How do you handle age?

[Talon5]

Or, if they were like certain Native American groups, they'd use the fluff from giant cattails or similar plants. I don't see wood elves picking cotton all day.

Which brings up a curious, yet nasty question- what did they use for diapers before cloth? Surely they would use something. I mean think about the nasty mess you would have in the babies bed in the morning is you didn't do something

 

[DragonLancer]

Its a game. The whole age thing is almost irrelevant.

My players roll their starting ages normally, and then unless we feel that the campaign has run over a year game time, no one ages. Generally I find characters gain levels in a matter of months so theres no need to truely worry about it.

 

[Talon5]

Its a game. The whole age thing is almost irrelevant.

My players roll their starting ages normally, and then unless we feel that the campaign has run over a year game time, no one ages. Generally I find characters gain levels in a matter of months so theres no need to truely worry about it.

That's cool.

THis is mostly a curiousity thing for me- I was just wondering why humans seemed so much smarter, or perhaps how their parents put up with diapering for twenty years.

We have campaigns that the characters have aged three years in D&D, and a GURPs campaign where its been like twenty five years (been playing that one for close to ten years).

Thanks for your thoughts

 

[Afrodyte]

Observation: The age of maturity for a species depends not on how long it takes them to grow up, but on how much growing up they do before reaching maturity. There's a good reason, after all, why chimpanzees are often compared to 12 year old humans.

The changes I made: Elves, dwarfs, half-elves, gnomes, and halflings all reach full maturity at the age of 25. Why? Because they don't grow up any more than a human does. They kept the long lives, only now they have longer adulthoods.

This is the approach I wish D&D had taken. The way they handled it in the PHB seemed awkward to say the least. I could understand if most elves were not considered adults until they reach their first century despite being physically and mentally mature. It's much in the same way we don't have many mayors, governments, or presidents under about 40 years of age. There's something about experience that cannot be discounted or easily replaced.