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WHAT AGE RANGE ARE THE CHARACTERS IN YOUR GAMES?

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Often, the idea is that the character is forced into the hero's journey due to the circumstances. This is not always the case of course.

I do tend to go with young adults as I like to use heroes who needs to learn the necessary skills and think young adults work best for that. Usually, they are for one or another reason still rather trained in a skill needed for the adventure, like a squire nearing knighthood or a mage apprentice. I have a difficult time buying into a farmboy becoming the hero, although in reality nobody can become the type of hero we see in fiction.
For my older games, they were all young twenties.

For my new game, the main cast is between 15 and 45, as well as a 1000+ year old elf and a divine being. Going for some more variety with this one.
Sooz
They told me I was mad when I said I was going to create a spidertable. Who’s laughing now!!!
5354
Actually thinking about it "ambiguously adult" only applies to games in development and everyone in the games I've actually made is under 20, because they are animals and/or a mascot for some unknown foreign product. And a toddler. So, yeah.
Solitayre
Circumstance penalty for being the bard.
18257
I feel like a lot of people don't really take the time to think through what a character who was hundreds or even thousands of years old would actually act like.

This is someone with several lifetimes worth of learning experience. Almost anything happening in their world at the moment probably doesn't seem new to them; they've almost always seen something like this happen before (and if they haven't, it must be something truly new and frightening).

A character like this would probably be very talented at what they do, for more so than a human equivalent, because they've been doing it a lot longer, or perhaps they've developed a wide range of skills from trying a lot of new things across a long life.

A thousand year old character who fights would probably extraordinarily badass and be totally out of the league of anybody else just by virtue of how much more experience and practice they've had.

A character like this would probably seem astonishingly wise to a young person, because they've done it all. Things that bother a human probably seem ridiculous to them. There's probably no problem that can come up that they haven't had to solve before.

I can't think of many stories that try supernaturally old characters with that kind of deference. Master of the Wind tries, with mixed results. A lot of other stories like Lord of the Rings tend to portray supernaturally long-lived races like elves as sort of 'above it all' as though they have become so wise and evolved that fighting is beneath them, which I think has merit but causes other problems.

There's a book I read as a kid called Into the Forge where the heroes and their two elven allies are preparing for a war. When assessing their numbers for a major upcoming battle in which the good guys are terribly outnumbered, one of the heroes' supporters encourages the field commanders to not forget to include the two elves in the headcount. One of them laughs, wanting to know what difference two elves will make, and promptly gets a dressing down as the heroes explain that having two warriors with that much combined experience, knowledge, and wisdom on their side will make for a huge advantage. It's maybe the only time I can think of where a supernaturally long-lived race really gets their props for being good at what they do.
Lost Odyssey explores that concept with its main character Kaim being immortal and being 1000 years oldish. Mainly that there's a bunch of non-connected stories that you can optionally read about his travels and his experiences. However they muck it up with the amnesia angle so it's kind of a missed opportunity even though the scene where he meets his grandchildren (despite looking old enough to be their older brother) was pretty cool. Haven't played enough of it since the battle system really turned me off (long animations, badly implemented paper mario-esque mechanics).

I guess the issue is that it's impossible to know how someone with that much life experience would truly function. People that live to be 80+ can sometimes live a pretty narrow life if their circumstances lead them to have the same general career and opinions their whole life. Granted there are some irl people who have really exciting lives and job variety that probably make for good biographies. (I think the Earthbound designer used to sell hats and worked at a mine?).

But it's actually why I think immortality ain't such a bad idea (assuming your body doesn't age either), because it pretty much guarantees that you'll have time to undergo training and switch careers if you get bored of your current one. Though it'd be funny if an immortal didn't take advantage of that and just does a dead-end job forever with content. I imagine there'd be a learning threshold where long term improvement just completely stops or just doesn't help.

Another thing to consider, would all immortals really adapt to the changing times? I feel like they would easily get nostaligic or prefer specific time periods. I'd always imagine someone like Edward Cullen (born 1901) being really oldschool and antique speech rather than just being some up to date contemporary teen. It really does make the rich elite victorian vampire trope much more believable when they show up. Though I can't remember if films like Interview with the Vampire or Highlander took time period attachment into account when it comes to personalities and speech.
author=Solitayre
I feel like a lot of people don't really take the time to think through what a character who was hundreds or even thousands of years old would actually act like.

This is someone with several lifetimes worth of learning experience. Almost anything happening in their world at the moment probably doesn't seem new to them; they've almost always seen something like this happen before (and if they haven't, it must be something truly new and frightening).

A character like this would probably be very talented at what they do, for more so than a human equivalent, because they've been doing it a lot longer, or perhaps they've developed a wide range of skills from trying a lot of new things across a long life.

A thousand year old character who fights would probably extraordinarily badass and be totally out of the league of anybody else just by virtue of how much more experience and practice they've had.

A character like this would probably seem astonishingly wise to a young person, because they've done it all. Things that bother a human probably seem ridiculous to them. There's probably no problem that can come up that they haven't had to solve before.

I can't think of many stories that try supernaturally old characters with that kind of deference. Master of the Wind tries, with mixed results. A lot of other stories like Lord of the Rings tend to portray supernaturally long-lived races like elves as sort of 'above it all' as though they have become so wise and evolved that fighting is beneath them, which I think has merit but causes other problems.

There's a book I read as a kid called Into the Forge where the heroes and their two elven allies are preparing for a war. When assessing their numbers for a major upcoming battle in which the good guys are terribly outnumbered, one of the heroes' supporters encourages the field commanders to not forget to include the two elves in the headcount. One of them laughs, wanting to know what difference two elves will make, and promptly gets a dressing down as the heroes explain that having two warriors with that much combined experience, knowledge, and wisdom on their side will make for a huge advantage. It's maybe the only time I can think of where a supernaturally long-lived race really gets their props for being good at what they do.


I actually thought about it, when writing a novel. I'm not convinced it's just experience though. Also, eventually you run into the limits of your muscles (no matter how conditioned, a human can't run twice the world record). The actual experience of immortality has far more aspects of isolation than training (and if we're being honest, honing one skill for thousands of years gets boring so the character is more likely to be jack of all trades). Thonk about it. You've probably read libraries of books, fought in wars, learned the piano and the flute and seen everything bult crumble to dust. Essentially the only thing you'd want is to pass the time with someone.
Who said it was human? I think once you enter the realm of 100s or 1000s of years old, you leave behind a fact based idea of what a humanoid body is capable of.

Who said that person was actually smart or talented? If someone is bad at a skill it might not matter how long they have to practice it. They will simply suck at it. I would prefer that kind of mega old person to the typical god like immortal being of supreme perfection. Maybe they don't even remember anything beyond the last 100 years.
author=Link_2112
Who said it was human? I think once you enter the realm of 100s or 1000s of years old, you leave behind a fact based idea of what a humanoid body is capable of.


Based on what metric? The average life expectancy has increased to from 48 to 71 since the 1950s. The maximum age is likely an ongoing change. Also is Jeanne Calment not human then?
Watch out with life expectancy metrics, they take into account infant and child morality rates which really bring the value down. Generally if you lived to adulthood you'd generally live a lot longer than the life expectancy metric for that era would suggest.
Cap_H
DIGITAL IDENTITY CRISIS
6625
Soli, I read this novel, which handles basically immortal beings well.
In my case, the immortal old being doesn't develop its skills in the usual sense. They're not a fighting pary member either, they're challenging the party and basically represent this Thanos-like omnipotent charactr.
But I can imagine hundreds of years old characters getting senile too. This is an interesting scenario and I think it was in a rather radical metter explored in Gulliver's Travels. In that case older characters don't have much of an advantage over the young ones. They're more random I guess.

author=Darken
author=Link_2112
Who said it was human? I think once you enter the realm of 100s or 1000s of years old, you leave behind a fact based idea of what a humanoid body is capable of.
Based on what metric? The average life expectancy has increased to from 48 to 71 since the 1950s. The maximum age is likely an ongoing change. Also is Jeanne Calment not human then?


Life expectancy is a good thing to mention. In my main project, characters in their late thirties are considered old, some of them might even have adult offsprings. Fifteen and fourteen years old warriors are common. Rapes of children and forced marriages of twelve years old girls are a daily issue.
So, a person in its fifties is usually considered a venerable elder or a very desperate warrior (the nation of my party mixes together Vikings, Romans and Spanish conquistadors).
The immortal being is something extremelly special in their world and a thing of legends. I'm not sure how much of a presence they will get on-screen.
Hm... it's a bit of a spread and depends on the game in question. Most of the time, though, teens and young adults with a sprinkling of older adults.

Usually the teen/YA crowd because that's when you start making your way in the world and you're new to how it works, so the player can learn more about the world as the character does - experience new things with the characters instead of having this weird 'experienced' adult who doesn't know where x place is or how to do y thing.

so usually anywhere from 15-30 usually. On occasion I'll dabble with kids, since their innocence and the way they see the world can work well with certain stories and settings, but I try to have a group above the age of consent (not because of sex stuff, but because that's usually when you can start drinking/smoking/etc and going out and doing shit by yourself. And before you go "BUT YOU GOTTA BE 21 :OOO", only in certain countries is that the case. Any Aussie who hasn't had a drink before 16 is seen as coming from a pretty puritan lifestyle. It's normal to have had a beer or three before that age and while you can't BUY liquor until 18 here, you can DRINK it legally from 12 over (with-in limitations and with supervision). Not everyone in the world are such prudes.)

But yeah, that's when you start to experience more of life, before the grind kicks you in the metaphorical balls.




As to the Ancient's talk, who says they're completely sane, either? Or that they have perfect memory retention? We forget so many things that we used to know - an ancient being would be rewriting their memories over and over, confusing themselves as to the who's and why's and wherefor's quite often. Now, imagine living thousands of years and having an idetic memory. You'd go mad after a while - just remembering SO much stuff. You'd have to find a way to force yourself to forget or you'd always be thinking about everything. Every scent/sight/sound would set off a cascade of memory that would easily overwhelm you. One reason not to want to live forever.

That said, I like the idea of having a dotty ancient being who has forgotten more than language has written down and spouts facts at every opportunity.

Also, the fighting thing - supposing your body doesn't atrophy over time, if you kept up your fighting skills, then sure, your body won't be able to break the boundaries that is inherently set on it being just flesh and bones however your skill, reflexes and reactions would be more than above par because you'd have processed so much that your body would move by itself to protect you - your muscle memory would be phenomenal. Yes, you'd be an incredibly warrior, but not invincible (all it takes is one lucky shot, after all) but then again, nothing to be scoffed at.
I heard that our life expectancy hasn't changed much from medieval times—it's just that we're living longer after the onset of terminal diseases or conditions, which brings the average up.

My father died when he was 63.
You don't technically die from age on its own though. Things like heart disease or cancer are usually the cause of death and are more likely to happen as you past a certain threshold. It is true that life expectancy (and survival likelihood in general) isn't the same as potential maximum age. Maximum age probably hasn't really increased that much yeah, but as far as I know there is no concrete limit either.

But if living past 100 is considered "inhuman" I'd subjectively argue that reducing things like child mortality rate for most of the human population is also playing god so to speak. There's a future possibility of being able to remedy the common pathological causes of death (only to bump into more probably). But it's interesting to think about nonetheless.
Sooz
They told me I was mad when I said I was going to create a spidertable. Who’s laughing now!!!
5354
author=Solitayre
I feel like a lot of people don't really take the time to think through what a character who was hundreds or even thousands of years old would actually act like.

This is someone with several lifetimes worth of learning experience. Almost anything happening in their world at the moment probably doesn't seem new to them; they've almost always seen something like this happen before (and if they haven't, it must be something truly new and frightening).


Counterpoint: As we age, we get increasingly set in our ways, just as a way to manage the constant flow of information and bullshit life offers. Look at how little older people understand about just modern technology, or even how a lot of modern life works. It's not that their brains don't work, it's just that they already have so much in life to deal with that they haven't taken the opportunity (or in many cases, HAD the opportunity) to familiarize themselves with new things.

See also: how we over-30s have no idea what the kids are into.

author=Link_2112
If someone is bad at a skill it might not matter how long they have to practice it. They will simply suck at it.


If you bash yourself against a skill repeatedly, you're going to eventually develop a level of competence at it 99% of the time. You maybe won't be the best at it among people who've bashed themselves against said skill for the same amount of time, but once you hit centuries of practice, you're GOING to be better than the average human.

-----

One thing that I don't see brought up much is how being immortal or long-lived would affect one's views of shorter-lived groups. Imagine if everyone around you had the lifespan of a small rodent: you have maybe a few years, and then they're gone forever. Imagine how often you'd be grieving the loss of a friend because their life is a tiny fraction of yours. And, of course, how comparatively little time you'd have to form attachments to people because of that. You don't get lifelong friendships. They could never know the totality of you, see how you change and grow, know who you were when you were younger. No real continuity of the relationship.

And then, contrariwise, watching as the people you know change dramatically over short spans of time, while you stay the same.

It strikes me as a pretty lonely existence.
author=Sooz
If you bash yourself against a skill repeatedly, you're going to eventually develop a level of competence at it 99% of the time. You maybe won't be the best at it among people who've bashed themselves against said skill for the same amount of time, but once you hit centuries of practice, you're GOING to be better than the average human.


It isn't always about practice, depending on the skill sometimes you need to make new discoveries and change your mind about how certain concepts work to improve at something. But then again more time = more chances to arrive to those epiphanies. But I guess the main point is that innate talent is a minuscule factor when you have unlimited lifetimes unless we're talking about very early circumstances that lead to child prodigies.

Oh yeah what about the subject of child prodigies? I noticed it's a common trope for wizards like Palom and Porom to be extremely young due to the idea of magic talent being very innate.
Vandriette
"The purpose of life is to end." -Agent Smith
1778
My main characters in my story, for instance, can range from as little as 14-16 years old to around 50 years old, and another character who is too old for me to describe how old she is.
author=Darken
author=Link_2112
Who said it was human? I think once you enter the realm of 100s or 1000s of years old, you leave behind a fact based idea of what a humanoid body is capable of.
Based on what metric? The average life expectancy has increased to from 48 to 71 since the 1950s. The maximum age is likely an ongoing change. Also is Jeanne Calment not human then?

But a 71 year old back then would probably be similar to a 71 year old now. They might have been stronger back then because they had to work constantly, instead of a life of convenience sitting at a desk. I don't see what life expectancy has to do with my comment. I didn't say 100 years old, I said hundreds. 200 years old, 300 years old... I doubt there are any applicable facts about Humans to know what would happen, however we could say with some certainty they wouldn't get stronger and better at everything.

A 71 yr old in any time period wouldn't exactly be running around jumping and swinging swords. And if they were, they would be a little bit slower than a younger person and couldn't keep it up as long. Even if a person doesn't die from age alone, their bodies slowly degrade and start to shut down and they would get slower and weaker. Metabolism slows and cartilage degrades. Eventually they won't be able to do all the things they used to even if their mind is fully functional, which it probably wouldn't be. So if we're talking about human beings, then I would say it's not possible for them to be anything other than a dried up prune in a wheelchair by age 200 if somehow they didn't die from their heart stopping or disease. They wouldn't be an active party member and they wouldn't get better with age.

They would have to not be human, or in some alternate reality where we have learned to overcome our bodies deficiencies. So it's all speculation and doesn't make much sense to be limited by what we know, today, about humanoid bodies. We only know of Humans that fit in that category but you see other things like Vulcans, which have humanoid bodies and are given longer lifespans and different attributes. That's what it takes to make a character go beyond 100 years and still be useful enough to do anything other than talk. So current science goes out the window, was my point.

author=Sooz
author=Link_2112
If someone is bad at a skill it might not matter how long they have to practice it. They will simply suck at it.

If you bash yourself against a skill repeatedly, you're going to eventually develop a level of competence at it 99% of the time. You maybe won't be the best at it among people who've bashed themselves against said skill for the same amount of time, but once you hit centuries of practice, you're GOING to be better than the average human.
I disagree. Some people's brains aren't wired to be able to fully understand certain things. Sure, they might be mildly competent at something after doing it for 200 years, but it doesn't mean they will reach any guaranteed level of skill at it(like that beyond the average human) with 99% certainty. I would suggest that your 99% certainly only applies to less than 50% of the population.

It's easy to think that if you spend your time around other talented people, but there are many unintelligent and untalented people out there that will never accomplish anything no matter how long they have. If that were remotely true we would have a hell of a lot of good drivers out on our roads but that isn't the case. There are people who drive probably every day for 50+ years and they still suck at it. They don't even get any better at it. They get worse because their eye sight and reflexes are dulled.

But I'm going between real/unreal, human/not human so much I don't know if anybody is even talking about the same thing as me. I guess the point is, once you go past 100 year old characters, just make up whatever shit you want and it's pointless to debate. Just don't try to compare them to today's humans.

There is an episode of Twilight Zone where a character has lived 100's of years and it's just like Liberty said, he's going mad with all the memories/feelings he has and wants to end his life because he can't take it. Old characters is a cool concept but too often it's just a slight backstory and not thought out in any meaningful way. It's just some person who looks and acts like a 50 year old who happens to be 1000 years old. And that brings us full circle to Soli's comment, and I'm done here.
LockeZ
I'd really like to get rid of LockeZ. His play style is way too unpredictable. He's always like this too. If he ran a country, he'd just kill and imprison people at random until crime stopped.
5958
And then there's Craze who makes adventures starring super battle kiddos. And, like, I guess a lot of genres of adventure stories do fit really well in that age range. Magical girl, horror, school antics, whatever Huckleberry Finn is.

Some of these are coming of age stories, some are trying to appeal to kids as an audience, and some just use child characters because they're cute and innocent - which is either the aesthetic that the author is going for, or has a good juxtaposition with the action or horror elements.
Gretgor
Having gotten my first 4/5, I must now work hard to obtain... my second 4/5.
3420
Well, the main character of my current project is twelve, and I never stopped to think about it up to this point, but she only interacts with adults throughout the entire game. Is this creepy?
Sooz
They told me I was mad when I said I was going to create a spidertable. Who’s laughing now!!!
5354
author=Gretgor
Well, the main character of my current project is twelve, and I never stopped to think about it up to this point, but she only interacts with adults throughout the entire game. Is this creepy?


I mean, if she interacts with them like a twelve year old would and nobody like tries to make out with her or something, probably not.
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