DM Dialectic wrote: ↑Wed Apr 07, 2021 12:08 pm
Thank you all for your concerns. We are very grateful for the player community's feedback on this, both positive and negative. Hopefully, the conversation created from this rules change can lead to an overall better age policy direction for the server going forward. We hadn't gotten to it yet, but we were going to make a thread opening a similar conversation to this topic this week in light of the change, but I just hadn't had the time yet to write it, so thanks for making this thread OP!
This rule change unfortunately has become necessary as the DM Team over the years has wasted a lot of time (many hours) and aggravation policing players that roll ambiguously "teen" characters that are vaguely still "18" and then (as an example) try to actually play a 14 year old teenager in the guise of being "18" to just get by with the rules. This dynamic creates an uncomfortable waste of time cat and mouse episode for the DM Team to constantly deal with that a 25 age limit just entirely avoids, but compromising on the many characters that have been roleplayed appropriately in the 18-24 age bracket, which is why we grandfathered this. Further, the above sort of example often occurs in a very sexualized manner which opens a whole different can of worms for the server and DM Team that we just want to blanket avoid.
We have gotten a lot of player complaints on players pushing the limit on this topic over the years as well, many many more than those that posted in this thread upset about the rules change -- and some players over time have even quit the server due to uncomfortable roleplay situations created over this dynamic over time. We felt that increasing the age to 25 eliminates DM Team workload that the DM Team really doesn't want ADMs or senior DMs to be dealing with instead of running plots and events and other administrative work for the server (if the DM Team had vast time resources to police the server, maybe this rules change and many others in the past would not be necessary, but we don't) and that it would not impair RP on the server much given RPing a 25 year old character is still a "young" character. It also helps to further avoid the risk of the server ever running afoul of various legal age regulations and rules for play.
What would be helpful input from the community is if folks think doing 21 as the age cut off would be enough for more space for "youthful" roleplay without creating more headache for the DM Team to enforce those trying to skirt the rules? We are skeptical, which is why we picked 25, but if we get a lot of positive feedback on an alternative number as such, we will seriously consider changing it.
From what I understand, the issue is players playing within the letter of the rules on age, that is to say playing an eighteen year old character, but RPing them as some younger age, with fourteen being given. The thought is that if all characters were 25+ then this would not happen.
I must say I am struggling to understand why there is a difficulty with policing inappropriate RP in this regard that is solved by a blanket raising of the age to 25. There are four rules that come to mind that are available to DMs to police the sort of issues arising from a character RPing as a young teen:
- The explicit ban on playing characters younger than 18. That is what is circumvented by 18 year old PCs who act as 14.
- The PG-13 Content rating. A sexualised Lolita style teen is not PG13 content. This is not circumvented by the age of the PC. Just because a PC is 18, acting in a sexualised, childlike manner is not content appropriate. Thus, this rule change does not aid enforcement on these grounds.
- The rule to "Be Respectful" to other players. Uncomfortable RP that breaches the content rating will also breach this rule.
- The general power of the DM team to police the server as listed in the server rules. This is not circumvented by playing an 18 year old PC.
A problem with enforcing these rules could be ones of identifying when there is a transgression. The way to resolve that is players reporting more often and quicker. But that does not seem to be the problem here as instead the problem that this rules change is being brought into solve is one of excessive time being devoted to policing this issues.
It could be instead that the issue is people rules lawyering the rules. They are saying they play an eighteen year old who happens to behave younger and in a provocative manner and thus, they are within the rules.
They are not.
A Lolita style character is not content appropriate, is not respectful to players, and is something that is well within the power of the DM team to step in on. I don't understand what the DM time is being spent on, as this is not something that needs to be debated at length with any offenders. The DM team can simply state the rules as they are, why they are breached, and issue punishments.
Is the DM team feeling a hostage to the precise wording of the content rules? In that case perhaps one could make explicit that RPing an 18 year old PC that acts akin to a young teen is not content appropriate, particularly one that is sexually active. What a world we live in that this is necessary to say. Even without that addition I can't see the difficulty in handling someone who is in effect sexualising young teens with their RP. They are simply not being content appropriate and should not be here (or anywhere, but that's a different discussion)
But I see no reason why the administrative burden will be assisted by a higher "legal" age for characters, that does not accord with legal ages in real life, nor in setting. In fact, it just shifts it. Now there will be 22 year old pcs made who must be adjudicated on, policed...or confirmed as grandfathered...and now its not for protection, its just because the rules have deemed a 22 year old "too young". A 22 year old PC perhaps played by a 15 year old, as 15 year olds can play here. And I'm not sure the people who are trying to abuse a system to live out their pederast fantasies are going to care what number the server has in its rules as the minimum age, a point that has been made above.
Furthermore, I can't say I recall these 18 year olds played as young teens as a huge problem from my time on staff over several years. Overwhelmingly the disciplinary matters that I found myself involved in as a DM were PvP related, or harassment related. If we take PvP in particular, it has a clear solution. Setting the whole server to no PvP. It would free up the DMs massively, but, I think all would agree, fundamentally change the character and tone of the server. Similarly setting such a high minimum for the age of PCs, with consequent knock on effects upon the level of maturity of the PCs and cutting away the "farm boy goes out to adventure" narrative for new pcs, alters the character and tone of the server. These are using a sledgehammer to crack a nut solutions and, for the reasons I've stated above, this particular solution is missing the mark in any event.
As to legalities, allowing minors to play on the server at all is a far larger issue than the minimum age of PCs, and raising the minimum age won't protect the server from the pitfalls of having minors play here. In any event I can't see any legal difference between twenty-one and twenty five, nor indeed twenty other than the server portraying alcohol consumption by under 21's with a large number of US players. I can see reasons to raise the age to 20 or 21 though, and I believe its a good compromise. Preferably 20 as others have said before.
Edit: found a typo
