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ShortQuests -- individual adventure modules! An all-new collection of digest-sized D&D adventures designed to plug in to your game.

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Message: <blockquote data-quote="random user" data-source="post: 1488423" data-attributes="member: 16581">Here would be my take:It's all about the hormones.In a human if you regulate what hormones are in a body, you can make it do very freakish things.  For example, in the womb you can mae a XY male (male by gamete) not create male sexual organs.  Instead he will have female sexual organs and in all outward ways look female. You can cause a person to not enter puberty by using hormones.  I believe there is a disease named for one who cannot enter puberty because they can't make the hormone.Hormones can cause depression and even suicidel tendencies.  Hormornes can (at least for some people) eliminate depression (ok some of them are synthetic drugs, but they act upon the same passageways that hormones do and basically "mimic" hormones, or the lack thereof (ie inhibition)).So you could easily wave your DM hands and say that phyical maturity happens at whatever rate you want because their bodies are genetically programmed to release whatever hormones at whatever time you want.Learning to a large extent comes from synapses in the brain wiring themselves in a certain way (a lot of research has gone into exactly how this happens and no one knows for sure yet, though see my disclaimer at the bottom).  Before a certain age, it is simply impossible for a person to realize certain things.  For example, small babies have no concept of object permanence.  If they see a ball they smile.  If you put your hand in front of the ball and the ball disappears, in the baby's mind, the ball is *gone*.  When you remove your hand, the ball suddenly appears.  At a later point, they understand the concept that the ball is still there even if something blocks their vision of it.If you talk to an 11 yr old vs a 16 yr old about their life perspective, you'll get very different answers.  Some of it of course is attributed to social experience and learning.  However, it's unclear how much is simply that, and how much is caused by hormones and wiring of the brain as a pre-requisite, and how much is independent of those two factors.  In other words, if you took about the hormonal changes and the wiring away, how different would the 11 yr old vs the 16 yr old still be? It's hard to say because that experiment will never be done.Disclaimer: it's been several years since I've taken classes in these subjects.  I may be wrong <img src="https://cdn.jsdelivr.net/joypixels/assets/8.0/png/unicode/64/1f642.png" class="smilie smilie--emoji" loading="lazy" width="64" height="64" alt=":)" title="Smile    :)"  data-smilie="1"data-shortname=":)" />Anyways thats my 2cp</blockquote>

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