The problem with elves take 2: A severe condemnation [merged]

[Edena_of_Neith]

(rather militantly stated, for all responses below)

And shouldn't we rather discuss how these hordes of orcs continually find the resources to breed into numberless hordes when they also traditionally must carve out an existence in mountains, badlands and so on.
Or why dragons (substitute Balors, Pit Fiends, Incorporeal undeads or any other powerful monster of your particular liking) aren't already ruling the world. I mean how many great wyrms does it really take to seize all power and kill all humanoid contenders.

We can discuss that. But that is a different discussion.

I'll repeat myself one last time. The actual rules of the game have ONLY to do with player - player and player - opponent relationships. Extrapolating actual societies, cultures or worlds from the rules will result in nonsense most of the time.

*We do not agree on this.*
In my opinion, one starts with the rules, and extrapolates from them to create those fantasy societies, cultures, and worlds, and this is the fundamental way in which things work in the game.
As in, the Player's Handbook and DMG are rulessets, and modules are rulessets, and boxed sets are rulessets, and the settings as we know them came from those, and our own home settings are inspired by books like the Player's Handbook ... for it gives us the skeletal rules to base the imagination on.
*Thus we disagree.*
But that is ok.
Let us agree to disagree.

As for it resulting in nonsense, that is so complicated an issue I think it would require a new thread. Let me summarize by saying that I *partially* agree with you, on that *particular* point. And let me also say, that nonsense is sometimes what we enjoy, which highlights the complexity of this subject.

I am debating from a rules point of view also, because it is pointless to debate from a house rule perspective ... house rules vary from group to group. This debate began when I made a comment at 3rd Edition elves, and so it remains a debate about them ... within the RAW.

Those kinds of social institutions should be ruled by imagination and the simple law of "If it is fun, flavourful and dramatic, lets go with it"

I happen to believe, to be blunt, that the Player's Handbook should have far more crunch and fluff on the non-human races. I think it is a failure of the book that more is not there.
Should the imagination of player and DM be the primary factor? Yes.
Should the PHB and perhaps DMG have more crunch and fluff as well? Yes.

Since elves and their survival is such an issue for you, why don't you just dole out whatever powers, immunities, etc. that you would like them to have. It doesn't matter to anyone else, you don't need anybody's approval or consent.

I do just that. I wish the Player's Handbook would give me some support, however. And/or the Dungeon Master's Guide. And aren't they supposed to be there to give support?

It's your game, you can do whatever you want. That's the beauty of roleplaying. It is all imagination

Yes. Now, let's put some rules, crunch and fluff, in the PHB and DMG to help stimulate the imagination. There cannot be enough support from those books. The DM and players need as much help and support as the books can offer.

 

[Edena_of_Neith]

There is not one mortality rate though. The mortality rate for elves is vastly different from the mortality rate for humans, which is only a weighted average for different kinds of humans living in different places with different lifestyles.

(snip)

What is true is that long-lived elves who invest mightily in each offspring would be safety-conscious. Like modern Americans, they would value blood more than treasure, and they would spend a tremendous amount on military magic (which is analogous to technology) rather than throw lives away. Orcs would make the opposite trade-off.

We happen to agree on this one.
Elves invest in their children to an enormous degree. Orcs, invest very little.
That's house rule thinking on our part. But there it is, nonetheless.

 

[Edena_of_Neith]

No, Edena. Re-read what I said. What I said was that there are many variations within the elves described in the RAW, just as there are many variations within the humans described in the RAW.

Can you cite these variations, for the purposes of this debate?
I am not sure what you are referring to, within the core books.

Do all RAW humans in all possible cultures in all possible D&D worlds have exactly the same culture, birth rate, mortality rate, population growth rate, economy and society? Of course not. We don't need to change the rules governing the race "human" to produce wide variations. Why would we need to change the rules governing the race "elf" to produce the same wide variations?

Obviously, we do not need to change the RAW to extrapolate from them. We do extrapolate, and thus we create house rule races. That's quite the right thing to do, as you are implying.
But in *this* case I must stick with the RAW (which is why I ask for the variations you cite within the RAW for elves) because this debate is based on the RAW.

All humans have the same average stats, the same bonuses and penalties, the same age table, the same height and weight table. And yet, some cultures flourish while others die out. Some human cultures have high birth rates and yet never grow. Some human cultures have low birth rates and expand anyway. Agreed.Right. But given what we already know about human culture diversity in D&D, we have proof positive that your group does not need to have different stats in order to have a different culture, society, birth rate or mortality rate.

Agreed. And agreed. No argument or debate on this. It's patently obvious you are right.
I am only debating from the point of view of the RAW. There is no solid ground for either of us to debate on otherwise: house rules are not solid ground, but shift and change as we shift and change them.

Of course, the elves can be extrapolated into anything you want. That's a given. They could be extrapolated into lords of the settings. Or into situations as wretched as those the gully dwarves live within. Or any situation in between. Or all of them.
But we are discussing the RAW. And they are standardized. It's a narrow framework (as previously, long ago pointed out) but the only framework from which to have a debate.
And remember that from the RAW come the extrapolations. Don't we know ... remember all the uproar over raising level limits, because they were too low in 1st and/or 2nd edition? I do. (That was quite an uproar, I recall ...) From the RAW spring the extrapolations.
Consider Tolkien's works to be a kind of RAW. And look what happened. The concept of 'doomed elves' proliferated. It still proliferates. It will go on proliferating. Extrapolation, in this case, from books ... but they laid down a framework, just as game rules do, to extrapolate from.
So, we debate the RAW for 3rd Edition.

So, unless you would like to posit that all human cultures are essentially identical and will have essentially identical consumption, growth and settlement patterns, you cannot make such a claim about elves.

See above. I make no such (obviously and patently absurd) claims. But a baseline must be used, for the debate. We cannot debate what is undefined. We will get nowhere. Example: the RAW do not state elves live in forests. Many house rule that elves do. But we cannot debate it, for one side will simply claim it's not in the RAW, and the other side will claim the RAW are irrelevant, and the chaos will go from there. Indeed, it's already happened ... in this thread.

 

[Edena_of_Neith]

Also notice that dwarves has a very long lifespan similar to elves (but not quite to the same extent), and would have similar problems related to that.

Add to that the fact that dwarves live underground....what do they eat, fungus?...so I guess dwarves are probably doomed as well.

Anyone want to do gnomes?

The topic of dwarves and gnomes and their troubles would be a fascinating discussion.
I stress: discussion.
But that is another thread or three.

I happen to think dwarves do have similar troubles.
What I said about the PHB and DMG offering crunch and fluff on the non-human races, goes for dwarves and all the others. It would aid the DM and players alike.

 

[Fifth Element]

We can discuss that. But that is a different discussion.

No, it's not. It's precisely the same discussion. You say that elves are doomed because humans and orcs should be overunning them, and elves can't compete with these races. Alright, then, humans and orcs are doomed because a single dragons can slaughter thousands of them. Humans and orcs cannot compete with dragons.

You can't arbitrarily draw the line exclusing dragons and other super-powerful creatures. If you want to consider one creature's place in the "standard" fantasy world, you need to compare them to *all* other creatures in the world (or rather, you need to compare *each* type of creature to each other), not just a couple of cherry-picked examples.

You can't say, "no, we're only comparing humans and elves here" because you're leaving out most of the context of the fantasy world.

 

[Edena_of_Neith]

No, it's not. It's precisely the same discussion. You say that elves are doomed because humans and orcs should be overunning them, and elves can't compete with these races. Alright, then, humans and orcs are doomed because a single dragons can slaughter thousands of them. Humans and orcs cannot compete with dragons.

You can't arbitrarily draw the line exclusing dragons and other super-powerful creatures. If you want to consider one creature's place in the "standard" fantasy world, you need to compare them to *all* other creatures in the world (or rather, you need to compare *each* type of creature to each other), not just a couple of cherry-picked examples.

You can't say, "no, we're only comparing humans and elves here" because you're leaving out most of the context of the fantasy world.

Ok ... but ... consider what you're getting into here.
So far, we have only been discussing elves. If we bring all of the rest in, we are discussing the viability of the entire campaign setting itself.
The core rules - PHB, DMG, and MM - do not create campaign settings. So we must now go to the core 3E settings. In which case, we must decide which books represent the 'core' settings and which do not. Or perhaps all of them do?
If we try to discuss the settings without doing that, or discuss house settings, on what basis are we discussing these things? The DM in question of that particular setting must set down the rules and realities of his or her setting, before we can discuss them, no?

Unless you have a way of discussing it within the context of the core rules (PHB, DMG, and MM) only. If you do, explain, because how to discuss an entire campaign based on just those is over my head.

Do I believe the rest of the campaign counts? Is relevant? Is relevant to the elves? Yes, yes, and a big yes. Of course they do.
I just don't know how to bring all these variables into the discussion, how to approach them, without hopelessly muddling things.

 

[fusangite]

Can you cite these variations, for the purposes of this debate?

The variations are obvious. Everybody assumes that human beings have a wide diversity of cultures, settlement patterns, economies, etc.

Obviously, we do not need to change the RAW to extrapolate from them. We do extrapolate, and thus we create house rule races. That's quite the right thing to do, as you are implying.

Edena, I'm implying no such things. What I am telling you is that because we know that you don't need to change humans' stats one iota in order to produce humans cultures that are radically different from one another, there is no need to create any house race rules whatsoever for elvish groups to be as different from one another as human groups are.

But in *this* case I must stick with the RAW (which is why I ask for the variations you cite within the RAW for elves) because this debate is based on the RAW.

I could make the same arguments re: humans. I am using nothing but the RAW when I state that human beings are capable of being massively diverse. I don't need to houserule anything at all to have some human cultures dying out and others flourishing; I don't need to houserule anything to have some human cultures enjoy high levels of population growth and others enjoy negative population growth.

Agreed. And agreed. No argument or debate on this. It's patently obvious you are right.
I am only debating from the point of view of the RAW. There is no solid ground for either of us to debate on otherwise: house rules are not solid ground, but shift and change as we shift and change them.

You keep accusing me of somehow deploying house rules when I say over and over again that I do not need to create one single house rule for elves to be as culturally diverse a group as humans. Why would I need a rule to state that?

Different human cultures produce radically different rates of reproduction, mortality, growth, etc. even though the basic stats for humans in all of these cultures are exactly the same. Why would elvish cultures not produce equally radically divergent rates of reproduction, mortality, growth, etc?

Of course, the elves can be extrapolated into anything you want. That's a given. They could be extrapolated into lords of the settings. Or into situations as wretched as those the gully dwarves live within. Or any situation in between. Or all of them.
But we are discussing the RAW. And they are standardized.

The fact that humans are standardized does not alter the fact that in some settings, they are on the brink of extinction and in others, lords of the world, all without changing the RAW one iota.

Elves are exactly as standardized as humans in the RAW. Both groups are equally standardized under the rules. But that standardization does not mean that there is some set of base characteristics for human cultures.

Let me put it to you this way:
Humans and elves are equally standardized under the RAW.
Without deviating one word from the RAW, a GM can produce an incredibly wide diversity of human societies.
Therefore, given that elves are no more standardized in the RAW than humans, a GM should be able to create an equally wide diversity of elvish societies without one single house rule.

It's a narrow framework

It's not narrow. The rules do not radically circumscribe what the human race can be in a setting; therefore, they cannot radically circumscribe what the elves can be in a setting because the rules do not constrain the options of elves any more than they do humans.

See above. I make no such (obviously and patently absurd) claims.

But you do. You claim that all RAW elves in all possible settings are undergoing a demographic crisis.

But a baseline must be used, for the debate.

I don't know what you mean by "baseline."

What is the "baseline" for RAW humans?

 

[monboesen]

In my opinion, one starts with the rules, and extrapolates from them to create those fantasy societies, cultures, and worlds, and this is the fundamental way in which things work in the game.
As in, the Player's Handbook and DMG are rulessets, and modules are rulessets, and boxed sets are rulessets, and the settings as we know them came from those, and our own home settings are inspired by books like the Player's Handbook ... for it gives us the skeletal rules to base the imagination on.
*Thus we disagree.*
But that is ok.
Let us agree to disagree.

Yes I'll have to agree to disagree.

I don't count on, look to, or even want to use rules books for fluff or ideas. My campaign and world ideas usually start out from litterature, movies and random idle thoughts. Once the campaing gets going the actual act of playing the game provides the needed ideas and input.


I can, and have, easily use(d) several different rules systems for games set in the same world. So that means, gasp...., that my elves, dwarves and any other race suddenly had slightly different abilities, powers and immunties. You know what, it didn't matter, the feel of the races were just the same anyway.

Rules are IMO not that important for gaming. And, again IMO, when you allow them to be important, the imagination and fun suffers.


Edena are you actually participating in any D&D (or any other) role playing game at the moment?

 

[Fifth Element]

I just don't know how to bring all these variables into the discussion, how to approach them, without hopelessly muddling things.

Indeed, that's what I was trying to illustrate. There are *so* many variables in a fantasy world that you can't simply point to a couple of things and say "elves clearly can't survive in this world", since I can point to a couple of other things and say "those humans you say should dominate the world can't survive either." It is not a simple matter, and as such trying to dissect a very narrow section of the fantasy world (elves living in the woods) is impossible to do with any degree of certainty. - i.e., one cannot prove elves are doomed, as you have already conceded, I believe.

In the end, you need to suspend your disbelief, because that is what fantasy is all about.

 

[Edena_of_Neith]

I have described what I think is a problem.
Here is my solution to the problem:

Have the core books offer templates for the elves and other PC races.
These templates would be higher than ECL0. They would grant the core races extraordinary and supernatural abilities. They would grant feats and skills. They would grant a great deal of backstory and description.
These templates would all be optional, but there would be a baseline template for each race.

Humankind would not have a template. Humankind is well enough understood already. If a human template did exist, it would be for a particular human nation or culture, and far less of a change from the norm than the templates for non-humans (unless the human nation or culture had gone far along the road towards becoming alien itself.)