Forums » RP Discussion » Adult characters!

....

What would you define as an adult character? Assuming you mean age-wise and not something more like "Adult content not appropriate for children" I have several (mortals) over the age of 30, two over the age of 60, and one immortal with more than a hundred years under her belt. I definitely find it more interesting than playing teenagers under most circumstances.

Of course, I also have a four year old I really enjoy playing!

I have characters of various ages. A lot of mine tend to be between 20 and 35, but I go older and younger all the time on whims. I just have so many characters... xD

I avoid inappropriate characters, but I love older ones. One of my former characters was 62, and my current few (mortal) ones are all middle-aged, around 40 years old. (Or their race's equivalent, as the case may be.) I've tried playing teens on a few occasions, but I never really enjoyed it, and those characters never lasted.

I have much love for people who play older characters, too! Especially when they're done well. (8

"Inappropriate" is in the eye of the beholder!

....

@Kim: TRUTH. But by inappropriate I meant stuff that'd be an absolute no for the wee 'uns, aka the other definition of 'adult', haha.

@Meedleboot: Your name is the BEST. And it's great to see someone who plays kids, too! I don't see many of those, really, which is a shame.

Actually now that I think about it, I can't remember having a lot of teenage character even when I was a teenager. If they weren't just outright kids, probably the youngest of them was 18, which I thought was ancient and very grown up when I was ten. But I don't think I've ever designed a character that was in their high school years.

@Wizard: I think that may have something to do with the environments that RP characters typically gather. I would loooove to play my child character more, but I never really feel like there's an appropriate (look, there's that word again!) place to play her outside of her mom's home, which means only people who come visiting under very specific circumstances really see her. Which sucks, but taverns just aren't great hang outs for four year olds. Safiye may not be the greatest mom ever, but she at least knows enough to keep her offspring out of barfights, y'know? Or out of open mine shafts, for that matter.

I always have various teen characters and I find it neither difficult nor uninteresting to play, but I'm not really picky.

I do have some young child characters, and most of the time I use them is in the safety of their parents' homes or otherwise in their parents' company, so I know what you mean there (not that Risette's home is a safe place at all, but it's safe for her :B ). And then, when you do occasionally play... well, things of an adult nature with some characters, you can wind up juggling "parents' alone time" with "family time." Risette ain't popping up when her parents are... involved (they have the good sense to make sure that can't happen xD), and one of her parents gets badly injured on a regular basis, during which time we've avoided having her walk in. We're not quite raring to inflict that kind of mental scar on the poor girl.

Kim, one way to get your child char more play would be to find someone to play a nanny who would bring her out in the market, etc. It could even be an NPC.

That being said, I've had a big ol' range of character ages! My current youngest is the human equivalent of 16 or 17, because I wanted to RP an impetuous teen. ;P I have two who are in their low-mid 20s, since that's a nice age for young, malleable characters. You know--the ones you don't really know what to do with yet. Then I have my minotaur, who's in his mid-30s, and a fae character who's almost 60 but is the equivalent of 30ish. Then my old, retired character was ageless, but could appear anywhere from 30 to 60 depending on how she held herself.

I always gush when I see older characters--and by that I mean characters who look and "act" old. So none of these 408368546-year-old vamps who look 18. Something about characters over the age of 40 makes me feel good. After all, it's more realistic to have a broad range of ages in a setting, and it feels kinda silly when everyone is 18-21.

Aha! There's an NPC (Alexandria) and a PC (Bathilde) both, but unfortunately it still very rarely makes sense for little Aria to be out and about. Thanks for the idea, though. I may just starting cheating and say to heck with sense.

Yes! This. I always feel secretly proud of players when I see they have older characters. You just know someone is really there to write an interesting personality/story and not go on an ego trip if they're perfectly willing for their character to have wrinkles and arthritis and throw out their backs whenever they try to engage in anything a little too epic.

I love playing older characters. Most of mine are nonhuman humanoids, with human-like age rates, so they should still count. My only current human characters are all in their late 20s to mid-40s. and the one in his mid-40s is my favorite of my humans. X3

My immortal characters tend to reflect their age, really- the older they are, the more mature and formal they are. The only immature immortals I have are ones that are supposed to be perpetual children. And one severely traumatized god.

I do have a couple of actual child characters, but they were created for plots and settings in which they have free run, so I don't have a problem playing them: Symphony's mother abandoned her in the park, and Judas is a runaway.

Now that I think about it, do any of my characters have actual children?

Huh, I haven't played younger characters in quite a long time - used to do a lot of Pern RP, and had a few early teens-ish characters in there, but that's an appropriate age for new dragonriders in that series.

Otherwise, though, my characters all fall under the span of adult. I think I've only got one active one that's younger than myself - Rhaetia as I play her in Furcadia is 24, but in another continuity I think she ended up being 27 or 28 at the end of the game. Others with human-like lifespans are in their thirties-to-fifties, usually, and I've got a few longer-lived characters that age just isn't really important for (although one is nearing the end of her lifespan, not that she'd ever let anyone know that).

I really do have fun with my in-her-late-fifties magician, though. I've gotten a few comments to the effect of "wow, I've never seen anyone playing a character that actually looks old before!" Is there something about roleplaying that causes most characters older than 35 to die off immediately, or something?

It's probably something in the water. I bet it's related to whatever it is that makes all those 15-year-old superspies with epic sword skills.

I wonder if it's the same thing that kills off everyone who isn't at least moderately attractive.

Well you know I like to play adults, I dont have many characters under 20, and quite a few that are over 30, and I do try to make sure they LOOK over 30.

Haha most of my characters are adult, but unfortunately I have never been able to use any of my drastically old/wrinkly characters in a role play before. They still make writing interesting, though, and I love them to pieces.

I think my favorite character to role play is actually my rat. She is very new to the world, and very childish in everything that she does. It is just such a relief to play a character that isn't what you normally would expect.

I prefer to play characters in the 25-40 range. I like to play adventuring scholars, and to get the most out of a scholar you have to make them at least a little bit mature, because wisdom comes with age, after all. Besides, there's only so much books a character could have read in a given amount of time. A convincing scholar has to have at least some years of study behind him, and must have had the opportunity to gain some life experience.

Those characters of mine that are below 25, 21-25, are usually curious and very inquisitive, striving to learn more. Although it's a bit difficult to say, really, because I plan out my characters past and (to a lesser extent) future entirely, what changes they went through, previous behaviour patterns, thoughts, opinions etc, so I could hop into the past and play a character that is usually '28 by default' as if he were 5 or 15 or... anything really.

Wow, I didn't expect this topic to get this many replies xD It was fun to read about what you guys like to RP! I want to try to RP with all of you at least once now xD

@Kim: If you want to RP you child char more often, you could RP with me. My main has four children herself, and I love to RP them. They could use some friends their age, too.

Would I be an intruder if I said my average character is in the 20-30 age range? o3o

I'd actually probably like having one or two characters over 35, though, but I think I might not feel secure enough about it since I myself only top the eighteen landmark (soon nineteen), and I wouldn't want to be inaccurate about an adult's level of maturity since I never had the chance to experience it.

My youngest character is 14... I don't know why, but there's something about child characters that kinda prevents me from creating any (except one which I never use); that might be due to the fact that I've had a bad experience with people playing baby characters. They would never actually be... constructive to the roleplay (group roleplay), even though they at times replied adequately to the previous posts. Basically, they'd just be in it to be cute, and that disappointed me greatly.

My favorite character is about 28 years old now. When I started playing her, she was 16. She aged in real time. She's been with me for a long time!