player base or potential player base? I do think the days of logging into the MUD during nutrition at high school are sort of behind us now -- There's plenty of other games and distractions for the underage crowd. But I'm curious if I would have even started playing the game if it had a 18+ mature stamp. I might have, I might not have, hard to say.

It's difficult to quantify.

How many players might we lose by adding a 18+ stamp?
How many players might we gain from a 18+ stamp that are still underage?
How many underage people play the game currently?
How many underage people that play the game currently skirt the 18+ rule of consent?
What problem does this actually solve, most importantly.

It seems like a liberalized hand-washing of the deeper issue, which is we can't control who plays the game, or what age they are. We can put disclaimers as much as we like, but it wouldn't prevent a 13 year old from engaging in ERP on the MUD. It seems like a way of changing the focus of blame -- If we have a disclaimer, and a 13 year old still plays the MUD, and engages in ERP, then the onus is on them? I don't see how that solves the problem.

Again, I don't think it's turning a blind eye -- The issue as presented is a real one, but it's also a difficult issue to tackle, not simply hand-waved with a disclaimer. I'm unsure how the game developers and the player base can combat such an issue, and I certainly don't think having a '18+ Mature Content' stamp will do anything but attract people.

The options as I see it are:
-Disallow Erotic Role-play Period. All sexual scenes are Fade to Black.
-Only allow Erotic Role-play with verified adults. Not sure what this verification process is, maybe there's a website that identifies your SS# without disclosing it and gives the results of 'Soandso is Age Blah'.

I think both of these options are pretty invasive, particularly the latter option. 'Requiring' that the game is 18+ is nothing more than 'Recommending' to people that are underage not to play the game. There is no way of enforcing it. The Click Through button of "Are you 18+" is more to give everyone over 18 peace of mind, and doesn't actually address the underlying issue.

[Bebop]

Stuff.

Stop.

Just stop.  Stop playing stupid.

We all know that no is talking about identification.  We are talking about the same laws that require sites to give a warning that they are meant for eighteen plus and having people confirm I'm eighteen or not so the burden is on them if they engage in the viewing or participation of content that is sexual in nature and not meant for them.  The same regulations that stipulate on Patreon or YouTube that content is not for minors.  We're talking about ethics and intent that minors not have Armageddon to use as an outlet for sex and drug use RP.

Porn sites have it.  Erotic lit sites have it.  This is a game where a minor could engage in roleplaying drug use and sex.  And this site also needs to have such a standard.  It isn't really interpretive.  It's the law.  Minors can not consent to these things. You can argue all day that sites stipulating they are for adult use don't do anything, but it's still legally required because it takes the legal burden off of the website supplying the content.  There's a reason these laws are in place.

Stop playing dumb with these strawman, stupid over-generalizations about identification and Facebook and SSNs which are also highly regulated.  Legally, most companies can't even make copies of legal photo identification or SSN cards so you're making it really clear you have no idea what you're talking about.

This has a very simple solution.  Make account users have to confirm they are eighteen and stipulate this game is for adults since it has strong themes of sexuality, drug-use, torture, murder, corruption and gore.

[Veselka]

I know it's difficult in this day and age to have a discussion or debate over a hot button issue, but I'm certainly not playing dumb. I'm skeptical that your solution would solve the problem. I would say I'm playing smart, not playing stupid. I just don't bleat like a sheep and accept your solution at face value.

The deeper issue is that this doesn't actually solve the problem, it just gives you peace of mind.

[mansa]

Could we throw a line here:



Stating, "Armageddon is a roleplaying blah blah blah 18+"

[Bebop]

I know it's difficult in this day and age to have a discussion or debate over a hot button issue, but I'm certainly not playing dumb. I'm skeptical that your solution would solve the problem. I would say I'm playing smart, not playing stupid. I just don't bleat like a sheep and accept your solution at face value.

The deeper issue is that this doesn't actually solve the problem, it just gives you peace of mind.

You could say that about literally any porn site, any R rating on a moving, any M rating on a game.  It's still the law to protect minors and disclose when content has heavy adult themes.  It is also the responsibility of the game to protect its players (and minors) by having a standard that minors can not be in a game where romance, flirting and sex is constantly accessible so that we are not engaging in that sort of play.  As stated, there is no way to play this game without being exposed to that.

It wouldn't be appropriate to pretend a fourteen year old is older and RP out them watching a strip tease in Facebook chat and it's not okay in Armageddon.  The present rules aren't strong enough and its a hazard to the game.

[Bebop]

Could we throw a line here:



Stating, "Armageddon is a roleplaying blah blah blah 18+"

Yep.  And I would argue put something in there stating you must be eighteen plus, and by filling out this app you are confirming you are of age to play or something.  It's really that simple.

[Veselka]

I'd say it's an equal hazard to the game that it is based directly on protected Intellectual Property of TSR/WoTC. Game Staff took some measures to remove some aspects of IP infringement, but there's certainly more than enough to make a case if there ever was a want for that.

This Disclaimer will not, I repeat, will not prevent minors from playing the game. It will simply provide (as you see it) a protection for Staff/Game Developers and the Player Base of people who are actually over 18 from being culpable (in your opinion) if an underage person still chooses to play the game after reading the disclaimer. I don't actually think that protection would hold up in the court if (one day) a minor played the game, engaged in ERP, and sued the game developers over providing an environment where that could take place. I'm not a lawyer. I certainly can't see a jury of peers agreeing with a game developer that everything is A-OK because they put a 18+ warning on the website or when you make a PC.

[Brokkr]

You could say that about literally any porn site, any R rating on a moving, any M rating on a game.  It's still the law to protect minors and disclose when content has heavy adult themes.

ESRB is not the law, it is a voluntary system.

Please at least have the courtesy, if you are going to throw around arguments based on the law, to have a specific understanding of what the laws are.

[Krath]

The consent rules in place are enough. If this is something you are personally worried about as a player, then bring it up when asking for consent, or don't engage in that sort of roleplay, period. This goes for any mature content.

This.

[Heade]

I mean, likely over half of the player base started playing the game before they were 18. I certainly did, started at age 14-15.

I don't think having a disclaimer of 'Mature Content ahead, we recommend (or even require) you are 18 and over' is going to deter anyone, and there's no way to safeguard against people under the age of 18 from playing the game.

You're missing the point. The point of having an 18+ requirement isn't to be able to enforce it. It's a legal protection, that you have notified potential "consumers" of your media that the intended audience is a mature audience. We're not babysitters. It's not for us to figure out how to police all the children of the world.

It also sets the precedent, so that the game is free to create mature content without having to worry about whether or not that content is appropriate for minors, because we have directly stated that it isn't INTENDED to be appropriate for minors. By having mature content but not really directly saying the game is for people 18+, we muddy the waters of liability and handcuff content creators to the constant idea that they need be conscious of the idea of having consumers who were minors, which neither provides legal protection nor promotes quality of content.

And, sure, the majority of us started playing MUDs when we were under 18. And the vast majority of us have lied on a website that requires an 18+ acknowledgement. But having that acknowledgement allowed those websites to continue to create content that was targeted towards an adult audience without legal liability.

That is what I'm in favor of. I'm in favor of us directly stating, once again, that Armageddon is a MUD intended for people 18 or over so we can focus on making the game enjoyable for it's adult player base rather than having to put everything through a filter of trying to protect the world's children. That isn't our job. This game was never meant for 10 year olds to play. And if the occasional unsupervised 16 year old or 14 year old ignores the fact that it is an 18+ game, that isn't our problem. If we put 18+ warnings in place, we're free to create content as we please, and enjoy the RPing experience without having to digitally "card" people we RP with.

As others, I too started RPing online when I was only 13 years old. There were explicit things that have occurred over my many years of online RP, and I was always unharmed. Having the MUD be 18+ is more about setting the expectations we have as players for the themes of the game, and providing legal protection against claims of negligence than trying to prevent anyone from playing. We tell them our intended audience is 18+ and that themes present in the game are designed for an 18+ audience. It's up to them to abide by that, or accept the responsibility for not doing so.

This Disclaimer will not, I repeat, will not prevent minors from playing the game. It will simply provide (as you see it) a protection for Staff/Game Developers and the Player Base of people who are actually over 18 from being culpable (in your opinion) if an underage person still chooses to play the game after reading the disclaimer. ... I certainly can't see a jury of peers agreeing with a game developer that everything is A-OK because they put a 18+ warning on the website or when you make a PC.

It's not exactly an "opinion" with no basis in fact. First off, there is no jury in a civil case. It's just a judge who has to abide by the law, and the supreme court has held that it is unconstitutional in the United States to require even pornographic websites to have age verification at all. It is only legally recommended by attorneys to have a voluntary "I am over 18" splash screen to offer further protection(to the website, not to consumers) than already exists by law. Second, many legal precedents already exist with graphic, adult-websites that have been sued and won under existing US law. The US supreme court has already weighed in by denying the appeal from the 3rd circuit court. And Armageddon is far less graphic than what is depicted on adult-websites.

So yes, the intention is to protect the creators of the game, and the players of the game, while allowing them to create and explore adult themes without having to worry about real life legal consequence. While it would be nice if all people just followed the rules, we understand there is no way to enforce that.

EDIT: Also, even in the event of a criminal case, it's the defendant who decides whether the case will be tried with a jury, or with a judge. And in cases where the jury might be emotionally swayed to vote against the defendant against the letter of the law, any competent attorney will just have them sign a waiver of jury trial and have the case heard before a judge. https://www.greghillassociates.com/should-i-waive-a-jury-trial-and-instead-have-a-bench-trial.html

[Bebop]

You could say that about literally any porn site, any R rating on a moving, any M rating on a game.  It's still the law to protect minors and disclose when content has heavy adult themes.

ESRB is not the law, it is a voluntary system.

Please at least have the courtesy, if you are going to throw around arguments based on the law, to have a specific understanding of what the laws are.

I wasn't talking about ESRB specifically in regards to the law.  Although I was using that an example that ethically/culturally that's thing.  Legally however, websites with pornographic and sexual content are legally required to disclose and do their due diligence and restricting minors from access.

COPA required all commercial distributors of "material harmful to minors" to restrict their sites from access by minors. "Material harmful to minors" was defined as material that by "contemporary community standards" was judged to appeal to the "prurient interest" and that showed sexual acts or nudity (including female breasts). This is a much broader standard than obscenity.

This is a very broad topic, with a lot of over arching legal issues.  And I think it's better to bring it up now as a community, then bring it up when something goes awry.  And ESRB is backed by some Canadian lawmakers and movie ratings are required in some states.  But as if you read one of my above posts you will see that I said Armageddon is not beholden to standard video game ratings.  We fall more under the category of a website with adult content.  And there are very specific laws regarding those kind of things.  We are also seeing increasing litigation towards sites that offer content that can be seen as exploitative to minors without doing their due diligence to keep them away.

I also have to wonder why an anonymous user posting outside of the community gets more regard about imaginary minor characters than a dedicated player bringing up something inside of the community about protecting real minor players.  Or why there is such a push to have minors participate in a game we all know is not kid-friendly in any shape way or form.

Someone please tell me why it is such a big deal to have a simple disclosure saying you must be eighteen plus to play this game?  Why is that such a big deal?  Why is it wrong to go ... I don't want fourteen year olds RPing being adults and engaging in romance with other characters?

[Brokkr]

Please at least have the courtesy, if you are going to throw around arguments based on the law, to have a specific understanding of what the laws are.

First off, there is no jury in a civil case.

While not the case internationally, in the US we do have juries for civil trials.