Stop overusing 18 as an age

[Kackfresse]

No, I don't want them to be younger but older like at least 19 or 20+. Is it that hard? Why do so many devs use 18 as an age? Not only that but mostly all other characters in that game are 18 too, it's like they just want to give them the legal age and it's unrealistic that everyone else is how I said mostly 18 too. If you just make them a bit older, the game wouldn't come over so generic, you get my point? Most of the DAZ models look older than 18 anyways. Now pair that with an 18 year old MC who lives with his step mom and sister and his father died. 10/10 non generic game concept. Just give your game some variety, even if it's just the age.

 

[Jashmyne]

Because it's the lowest they can go legal in the US I think.

 

[Winterfire]

There are many reasons why 18 is used rather than say 19 or 20...
One is to have the classic younger sister cliche, in that case the protagonist will indeed be older (19, 20, ...) but the sister has to be of a lower age, more often than not 18.

Another reason is that most (at least from my experience) games are slice of life, often involving school, academies or stuff like that and that involves you joining in as first year, again 18, sometimes second year only to have a few younger girl heroines which will be 18.

 

[freedom.call]

I'm SICK of the 18 year old male MC. Not because he's 18 but because he's an idiot.

There, I finally got that out.

 

[GuyFreely]

Yeah, I think you'll find that 18 is often "18" -nudge nudge wink wink-. Because of various rules and laws:
IF AGE<18, SET AGE=18
If the character doesn't have to be that young, then I agree, be some other age. I think people often want the characters to be inexperienced so they make them young. It's easier to make a character 18 than to explain why a 23 year old hasn't had much sex. Not a difficult task, mind you, but it's still more work. They may also be some sort of misspent youth aspect to it. To imagine how great it would have been to have sex with 10 hot ladies at only 18.

 

[W65]

I mean, if it's not a bright-lights-and-flags plot point or repeatedly hammered in THIS DUDE IS ACTUALLY 18 OKAY then I'm not sure how much of a difference it'd really make if a number was incremented by one.

It would be kinda obnoxious if it kept coming up during the game, or if people mentioned "hey Jock remember your 18th birthday that passed a while back" for no obvious reason. Otherwise, isn't it just a checkbox or a number on a stat sheet somewhere?

... if you want to get into it, 18 is a magic number for all the (American) high-school kids waiting with bated hormones to be able to legally vote. So it has a kind of special nostalgia-evoking significance for some people who were 18 at one point. It's also the age around which it's traditional to start college, so it's a convenient and identifiable year for lots of white-collar gamers. It's a good time to stage things in when a person's life is supposed to be shaken up with all kinds of things changing and so on.

 

[Hadley]

All the 18 Year old Girls are meant to be 15-17 but since that is a little bit of a greyzone, they are just "18" now...

 

[GuyFreely]

I mean, if it's not a bright-lights-and-flags plot point or repeatedly hammered in THIS DUDE IS ACTUALLY 18 OKAY then I'm not sure how much of a difference it'd really make if a number was incremented by one.

It would be kinda obnoxious if it kept coming up during the game, or if people mentioned "hey Jock remember your 18th birthday that passed a while back" for no obvious reason. Otherwise, isn't it just a checkbox or a number on a stat sheet somewhere?

... if you want to get into it, 18 is a magic number for all the (American) high-school kids waiting with bated hormones to be able to legally vote. So it has a kind of special nostalgia-evoking significance for some people who were 18 at one point. It's also the age around which it's traditional to start college, so it's a convenient and identifiable year for lots of white-collar gamers. It's a good time to stage things in when a person's life is supposed to be shaken up with all kinds of things changing and so on.

Yeah, I think a lot of games just go "everyone here is AT LEAST 18, okay? So we're cool, right?" then just get on with it. I do sort of hate things being dropped on your head. "I can't believe my baby is already 18." Nobody is sitting there going "So is this dude 19? Maybe 20?" "Oh shit, 18, thanks for clearing that up."

 

[PantyShot]

... if you want to get into it, 18 is a magic number for all the (American) high-school kids waiting with bated hormones to be able to legally vote.

When i read that, i was imagining a girl flashing her panties and the dude be like
''Suddenly got an urge to vote, can't wait til i'm 18!''

 

[RooksAreCool]

When i read that, i was imagining a girl flashing her panties and the dude be like
''Suddenly got an urge to vote, can't wait til i'm 18!''

Isn't the minimum age to vote is 21 or so?

 

[PantyShot]

Isn't the minimum age to vote is 21 or so?

The Twenty-sixth Amendment (Amendment XXVI) to the United States Constitution prohibits the states and the federal government from using age as a reason for denying the right to vote to citizens of the United States who are at least eighteen years old. (Just copy/pasted that from google, personally not american here)
Where i live, you also need to be 18 min. to vote actually.

 

[GuyFreely]

No, you have to be 21 to drink most places in the U.S., but you can vote and die for your country before that. Also, fucking is for those over 18, unless all parties involved are under 18, then I'm fuzzy on the legalities.

 

[RooksAreCool]

The Twenty-sixth Amendment (Amendment XXVI) to the United States Constitution prohibits the states and the federal government from using age as a reason for denying the right to vote to citizens of the United States who are at least eighteen years old. (Just copy/pasted that from google, personally not american here)
Where i live, you also need to be 18 min. to vote actually.

Well I am from the East, I have no idea about how the West votes. And from where I am, you can vote at 21, so that explains my statement

 

[polywog]

No, you have to be 21 to drink most places in the U.S., but you can vote and die for your country before that. Also, fucking is for those over 18, unless all parties involved are under 18, then I'm fuzzy on the legalities.

 

[PantyShot]

... There's actually a place in Mexico where the age of consent is ''puberty'' ?
wtf?

 

[GuyFreely]

... There's actually a place in Mexico where the age of consent is ''puberty'' ?
wtf?

Central America, you so crazy.

 

[Deleted member 1023239]

No, you have to be 21 to drink most places in the U.S., but you can vote and die for your country before that. Also, fucking is for those over 18, unless all parties involved are under 18, then I'm fuzzy on the legalities.

here you can drink at the age of 18, every country stand with different laws

 

[GuyFreely]

here you can drink at the age of 18, every country stand with different laws

I'm well aware. To the point of the thread, 18 is generally the magic number where illegal porn turns into legal porn. So that's why we see it so much. Even our digital characters that have no age and aren't real have to be "18" so we don't break any laws.

 

[OldMoonSong]

Another option... Why not just ignore age specifications in-game?

I mean, you can have your "all characters are of legal age blah blah...." And just not touch it in the actual story.

I agree that it can be a little immersion-breaking when the story stops to give characters a moment to inconspicuously drop their age in random moments to establish that they're 18 or whatever .

 

[polywog]

Zygote made "Millennium woman" in February 1999. They didn't like people calling her Millie, so they changed her name to Victoria. Later the company changed it's name to Daz. Victoria 2 was released in 2001 so she is old enough.

Victoria 3, released in 2002 is UNDERAGE for adult games. Genesis models are even younger.