Adult is graphic and gratuitous violence as well as explicit sexual content. That includes sex. Mature cuts off short of that.

A game doesn't need to be mature or adult rated to have a serious story. Many have succeeded with just the general rating.

Just so you're aware, "Adult" rated games have nothing to do with the game system itself and everything to do with the content.



That policy can apply to any game, any system, as long as the game creator has decided they want to have the option for their game to potentially include material as outlined above, whether it's run using D&D or FATAL.

If you're interested in exploring certain more serious themes you might consider looking into games that are looking for players and flagged as being "Mature".  However the best way is to read the "Game Info" for games that you're interested in as well as any public facing posts, which should help you know exactly what sort of game the GM is trying to run and whether the plot and potential thematic elements would be ones you are interested in.

This link will take you to the FAQ which should help give you answers concerning the differences between Adult, Mature, and unflagged games.

/help/?t=faqs&page=adultpolicy

It also says crime and gore, which means I'm just banned from using some D&D monsters, like the Gibbering Mouther(Which would fall into the gore category).

I've been playing here for over 13 years, and you can have full, meaty, vibrant games without so much as the Mature flag. Just take into account the attitude you're presenting: you want people to let you play games you can take seriously, but you aren't willing to take seriously any game that isn't prepared to include sex-porn or gore-porn. I've never seen any published module for any RPG I've played that would ever require an Adult flag, and the only one I played that would require a Mature flag was a World of Darkness adventure with a drug trade involved.

Really, just give the games you're allowed into a chance. I guarantee you'll only get super childish games if you literally go looking for them. Just be aware that your complaint sounds pretty childish on its own. Trust me when I say you aren't missing anything you're asking for.



Gibbering Mouthers aren't gore, and the flag is for explicit, gratuitous gore specifically. Gibbering Mouthers are just mounds of flesh with mouths that never stop babbling. You don't need a Mature/Adult flag for that, unless you decide that yours in particular are specifically gore monsters, and you decide to describe them in sickening detail.

Heck, you include sex in games that aren't flagged Mature/Adult, long as you don't show it. Or include children, because even the Adult flag won't save you there.

To put the ratings in movie terms: Adult is NC-17, Mature is R, and General (neither Adult or Mature) is PG-13. RPoL only restricts access to Adult games; Mature is freely available.

Also, keep in mind that the quality of the game has nothing to do with the flags. There will be some incredibly phenomenal General/ Mature games and some truly awful Adult games-- and everything in between. It all depends on the GM and the group. The only difference with the flags is where the boundaries of description and detail are.

General isn't explicitly intended to be used for childish games, just games that don't feel the need to be incredibly graphic to run a good story. So, while there could  be some "Barney's Magic Castle" under General (someone running a game for their 5 yr old-- not the norm)... there could also be some "Barney's Magic Castle" under Adult. But we all really hope there isn't.... >_>

As mentioned, when you look at games, go through and read the game description and public threads  to see if it's at the level of seriousness/ complexity you want rather judging it by what the flag is. You'll find better matches for the type of GM and group you want to play with that way as well-- which is key to enjoying whatever game you are in.

I have been in Adult, Mature, and General games and they were all of the same level of substance, so don't think that being restricted to General or Mature is a bad thing, or a punishment, because it really isn't. It's a legal thing.

And just as a friendly reminder... you really aren't allowed in Adult games as a 15 yr old... again, for legal reasons. So, don't even try to get into any-- it's really not worth it to make that kind of impression on the mods when there are plenty of other excellent games to choose from that come punishment free. ^_^'

And what's stopping you?

As others have said, the rating doesn't affect the story, only the level of detail in the in-game descriptions.
This message was last edited by the user at 08:55, Sat 28 Apr 2018.

Frankly, on rpol, I've found that games with the Adult tag fall into two categories. The first is just a GM that doesn't care enough about the rules to read them far enough in detail to learn what the limits of mature are and lazily slap the Adult tag onto their game "just in case." The second are the kind that want to actively use the tag gratuitously, and those tend to be the most immature kind of game on room, in my opinion.  I'm sure there are other reasons it gets added, but those two kinds are common enough that "Adult" has become a warning sign of a game that might have a major flaw in it to me.

If you want to play a game with mature themes and story, play a general game or a mature game.  You don't need graphic descriptions of gore or sexuality to play a game with an adult story.  And, as you grow more experienced, I suspect you will come to both acknowledge and agree with that.

If you do a bit of searching, you can find plenty of games that are both serious and below the Adult rating.  I run four games currently and only one of them has the big nasty 'A' next to it and, to be honest, that was at the behest of my players, despite no graphic gore or sexuality having sprung up.

Yes, the most common one being that the site rules actually require it, due to the game containing material that we do not permit with the Mature and General ratings.  This reason accounts for the vast majority of Adult games on RPoL.

While both of those are indeed sometimes reasons why you see Adult games, I've run into far more Adult games that were rated thus not for their public scenes, but because certain players specifically requested such a rating so that they could explore more in-depth Adult themes within their PM scenes/private conversations. Also, so the GM doesn't have a constant headache of trying to police PM scenes and/or risk losing players that want to go there privately. You can call that 'lazy' if you want, but it's really more just smart on the GM's part.

I play almost exclusively in Adult games at this point, and I can safely say that I've never actually encountered one that abused the tag in a way that I would consider gratuitous. That said, as many others have pointed out, "Serious" =/= "Adult", and the OP can almost certainly find a game that appeals to them within the rules of RPoL.

I play in a couple of Der Rot Konig's games, and they certainly come jam-packed with 'serious plot' - my characters have had gunfights and brawled hand-to-hand, for example. It's all in the way you describe things, in the language that you use.

For that matter, I've sometimes had, in General games, to upbraid a player for using 'Adult' language (although quite why the 'f-bomb' counts as 'Adult' I'm not very sure, it's generally a sign of immaturity even when there's a very, very good reason for wanting to swear.)

Likewise with sex. In one game my character has just got married. Retiring to the wedding chamber, the happy couple have very tastefully described undressing each other and gazing on the wonders revealed before heading for bed and a FADE TO BLACK. Everyone knows what the pair of them are up to, but there's no need to describe it in detail (we have decided not to even cover it in PMs, just wrapping it up as a night in which neither slept very much!) and we're now waiting for game time to move on to the next morning.

The 'Adult' tag is for those who'd like to write a bit of porn, or describe their battles in graphic detail. There's a place for that, of course, but if it's role-playing you are after, you probably will find less of it in such circles than you'd find elsewhere on RPoL.

  I have  Game  were    people are attacked by creatures..and  attack Creatures  that cause bloodshed  and   helps  keep the     title  'darker' game.

  we have Comedy relief...but its just that, its not meant to  be  goofy, nor is it meant to be porn?...

 I grew up watching/reading scifi and Fantasy  and history,  to have  an edge, like  watching  Buffy  or  Supernatural or a  spaghetti  western....Sex  is  faded to black..

 My games  are  rated  M..  and i try hard  not to  take   younger players,  because  I want  players  who will 'be there' and   grow the charcters, as   well as be affected,by the plot, as they ..affect the plot.

Swordmasterg, I’m more than four times your age, and I’ve never run or played in an Adult game here - there’s absolutely no need.
I think you’re creating barriers for yourself through a misinterpretation of the flags.

The A-tag is, as others have said, is for games that contain stuff that really has no place in a game (IMO).
The Adult tag is for people who want to describe in detail the flow of bodily fluids, the red kind and the other kind. If you don’t need to go into that sort of detail in a game (and, IMO, who does?) the Mature tag is the most you need.

Most of the D&D games I played at college would fall into the General category (except for the language we used at the table, but it’s easy to curb that in a written format).

You can chop orcs’ heads off in a General game (remember the nursery rhyme Oranges and Lemons?) Just don’t describe the gristle.

If you want to run/play a Bruce Willis game with the bad guys running drugs or girls, use the Mature tag. Just don’t describe anyone using the ‘products’.

Did you see The Woman in Black? That had a Mature tag. If you have the wit to handle a game without raw descriptions of shoving things in or ripping things out, you can do without the Adult tag, believe me. It’s just so unnecessary.

Your ability to create fun, adventure, suspense, terror, threat, etc, has nothing to do with age or tags, it's about creativity. You want to give up over a tag, go ahead. You want to demonstrate your creativity, go ahead with that, too, you don't need an Adult tag to do it.

I think that's a bit simplistic. IRL we don't swear because we're adults, we swear because it's how language works. Yes, you may find it gratuitous - and it often is - but that doesn't make it any less real. I think what the mods are going for it less of a "adult language is for adults" vibe (because anyone who's ever visited a school knows that's a load of hooey) and more for a "we don't want to get the site closed down because adults are overly sensitive when it comes to their children" vibe. (Which is totally understand, even if I am 100% against censorship. Better the imperfect site we have access to than the perfect site we don't, amirite?)

There are really three (very broad, very general) categories people fit into: people who use it inappropriately (and therefore probably shouldn't be in an adult game anyway), people who don't have the vocabulary to express themselves with more appropriate language (sadly common these days), and people whose characters just... speak like that. For an example of the latter, I personally despise swearing in writing - I agree with you, it shows a lack of maturity and rarely adds anything meaningful to the dialogue - but I am currently playing a character who drops the occasional f-bomb because she grew up on the streets of NYC and, frankly, that's how real people talk. (Then again, she's not gratuitous with the word; it's only come up one in the game, and that was for a good reason.)

Not necessarily. I always tag my games as Adult, and it's very rare that they are graphic in any way. In many situations, they could be run without the tag. I think the last time I had a graphic adult scene in one of my games was at least four years ago. The reason I use the tag is because I don't want to place restrictions on the game that, depending on the story, could explore darker themes. By adding the tag, I have the least amount of restrictions and don't even have to think about it.

It's just simpler that way.

In other words, you might want to describe in detail the flow of bodily fluids, the red kind and the other kind, later. Right. :)

Wanting to describe something and wanting to have the freedom to describe something can be mutually exclusive.

Sometimes, people use the Adult tag simply because they prefer more "mature" players.

This seemed like a useful thread until it turned into a free-for-all critique of play styles that people don't like.

@ Ekorren: That looks like a pretty barren piece of ground from where I'm standing. It exists, but I can't see much point in owning it.

@ Hunter: Alas, maturity has little to do with age. I've seen seven-year-olds with more common sense than some so-called adults. I have no age restrictions on my games, I judge players by what's between their ears, not what's on their birth certificate. If they act immaturely and cause me trouble, I'll kick 'em out, whatever their age.

@ Hapax: It's as useful as the OP finds it.

I think it makes a lot of sense to use the adult tag to keep the freedom for that content, even if you don't personally want it.  I run adult games, but I don't personally want to jump into a heated scene, or describe gore in detail.  I do,however, want my players to be able to deal with very mature, sometimes dark content without having to stop the game and retro-actively erase messages or change the game to adult because someone decided to pass that line.  I'd prefer to leave it an option from the onset.

doesn't mean I personally want to describe bodily fluids, I just don't want my game shut down if others decide to do so.

@ Gladiusdei: If I tag a game as Mature, that tells players what I want and what I don't want in it.

If players don't want that restriction, they shouldn't join the game. If they add stuff that crosses the line, I'll delete it. If they persist, I'll delete them. End of.

I'm not going to use the A-tag to exclude a whole group of creative young people just for the benefit of a few 'immature' folk who can't keep to the rules, and who insist on doing things I don't want to do in the first place.

Who's running the game?

you just, uh, reversed what I said.  I DO want the freedom to allow my players to write that sort of thing, or at least get close to the line, without it negatively effecting the game.  It doesn't mean I myself want to write it.  I just don't want it to be an issue.

especially because the rules for exactly what constitutes adult gets a little vague.  You're probably right, though, I don't NEED to make them adult.  I just choose to err on the side of caution.  it costs me the possibility of good players, but that's my choice.

if you feel you want to include the creative young people in your game by limiting the content, that's great.  I choose to not limit the content, thus limiting my player base.  It's a trade off you have to personally decide on.  Neither is wrong, just creates different games.

Riveting though this discussion of personal preferences in game ratings is, I think we're getting way off the original topic, which was that a 15 year old player is disappointed to discover that there are games on the site that the GMs have chosen to exclude him from.

Some of his disappointment may have stemmed from a misunderstanding of the site's rules: in particular a belief that all General and Mature rated games are required to be too childish for his tastes, and all the "good stuff" (in his opinion) is hidden in the Adult games.  However, it's worth noting that even if we didn't have a rule excluding minors from Adult games, there would still be games that he couldn't join (due to GM decisions regarding his RTJ).

We are going to continue using the ratings that we currently have to describe games, and GMs are free to use them (or not) in any way they see fit, and for any reason they choose, as long as they do not violate the site's rules.  It's their decision, and nobody else has any right to criticise them for it.