We've had another influx of underage characters (i.e. characters portrayed as children) and these characters have been a contention point on the MUCK to the degree that we've had established characters leave over them. And then subsequently had the offending child character leave due to not having anyone willing to play with them after the fact.

As such, this is something the administration can't walk the middle ground on, and we need to establish some set of rules that will make everyone comfortable while still maintaining a creative and enjoyable atmosphere.

The easy answer would be to ban child characters. However, we have a fairly large number of people that play parents on the MUCK and have children. Banning child characters means banning those children as well, and we don't think that's a suitable answer.

So instead, here's some rules that will hopefully make everyone feel reasonably comfortable.

This bears emphasis here. All *players* on the MUCK, that is, real life people typing at keyboards, must be 18 years old or older. As far as the administrators know, we've never had a problem here, but it's worth stating again. This is for everyone's protection.

The answer here is along the lines of “We'll know it when we see it.” Frankly, the norms of what an “adult” varies greatly over the course of history and even from country to country. 18 is a pretty arbitrary number that, in the United States, isn't even “really” adult with lots of restrictions on what they may purchase and do. 16 years old is a common age of consent age in parts of the US and the rest of the world, even considered adult in some places.

We will therefore split characters into three groups; underage, grey area, and adult.

• Underage are characters under the age of 16, or that are described as children, pre-teen, or early-teenager.
• Grey area are characters aged 16 or 17. Grey area characters will have certain restrictions applied to them, but fewer than underage characters.
• Adults have no restrictions.

If a character is described to be “late teen”, “young adult”, or simply “young” with an otherwise adult appearance, they will be assumed to be adult as long as they aren't publicizing a contradictory age. Being the post apocalypse, it is reasonable for people to not actually know their age with any great precision, and using this as wiggle room to suit your desires while staying within the rules of the game is encouraged. Being ambigious about your age while playing a character that appears to be “18-ish” is completely acceptable and counts as adult.

There are certain rules that apply both to Grey Area and Underage characters. The following apply to both:

• No admittance to public areas commonly used for sexual activities. This is, currently, the roof patio of the diner, the “Show Room” in Izzy's Bar, and Red Light District in San Pedro. However, if you are informed that a space is a forbidden zone, you must leave without a fuss.
• If encountering other players engaging in sexual activities in a public space, you must leave.
• Your character may not participate in sexual activities in any publicly accessible space or involving anyone uncomfortable with your character's age.

• No flirtation with adults in public. Conversely, adults may not flirt with underage characters in public.
• If anyone in the room isn't comfortable with an underage character being there, the underage character may OOCly be asked to leave and must do so without a fuss.
• The primary goal of the character must not be for sex. What does this mean? If you're playing a child character with a story as to why you're a child character out on their own in the apocalypse, that's fine. If you're doing it just because you want to have your child character interact with adults in a fashion many may consider inappropriate, go take it to Taps please.
• An underage character is not permitted to have a 'relationship' of a sexual or romantic nature with an adult character. What happens behind closed doors, must stay behind closed doors.
• If you are causing *any other player* to be uncomfortable with the way you are playing your character, your character will be removed from the game. It will be the administrator's discretion if it is an immediate removal or a warning first; however, you're being permitted to play this character that probably most of the population would prefer you didn't play, so you must be a good citizen about it.

We really want to hammer one point in solidly: people that play underage characters, you're being permitted to play this character that probably most of the population would prefer you didn't play, so you must be a good citizen about it.

If you're not a good citizen, if you make people uncomfortable, if your child character doesn't act like a child, you will be removed with swift action from the administrators. We're sorry if this makes the game less fun for you, but you're making the game less fun for others, so we have to balance the desires and comfort of everyone on the game.

Thanks for helping us make Hope Island fun and enjoyable for everyone!