Opinions on age gaps and teacher-student relationships?

I don’t think it’s so much as who initiates it as the power dynamic as people have mentioned in earlier posts. A teacher will have overall authority over the student regardless, being able to fail them in classes, remove them from classes etc. This doesn’t really change depending on who initiates the romance between the two characters.

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Going to agree with many of the above posters. Gotta be really careful with the type of relationship you’re proposing which is a barely legal teen dating someone who is not only older, but who has a lot more power and influence over them due to their teacher status. The power dynamic is all wrong. There’s a reason why student-teacher relationships in high-schools and universities are usually frowned upon.

Also no it wouldn’t be much of an improvement for me if the student initiated the relationship. They’re still not in control due to the afore mentioned power imbalance and often lesser experience from previous relationships.

(Listen to the song don’t stand so close to me.)

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Is everyone who is against student-teacher relationships in games also against killing, robbing, etc in these games? (As they should be, after all, killing and robbing is also VERY unethical, even more than a student-teacher relationship) This is after all a GAME. There are no victims in a game or in a movie, only people who willingly choose to play it

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For me, it would be really creepy if the teacher was the one initiating it. Especially since this looks like a high school setting. The teacher can still be dominant while not actively trying to pursue it. So I guess I’d feel just a little bit better if they’re not actively pursuing someone that’s essentially still so young. Note: just a little bit better. Again, tread carefully because it can easily get tasteless. I’m not discouraging you, nor am I saying that you shouldn’t do it, I’m just giving my personal thoughts.

And saying “It’s just fiction!” isn’t the best defense tbh. It does affect mindsets, it does affect how people would see it.

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That’s debatable if it sets a precedent.

Yes killing, robbing etc is wrong, but everyone knows that. You have powerful older (usually) men (but there’s been cases of women doing it too) dating barely legal teens and it’s not strictly illegal, just not great on the balance of power front. Giving people with power an ethical green light to go after a partner half their age and very young by normalising it is not something I think should be encouraged personally.

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I completely disagree, people KNOW that relationships with giant age gaps and young people with older, often more influential people are wrong, they look down upon it. It’s totally hypocritical to not give a flying pig that you can murder people, get tortured, rob people etc in these games, but when it comes to a student-teacher relationship, where you yourself decide if you want it or not(and even without the "boss-worker, student-teacher dynamic that exists in real life) everyone points it out like it’s the worst thing ever.
Games are just the place where this can exist, where you can be a badass murderer, a nervous robber or a seductive school student.

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i’m recently recovering from the news where a known celebrity was involved with several fans (some of which are underage). So right now, i’m vehemently against against the idea of any kind relationship with a power imbalance.

If the author can tweak some things, i guess i can be swayed.


As for the age gap, as long as both parties are consenting adults and that there are no grounds of questionable consent, i'm good.

I would guess this thread would be a likely place to continue much of this conversation.

For me I think the most important thing is the audience of the game. If this is an adult game that’s clearly only for adults where all the characters are adults then I say do whatever you want but if it’s an all ages game then I’d tread very very carefully to not normalize anything to a young audience that might not be able to see the issues with it.

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The way I see it, I’m not against unethical behaviours being portrayed in media (books, games, movies or whatever) but I think we, as writers, have a responsibility not to glamourise those behaviours. You can’t just portray something that is extremely problematic in real life as not having any negative consequences whatsoever for the characters involved, just because it’s a game and they’re not real people.

It’s like if an author argued “my game is set in the 50s, it can have sexism in it”. Which, yeah, fine, but are you going to show how that sexism has a negative effect on people, and how it’s wrong? Or are you just going to have characters casually express their sexist views and let those stand unchallenged? There’s a drastic difference between those two approaches.

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Honestly, I’m wondering more about how the MC is 18 but was previously in their 20s? Is this a reincarnation type thing?

Anyway, you’re going to get varying attitudes/opinions on this subject no matter what, so do what you want with them as long as it makes sense story wise for the characters

I’ve written probably one of the more messed up “teacher-student” relationships (And LARGE age gap considering she was a dark elf and the MC a human) which wasn’t even supposed to be romantic in any way and I still get comments/PMs from people wanting an option to romance the “teacher.” Lol.

The only reason why I didn’t is because it just didn’t make sense for those particular characters to wind up “happily ever after” based on their personalities.

By the same token, I wrote another relationship with a similar (though smaller since they’re both human) age gap/student mentor thing going on and it was much more wholesome and it made sense due to the storyline and character’s feelings for each other.

Just follow your vision.

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Glamourising such things is almost never existant. Often, the playable character is, and should be an untrustworthy source of information, we’re not playing as god, but as someone human. But I agree that there definitly should be challenges, and people who stand in the way of doing the “wrong” thing. If it just “happaned” without any reaction where’s even the point in the “forbidden” relationship then

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In the majority of CS games, romances of any nature “just happen.” – The “forbidden” aspect is a siren to many readers who want to go on a power fantasy where they can enact their “fantasy of the forbidden” without needing to confront any consequences or face any challenges.

There would be a lot more acceptance if these “forbidden relationships” were well written challenges that explore the romance in-depth. That is both beyond most CS game author’s visions, and beyond their ability to pull off.

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I would love to read something like that tbh! I mean, it’s an option and any reader who feels uncomfortable can avoid that dynamic altogether, right? That’s what interactive stories are all about. I think you should write that path if you want to, as long as it’s optional.

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Imho the thing about interactive fiction, and fiction in general, is that you are free to explore options that you would not be able to do so or don’t want to do so, either being a coldblooded vampire to a fumbling and shy person who couldn’t hurt a fly, and student-teacher relationships have always been present in fiction stories for the same reason, especially because more often than not it’s written in the eyes of the student and who hasn’t had a crush on a cute teacher before lol.

In the end i think it shouldn’t be a deal breaker especially because as other folks have pointed up, it’s entirely up to the user to pursue that relationship, suppose you could err on the side of caution and put a content/trigger warning about it.

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And people shouldn’t confront any consequences when it’s a game. For instance, what about a lot of the people in the BDSM communities? Rape play is the consensual reenactment of rape, consensual (like when you say yes to playing a game, knowing what it includes). This is also to fulfill a fantasy, but in a way where there are no victims, rape play isn’t for people who, if they didn’t do the rape play, would rape people, there is a big difference between that of fantasies, and real life crimes. Normal people ARE able to distinguish between these

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I enjoy reading romances where the relationship is problematic, or even toxic, but only when the narrative treats it as such. When it’s treated like there’s no problem, it’s either boring or too uncomfortable to read.

This specific age gap, though, is something I have changed my mind on. When I was 15-20 years old, I didn’t see any problem, because I felt plenty mature, so if people my age wanted to date older people, that didn’t seem so bad. But now that I’m almost 30, and for the last 5 or such years, the difference in maturity is very obvious, and uncomfortable, and I have trouble understanding why anyone over the age of 24 would want to date an 18 year old.

I don’t personally have a problem with taboo content in fiction and games, as long as it has proper warnings, and is marketed for what it is.

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I keep trying to explain myself and end up falling short, so I’m going to leave it at this.

I don’t care about the age gap thing. I’m uncomfortable with the student-teacher thing but agree if it were optional AND if I trusted that it was handled well, then I’d probably be willing to play the game and just skip that route.

The age regression thing, “You were a twentysomething but now you’re eighteen again” … that bothers me a lot in the context of RO stuff. I’m having trouble explaining precisely why, but I feel like it creates some really muddy waters about consent and power dynamics in pretty much any relationship, and I would be unwilling to pursue any. I might still be willing to play the vanilla game if I thought it would be reasonably fulfilling on an RO-less path, but I’d take some convincing.

Doesn’t mean that the story is wrong or bad, of course, or that there aren’t plenty of people who would be totally on board. Maybe I’m just a prude, lol. But I thought maybe it was worth mentioning it and how it does or doesn’t play with the other stuff going on here.

edit: Apparently I didn’t read the thread carefully enough and @rose-court already brought a lot of this up. So, uh, seconding that I guess. :laughing:

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Any further discussion on game design or theory should be held elsewhere going forward.

Anyone ignoring this warning (ignorance is no excuse) will be subject to moderation.

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I don’t see why this is threatening to derail the thread, as I came forward with a real life example of why a teacher-student relationship wouldn’t necessarily be bad in a game, due to the consent given when buying the game.
(And obviously I don’t know how quotes work…)

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