You're right. It is a lot of assumption, but tight knit families are hard enough when your parents are 30 years older. I can't imagine it'd be easier if they were 200 years older.
Doesn't seem to actually be all that hard for most cultures the world over.
That said, sure. Totally plausible. But it probably wouldn't be a Kingdom with a strong class system of land ownership.
Sure
People do still write classical music, yup. Also Folk stylings and "Traditional" music based on their culture (which can range across centuries of different styles which is why I put it in scare quotes, 'cause it's all lumped together inaccurately)
Maybe. Maybe.
I don't see any posible future where it goes the other way, but i wouldn't mind being wrong about this one.
IF. POPULAR. If not? Tough luck. That's the point. The option is largely gone, even if you can find something for -some- models.
Most common models. Just like any other part for older cars.
Yeah, you can get it on some models 'cause not all the cranks are gone, but once they are, they are. Same with old style refrigerator units where the Iceman has to pop by with a chunk for you, or Bed-Cabinets they used to use. Things go away and eventually just will not come back. No matter how much someone wants them to.
There aren't a limited number of cranks. Dorman is still making new window regulators, levers, and other components, to replace older style window controls. There are easily tens of thousands of cars with manual crank windows just in California, from a nearly 100 year range of decades, and a hundred different manufacturers.
Sometimes it's because of technological advancement, sometimes it's because society no longer likes the thing, sometimes it's because of economics (Those bed-cabinets are more expensive than a good door lock and as houses got bigger the parents could have their own room with no kids hearing the thumping noises... well usually)
Sure. Call it decades. Call it Centuries. Elf's got time for it to no longer be an option.
Some stuff disappears in less than a decade, it doesn't have a hugely significant impact on how people view the world.
Ahhh, but will it fluoresce under a black light?
And the answer is sure, maybe... But that's not really the point, either. The point is that sometimes things are lost to time and circumstance. And sometimes they're gone for good (reason).
Sure, stuff changes. I just don't think stuff changes so fundamentally all that often that people would be super alien because their dad is 600 years old.
One thing to consider is that you simply cannot have a species that matures at the same rate as humans, and then deteriorates and calcifies at the same rate, that also lives healthily into their 700's.
It's extremely unlikely that elves crystalize like humans do, and if they
do, that it happens any time before their last couple centuries of natural lifespan. That, combined with the posited scenario wherein they live alongside more shortlived folk, makes a lot of the ideas in this thread extremely unlikely.
An elf born in the 60s 300 years from now, as technology and society advance to and beyond the nightmare scenario you're describing would probably be considered conservatives...
People born in the 60s are in their 60s, now. And most of them are moderates 'cause Gen X was progressive for the 70s and 80s but is moving toward being regressive compared to politics these days. But moderate -today- is gonna be conservative a long time from now. Think of moderate policies in the 60s and compare them to moderate policies today. Extrapolate 300 years.
You know what was pretty progressive in the 60s to the point of being radical? Interracial Marriage. That's not radical, today, that's not even Moderate. That's just absolutely normalized outside of racists.
I -think- what you were actually aiming for was people born in the 40s and 50s and became the hippies of the 60s and 70s. Flower Children and all, right? Yeah... these days we call 'em "Boomers" soooo...
I'm not sure what you're replying to with this chunk of text. Help?
The basic premise isn't "Who you are as a kid or teen is who you are as an adult" so much as "The weight of history rests on our shoulders and the older we are the more removed we are from younger generations and any people who live through fifteen or twenty generations is going to be very out of touch"
If humans lived that long, sure. Elves aren't humans. Part of why humans get that way is that it gets harder to internalize new stuff as you get older, especially if you don't make a habit of doing so regularly. Who says this is true for elves?
Most of our rules and customs -restrain- us from doing impulsive newfangled stuff until it reaches a cultural tipping point that is considered "Socially Acceptable" and then it gets adopted by society once it's been more or less proven not to be destructive to society. Except there will, of course, always be a group of people mired in the past dreaming of halcyon days that may never have been that continues to rail against it for a generation or two.
Right...and I posited that elves society might well have rules and customs that push in the opposite direction, because they have inclinations toward stagnation that are unhealthy if allowed to run rampant.
And while Elven Society would probably be fairly stagnant, only slowly opening up to new stuff... would it be disastrous for those elves? Maybe if they got into a war and staunchly refused to use those "Newfangled Firearms" but I don't think that would be a serious issue in most campaign settings.
Yes. Unambiguously. Imagine spellcraft is like computer technology. Now imagine that someone was really into difference engines back in the day, but hasn't approved of any new computer tech since WWII. Do they allow cell phones in their house? Do they know how to use a mouse and keyboard? Do they have any kind of internet connection? Did they update to the new system when analog TV went kaput? Now imagine a whole nation of people like that, in today's world. They are utterly screwed.
Not to mention that significant stagnation is bad
in and of itself. It deteriorates the fabric of social orders, leads to stratification and thus to unrest, and tends to push a civilization toward collapse.
'Cause again: This is about D&D characters
I doubt anyone here is unaware of this.
Since we don't have timelines of technological and arcane advancement for Faerun, it's much easier to discuss this in terms of the real world, however.
