Hi, everyone

Following two of my previous posts; how do you play a child adventurer; and, my question about what kind of warlock patron this might be. In which I discuss how to play a child adventurer and then attempt to come up with a way that a child could have acquired power and ability within a D&D setting, I am now eager to get a consensus on the communities idea of the ideal age range for a Dungeons and Dragons 5e character.

To that end, I have opened up this poll to the community.  Please vote for your preferred age range and feel free to continue the discussion in the comments.

The question; and the topic of discussion is, what is the best age range for a D&D 5e character?  I am looking forward to seeing all your votes, as well as continuing the discussion by reading and responding to your comments, thoughts and opinions in the threads discussion feed.

With regards

Foxes XD.

Best age range depends entirely on the campaign. For example, D&D Beyond is launching (tonight) their family orientated stream Roll in the Family, which features child characters. It's a family friendly show and as such, the adventures are suitable for child characters as well as young viewers. I've run one shots featuring younger characters and have tailored the scenarios appropriately.

However, it would be incredibly questionable to put child characters in situations that would be appropriate for adult characters. Scenarios including various types of graphic/non-comic violence, situations of adult themes of varying nature, etc.

There's no best age range other than "what's appropriate". If I was running a mature themed campaign set in a war torn country and you came to me with a 9 year old character, I'd ask you come back with someone who fits the campaign better.

Ultimately it's a session zero discussion, establish with your DM what is appropriate.

Also your survey is flawed on several levels; obviously 'best' is a subjective and contextual criteria as mentioned. That aside, it should allow multiple choices because some people may want to pick wider age ranges (say 18+) and, more importantly, age means different things to different races. A 9 year old human, a 9 year old kobold and a 9 year old tortle are all very different characters.

Xanathar's Guide to Everything lists 20 (Human) years or younger at 20% (1-20 on d100) but also having only one major life event period. Older ages have d4-d12 life experiences depending on age.

That's something to consider. Age is a catalog of events that grows. Too young and a person doesn't have much of an experience repertoire. Exceptions exist but they are, by definition, exceptional.

Personally, I say 17-20 as at that age you have wanderlust and a lack of fear, but enough caution that you're not running into the jaws of a deadly encounter. It also sets you at a point where not being settled down makes more sense, which gives more credence to the adventuring lifestyle because if you have a SO and kids it's probably not a good idea to be running into life-threatening danger when adventurers could handle it for you. Level is also a factor. Higher levels generally mean an older character with more experience, while lower levels generally mean a younger character without a lot of experience under their belt, yet. Personally I don't allow super young characters at my tables. The age range changes, but usually I make it so that they have to at least be a teenager. Though, that might be because I as a DM like exploring darker themes. In the end it's up to the table, but generally speaking there is an age where it's too young, though what age that is exactly I can't say.

I would not as a DM allow characters under 18—it just doesn't feel realistic, unless all the characters are young, for a child to join a group of adults on a life-or-death adventure. Reasonably, the other characters would be unlikely to bring a kid along, and the kid probably wouldn't have the capability to keep up with them anyway. Granted, my idea of fantasy is Lord of the Rings, The Witcher, or Game of Thrones; I try to stay as far away from cheesy anime-type stuff as I can. If your game is lighter, less lethal, and less realistic, a child character could work, but even then I'd require them to be at least 16-ish, because emotional maturity is important on adventures, you know?

P.S. I suspect the people voting "9 to 12 years" may not have read the post and interpreted the poll as "at what age should kids create their first D&D character?"

I think context of the campaign is important;  If I am in Eberron the age chosen (and race) impacts whether I might have served in the Last War. If I did, I might need a 'term of service' and then the couple of years break, which puts you in the lower twenties.

A campaign of new scrappy adventures, could be easily 17-18.   But they would be fresh off the farm, and would have little more than the basics of a background.  Some things aren't logical to me; a 17 year old 'Sage' isn't believable, but renaming it to promising student could be. :)

I personally don't like characters under 16; Moody teenagers I have in real life; don't want to roleplay them or be around role played ones. :)

I prefer the 21-30 (Human) range for the 1d4 events as proposed in XGtE, but I'll roll a d100 for the age range from the XGtE table (and scale the age for other races). I like chaos to pick the framework of the character and I make the second half of the Cadavre Exquis on my side of the paper.

I most often get the 21-30 range when rolling on XGtE's table. I got 4 life events for one of those and wowsers that character's life was full of woe that was difficult to get around. I got 1 life event for another and it was a hilarious weird event that became seriously life-changing. I love XGtE's more-often moments of levity. PHB and DMG have their moments, too.

On one 61+ character, I rolled 11 life events and it was essentially a trail of broken hearts. That was also fun to play - old letch with the high charisma to match. (He never did the horizontal mambo with anyone, though. While some habits don't die, experience from age did temper playing with people's feelings. It only took one truly broken heart to change Don Juan.)

For humans? 

The poll demographics seem to end awfully early to me - 25 to 65 is not exactly a homogenous group of people. My table has an average age over 40 and we are very rarely playing teens/young adults. I think a lot of people gravitate towards playing characters their own age.

I enjoy playing grizzled veterans, or just simply experienced people. I find it really hard to believe that a wizard is going to reach the peak of his/her power at 25.

XGtE (it's got lots of neat RP stuff) has 21-30 at a Human scale at 39%, 20 or less and 41-50 at 20% each, 31-40 at 10%, 51-60 at 9%, and 61 or more at 1%.

Each age range up gets a bigger die to determine life events with only 1 for the lowest range.

EDIT: I'm missing 1% somewhere. Brain not as good as it was.

EDIT EDIT: 51-60 is also 10%.

Depends on race. For humans, I'd say 25+

I remember reading that human males tend to peak physically around the age of 27, being in my 40s I feel like I agree with that. So I always pick 27 as my character age.

Personally, I would not want to play in a game with someone role-playing as a child. I am not saying someone couldn't play a younger character and not be annoying or creepy, but it seems unnecessary and out of place from a public game perspective. 

You all have some very interesting points.  I just wanted to let you know that I hadn't forgotten about you and I will get to replying to each of you in a little bit.

I prefer playing as a young adult. 20-30 for humans. Of course any adult age works. And that range can vary between 5-700 years depending on race...