Recent Posts

Age level and ratings:
If we do go by the movie rating system, rated "R" technically requires a parent or guardian to to accompany anyone under the age of seventeen. We do have fifteen and sixteen year old players here. You can bet they aren't going to be asking their parents to read through those posts that are rated "R". They probably won't get nightmares, and they can probably handle it... but I don't want our site to be responsible for someone's internet privileges getting taken away because someone's mom caught them reading something with *rated R* in the title.

The "T for Teen" rating / description is probably closer to what we actually have here, though it is still fairly closely aligned with the movie's PG-13 version. For the rating guide:



Again, if we switch to a M rating... we'd be setting a double standard, I feel. If the whole site truly were to change to "M" or to "R" I would feel uncomfortable letting fifteen and sixteen year olds join at all, even if 99% of the content on MRO wouldn't be inappropriate.

Membership issues:
I've dealt with a lot of new members, a lot of advertising, I've looked at a lot of other sites... trends I have noticed for rated "R" or "M" sites is that they tend to attract people that just want to write about gorey violence and/or sex on an anything-goes type of site. Not all the people who join or write on those sites are like that, but for those writers that do want that, that's where they go.

On the other end of the spectrum, we'd be losing a certain percentage of potential members that are either younger or simply are uninterested in joining a site where the content is uber-violent or uber-sexual. They aren't going to stick around long enough to actually read a few threads to determine what percentage are inappropriate and what percentage is just fine, they just won't apply.

I've talked with new members that have come from "R" or "M" sites to MRO. The general sentiment (not from everyone, but from most) seems to be that it isn't too difficult to tone it down and make things more subtle, and that to be on a site as great as this one, it's generally worth it.

Remember that the site rating does affect the crowd of people that are here. It affects the atmosphere in character and out of character, in posts and on the cbox. If we tailor our site to people who want to be as crude as they can, we're going to have a bunch of crude people hanging around.

Subtlety and the impossibility of actually rating literature:
I will agree completely that setting a rating system for literature is very difficult, because it isn't so much about what you write, as how you write it. There are ways to describe murder, for example, that are over the top gorey with squelching sound effects, and there are ways to describe murder that are more subtle, not any less violent, but understated in a way that leaves more of the work up to the imagination of the reader.

Subtlety is not as easy as outright description, but in my opinion it is more enjoyable to read. I enjoy seeing how someone gets around actually saying something outright, because it involves more creativity on their part AND on my part. They imply, I imagine. The reason for this... writing is not only a story, but a dialog between the writer and the reader. On the surface is the story or description, and underneath that are the hidden messages from author to reader, like an inside joke. Author: "Did you see what I did there?" Reader:"Oh yes, yes I did."

Simple example, with swearing:
Blatantly obvious: "Sh!tnuggets," Sebastian said.
Slightly more subtle: "****," Sebastian swore.
Even more subtle: Sebastian used a word even Hunter was too young to understand.

That's my message as an author to you the reader. Rather than spell it out, I've left somethings up to your imagination. What language is Sebby speaking? How harsh of a word was it, actually? You get to decide. Also, in that one sentence, I've managed to remind you that Sebby and Hunter are immortals and that Sebby is the older of the two, and I've given you a mini taste of Sebastian's personality. He's usually so polite, but he'll swear if he doesn't think you'll understand him. See what I did there?

Seriously, subtlety is like candy for your brain. Every time a reader "gets" what an author implies, you get a tiny little jolt to the brain. "Hey, I got the hidden implications. Yay for me!" Then you go back and read more by that author, because your brain likes it even if you don't realize why.

Personal feelings on the subject:
As a player I am opposed to changing the rating system to "R" or "M". I would like to change it to "T", and perhaps even include that official little description on the rules page, or something custom-made but similar. I don't especially want to attract the blatantly violent or blatantly sexual "R" or "M" crowd. I don't want to stumble on the gore by accident while I'm eating lunch at my desk. I don't want to have to be out of the loop on what is happening to people's characters because it happened in an "R" or "M" thread. I also don't think that we particularly need to change the rating system, because you are all good writers and I think you can all step up to the challenge of saying what you want to say with subtlety.

As a moderator, I agree with Calley, if the majority of players want it and the rest don't mind, I'd be willing to go with a change. However, I think we'd have to look whether we still accept 15 and 16 year old applicants, or if we raise the bar to 17.

(As Calley mentioned in her disclaimer... This is my own opinion and not an official mod ruling.)