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What's my age again?


Deep Sea
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Hit me up with those demographics  

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I love statistics! So let's compile some data! How old are you? How long have you been roleplaying? What age range are most of your characters? The poll is (supposed to be) anonymous - no need to actually share your age here, unless you want to!

 

Discussion topics (poll participation not required):

  • Do you think that older players tend to play older characters?
  • Is it strange when adult players prefer playing teenagers or children?
  • In your experience, are certain age groups more common in different genres?
  • Has your RP group aged up with you?
  • In what ways have you witnessed the demographics of RPers and characters alike shift since you joined the hobby?
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Glub glub.

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Sharing my info -

 

I'm 25 years old. I started RPing when I was 15/16, and exploring the Barton Town section of Gaia. I've been roleplaying in post-by-post format since then, on and off. Most of my characters are in their 20s and 30s.

 

I've found that a lot of teens I RP with will play older characters as they strive to be more mature, and the young adult RPers are more comfortable than they used to be about playing teen characters - maybe something about no longer feeling like we need to aggressively overcorrect for being inexperienced/naive/potentially coming across like a Mary Sue?

 

I only think it's weird for adults to insist as playing as kids if it's a kid-unfriendly genre. Magical girls and Pokemon? Sure, we're all 10 years old. Some 17 year old kid wants to play a character that uses borderline animanga CP as their face claim in a Fallout setting? I don't trust you.

 

Meeting a bunch of older RPers here has completely destroyed my concept of the "average age" of an RPer.

 

Were there always this many 13 year olds online?! How young are they starting??? Was I late to the game???

Glub glub.

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  • Do you think that older players tend to play older characters? I don't know personally. I tend to play characters within ten years of my personal age range because it's easier.
  • Is it strange when adult players prefer playing teenagers or children? Meh. Don't actually personally care. I play characters within the same range as the site and what makes sense for the character in the setting.
  • In your experience, are certain age groups more common in different genres? Younger characters are in school or college aged sites. Otherwise spans for other genres.
  • Has your RP group aged up with you? Nope. Most of my RP people are about 5-10 years younger than me.
  • In what ways have you witnessed the demographics of RPers and characters alike shift since you joined the hobby? I can't discuss this without sounding like a terrible person.

 

I'm a 34 (this 25th) year old woman. Started roleplaying when I was 11-12 years old. I started in AOL chat rooms then Neopets and moved quickly to Avidgamers and beyond.

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Profile set made by myself and original Artwork by Fae Merriman, my daughter.

 

 

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25 minutes ago, Morrigan said:

I can't discuss this without sounding like a terrible person.

Well now I have to hear this.

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Glub glub.

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I'm 35, and my characters currently range between 22 and 70. I've been roleplaying since 2002, if memory serves me right, so quite a long time. Now, as for the questions:

 

Do you think that older players tend to play older characters?

Not particularly. I write with a lot of people my age or older, and they tend to write characters in a pretty broad age range, from kids to older people.


Is it strange when adult players prefer playing teenagers or children?

Nah, I don't think so. Not as long as that character has a place in the plot.


In your experience, are certain age groups more common in different genres?

Somewhat. I mean, if you have a school-centered roleplay, you'll have a lot of school-aged characters, and so on and so forth. For broader genres (not focused on one specific age-based setting), I have seen a lot of variety.

 

Has your RP group aged up with you?

Kind of. It's easier to write with older people as I age, as it's easier to explain responsibilities that come with/become more pressing with age, like being more available for elderly parents.


In what ways have you witnessed the demographics of RPers and characters alike shift since you joined the hobby?

Not gonna lie, I don't pay that much attention to character ages. But I started roleplaying at a time when I was one from a handful of older-than-21 writers in the venues I wrote at. Nowadays, it's a lot easier not to be vastly older than everyone around me, and it's a pretty nice feeling.

Shady McShaderson

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To preface, I'm a twenty-nine-year-old man.  People near my age bracket and above tend to write adults as playable characters, whilst minors are non-playable ones.  I understand their reasoning.

 

It is likely strange whenever someone such as myself says he wants to write a nine-year-old boy.  Juveniles come most naturally to me, and the difficulty in finding a game outside fandoms which center around minors isn't describable.

 

Teenagers and young adults usually populate niches such as ani-manga and video game-based.  I still have a foot in that overall community, but am a fringe presence.

 

Most who've known me personally have surely "evolved."  They've left the genre we've met in, if not the pastime altogether.  My days as Prince Florian (Snow White and the Seven Dwarfs) (1937) are done.

 

Honestly, I find the current state of affairs strange.  Many writers, young and old, are serial "flakes."  Gorgeous, promising locales open and die repeatedly, the populaces then separating and coming together again and again.  I get criticized for long messages, whether private or public, in-character or out-of-character.  

 

Tis not safe for me to venue hunt alone anymore.

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Do you think that older players tend to play older characters?

I think, from experience and from watching what other people play, most people play characters who are around the same age they are, give or take a few years. I know when I was 16, playing 20-year-old characters felt so adult omg. xD But yes, as I've gotten older, so has the average age of my characters.

 

Is it strange when adult players prefer playing teenagers or children?

I don't think so at all. I mean, most YA and children's book writers are adults. Writing young characters can be fun! Kids and teens are going through a lot of crazy transitional stuff, and experiencing new things and emotions for the first time, and figuring out who they are and what their place in the world is. I play a ton of older teens and young adults for exactly that reason--it's fun and dramatic. xD

 

Obviously, if they were sexualizing/fetishizing child characters then thaaat's another story.

 

In your experience, are certain age groups more common in different genres?

I don't know! I actually only RP fantasy and sci-fi, so I'm not sure what the general demographics of other genres are. My preferred genres are pretty diverse, but at least on my own games, we're mostly all adults. (And 100% all adults on RotE.)

 

Has your RP group aged up with you?

It has! SotE has been around since December 2000, and we have a number of people who have been there since the beginning. 8D They've grown up with me. One of my bridesmaids, who I met on my games, was 12 when I first met her. Now she's 28. Damn. |: I feel fuckin' old.

 

In what ways have you witnessed the demographics of RPers and characters alike shift since you joined the hobby?

I see a loooot more people branching outside of their comfort zones and making characters who are significantly older or younger than they are. Before, it seemed like everyone just played teens and 20-year-olds, but now I see a lot of characters in their 40s and older. ❤️ And before, it seemed like if you played an older character, you'd have a hard time getting threads, but I get a lot of threads with my 50+ characters, and I see other people having no issues with it, too.

 

It felt like when I first started out, people thought you were weird and gross if you were an adult who RPed. But now, it's really popular to have 18+ communities! I love the move toward carving out spaces for adults to play in, and acknowledging that  this isn't just a kid's hobby.

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I am 50. I discovered RPGs 9 years ago, at 41, and I was hooked on the possibility to write my story with others, instead of writing it alone, and to discover other people who love writing and who love history. I have written only on forums (Invisionfree, Proboards, Jcink).

 

Or, well, before knowing that RPGs exist, with my deskmate in Uni, on notebooks, but then our stories were written scene by scene, not character by character. We were writing the whole scene, for all characters, until we ran out of inspiration and it was the other's turn.

  • Do you think that older players tend to play older characters?

Sometimes, I still don't think it is a rule. The main determining element should be what the story requires. I have written (main characters and NPCs alike, I don't make much difference between them except the screen time) from babies to people in their 70s (which is very old in historical settings, given the shorter timespans they had then. )

  • Is it strange when adult players prefer playing teenagers or children?

Not at all. But I think every writer should be able to write characters of all ages, ethnicities and genders. It takes research to write something unfamiliar, still it is not impossible and it's benefic for the story. It gets enriched with every character you are writing.

  • In your experience, are certain age groups more common in different genres?

I guess so, it depends on the story requirements. At the same time, there is no society without old and young people. Yes, in an action-oriented historical story, most characters tend to be between 20 and 40, because that was the time they were fighting, making a profession and a life, etc. But it doesn't mean there isn't a place for ship boys and apprentices (since 10 years old), for the characters' children (who can be babies or older), for old healers/ cartographers/ former sailors or former mercenaries who survived to tell the story and are able to give you a tip or two on how to solve your problems...

  • Has your RP group aged up with you?

Mostly, yes. 

  • In what ways have you witnessed the demographics of RPers and characters alike shift since you joined the hobby?

I am not talking about characters, because I keep writing in historical settings. But there are more older writers than in my first years. And there are more writers who want the site to be 18+, a thing I am disagreeing with. There is a place for both younger and older people who share a passion for writing, with all learning something one from the other. Yes, both the young from the older, and the older can learn some things from the young.

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  • Do you think that older players tend to play older characters? Most of my experience is in animal RPs so I can't speak much to humans, but from my own non-RP writing, and from my writer friends, I can say that there's a definite plateau, because teenage writers like the thrill of playing someone a couple years older (e.g. someone in eighth grade wanting to play a 16-year-old who can drive and has a significant other, or someone in high school wanting to play out the college experience) and then after a certain point the novelty wears off and you settle into a general age range to write.

  • Is it strange when adult players prefer playing teenagers or children? I think teenagers is fine because, of course, YA novels exist and are mostly written by adults. Having /a/ child character is much different than preferring to write children/having almost exclusively child characters, and that sometimes sets my intuition off. And, of course, it's weird when an adult is interested in playing teenagers exclusively for romance plots/shipping.

  • In your experience, are certain age groups more common in different genres? I think fandom RPs tend to draw a younger audience, because kids will get into the hobby through one of those -- my first RP was Warriors, and I know a lot of people who started through Harry Potter. Then the older crowds are more in original groups.

  • Has your RP group aged up with you? Definitely. I started when I was 13 so I was definitely one of the youngest members on the site, and when I got back into it at 18 I assumed that I would be on the older end, because 18 was considered older when I started. Instead I'm still one of the youngest! My main site only has two real teenagers on it.

  • In what ways have you witnessed the demographics of RPers and characters alike shift since you joined the hobby? Everything, at least for me, has gotten more chill as I've grown up. The RPers are no longer bored teenagers, a lot of us have jobs or college/grad school that take up large chunks of our time. The admins are the same age as everyone else and act more like friends than babysitters (something I definitely experienced when the main body of a site was in high school and the admin team was in their early 20s). The most exciting change has been the characters chilling out: now that we're older, we have a grip on angst and character mood swings, and not everyone has to be crazy out-there.

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17 hours ago, Deep Sea said:

 

  • Do you think that older players tend to play older characters?

 

 

I've found that I'm more comfortable playing older characters now than I was when I was younger, but not so far as "sacrificing" my playing of kids -- rather, the older I am the more broad a range I'm comfortable with, if that makes sense?

 

 

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22 hours ago, Deep Sea said:

Discussion topics (poll participation not required):

  • Do you think that older players tend to play older characters?
  • Is it strange when adult players prefer playing teenagers or children?
  • In your experience, are certain age groups more common in different genres?
  • Has your RP group aged up with you?
  • In what ways have you witnessed the demographics of RPers and characters alike shift since you joined the hobby?
  1. That does seem to be the case from my observations, though deviations do exist and they aren't exactly uncommon either. Like take myself for example - 36 years and counting, but many of my characters still fall within the 15-35 age bracket.
  2. Not at all; like others have said - stuff for kids and teenagers (which tend to feature protagonists that are around the same age bracket as their targeted demographic) are ultimately still written by adults. Sexually objectifying them would no doubt raise eyebrows from me - but hey, I don't see a reason to judge others so long as they haven't hurt or exploited any real people.
  3. Absolutely. Like if your setting is a high school then it stands to reason the majority of the cast would be teenagers, outside of say school staff and maybe say non-school characters like say baby siblings, parents, etc.
  4. I was around 19 or so when I first got into forum RPing - and at the time most of my peers tend to be around 20-30 years of age - though since my first site was an all-ages community, we do get members anywhere as young as 14. I'm now 36, and while the core members of my site tend to be between 25-30, but we also have a sizeable population of semi-regulars and transient members anywhere from 16 to 22.
  5. When I first started RPing, it seemed to be a young people's thing - like I generally run into many high-schoolers. These days it seemed to be by and large a thing for early millennials/Gen-Y'ers. (i.e. 80's kids) I think the Gen-Z'ers either aren't much into play-by-post RPing, or if they are their preferred platforms tend to be either social media, or chat clients (such as Discord) rather than forums. And for characters, I think RPing rosters nowadays are more diverse than they used to be in terms of age, race, social background, sexual orientation, etc. and that is a good thing.
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  • Do you think that older players tend to play older characters?

Not necessarily. I think that writers will write for whatever age they need to in order to fit the story. Genre also matters some here since, for more realistic medieval settings say, there might not be a lot of people reaching older ages. (For reasons like disease, wars, famines, etc...)

 

  • Is it strange when adult players prefer playing teenagers or children?

Not unless the individual makes it so. By that I mean if someone is playing exclusively teens and putting them into scenes where they should not be.  For example if they play teen characters and keep trying to force their teen into positions of power (when it wouldn't make sense... so for a Power Rangers game which is about teens being heroes... makes sense. But for something like a Star Trek game having a teen be given a captain role on a lead ship or something? Probably not going to happen.)

 

  • In your experience, are certain age groups more common in different genres?

I'm not sure here. I'd guess that some genres might attract younger players (like Animal roleplays) but I can't say with any certainty. 

 

  • Has your RP group aged up with you?

For the most part.

 

  • In what ways have you witnessed the demographics of RPers and characters alike shift since you joined the hobby?

Characterwise things haven't really changed so much. People still pretty much seem to make the exact same characters they always did.

 

 

"There are three sides to every story... Your side, their side, and then somewhere in the middle is the truth."
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  • Do you think that older players tend to play older characters?

No, it's kinda what the setting is. I mean I don't tend to play a child. Because a child on a Starship (Star Trek setting) is not unheard of, but it's not common and it basically limits your character of what to do. So I am more for the young adults to elderly settings, fresh and wise kinda?

  • Is it strange when adult players prefer playing teenagers or children?

No, I mean everyone has their forte so to speak. But again it really depends on the genre and setting of the RPG group. There is a huge difference in a starship and a colony, I would personally feel limited towards a starship setting than a colony. 

  • In your experience, are certain age groups more common in different genres?

Yes, the common young adults are preferred by most players in Star Trek due academy just finished and starting fresh. While in Stargate setting it would be more the adult to senior adult due to experience. 

  • Has your RP group aged up with you?

In terms of the development of the character, yes I would not expect anything else. But writers come and go so a real overview is something I can't give a clear answer on. 

  • In what ways have you witnessed the demographics of RPers and characters alike shift since you joined the hobby?

Mmm demographic I would say in character not much of a change and out of character around the age of 17 that they begin an interest in it. 

Keeper RaWolfe

Owner of the Exonia Realm

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17 hours ago, Deep Sea said:

To that one teenager in the poll, whoever you might be:

 

I regret to inform you that you are surrounded by old farts. It's on you to teach us how to conjugate yeet and the appropriate vines for various social faux pas.

That is me. xD I'm honestly used to it considering how I've been RPIng since 2009 believe it or not lol

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