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Underage Characters


Kit the Human
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I can understand all sides of it but being a teenager sucked and im not a fan of kids so I'd avoid playing one at all costs. Not would I want to play with one. 

 

I was going to ramble more but typing on a phone blows so you get me sounding like a grumpy old woman instead.

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-spams the reaction buttons-

 

Thanks everyone for your thoughts! I really appreciate hearing them. 😍

 

Is this an accurate summary of the No Underaged Characters camp?

  • Creeps might get involved and do creepy things. Staff just don't want to deal with it.
  • Thread opportunities for underaged characters is limited, so why bother with them?
  • We're adults, I don't understand what you get from RPing an underaged character.

I'm probably missing some nuance here but I feel like this is what the arguments can be distilled to. To be clear, I think it's perfectly legitimate for staff to go, I just don't want to deal with it because it's your forum. You need to be comfortable with it!

 

It's also perfectly legitimate to just be disinterested in RPing kids. If you have no ideas for them, you have no ideas for them, no big. If you just don't want to, you just don't want to.

 

But to answer Rune's question...

 

12 hours ago, Rune said:

You're specifically playing on a mature board. Why would you want to play someone underage?

 

I wanted to play my one child character because I was NPCing her and not only was she a very strong voice in my head but she was developing friendships with the adults in her life (of course, the relationship between an adult and a child is and should be very different than those between child and child, and adult and adult). Those relationships and the implications of them sat outside of the characters I was NPCing her through. I wanted to do all of that justice, so I centered her voice and gave her her own account.

 

But whilst I want to be hanging out with adults in my OOC community, I don't have a thing against the ridiculous melodrama of children and teenagers. I think that (hopefully most) adults will know that these characters are being ridiculous because of their age. In saying that, my characters are usually in their 30s so I'm not inundated with melodrama. The rest of the current community are typically making middle aged characters as well.

 

Basically, they're not my first choice. They're not a character type I go out of my way to make. But I'm happy to explore the character if the ideas and plots are there. 

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After reading this thread this trope immediately springs into mind. Though I'd say I'm of the school of thought that rendering an entire demographic invisible on one's setting feels kinda contrived and unreal barring certain kinds of premises - it'd be like a RP set in say, Berkeley, CA with not a single Asian or Hispanic in sight. (I.e. Say your RP takes place around a military base where there are no kids)

 

Probably an unpopular opinion around here, but I don't see what's the big deal about this. I mean, it's not like any real people are harmed in this? Like, we're just using the visual likeness of someone - it'd not even like the real deal is say, acting out a scene that depicts children being subjected to abuse/harm.

 

Mind you, it's not to say I condone, encourage or promote materials that depict physical and sexual abuse of minors. Not by a long shot. Still, I see things for what they are, and realised that most of us tend to maintain this metaphorical barrier between fantasy and reality which allows us to write (even to the point of indulgence) in all kinds of dark and gritty themes.

 

Like, these are the same people who say "f**k censorship", or how no theme is considered taboo for them to explore. (No. 1 reason why so many RPers of adult age thumb their noses at the PG-13 rating) And I'm sure this is because our minds creates this comfortable separation between fantasy and reality when we're writing. I.e. It's okay because no real people were harmed in this.

 

Yet, the moment children - and fictional ones at that - enter the picture then all of a sudden this wall between fantasy and reality comes tumbling down. I mean, if the concern is that people might try to act out these unhealthy fantasies in the real-world, I'm pretty sure a fictional scenario whereby minors were harmed is no more or less imitable than other kinds of fiction.

 

But no one ever runs a mature RP site worrying that their players might attempt to act out their violent or perverse fantasies offline, no? Because if that's the case I'm sure I'd be seeing a lot more PG-13 sites floating around.

 

I'm not trying to call out or criticise anyone for how they choose to run their site, of course. Ultimately, this is a hobby we all pursue for fun, and if having fun means staying within one's comfort zone, well, then whatever floats your boat.

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To me it sounds like a taste thing. Some people like smut, some don't. Some people like anime, some don't. Some people enjoy younger characters, some don't! It doesn't have to mean that they are worried about creepy things, lack of thread opportunities or even lack the desire to play them. It could be as simple as Admin just don't wanna play with younger characters. I think it's entirely situational and sometimes you just have to find what fits you! 

 

I've been playing in a high school based World of Darkness/ Buffy the Vampire Slayer hybrid tabletop game going on 5 years now. We've played in the high school through three different groups of kids when they graduate or die (because that's what usually happens in WOD) we just pick another young group of kids and start over in the school. We love the drama that comes with being a teenager in a modern fantasy setting.

 

We also do a lot of online RP with them in-between gaming sessions. Teenagers get to do really fun and ridiculous nonsense like sneak out at night, group text memes until dawn, lie to their parents and fake-id their way into clubs to stake vampires, run from werewolves and chase down witches. I'm not saying that adult characters can't do this (we tried playing them, it just doesn't feel the same), but the added adrenaline boost you get from the possibility of getting caught beating the old homeless man that is actually a wizard with the tennis racket you used to win at state last year and being thrown in the jail with your parents showing up super mad because this will get you suspended and you'll fail your midterm, is hilarious and wonderful. I can see though how it's not for everyone.

 

I also 100% agree that fleshing out the relationships between adult and children characters can be totally fulfilling and fun. In the first game I ever Admined for was a self-made story where our main character was a young Princess (ages 12-14) and the story-line totally revolved around her. We (as in all the other players) all played members of the court such as aunts, uncles, diplomats, handmaids, servers, assassins etc. Each character had a specific goal in mind and usually alternative reasons for visiting (as is custom with most courtly intrigue games). It was really wonderful to flesh out how a child would act in such a place and how adults would feel about her. My co-admin had only two characters, the princess character and the King so she was entirely dedicated to examining the individual relationships a child princess would have with all the adults and the occasional other children like a stable boy (Princess Bride offered us too many opportunities for jokes). 

 

 

 

 

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I currently play a character who has an adult body, but is mentally more like a little girl. She’s 1200 year old fairy. The site she’s on I’d classify as modern fantasy supernatural type. There are people on the site that have triggers about children and abuse or mature content. She’s currently second in amount of posts of my characters and doesn’t seem to have too much of a problem getting threads.

 

I’ve set some mental limits with her. She’s a pretty strict PG-13 character on the edge closer to PG. Other characters can show an interest in her romantically or sexually, but it’s never going to happen. She has no interest. Other characters can threaten her, but not actually hurt or abuse her. One of her powers is a wind that can make people happy. She is not to be placed in any emotionally abusive situations.

 

She’s a happy light hearted character. I don’t intend on anything bad happening to her. Other members know going in to expect tea parties, fishing, and light chats (she can talk a lot).

 

Is she as emotionally gripping as some of my other characters? No. She’s limited in what she can do, but I like to keep her that way. It’s good to have such a character type in my ranks. She provides something very different than most characters.

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Guest Archaic Cyborg

It doesn't bother me, though there is a line.. I don't expect a 12 year old to get much plot/interaction done in a setting like Skyrim or GoT. I used to see players apply as minors for teh dramas, which got annoying very fast and disrupted threads. 

 

I play one 16yo, a canon character, his pb is also 16-- from a film that wasmade 9+ years ago or something. The actor is an adult now. Regardless, I don't write smut with him. Nor do I  want players in my games to write adult/minorr content. Yes, teens have sex, but in the realm of rp, there are players with questionable motives.

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In my experience, when someone wants to make an underage character they want to put them into sexual encounters with vampires or lycans who are 4x their age. Or want them in a mature setting. And frankly, I can't handle that. Nor can my staff team which is why we chose not to allow it. Our site is very much mature where violence and sexual things are a common place b/c of the lore of some of our species. 

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