Races and Ages - Balancing Short-lived and Long-lived

Assume for this discussion that the players involved prefer for there to be a measure of balance between the PCs regardless of race or age.

How do you reconcile the differences between short-lived and long-lived races in your game? By this, I mean how do you "balance" between a 300 year old elf and an 18 year old human in terms of their abilities? Surely the elf is going to be much more highly skilled (even if most game systems seem to ignore this), particularly if they left their Elvish family when very young? And what happens if you compare that 18 year old human with a 35 year old human who has seen almost double the years? How do you "balance" them at the game table?

Robert Schwalb's A Song of Ice and Fire RPG takes an interesting look at this in terms of age (assuming all characters to be human), with numerous benefits and advantages to younger characters while older characters find most forms of development expensive and drawbacks start getting more heavily applied. The young have their destinies on their side (lots of destiny points to spend on new skills or changing poor results to better ones), while the older you are, the more your destiny has been woven into the tapestry - so to speak - with almost no destiny points to spend.

Now this seems like a good idea - although I have not been fortunate enough to put my books to any greater use than reading. I imagine it should balance things nicely though. However, I was wondering whether any game system had done something similar in regards to races, balancing the long-lived races with the short-lived? Have you any ideas how some measure of balance may be applied to this? Should long-lived races start at a higher level of skill with more "stuff" but then develop more slowly across the breadth of a campaign or is such an approach doomed to failure? Or can this idea be rectified in some way?

All input and ideas highly appreciated!
[Read: I'm a silver subscriber and can hand out globs of XP by the bucketful]

Best Regards
Herremann the Wise

I hope some good ideas crop up, this topic gnaws at me a bit. The usual ways I've seen this handled (besides outright ignoring it) are with flavor or metaphysical constraints. Short-lived races as moths to the flame, long-lived ones as having slow maturation or simply an outlook that prevents going from level 1 to 20 in a decade (unless they're a PC!). If, however, we treat elves as just people that live a really long time, these tend to fall a bit flat. Plus, if it were just issues of age that would be one thing, but level also comes into play. Are there any 500 year old elves that are still level 1? What about all those elven veterans of 15 wars? Even if such things were easy to explain away in PC histories, the quiet retirement of a 20th level, age 105 elf is still a bit bothersome. In short, the thing that best promotes verisimilitude to me seems to discard with age and balance concerns, so we just make elves better. So unsatisfying.

The Song of Fire and Ice (a system which I have neither played nor read) idea seems like a decent start if you scale it by expected lifespan. I've also been batting around ideas like quiescent periods that are required for permanent character growth, or character development that occurs during the "seasons of life." For a human these periods would be relatively short (say a decade) but for longer-lived races they might be 100 years. The idea is that anyone can learn skills in the short term, but that maintaining them in the long term requires something akin to destiny points. If one chooses not to pay a destiny point to maintain abilities over one of these seasons of life, then at the end of this period they degrade. No skill or training is lost, but it does work less efficiently. (In a 4e setting perhaps the 1/2 bonus from levels degrades by 2 per season or something.)

I think an elaboration on the Song of Fire and Ice idea might be to let characters choose to keep their destiny points and degraded abilities to gain other abilities of less overall power (like starting a new theme or class from low levels) or pay the destiny cost to restore their old abilities to full use. So on the one hand you can have highly trained old guys at the top of their game with very little destiny (probably the default), or guys who have decided to keep more destiny points and branch out it newer, but not as powerful directions. If these destiny points are renewable (say per day) having more might be an important part in day-to-day adventuring, then permanently giving one up from the pool is a tradeoff a player can choose to make with older characters.

I have no idea how this might be balanced, much less as a minor houserule for any edition of D&D, but let me quickly imagine some characters:
1) A 700 years old elf (Perhaps all elves start with 10 destiny points, ~1 per 100 years of expected life.) This elf was a hotshot wizard adventurer in his youth, but eventually settled down. He takes a moderate penalty on arcane spells, he's so rusty, but remembers every spell he learned. Recent events have seen him turn to the divine, and he is currently a less powerful cleric, but learning quickly, and has retained many destiny points as he pursues a new path.
2) The same elf, except he has has spent several destiny points to recover all his previous arcane prowess. He has fewer destiny points, and no cleric abilities, but is nearly as fearsome as when he was young.

3) A middle aged human (Also up to 10 destiny points, ~1 per 10 years of expected life), who has been a farmer his entire life. In a recent attack he finds himself needing to be something much greater for the first time in his life. He has nearly all his destiny points available, since despite his age he has never developed heroic skills, apart from some social skills.
4) A young man, the farmer's son. He has all his destiny yet before him, and as soon as he learns proper use of a sword (pro-tip: Stick them with the pointy end) he'll make something of himself.

For all these characters the seasons of life are unlikely to come into play except in the longest campaigns, so it is effectively part of character creation. However, it also gives a little rhyme and reason to what happens when an elf doesn't simply work work work all the time. First of all, his skills won't degrade for a very long time, an entire human lifetime or more. Second of all, if destiny points are sufficiently powerful then there is an incentive to leave options open and branch out in new areas as the need arises. Finally, even if the character permanently spends them to keep in top shape with old skills, hopefully the few that are left are actually more powerful by virtue of being used with (presumably) more powerful abilities.

This is practically stream of consciousness, so treat as such.

I think that one of the ways game designers "balance" this out is by explaining the shorter lived races to be more eager and frenetic with their education. They will flit around and try their best to learn as much as they can in their short lifespan, while doing everything they can to enjoy themselves.

The longer lived races, much like the higher classed aristocracy in times past, will take on less practical tutelage or focus on something that is more obscure. For instance, elves might spend a large portion of their life learning thousands of synonyms for certain words to be used better in story-telling and lyrical choices.

But, I would think that a system that utilized some kind of destiny point system or influence points could grant higher amounts to the young, but should give the old some other tangible bonuses, such as skill bonuses or higher acuity at combat/knowledge.

Even in D&D 3.x there were rules for attribute bonuses/penalties for old and young, albeit within the context of each race as opposed to one another. A more plausible or "flat" system that has races that live all approximately the same lifespan, this becomes more sensible and easy to do.

For example, in OMEN, one of the primary universe concepts is parallel evolution. All of the playable races are roughly comparable to a human both in anatomy, necessities (solid food, water, oxygen, and so forth) and lifespan. If all of the races live around 100 years, then it is pretty easy to apply bonuses and penalties dependent upon age.

Although, the harsh reality is that as one gets older, there aren't many "advantages" other than the mercurial concept of wisdom. Bones get weary, muscles get loose, bellies get fat, minds get muddled, hair lines recede. I think when it comes down to the nitty gritty in a game setting, players prefer the age to be merely a flavor element, as while the young gun might be stronger and faster in the universe, the old timer's experience and knowledge compensate. Each of those characters might have the same exact stats, just described differently.

Well in a campaign I'm currently running, the ages of the four PCs are 6, 19, 26, and 139 so we've got big gaps on both ends of the age spectrum.

The young one is a goblin and in this setting goblins are considered adults by age 5, living at the most to about 35. The old one is an elf.

In the case of the races that are quick to grow up, they essentially learn faster, and focus on learning essential skills over fluff. The longer-lived races spend of lot of time picking up less practical things, as Ben said. For example our elf spent decades studying every detail of the elven history from its first recording to present day, she also spent years learning things like etiquette and grammar.

I'm mostly treating age as backstory fluff though. If a player had wanted to play a very old character then perhaps I would have given them some form of physical penalty with a corresponding skill or wisdom boost, (heck there's probably a rule about specifically how to do it, it's just never come up for me so I wouldn't know). I find that most of the players I've ever GMed, or played alongside like characters that are just a little bit older than whatever age is identified as "adult" for their chosen race anyways. Humans in their late-teens to early 20s, dwarves in their 40s, elves in around their 120s to 130s, etc.

Ainamacar said:

In short, the thing that best promotes verisimilitude to me seems to discard with age and balance concerns, so we just make elves better. So unsatisfying.

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I'm not averse to making Elves "better"; it does kind of fit in with the whole elf shtick. In fact it would be somewhat refreshing to have race make a tangible difference both mechanically and roleplaying-wise and treating long-lived races differently to short-lived races would be a fundamental aspect of this. However, there should be some active mechanical compensation for playing a short-lived race so the choice between playing a long-lived or short-lived race is as even as possible; just different flavours and opportunities. Perhaps we need to hearken back to the 1e XP tables - long-lived races get a broader and marginally deeper base to work from but developing from this point is much more expensive than for short-lived races.

Ainamacar said:

The Song of Fire and Ice (a system which I have neither played nor read) idea seems like a decent start if you scale it by expected lifespan. I've also been batting around ideas like quiescent periods that are required for permanent character growth, or character development that occurs during the "seasons of life." For a human these periods would be relatively short (say a decade) but for longer-lived races they might be 100 years. The idea is that anyone can learn skills in the short term, but that maintaining them in the long term requires something akin to destiny points. If one chooses not to pay a destiny point to maintain abilities over one of these seasons of life, then at the end of this period they degrade. No skill or training is lost, but it does work less efficiently. (In a 4e setting perhaps the 1/2 bonus from levels degrades by 2 per season or something.)

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Now this seems interesting to me! There's the beginning of a mechanical framework here that's resonating in my head. Let me think further on this before addressing the rest of your wonderful post.

Best Regards
Herremann the Wise

[OMENRPG]Ben said:

I think that one of the ways game designers "balance" this out is by explaining the shorter lived races to be more eager and frenetic with their education. They will flit around and try their best to learn as much as they can in their short lifespan, while doing everything they can to enjoy themselves.

The longer lived races, much like the higher classed aristocracy in times past, will take on less practical tutelage or focus on something that is more obscure. For instance, elves might spend a large portion of their life learning thousands of synonyms for certain words to be used better in story-telling and lyrical choices.

Click to expand...

I think we've all used such explanations to fob off the basic scurch that mechanically, the ball has been fumbled but the story band-aid is applied regardless. For me, I'd like to mechanically address the issue in some way - at least to find out where such discussion leads, even if it is to the conclusion that either elves are the optimizer's choice or if I apply enough band-aids, I won't notice the gash underneath.

[OMENRPG]Ben said:

But, I would think that a system that utilized some kind of destiny point system or influence points could grant higher amounts to the young, but should give the old some other tangible bonuses, such as skill bonuses or higher acuity at combat/knowledge.

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Yes. There is a tradeoff, the two are different but there is a measure of balance between them.

[OMENRPG]Ben said:

Even in D&D 3.x there were rules for attribute bonuses/penalties for old and young, albeit within the context of each race as opposed to one another. A more plausible or "flat" system that has races that live all approximately the same lifespan, this becomes more sensible and easy to do.

For example, in OMEN, one of the primary universe concepts is parallel evolution. All of the playable races are roughly comparable to a human both in anatomy, necessities (solid food, water, oxygen, and so forth) and lifespan. If all of the races live around 100 years, then it is pretty easy to apply bonuses and penalties dependent upon age.

Click to expand...

You've handled this neatly - erase the problem altogether. For fantasy though and its various tropes, we still have a minefield to navigate.

[OMENRPG]Ben said:

Although, the harsh reality is that as one gets older, there aren't many "advantages" other than the mercurial concept of wisdom. Bones get weary, muscles get loose, bellies get fat, minds get muddled, hair lines recede.

Click to expand...

Too true. SoFaIrpg hands out a fair amoutn of drawbacks when you get older. Its focus is however on each PC playing a role which is perhaps a further way to get around the problem.

[OMENRPG]Ben said:

I think when it comes down to the nitty gritty in a game setting, players prefer the age to be merely a flavor element, as while the young gun might be stronger and faster in the universe, the old timer's experience and knowledge compensate. Each of those characters might have the same exact stats, just described differently.

Click to expand...

And that's fair enough too. For me, I would like to have race become something very tangible. Something that is much more a point of difference than perhaps even a character's class. Roleplaying becomes a lot more interesting when player's have the opportunity to roleplay their character's race both mechanically and flavour-wise.

And yeah... your OMENrpg looks interesting, I love looking at this sort fo stuff!

Best Regards
Herremann the Wise

I guess the initial question is "should we?" A great many things are hand waived in RPGs such that all forms of strength are represented by a single statistic and most forms of damage are absorbed by a single pool of hit points. In life, age can bring with it a great range of progressions and, perhaps, it is foolish to presume that for all persons and all races a linear path of improvement and decline is followed.

I guess what I am saying is, maybe we can handle it with fluff.

But let's assume we cannot. The next question is, "should we?" Does the concept of the 300 year old elf really do as much good as it does harm? How many players really seem to own up to the fact that their elf has three centuries of life experiences under their belt to RP a being that truly understand the gravitas of the world around them? Probably not too many. Maybe it'd be better to just bring their ages more in line with other races.

I guess what I'm saying is, didn't we create this problem ourselves?

But let's assume that isn't the case. Then we have an issue that maybe new rules are ripe to solve. I think statistics might have been a good mechanism pre-3e, but the importance of stats 3e and beyond means that you'll just make all wizards old (and more powerful) and all warriors young (and have longer until they're more powerful). That isn't a strong solution. I think a better bet is to introduce little traits or flaws that are flavorful and evoke the feeling you want without substantially interrupting the game mechanics. So a flaw for "old age" might be that you are always encumbered irrespective of weight carried. You are slower, a little worse at skills, but the aged knight is no worse off because his armor already encumbered him. That way, the flavor is present but no one is so punished that their desire to RP is crushed by the impact of your rules.

Herremann the Wise said:

I'm not averse to making Elves "better"; it does kind of fit in with the whole elf shtick. In fact it would be somewhat refreshing to have race make a tangible difference both mechanically and roleplaying-wise and treating long-lived races differently to short-lived races would be a fundamental aspect of this. However, there should be some active mechanical compensation for playing a short-lived race so the choice between playing a long-lived or short-lived race is as even as possible; just different flavours and opportunities. Perhaps we need to hearken back to the 1e XP tables - long-lived races get a broader and marginally deeper base to work from but developing from this point is much more expensive than for short-lived races.

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I should add nuance to my opinion. If elves are better, they should be better in interesting ways (as you say), and in a way where we still have a valid measuring stick. (Since 3rd edition we've simply called this character level or ECL, which is a nice ideal.) Even so, should a focused elf and an equally focused human have roughly the same maximum potential? Is there a maximum potential in the system, or does every PC head off toward the singularity? What about per unit time (at table vs. in world)? Just in general, the time scale at which PCs gain levels in most campaigns makes a mockery of NPCs, and I'm not eager to bring those issues into the party. (If PCs and NPCs are just different, of course, there is no problem. But that's a conceit I like to utilize with care.)

I'm not personally against the idea that an elf can achieve greater heights, as long as those heights are limited. This suggests a system with diminishing returns, so that 500 extra years working on something intently isn't overwhelmingly more awesome than 50! I think most systems have a power progression that is at least linear with respect to actual table time, and for the sake of fun I'm mostly glad about that! Even in early editions' XP tables, where the notion of diminishing returns is clearly seen, the rule is just face more difficult challenges. This is in keeping with many of the best tropes in fantasy, but it is problematic when considering mechanics and power growth.

One of the most naturalistic skill systems I've seen is FATE's skill pyramids, where one can't increase one's power in a skill until there are more skills at one power level below that. For long-lived elves one could simply require the pyramid to be broader. And indeed, this would guarantee it takes longer in the character's life to reach the height's of raw power. The question remains, are issues of culture or mindset enough to justify something like this for every single long-lived creature? I feel that liches, even really patient ones, might object!

A second option might be something like E6. In that case, everyone reaches the same level cap fairly early, but the explosive power growth is arrested and future growth is much more horizontal. An elf wizard with 500 active years of E6 XP probably has a lot going on, but I don't think Meteor Swarm is on the table. In some ways this is opposite of FATE, since the explosion of variety probably occurs at the "top" rather than the "bottom".

I think the most important thing is that PCs in the same campaign which start equally powered also gain power at more or less the same pace, regardless of race/age considerations. If this isn't true, the system is introducing a stumbling block at the table. It is precisely this mechanical principle which raises prima facie verisimilitude considerations, and so we are where we started.

In any case, I'm looking forward to seeing what is stewing in your head. I often find myself nodding in agreement with your posts since I've joined, and I've noticed that in many respects we approach game design with a similar attitude.

AeroDm said:

I guess the initial question is "should we?"

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A fair question. RPGs without this level of detail on this point have run just fine for many years, and will continue to do so. Furthermore, even if the mechanics are perfect, for some games it would still be a thematic distraction. In short, if I think it enhances the kind of game I like to run, it's at least worth trying. And darn it, setting-rules coherence just makes me feel warm and fuzzy inside.

I guess what I'm saying is, didn't we create this problem ourselves?

But let's assume that isn't the case. Then we have an issue that maybe new rules are ripe to solve.

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Ha ha, probably! But in heroic fiction that also means we have to solve it, no need to pretend it wasn't our responsibility. To the calculators!

I really do like the idea of minor age traits, etc. It does not resolve, however, the issue of the middle-aged elf (who is 300) and the middle-aged human (who is 40). They could have the exact same age traits, but if they've both been in leagues their whole lives, who is the better bowler?

Herremann the Wise said:

How do you reconcile the differences between short-lived and long-lived races in your game? By this, I mean how do you "balance" between a 300 year old elf and an 18 year old human in terms of their abilities?

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You need to balance this when the campaign will cover enough in-game time that the characters will age enough to make a difference: the human going from young to old, while the elf stays basically unchanged.

Otherwise, I don't usually worry about it, to be honest. Yes, so the elf is 300 years old. In D&D time isn't the primary way to advance ability - action is. If I restrict all character concepts to have seen roughly the same amount of action at campaign start, then the age at start isn't terribly relevant. The elf may be 10 times older than the human, but that doesn't mean he's 10 times more experienced in game terms.