Quote:
Originally Posted by Michael Thayne
In Tolkien and every edition of D&D I know of, elves don't reach adulthood until age 100 or so. This has always struck me as extremely weird. It suggests elven education for "children" could be the equivalent of dozens of PhDs, and there's a general question of how you even roleplay someone who is 100 years old but just starting their career. On the other hand, maybe this helps explain why the elven population doesn't grow any faster, and perhaps slower, than the human population. It seems like reaching maturity as fast as humans plus no aging after that is potentially a recipe for fairly fast population growth (especially factoring magical healing and such). Thoughts? There's also the general question of what keeps the elven population under control regardless, since centuries of childbearing years for women presents its own problems regardless of whether they start having children at 20 or 120.
|
I struggle with this as well. The people that write medieval inspired fantasy races are not necessarily biologists by training. So, generally speaking, species get to maturity which is the point where they can reproduce, and then slowly reduce their reproductive capability. There are a number of biological factors that could keep population growth under control.
First of all, there is the low birth rate (social or biological factors) that could be applied. Some species have long gestational times (although not proportionally longer. Nobody wants to be pregnant for 8-10 years!) and the likelihood of pregnancy may be very low from one year to the next, compared to human populations. In terms of 'adulthood', beyond physical maturity, adulthood is mostly a social distinction. At what age are young members of the community considered adults? They may be biologically mature at 25 years, but not really considered thoughtful adults until 100-120 years, for example. In my campaigns, I normally rule that the Elves reach maturity a little slower-- maybe 25-30 years, but then are physically mature, but with low likelihood of having children, to account for the relatively low numbers of elven children in the community.
Alternatively, there could be social pressures keeping the birth rate low (and one considers that if even human populations can historically control the likelihood of pregnancy, the advanced cultures of the elves should be able to as well). "What? You're having another child? But your child is only 10 years old.. What are you, bunnies?" As medicine has improved the number of children per family has reduced in many cases, as the likelihood of those children surviving to adulthood has increased significantly, and it's a more efficient use of resources to concentrate on having only the two children to replace you and your partner.
I don't much like the fantasy RPG design feature where different races are 'balanced' against one another. I recognize why this is done, that nobody wants to play a character that is apparently much weaker than another one, but the source material, these races are never really balanced. Elves are frequently superior (in a game sense) to other races, for example, and from that standpoint, I normally gravitate towards games that support that-- as GURPS 4E does, being that an Elf template is 65 points, but it costs you 0 points to be a human, for example. That reflects to me the sense that 'not all races are exactly balanced from a game standpoint' and reinforces the game world. It also allows you to play a high point Elf who not only has the Elf template, but might also have many, many years to hone their skills. An elf who physically matures at 30, and is an adventurer at 100 (quite young for an elf) has had 70 years to learn art, philosophy, language, and weapons skills). An 88-year old human, on the other hand (18 to mature, and 70 years of experience) is fighting against the physical limits of what they can still accomplish at 88 years of age*
*Assuming that you are not of Dunedain blood, in which case you could be quite active at 88, but certainly aren't going to keep pace with elves throughout their lifecycle.
I've been thinking about putting together a talk/seminar for gaming conventions on biological/genetic considerations in Fantasy/Science Fiction, so this topic has kind of been on my mind at late.
Best of wishes to everyone!
-P