Voice Supplemental #8.1: Character Age Policy Update : Q&A

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Policy Update:

Yesterday our wonderful Seneschal dropped the most recent set of changes to the Character Sheet, implementing the site-side Age Check for characters. This will inform you when you are inputting age if the character is a "Youth", and refuse to allow you to continue forward with sheet applications below the Minimum Age. You can also find the Minimum and Adult Ages for Species listed on a Species' C-SIR article. With that we've updated our Age Policy, as found in the Character Sheet Approval Guidelines:

• Characters must be within acceptable age ranges for their species.
  • "Acceptable age range" is defined as: "An age starting from the Minimum Age allowable for the species to a reasonable upper limit based on the species average and any mitigating factors that may have extended their life."
  • Species now have two denoted age categories at character creation, also visible in C-SIR, Minimum Age and Adult Age. These denote the minimum sheetable age and the age of majority (adulthood) for their species.
  • Members who break policy can have the ability to play characters below Adult Age revoked after administrative review.
• A Character's Apparent/Physical Age must meet the required minimums. A character who is Chronologically beyond the minimum requirements, but Apparently/Physically below the requirements will be remanded.
  • "Effective Age" exemptions may only be granted in specific scenarios, such as Clones, who are rapidly aged variants of their species, and must be sheeted as their apparent age.

What About X, Y, or Z?:

A series of questions have come in the wake of this policy being updated; I'll go over some general questions for a quick recap and to answer some questions and concerns you may have.

• "I have a character whose age is now below adult age, what is Voice Policy for this?"
  • There is no official Voice Policy for reconciling your character with the current Age Guidelines. The Minimum and Adult Ages are hardline specifics to prevent child characters; you should reconcile the ages within those guidelines by means that make sense for your narratives, whether that means you change how you represent your characters or adjust their age outright and compensate the storyline. This is not something we can dictate for you.
• "I wrote a species whose Adulthood has moved from assumed 18 to a later age, can I just age my character up?"
  • If it works for you to do that, yes!
• "Changing my character's age messes with their history, because specific events were foundational for them/they were married at a certain age" or "My character is married/has kids, but now they're too young to for that, what do I do?"
  • These are complex questions, and there are no simple answers. The simplest answer is, retcon your age. The difficult answer is find non-explicit reasons for why it happened. Arranged marriages have happened in many cultures and been shown in SW Media. There will be chafing with this policy, and I apologize for the discomfort now, but by and large many more species were given leniency than not.
• "What about fictions I wrote before this change?"
  • We will not seek to retroactively penalize or negate what you have done before this policy was introduced, so long as it adhered to the relative 18+ policy or common conceptions regarding specific species maturity.
• "Can my characters who meet the "Minimum Age" still be used in Fictions or the ACC?"
  • Yes! The Minimum Age is an established stopping point where we felt allowing Padawan or equivalent characters to otherwise be engaged in what may otherwise turn into combat-esque adventures, on their own, made sense.
• "Am I still allowed to have child NPCs/Can my characters have children?"
  • Most certainly, but not as Sheeted Characters. Such characters should be contained on their relevant DBWiki Family/Parent Pages, if not their own respective pages. The general storylines of the DB deal in heavy themes, such as war, conflict, and political intrigue, but many of our personal stories revolve around family, friends, and runaway animals. This policy does not aim to take those away from you, just remove the children from the more combat-oriented sections of the site.
• "What about my child character that was frozen in Carbonite for 2,000 years?"
  • No.
• "It's okay, though, she's actually a 4,000 year old dragon!"
  • No, it's not okay. That's not a thing, so far as I'm aware, in Star Wars, and if it is? We're not approving that species.
• You mentioned policies that can result in punishment?
  • This will ultimately fall within the purview of the Justicar. When I sought to have this code introduced I specifically asked that the administrative toggle be attributed to the Grandmaster, their Deputy, and the Justicar, but not my office. In my eyes, the penultimate test for who should have Minimum Age characters disabled from their Dossier are those who are in violation of the DB Website Content Policy, particularly with violations involving minors or minor characters.

Important Links

• Character Sheet Reference Tool
• Fiction Archive
• Fiction Resources
• Fiction Center
• Fiction Rubric 3.0
• Character Notes Template
• Voice Feedback Form
• Voice Staff Email

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As always, if you have have any Fiction related questions or comments, feel free to find me in #fiction-chat on Discord @albireowolfe, if you've got system questions, concerns, snippy comments, or proposals, zip me and my staff an email at [Log in to view e-mail addresses] just keep it civil.