The New Age Rules

[Rhifox]

Respectfully, while I understand the sentiment behind this change, I don't believe penalizing all players for the actions of a handful of rulebreakers is a good thing. Youngest PC age being 25 is a serious boost upwards. Especially in a medieval setting (even in FR, children are learning and starting trades as early as 8-10 years old), a minimum this high leads to characters who would already have pretty developed experiences by that point. Player's Handbook specifies that adulthood for human characters starts at 15 years old. A rule requiring characters to be 25 or older would make them more than just adults, they'd be well into their adulthood. This is not conducive to players wanting to make characters who are new to the world and their place in it.

Players who try to break or skirt the rules should be punished. But other players should not have their character choices limited for it.

[Wildsheep]

That's an odd rulling.
I don't usually play young characters, but I do agree that 25 years old is a little bit too old to "set out off the farm" and go adventuring. By that age most people in this kind of setting would already be married, have children and all that kind of stuff.

[Young Werther]

So the character creation screen breaks this rule by default? Very cool.

[Asmodea]

I have to say I am far more concerned that RP is allowed where 18 years old versus 25 years old matters in any meaningful way. And if RP like that is not allowed... punish those who are being inappropriate as opposed to assuming the entire community will be inspired to act inappropriately by something that has never caused issue before in ten years. Also characters that already exist are not effected by it? So we are just... assuming new PCs will be more likely to do something inappropriate than old PCs?

I... have no idea what series of events lead to this but I can not see a sensible reason to have this change enacted. I think the offending incident should be dealt with directly, as this change seems irrational on so many levels and I am not sure I would believe someone saying: If you knew all the details it would make sense.

[Shadowspinner70]

I second this, especially Rhifox's last point. (Almost) every time, I'll advocate for not punishing everyone else based off of the actions of someone else.

These specific circumstances sound like they should already be against the rules; the moment people want to age innuendo play, they are breaking the rules. People can take their treating PCs as nubile, barely (if even) legal beauties elsewhere--or better yet, nowhere at all.

Someone wants to skirt the rules with this kind of innuendo play, punish them. As someone who has been between 13-17 during my time on the server, for those who say it's for protection, this doesn't protect that demographic or the rating.

I understand why this was made and commend that something was done. However, this is not the way. I would say even the implication or any age play should break the minimum 18 rule. Bending the rule like a pretzel doesn't mean it wasn't broken.

I'll also be keeping an eye on this thread. Keep the conversations going, but please remain respectful. Thank you all!

[JustAnotherGuy]

I wholeheartedly agree with the OP, with the exception that I don't understand the sentiment behind the change. I'm assuming someone was trying to something "dirty" with an underage toon; but if the toon was 18+ (or racial equivalent), it's not underage. The phrase in the post "due to recent inappropriate younger age innuendo play in the character age range of 18-24 or racial equivalent." doesn't make any sense to me. 18-24 is not under age.

Usually, my toons start off in their early 20s, though people often assume them to be older. Emmanuel, for instance, is 23 years old (though he guesses about 25, since he's not sure). Ashling is 20 years old.

I think Rhifox said it very well, though.

A rule requiring characters to be 25 or older would make them more than just adults, they'd be well into their adulthood. This is not conducive to players wanting to make characters who are new to the world and their place in it.

While some people want to come into a toon with a fully fleshed character and such, some people want to feel out their toon as they go; figure out their personality and let the toon's experiences shape them more. Playing a toon barely into their adulthood is much more conducive to this.

[Steve]

[Wildsheep]

Suggestion: change it to 21 years old being the minimum age. I think most would agree that's more reasonable?

[Rhifox]

Suggestion: change it to 21 years old being the minimum age. I think most would agree that's more reasonable?

It would certainly be better than 25. But I still think the original rule was fine as is: 18. It's young enough to still be early adulthood for the setting's customs (which is 15 for adulthood, as Steve's picture shows), while also still keeping within modern definitions of adulthood. Anyone trying to play or imply anything else is breaking the rules and should be punished individually.

I just don't see a reason for a change to the age rules at all.

[InTheFlesh]

In Star Wars: Episode III : Revenge of the Sith (Rated PG-13), a pre-25-year-old (Anakin Skywalker) has a pregnant wife, has been serving as a battlefield general in a devastating war, is implied to have killed preteen children, and at the end is dismembered by his Master and absolutely immolated alive.

This depiction would apparently break the amended rules.

[KOPOJIbPAKOB]

I can already see there won't be a single person supporting this change. All I can add is I'm strongly against it like all people above.

18 years old is the common convention about human age of maturity, it's adult people. What does it have to do with pedo RP and, moreso, how would raising the minimum age to 25 prevent it, or what it even has to do with anything? This rash ruling takes away unimaginable amount of character building opportunities and ruins immersion while solving nothing. If there's a person breaking the rules - deal with it individually, not that there's an epidemy of sexual predators or something.

I guess this ruling would be revoked soon, but here's my input anyway.

[Xorena]

I first want to commend whoever reported this behavior:

Amended the character age related rules for the server due to recent inappropriate younger age innuendo play in the character age range of 18-24 or racial equivalent.

It is hard to report, but your report is making the server a better place by reporting rule violators and keeping toxic people away from other players.

However, instituting a 25 year old age minimum may actually make players reluctant to report others, because what other rules are you going to put in place?

I do not understand the reasoning behind this at all. If it was a few people doing this illegal behavior, punish them but do not make a blanket ban for younger adult characters.

[Sabamonster]

Okay, I want to preface this by saying that I understand it's an effort to reduce a certain type of behavior. Having said that, I think this is a lot like pointless legislation that only appeals to people who actually 'care' about the law. The individuals that engage in the type of behavior that this rule is designed for are simply not going to care. There was already a rule that characters had to be 18 and clearly that didn't matter. I don't understand how raising an arbitrary number (From their perspective) is going to change that What it -will- change is the fact that nearly ever character that is created from this point forward is already nearly into their 30's. Meaning, that a great deal of the character progression that takes place after 'branching out on their own' is a moot point and has already taken place. It's something that can't be organically cultivated and is now just part of their written background. Not to mention that there are people who have been playing 18-24 year old characters for 'nearly' enough time to meet the cutoff but not quite, which forces them to change the dynamic of their character or retire it entirely. From a moderation standpoint that should never happen. People should not be forced to swallow a character/personality changing event because of the OOC actions (Lets not get it twisted, this is an Out Of Character choice to engage in this type of behavior) of a few. Most people are not going to engage in this type of behavior REGARDLESS of the required character age, it wouldn't matter if there was one. All this is going to do is imply a forced constraint on people who already don't need to be told that it's not okay.

To give some context to this, and my argument that the character growth this limits is "Substantial" I'd like to point out that by the age of 25 I was in the military, married, had children and had already been deployed twice. This is not a negligible change to the people who actively follow the rules and take them seriously. It is however, a negligible rule to those who 'don't' and 'didn't' care about the rule in the first place.

Furthermore, you've given creedence to the whole "My character was an accomplished soandso that has already saved the world" before level 1 complex. It's entirely plausible to have characters that have substantial life-experience before even reaching "The Gate" now due to this change. I realize that people already create characters above the age of 18 with life experience but in general those players make that choice actively to facilitate something in their background that warrants being older. Matter-of-factly, my Main character is 28 and won't be affected by this. The two other characters that I play both exceed this age-limit as well and that was an intentional "Choice" that I had made based on what they had experienced prior to coming to the BG. That 'choice' is no longer existent.

In short, the entire community is being punished because a few people decided to make a bad choice and that punishment isn't going to even affect the individuals who caused the change in the first place. If you truly believe that it's the number in the rule that caused this to happen then raise it to 19 or 20 to still allow for character growth to take place. Having said that, the number is exactly that for purposes of people not following the rule. Arbitrary.

In my personal opinion this is an overreaction and the problem should be handled directly. Having a zero-tolerance rule surrounding the actual issue that is enforced, without question. If someone creates a character under the age of 18, ban them. If they engage in activity that created this issue, ban them. Don't punish the rest of us with a rule that those individuals won't follow anyhow.

[Hoihe]

I feel this change does nothing.

If we want to eliminate innuendo, we could have simply ruled "Characters who are above 18 should not be referred to as teenagers" and would solved it easily,

[MrSmith]

I first want to commend whoever reported this behavior:

Amended the character age-related rules for the server due to recent inappropriate younger age innuendo play in the character age range of 18-24 or racial equivalent.

It is hard to report, but your report is making the server a better place by reporting rule violators and keeping toxic people away from other players.

However, instituting a 25-year-old age minimum may actually make players reluctant to report others, because what other rules are you going to put in place?

I do not understand the reasoning behind this at all. If it was a few people doing this illegal behavior, punish them but do not make a blanket ban for younger adult characters.

I agree with Xorena's comments on both accounts. First - The server is better off without toxic content, and Second - increasing the age minimum doesn't dissuade rule-breakers, it only increases the likelihood players will be more reluctant in the future to report toxic behavior.

Zero tolerance cuts both ways: No mercy for antisocial behavior of this ilk and no tolerance for minimizing the consequences for such behavior through unnecessary impacts on rules-compliant players.

Cheers!