NarniaMUCK

I seem to have painted myself into a bit of a corner in setting up my unicorn character. I would certainly appreciate advice.

I am a brand new player to the MUCK ... unfortunately I tend to easily feel overwhelmed by a horde of information. So many help, info and news files, and then there's the Un'aireken message board with more information. I poked a lot of random newbie questions at poor Melody and others, but I guess I got impatient and decided to plow forward without knowing with any certainty about how unicorns age in the Narnia universe. I presumed it was slower than horses, but that's hardly a specific understanding, and it seems that, now that I have found and read the aging guide on the Un'aireken, there's a conflict:

• I established Lapis' age as "young adult," which would be equivelant to 18 for a human
• I recall hearing, from some of my newbie poking questions, that The War ended about 10 years ago
• I established, in roleplay poses, that Lapis had been foaled after the war and it was a historical event for her that took place before she was foaled
• I found out, from the Un'aireken boards, that a human 18-year-old equivelant for a unicorn is 13 years

If my recalling the mentioned-in-passing time span from the end of The War until now being 10 years is correct, unfortunately the above means I will have to retcon something, unless someone else sees another way around this. I hate retconning, but it seems like my impatience in creating a background for my character and roleplaying might make it unavoidable. Does anyone see an alternative to retconning that I have missed? If not, what are others' recommendations on minimizing harm in retconning a background element?

My thought would be either revising Lapis' age downward, making her an adolescent instead of young adult, or retconning the posed establishment of her foaling having occurred after The War's end. Of course, changing The War's end or unicorn aging progression are not options at all, as that would retcon everyone else's RP. Does someone see better alternatives?

Sorry for my newbiness and impatience, and I greatly appreciate constructive suggestions on how to proceed.

To be honest, we of the herd don't use the chart that's on the UU Board as a hard-and-fast end-all - rather, as a guideline of sorts. I don't think any of us would have a problem with things remaining just as they are.

The question of how the Narnian species age has been thrown about here for /years/, and I think the thing we've settled on is simply glossing over it somewhat. It's generally accepted that the smaller species live shorter lifespans and the larger ones longer, somewhat going off the natural lifespan of the creature in question, but the exact ratio isn't something we've ever truly pinned down and adhered to for every single species - nor, honestly, do I think it's something we /need/ to. There's a reason most of us only have a general age range in our pinfos - the truly important thing to RP is knowing whether your character came before or after The Big Events.

We're not above soap-opera-aging our chars here - in fact, in several circumstances it's encouraged.

I had been pondering, before I realized my error, setting Lapia's foal-date to make her a "foal boomer," a gestation-span after the date of victory that ended the war. I didn't know whether it would fit, and it was researching for that, that I discovered the error.

I realize not everyone is so nitpicky, but I do think there is something to be said for a consistent universe, things fitting together and avoiding creating something that breaks previously established canon (whether its genuine Narnia story-established, or previous established in RP on the MUCK) and feel it important to put my ducks in a proper row to fit in with a dynamic, vibrant IC game world with a coherent ongoing storyline from long before debuted RP until Lapis no longer exists on the IC grid.

To me, that's the difference that makes an RP-focused MU* appealing over a more relaxed-canon "social" MU*. Tightness of canon, an ability to explore details of a vast game world, sometimes making for intriguing tie-ins if things can be created that truly fit the game world.

I hope I don't bore too many, but ... I like coherent, consistent details, and very much want to avoid infringing details others have worked out to make a game world that is immersive both for its breadth and its depth of detail.

Lapis,

The problem with such restrictive rules regarding minor details such as age, is that it makes a game incredibly hard for new players to adjust to-- as even you, an experienced player who is only new to NarniaMUCK, have experienced. NarniaMUCK is an RP-intensive game, but it is also open to people who have never MUCKed before and to child players. That requires us to be willing to grant some flexibilty so that these players can meld in smoothly.

Additionally, Narnia has a very unique problem in that is has dozens of species (really hundreds if you break down the larger groups like 'birds' and 'dogs'), and those species don't live to Real World ages, because in Magician's Nephew Aslan humanizes all the animals-- the reason they have the ability to speak. The general rule we have adhered to is that the age of the Talking Beast is somewhere between its Real World age and human aging. Some herds/packs have come up with a guideline for the consistency you mentioned, but again, it's a more flexible guideline. We find that the game is more dynamic, exciting, and colorful when players have guidance but don't feel like there are so many rules that anything they do is going to cause them to misstep and get a lecture or make them rollback an RP.

I might mention that other details are glossed specifically because we have a young audience and we want the game to be 100% appropriate for them to be able to play. This is obviously not in regards to how age works, but is an important part of the reason why we are okay with glossing things.

In regards to Lapis' age, here are a few more thoughts. As Petraverd said, you could just sort of say 'it was after the war but she's a young adult'. It's been closer to 11 or 12 years since the war now, so 13 is actually not that off. I'd actually put (in human age) older teenagers under the category of young adult rather than adolescent, so even if it turned out she was 16ish, that would be quite fine. If you like, you may rewind the RP and make her born before the war, but I see no need for that.

Sorry for the double post, but I thought of an extra note.

Emilia and I are working on some history for the Unicorn herd. It is important to us that players have a lot to draw off of if they want to, so we try to fill in the game with a rich and helpful history that is accessible to all our players. There are a few more hoops to jump through before it's set in stone, but I feel that it's appropriate to let this one detail loose because it's relevant to your questions. Part of what we are deciding with that is that the herd has probably always been rather small. For that reason, I don't know if you could say the Unicorns have ever had a 'boom'.

Anth brings up a good point I forgot to mention - Narnia's a very medieval sort of setting and that extends to the mindset to a degree. Adulthood comes a lot sooner than it does in a modern perspective.