Age

Do you like to play young characters? Is there any advice for playing specific ages? Do you play old characters? What do you prefer? Share your thoughts on Character's ages.

I don't think I'm very good at playing too young characters. Played a 14 year old - recently turned 15 - in Crossroads, but most other players were around 17 and I wasn't sure of how strongly I should make it seem like he was younger than them.

I think I could play older characters (40+) pretty decently, even though I haven't experienced those ages myself yet haha. But usually characters I make tend to be around 20, or old teens at least. Because that's the norm in many roleplays for some reason :o

I just go with what feels right for the story I wanna do. I don't inherently prefer writing a certain age above the others. My two favorite characters, Emmett and Carl, both differ in age greatly, and writing them has been really fun either way.

I think 16-17 is the youngest age of character I'll play. I'm not sure how realistically I can portray child characters. I like to be able to play characters who are a bit more... Complicated? I'm not sure that's the right word, but I like them to have a bit of history. Usually I'll play 18-22 year olds. But lately I've been going for late twenties/early thirties type characters. Maybe it's more preference than anything.

I'm not fond of playing younger characters, mostly since I don't like children much. In fact, I prefer playing characters who are older than the average age, or at least older than the other players. I've played a couple elderly characters, but age is ultimately irrelevant to the character.

I often change my character's according to the lore of the world. If it's a place where young people are unlikely to be/survive, I'll play a much older character. My oldest character has been upwards of 40 and my youngest has been 12.

There have been times where I have written my character's as a different age than they actually were. This happened quite a bit with flashbacks and/or even time travel.

I usually play characters who are close to my age or younger. Although I really don't pay attention to age to be honest. I find it really hard to play someone older, unless I try really hard to be accurate with it and constantly remind myself of their age.

And time travel, hmm... That sounds like a really interesting idea for a roleplay plot.

I'm terrible at playing younger characters. Even in the pokemon rp I'm in I play as a 20something neet. Currently looking at getting into a game of little fears though which will force me to use a younger character. So should be a good learning experience.

My characters are usually mid teens-early twenties but I've played characters as young as 12-13 and as old as their fifties also.

aeternum said:

I'm terrible at playing younger characters.

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And in total contrast to that, I rarely ever find myself writing older, more serious characters; and if I do I'm terrible at it. Most of the characters I've written are all 17-22, with the exception of Elliott (who was 5) and Malvo/Boog who was in his thirties.

Foxrally said:

And in total contrast to that, I rarely ever find myself writing older, more serious characters; and if I do I'm terrible at it. Most of the characters I've written are all 17-22, with the exception of Elliott (who was 5) and Malvo/Boog who was in his thirties.

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And the two characters older than a thousand you played of course.

I usually play characters that are in their adolescence or just reached adulthood (twenties). Why? Idk. I guess I can relate more to that age group. I've not attempted very young or old characters. Besides who says an elderly character can't have a playful mind of a toddler and vice versa? Age is just a number and writing has little room for numbers. :p

Ice Goddess said:

Age is just a number and writing has little room for numbers.

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True, but you do have Word Count, Chapter Count, Page Count, Planning, Time, Musical Inspiration. I mean that's a lot of numbers.

I think it'd be nice to play a character which can take the role of "Adult with little experience" than "Child who can do nothing." Children are used in fiction as a part of provoking our protective instincts, why do you think Charities appeal to you by talking about the poor helpless children? Children seem to take 1 of 2 things usually, "Deadweight, Annoying, Silly." or "VIP, Protect at all costs" and when I was a child, which is quite recently comparitively, I didn't like being treated like I was stupid or inferior due to my age. I'd try to debate with someone and they'd laugh me off. I think one scene where you can get the protective side and suprising "They're not useless" is if you had a Zombie setting. I wrote a fanfiction for a Browser game called Urban Dead once, and one of the characters was a little girl, and when the main character went in to a building to get something vital, he came out and found the girl fending off the zombies because she'd handled a crossbow before for sport. Children vary but People vary too.

You have got the issue of Pokémon and yes that does show to some extent the actual autonomy that children can do, but is dwarfed by the world being utopian.
When you have older characters I feel like they can be used to great effect to challenge preconceptions of the little old person and show that people don't become vegetables once they reach a certain age. Returning to the idea of zombie settings, it's because the art of survival brings a whole range of things to the table: Adrenaline, necessity, co-operation, trust, sadness, joy over that ember that you gather around. Instead of years as just a number, I tend to think of them of measures of how experienced someone is. Why shouldn't a old man know how to lock pick? Why do old people have to dreaming life away on a arm chair babbling on about "The War." Why do children get cast aside because they're just children? Yeah, children can be difficult to play, but people are immature all the time. You might argue that how dare we talk about having children having horrible lives in such violent conditions in things such as these roleplays? They should have a real childhood! But the truth is that these characters are things that can tell us things, in the world there are tons of bad thing happening all the time, whats to say that we can't make people wake up and see a new perspective? Childhood and Old Age are just as precious as adulhood.

Sir General Admiral Fancy Swank said:

True, but you do have Word Count, Chapter Count, Page Count, Planning, Time, Musical Inspiration. I mean that's a lot of numbers.

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But they don't mean anything to the reader nor to the writer (aka me). :3c

My character age range tends to stay in the late teens to early twenties, what seems to be the norm. When creating my characters, I usually decide age last and just go with whatever feels right for the character I've made. I have played middle-aged men and young children as well.

I do disagree with the "age doesn't matter" sentiment. Maybe as far as maturity, but there are loads of things that are usually exclusive to certain age groups. A young child can't have plotlines where they struggle with their children or spouse without it being really weird, or ones where they agonize about how much of their life they've wasted or messed up without sounding silly. There are also struggles with mortality, like the fact that a character's loved ones are all dead or dying, and their own time is coming soon with nothing they can do to change it.

Of course, all of these can be adapted to young children if you try, but they I think they feel most natural in an older character. There are probably plots that are best with younger characters as well, but I'm too lazy to think of some right now.