Re: “Adult” games access as age proxy?
I’m not under any illusion that my suggestions will change the mind of someone who is already entrenched in a particular way of doing things (no more than they will change mine), but my take on these matters may provide food for thought for the OP and others who are investigating the relative merits of different approaches to the grading of their games.
Clearly, if you intend, or suspect, that your game will contain graphic Adult material (of whatever type) at some point in its life, then you should label it as Adult from the outset, or at the very least make it clear that the game may upgrade (or should that be downgrade?) its label to Adult at a later date. That way, everyone going into the game knows what they’re signing up for.
Of course you don’t want to lose players who want change to Adult status, but neither do you want to lose players who don’t want to change. Unless your group is unanimous in wanting to change the game’s grade, changing is generally a bad idea. And if they are unanimous in wanting to play Adult, why didn’t they play Adult from the start?
I don’t really see this concept of ‘grade creep’. I suspect it may be largely an apocryphal rationale created by GMs who want to exclude youngsters from their games with an excuse of ‘we might want to include Adult material later’. Surely the GM and the players all know what sort of game they want to play, and that’s what they sign up for. Why would anyone (much less everyone) want to change their concept of the game? It’s like starting out with a sci-fi game and then changing it to fantasy halfway through…
Nothing in a Mature game prevents the exploration of romance or combat, the only difference is in the amount of graphic description that goes into it. People can have sex, do drugs, and kill one another in Mature games, they simply don’t describe the precise, graphic, methodology of so doing. (and IMO, why would they want to? But that’s just me. YMMV.)
And I still maintain that, in general, teenagers are no more of a problem for GMs than post-18s. I’m not talking about young, Disney kids here, but teenagers who want to explore Mature themes and issues, and are excluded from doing so by GMs who rate their games Adult through a perception of ‘irresponsible teenagers’. If you get a player of any age who acts irresponsibly, kick ‘em out. But I don’t think you’ll find substantially more such players in the 15-18 age group than the 18-25 group – or the 35-40 age group for that matter!
If you want to play Adult, rate your game Adult. If you want responsible players, talk to them.