So is an 18-year-old elf in diapers?

[Bloodstone Press]

How does a society like that function? They have to care for children for 70 years or so?

Yeah. Well, they live for hundreds of years, so it isn't perceived the same to them as it is to you. 70 years to them isn't the same as 70 years to you.

Think about dogs and cats.

Imagine dogs trying to figure out how an elephant society functions when they have to take care of the young for soooo long....

As for intellectual maturity, perhaps the elves spend a lot longer thinking about stuff and meditating on various ideas so it takes them longer to process ideas and new experiences.

Furthermore, consider that human psychological development can be broken down into cognitive stages (concrete reasoning, abstract reasoning, etc). If their brains aren't wired to understand abstract concepts like spatial tasks and death, they won't understand them, no matter how many years they've been around. (Note that human children cannot comprehend basic spatial tasks until they are about 6-8. Most humans children don't come to understand death until they are about 8 years old.)

Also consider that the brain waves of teenage humans are markedly different from those of adults or children.

The maturity you experience growing up has a lot to do with the biology that takes place in your brain.

Also consider that the elf's parents will keep them sheltered, much the same way humans protect and shelter their 6-year-old children.

I imagine that since they mature at around 100 years old, and live for 100s of years after that, that every stage of their lives is drastically prolonged, not just their middle years of adulthood.

Just because an elf has been around for 18 years doesn't mean he has the same cognitive functioning, the same freedoms, the same chance to learn and experience that a human has in that same time.

I don't have a problem imagining that at all, and to me it makes more sense than saying that they simply mature in the same 20 years that a human does. That seems like an oversimplified cope-out to me.

Consider, if elves mature to adulthood in 20 years, than a couple of elves could pop out hundreds of children in their lifetime. How would a society like THAT function? Family reunions would be enormous, perhaps 10,000 or more in attendance. You could hang out with your great-great-great-great-great-great-great-great-grandfather and his grandparents, too.

No, I think the gestation period is longer. The new born stage lasts several years, the toddler stage another 8-10 years, the adolescent stage another 10-20 years, the teenage stage probably last 30-50 years.

That makes a lot more sense to me.

 

[Zappo]

My God. I can understand why elves have such a low birth rate. Can you imagine having an adolescent girl around for decades?

Personally I have reduced Elven lifespan down to mearly 120 years. Humans only live to 40-50, Orcs 30 tops, Dwarves 80-100, and the small races about 50 years.

The reason? Simple- I think that for a Human player to try and roleplay something as Alien as a 100+ year old near-immortal is impossible to do- I have seen many many attempts fail. By giving Elves a maturity cycle and life span similar to what a real world Human can understand the roleplaying has improved, and my players have become far more interested in the societal setup that makes my Elves what they are and not some cheep Tolkein/Sidhe rip off.

Just by 2p sterling.

Whoa. 40-50 years for a Human? Sounds reasonable for a commoner, but an adventurer or rich man with cure disease available whenever he needs it, a human should reach at least the same ages we reach today.

 

[Droogie]

From an evolutionary standpoint, I think it would be a disadvantage for a species to take decades to mature to a point where they could at least have some chance of protecting themselves physically. The idea of a 18-30 year old toddler doesn't sit well with me, since most of the predator species of the D&D world probably mature in a fraction of the time compared to elves.

Due to their long lifespans, I can see them maturing at a slower rate than humans to some degree, but not so long as to be a liability to the survival of the elven race.

How about 20 years old for elven puberty? If they survive the next 80 years, its probably spent learning to see the "long view" as mentioned and brushing up on thousands of years of elven history and tradition.

Anyone know how Tolkien does it? Where to elven babies come from?

 

[Bloodstone Press]

But I just can't imagine a species of creature that after 70 years has only a tenuous grasp of the things around him. Unless there's a magic switch in his brain functioning that occurs around maturity, that would mean the creature would be very slow to learn, have thought processes so alien to humanity that it would be very difficult to roleplay them, and interac with the world in a fundamentally different way from how we understand things

Yes and no.

It’s not a magical switch; it’s a biological switch. As I noted above, the same things happened in your brain when you were growing up. I think the assertion that they would be "very slow to learn." is a little off. Note how human children are very smart and learn very fast. Maturity and ability to learn are not the same thing and are not necessarily related.

 

[Droogie]

Personally I have reduced Elven lifespan down to mearly 120 years. Humans only live to 40-50, Orcs 30 tops, Dwarves 80-100, and the small races about 50 years.

The reason? Simple- I think that for a Human player to try and roleplay something as Alien as a 100+ year old near-immortal is impossible to do- I have seen many many attempts fail. By giving Elves a maturity cycle and life span similar to what a real world Human can understand the roleplaying has improved, and my players have become far more interested in the societal setup that makes my Elves what they are and not some cheep Tolkein/Sidhe rip off.

Just by 2p sterling.

I've considered doing this as well- I almost gave the elves in my campaign a 200 year lifespan just so the players and I could relate to them a little better...and make the idea of an army of elves a little more believable.

 

[Banshee16]

I concur with the D20dwarf. I have a hard time imagining a 70 year old being more immature and "amazed" at all the new things they see. Frankly, I'd expect anybody who is 70 years old to have seen more than any well traveled human.

Though you could certainly argue for a slower development, I wouldn't make it too slow. Maybe so it takes 50 years to reach full physical and mental maturity, and then the elves spend 50 years studying, relaxing, etc. before joining the adult workforce.

The real problem with long development time before a race becomes a "PC" is that you'd expect a 100 year old elf to come with some levels. Considering how in a high action campaign, that same 100 year elf can go from 1st to 20th level in 1 campaign year.

So in retrospect, stick to a 20 year maturity cycle for all PC races and leave it at that (heck it gives elves 80 more years of lifespan too).

Janx

I agree....

I think we can draw a separation between physical maturity and "social maturity" as well. Someone may be physically and emotionally mature (many would say in humans that's by about age 16-17) but may not be accepted as an adult in their own culture yet.

As an example, compare Western Society where the age at which people are finished their education, permanently joining the work force etc. is creeping along...some say it's now closer to 30 or so, what with school, taking new degrees and diplomas etc. But this 30 year "new adult" has really been mature for like 12 years already.

Banshee

 

[Torm]

I personally like the idea of them having a sort of magical, feral state that they grow out of over the course of the first hundred years - not stupid, but just not interested in any of the things that are of any relevance to humans. Like maybe they spend some time just BEING magick and nature. Eventually they become more and more interested in what the humans and older elves are doing, and a breaking point comes - they witness and UNDERSTAND a death, or birth, or some other event - and lose their innocence. They stop being magick, at least like they were, and join the mortal world for a while.

The in-game effects of this are that "wild" elves, those that live out in nature, have their children all around them, and it's one among many reasons they protect their forests. "City" elves would have groves in the heart of their cities that would be one of their most protected locations in town, because its where all their kids are. Elves that mature and are ready to be player characters could very well be a 100 or more years old, and be like 12 years old humans, but then develop mentally at a normal pace from there. It would explain their predisposition towards wizarding - who doesn't try to recapture lost youth? It would explain their dexterity and constitution. They've been playing a LOT, but physicality has been of only the barest importance to them.

Female elves might not even concieve and give birth as we know it, but rather undergo some magickal process that produces these feral, perhaps barely corporeal things.

 

[Hida Bukkorosu]

i think the concept of a "teenager" doesn't fit with D&D's pseudo-medieval society. Adolescence and the "teenager" are modern concepts, and are the result of how modern society is structured, rather than anything natural about human development.

The "impulsive adolescent" is something that arises out of a biologically mature person being in a situation where they have no real responsibilities or consequences for their actions, and are still treated like a child even though they have the bodies and hormones of adults.

Since elves classically live in a "close to nature" society, I doubt they would have any need for a concept of adolescence, they would probably consider a person to be an adult when they hit puberty, and be ready to mate, fight, whatever. So I would assume elves physically mature slowly if they aren't ready to adventure till 100 or so.

Also, elves, being chaotic in nature, probably have no hard and fast rules concerning what age a person would be mature, they probably would go by intuition and what seems right at the time.

 

[Sarellion]

I have the same problem with the slow maturity rates. I thought about shortening the childhood phase but it would create some problems with biographies of players and NPCs

 

[d20Dwarf]

Note how human children are very smart and learn very fast. Maturity and ability to learn are not the same thing and are not necessarily related.

Right, and you're saying elven children need 30 years to learn what a human child can in 6-8, so naturally I would have to assume that their rate of learning is much slower than a human.

Also, my argument ties to mechanics somewhat. The level system assumes a nearly human level of understanding and adaptation, but if an elf needs 5x as long as a human to learn, how can he possibly gain levels as quickly? That elf needs to jump 5x more pits, pick 5x more locks, and swing his sword 5x more than a human for his cognitive awareness of the act to grow.