Voting:Level 5's and Up/New Athens Age Rule

Index > Issues to be Voted on by Level 5's and up > Level 5's and Up/New Athens Age Rule

The following voting has ended. If you disagree or want to re-open for another vote, please contact an administrator to do so. Please do not modify it.

Hello everyone!

This vote is concerning New Athens. I won’t reveal too much about New Athens itself as a blog will be coming soon that details everything but, as a general principle, it is a replacement for The Nearby Town and CHB’s equivalent of New Rome. Largely, it is a place for older demigods to go beyond Camp.

A few questions that have always remained on the wiki - or at least frequent ones that’ve been here since I joined in late 2012 - is the age of campers and how long they stay at Camp especially with the introduction of younger Campers and, in much less of a degree, counsellor spots and how some characters can have the same title for years. This vote intends to provide an answer for both of these questions.

Please do remember, when voting, that challenging is still an option; if immortals or non-aging demigods are exempt from relenting their titles, they can still be challenged as with any title.

All of the below options have been devised by Brocky, Miggy and myself.

The vote will close in one week - 18th February 2019 - at Midnight GMT / 7 PM EST.

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Option One: Demigod Campers above the age of 23 must leave Camp and any prospective Campers aged 23 or over must go to New Athens automatically. In doing so, the Camper relents all their positions and titles. A user can choose if they go to New Athens or not but, in order to consider them an active character, this is where they must go. Immortal demigods and demigods whose aging has been stopped are exempt from this aged 23 rule; they are allowed to keep their titles and are not forced to go to New Athens. This is the only option that entitles immortal demigods and demigods with stopped aging staying at Camp beyond the physical/biological age of 23. If Immortal demigods choose to go to New Athens, however, they must relent all their titles. If you wish to have an existing demigod with titles become immortal - thus exempting them from having to relent their titles - you ‘’must’’ speak with one of the bureaucrats and gain approval. A vote after this one will happen to discuss any limits placed upon immortals holding titles, however, please do remember that immortals can still be challenged for their titles and positions; being exempt from having to give them up does NOT make them exempt from being challenged.

Option Two: Demigod Campers above the age of 23 must leave Camp and any prospective Campers aged 23 or over must go to New Athens automatically. Immortals are also included in this with the following mindset: if they were 16 when they became immortal, they have until they are 23 biologically to live in Camp. This means any immortal demigods made immortal prior to 1996 will not be allowed entry into Camp and thus will not be able to hold any titles. Demigods who have their aging shut off will also be subjected to this biological age rule. All of these characters, upon 23, must relent their positions and titles and go to New Athens. As with the option above, the user has the choice to send them there but, to keep them as an active character, New Athens is the destination.

Option Three: Demigod Campers above the age of 23 must leave Camp and any prospective Campers aged 23 or over must go to New Athens automatically. Immortals are also included in this but unlike Option Two, when they were made immortal is not as relevant. In this option, the current physical age of the immortal character will be what’s taken into consideration, and the years will be counted in an OOC manner. For example, if an immortal character who’s been stuck at age 19 arrives in Camp in 2019, they have until the year 2023 OOC before they had to leave Camp and move on to New Athens (and let go of their titles if they had any). Likewise, characters with their aging disabled will be regarded as if their age has continued; if someone’s aging was disabled when they were 17 in 2013, they must leave Camp in 2019 when they would’ve turned 23. All titles must be relented. As with the other options, the user has the choice to send them there but, to keep them as an active character, New Athens is the destination.

Option Four: No changes to the current system; Campers can stay in Camp to whatever age they desire and what happens should they choose to move to New Athens, in regards to any titles they hold, will be up to a future vote.

rip open a pixie stick with your teeth and empty it into my gaping ass!!! love u mom Oli

Voting

Option One (+1)

1. --The Damocles (talk) 02:04, February 11, 2019 (UTC)

Option Three (+1)

1. a SIGN.  an OMEN. a

Option Four (+11)

1. -Suit
2. WH4T K1ND OF 4WFUL C1V1L1Z4T1ON WOULDNT 1NV3NT OR4NG3 CR34MS1CL3S​​​
3. I need someone to show me my place in all this. ~Sophie
4. Toxy's essay below convinced me wishing whirling waving wandering stars  05:36, February 11, 2019 (UTC)
5. ^ rip open a pixie stick with your teeth and empty it into my gaping ass!!! love u mom Oli
6. Oh well, karma's a bitch! KMØ
7. Brocky Good morning, campers! ❤
   
   
8. FILOKSENIA
9. The Highlands Lady 19:59, February 11, 2019 (UTC)
10. See if you deserve what comes next.
11. laugh hard, run fast,be kind... doctor, i let you go.

Comments

Not to be dramatic, but I feel the need to highlight that if any option but option four were to pass, I would immediately lose access to four of my characters, and that's... not cool. If New Athens is to be based on New Rome, it's important to understand that New Athens and Camp would serve very different functions, and they're not direct equivalents. It's not a simple thing to just transfer a character to New Athens - New Rome was a *small city*, carrying with it all the practical elements of real adult life: you worked, you fed yourself, you paid bills, you got an education, you raised your kids, all that good stuff. While this all sounds well and good, keep in mind what forcing characters above a certain age to live in New Athens (or not be active and eligible for rp) really means. It's a massive constraint on the potential lives our characters can lead. If any of options one through three pass, it will mean that choosing for your character to pursue any kind of life based in the outside world is the choice to give them up and stop rp'ing them entirely.

I'll demonstrate with an anecdote: My three oldest demigods (Nyxil, Leon, and Graciel, who are also my oldest and most loved characters OOC, with each having been claimed in their teens 6+ years ago) are all over the age of 23 now, and have their own private lives outside camp. Since Camp Half-Blood is simply a public sanctuary and training center for all demigods, I'm free to have them stop by whenever I want to use them:

1. Nyxil Vane is a homeless vagrant. He doesn't settle down anywhere and doesn't consider himself a camper necessarily, only stopping by every month or two. He spends most of his time pursuing his own kinda-sketchy goals as priest of a fading titaness. It's been a pretty significant point throughout years of roleplay that Nyxil is hyper-allergic to a normal life (he even abandoned his and Holly Lagos's son), so it goes without saying he'd never settle down in New Athens. Thus I'd lose my first ever character.
2. Graciel Hall is cursed to serve Hades for an indefinite period each time she dies before being resurrected, and has spent the last few years living in Hades' palace in the underworld. If she were to be able to leave anyway, she would pursue a college education at Colorado State University on a tennis scholarship, and I don't think she'd want to take the daily commute from the east coast to the rocky mountains for class every day, so she's gone too.
3. Leon Mitchel started an internship for Aeolus News Network in ~2014, and gradually worked his way up to his current position as a big wig executive (mainly because Aeolus is insane and fires people on a whim, so it didn't take long for a position to open). He lives in Aeolus's castle out of necessity since it teleports across the continent, so he wouldn't want to move to New Athens either.

I'm not just brutally unlucky here - off the top of my head, I know that other users' characters like Aria Shen, Blake Ashthorn, and more also have set their sights set on a life in the mortal world and would either immediately or eventually be forced off the wiki as a result.

The sentiment behind forcing characters above a certain age out of camp has a basis at a glance, but I also believe that it crumbles under deeper analysis: characters holding cabin leadership positions indefinitely is only a problem in theory. In reality our camp leadership positions are determined through largely OOC means - challenges are ruled based on roleplaying ability more than hypothetical in-universe skill or seniority. So age and experience don't actually improve a character's chances of winning challenges. If a character holds leadership for too long, it's just because there's nobody interested in the position anyway. Furthermore, the notion that Camp Half-Blood canonically has or should have an age limit is also baseless: it's stated throughout canon that the vast majority of demigods just... die. Young. Adult demigods are only rare because most don't survive that long. If I'm mistaken, and canon ever mentioned an age limit, please correct me. Personally I see no reason camp wouldn't welcome the experience an adult demigod willing to stay in their cabin could offer to their half-siblings.

Of course this whole little essay isn't an argument against New Athens itself, and providing an avenue for a more traditional daily life to any characters that would want it is great. I just see no reason to force characters into either living in New Athens or ceasing to exist on the wiki OOC. It's a dangerous and arbitrary restriction on creative freedom that doesn't need to exist.

WH4T K1ND OF 4WFUL C1V1L1Z4T1ON WOULDNT 1NV3NT OR4NG3 CR34MS1CL3S​​

I'm not really convinced by any of the options presented. Why, rather than keeping the limit at 23, raise it to 25, 27, or 30? Considering the average age of the characters here is somewhere between 18 and 20, users would have only approximately three years to RP their characters freely in Camp, or any other location they desire. And, in that same vein, option 4 states "campers can stay in Camp to whatever age they desire and will not have to relent their titles should they move to New Athens." I don't quite understand how cabin leaders can stay on top of their responsibilities if they're not living in their cabins, especially when their responsibilities include:

1. Choose the activities their cabin will partake in for the week.
2. Complete cabin inspections
3. Attend war counsels
4. Lead half-siblings into meals.

How can they do that while living in New Athens? Also, I saw a comment above that I saw a comment about cabin leadership that also seemed a little off, so after digging a little, I found Riordan Wiki states: "The role of head counselor is automatically given to the eldest demigod, but if a younger camper has completed more quests, they can challenge the head counselor and have a duel with them, and whoever wins becomes head counselor." Of course, as I understand, that isn't how we do things, but that isn't the point I'm trying to make; not only will senior campers always have the upper hand, but IC, most of the younger campers are and should be intimidated by the prospect of challenging for HC. I'm not sure if others stay true to it, but I do, and it's my opinion no younger character in their right mind would realistically challenge someone with years of experience - especially if the HC is immortalized by the gods.

Take this as you will, but in my own opinion, all options are flawed, and I really, really, really hope the users who devised these options at least consider creating a new one, where the age limit is, at the very least, raised to 25 - 30 (on the older end of the scale would be best, speaking objectively, considering not many characters stay active til their 3rd decade). Again, that's just my take, but I hope it's at least kept in consideration. FILOKSENIA

Whilst twenty-three was, admittedly, an age that was pulled randomly, it was chosen just due to it's fit. It was chosen primarily over the older ages mentioned because the youngest campers can be, if my memory serves me correctly, nine year-olds and having thirty year-olds mix seemed a bit... off for us to raise the age that high.

I would like to point out that this vote is concerned with who is going to New Athens when, not the logistics following that. Admittedly the options are suited for that purpose and neglect any mention of future votes (largely because it was figured we could do it one step at a time, tackling one stage of it in turn of another) but, if it is so needed, I can add it in. :)

In regards to challenging, I do largely think what Toxy says is true. Yes, a younger demigod might not challenge due to the status of an older demigod, but that doesn't mean you don't get the arrogant younger demigods who might. Truthfully, I was on a similar vein as yourself but reading what Toxy said, it is down to the OOC aspect and we can't let that seep into IC in way that basically says 'okay so if nobody is challenging you, then you have to relent your titles.' R&D does have plans, however, to put some gusto into challenging again.

As I said, I can add into the vote itself or Option 4 about the prospect of future votes regarding if a HC/LC was to leave Camp and what would happen but I'll be sure to talk to Miggy and Brocky! :)

Oli Move over sis, it's Jan! ❤