Character Age

[My 2 sids]

Okay, I think there was a great deal of miscommunication with the other thread.  However, I think there is a real discussion here and so I'd like to try to present my thoughts again.  

I see code as being the perimeter of accepted role-play.  Code is what defines and demands adherence to Zalanthan world.  An example would be the coded-affects of race—the code forces the character to stay within the documentation when it comes to speech and appearance and some abilities. Code isn't always implemented, but is rather reserved for those practices which the majority of players and staff find fun.  For instance currently we do not have coded reinforcement for STDs; but characters can get code-wise drunk.

I think it is safe to say that there should be political/ economic/ social ramifications due to character age because it would seem hypocritical to say character age is important enough to put into code... but, that no one actually needs to adjust their role-playing due to character age.

My argument is this:  we should either adjust the code or create sound documentation for character age.  When the average character doesn't last longer than twenty years, why not up the starting age to 18 or 20... that would take care of child-pc arguments.   AND/OR, create docs so when a character is very young or turns very old or lives another year there is something so players can play off of when role-playing the situation.

[Jakahri]

I think I see where you're going with this.

The few times I've actually seen older pc's, they appeared, at least, to play out their aging bodies.

[Maybe42or54]

But when do pcs start feeling old? I always Rp'd that they were starting to feel their age when I hit 34 or something, since they don't get too old.

[Cale_Knight]

If you start a character at 20 years old, it's going to be nearly two RL years before you hit 35, which I imagine is a reasonable age to start setting some serious changes in age-based RP into motion.

I've yet to play a character for more than three RL months or so, but if I ever hold onto a PC for that long, I'm fairly well certain I'll be more than willing to inject some new RP into his persona via that sort of thing. Two years is a long time to be, at least physically, the exact same person.

There are tons of people who start the game as wise old men or grizzled combat veterans, but to have actually earned that over the course of truly playing the PC, the RP there is so interesting I can't imagine anyone voluntarily passing it up.

I'm not sure if this is in response to what anyone is actually getting at. If not, feel free to, like, totally ignore me, man.

[Rindan]

My argument is this:  we should either adjust the code or create sound documentation for character age.  When the average character doesn't last longer than twenty years, why not up the starting age to 18 or 20... that would take care of child-pc arguments.   AND/OR, create docs so when a character is very young or turns very old or lives another year there is something so players can play off of when role-playing the situation.

I am not sure what you are proposing.  Code does affect age as is clearly outlined in the documentation under help age.  I see no reason to up the starting age.  For some roles, starting out at 13 is perfect and I see no reason to limit it.  Is every 13 year old played perfectly?  No, of course not, but niether is every 20 year old.  Honestly, if I had my way I would drop allowable starting age to 10 to allow people to play truly young characters.

The whole aging thing is not really a problem to begin with.  In order to live out just 17 Zalanthas years you need to keep a character alive for 2 RL years.  That is a damn long time.  The problem of characters entering their old age is pretty much non-existant.  I can think of only a handful of characters in my entire time playing that ever really played out to true old age, and they all were excellently played.

[Aldiel]

When the average character doesn't last longer than twenty years, why not up the starting age to 18 or 20... that would take care of child-pc arguments.

Twenty years is a very long time to live.  Most characters do not live even close to that long.  Most veteran players maybe entertain a character for ten years, and not everyone who plays Armageddon is an experience player or trying to play an in-depth character.  Those people who live twenty, or even ten, ZT years have lived with that character for a year to two and half, ET years and have, at that point, such an amazing sense of their character that they have no trouble RPing age.  Increase the age limit?  Good Krath, no.  I wish you could play a character at six.  Age is one of the richest sources of RP, why deprive us of it? and in youth, there is such a difference between just a few years.  Those early years comprise a verdant pasture on the landscape of age.
 
Discussions about childhood are great.  Much of the time, discussion means progress.

[spawnloser]

Rindan...Aldiel...you two want to LOWER the minimum starting age?  Are you crazy?  Few people can play a 13-year old very well, resorting to stereotypes that are too Earth-based or to (which I find even worse) acting like a 7-year old.  As Sanvean pointed out on the other thread, people tend to play young characters thinking that their acting all cute and kid-like is going to save their sorry behinds when someone comes along to rip their heads off.  Lowering the starting age?  If there is any good left in the universe, this will not happen.

Really, the only difference in age roleplay I see is this...when people play teenagers, they play like they're even younger, forgetting that when they were teenagers, they were trying to act like they were 25.

[flurry]

I wouldn't mind seeing a roleplaying doc that goes into this.  There have been some really good threads on this in the past.  I personally don't think any coded change is needed, though.