Forums » RP Discussion » Character Age vs Player Age

I know that character ages have been discussed before, as it's one of those things that periodically comes up... but I'm too lazy to go digging, am never sure what to think of zombie topics, but still feel like tossing this out there.

I've noticed that, as I get older, my characters feel younger. I don't just mean the common teens or characters who are specifically supposed to be young - I mean characters that are supposed to have a decent foothold in life. It's gotten to where anything in the 20's range seems a bit too young (even though I just recently turned 26 myself). (At the same time though, anything past early thirties is still feeling a little too old for average. At least average singles. I dunno. *shrugs* Maybe because I am still in my 20's.)

And I'm not sure if seeing 20's as too young is a result of me getting older, or if it has more to do with how much time I spend around older people. Even in college, I had classmates in their 30's through their 60's, and it was a perfectly normal thing. Often, they also seemed younger than they really were, and it just helped put things a little more into perspective.

What about you folks? How do you feel about character ages, has it changed, and why/why not?

Stream of thought time. When I started RPing in my early teens my characters were all teenagers on dumb anime adventures, now that I'm in my twenties it's twentysomethings on dumb anime adventures, go figure. Your characters seem "too young" to you because you now have a much more accurate idea of how far someone should be in life by what age, yesterday's "Wow, that's so cool!" of stuff your characters pulled off at a young age is today's "Meh, not likely."

It's completely normal for age of the characters you play to hover around yours, that's a common way you identify with them/get into them. (Also why all commercial fiction tries to throw in age-appropriate characters for whatever demographic they're chasing, If someone tells you they have absolutely nothing in common with the characters they enjoy playing, they're lying.) I don't think I've ever had an age spread of my characters that satisfied my internal roleplay critic, but I enjoy myself.

At the end of the day age is only a number and you either pull off the maturity or you don't. It doesn't matter whether a character is 4, 40, or 400 going on 14 (sup demons) -- if they don't act their age, it's grating.

Generally I would say that I feel most comfortable playing older characters. I am 24. My newest, is 81 and my other characters' ages include 31, 1,198 and 314. The one who is 81, is perhaps the equivalent of a handful of years older than me by the standards of her race, whereas the rest are very early middle-age, mature adult and adult respectively. I have never successfully played/kept a character that is young than I am OOC, or is younger than I am by the comparative standards of his or her race, even when I first started role-playing.

Heh, dealing with age equivalents can be odd. And for non-humans, it's the equivalents I'm presently going by.

I think part of the reason I still pull back a little from even older characters is that there gets to be the expectation of family, rather than an issue with the age itself. Like, if someone's in their 40s and is single... why? And though I do have some multi-chars (Raven and Shade, Novalyyn and Jzin), I'm always wary of either drowning out other people or trying too hard to avoid interactions between my characters. Even though I seem to end up having multiple characters in a given game a lot... And I do have a couple characters who are married, but one's a widow and the other rarely sees her husband.

Playing goofy kids and annoying teens can be fun too, though. The kids, at least. ^^

i once played a 60 year old Knight who refused to retire Everyone loved him.. then his apprentice murdered him O_o

Hmm most of my characters seem to be around my age (21) well minus my two vampires and incubus's true ages which is up there.

I guess by default, the majority of my characters tend to hover around the same age I am, but it really depends on the character. I have a 6-year-old character whom I love playing dearly, because he's just really sweet and innocent. I also have a 40+ year old supernatural hunter, whom I made mostly as a joke, but who wound up taking on a life of his own. Age doesn't really matter to me. If anyone asks me how old they are, I generally stare at them blankly. Age doesn't matter--it's maturity level. And in that regard, maturity doesn't necessarily adhere to age. So...I suppose for me, age is just something that "feels" right to the character and the path they've chosen in (their) life.

Clear as mud?

I'm only 15 and most of my characters default ages tend to be around the 16-17 year old mark, but they get mixed up a lot. I've played some at 4 year olds only to age over time, to 21 year old men/women. My characters honestly never have a true aged point. I've played vampires like Draiken that are over 400 years old, but merely appear around 17, to demons like an old character I had named Zackary who appeared 21, but was around 160 years old really, to little four year old girls that still desire to carry around a stuffed animal puppy plushie. Some of my characters can be near adults, and yet still act like children despite that age ( yeah im reffering to you Venus..) .. I don't believe my age has an influence on my characters ages seeing I mix their ages up in rps variously anyway, even if their older/younger then me I can play them with ease, and not feel that their too young or too old..

I try to keep things varied, but I'm finding more and more lately that my characters are tending to be in the upper 20's and early 30's. The reason for this is that I find that I'm able to give them more backstory. They've had time to get through college and find a good job (or none at all), they've been able to have relationships, friendships, heart ache and personal drama. I can add things to them without having to go "Wait, when could this have happened"
As for my age, I'm 25. I'm not that old, but I still feel old when I compare myself to my classmates (who are all around 5 years younger than me). I think this is part of the reason for the shift in age of my characters. I feel older. I got married young. I don't drink or party. I don't have many friends outside of my older/more mature friends. I feel older than I am, so I play older than I am.

Doesn't mean, however, I won't play a cute kid or a rebellious teenager. I just feel better with characters who have had time to live their lives.