The New Age Rules

[blowuup]

As someone who likes to play the Devil's Advocate, I can usually argue both sides of an argument.

For this, I've got nothing. No logic stands to justify the change. It hurts my brain.

If someone from staff could please explain a little bit of what is behind the ruling, I'd be grateful.

[Trinket]

I just wanted to add my voice to the mix. I understand why some rules need to be implemented to curb behaviour but this feels like it's punishing the majority of people who do the right thing. Give warnings or guidance to the ones in the wrong.

[Blackman D]

18 years old- Legally able to sign up to go die (or come back traumatized) in a foreign land while seeing things no human being should ever want to see. Not allowed to hanky panky.

while i understand the reference you are wrong, you need only be 17 actually... making it a bit of a bad example (depending on how technical we really wanna get here)

[Noise]

This accomplishes nothing, creepy weirdos gonna be creepy weirdos regardless of this rule and all its achieved is making the game more annoying for everyone else. Scrap it, continue banning weirdos as they pop up, keep it simple.

[Almarea90]

As the majority of those who posted, I strongly disagree with this change for the following reasons:

1) It hugely impacts the ability to play a naive, fresh character and experience their development in game. In two years time I have seen many people playing this archetype and I find it unfair to remove this chance for people who didn't break any rule or, in some cases, weren't even on the server when this happened.

2) I don't think it will limit this kind of RP, as people will always find a way to bend the rules. If those who RP this questionable content are no longer able to roll a 18 years old character, what does stop them from translating said content towards halfling, mentally immature characters or someone who magically altered their appearance to look younger.

3) This sets up a bad precedent. If now the minimum age has been raised to 25, what prevents to be raised again in the future? Or for other limitations to be put in place (for example removing hin or gnomes as playable race).

4) I don't think this will limit the number of complaints the DMs receive, if anything it might even increase them. If on one hand they get rid of things like "X is playing an 18 years old toon who looks like an adolescent", I have the feeling things like "X plays an halfling that looks and acts like a child", as explained in point 2, would start popping up. On top of that, I fear we will see mass complaints about people who don't specify their age but in their character description hint even vaguely to an age younger than 25, thus increasing the workload for DM.

As explained by the other players, if someone break the rule they -and them only- should be punished, not the whole community. Especially not with a rule that in the long run might cause more harm than good due to the points above and might also decrease the affluence of players to the server. Now I can understand there is a reason why this rule has been put in place, although I didn't quite understand what happened exactly that led to this massive measure, and if the 18 years old minimum age is an issue I personally find age 20-21 is a good compromise.
With this I hope the DM will take this feedback into consideration.

[Glowfire]

3) This sets up a bad precedent. If now the minimum age has been raised to 25, what prevents to be raised again in the future? Or for other limitations to be put in place (for example removing hin or gnomes as playable race).

I feel the same way... What's next?


If someone made a PC who was younger than the allowed age for their character race on this server, that should've been fully retconned and that player banned depending on what sort of RP they got into (with this knee-jerk reaction, I imagine it was something serious). If it was very serious, anyone else engaging in it who knew it was not adhering to the server rules should've been banned as well. I share everyone else's view of that it's too much to change the rule for everyone and increasing the minimum age by -7- years. The community as a whole hasn't done wrong, the people who engaged in whatever caused this reaction are the people who should be dealt with.

It's very easy for anyone to make a new NWN2 account and engage in trollish behaviour or break the rules on purpose. BGTSCC has been around for many years now. From being on staff, I know that's not the first time a player has made an underage PC but there's never been a question of punishing the whole playerbase for it before. This sort of thing also makes me concerned for that people will deliberately push boundaries because they know it will end up punishing the community (why? why do people try to DDOS nwn2 servers, some people justify themselves in certain behaviours like that).


I know staff can't give specific details on who were involved and what exactly happened... but I think it's fair of the community to be able to ask what was the thought behind this, why is the change so drastic, how does the staff think this will change anything... and I think it's fair of the staff to answer rather than let this thread run its course without any staff input.

[zhazz]

While I do disagree with the changed rule, I think there's a much greater issue at play.

That being a lack of transparency.

Clarifications to rules shouldn't necessitate an announcement. However, changes to them definitely should. I was around 8 years ago when pregnancy RP essentially got banned. Back then the change was stealthily done. This time around there at least was a reply in the rules section. But there really should have been a forum-wide annoucement.

But that's not all.

The server cannot exist without players. Any changes that have the potential to make some rule-abiding players leave (last nail in the coffin sort of thing), should be publicly discussed with the playerbase before-hand.

Yes, the server is ran and moderated by the staff. But in the end you, the staff, are here to serve our needs and wishes. We don't have to engage in your events. We don't have to engage in your plots. We can just do our own things, and treat the server as a sandbox for role playing — which is what the majority of the players are doing anyway! . . So when changes are due, please consider that you're here for and due to us, not the other way around. We can find other servers.

This is not an attack on the staff by the way. Merely the practices surrounding how the server is managed.


Please revert the rule, or lower it down to 21. And for the love of Ao, avoid making huge impacting changes without asking the player-base if it's something they want in the first place!

[FallingStar]

People are going to play 18-24 year old characters anyway, and just not disclose exact age in the bio, besides maybe a vague reference.

They'll just ICly disclose age among players they trust not to narc.

[DM Dialectic]

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.

[Rhifox]

Thank you for your response, Dialectic. I am sorry the DM team has had to deal with the issues you have mentioned, and that is something that should absolutely be addressed. I am just not convinced that this is the right way to handle it.

and that it would not impair RP on the server much given RPing a 25 year old character is still a "young" character.

A 25 year old character is not really a young character. In universe, they've been an adult for 10 years already, and only have another 10 years before they are considered middle age. Such a character will have already had quite an established life by now, likely married and with children if they have not started adventuring yet, or plenty of adventures already under their belt if they have. Ergo, if 25 years is left as the minimum, then I am going to recommend raising the starting level to compensate.

I hope a compromise can still be found, that both addresses the issues raised without too negatively impacting player choices.

What would be helpful input from the community is if folks think doing 21 as the age cut off would being 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.

I would be fine with 20 or 21 personally. Ideally 20, but 21 is okay too.

[yyj]

Thank you for your response, Dialectic. I am sorry the DM team has had to deal with the issues you have mentioned, and that is something that should absolutely be addressed. I am just not convinced that this is the right way to handle it.

and that it would not impair RP on the server much given RPing a 25 year old character is still a "young" character.

A 25 year old character is not really a young character. In universe, they've been an adult for 10 years already, and only have another 10 years before they are considered middle age. Such a character will have already had quite an established life by now, likely married and with children if they have not started adventuring yet, or plenty of adventures already under their belt if they have. Ergo, if 25 years is left as the minimum, then I am going to recommend raising the starting level to compensate.

I hope a compromise can still be found, that both addresses the issues raised without too negatively impacting player choices.

You are making a lot of assumptions, I currently RP a character on her early 20s and she is just starting out adventuring, is not married, has no children and has little experience under her bag.

Are you planning to make a new character soon? Retiring Tarina? No? So it's not affecting you, and assuming that it will affect others negatively is wrong because most people don't care that much about the age of imaginary characters that have no purpose other than to entertain us.

The purpose of this rule is very clear.

[JCVD1]

+154921845898
THAT!
And why get upset about Racism, I'm white afterall I don't plan to be black anytime soon.

[Shadowspinner70]

Ideally 20-21, as Rhifox said.

I'm lucky that I made my 18 year old alt like... 6-ish months ago? And a major part of her personality is her inexperience as a sorcerer and paladin, especially since younger sorcerers have more difficulty with power control and she's balancing it with a paladin's oath.

What's more, I relate to Mary. She's my age.

It might not affect me, with the characters I already made, or others for the same reason. The point is it affects people incoming. It is inherently unfair for new people to not have an opportunity, when older players do have such characters. It affects returning players who want want start fresh.

The sexualization of "barely legal" or headcanon underage characters is something that needs to go, and it generates a culture many people do not want to participate in. Imo, there's no answer that will make reports like these a thing of the past.

Zero tolerance is a step.

[zan5bar]

Why don't you just forbid roleplaying a teenage character? That would be much more appropriate and simple than setting a strict age limit that would be impossible for the DM-team to supervise anyway.

[Asmodea]

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.

If the DM Team needs assistance policing such behavior then I think solving that problem is the only real way to curb such behavior. There will always be people who try to skirt such rules and I have seen the rippling effect those actions have on player's comfort. I think if you set the minimum character age as 21, 25 or 85 this will still be something that needs to be just as watched for and policed and an age set of 18 vs 21 vs 25 will not dissuade or decrease the problem. A 20 or 21 year age limit seems less arbitrary so it bothers me less from a ruling point of view but I still do not see how it helps solve a real problem we are all concerned about.

In short my feedback is more in the line of: I think everyone sane can agree with being concerned with violations around this kind of thing; if staff is saying 'we do not have the manpower to police this behavior so are instating this rule' I would like to volunteer to help. How can I help staff police this behavior? Applying for the DM Team is not a way, as gone over above. So how do I volunteer to help? Because having this kind of thing watched for, sorted through and appropriately punished is critical to server health.