How long is a 'generation'

[Cergorach]

These days it might be 25, but in medieval times it's more like 15-20 years. Let's not forget that you where considered an adult at a lot younger age then you are now. Children where married at a young age and as a result where expected to have children at a young age.

It's also important to note that it also depends on which family line is being counted for generations. Currently my family line would count each generation as 30 years. Consider a family of adventurers, they would probably marry at a late age and have children at a late age.

You could give the whole situation extra debt by saying that the family has been cursed for x generations and have the pcs later find out what exactly a generation is for that family. For example tehy could meet a part of the family great-grandma 90, grandma 60, ma 30, and a firstborn 0. Or they could be walking in the graveyard and find tombstones with names and dates on them...

 

[Glyfair]

your question raised an interesting point for me - would Elfs (and Dragons etc) actually measure time in years or could the 'Human Generation' be used as an elf Standard measure

Generally, you refer to generations to see how long a family (sometimes in the larger sense, of course) has dealt or not dealt with a specific situation. For example, when referring to a specific family whose firstborn of each generation is cursed, you would refer to specifically how many people were affected by the curse.

So, I doubt elves would use generations as a measure of time.

 

[Umbran]

your question raised an interesting point for me - would Elfs (and Dragons etc) actually measure time in years or could the 'Human Generation' be used as an elf Standard measure

Why would an elf base time specifically on humans, as opposed to gnomes, monkeys, or wombats? The typical image of elven society isn't one that bases itself off of human activities, so the human generation time wouldn't be considered important.

 

[Desdichado]

As an aside, your standard D&D campaign setting, ala Forgotten Realms, isn't very medieval in societal outlook. It's much more modern.

Not that 25 years vs 15-20 years is really all that different, since it's just a ballpark guestimate anyway, but there you have it.

 

[dreaded_beast]

Use the VH1 method of determining generation based on year:

Remember the 70's
Remember the 80's
Remember the 90's

Myself, I am a child of the midpoint between the 80's and 90's.

 

[was]

Actually you're figuring generations wrong, it's between being born and giving birth not being born and dying. Typically in a midevil society it's about 15-25 years/generation so 1000 years would be roughly 40-60 generations.

Oh well, it's not the first time that I've been wrong. It probably won't be the last. Thanks for the pointer.

 

[S'mon]

These days it might be 25, but in medieval times it's more like 15-20 years.

Naw - people might well have had their _first_ child at ca 15-17, but the _average_ span between generations was still nearer 25 years, ie as many children born to 15-25 year old parents as 25+-year-old parents. Currently in the West it's around 30.

 

[Treebore]

Historians refer to generations as being every 20 years. So that is the accepted definition in historical writings of peer written historical references.

 

[fba827]

1d3+2 per 100 years for any given family, that's my formula So for your 1000 years, 10d3+20 = roughly 40 generations on average for a random family

(um, i am making all this up right now, but seems good enough)

 

[countgray]

Generations even in modern times are figured about 20 years apart or 2 decades per generation. There are 5 generations per century. 50 generations per Millenium.