Again, answering posts as I read them. Discussion continued:
fusangite said:
So how do you explain all the elves winning and surviving things all over the place in D&D settings and adventures?
In the Greyhawk setting, humans dominate in Keoland, Furyondy, Nyrond, Aerdi, the Scarlet Brotherhood holdings, Perrenland, and all the Baklunish nations.
In the Dragonlance setting, humans dominate in Ergoth, Solamnia, and dominated in Istar, the New Coast region, and Abanasinia. In Taladas, they hold the western part of that continent, where all the land fit to live on is.
In the Forgotten Realms setting, humans dominate in Luskan, Waterdeep, Baldur''s Gate, Candlekeep, Amn, Tethyr, and Calimshan, and that's just the west coast. A similar situation holds throughout the continent.
In the AL-QADIM, a multitude of races proliferate, but humans clearly have the upper hand there.
In the Birthright setting, humans have driven elves and other races from the lands, and established supremacy.
In the Dark Sun setting, humans have exterminated most of the other races, and the strongest wizards in that world are humans.
I do not see, in any of these places, elves winning. I see a lot of historical information concerning elves losing, but not much about elves winning.
As for survival, yes I see the elves surviving. And not much more. In some cases, not even surviving.
They are relegated to small places like the Uleks or Celene, to distant forests like Qualinesti or Silvanesti, to hideouts like Evereska and Evermeet, or wandering in savagery on Athas.
Imagine that ELVES held all those places I mentioned above, that humans hold. That would be a very different set of settings, no, and then we could say that elves really were strong and powerful and kicked everyone around.
You mean cliche. And I would say that it was harder and shorter than it is in the industrialized world today. I'm not sure it was any harder or shorter than life in rural Ethiopia today.
It probably isn't. Life is harsh in the modern world too, not just in the medieval world.
But that just solidifies my point. Be it a modern fantasy setting or a medieval fantasy setting, life is hard for the PCs and NPCs, and perhaps elves get the short stick in all of them. (Life is no picnic for the elves of Shadowrun, for example.)
More to the point, as is the case today, the difficulty and shortness of one's life varied widely based on various factors such as local ecology, social rank and privilege and a myriad of other things.
Life was hard for everyone in the medieval age. Even for royalty. It's just a matter of harsher versus harshest.
The fantasy setting might or might not reflect that. Depends on the setting.
Still closer to the point, I am not sure whether D&D worlds are sufficiently similar to medieval Europe to make any useful analogies here. For instance, the DMG is quite clear that human life expectancy is much closer in D&D worlds to our own than it is to medieval Europe.Depends where and when but I will agree that not only in medieval times but in most places and times outside of the contemporary industrialized world, this was the case.Actually no. During periods of war, famine and poor weather, the proportion of the population engaged in farming declined; raiding, war and pastoralism tended to remove people from the land and place them in armies, bandit companies and migrant groups driving herds before them.This is a sweeping generalization that just does not hold up. Why don't you read the accounts of medieval people when they write about the times in which they lived?
I think the medieval world and some of the settings are close enough to make the analogy. Just personal opinion, of course.
I have read the accounts of medieval people. And the accounts are ghastly. Life stank back then. (It isn't any picnic for most people in the modern world, either.) I read about the Hundred Years War ... you are quite right that few people remained in farming. In the end, over vast areas, few people remained alive at all.
What you have done is throw together everything bad that ever happened in a 1000 year period and describe it as the normal situation. People wrote about wars because they were exceptional. People wrote about plagues because they were exceptional. Most people who worked on the land were not slaves. Most people led lives where they had a chance to make a home for themselves, fall in love and have kids. Most people had time to dance and sing and drink.
Yes, they had time. A little time. And people made merry when they could. Especially during wartime or plaguetime, people went out of their way to make merry *while* they still could. And that is the case today.
Elves would be no different, in that respect. They would make merry when they could.
But elves would wear out, if they had anything resembling human psychological endurance. War after war after war would wear them down. They say elves have long memories: imagine keeping wartime memories close, after enduring countless wars.
Or, just think of owning a dog, and loving that dog, but the dog dies after 10 years. The elf survives that pain, and gets a new dog. One hundred dogs later, with one hundred deaths fresh in his mind, how well is that elf going to feel? How does he cope with the pain of so many losses?
One answer could be to give elves the Supernatural power of mental fortitude, in that they just somehow remain merry and nonchalant and frivolous, in spite of it all. That is the case with Dragonlance kender, in that they retain their childish ways regardless of harm (although some have beem Afflicted.)
That's one possible answer. It would make sense. How else could elves remain teenagers for 80 years? Long before that 80 years was up, they'd have had so many accidents and troubles they'd be old men ...
But I'm not sure where this reasoning can take us productively because I see no evidence that mortality and subsistence patterns in D&D worlds are like this. Indeed, the disease and aging mechanics, most thoroughly spelled out in the AD&D PHB, seem to indicate that human beings in D&D live in far greater material abundance than your average farmer in Tigray province in Ethiopia today.
Probably. But that does not mean life isn't hard for your average Flanae or Faerunian peasant. Again, there is bad, and then there is *bad* (as in, Vecna is the ruler of the Suloise Imperium.)
Whereas the 3.5 DMG does indeed predict that commoners make up the lion's share of the population, it does seem that they are a healthier lot than medieval European peasants (or Roman rural folk, Egyptian fellahin, etc.). And the amount of war and plague in a kingdom is largely contingent on GM-controlled matters of world design not on some resemblance to our world's past.Why would I want to do that? If I did that, there would be no elves, dwarves, halflings, orcs, goblins, dragons or any of the other stuff I play D&D to see. And given that this is a discussion of elves, this seems especially pointless.No. It's not. For one thing, look at how different reality is for D&D women than real women; they have equal physical strength and size to men and are more socially mobile and free than even the most emancipated women in contemporary culture. And that's just one example.One cannot reasonably contend that because wars happen in fantasy worlds, they happen the same way as they did in our world. Of course, if they did, that would be good news to your average peasant because it would mean he would be very unlikely to have to fight and would have a good chance of surviving if he kept his head down, a marked contrast from the mortality of a modern war like WWI.
Good points. The fantasy settings are not like reality. And that's GOOD.
So elves do not have to be bound by real world dictates. They can transcend them. And there is a whole ruleset on how they can do that, which helps out immensely.
Hopefully, elves can transcend the real world in ways that are creative, interesting, and believable enough people want to play them and interact with them.
I just want to figure out how they can survive all these Bad Guys stomping on them, which is typical of a setting. As I said, conceptual and philosophical discussion here. Or: How to Build a Better Elf.
The same discussion could occur for any race in the game, if someone wanted to initiate those discussions.
Furthermore, it is also pretty clear from the coverage of these wars that disease vectors work differently in D&D worlds. The armies don't seem to be giant migrating contagions the way they were in the late medieval period.No. They don't. For one thing, it appears that elves are not agrarian societies; they appear to be societies closer to high-density hunter-gatherer societies like the Indians of pre-16th century California -- they live in highly bountiful wild environments that permit them to live at high densities without modifying the environment significantly.
That is a neat idea for elves, your reference to the California Indians. I think so, at least.
Disease? Well, disease may not even exist as we think of it, in D&D. Perhaps it is actually demonic possession. Or a curse thrown by a deity or high level NPC (someone insulted Larloch publicly in that inn, and now half the city has fallen ill ...)
But if there is disease, it is a problem, no, regardless of what it is? If the elves have no resistance, with their low rate of reproduction, it hits them harder.
Furthermore, elvish cultures, in almost all campaign settings, are almost always described as more internally peaceful than human societies. In addition, elves are more productive per capita in that (a) they live longer (b) they have more productive hours in their days (c) they are reproductively fertile for much longer than humans.
Yes, yes, and yes.
Now, if only they would actually capitalize on those strengths, they would get somewhere!
But tell that to Queen Yolande of Celene, who feuds with the Knights of Luna and does nothing against Turrosh Mak. Tell it to the feuding politicians of Qualinesti, or to the elves of the Kinslayer Wars of Ansalon. Tell it to the Elves of Arvandaar, who obliterated the elven nation of Miritar and left a giant wasteland where it was. Or to the elves of Myth Drannor, who gave in to hatred and so alienated the Srinshee she refused to save them.
Their reproductive capcity COULD enable a single couple to have a thousand children. Could. But I am told the average is only two. Elves seem to favor ... not having a lot of children ... go figure.
Elves do have longer days. They could theoretically put in 18 hour days and still get enough reverie to satisfy them (heck, Legolas could run in his sleep, and that would be an Extraordinary Power if anything was.) Now, if they would actually BE PRODUCTIVE during those hours, like the dwarves are, they'd get somewhere in the fantasy world!
Considering things, elven civil wars are the height of absurdity. They have enough trouble without killing each other. Imagine that RISK game again. The Elven Player holds Australia. As usual, he does not take his 3 Armies each turn or draw cards. But he decides to have his armies attack each other! (while the Orc Player holding North America snickers and snickers and snickers ...)
Special immunities are not the main thing that protects you from natural threats; knowledge of the natural world is your best protection. And it is clear that elves are more knowledgeable about the natural world than human beings are.But human beings today are no different physically than we were in the Middle Ages. What makes us less subject to natural and human threats is contingent on our technology, knowledge and forms of social organization. It is clear that D&D elves are, just as we are, technologically, educationally, socially and politically different both than D&D humans and medieval European peasants.
Knowledge is power. You are quite correct. My opinion.
In D&D, elves are very much depicted as seekers of knowledge, magical and mundane. I would create an elven society true to that concept.
But this is true of nearly all D&D creatures.Nope. The average number of kids people had in the Middle Ages varied dramatically from place to place and time to time. Generally, people tended to limit their family sizes in periods of extreme scarcity and increase family sizes in good times.But this isn't the case; there was not a continuous massive exponential increase in Europe's population between 500 and 1500.Says who? Where do the RAW suggest this?
Nowhere. Starvation, plague, and war have historically limited human population.
The elves reproduce so slowly, if you take 2 children per thousand years at face value, that it is irrelevant. A single war, plague, or famine could spell an end to all of them ... it is up to them to learn and understand how to avoid that happening.
I would comment that people seen to have seen their own children as commodities, back during the medieval age (as work units on the farm.) I hope the elves are not so low as to look upon their own children so ... and it would appear they are not.
[/QUOTE] How does the fact that elvish reproductive lives are typically 20x longer than the average human's affect things? How could this not matter? While female humans can make babies between 15 and 45, elvish women can make babies between 100 and 700.But the population of Europe did not increase from 10 million to 40 quadrillion between 500 and 1500 so perhaps your math may be off.Do you see anything about that in the RAW? I'm not aware of this.If extreme longevity, verging on immortality is a factor in your model, then surely the elves would have the demographic edge because while less than 1% of humans might be able to achieve this magically, every single elf is born with this.Indeed. But there are other models of living at very high population densities in forests without any clearing at all. I have already mentioned pre-Columbian California. But let be throw in the slash and burn agriculture of the Mayans while I'm at it. Indeed. But this assumes that mixed agro-pastoralism is the only way to sustain high populations. Fortunately, the historical record shows that this is not the case. [/QUOTE]
Simple. The plague kills one third of the population, human and elven. (Ala the Black Death in Europe.) Guess which race recovers more quickly, given those birth rates.
Same with famine. Or war. And what fantasy setting isn't plagued with wars?
The elves must find some way to cope with the problems raised by their low reproductive rate.
Even medieval Europeans raised their pigs almost exclusively in forests until the 12th century. In fact, forest area was often measured based on how many pigs it could sustain.Or you build your house differently than we do. Check out the Lothlorien scenes in LOTR.I don't buy this at all. Huh? The forges of the medieval world were fired by charcoal made in forests and then transported some distance to the forge. How do you think forges were fueled?There are plenty of kinds of forests. I don't see why a game world's forests would be superabundant in these two particular species.The movement and natural hazard rules in the RAW seem to disagree with you here. As does my experience when I go hiking.When I go hiking I come across all kinds of water.But not all forests in LOTR are like Southern Mirkwood. Indeed, this is an exceptionally inhospitable forest because of Sauron's presence. What is true about Mirkwood is no more universal than what is true about Fangorn, the Old Forest or Lothlorien.
True enough. But consider dwarves for a minute. Consider the dwarven nation in Lonely Mountain. There, vast amounts of space is given over to forges and forging. Wood (and/or coal) is brought in, as needed: the dwarves have no qualms about felling trees (Dimril Dale is barren because the dwarves felled all the trees there to make funeral pyres, and no trees ever grew back, according to the history section in ROTK.)
Elves just don't do that. They cherish trees. They value forests. This is great, but it interferes in any efforts at medieval industrialization (ala the dwarves.) Caras Galadon produced great bows, waybread, and elven cloaks, but did it produce much in the way of swords and armor?
I'm not saying elves don't industrialize. But they don't gleefully embrace it, the way dwarves have done. (The Noldor embraced industralization, alone among the elves to do so.)
However, we do know that the elves of Northern Mirkwood and Lothlorien live comfortable, abundant lives sharply at variance with how you describe forest life.Then how do you explain forest- and jungle-dwelling peoples having such poor immunity to colonizers' diseases in the past 500 years? It is cities that have traditionally been the places where disease is most common. The idea that your average medieval city was less disease-ridden than your average medieval forest is nothing short of preposterous.Right.... ticks, fleas, mosquitos, spiders, rats, vermin... they never show up in cities.Right... the Iroquois, Haida, Mayans... they clearly aren`t civilizationsBut elves do work with metal everywhere except Elfquest strips. Now this might be because they make use of the abundant charcoal materials that surround them and fire forges on a large scale. Or it might be because they trade with metal-producing societies. This is how many societies get their metal stuff. Even today, most metal goods are obtained through trade not local production. Just look at how few countries make aluminum!Well, this is the first time you have really made a strong case that elves are like medieval peasants. Fortunately the elves have an extra 6 waking hours every day in which to do this, and an extra 900 years of life, for good measure.But gathering wild mushrooms and acorns for a couple of hours does.Well, not unless it is the somatic component of the cleric or druid spell.The fact that elves like to frolic does
not mean that they compulsive frolic under all circumstances, even when doing so threatens their very existence; otherwise there would be a mechanic requiring elves to make a DC15 will save every round to avoid frolicking that round instead of defending himself.Compare the elves` alignment descriptor with that of orcs and get back to me on that one.I think you need to be a little more specific here. I see nothing in the books indicating that elves are compelled to neglect their basic survival and routinely starve because they are unable to stop frolicking. If the rules make it hard for any societies to do okay, it is Chaotic Evil societies. These societies are far more internally unstable, unproductive and lethal than elvish societies.So, in the gaming materials you have read, have you ever heard about elves forgoing their attacks in a combat because they do not feel like it.No. So YOU say; IT says nothing of the kind.Where in the RAW does it say that?Wrong again.So does everybody else.Doesn't that depend on the world in question? In most settings I read, humans are more likely to be the allies of elves than their enemies.These monsters also threaten humans and every other race.Many other races are highly competitive, highly powerful and hate humans with a passion. And yet humans seem to do fine.All players of demihuman characters use humans as their baseline. But I see no evidence that players of elves do so less authentically than players of dwarves.Well, if the books depict elvish civilization as quite similar to human, on what basis are you asserting that it is not? If your ideas about elvish society don't come from these depictions, why should we view them as more reliable and rational than the depictions of elvish society in the published materials we read?Then you can design homebrews and characters that emphasize the otherness of elves if that's what licks your stamps. Nobody is stopping you.Most settings deliver just those sorts of elves. I don't see you as needing to go out and reinvent the wheel if that's all you want out of your elves."Elves as elves" doesn't really convey anything to me. You seem to have described a version of elves I'm not interested in: elves who live in crappy, hazardous forests they don't know very well, elves who have such a strong compulsion to frolic that they may starve to death as a result, elves who get their tubes tied at 90, etc.
Ok, a harsh post deserves a harsh reply.
We suspend belief when we read books ... or settings. If we did not, how could we enjoy them?
But how far we can suspend belief is based on who we are, personally. And that varies as much as there are many of us.
I have always suspended belief on elves. I still do: I simply suspend belief less than I did, and look for logical answers to some impossibilities.
Well, it is impossible for a large population - by large, I mean tens of thousands or more - to live in a small area of forest.
It has never been successfully done historically, by any civilization or group. It never will be done. It cannot ever be done.
Large populations require grain farming. Grain farming is what produced large populations in the first place, starting with Egypt, Sumeria, and China. Grain (and rice) farming requires room. And it requires removal of the forests so grain crops can be raised.
Thus, Caras Galadon is a theoretical impossibility. So was early Rivendell, when it was full of refugees from Eregion. And so is Thranduil's civilization in Northern Mirkwood, barring huge food imports from Laketown, Dorwinion, and elsewhere.
This impossibility is irrelevant in that we read Tolkien for a good story, not to discuss the impossibility of elven lifestyles.
It is in *this* thread that we discuss that impossibility, and how it could be rectified ... D&D style, using the rules of the D&D game.
And yes, forests have diseases. And pests. And monsters. Not to mention weather and climate. Or why do you think humans build homes and stockades and cities for protection, well away from forests, in setting after setting?
And yes, if the elves are going to play dwarf, and start with metallurgy, then the air will be fouled, waste will be produced, trees must be felled for fuel, and a lot of very unelven-like situations arise.
One sword is one thing, but how about ten thousand swords? This will require a lot of trees. One suit of armor is one thing. But a thousand? More trees gone. Metal tools? More trees. Other forging? More trees. You can't get something from nothing ... without magic, at least.
If you want to play a crazy extreme version of elves who hate procreating, have poor impulse control to the point of severe mental illness, never trade and live in the most inhospitable forests they can find, that's your deal. But to dress this up as some kind of logical consequence of the RAW is just not on.
Heh. Read the setting elves again. You are missing a lot of particulars concerning them. Then return and repeat yourself.
