Characters starting at advanced age

[simply Nathan]

Originally Posted by Peter Knutsen

write as low a number in the "Age:" field on the character sheet, as you think the GM is going to let you get away with.

I don't like being in a situation, as a player, where I'm playing that kind of guessing mind game.

I tend to do that anyway because I enjoy playing young characters. Last campaign I was a 13-year-old wizard.

[kirbwarrior]

Originally Posted by combatmedic

The GM could always just give more starting CPs to the older characters.

Which is the same thing as a disadvantage, sans disad caps.

If you absolutely don't want to punish them for being old, making the aging system so that so many failed aging rolls will eventually kill you instead of a stat going to 0 (and then promptly ignore it, saying instead that a character will die in this session), and then give any points back from aging (so if ST goes down by one, they gain 10pts). Have them put those points somewhere that isn't affected by age (maybe they gained rank/status off screen?).

There is no fair value to old age as a disad due to how HT, TL, and Longevity affect it (you can probably ignore Longevity). You could offer features to old people, such as higher skill caps, higher traits allowed, etc. Or just ignore aging rules in favor of awesome, and let old people 'age' themselves off screen ("Is it okay if I get Bad Back and gain Extra Attack? I've been training this entire time, and my back finally gave out").

The important part is; If you don't want to punish your players, don't.

EDIT:

Originally Posted by Kenneth Latrans

I tend to do that anyway because I enjoy playing young characters. Last campaign I was a 13-year-old wizard.

Same. I have no issue playing older ones (I like knowing that age will slowly kill me), but I really like playing young characters, especially inexperienced ones (such as a wizard who finally learned one spell).

[joppeknol]

An option is to allow a player to retire his character after x points of disadvantages caused by age. He will then have the option to create a new character based upon the same cp as the old one (contrary to those dying during adventures, who will have to start again). The original character retires and remains available as NPC until death.

That way, it is an incentive to play an older character if you get bored playing the same character for a long time.

[fifiste]

That's not a too shabby idea for plenty of games.

[mr beer]

It's worth zero points in any campaign I've played in but if I thought it was likely characters would be aging 20 years+ over the length of the game and they were normal humans, it would be worth points.

Really comes down to the campaign style, now say you played a session for every 5 game years and the whole thing was centred on noble characters fighting out a lengthy dynastic squabble, it could be worth serious points, but then by that yardstick disadvantages like Infertile would be a much bigger deal as well.

[Ze'Manel Cunha]

Getting old sucks, then you die.

If you have characters created in the midst of aging rolls, where they don't get the benefit of the years of their normal life, you can give them something along the lines of Short Lifespan, look at where they fall on the age line and price it accordingly.

50-69, Aging rolls every year. [-5]
70-89, Aging rolls every 6 months. [-15]
90+, Aging rolls every 3 months. [-25]

[fifiste]

The dynastic squabbles would definately be a thing for on some of the campaigns I'm thinking of. 30+ years of in-game time being nothing for this kind of ideas. I would probably also make extensive off-screen time leaps also for several campaigns I have in mind.
Frex. After you extended the size of your barony during your 4 year campaign against barbarians and had wrestled the control of copper mines during a year of courtly intrigue against Baron Devious von Mustachewald, your lands and household has enjoyed peace and prosperity for over 12 years during which you and your loyal retainers keep up with their usual activities - fill up time use sheets/ DO THE AGING ROLLS etc.
Now a new threat/challenge/possibility is over the horizon!
(And it'll really make a difference if your players were near aging line or not)

[Ze'Manel Cunha]

Originally Posted by fifiste

The dynastic squabbles would definately be a thing for on some of the campaigns I'm thinking of. 30+ years of in-game time being nothing for this kind of ideas. I would probably also make extensive off-screen time leaps also for several campaigns I have in mind.
Frex. After you extended the size of your barony during your 4 year campaign against barbarians and had wrestled the control of copper mines during a year of courtly intrigue against Baron Devious von Mustachewald, your lands and household has enjoyed peace and prosperity for over 12 years during which you and your loyal retainers keep up with their usual activities - fill up time use sheets/ DO THE AGING ROLLS etc.
Now a new threat/challenge/possibility is over the horizon!
(And it'll really make a difference if your players were near aging line or not)

You may want to rethink the time use sheets, not only is it a tedious process which most players will find totally boring, but it's also something which doesn't work well long term vs short term.

Skill degradation is also vastly underestimated for long term campaigns, there's a reason the world isn't dominated by 50 year old professionals/athletes, and that's because often the skill degradation is much more severe over time.

[fifiste]

Well time use sheets or no time use sheets the important thing is the 12 etc. years later part for aging.
You are probably right about those being tedious etc. and on the skill degradation.
Anyway what I mean is I can see campaigns with massive timeskips or "action" rolled up on large timescale - like monthly jobrolls will differ from dayly or hourly or by the second rolls. I can guess there can be even larger timetables and rolls for successes on larger scale etc. There are pleny of things already in basics that can take considerable time even when I do not say that the next campaign section will be timeskip.
Inventing, crafting, healing, jobs etc. all those can take weeks and months and eventually years.

[Flyndaran]

Originally Posted by Ze'Manel Cunha

You may want to rethink the time use sheets, not only is it a tedious process which most players will find totally boring, but it's also something which doesn't work well long term vs short term.

Skill degradation is also vastly underestimated for long term campaigns, there's a reason the world isn't dominated by 50 year old professionals/athletes, and that's because often the skill degradation is much more severe over time.

Aging happens far earlier than 50. Look at burn survival rates for a good indicator of youthful resiliency. Skill and sheer muscle mass are the only things that allow those over the age of 10 to out compete young whipper snappers.