Act your age, not your shoe size

Of all the elements in a traditional character sheet, I think the one that gets overlooked the most by ordinary RPers and duelists is age. Think about it for a moment. You take time to come up with a really awesome sounding name; you pore over your character's personality; you give tons of detail when it comes to describing hair, build, facial features, weapons and armour; you painstakingly develop a deadly arsenal of fighting techniques and/or spells for your newest badass hero or heroine; you may even decide to create an entire new race, complete with history, for your character. But let's be honest, here: when it comes to your character's age, most of you just pick a number, any number, usually between 15 and 25 for humans. While there's nothing technically wrong with a small army of teenaged wunderkinds fighting each other to the death, it's worth noting that there's also nothing technically wrong with variety, and that it can actually help improve your skills at the same time.

A character's age can have a lot of influence over many other elements in a signup sheet, from personality and description to techniques and history. By far, the most obvious element influenced is a character's looks. Usually people get wrinkles and grey hairs as they get older, unless your character goes in for hair dyes and Botox injections. But beyond the superficial aspect of it all, there are other things to consider. Can your 15-year-old really wear a full suit of armour? Can your 75-year-old really swing around a heavy spiked mace like nobody's business? Issues such as these tie in with a character's history and abilities. Young characters should normally have limited experience in fighting, unless you were an abandoned orphan found outside a dojo and were trained in martial arts since the age of 2. On the other hand, older characters may have the necessary experience in times of war, but might be plagued with physical difficulties such as arthritic knees and lessening strength. And then there's personality: usually, people get more conservative and, for lack of a better word, wiser with time. If your character is not human, of course, then your character may have different age milestones depending on the race you choose. If so, think about the race's average lifespan, coming-of-age, middle age, old age... Think about your character's general personality, description, training, and so on; then you can peg an approximate age in human years and adjust it to fit the race's scale accordingly.

Of course, there are exceptions to every rule. There are plenty of healthy older people around today, just as there are relatively sensible young kids. But the trick is knowing when to break the mold and when to go with common sense. If you think your character is too ordinary (even with kickass powers), then you may want to go against the norm in one aspect of the character sheet. Go with your instinct, here, and keep in mind that too many exceptions make a character look too good to be true.

In closing, I'd like to share an anecdote about this particular subject. I've been RPing for the past four years now and I've known several RPers who managed to get away with the silliest things because they were long-time RPers and had somehow gained respect. Many of them had characters with the most exorbitant ages imaginable, but one really stood out for me. This particular character had many... issues that I had problems with, but I'm sure at least one reader can relate to my frustration when I found out he was over 9 billion years old and looked not a day over 19 -- and actually acted about that age, too. That's something to think about when you think you can get away with your age because it looks cool on paper.