The Age-appropriate Challenge

Ok, this is more a challenge for us who've been with the game awhile, especially during the past year. I'll call it age-appropriateness. I don't remember worrying about it too much before, so we might be just getting a bit sloppy now. Taking each other for granted, maybe.

It works like this: our primary game-characters have aged a bit. (Remember, I said this was for players who'd been in-game awhile, and not even all those players.) We started out trying to be very conscious of how, for example, a 15-year-old would act/react in the kinds of situations the game presents. We were careful with dress, mannerisms, speech habits, skills, etc. The question was always: is this how a 15-year-old would act/think/talk/dress/behave in this circumstance?

Well, the game has pushed on. Our characters have grown. In many instances, they've become a bit...well, jaded. (No pun intended!) Established characters have been through a lot. So have our established players. Somewhere along the line, the caution-light got turned off. We forgot to ask ourselves all those age-appropriate questions by which we should be measuring the characters we're playing. Hey, I know...I'm as guilty of this as anybody else.

I think what really brought it to my attention was all the new players who joined the game recently. Their new characters--yeah, they're hitting the mark as far as age is concerned. It's a good example right in front of me. Yep, this is how a 12-year-old (or 14, or 16, whatever) acts. This is how she talks. This is how he reasons. These aren't super-heroes. They're kids. Granted, kids who've been through the wringer, so maybe a bit more "adult" in some ways. But in others? Nope. Still kids. With kid attitudes & kid weaknesses.

We seem to have forgot about those weaknesses, me & some of my companion-players. Even when we try to construct characters that are above the norm...how real is that, if we aren't portraying them true-to-age?

So this is just meant to be food for thought. Might be a good time for each of us to look at our characters through the age-telescope, see just how good a job we're doing.

-Chyna

Photo source: copyright Cloud-9 "The Tribe," and borrowed from the KTDARPG website