How long is a 'generation'

[WayneLigon]

May I ask why generation is more useful than precise or approximate years? Unless, of course, you're referring to long family line, "My great, great, great, grand father of old owned this land. The blood of the Old flows through you young man, fight for it back."

Curses generally work by generation so someone doesn't try to cheat the curse. If I curse you 'even unto the seventh generation', then the next seven levels of kids will have the curse no matter what anyone does. If I curse you 'for the next 175 years' then the family might start having kids very late in life in order to reduce the number of levels that have to endure the curse.

 

[Dr. Strangemonkey]

Geneologically speaking I have no doubt you are correct. When you talk to the historians who write our history books most of them use 20 years as the defintiion of a generation. However, since there is no set of rules for all historians to use or write by, even they are confused and confusing.

So it boils down to there being no universally accepted or mandated definition for a generation, unless you want to use a governments definition.

This I would agree with, but I would also elaborate that we are using two standards of generation. The actual generation as a demographic and genealogical point I have no doubt is pulled up to a fairly high average, but in terms of a historical point, as in the Roman occupation of Britain lasted 20 generations, the point is explicitly shortened to the time between birth and the birth of the first child. Naturally even that is a calculation of several factors, but I do think that discretion in historical terms lies on the shortest reasonable period as you're generally looking for the closest possible transmission of memory between generations and the largest possible series of transmissions.

Which is also what I'd look for in a curse, but then again I'd probably want the most tragedies in the shortest period of time, so my opinion isn't exactly disinterested.

 

[Optihut]

Amazing that most people here say 25. When I was a kid and asked about the word generation, my parents told me that a generation is usually considered to be 30 years.
Oh well, 25 years would work as well.

And I remember that in the late 80s some fans were complaining that Startrek the next generation couldn't really be the next generation, since it's set some 80 years after the original series, heh.

 

[pbd]

Talking 'bout my generation...

I have always thought, based on what I was first told in grade school (back in the mid 80's, so somewhat less than a generation ago),that a generation defined as approximately 27 years on average. Of course this could easily have changed since then. Also, this is for an industrial "1st world" country, I am sure a 3rd world area would have a considerably shorter generation.

The best way for you r campaign may be to take the definition of a generation, the AVERAGE time from birth to reproduction (rememebr this if is independant of number of off-spring, so a single woman who had a child at 18, 20, 36, and 45 would count 4 times; once for each child) for you world. If it is a rough "world" and people die young, they will tend to reproduce younger and this may make a generation shorter. If people live long and have children well into their midle years, it may be longer.