Elder Characters: What Age Do You Classify as "Old"?

[Lady_Alizarin]

"Your wolf character is 5 years old? Dang thats old!"
"Why so old?"
"I should call you grandma from now on."
"3 years old!? Thats old for a cat!"
"Old timer!"

You know what I noticed? I've met many characters around FH that range close to the same age. In character profiles, many state that their character is 2 years old, or 23 moons old (for Warrior Cats), or young adult, or teenager. I do see a few elder characters every now and then. But I also noticed that some people think 3-6 years is old for a wolf, or old for a cat. How? These ages would come up between 24-45 if the characters were humans. How is that old?

Life in the Wild
I know that living a life out in the wild will decrease an animals life expectancy, since they have their natural enemies, weather, sicknesses, and finding enough food to worry about. I know for a fact that wolves can live much longer than 4 years, if given the chance. If any wolf out in the wild were to make it past the age of 7 years, that's really rare and considered lucky. They don't even start sprouting little grey and white hairs until they are 7-10 years old. The same goes for any other animal in the wild. Most don't live out their full life span because of all the harsh things nature throws at them. The average wolf lifespan in the wild goes from 3-5 years old. That's like a human living to their 30s before dying.

In Captivity
I know for sure that cats can live longer than 6 years. In captivity wolves can live up to 12-14 years, while cats can live 11-16 years. 3-6 years old isn't that old for a wolf, it would be like a human in their late 20s or their 30s really. Being in captivity, they get to live a full long lifespan than what they would in the wild.


Older = More Experience
There's nothing wrong with having an older character. In fact, most of my characters are around the age of 4-6 years old. I have one grey fox character that is considered elderly, and she is only 6 years old. If she was a human, she would be 36-37 years old. That's not very old for a human. I have a warrior cat character is is around the age of four years old, yet some others in the RP think he's old... Really now. If he were human, he would be in his late 20s. Does that seem old to you? At least he has more experience when it comes to being a warrior. I play as different characters that range in different ages, from cub to elder.

I think the older the character is, the more experience and knowledge they will have of the world around them. Knowledge and experience is gained over time, the older you get the more you have. Am I right? A 6 year old fox would have better hunting skills and fighting skills than a 1 year old fox.

Perhaps the reason why players consider these ages so old is because... well, most players on this game are kids. The majority of the kids on this game range from 12-16 years old, so they might be playing as younger characters more often, since it's a character close to their age. Apparently most kids on this game think that someone in their 20s or 30s is old. Trust me, when they get to be those ages, they will be singing a different tune. When I was 12, I thought 21 was a good mature age. Now I'm here at 22 thinking "This isn't old at all."

What do you guys have to say about this? What do you classify as old, as far as character ages go?

[SteampunkWolfdog]

Ah very interesting.

Well...I've had a very similar discussion about what we class as 'old' with my parents, except we were talking about people rather than animal characters. xD
Different species have different life spans so what a dog calls fairly young maybe 'getting on a bit' for a cat...So we convert our animals' ages into human years to make it easier to understand. Makes sense. Also, environment has an effect; I'm sure we're all aware that a captive wolf has a longer life span than a wild one.

I think age isn't all defined by what age a character is but how they act aswell. You might have a 12 year old wolf with a few creaky joins (About 60 or a human) that acts like a fit 2 year old wolf (early 20s). That wolf may be old chronologically and physically, but psychologically, they're quite young.
So, it all really depends on the individual, as some, like with humans, age quicker than others.

I don't think there's anything wrong with having an 'older' character at all. It makes you a bit different from those people who always have characters that would be classed as teenagers or young adults, and more interesting. I once had a wolf character who was 4 years old, which I think converts to late 20s - early 30s in humans. Some people may consider that old...That was the prime of his life, my friends. If he was a wild wof, he'd probably be considered middle-aged, but as a captive wolf, he'd be considered quite young.

My conclusion - age is a very subjective thing when you think about. Many factors need to be taken into consideration before delcaring someone as 'old'.

[meowool]

Pet cats can easily live til they are 15, most until their 20's. where as at the vet I worked at for work experiance told me that bigger dogs are pretty old by around 10 years old.

For me a old warrior cat would be around 10 years, as that is the age I think of considering that they are feral cats, also it comes from the mean age of big cats in the wild as well

But yeah, I remember us saying that 30 is acient when I was older, also when you are younger, your parents would be in their 30's which does make it seem all a lot older! Now for me  my old age is a lot bigger is number!

[WhiteLightHeart]

The way I see it, the reason so many characters are seemingly 'defaulted' into being a teen, or young adult, is because most roleplayers feel that there's more to be done with the life of a younger character;
They can find a mate (which is a big one), they can create their own family, they're old enough to fight, and still have the youthfulness to be resilient to most injuries and still have some energy left over. They see it as the prime of their character's life, and therefore it gives them the upper paw in whatever situation they may run into.
Which, if you've just made a character, but don't know much about them (except for maybe a quickly-drawn up past bio about their family and leaving the pack/pride), this would seem to be the way to go. I see this happening a lot in some less experienced roleplayers, but it's certainly not a nub-RPer thing to do, to create a 'young buck' sort of character.

Therefore, when someone runs into a character that's not around that age (2-3 years old), it seems almost appalling that someone would make their character older and [gasp] 'weaker', in their eyes. Four, five years old is hardly anything for real-life people and animals, but in a roleplay situation, where most characters don't last too long (due to storylines or the RPer growing tired of the same character), it seems unusual, and it may just seem that the character is close to dying, when they really aren't.

So, I think it's just a misconstrued idea of what age is (thus, the title of this thread, which I really like, Lady). xD
I do enjoy an older character, though.
They're unique, and usually have a blossoming past to them. In some cases, I've found that mid-RP, the character will seem to 'act on their own', and somehow reveal to me something special about themselves, or their past. Some strength, weakness, and so on. Their experiences make them wise, and it adds a very real, very down-to-earth feel to an RP.
For example, my longest-running character, Allegra, is now a 6-year-old red wolf. She was 3 years old when I first started RPing her, and since then she's been through more experiences than most can say they've even written out before. So yes, she is older when compared to the others in her pack, and she's gaining some white hairs where she didn't have them before, she has old wounds nagging her more than they used to, but her sheer experience as an Alphess, guardian, and whatever else she's needed to be for her pack makes her a very well-developed and colorful character that I adore playing. In most cases, she's so well-developed that I don't even have to think about how she'll react in a post-- she seems to just react on her own in my head, and all I have to do is describe it in my post.
All in all, Allegra is older, but she's still oodles of experience under her belt, with a few good years left in her physical body.
This said, I wouldn't even consider a character legitimately 'old' until they're reaching around 9 or 10+ years, depending on the species.
That's why I always smile when I see an older character in-game, since I know there's almost always a little more than usual under their white-muzzled surface.

[SteampunkWolfdog]

One more statement; being old is fresh and interesting.

[Silvertide]

My oldest character was Rina, I think she was 5 years old when she died. As Alle said above, the character seems to RP on their own.
But I do have to object a little bit. If you've ever Role Played a character from birth into adulthood, then you'd know what I mean. It is really quite the journey. By the time that character reaches just one year old they already have so much experience. I think it is all about how much you role play your character, since, if you made a ten year old character and gave them a simple past, they aren't that interesting at all.
So it is more about the time you spend RPing that char rather than how old they are.

[duna the killer]

I classify my characters 'Old' once they are 5 human years old. But it really annoys me if someone calls another character,or even my character, old if they are under 5 human years.Some people do it for fun like,' "Come on you crazy old timer!" He had a tone of laughter in his voice '.But if someone goes like ((Dude that is freaking old!!)) That sort of bothers me ...

[MyDarkSide13]

Well in my opinion for canines I consider old to be around 11 in dog years (77 in Human Years). As for felines I consider old to be 14 in cat years (72 in human years). I think that once your character hits 70 in human years it should be considered old because truly I think that 70 is considered old in the human world.

[Silhouette]

Quite of few my character's [the ones who are unrealistic] are capable of aging at the same rate as a normal animal up to a point and then they do not age physically from the point of sexual maturity onward. The will, however, age mentally in that they learn from their experiences, become a little wiser, a little less "wild" as some might put it, and more self-controlled/disciplined. These characters that I have that DONT die at say 10-12 years, do at least acknowledge that those others living around them who approaching 10 or 10 + years of age who are going by a normal aging scale will perish.

For example, my main character May has an extended life span due to her species. When she was adopted as a cub by a friend of mine's character about two years ago [two years ago in real life] May only partly acknowledged that after her first decade, most everyone she knew at that time would be gone and she would likely be dealing with everyone's kids and grandkids instead. When she finally hit around 10 or 11 "years in roleplay time" there were very few of the original characters she knew from her youth left and most of those have an expanded lifespan like she does and those with the same situation who are younger have teased her about "being an old hag" because is the older figure, even if her physical health fails to show it.

So Im going to have to say, 2 years I dont really consider animals in their "prime" necesarily. Most of them are dispersal animals floating around on their own and are'nt really a "force to be reckoned with yet." Sure, they might be dangerous to US but to an animal of the same species who is just a couple years older than themselves? Not so much.

 Years 3 and 4 seem more suited for that lable. I consider "getting up in age" about 8 or 9. I consider elderly of 10 and up. [unless your character has an expanded lifespan like I explained earlier] Most of the people I RP with on a regular basis tend to hang onto their characters for years [REAL years] and so do I.

Even for my characters that do age normally I refuse to follow the "Oh in human years she/he is..." unless its just a generalization. That is, I might say my character is roughly like a 20 or 30 or 40 year old, /but/ I am not going to pull the "7 years for every human year is a dog year" stunt, mostly because Ive seen on multiple occasions where this is wrong and it gets even more blurry when you try to pull it from domestic dogs and onto other canines like wolves and foxes. 7 years as a "dog year" dosent really fit. The average lifespan for an irish wolfhound is only 8 whereas a border collie usually lives into mid teens [13, 14, 15] and some small dogs can get close to 20 before keeling over. So at death the irish wolfhound is 56, the border collie is  98 [using 14 years] and the small dog is 126 [for an 18 year old dog]...See why I don't like it? Its unreliable enough in its own environment. So Ill just stay general about it if I mention it at all. X'D

[BlackHolesAndRevelations]

Wow okay EXACTLY. I normally make my wolf characters roughly 3-4 years old, because that's in the late twenties age, which I like. Once in a whlie, I go more middle aged and go for a 5-7, and that's not old. My one roleplay, which I'm leader of, her grandfather in the roleplay is 13, and he's a retired elder. I Think that's fair.