Underage Players

[Raeras]

In general, as someone who didn’t discover MU until ~5 years ago but DID engage in a lot of other text based rp and online things that i really shouldn’t have when i was way too young, I can see the appeal of certain games to a younger person but also understand they shouldn’t really be exposed to certain themes even if they feel they know what they’re getting into.

A lot of games have an 18+ rule and it may feel redundant but they are in place just for these reasons. Game admins can point to the rules and tell them to leave.

As someone who was this sort of kid a bit over a decade ago, I will say while their actions are likely based in curiosity it is entirely possible, especially if they are almost of age, that they know exactly what they’re doing even if they aren’t thinking about the potential consequences.

ETA: If I were a game admin in this situation I would have a discussion with the kid and politely tell them they are welcome back when they’re 18

[Jumpscare]

Hi there. The individual I believe you’re talking about joined the Discord 3 hours ago and I just got back to my computer and banned them right away.

If you know their character name or IP address, please let me know so I can ban them in-game, too. Thank you!

[Pavel]

@untitled said in Underage Players:

because I’d be unhappy if I found out my kids were

That right there is the ultimate point. Policing children is the job of the parent, not any game they would seek to join.

Establish rules that state, outright, that the game is for adults, will contain adult themes, etc. If it is revealed from a trustworthy source that there is an underage person, remove them. That is all you can do.

These days, children on these kinds of games are very much the exception. There’s a high barrier to entry and far more free-to-play games around than there were in the early years when a lot of us first started. So don’t stress over it too much.

[Roz]

@Pavel said in Underage Players:

Establish rules that state, outright, that the game is for adults, will contain adult themes, etc. If it is revealed from a trustworthy source that there is an underage person, remove them. That is all you can do.

This is it. I’ve been on games where we’ve banned underage players when we figured out they were underage. (These instances usually involved the player outing themselves by accident in such a way where it became very easy for us to do math.) We just gently showed them the door and that was that. That’s all you can really do.

[Polk]

I’d ban minors from a game I ran, but I wouldn’t be mean to them about it. I’d gently invite them back later.

But I’m one of those who don’t think kids belong on the Internet at all. Too dangerous.

[BloodAngel]

I would not want my kids into mush. One of them wants to now and I told him due to theme and safety he has to wait till he turns 18. So instead, I run a PnP game for him and his friends once a week.

[Pavel]

Christ, it’s confronting to know that some of us who played when we were underage, back in the day, have kids now…

[Tez]

@Pavel said in Underage Players:

Christ, it’s confronting to know that some of us who played when we were underage, back in the day, have kids now…

You know, they could easily have grandkids, too.

[KarmaBum]

Soooooooo I just found out about 2 days ago that my 13 y/o son is into RP. He’s been playing on Discord.

Pokémon RP.

FML

Anyway. I don’t want to MUSH with my kid. Or any of your kids (no offense), but it’s coming for us whether we like it or not.

I intend to ban him if he ever shows up on a game I run.

He’s a combat twink anyway.

(my actual feels as a parent about this are not the business of you internet strangers. suffice it to say - this parenting shit is getting complicated af)

[Pavel]

@KarmaBum said in Underage Players:

but it’s coming for us whether we like it or not.

It wouldn’t surprise me at all if some of the new crop of young folks joining the community are literally the second generation. Things are getting weird, it’s time to go home from this particular bar.

[Solstice]

@KarmaBum said in Underage Players:

Combat

As someone who used to roam around games as a ‘badass’ with an unthematic katana at that age, this tracks.

[shit-piss-love]

Hanging out in the rafters of a DALnet vampire chat room at 14 had a pretty big impact on me as a developing human. It’s hard for me to feel like those are experiences that we should prevent people from experiencing. Like if you can’t start learning all your lessons about complicated issues until 18, whoa. Like on one hand parents should be doing their best to protect their kids, but on the other it’s normal as well that kids do and frankly should be doing everything they can to circumvent that sort of control. That’s just how the human is.

[Pyrephox]

@shit-piss-love They can learn to lie about their age the same way I did. AND GET OFF MY LAWN.

(More seriously, I think it’s a complex question. I don’t really want to play with underaged players, particularly in any context where that could turn romantic/sexual, but I don’t think it’s necessarily bad for the underage player if they’re choosing to engage with it - there’s a whole complex interaction of effects there regarding sexual exploration online possibly being safer than doing so in RL - but /I/ do not want to do it. Despite having done it as a teenager. But, on the other hand, putting underaged players in a position of feeling like they’ll be kicked off a game for being underaged may inhibit them from reporting creepers, ESPECIALLY if they’ve given the creeper their real age.)

[mietze]

Thank god none of my older kids have wanted to do MUSHing, though I know 2 of them started doing online RPing through other means in their teens. Like anything else, this is just something we’ve talked about. I do think folks under 25 these days are in general a lot more versed in consent and all that than people my age. And I think they’re also more aware of certain kinds of predatory online behavior than I was when I first started MUSHing, that’s for sure.

But we have absolutely talked about while no one is owed proactive disclosure of ANY rl details, if they’re going to engage in multi-age spaces, then they need to be aware and respectful of the fact that the majority of adults in a space probably are very not comfortable engaging with minors in explicit play particularly but probably in most other forms as well; but the biggest fear and why there’s all those no minors rules is largely centered around adults not wanting to engage with anyone underage in that kind of play, and it’s important to consider that their consent is important too. It was a pretty good discussion to have, along with all of our others about our expectations around online behavior, ect.

[Vulgar Boy]

@Pavel said in Underage Players:

Christ, it’s confronting to know that some of us who played when we were underage, back in the day, have kids now…

“Want To Feel Old? These Neglected Children Of MUSHers Have Already Aged Out Of The Foster Care System!”

I’d read that Buzzfeed listicle.

[somasatori]

@Pavel said in Underage Players:

@KarmaBum said in Underage Players:

but it’s coming for us whether we like it or not.

It wouldn’t surprise me at all if some of the new crop of young folks joining the community are literally the second generation. Things are getting weird, it’s time to go home from this particular bar.

If MUSHer traits are heritable, I’d hate to see what sort of cringey nonsense RP my kid churns out when she comes of age. But she’s very small and surely MU*s won’t be around by then.

…

[Pavel]

@somasatori said in Underage Players:

@Pavel said in Underage Players:

@KarmaBum said in Underage Players:

but it’s coming for us whether we like it or not.

It wouldn’t surprise me at all if some of the new crop of young folks joining the community are literally the second generation. Things are getting weird, it’s time to go home from this particular bar.

If MUSHer traits are heritable, I’d hate to see what sort of cringey nonsense RP my kid churns out when she comes of age. But she’s very small and surely MU*s won’t be around by then.

…

Just make sure to teach her what a smirk actually is, and other words for eyes that isn’t “orb”.

[Aria]

I was definitely one of those kids that was online and RPing before 18, not disclosing (and occasionally lying about) how old I was, and occasionally engaging in explicit RP. Mostly mildly explicit RP which was maybe a few steps ahead of what I was doing in real life at that age. Again, as mentioned above, “exploring”.

One of the major differences that I see now, though, besides just me being one of the “olds” and getting to shake a “do as I say, not as I did!” stick at the youngin’s…

IIRC, most of the people I was playing with were either people about my own age who were doing the exact same thing, like my now-husband and several other friends I made, or people who were in their early to mid-twenties. There was a pretty core 18-25 demographic on the game I was on at the time with some players being older than that, but not many. I remember many of us thinking that Conrad Hubbard, who was responsible for the servers at White Wolf, was a cranky old man despite the fact that he was several years younger than I currently am and I’m still in my thirties.

Compare that to the age demographics on most games now. Most of the players I encounter are in their late 30s to their early 50s, with some folks in the far ranges of the bell curve. I think I’ve run into exactly two people who are working on their undergraduate degrees in my last six or so years of playing. (And the thought of someone my age romancing their character still made me cringe, despite the fact that they’re a few years past legal age.)

So I’m not advocating for underage players being allowed on games, but the mental prospect of a 17 year old hanging out with a bunch of 45 year olds squicks me out way, way more than my memories of being 17 and hanging out with 22 year olds does. I think that discrepancy does a lot to explain the mindset shift we’re seeing even in people who were doing the exact same thing themselves back in the day.

[somasatori]

@Pavel

[Pavel]

@Aria said in Underage Players:

I think I’ve run into exactly two people who are working on their undergraduate degrees in my last six or so years of playing.

Which isn’t a very good judgement of someone’s age, jussayin’. In Australia, at least, the rate of people entering undergraduate programs at 25+ is on a steady rise.