Does anyone use age categories? (VDK not withstanding)

[Venger]

So, I've played this game a lot, and have played a lot of different kinds of characters, and seen a lot of different kinds of characters played as well.

as in life, the characters' specific ages in years doesn't really ever come up, and often, a specific value is not assigned at all. as a result, the numbers for the "age categories" don't really come up, especially since time spent in-game is often hazy.

is this the same for everyone? does anyone have a very fastidious player/dm who insists on playing ages stuff "by the book" as it were (middle at 35, etc) with corresponding stat penalties/bonuses?


I ask because no one ever talks about age except with VDK (venerable dragonwrought kobold) and there too, it's obviously not a flavor thing but a numbers thing (not trying to invoke the stormwind fallacy, honest) I was just curious if aging categories had ever been something that came up in a game as background instead of being something "sought out" as it were, or if everyone else more or less ignores them as well.

[The Redwolf]

My group takes the in-game ages very seriously, as it helps to determine stuff with backstory, interactions with others, how likely they are to have met someone/known about something, stuff like that. It's honestly pretty important for us.

[TypoNinja]

So, I've played this game a lot, and have played a lot of different kinds of characters, and seen a lot of different kinds of characters played as well.

as in life, the characters' specific ages in years doesn't really ever come up, and often, a specific value is not assigned at all. as a result, the numbers for the "age categories" don't really come up, especially since time spent in-game is often hazy.

is this the same for everyone? does anyone have a very fastidious player/dm who insists on playing ages stuff "by the book" as it were (middle at 35, etc) with corresponding stat penalties/bonuses?


I ask because no one ever talks about age except with VDK (venerable dragonwrought kobold) and there too, it's obviously not a flavor thing but a numbers thing (not trying to invoke the stormwind fallacy, honest) I was just curious if aging categories had ever been something that came up in a game as background instead of being something "sought out" as it were, or if everyone else more or less ignores them as well.

There are old adventurers and dead adventurers never both.

Seriously, a career in adventuring is pretty short term, a couple of years (in game time) in a combat heavy game and you are hitting the levels where magic means you don't care about age anyway.

I've only had it come up in one game, and that's where we are city building, so we regularly say we spend a month or two on some task.

[nedz]

It was more relevant in earlier editions, especially when using magical amphetamines.
But I did have one player create a middle aged cleric in 3.5

[Ammutseba]

I've used the age categories before, as have my friends. It's like Redwolf said, it's important for backstory, interactions, the likelihood of knowing things, and so on.

I think you'll find that people who care more about roleplaying than rollplaying are more likely to have made older characters without doing it just for the mental stat buffs.

Once upon a time, I prepared a character for a gestalt campaign. She was an erstwhile monk of a Pelor-like religion. She was so old that she rode around in a walking coffin and her mastery of body had turned into a mastery of mind and spirit. I never actually had the opportunity to use her (she was a back-up for a character I thought was going to die), but I still have her profile in my spare hard drive.

[jaybird]

(not trying to invoke the stormwind fallacy, honest)


I think you'll find that people who care more about roleplaying than rollplaying are more likely to have made older characters without doing it just for the mental stat buffs.

Come ON, dude. :smallannoyed:

You can take that word "rollplaying" and shove it up your Portable Hole. I've had to give the "roleplayers" in my group multiple lectures on setting lore (40k and Halo come to mind immediately), and I'm the hardest optimizer of the bunch.

Back on topic, it's not something I've ever come across - we always just use the standard stat arrays. If any of us want to play an old character, it's just part of fluff.

[hymer]

I've played a druid, middle-aged from level 1. She had three children, and needed to be old enough that they weren't dependent on her any more, so she could go save the world without a lot of unwelcome angst.
I've GMed for an old cloistered cleric, who came into adventuring in his later days, though he didn't quite start at 1. I think he was 6ish, and lived to be level 15 I think. Still alive, you may argue.

But I must say I'm no fan of the aging mechanics, regardless. I just don't have anything useful to substitute for them, and I've yet to find them enough of a bother to try and think something up.

Edit: @ Jaybird: Roleplaying and rollplaying (to use those terms) may not be opposites, but they are not the same. Saying that someone somewhere cares more about rollplaying than rolepalying need not be a snide comment directed at you.

[hex0]

Of course if you were starting at tenth level, why not play a venerable Monk 5/Tattooed Monk 5?

[LTwerewolf]

Roleplaying and optimization are not mutually exclusive.

That being said we do use them when a character is starting older, but our campaigns don't tend to last years and years in game time.

[Snowbluff]

Of course I do! I made a character starting with 10 levels in Sapphire Hierarch once! :smalltongue:

[Eldariel]

My higher level characters are often middle-aged (though of course, the penalties are so painful that I'd prefer not to on physical types) simply to give them the time to reach the level of skill they supposedly possess. Especially Wizards, Druids, Clerics and comparables (Archivist, Beguiler, Dread Necro, etc.); characters you'd expect to be a bit more elderly.

Though I rarely play anybody of the old category and only venerables where the penalties don't apply since they get quite stat-wrecking higher up and obviously I generally prefer to play characters who are somewhat competent at what they do.

[Seatbelt]

I've played one old character, and one middle aged character. Both wizards. But the age was for specific story reasons. The middle aged character needed to be old enough to realistically have an adventuring age son, and the old character was a retired adventuring wizard who turned in to Merlin from the Sword and the Stone.

[Alleine]

I have used middle age before, and I plan to do so again on another character. Never gone farther than that though because Old age is generally too much of a penalty for me to get my character where I'd like them to be, and Venerable is essentially suicide, mostly because we start at low levels. -6 to all physical scores on any character at level one is just asking to be killed by tripping over yourself.

[Yora]

Campaigns usually don't span such times that aging characters ever matters and for those who already are older, their stats can just be set to reflect their age from the beginning.