Shattered Kingdoms

I don't understand the logic behind the "incentive to keep characters around for longer." I mean, seriously? Who are you to tell me how long I should or should not be allowed to keep a character around?

Further, an age restriction on characters wouldn't do anything to power players other than make casters more dominant. All I would do is create a handful of caster based race/classes and shelf them for 3 months IRL making sure they don't get deleted at the monthly. Once they reach the required age, level them up to GM.

From my perspective from having played a human to age death, aging only makes a character stronger.

At three times aged I could still beat characters that were not aged at all.

However, I agree with Nyoethai. Seriously, why do you need to tell other people how long they need to play their characters?

I agree with both points here. This game is supposed to be a fun past time. You can't have people going around telling you you have to keep a character you don't want.

I also agree with the second point too. Age restrictions wouldn't do anything to a power gamer. It wouldn't even affect casual gamers like what I've become. If you can only play once or twice a week you'll take forever to GM anyway.

These so called players, are what keep the storyline in SK rolling along smoothly. You have your players that can keep a char till age death, say lead a cabal and a religion, but in that immense amount of time, they do soooo little for the cabal and religion. Whereas you have the players(myself included) who can level and bring new contraversy to the game and new RPs and keep things somewhat fresh. Who cares if they only keep a character for a short time, in that short time, said characters do ALOT more for the game than most other players. These players come in and take over cabals and make them strong, over the years, most of said players have even helped numberous other players level, learn things, I can't even remember how many people I've helped get their first GM character, or brought back to the mud and helped level so they could play like they used to. Getting rid of this ability on these players would only moreso limit your own fun on the mud. I'd personally just create alot of noobs, and wait until they are of the age and then start lvling them then.

But my question is this - Should a character who has only been around a few IC years, or less, wield the same influence over a nation or a organization that has been around since the dawn of the Third Age?
Should such a character be able to over throw a 220 year old character (elf/delf) at the age of 5 (griffon)?

Yes you, and others who can Plevel like there is not tomorrow do change things in game; but is it always a boon to the story of the game when that griffon deletes at 8 years old?

(PS - this is not intended to be a flame, I'm just trying to make a point)

I would always offer a new character a position, because if your playing a character to that age, you're just holding out on someone else having fun and changing things.

Controversial characters and ideas, without the linchpin of a stable and strong background upon which to unfurl, can appear short lived, schizophrenic explorations of concepts. New RP without a connection to what came before it can appear self-interested and fail to achieve a lasting legacy for future innovations to relate to in turn, creating an episodic atmosphere difficult for outsiders to include themselves in.

A good leader will animate an organization, sure, but a great leader will animate the people connected to it. I suppose my definition of "leading" something is more stringent than yours, though. Someone idly maintaining a leadership flag is hardly worth the title.

tl;dr: What did Ziggy Stardust really accomplish?

I agree with your main point all the same, though. Influencing playstyle through age requirements is a limitation of player options.

Fixt.

And this is exactly part of my point. That character who has been running the cabal/tribunal/ect for decades or centuries has just been ousted. Three or four IC years later the person who ousted them deletes. Where does that leave the old leader? Should they act like nothing ever happened? Should they go become a hermit and not interact with anyone ever again? Its a short-lived character upsetting what should be life-long achievements.

When I was playing Sattahr I eventually stepped down as Grand Druid because his time was over. At that time the Druids had a position which was reserved for people who had held the position and stepped down. They were allowed to speak publicly on behalf of the Druids but held no control over them. This sort of behavior I have no problem with - But being forced out by a short-term character who levels fast is digging a grave for a character who has spend months or years IRL getting to where they are.

As other people have already mentioned, the positive aspect of longer-lived characters is greater continuity of storyline and the chance to build multi-faceted characters where the interactions with other characters are deep and are woven into a complex web of interpersonal relationships. The fact that you don't see this at all probably says something about the type of player that you are. Maybe you personally don't value RP all that highly, but as a stated goal of this game, it is just as important as tactics.


There's nothing you've said here that you can't ALSO do with a longer lived character. There's no harm in admitting that you and other players tend to have a short-attention span (although to be fair to Peso, his character's lifespans have increased over the years). But the argument is almost completely irrelevant to the point being discussed.

None of this is to say that I am going to make the changes proposed by the original poster. But there are definitely good and valid reasons to provide incentive to have people stick with a character for a long period of time.