Forums » RP Discussion » Age in RP

I've been quite curious about the ages that people choose to play for characters. I haven't seen a lot here, but I know on other RP areas I've been in, you end up with a lot of sixteen-year-olds with a pile of school degrees and too much knowledge and barely any older characters.

I know this isn't true here, but I'm curious nonetheless.

My characters where age doesn't matter as much (especially fantasy) I go for the young and inexperienced. I think I can contribute it to the fact that I started to roleplay when I was young, so I have plenty of experience writing 14, 15, 16 year old girls.

That being said, I try to keep the ages of character appropriate. It doesn't do well to have an FBI agent who is still growing. Currently my characters (on here) from 4-33, or a technically ageless character - but this brings up my second point.

What about the appearance of characters? I know that ageless characters should look, well, ageless, but in real life some teenagers look like grown adults. Some grown adults look like kids. Some people in their 50's look like they're in their 70's and some people in their 70's look like they're in their 40's. I personally try to make them look as they need to for their character. One of my characters is only 18, but looks like she's nearing her 40's because of stress. I have another who is a teenager who acts like she's in her 20's so she can get a job and employs make-up to do so.

So, how about you?

I always think that people RP what they can relate to best. Most of us start(ed) early teens, so if a userbase has a lot young members, that's going to be a prominent theme. Most of us don't really know enough about the adult life, adult jobs and adult relationships with people to be able to play them well at 15, so we stick to what we know.

That said, I find it really hard to down- and upgrade ages in my characters. I want to play children so badly, but I'm 25 now, no children, no children in my immediate surroundings to take away from, so I've nothing to reference from anymore. I guess I lost my own childhood along the way, huh?

I also struggle playing older people for the same reason - I haven't experienced yet what it's like to be older. I know I may think I do, but I really don't! Putting myself into the mindset of someone who's lived longer and knows so much more than I do is almost impossible.

I still try though. I have (had) characters who go out of my comfort zone. I just don't offer them very much because I'm insecure about playing them right. I also find that old dudes or gals just don't attract a lot of attention, and children are often ignored. I think it has to do with the 'wanting romance and sex RP' aspect of it all and children and older people not being a viable choice for mid- to late-teens and mid-twenties?

Sanne really hit the nail on the head with her first point about people RPing what they can relate to.

One of my longest played characters started out as 22 when I was 17 as I felt anything around my age was too young. I did end up aging her up some and then aged her by one year every real life year that past making her now 33. While that is 8 years older than my current age, I feel I am close enough to be able to RP out the difference and the additional age also makes her experiences and her skill-set much more believable.

I can never RP younger ages, personally, it feels strange. The youngest I have roleplayed was 18 though I did briefly play a 500+ old vampire who was turned when she was 12, though that gave her a wise/old mind. I haven't roleplayed older characters all that much. I find it easier to RP older male characters for whatever reason though I do have a female characters in her 50s. I work around seniors and older people so I have had quite a bit experience with being around different types of people in their 60s, 70s, or 80s.

Going back to what Sanne said, I try to stick with roughly what I know when it comes to the age of the character and try to match it best with their experiences within life. I'll be honest, I get very put off when people who roleplay teenagers who seem to have enough experience for a 30 to 40 year old. It doesn't feel believable to me.

I'm trying to experiment more with ages, but as Sanne mentioned--certain ages just aren't "popular". However, I'm discovering that playing older ages is quite a bit fun.

Sterling Argentum is my "old man" character--despite the fact he's only 40. (I think?) He's at a different stage of life than the younger characters which can make it refreshing to roleplay.

Then again, I have a lot of characters ranging in the 20s because I'm currently in my 20s. I only have two kid characters because they're harder to rp. But they're also fun if you can find the right kind of RP for them.

A lot of RP is experimenting, getting outside the comfort zone, and that's when you learn a lot more about yourself and others, I think. And who knows--sometimes it works and other times it doesn't. That's the fun of RP.

Me? I very the age. I do seem to lean toward the mid 20s to early 30s. Its an age group that allows enough time for experiences to have occurred to forge who the character is, yet still leaves them young enough to do what ever it is they do.

That said my mortal characters: youngest character was 8 (human child). My oldest 1200+ (Green Dragon) cavorting around in human form looked 55+.

Right now? I have one character thats 126, but looks twenty something.

For me, its always about what character I want, followed by why are they that way? What made them become who they are? Then I have to look at how long that would take. Its an issue that I have had with other peoples characters at previous sites. Being a marksman, sniper, master swordsman, or god like magic user... these things take time to perfect. Realistically, you're simply not going to be all of them by 18.

When I first started RPing ages ago, I used to play a lot of Dragonriders of Pern-type games. It was a necessity of the settings of those particular games that characters typically started out rather young; anywhere from 12 to 17 was pretty common. I was 15 or 16 myself, at the time, so it wasn't very much of a stretch.

As I aged and transferred into other genres, my characters gradually shifted so that most of them were in their 20s or 30s, although a few supernatural critters had ages more in the centuries. I like to think I was somewhat successful with those ones, capturing the long-view outlook that's necessary for something that lives for that long. One of the most successful characters of that time period was a mortal woman who was in her late fifties, but had been an adventurer in her earlier life. She was scarred and rough around the edges, not pretty at all, and looked older than she was. I got a lot of compliments that she was something different in a sea of characters who were mostly young and beautiful.

My current crop is pretty much the same. A couple of long-lived folks (and one immortal, but she only remembers about a century of her life at any particular time), who tend to vary in looks, age-wise, and lots more mortal folks who vary between late teen-hood to into their 60s and 70s. The characters I play the most right now are 25 and 33, which... averages out to my actual age, actually, hah.

All of my characters are middle-aged or higher.

I read a lot, and I self-educate a lot, and I'm in my thirties, so I do not think I could really play a child convincingly, not even a teenaged child. I tend to have curmudgeonly views regarding what makes sense and what doesn't, as well, so playing an older character allows me to not have to struggle so hard with that side of myself while playing.

All but one of my characters looks their age - you could easily guess them within 5 years of accuracy by glancing at them, except my main, Illiandi. I made him look 'middle aged' for the time period he was created in, in his story, so he is stuck looking in his vital twenties. There's a fair amount of struggle and frustration for him as time marched on and looking like a twenty year old ceased getting you a lot of respect in society (in modern America, it seems we have practically adopted the Hobbit concept of not REALLY coming of age until you're at least 30).

I don't mind if age doesn't match appearance IF the struggle of the split is present and part of the story. That is to say, if there's someone very young-minded in an older body, I prefer the player I'm playing with to understand that their character will be treated like they have special-needs. Likewise if someone is very old in a young body, I expect that the character reflect some of the issues of constantly being looked over in life - and hopefully with the grace that their true age would grant them.

I like skills to be in-line with age. I get uncomfortable when I'm having to let my character interact with one of the 15 year old lone travelers that speak eight languages and know multiple skills well past savant levels, and equally I get uncomfortable when in a medieval setting my character brushes elbows with a 20-something that doesn't even know how to cook.

I do not think I have ever role-played a character whose age is younger than mine, and I often prefer role-playing characters that are older; late twenties, upwards and I think the oldest I had who looked their age, was in the mid-40's. I have a habit of playing races with natural longevity, so their physical age corresponds essentially to what that age group is in their own society. For example, a character that looks in their mid-thirties that is an elf or half-so, is probably going to be around the 300 - 400 benchmark.

I always try and correspond their skill levels to their ages, because I do enjoy realism mingled in with my fantasy. If a character is particularly skilled at something and relatively young, then I always have a logical reason as to why or how that level of skill was acquired, be it introduction to it at a young age, an apprenticeship. If the case of it being a talent, I try and balance it out by them being inept at something else, perhaps social interactions, magic, horse-riding or something else, to indicate that if all of their efforts went into X skill, then they have neglected other life skills in the process to compensate.

I'm pretty sure I read an essay about this a few years ago. Basically we create characters in young adulthood because this is typically the age of uncertainty: when we've left the nest, but before we've been tied down by the obligations of a family of our own. How many active threads can you find right now about roleplaying family life, trying to put your kids through college, etc? Conversely, how many characters have forgotten their past, have one or more deceased parents (or entire families), were abandoned at a young age, etc.

It's pragmatism. Do you want to roleplay one character, or one character, plus everyone in their family, and potentially everyone that family knows? Not to mention creating a myriad of personalities, each interesting enough to differentiate all of those people and make them seem real. Or finding players to play them for you. Fact is even a single person, on average, has far too many connections to other people to feasibly roleplay.

It's escapism. We get enough of paying our taxes and losing our jobs and watching our friends and family grow old and die in real life. Young characters can go on the adventures we never could. They don't have to form permanent attachments. They don't have to settle down. They die in battle on top of a mountain and always in the arms of someone who genuinely cares, and always have time to give a speech before they go, instead of alone and afraid in a hospital bed.

Now I'm not advocating for wish-fulfillment in our narratives. We've all ranted about werewolf elf angels enough that these jokes are about as funny and interesting as those about myspace or windows blue screens at this point. But if we're playing pretend to begin with, why not imagine staying young forever? I certainly hope I never grow up.

This is why creating a cluster of older characters with a bunch of friends rules. In the LARP game that I play, most of the characters are several hundred years old. Obviously, they have a lot of connections. So before entering play, one usually talks with as many players as possible and finds a way to weave the new character into both's back stories. You end up with a sire (vampires), siblings, mentors, cotories Sort of like vampiric roommates), rivals, acquaintances, and basically every sort of person an old character would have in their lives.

I've done this also with online RP characters. Many people will request friends to create their family and friends, and it can be a great way to bring newbies into the fold as well by giving them a pre-existing attachment to the characters involved. They start with a window to jump right in, and some existing tensions and themes to play off of.

It's a scientifically proven fact that men never grow up. I think you're good.

I agree though. The appeal of RP is that it's not real life, young characters have opportunities others do not. I noticed that this also happens in books, and being able to put yourself into a protagonist's shoes is experiencing the adventure with them. I still think your own age goes hand in hand with being able to relate to a character though.

I have to say, some of the best stories I've read and written through RP didn't have happy Disney endings. Tragedy and loss are very appealing to me in stories because feeling happy go lucky all the time kind of sucks. A character dying in the arms of someone who really cares seems like a favorable outcome to a story, but it isn't as fulfilling as I'd like it to be.

aw yiss
Did You Know? Of all geologic landforms, mountains are statistically the most fulfilling to die on. It's science.

I am all over the place with age. I've played everything from toddlers to senior citizens, though my oldest characters are nonhumans in the upper middle range of their species' age spectrum. I suppose if I had to pick the range I normally play, it would be 30-50 years old. I myself am in my 20s, and I've stuck mainly to this range since I was in my teens. Don't know what that says about me, as far as we apparently play what we relate to. I guess I've just always been a middle-aged man?

A lot of my characters are in the age range of 14-21, mostly for a lot of the reasons already stated here. I started writing young, about 12, and tend to try and create characters along with my own age as I can relate to those best. I also choose young characters because I like to make amateurs and then watch them grow. If I have a character with powers they know how to use, it's a pretty safe bet that I've been running her/him for quite a while.

Now that you mention it though, it would be nice to experiment a bit more with older/younger characters. After all, who says age really has all that much to do with the experience a character has in a given field?

In my experience, a lot of people tend to play around 18-20something, so I've recently taken to playing characters who are a bit older than that, in their 30s and 40s.

Most of the characters I've seen are mid-teens to early twenties, a number of centuries-olds, and then it skips up to I EXISTED BEFORE THE DAWN OF THE UNIVERSE. Usually, those latter two groups still look like the first, though.

I try to keep a pretty good mix. I'd got a number of young adults, I've some in their 30s-40s, I've got teenagers, I've got an 8-year-old... I've got an older woman who looks like she's in her 30's because of a regenerative concoction she makes... I've got a creature that looks like a 16 year old girl, but is actually about 2 or 4 years old... And of course I've got some ancient folks. Most of my ancient folks are broken, though. Like, unplayably all-powerful broken.

I play characters of ages I'm comfortable playing. It's better than playing characters whose ages are far out of my comfort zone, for the sake of balance.