Do your characters age?

Just out of curiosity.

My very first character, Maiden Canada, was created as a Supergirl-type character and I envisioned her as being 15-ish. Several years have passed in-game now, but I still consider her to be in her mid-teens, as making her 22-23 just doesn't fit my view of the character. I've tried not to include any mention of specific years or events in her bio to allow me to keep her perpetually young, but as the game's story progresses, it's a bit harder.

Anyone else consider their characters age, or do you not bother?

I age my characters year for year by and large. I don't always do the birthday thing, but I do at least try and acknowledge some passage of time. Being perpetually at one age seems at odds to me with the experiences you have as that character.



S.

That's a tough question.

The story of my character spans from when he was 3 years old, to his RP age, which started at 14yrs but now he's 15-16. But he's got more story and development written after that too, up to when he's 25yrs. If a plot point were to surface that, for whatever reason, is so many years after his current RP age, I can just pick a point out of his time line (18 when he's a sophomore in college, 22 when he's picking up his father's business, 25 when he's basically where he dreamed he'd be at 14...a big time well known mature superhero with masses of deeds, friends and foes under his belt like the big-shots he idolized) and go from there.

If a story doesn't specify what age or how many years have past, I assume it's his current RP age or I determine when some of his 'shining moments' would be in his time line. For example, when he saved First Ward, he was most likely 17-18. When he confronts my main villain for the 1st time, he was 11-12. When he confronts my main villain seriously for a 2nd time, he's 22-23. When he was enrolled in a superhero academy, he was 13 and when he graduates has yet to be determined but most likely 16.

Since all my characters are linked, they tend to follow suit but since most of them are adults or are hundreds of years old, it doesn't quite matter for them.

For me it depends on how much active story I'm giving to the character in question and what that story is. I have a Scrapper who is 17 and about to graduate high school. That's kind of a big deal to the character, plus he's going to join the Marines after wards.

While if you look at my main he is chronologically pushing 60 'cept he's a cyborg now so he largely doesn't age. I will modify his costume to show notable changes based on story elements. Like I did a story where he had his eye gouged out so I modified the costume to use the scarred-2 (I think) face to show it.

I do have one or two characters that are effectively immortal, but a group of about 5 of them are mid- to late-teens and have nothing to indicate that they should age slowly. Like Leo_G, I can pretty much relate what their lives will be like at any point, but most of them are still young heroes in my mind. I had to do a retcon with Maiden Canada as I originally had a mention of the Rikti invasion happening "a year ago" when she was 14. I had no experience with other MMOs and didn't know if the game would actually portray a passage of time. I expected it to be like comics, where the characters age very slowly, if at all.

I have a birthday on some of my characters. While I rarely mention their exact age, I use it internally when building their background story. The exception is Sonja Johnson who got her mutation when her embryo was hit by neutrinos from Supernova 1987A.
Age of my human toons span from 19 to 80

Occasionally

It depends on changes to their story. One of my characters was 17 when I created her. Once she took on roles within a supergroup, I aged her to 22.

While I don't RP, ever, all of my characters take on a spirit form, so I suppose they wouldn't age.

nope, they get deleted long before they can age

Yes.

My main and namesake, is ageless, so it lets me keep her right where I want her. 16ish. So even if time passes by, she stays looking 16 as she's meant to be much like a comic book character, she doesn't actually age 1 year for every 1 RL year. Though, being in an RP SG with people who do age their characters, it sometimes makes that difficult.

Of course, she's also a clone, so her actual life span doesn't match with her age anyways.

A secondary character of mine was 11 (or 12) when he started and has aged up to the point of being 16 now. He will stop aging at about 21 though as well, but he's practically immortal anyways. I've even had him gain height from then and now.

Some of my other characters would likely age as time went on. Not bothering me any, but then they're not my main. But I also tend to go the route of some reason they age slowly anyways, just so I don't deal with aging them.

Simply, Yes All of them fit into the CoHVerse timeline. Even my technically un-aging vampiric character, Leon DeFeurard, has his history fully mapped out back to Medieval England where he was born. I'm the kinda zany who loves filling in backstories like that.

All of my characters have an age when they start. From there it's simply a case of keeping track.

Quote:

Originally Posted by Zwillinger GG, I would tell you that "I am killing you with my mind", but I couldn't find an emoticon to properly express my sentiment.

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Originally Posted by Captain_Photon NOTE: The Incarnate System is basically farming for IOs on a larger scale, and with more obtrusive lore.

No. All of my characters guest-star in City of Heroes, thus nothing which happens in the game actually loops back to affect their own stories. If I choose to age any of them, it'll be for reasons completely separate from real time.

Additionally, "ageing them" doesn't really do much for many of these guys. The eponymous Samuel Tow is coming on 300 years old by this point, so what's five years more or less? Vox, my Necromancer, dates back to the time when Tielekku walked the earth, so that would put him at over 20 000 years old. It gets worse. Duriel, my alien insect hive queen, gave birth to her entire race some seven billion years ago. And that's before we start getting into Stardiver, my automaton from the beginning of time or the several characters I have who are literally ageless.

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Originally Posted by Arcanaville Samuel_Tow is the only poster that makes me want to punch him in the head more often when I'm agreeing with him than when I'm disagreeing with him.

Sure, they grow up from 1 to 50.

I tend to assume Comic Book Time is in effect...so generally not unless it's convenient.

Most of my characters don't have exact ages defined for them. I just assume they are always in their "prime" like UberGuy said whether that's 20-something or 1,000-something depending on the type of character of course.

I do have one teenager I created around 7 years ago that I specifically set to be 16. I've RP'd with her some but never seriously enough to have to account for real time passing by. It sort of fits her character to stay at 16 so I haven't really bothered to assume she's 23 now.

I consider their ages, but I don't age them. Generally there is a progression of events and circumstances that follow through, and this implies a time dimension, but I never actually say "O.K., this one is old enough to drink now so they become alcoholic".

Yes, they age according to the passage of real world time and events in game.

Cindersnap's grown from being a teenager just starting out as a hero to a 21 year old leading a teaching team of younger heroes. Zortel, my main, has reached her big Four-Oh and dealt with retiring from hero life to raise her kids, forming a super group to assist other heroes when they were a bit older, and returning to heroing when needs be.

Births, deaths, marriages, break ups, birthdays, Christmases (Hanukkahs in the case of Twilight's Flame and Madame Midknight), moving, leaving, changes, new cars, new powers, new responsibilities. All these and more happen with my characters in the years I've played them, and will continue to.

I was never a fan of the static status quo and comic book timelines. CoH and RP on Union offers freedom from that.

I rarely think about it at all, actually - even if we're counting by real time, a character who's been here since the beginning (and I don't have many of those) would only have aged ~7 years. If the character is already an adult (which all of mine are), aging 7 years isn't going to dramatically transform them.
If I had any teen characters, I'd consider it, though.

You know, I guess that aging a normal Super Hero like what we've seen in the game of the NPC is a cool thing if you want to do it. However, I don't see an Incarnate aging based on Statesman, Recluse, Cole, and the others.

I confess my character adhere to the improbable aging of comics- they age based on story, not time, and along different timelines than anything else. Some have an excuse, some do not.

One character is effectively immortal, discovering as a young adult that she could absorb the psychic energy of desires, dreams and ambition from enemies to further her own power and life. As such, she did grow up but never began to degenerate. That puts her at a forever 25ish, though living on psychic energy has turned her into a being of mental manifestation with time.

Others have no excuse..one is a mastermind boy who has been a boy for 6+ years running. To me it's a story thing, and aging is only used as a plot point rather than an inescapable force affecting all life. Heck, there is nothing doing it to the rest of the town, so there's little reason for my characters to be subject to time in such a divergent way.

I keep my main at 19 for the same reason as you. I was about her age when I made her, but I haven't felt inclined to aging her up as I have.

On the other hand, I've had a character go from single, to married and having a five year old daughter, so time is definitely passing for her.

That's based almost entirely on a case by case basis.

I have a sidekick character called Kid Australia. He has birthdays, and he matures as time goes by, but every year on that birthday, he never advances past the age of 17.

Another character is based on if I feel like he's had enough story and advancement to make him older. Currently he's 18, up from 17 last year, but he probably won't age this year as I haven't been able to play him as much as I like.

And yet another character ages in real time. She actually gets very little play time, but her story requires her to age. She's currently 27, and counting!