18+ Age Restrictions

[Asyria]

You all heard about Hobbs the 11 years old right?

Over 50 minutes of hilarity FRAPS'ed in a WoW raid guild Vent?

With the 11 year old trying to hit on every adult women he heard?

If you haven't try it: http://vids.myspace.com/index.cfm?fuseaction=vids.individual&videoid=63587481

This is why I'm in favor of Age requirements.

 

More seriously, it's true that age doesn't always mean maturity, but an age requirement usually isn't a rule.. more like a guideline (Pirates of the Caribbean lol).

 

More seriously though, Crystal wins this thread with her explanation. The second half of the third paragraph in particular very nicely expresses my views on wanting to hang out with people around my age.

[Kashemia]

More seriously, it's true that age doesn't always mean maturity, but an age requirement usually isn't a rule.. more like a guideline (Pirates of the Caribbean lol).

 

QFT. And as it has been stated, it's a way to play with people who are around your own age... While I know +18 allows for a pretty big spread (I've been in guilds with people who were 20 years older than me), most people go through a lot when they're a teenager. I changed much more in my teenage years, than I've done for the past couple of years, so the difference between someone on 25 and 35 will often seem less than between someone on 15 and 25. At least that's my experience. It's not to say that all teenagers are immature, far from it, and I'm still relatively young myself (early 20's), it's just what I mostly observe. As Crystal said, in many of the guilds I've been in, a lot of younger people found it boring.

[Seraphine Felstar]

Thanks everyone! I felt like I was writing my life story there, but I'm glad I managed to get the point across clearly.

 

The rules are here to protect ourselves as much as the children (yep, teenagers are children no matter how mature they are).

 

This was stated from a purely legal, parental point of view. When I was a teenager I understood a lot of the world and the consequences of my actions and I feel like I could have handled a more mature guild. However, the law doesn't make allowances for maturity so taking on a guild member who is under the age limit without a warning or restrictions is really taking a lot on for the other members. Sad it's that way.

[Keir]

At the risk of repeating things that have already been said, I thought that I should at least speak up, as the leader of the Stormguard. As it has been said before, we have an 18+ age restriction. This means that you sign an agreement that you are 18 or older. I don't encourage people to lie, but it's been known to happen. There's not much I can do about it, but at the same time, it's not my job to police those who decide to lie about their age.

 

The age restriction in the Stormguard, as Jakky said, is from a purely legal standpoint. People can LOL about lawsuits and give hypotheticals all day long, but until you've been in my shoes and had a parent start throwing the fear of the law at you, you don't exactly understand how serious a mood it can put you in. Now, there are plenty of arguments from people saying that parents can't exactly sue you for running a guild and talking about adult content in front of their child. It's true --- they shouldn't be able to, since it's actually the parent's job to monitor the games their child is playing.

 

However: they can do a lot to make your life hell, even if they can't follow through with a full lawsuit. I've had it happen, and I never want it have it happen again. This is why we have an age restriction and agreement before you can join our guild.

 

It doesn't mean we ERP. I ban that kind of thing from guild chat. What people do in /tell and AIM are their own business. However, I don't ban posting erotic material on our member-locked forums, if it has to do with a plot.

 

As others have also said in previous postings: there's a certain amount of life-experience difference between the time you are in high-school and the time you begin making your way in the world. It has less to do with maturity than it has to do with understanding and connection of the individuals around you. I connect and enjoy playing with my 16 year old nephew just fine. I think he's very mature and I'd love to RP with him. However, he's in a different headspace than I am. He'd probably be pretty impatient with the fact that I usually have to start going to bed around 11 o'clock at night because I have to work in the morning. (Just an example.)

 

I completely respect role-players younger than 18. I think that they are the future of role-play, and I constantly learn from many of the ones I play with outside of Stormguard. However, as a guild leader, I have to protect my ass and protect the interests of my members. I can't wait to play with many of you at RPC functions and other events, but I hope you all understand that the age restriction is not there to keep you down or make a statement. It's there for very specific reasons.

[Xaefan]

On a somewhat related note,

 

Pure comedy relief is a twelve year old boy talking to a 40 year old woman about how he worries that because he has a girlfriend, and kissed her, that she'll get pregnant.

 

Yes, I kid you not, this wasn't an actual RP guild (It was just a loose collection of people who played PSO with me) but we were just hunting one day, and he seriously asks "If I kiss a girl, and I don't wear a condom, can she get pregnant?"

 

Lulz ensued.

[Monadi]

As a fun rebuttal that 18+ means ERP, my guild is 18+ for language/topics. Not for sexuality.

 

We're very strictly AGAINST erotic roleplay. It's just not something we do or believe is good at all for the health of a roleplay community. What y'all do is your own business though.

[Asyria]

Anything and everything is potentially bad for health when abused and most likely won't hurt anyone if done the 'right' way. Including Roleplaying!

[Hiname]

We're very strictly AGAINST erotic roleplay. It's just not something we do or believe is good at all for the health of a roleplay community. What y'all do is your own business though.

 

Im lacking for a more matching word, curse you my damn 290 / 300 English skills. +raises fist in anger*

 

So due mentioning lacking Im using this one and hope everyone get what I am trying to say: Sexist much? Its not more or less harmfull then playing military-RP that involves non-engine combat.

[Monadi]

So due mentioning lacking Im using this one and hope everyone get what I am trying to say: Sexist much? Its not more or less harmfull then playing military-RP that involves non-engine combat.

 

I'm not meaning anything about an individual person's emotional health. I am meaning that it's not good for the health of the roleplay community, as in, it has a tendency to create trouble. Like I also said, whatever y'all do, it's y'all's private business. We just don't support it or think it's a good idea.

[Kashemia]

We're very strictly AGAINST erotic roleplay. It's just not something we do or believe is good at all for the health of a roleplay community. What y'all do is your own business though.

 

Im lacking for a more matching word, curse you my damn 290 / 300 English skills. +raises fist in anger*

 

So due mentioning lacking Im using this one and hope everyone get what I am trying to say: Sexist much? Its not more or less harmfull then playing military-RP that involves non-engine combat.

 

I get what you mean, and I sort of agree. I completely understand that people don't want to ERP, and I think it's something that should always be kept in private, but I don't see it as worse than playing out violence, and everyone playing the game, and not just by crafting, does that all the time. But as I mentioned in a previous post, it might be a cultural difference, Denmark have always been pretty "relaxed" regarding sexual content (the first country to legalize porn?), and things like purity rings would likely be laughed off the stage here, so I might be biased

 

Then again, I've seen pretty heavy crusading against ERP on EU servers too, so it might just be different viewpoints

[Keir]

I completely disagree that such play would be detrimental to the community as a whole, but we can agree to disagree.

[Monadi]

I completely disagree that such play would be detrimental to the community as a whole' date=' but we can agree to disagree.[/quote']

Agreed. Or... disagreed. Whichever. :lol:

[ArmachiA]

Eh, it's like Porn. Just keep your backroom antics to the backroom. Porn doesn't hurt society, but no one wants to see it played in the middle of Best Buy.

[Kashemia]

Eh' date=' it's like Porn. Just keep your backroom antics to the backroom. Porn doesn't hurt society, but no one wants to see it played in the middle of Best Buy.[/quote']

 

My turn: ^This ^^

[Asyria]

I think it's very true that ERP can hurt a community's health... Look at WoW and you'll see how.

However, what happens in my private channel stays in my private channel and all that.

That is, until someone Misstells.

I really hope we never get any such crusades, though.

Crusades are only nice in fiction.

[Tadir]

This is fiction though. I agree, crusades aren't great for rp, but rp IS a form of fiction.

[Kashemia]

Yeah, but I wasn't talking about IC crusaders I've just seen a couple of guilds who made it their mission to go to every private place they could find and then use /yell or /1 or something to mock people if they found someone there, even if the people were obviously in a private chat, /tell or /group. To me, that's just stupid, when people actually do the work of going to a private place AND use a private channel, I really don't see a reason to make a big deal out of it.

 

While too much ERP can be harmful to a community, sure, so can everything done too much. ERP in itself is not harmful, at least not how I see it, it's only when it becomes the only thing people focus on, and that goes for everything, if people only focus on... baking applepie, that would probably be a problem too...

[ArmachiA]

Everyone would be fat, but the world would be so delicious!

[Monadi]

I've just seen a couple of guilds who made it their mission to go to every private place they could find and then use /yell or /1 or something to mock people if they found someone there' date=' even if the people were obviously in a private chat, /tell or /group. [/quote']

Yeah, see, that's not cool. Don't have to condone it, but don't have to be a dick about it, either.

[Kashemia]

Yeah, see, that's not cool. Don't have to condone it, but don't have to be a dick about it, either.

 

Exactly, I completely agree with that

 

And true ArmiachA, maybe it WOULD not be a bad thing if everyone made applepies all the time... Mmmh, apple pie... (Have to confess that she has never had a real American apple pie, but they looks good!)

[Tadir]

They are, oooooh they are.

[Frederique]

Eh' date=' it's like Porn. Just keep your backroom antics to the backroom. Porn doesn't hurt society, but no one wants to see it played in the middle of Best Buy.[/quote']

 

I don't know. You can see intense sexual scenes in some higher, but not R, rated movies and still find an emotional satisfaction. This is without seeing the naughty parts. It doesn't have to be like porn.

 

Although, in said movies, they're usually in a private place.

[Kashemia]

 

I don't know. You can see intense sexual scenes in some higher, but not R, rated movies and still find an emotional satisfaction. This is without seeing the naughty parts. It doesn't have to be like porn.

 

Although, in said movies, they're usually in a private place.

 

The fact that you can get emotional satisfaction from seeing sexual scenes in a movie rather than porn still doesn't mean that porn is harmful to the society

 

But that is probably a discussion we shouldn't take here

[Asyria]

Right, let's go back to apple pies.

I love apple pies.

[Frederique]

 

I don't know. You can see intense sexual scenes in some higher, but not R, rated movies and still find an emotional satisfaction. This is without seeing the naughty parts. It doesn't have to be like porn.

 

Although, in said movies, they're usually in a private place.

 

The fact that you can get emotional satisfaction from seeing sexual scenes in a movie rather than porn still doesn't mean that porn is harmful to the society

 

But that is probably a discussion we shouldn't take here

 

Haha! I actually had a point but the forum was sitting up for about thirty minutes before I got back to it and forgot what I was going to say.