Discipline in Age Play

Last week I posted a new poll asking how you feel about discipline in your age play. I was prompted to do so based on the fact that I've been noticing that a lot of groups don't allow any kind of discipline at all, and if they do, physical punishment is clearly off limits.

As you may recognize from the title of this blog, I believe that spanking and age play go hand in hand. I have always made that connection, but then again, I'm a spanko and not just some person who has IKs. For a long time I have associated spanking and age play with one another. I don't age play because I am a spanko, nor am I a spanko because I age play. The two are separate, and yet related for me. I know that others differ. There is a member of our group at present who does not enjoy spanking, and that's okay.

My question for you, then, is whether or not you feel that discipline in ageplay is acceptable.* If you have not seen it already, the poll is on the right-hand sidebar. Feel free to answer the question there. What I'm really looking for, however, are some comments on this post. How do you feel about discipline in your ageplay? Love it, leave it, hate it? Use the poll for your simple answers, but give me some details in the comments. I want to know why you don't like discipline if you don't. I'm a spanko -- I'm much more interested in the reasons why you wouldn't enjoy discipline than why you would.

* I can make some assumptions about you based on the fact that you're a member of this group, but I'd like to get a discussion going here.

Character Abandonment

So far, this blog has dealt mostly in the discussion of features of the role play rather than addressing matters of age play, emotionally real inner children, and re-parenting. For those who are looking for information about reparenting and age play in terms of the emotions and effects of our inner children, you are in the wrong place. Try the blog I co-author with Kit: Lessons Learned from Our Inner Kids.  There are some topics, however, which cross over and cover both areas of interest to potential readers of this blog, and the matter of character abandonment is one of them.

I am not going to go into vast amounts of detail regarding the nature of emotionally-real inner children. There are other places and times for that and I may edit this post in the future with more information that will help you to better understand.

What I want to talk to you about today is character abandonment in ageplay groups. It happens all the time. You're playing a child (possibly an emotionally real inner kid) and one day, you meet the adult of your dreams. She has every characteristic that you like in a parent. She is loving and kind, but firm in her discipline. She knows just when to let you get away with misbehavior and when to crack down on you. You even love the way that she disciplines you and you're sure that she's "the one." You begin to develop feelings for this person, and you may even begin to feel irrational. You love her, and you want her to love you back.

With (in our case) or without (as is the case in most groups) administrator approval, you proceed with the adoption. You are glowing. It's going to be wonderful. You've finally found the mommy for you. You know that things are going to be okay from now on. Your inner kid will be eternally satisfied and able to be herself with this mommy. You have no more worries at all.

Then she changes. Maybe she has an inner kid of her own, or she's just growing worn out taking care of you. Maybe the discipline disappears altogether, or, more likely, it becomes more harsh. Where you could get away with "just being a kid" now your mommy punishes you if you look at her funny. You're hurt, and you're confused, and you're likely to be afraid to ask what's going on because you know what's coming next...

She leaves. There is probably no verbal warning at all, just the signs that you've been seeing coming at you for so long. And then, like a puff of smoke, she's vanished. She may tell you that she can no longer handle your child, or she may simply leave the group for greener pastures never to instant message you again. All that matters is that she is gone.

In most cases, this type of event occurs when someone leaves the group. It's something that good administrators are always on the lookout for. We (that is, Kit and I), like to see members join us who are looking forward to being with us and our group for an extended period of time of many years (i.e. as long as we plan on being around). While we know that this isn't always possible, it is important to us that we foster not only one another (as you'll see on our blog) but the members of our group and the group itself. This is your job as an administrator: keep the riffraff out!

When a member leaves your group, they leave a ripple effect. If they are a parent, they leave behind children who will suffer a feeling of abandonment. Even the most hard-core spanking groups have members who are otherwise "fragile" in terms of their connection to their child characters. But the children left behind aren't the only issue. There are spouses, and friends, and a story needs to be developed in order to explain your leaving. A skilled administrator can set this up in a way that allows welcome members to return or which alienates those who are not welcome. We recently had to do the latter on our group.

Bear in mind that exiting child characters also have an effect, even if they do not have families. They will likely have friends who are being left behind, and there is a similar wake of devastation that affects those who remain.

Nobody in their right mind believes that you should stay in a group forever (unless you are part of the management team). If you aren't happy, there is no reason why you should stay. But I do believe that your first step is to try to resolve your differences with the staff of the group and then to do the best that you can to sever yourself acceptably from the characters you are involved with. Have a good fight with your friends. Divorce your spouse. Leave appropriately and without leaving everybody else to pick up the pieces that you left behind. Wrap your threads up, be polite, and remember that one day you might want a recommendation from the people you're hurting. They'll hurt either way, but if you are polite and appropriate in the way you disconnect yourself from them, you are far more likely to build fences rather than burning your bridges.

Foster Forest Ad, May, 2011

Is it time for another ad for the best ageplay and spanking role playing play by post on the Internet? Boy does time ever fly! It's been two whole months since my last ad was posted, so I guess that it must be just about time, right?

There has been some confusion over the last few weeks as the group has grown by leaps and bounds. Amazingly, in the one month when I chose not to post an ad, the group gained seven new members! We lost three of them almost as quickly as we gained them, but that means that we are four members up from the last ad that I posted, for a total of ten members. We seem to hover right around this number for whatever reason, but it seems to be working for us, so I am certainly not going to complain!

There are two things that occur to us about the "drive bys" that we've been getting at Foster Forest. The first thing that occurred to me was that perhaps it was due to the fact that we allow explicit sexuality. This is fairly unusual, and while we only allow it in adult/adult and teen/teen (or the rare YA/teen) relationships, I can understand how this might be off-putting to anyone who doesn't expect it. That's why I'm putting it out there now.*

Recently, one of the members who has since left us complained that we aren't clear enough about how flat out busy Foster Forest is. So let me try to be as clear as I can. I'm going to even use bold type because this statement is made all over Foster Forest and in every ad that I've ever posted: We do over 250 posts a day (average). Let me stress again. I'm talking about every day and not every month, or week. We may be the most active group of our kind on the Internet. I know for sure that we are the best. If you cannot keep up with that level of posting, this probably isn't the best group for you, though we do have slower members and it seems to be working for them!

Another thing that seems to be causing some contention right now relates to the nature and definition of an emotionally real inner kid. Click the link to view our definition. Ours is the only one that matters for the purposes of Foster Forest. You cannot bring your character into our group and change it. You won't be happy, because we won't change just to suit you. While we try to be accommodating, our definitions do matter.

For more general information about Foster Forest, please view our About Foster Forest link on the main blog. This will tell you more about what makes Foster Forest the best re-parenting (and spanking) group on the Internet!

We are currently accepting children (4-12), teens (13-17), young adults (18-21) and adults (22+) into our community. We are especially in need of younger children. Right now we have very few children under the age of 13. The group is more suited to teens than to littles, but we'd like to see this balance out! 

We do have plenty of adults to take care of your IK! But we'd still love to meet your adult just so that we can keep our balance! :)

*All of our members are over the age of 18, of course. It's the characters who aren't necessarily.

You've Received a Correction... How You Respond Matters!

As a member of a role playing group, it is very likely that at some point, you will receive correction from the administrator or moderators. When this happens, the way that you respond to the staff is very important to what happens next!

Let us use my example of metagaming, since I've been talking so much about that recently. The administrator of your age play rpg has just come to you in a private message and has asked you to please refrain from characterizing characters you don't own. She cites specific examples of how you are doing this. Maybe you've mentioned that John is a great fisherman or that Sara can't really sew all that well (even though she's been making her own clothes for years).

The conversation might go something like this:

ADMIN: "There have been some complaints about how you said that Sara can't sew very well. It's bothering a few people. This is considered metagaming because you're changing a character without the permission of the person who owns that character."

YOU: "Oh. I hadn't really realized that I was doing that. I'm really sorry. I'll double-check my posts next time."

This is the right way to go about receiving a correction. No feelings need to be hurt in this case, and life goes on.

However, if the conversation goes like this, then you must understand that you are probably lining yourself up for disappointment:

ADMIN: "There have been some complaints about how you said that Sara can't sew very well. It's bothering a few people. This is considered metagaming because you're changing a character without the permission of the person who owns that character."

YOU: "Well Sara messed up that outfit that she made for Patty. So she can't really sew."

ADMIN: "But that isn't really up to you to decide, is it? Would you like it if the person who plays Sara decided that your character Greg was really clumsy? Or a bad basketball player? Or that he couldn't swim?"

YOU: "That's not what I'm doing. Sara messed up that outfit for Patty. Remember?"

ADMIN (getting frustrated): "Yes, I do remember that. But I'm asking you to please stop doing it. Sara's keeper gets to decide what her talents are, not you. She may have improved her sewing ability since then, or it might have been a one time mistake. Stop doing it. I'm asking you to stop doing it."

YOU: "Okay."

I assume at this point that you can see how an administrator might be frustrated with this conversation, and might be telling themselves in the back of their mind that they need to watch this person for metagaming in the future, because it could be an ongoing problem and the player may need to be more forcefully (physically) corrected with a temporary ban or moderated posts if they are available.

Interestingly, in the first case I, as an admin, would be more likely to give the person more chances than in the first case, because it's obvious that they understand that they did something wrong and they are going to try to correct it. We currently have a member at Foster Forest who consistently does this, and this person is a pleasure to have around and is not at risk of further discipline at all because they are genuinely trying to work with us.

Unfortunately, what tends to happen is that the member in the second example will often continue to exhibit the same behavior with whatever the original problem was. In one case we had someone who was bratting in the extreme, and we had to correct them. This person's response to correction was so bad that their response itself got them banned.

The key factor here is to be gracious. The administrators of your group work their tail ends off to bring you the best group they can. That means keeping negativity and drama out of the group whenever possible. It means taking care of fairly large numbers of sensitive people, and trying to do so diplomatically. It means doing unpleasant things, like handling the correction of adults who should know that following the rules is a requirement of the game.

Show the staff of your group respect. This is imperative. Respecting the staff of your group may make the difference between receiving a private and a public correction (because sometimes having "witnesses" is a good thing) and it might make the difference in whether or not you find yourself getting banned.

Accept correction gracefully. If you don't understand what you're being corrected for, ask. If you're still confused, ask for another person to explain it to you. Most groups have more than one staff member and we all communicate differently. There is no shame in asking!

No Foster Forest Ad for April

Generally speaking I post the Foster Forest ads in the last day of the previous month. In this case, that would be today. March has been a particularly tough month at Foster Forest, however, and I feel that it would be inappropriate to invite people into the group while we're really just picking things up again and getting moving in an upward and onward direction.

Look for May's ad on April 30th!

Metagaming is about PEOPLE, not THINGS

You cannot metagame an object; you can only metagame a person. If you have made actions for or changed the personality of a character not of your own creation, then you are metagaming. At Foster Forest Family Role Play, this could result in a ban.

The reason I'm bringing this up today is because one of our members asked the question of whether or not it is considered metagaming to find scrap around the community compound.

Obviously the simple answer is that "no," it is not, because in order to be metagaming, one would have to be acting on behalf of, or characterizing, a character not belonging to them. Since the objects have no ability to act independently and have no personality, this is not metagaming.

In the case of my specific example (which I gave yesterday in my article about metagaming), the individual who was causing the problems adjusted the personality of at least two entire families to reflect their own needs so that their thread would work.

Metagaming is never okay, and the majority of groups have some kind of a policy against it. However, object placement for convenience may be a different story, depending on the group that you are in.

In the case of Foster Forest, we allow limited object placement. For example, one new member changed the entire structure of the main house at Foster Forest (and was asked to redo their arrival thread as a result). This type of behavior is not okay. However, getting into the scrap wood pile (which does exist) and digging out some boards is acceptable.

The important thing here is this: When in doubt, ask. If you are visiting the Williams house and you need to use the clothes line, why don't you ask first if there is one instead of making an assumption that could be upsetting to the person who lives in that home? It might take a bit longer, but you are virtually guaranteed not to get into trouble over it!

The Admin Said I Metagamed! Wait... What?

So the admin of your favorite role playing site has told you that you've metagamed, and you've been given a warning that if you do it again, you could be banned! But what is metagaming, and why is it such a bad thing? How do you know if you've metagamed? What should you do if you realize that you've done it?

Metagaming refers to one member writing for a character that they are not logged into or, more importantly, do not play.

If you are new to role playing, or if you've been in the ageplay role playing community for a while, you might not know what metagaming is. It's not a word used outside of the role playing community, and the term most often used in the ageplay community is "power play" (which is incorrect and which I will address in a later post).

Here is an example: I play Peter Grisson at Foster Forest Family Role Play. He is an artistic type, often brooding, not always thinking through everything that he says or does. He loves women. Lots and lots of women. He is fastidiously tidy, health conscious and a great cook. He gets totally absorbed in his work when he's painting, but he is a wonderful and loving father.

Two members of Foster Forest decided that Peter was pretty stupid, mainly because he's always lost in his own world and doesn't always remember names particularly well. They played the game of continually poking at his intelligence until one of them finally got bored. But the other found that it was humorous, and continued to do this for a very long time (to the point that it was annoying not only to me but to other members). Later on, this same member made a post suggesting that Peter had chosen to leave an area of his home untidy enough that there were usable items left outside the house (on the porch or lawn). Peter would never, ever do this. This is a clear example of metagaming.

The previous paragraph is a true example of something that happened recently on Foster Forest. A temporary ban was implemented as a result of this behavior due to the fact that the member was a persistent metagamer who had been corrected on several occasions.


So why is metagaming bad? You have a story that you want to tell, and you need a specific situation in order to make that story happen. Why can't you use somebody else's character as a vehicle to make your story happen, as in the example above?

The answer is pretty simple: Because you don't know that character as well as the person who created them.

Returning to my previous example, Peter wasn't as stupid as he was coming across to other members. This might have been poor writing on my part, or it could be that his apparent absentmindedness was a vehicle that I was using for his own character. I know my characters better than anybody else does. I know what they would do. I know who can cook, who's a bad driver, which ones are strict, which ones are pushovers. Just as you know your own characters best, I know mine best.

The golden rule applies here: Do unto others what you would have them do unto you. If you prefer not to have someone else decide how your character thinks and acts, don't metagame somebody else's character!

Is metagaming ever okay?

Yes, sometimes. If I am logged into Peter's account and I need for Toby to make a small action, I might metagame Toby. If I am playing Peter and he is in an argument with Kevin, I can ask Kevin's keeper if it's okay with her if I make a minor action for Kevin.

Let me make it clear that this only pertains to Foster Forest. If you are in another role playing group, their metagaming rules might be entirely different. However, I would like to point out that metagaming is always seriously frowned upon in role play circles.

Metagaming is when you post actions for another character other than the one you are playing yourself. It is generally frowned upon and at Foster Forest, it may get you banned. 

If you need more help understanding metagaming, you can also view this post. 

Characterizing Your Inner Kid

A while back, I asked the question "how do you characterize your inner kid?" Well, nobody answered, so I'm going to spend some time answering this question myself.

Any time that you choose to take an emotionally real inner child into a role playing game, you are going to have to do something to make them into a character.

Now understand that I'm not telling you that you should remove all emotional connection that you have to your inner child, or that anyone who creates a character from scratch has no emotional attachment to that character. However, the majority of role playing games start out by giving you a setting, a back story, and a purpose. (Look at the Foster Forest Family Roleplay site for examples.) In order to fit in with this purpose and vision from the owner of the site, you are going to have to have something more than just a personality; You are going to need to have a whole person.

Remember that most of our IKs are in reality simply a personality, usually a part of ourselves that just hasn't grown up. They have no history apart from our own, and that history may not fit in with the vision for the game.

I have a total of three inner kids who are currently recognizable as separate personalities. All three of them are active on my ageplay role playing game. Each of them has a unique and entirely separate personality from the others, including their original families and their circumstances before arriving at Foster Forest. So how did I build their histories, and why did I choose to do it the way that I did?

To start with, let's talk about Toby. She is the longest-running role play character that I currently have. There is a lot of my inner child in this character. And yet yes, she is still a character.

Toby's character began in a different environment than where she is now, and yet she has always been the same; A fourteen year-old child who has been abused (sexually and physically) by her father and his friends since she was nine years old (when her mother passed away). She's been through a life of hell and back, but she is incredibly talented both intellectually and artistically.

The way that I reached this characterization for Toby was to take a lot of what her personality was, and reverse engineer her. Why would she possibly have the low self esteem that has made her anorexic (and when I'm in her head space in r/l, it's almost impossible for me deal with food and issues relating to food)? I tweaked her character to reach that personality trait, assuming that the issues that she's been through in her life would result in her low self-esteem.

Over time, Toby became a solid character. The reasons why she aren't with her parents are obvious: her mother is dead and her father was an alcoholic abuser who is now in prison. She fits in with the theme of Foster Forest because she had trouble settling and fitting in with other foster care environments. She is both an inner child and a character.

If you would like information for how I characterized Rachel, please ask in the comments and I will do my best to explain it. Both she and Mickey were engineered differently, starting out as characters before I recognized them as inner kids. In Mickey's case, I had to see that she had just aged in order to reach acceptance. You can find out more about my processes on my blog Confessions of an Inner Kid.

How Do You Ageplay?

The discussion topic for April is this: How do you age play? You will see that there is a poll in the right-hand side bar. You can choose more than one option because some of us have more than one way that we find an outlet through age play.

Please use the options to the right as a guide for your responses, and leave your responses as comments to this post. I'm interested to hear what you have to say!