So wanted to get other peoples thoughts on this. When dealing with a race that generally VASTLY outlives humans, how do you figure the whole "age to maturity" ratio? Like if a human tops out at 100 years, and an elf tops out at 2K. Does that mean a 100 year old elf is equal to a 5 year old human? Or are we looking at a "DBZ Saiyan" situation; where some races physically age to a certain point, then remain in that form for 80-95% of their life?
I'm basically trying to figure out how old to make an elf kid, so that they can have the wide eye innocence of youth, while not having an "8 year old" having been alive since the human (class)'s great grandpa was teething.
Age. Although elves reach physical maturity at about the same age as humans, the elven understanding of adulthood goes beyond physical growth to encompass worldly experience. An elf typically claims adulthood and an adult name around the age of 100 and can live to be 750 years old.
I've never looked real deep into aging for races, but I do know that specifically for elves, it states elves are called by their child name until some time after their 100th birthday, then they are given an adult name. This is where I know less, but I would say they physically grow at the same rate as a human, likely fully grown by their 20s(ish). But they have longer to live, so they spend more time doing child like activities and mentally developing.
It won't scale nicely. There are two aspects to how fast you mature. Physical and experience.
Different creatures mature at different rates, and it's not a fixed proportion to their lifespan. A deer walks within 7 hours and live for 3 years. That maps to human walking at 8 days...which makes no sense. Different species mature at different rates, and it depends on their physical attributes.
Experience also affects rates of maturity. I know people at 15 who are fully mature. I know people who are 60 going on 6. Elves will have this push their maturity faster since they'll have a lot of experience in their [proportionately] early years and this will tend to make them mature at roughly the same age (since they're less likely to have non average experience to alter it).
So, there isn't going to be an easy way of mapping it. You can't say that humans are mature at 20% of their expected lifespan, so let's say Elves are too, giving them maturity at 150, because biology doesn't work like that. Instead, we just have to trust lore or make it up ourselves. Lore says 100, but you're free to change it for your world. 20 makes just as much sense, so does 200. Published adventures will assume 100, so go with that if you're using those. Otherwise, feel free to pick whatever makes sense for you.
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It won't scale nicely. There are two aspects to how fast you mature. Physical and experience.
Different creatures mature at different rates, and it's not a fixed proportion to their lifespan. A deer walks within 7 hours and live for 3 years. That maps to human walking at 8 days...which makes no sense. Different species mature at different rates, and it depends on their physical attributes.
Experience also affects rates of maturity. I know people at 15 who are fully mature. I know people who are 60 going on 6. Elves will have this push their maturity faster since they'll have a lot of experience in their [proportionately] early years and this will tend to make them mature at roughly the same age (since they're less likely to have non average experience to alter it).
So, there isn't going to be an easy way of mapping it. You can't say that humans are mature at 20% of their expected lifespan, so let's say Elves are too, giving them maturity at 150, because biology doesn't work like that. Instead, we just have to trust lore or make it up ourselves. Lore says 100, but you're free to change it for your world. 20 makes just as much sense, so does 200. Published adventures will assume 100, so go with that if you're using those. Otherwise, feel free to pick whatever makes sense for you.
The problem with 100 or 200 is that it implies severe difficulties learning. In 100 years they have had five times as much time as the 20 year old has had to learn about life, so if they are equivalent to a 20 year old at 100, they must have massive difficulties learning anything new, ever.
Consider that, under the rules, one can learn a new language or a new tool proficiency in about 2 and a half months. So about 5 per year if you are doing nothing else. And yet starting Elves do not really have that much more in the way of known languages and know no more tool proficiencies than humans with the same backgrounds.
Conversely, shorter lived races are not penalized for their more rapid development, but do not learn faster as PC's.
You're assuming thathteir brain physically matures at the same rate as humans. In terms of experience, there isn't really any reason why a human can't be mature before their teens. Human brains don't fully develop their abilities until their late teens though, which is why maturity generally flattens out after then, usually in mid twenties. There is no reason to believe that a species so fundamentally different to us as to live to 750 years would reach that maturity by 20. As I suggested in my post, it's not just about how much you experience, but how you learn from it, interpret it and analyse it - and that all depends on the physical aspects of the brain.
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This thread exposes the fact that the when players choose another species to play, all the player is doing is putting on a skin suit. It is impossible to "immerse oneself" and play another species with an entirely different biology, culture, and worldview since we as actual humans have zero point of reference to some utterly alien species.
I once read a sci-fi novel that had the equivalent of a UN. There were all kinds of species. Humans provided a role in the fact that they could act as go-between for a ultra high metabolism short lived insectoid species that spoke at an insanely fast clip, and a ultra long lived species that communicated on a scale measured in hours and days. These two ends of the sentient spectrum simply could not understand one another in a very physical sense, and also in a worldview sense.
Halings and Humans, sure, they would have very similar views of the world, as they live roughly the same life span, and share a relatively common biology, and worldview. Tack Half-Elves into that mix as well, or any other number of species that WOTC has conveniently say live 60-150 years, and consume calories in the same manner, and all seem to have the mother/father family dynamic.
But no one is ever going to convince me that some species with a lifespan of 30 years like an Aarakocra can share a world view that is even a tiny bit compatible with that of an Elf that can live 800 years. Or that a Thri-kreen insect which very likely eats its own dead, the bodies of its enemies, (and friends), has no concept of parents (I am modelling it off the biology we know about insects) can get along with some species that honours its dead. Or playing an Ooze, which more than likely dissolves in some manner other than a stomach.
It comes down to role-play.
If you are playing a short-lived race, then your point of view might be to enjoy life while you can, since you don't have much of it.
Whereas an elf can take their time about anything, because they have so much time available to them. I'm certainly using this attitude for the elf I'm currently playing.
The long-lived races are just problematic the second you drill down into it.
One of the major issues is that if there are all these 600 year old elves around, they remember all this stuff that goes way way back. They should be deeply wise and intelligent. It's impossible to translate that stuff into the game. Why isn't every society ruled by elves? Even gaining 1 Wizard level every 20 years, NPCs still hit level 20 at around 520 years old. Society should be dominated by powerful elven spellcasters. Information should all come from elves who just remember what happened 500 years ago, no need to go do research. Since elven artificers can spend 500 years figuring out electricity, there should be electronics and smartphones.
Then there's this nonsense about them not maturing until they're 100 years old - so they must have severe learning issues for the first 100 years of their lives. Like, they can't do a degree in the same amount of time as a human? If this is their extended childhood, then they should achieve dozens of degrees by the time they're an adult. Every elf should be doctorate level.
To play an adult elven character, you've already lived beyond a reasonable expectation of a human lifetime. What have you been doing in that time? How many serious relationships have you already had? How many children does an elf have over the course of their crazy long life, given their maturity lasts for centuries? Elf population growth should be out of control. Elves can be any alignment, so there should be constant battling over inheritance, since nobody ever really seems to get any until centuries have passed. Elves will value other races as little more than pets after they've lived a few centuries, since they pop in and out of life in fleeting amounts of time.
I abandoned all that daftness long ago. In my game, dwarfs and elves live to about 150 at the top end. That means they live longer, and can look younger for longer, but there are no 700 year old loremasters just sitting around killing time in taverns waiting to dish out all the history the PCs need to know.
A lot of fantasy breaks down if you try to get too scientific about it. Personally, I handwave it. "It's an elf kid" is good enough for my players, and it's good enough for me. Character age in precise numbers really doesn't come up often in gameplay except with niche monster attacks/magic effects that force characters to age a certain number of years if they fail a save. And even then, the effects are pretty much cosmetic.
Now, if you really enjoy thinking about the verisimilitude and impacts of extreme lifespans (long and short), then by all means come up with a maturity chart for each race in your universe. I could see how that level of worldbuilding might influence a campaign and provide interesting RP opportunities. And if you were doing that, my advice would be to echo Kotath's post and say that make physical maturity standard across the board so it doesn't get weird. The rest of the lifespan could take on cultural overtones and religious/spiritual significance, and descriptions of "middle-aged" and "elderly" for NPCs just add flavor or help place the social encounters in a specific context.
So at least in FR setting, I do believe that the elvish example is strongly linked to their reveries (the trance like rest they enter into)
During their young years, the dreams and visions they experience during rest are of past lives, or life as primal spirits in the feywild. These reveries are gradually lost until their first reflexion, when their own memories and visions enter the reverie. This marks the beginning of the adolescent stage, and persists as a mixutre until they completely lose the young dreams and only have visions relating to their own deeds and memories (The drawing of the veil)
From this point onwards, elves now strive to build good memories for their own life - generally known as adulthood, and that tends to commence around the 100th year.
Much later on, the elder stage commences when the reveries start including visions or memories of other lives or their passing to Arvandor.
So it doesn't actually relate to their physical capabilities at all - it is form a perspective of how their spirits are connected and viewed across a lifetime. A 75 year old elf isn't going to behave as a sullen teenager, they are mature, and probably spending time honing a craft, but still experience a mixture of their own memories and those happy care free days in a past life or in the free roam as a spirit :)
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Another way to do it is to consider it the other way around. Do not think of it as just reaching 'maturity', but instead consider how humans change and extend that. At 100 a human is as 'mature' as an elf at 100. But an elf at 200 has developed a very different mind set to any human. They care less about money, power, etc, and care more more about the world, etc.
But at the same time they are also becoming, shall we say hardened and stubborn. They think any music that was not around when they were 100 to be stupid and childish. If they went to war with the dwarves then, for the rest of their life they may distrust dwarves, even if they have been allies and trading partners for 300 years. "That new fangled Warlock magic may be fine for the humans, but if there wasn't any Warlocks when I was 200 year olds, then it can't be worth much. A max of only FOUR spell slots? How weak!"
Life in general may be a lot slower. Consider a college equivalent like this: We start a new class once a decade, it lasts for 20 years, you have to apply at least 5 years in advance, and the deadline was last year, so you have to wait another 9 years to apply for the class that starts in 14 years and ends in 24 years.
This will create a very patient species that dislikes people rushing about, although they do make allowances for anyone that is less than 90 years old. How quaint, the human children just built a bridge in less than a a year! What do you mean they are adult, I saw that one be born just 40 years ago.
It won't scale nicely. There are two aspects to how fast you mature. Physical and experience.
Different creatures mature at different rates, and it's not a fixed proportion to their lifespan. A deer walks within 7 hours and live for 3 years. That maps to human walking at 8 days...which makes no sense. Different species mature at different rates, and it depends on their physical attributes.
Experience also affects rates of maturity. I know people at 15 who are fully mature. I know people who are 60 going on 6. Elves will have this push their maturity faster since they'll have a lot of experience in their [proportionately] early years and this will tend to make them mature at roughly the same age (since they're less likely to have non average experience to alter it).
So, there isn't going to be an easy way of mapping it. You can't say that humans are mature at 20% of their expected lifespan, so let's say Elves are too, giving them maturity at 150, because biology doesn't work like that. Instead, we just have to trust lore or make it up ourselves. Lore says 100, but you're free to change it for your world. 20 makes just as much sense, so does 200. Published adventures will assume 100, so go with that if you're using those. Otherwise, feel free to pick whatever makes sense for you.
The problem with 100 or 200 is that it implies severe difficulties learning. In 100 years they have had five times as much time as the 20 year old has had to learn about life, so if they are equivalent to a 20 year old at 100, they must have massive difficulties learning anything new, ever.
Consider that, under the rules, one can learn a new language or a new tool proficiency in about 2 and a half months. So about 5 per year if you are doing nothing else. And yet starting Elves do not really have that much more in the way of known languages and know no more tool proficiencies than humans with the same backgrounds.
Conversely, shorter lived races are not penalized for their more rapid development, but do not learn faster as PC's.
I think the idea is that an elf is about as developed as a human is at the same age, but elves don't see that as maturity. And yes, that means that elves probably don't view most humans as capable of true maturity. There's a reason people see them as snooty, you know.
I would imagine that a core part of growing into adulthood as an elf is losing a peer to old age. By the age of 100 it's near guaranteed, if you have non-elf friends. The elves are also famously solemn and distant.
The flip side is that a human would probably consider an elf mature at the human age of maturity, despite what elves might think. And young elves are likely to agree. Young humans often like to think of themselves as more mature than they are, too.
So at least in FR setting, I do believe that the elvish example is strongly linked to their reveries (the trance like rest they enter into)
During their young years, the dreams and visions they experience during rest are of past lives, or life as primal spirits in the feywild. These reveries are gradually lost until their first reflexion, when their own memories and visions enter the reverie. This marks the beginning of the adolescent stage, and persists as a mixutre until they completely lose the young dreams and only have visions relating to their own deeds and memories (The drawing of the veil)
From this point onwards, elves now strive to build good memories for their own life - generally known as adulthood, and that tends to commence around the 100th year.
Much later on, the elder stage commences when the reveries start including visions or memories of other lives or their passing to Arvandor.
So it doesn't actually relate to their physical capabilities at all - it is form a perspective of how their spirits are connected and viewed across a lifetime. A 75 year old elf isn't going to behave as a sullen teenager, they are mature, and probably spending time honing a craft, but still experience a mixture of their own memories and those happy care free days in a past life or in the free roam as a spirit :)
Agree. Also elves as published don't have the same drives that a human does. A human has to grow up, learn a trade, learn to socialize, establish themselves, create a family to carry out their name and squeeze it in a world of violence that shortens everyone's live expectancies to their 40's, all at the same time.
Elves as a cultural group (and not necessarily players), probably do this serially, and polishes each step. 20-100 is about being an elf. 100-200 is when they are active exploring the world, 200-350 is raising a family, etc. And like stated above, without the single minded purpose, taking the time to enjoy their time in the world and their culture unrushed. All the while remaining distant from the other races as seeing their issues as short term problems that will disappear in a decade. This leads to them being isolated much of the time, as having a friend that is just going to die in a decade or two, is painful.
Also as defined in MToF, elven souls are a finite number across the multiverse, and in Forgotten Realms, their population from the times of the Crown Wars is far smaller (implying the souls went elsewhere). The First Flowering was their time, and now is the time of humans. So there is a certain melancholy there, putting a damper on ambitions like an elven nation; there just aren't enough elves. And the powerful ones, have moved on to Evermeet in the Feywild, feeling content to move on.
Krynn with Qualinesti and Silvanesti, both elven nations are in disarray, homeless and scattered. Their plight would lead me to believe that finding a direction (without that humanlike drive) is a problem, on how to survive an onslaught of the war.
Eberron's setting with Aernal does a better job on an Elven outlook, although a Khorvaire elf didn't always mesh as well, living among humankind. Aernal everything is about the long term; trade agreements may take a long time to negotiate, and even longer to alter. The power of the Undying Court keeps their islands safe. Then with Valenar, you have an interesting dynamic, where the elves on average are higher level than the folks around them (5th or 6th vs. 3rd or 4th from one of the older 3rd ed sourcebooks from memory), reflecting their long training. But their numbers are still low, and are masters of hit and runs. And they just want to fight for glory of their ancestors, not for riches or territory.
Comes down to perspective and ultimately the players and DM's envisioning it and embracing it. Or...just accepting it and play the game. ;)
This thread exposes the fact that the when players choose another species to play, all the player is doing is putting on a skin suit. It is impossible to "immerse oneself" and play another species with an entirely different biology, culture, and worldview since we as actual humans have zero point of reference to some utterly alien species.
[snip]
I remember reading guidance in the old Traveler (the little black book one) setting, with Alien Module 1: Aslan on how you shouldn't play them as a "human in a funny suit," and it gave some concrete tips on how to embrace their cultural differences.
This is the essence of roleplaying and the challenge of doing all of the above, with the limited points of reference and getting to a point that you and others are happy with it. With one of my characters, Arnara, I spent a bit of time to figure out her story in context with the elven culture and how that fit with a party of non-elves. As a young elven wizard with a noble background, she became the party's leader because of her knowledge and application of strategy. What she didn't have was experience, just snippets from reveries of past lives and education. In the beginning she was almost paternalistic, seeing that the others needed guidance and her elven outlook would help them survive the trials in front of them.
And as mistakes were made, and players died, she had a tendency to isolate herself from the others in the group, as a way of dealing with pain of losing people around her under her guidance. Plus, having the understanding that she was going to lose them all in 40-100 years anyway and understanding what that meant was hard. She tried very hard to compartmentalize everything (not that she was always successful) and take the long view. She always was always calm, polite, and patient. She did not like rushing (so Tomb of Annihilation with its death curse was a mental challenge)
At the end, the players around me, loved the character and how she was portrayed. And that at the end of the day mattered more than the fidelity of if I got it 100% right.
I feel like people just straight up aren't reading the age section of the race. They just see the "...at 100 and can live up to 750" bit and don't read anything before that. They physically mature at the same rate as humans, so an 8 year old elf is the same as an 8 year old human in the sense of physical attributes and mental progression. It's that culturally, they are considered children until 100. It literally says in the age section: "the elven understanding of adulthood goes beyond physical growth to encompass worldly experience." At 100 they are considered worldly adults, not that they spent 50+ years in literal physical puberty.
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It won't scale nicely. There are two aspects to how fast you mature. Physical and experience.
Different creatures mature at different rates, and it's not a fixed proportion to their lifespan. A deer walks within 7 hours and live for 3 years. That maps to human walking at 8 days...which makes no sense. Different species mature at different rates, and it depends on their physical attributes.
Experience also affects rates of maturity. I know people at 15 who are fully mature. I know people who are 60 going on 6. Elves will have this push their maturity faster since they'll have a lot of experience in their [proportionately] early years and this will tend to make them mature at roughly the same age (since they're less likely to have non average experience to alter it).
So, there isn't going to be an easy way of mapping it. You can't say that humans are mature at 20% of their expected lifespan, so let's say Elves are too, giving them maturity at 150, because biology doesn't work like that. Instead, we just have to trust lore or make it up ourselves. Lore says 100, but you're free to change it for your world. 20 makes just as much sense, so does 200. Published adventures will assume 100, so go with that if you're using those. Otherwise, feel free to pick whatever makes sense for you.
The problem with 100 or 200 is that it implies severe difficulties learning. In 100 years they have had five times as much time as the 20 year old has had to learn about life, so if they are equivalent to a 20 year old at 100, they must have massive difficulties learning anything new, ever.
Consider that, under the rules, one can learn a new language or a new tool proficiency in about 2 and a half months. So about 5 per year if you are doing nothing else. And yet starting Elves do not really have that much more in the way of known languages and know no more tool proficiencies than humans with the same backgrounds.
Conversely, shorter lived races are not penalized for their more rapid development, but do not learn faster as PC's.
I think the idea is that an elf is about as developed as a human is at the same age, but elves don't see that as maturity. And yes, that means that elves probably don't view most humans as capable of true maturity. There's a reason people see them as snooty, you know.
I would imagine that a core part of growing into adulthood as an elf is losing a peer to old age. By the age of 100 it's near guaranteed, if you have non-elf friends. The elves are also famously solemn and distant.
The flip side is that a human would probably consider an elf mature at the human age of maturity, despite what elves might think. And young elves are likely to agree. Young humans often like to think of themselves as more mature than they are, too.
My understanding was that, in terms of elven development, it had nothing to do with their biological or mental/emotional maturity when they are culturally transitioning from child to adult. Rather, my understanding was that it was what they experience during the reverie that determines this, which seems to be more of a spiritual issue. For the first 100 years or so, their reverie are flashbacks to a time of their primal elf lives, as elves are constantly reincarnated. At a certain stage, approximately at the 100 year mark, they forget these experiences of their time in their elven heaven, and their reverie is instead more relevant to their current lives. This transitional stage is called the ‘drawing of the veil’.
I'm not a huge fan of relative age. In my view, a sapient being that is capable of thought, observation, and reflection, obtains and retains information about the world through lived experience. So like, in 17 years of living, you could say an elf and a human of similar levels of intelligence, in similar environments, would have the same level of maturity.
The only cases I can think of where this would not be the case would be in like insular elf communities, where maybe children are sheltered longer into their teens and whatnot, but I think those would mostly be cultural differences. I don't think they like, medically mature more slowly.
I'm not a huge fan of relative age. In my view, a sapient being that is capable of thought, observation, and reflection, obtains and retains information about the world through lived experience. So like, in 17 years of living, you could say an elf and a human of similar levels of intelligence, in similar environments, would have the same level of maturity.
The only cases I can think of where this would not be the case would be in like insular elf communities, where maybe children are sheltered longer into their teens and whatnot, but I think those would mostly be cultural differences. I don't think they like, medically mature more slowly.
Maturity has a physical aspect to it as well, as I mentioned earlier. You become mature at a rate that is largely set by physical processes - experiences etc can certainly adjust that, but it doesn't override it. A 7 year old can have as many deep experiences as a 27 year old has had, but they still won't be mature. As such, different species can reach maturity at different stages. Our personality is also shaped by the physical nature of our brains. I could go deeper, but I daresay it would be considered off topic by the mods and redacted if I'm lucky, but you can't escape the physicality of your brain, and that can vary significantly by species. A species that could live upto ten times the human lifespan could plausibly have a longer period of maturation. Or not, and we're talking about a fantasy world after all, so there is nothing wrong with defining it however you wish. I'm just talking from a realism point of view. It should also be said that, if the Elves have a better birthing process then they could mature even quicker.
There is also what counts as mature. An Elf could in theory reach a similar developmental stage as what we would consider a mature adult, and still be considered immature by the Elvish community because they haven't reached what Elves consider mature. How would a culture where reaching 750 years is normal view maturity? It's not like we stop changing, growing and improving at age 18. How would they see maturity? If they even viewnthings like that, at what point do they consider someone mature? Interesting questions.
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You seem to be setting aside that a 7 year old only has 7 years of experiences whereas a 27 year old has 27 years. On average, the 27 year old has nearly four times as many chances at deep experiences, four times the time over which to learn and mature. Unless the 27 year old has severe learning difficulties or the 7 year old is exceedingly gifted, or some combination thereof, the 27 year old will have learned rather a lot more in the same time. Not just raw facts, but emotionally too.
No, I'm not. You could cram a lot of experience into the 7 years (not facts, experience, which includes emotional aspects), and the older.person could have a very uneventful life. The 7 year old cannot be mature. Not for lack of experience, but their brain is not physically ready. Just as a 6 month old cannot talk. You can't just teach them faster, they're physiologically incapable of being mature.
Cats and dogs mature a lot quicker than humans, for example, but their adult comprehension levels, their objective maturity are normally well below that of adult humans. This is why it is ok to treat animals as animals.
This is getting way off topic, but it's not their maturity that's the issue. They are fully mature, long before we'd consider a human to be.
What is considered mature in any given culture is a bag of worms that I suggest most tables avoid, simply on the basis that all sorts of very questionable behaviours regarding such questions as age of consent have been known to be hand-waved 'ok' under the argument of culture.
Either the individual is objectively mature, or they are not.
Mature is subjective. There's no test for it. You can't do a test and get a yes/no. Regardless, mental maturity depends, at least in part, on the physical development of the brain. When full maturity can be achieved is a bit blurry as is all things with biology, which is why I can't give concrete numbers. But experience is only a piece, not even the dominant piece of the puzzle. The brain isn't fully built at birth and often takes more than two decades to be fully built. At least, in humans. In other animals, it's different. Usually shorter. Mammals are particularly long, and we're especially long due to birthing problems. Elves in a magical setting? Who knows. But until the brain is fully developed, a person cannot be fully mature.
Regardless, this has gone way off topic, and I will not be responding further. I suggest that the thread returns to topic rather than derailing it further. If you want to learn more, there are penny of places to do so.
If you're not willing or able to to discuss in good faith, then don't be surprised if I don't respond, there are better things in life for me to do than humour you. This signature is that response.
Cultural maturity also changes in humans depending on wealth and need. E.g. in a wealthier country/place, maturity as in self-sustainability, working, etc is often delayed to realise other benefits from education and experiences. That is just within the human race, so now we are extrapolating this variability across many different species of humanoids!
I tend to think of the same for the D&D species - e.g. the common pattern for an elf would be that after a century, they are culturally and spiritually ready to set off out into the world to make their own achievements. In the name of balancing, elves are probably nerfed pretty hard in the system. Imagine a young elven warrior with 50-75 years to refine their archery training, craft their own bows etc - their skill set should probably by definition be much deeper than many other species. But that's not to say you couldn't have a 25 year old elf out adventuring - forced by circumstances.
As always, the great thing about D&D is that you make it your own
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So wanted to get other peoples thoughts on this. When dealing with a race that generally VASTLY outlives humans, how do you figure the whole "age to maturity" ratio? Like if a human tops out at 100 years, and an elf tops out at 2K. Does that mean a 100 year old elf is equal to a 5 year old human? Or are we looking at a "DBZ Saiyan" situation; where some races physically age to a certain point, then remain in that form for 80-95% of their life?
I'm basically trying to figure out how old to make an elf kid, so that they can have the wide eye innocence of youth, while not having an "8 year old" having been alive since the human (class)'s great grandpa was teething.
This is from the PHB:
Age. Although elves reach physical maturity at about the same age as humans, the elven understanding of adulthood goes beyond physical growth to encompass worldly experience. An elf typically claims adulthood and an adult name around the age of 100 and can live to be 750 years old.
I've never looked real deep into aging for races, but I do know that specifically for elves, it states elves are called by their child name until some time after their 100th birthday, then they are given an adult name. This is where I know less, but I would say they physically grow at the same rate as a human, likely fully grown by their 20s(ish). But they have longer to live, so they spend more time doing child like activities and mentally developing.
Looking at it from a realism point of view:
It won't scale nicely. There are two aspects to how fast you mature. Physical and experience.
Different creatures mature at different rates, and it's not a fixed proportion to their lifespan. A deer walks within 7 hours and live for 3 years. That maps to human walking at 8 days...which makes no sense. Different species mature at different rates, and it depends on their physical attributes.
Experience also affects rates of maturity. I know people at 15 who are fully mature. I know people who are 60 going on 6. Elves will have this push their maturity faster since they'll have a lot of experience in their [proportionately] early years and this will tend to make them mature at roughly the same age (since they're less likely to have non average experience to alter it).
So, there isn't going to be an easy way of mapping it. You can't say that humans are mature at 20% of their expected lifespan, so let's say Elves are too, giving them maturity at 150, because biology doesn't work like that. Instead, we just have to trust lore or make it up ourselves. Lore says 100, but you're free to change it for your world. 20 makes just as much sense, so does 200. Published adventures will assume 100, so go with that if you're using those. Otherwise, feel free to pick whatever makes sense for you.
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You're assuming thathteir brain physically matures at the same rate as humans. In terms of experience, there isn't really any reason why a human can't be mature before their teens. Human brains don't fully develop their abilities until their late teens though, which is why maturity generally flattens out after then, usually in mid twenties. There is no reason to believe that a species so fundamentally different to us as to live to 750 years would reach that maturity by 20. As I suggested in my post, it's not just about how much you experience, but how you learn from it, interpret it and analyse it - and that all depends on the physical aspects of the brain.
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It comes down to role-play.
If you are playing a short-lived race, then your point of view might be to enjoy life while you can, since you don't have much of it.
Whereas an elf can take their time about anything, because they have so much time available to them. I'm certainly using this attitude for the elf I'm currently playing.
The long-lived races are just problematic the second you drill down into it.
One of the major issues is that if there are all these 600 year old elves around, they remember all this stuff that goes way way back. They should be deeply wise and intelligent. It's impossible to translate that stuff into the game. Why isn't every society ruled by elves? Even gaining 1 Wizard level every 20 years, NPCs still hit level 20 at around 520 years old. Society should be dominated by powerful elven spellcasters. Information should all come from elves who just remember what happened 500 years ago, no need to go do research. Since elven artificers can spend 500 years figuring out electricity, there should be electronics and smartphones.
Then there's this nonsense about them not maturing until they're 100 years old - so they must have severe learning issues for the first 100 years of their lives. Like, they can't do a degree in the same amount of time as a human? If this is their extended childhood, then they should achieve dozens of degrees by the time they're an adult. Every elf should be doctorate level.
To play an adult elven character, you've already lived beyond a reasonable expectation of a human lifetime. What have you been doing in that time? How many serious relationships have you already had? How many children does an elf have over the course of their crazy long life, given their maturity lasts for centuries? Elf population growth should be out of control. Elves can be any alignment, so there should be constant battling over inheritance, since nobody ever really seems to get any until centuries have passed. Elves will value other races as little more than pets after they've lived a few centuries, since they pop in and out of life in fleeting amounts of time.
I abandoned all that daftness long ago. In my game, dwarfs and elves live to about 150 at the top end. That means they live longer, and can look younger for longer, but there are no 700 year old loremasters just sitting around killing time in taverns waiting to dish out all the history the PCs need to know.
A lot of fantasy breaks down if you try to get too scientific about it. Personally, I handwave it. "It's an elf kid" is good enough for my players, and it's good enough for me. Character age in precise numbers really doesn't come up often in gameplay except with niche monster attacks/magic effects that force characters to age a certain number of years if they fail a save. And even then, the effects are pretty much cosmetic.
Now, if you really enjoy thinking about the verisimilitude and impacts of extreme lifespans (long and short), then by all means come up with a maturity chart for each race in your universe. I could see how that level of worldbuilding might influence a campaign and provide interesting RP opportunities. And if you were doing that, my advice would be to echo Kotath's post and say that make physical maturity standard across the board so it doesn't get weird. The rest of the lifespan could take on cultural overtones and religious/spiritual significance, and descriptions of "middle-aged" and "elderly" for NPCs just add flavor or help place the social encounters in a specific context.
So at least in FR setting, I do believe that the elvish example is strongly linked to their reveries (the trance like rest they enter into)
During their young years, the dreams and visions they experience during rest are of past lives, or life as primal spirits in the feywild. These reveries are gradually lost until their first reflexion, when their own memories and visions enter the reverie. This marks the beginning of the adolescent stage, and persists as a mixutre until they completely lose the young dreams and only have visions relating to their own deeds and memories (The drawing of the veil)
From this point onwards, elves now strive to build good memories for their own life - generally known as adulthood, and that tends to commence around the 100th year.
Much later on, the elder stage commences when the reveries start including visions or memories of other lives or their passing to Arvandor.
So it doesn't actually relate to their physical capabilities at all - it is form a perspective of how their spirits are connected and viewed across a lifetime. A 75 year old elf isn't going to behave as a sullen teenager, they are mature, and probably spending time honing a craft, but still experience a mixture of their own memories and those happy care free days in a past life or in the free roam as a spirit :)
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Another way to do it is to consider it the other way around. Do not think of it as just reaching 'maturity', but instead consider how humans change and extend that. At 100 a human is as 'mature' as an elf at 100. But an elf at 200 has developed a very different mind set to any human. They care less about money, power, etc, and care more more about the world, etc.
But at the same time they are also becoming, shall we say hardened and stubborn. They think any music that was not around when they were 100 to be stupid and childish. If they went to war with the dwarves then, for the rest of their life they may distrust dwarves, even if they have been allies and trading partners for 300 years. "That new fangled Warlock magic may be fine for the humans, but if there wasn't any Warlocks when I was 200 year olds, then it can't be worth much. A max of only FOUR spell slots? How weak!"
Life in general may be a lot slower. Consider a college equivalent like this: We start a new class once a decade, it lasts for 20 years, you have to apply at least 5 years in advance, and the deadline was last year, so you have to wait another 9 years to apply for the class that starts in 14 years and ends in 24 years.
This will create a very patient species that dislikes people rushing about, although they do make allowances for anyone that is less than 90 years old. How quaint, the human children just built a bridge in less than a a year! What do you mean they are adult, I saw that one be born just 40 years ago.
I think the idea is that an elf is about as developed as a human is at the same age, but elves don't see that as maturity. And yes, that means that elves probably don't view most humans as capable of true maturity. There's a reason people see them as snooty, you know.
I would imagine that a core part of growing into adulthood as an elf is losing a peer to old age. By the age of 100 it's near guaranteed, if you have non-elf friends. The elves are also famously solemn and distant.
The flip side is that a human would probably consider an elf mature at the human age of maturity, despite what elves might think. And young elves are likely to agree. Young humans often like to think of themselves as more mature than they are, too.
thank you. i was terrified with the mental picture of a 20 year old "child" still breastfeeding
Agree. Also elves as published don't have the same drives that a human does. A human has to grow up, learn a trade, learn to socialize, establish themselves, create a family to carry out their name and squeeze it in a world of violence that shortens everyone's live expectancies to their 40's, all at the same time.
Elves as a cultural group (and not necessarily players), probably do this serially, and polishes each step. 20-100 is about being an elf. 100-200 is when they are active exploring the world, 200-350 is raising a family, etc. And like stated above, without the single minded purpose, taking the time to enjoy their time in the world and their culture unrushed. All the while remaining distant from the other races as seeing their issues as short term problems that will disappear in a decade. This leads to them being isolated much of the time, as having a friend that is just going to die in a decade or two, is painful.
Also as defined in MToF, elven souls are a finite number across the multiverse, and in Forgotten Realms, their population from the times of the Crown Wars is far smaller (implying the souls went elsewhere). The First Flowering was their time, and now is the time of humans. So there is a certain melancholy there, putting a damper on ambitions like an elven nation; there just aren't enough elves. And the powerful ones, have moved on to Evermeet in the Feywild, feeling content to move on.
Krynn with Qualinesti and Silvanesti, both elven nations are in disarray, homeless and scattered. Their plight would lead me to believe that finding a direction (without that humanlike drive) is a problem, on how to survive an onslaught of the war.
Eberron's setting with Aernal does a better job on an Elven outlook, although a Khorvaire elf didn't always mesh as well, living among humankind. Aernal everything is about the long term; trade agreements may take a long time to negotiate, and even longer to alter. The power of the Undying Court keeps their islands safe. Then with Valenar, you have an interesting dynamic, where the elves on average are higher level than the folks around them (5th or 6th vs. 3rd or 4th from one of the older 3rd ed sourcebooks from memory), reflecting their long training. But their numbers are still low, and are masters of hit and runs. And they just want to fight for glory of their ancestors, not for riches or territory.
Comes down to perspective and ultimately the players and DM's envisioning it and embracing it. Or...just accepting it and play the game. ;)
I remember reading guidance in the old Traveler (the little black book one) setting, with Alien Module 1: Aslan on how you shouldn't play them as a "human in a funny suit," and it gave some concrete tips on how to embrace their cultural differences.
This is the essence of roleplaying and the challenge of doing all of the above, with the limited points of reference and getting to a point that you and others are happy with it. With one of my characters, Arnara, I spent a bit of time to figure out her story in context with the elven culture and how that fit with a party of non-elves. As a young elven wizard with a noble background, she became the party's leader because of her knowledge and application of strategy. What she didn't have was experience, just snippets from reveries of past lives and education. In the beginning she was almost paternalistic, seeing that the others needed guidance and her elven outlook would help them survive the trials in front of them.
And as mistakes were made, and players died, she had a tendency to isolate herself from the others in the group, as a way of dealing with pain of losing people around her under her guidance. Plus, having the understanding that she was going to lose them all in 40-100 years anyway and understanding what that meant was hard. She tried very hard to compartmentalize everything (not that she was always successful) and take the long view. She always was always calm, polite, and patient. She did not like rushing (so Tomb of Annihilation with its death curse was a mental challenge)
At the end, the players around me, loved the character and how she was portrayed. And that at the end of the day mattered more than the fidelity of if I got it 100% right.
I feel like people just straight up aren't reading the age section of the race. They just see the "...at 100 and can live up to 750" bit and don't read anything before that. They physically mature at the same rate as humans, so an 8 year old elf is the same as an 8 year old human in the sense of physical attributes and mental progression. It's that culturally, they are considered children until 100. It literally says in the age section: "the elven understanding of adulthood goes beyond physical growth to encompass worldly experience." At 100 they are considered worldly adults, not that they spent 50+ years in literal physical puberty.
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My understanding was that, in terms of elven development, it had nothing to do with their biological or mental/emotional maturity when they are culturally transitioning from child to adult. Rather, my understanding was that it was what they experience during the reverie that determines this, which seems to be more of a spiritual issue. For the first 100 years or so, their reverie are flashbacks to a time of their primal elf lives, as elves are constantly reincarnated. At a certain stage, approximately at the 100 year mark, they forget these experiences of their time in their elven heaven, and their reverie is instead more relevant to their current lives. This transitional stage is called the ‘drawing of the veil’.
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I'm not a huge fan of relative age. In my view, a sapient being that is capable of thought, observation, and reflection, obtains and retains information about the world through lived experience. So like, in 17 years of living, you could say an elf and a human of similar levels of intelligence, in similar environments, would have the same level of maturity.
The only cases I can think of where this would not be the case would be in like insular elf communities, where maybe children are sheltered longer into their teens and whatnot, but I think those would mostly be cultural differences. I don't think they like, medically mature more slowly.
Maturity has a physical aspect to it as well, as I mentioned earlier. You become mature at a rate that is largely set by physical processes - experiences etc can certainly adjust that, but it doesn't override it. A 7 year old can have as many deep experiences as a 27 year old has had, but they still won't be mature. As such, different species can reach maturity at different stages. Our personality is also shaped by the physical nature of our brains. I could go deeper, but I daresay it would be considered off topic by the mods and redacted if I'm lucky, but you can't escape the physicality of your brain, and that can vary significantly by species. A species that could live upto ten times the human lifespan could plausibly have a longer period of maturation. Or not, and we're talking about a fantasy world after all, so there is nothing wrong with defining it however you wish. I'm just talking from a realism point of view. It should also be said that, if the Elves have a better birthing process then they could mature even quicker.
There is also what counts as mature. An Elf could in theory reach a similar developmental stage as what we would consider a mature adult, and still be considered immature by the Elvish community because they haven't reached what Elves consider mature. How would a culture where reaching 750 years is normal view maturity? It's not like we stop changing, growing and improving at age 18. How would they see maturity? If they even viewnthings like that, at what point do they consider someone mature? Interesting questions.
If you're not willing or able to to discuss in good faith, then don't be surprised if I don't respond, there are better things in life for me to do than humour you. This signature is that response.
No, I'm not. You could cram a lot of experience into the 7 years (not facts, experience, which includes emotional aspects), and the older.person could have a very uneventful life. The 7 year old cannot be mature. Not for lack of experience, but their brain is not physically ready. Just as a 6 month old cannot talk. You can't just teach them faster, they're physiologically incapable of being mature.
This is getting way off topic, but it's not their maturity that's the issue. They are fully mature, long before we'd consider a human to be.
Mature is subjective. There's no test for it. You can't do a test and get a yes/no. Regardless, mental maturity depends, at least in part, on the physical development of the brain. When full maturity can be achieved is a bit blurry as is all things with biology, which is why I can't give concrete numbers. But experience is only a piece, not even the dominant piece of the puzzle. The brain isn't fully built at birth and often takes more than two decades to be fully built. At least, in humans. In other animals, it's different. Usually shorter. Mammals are particularly long, and we're especially long due to birthing problems. Elves in a magical setting? Who knows. But until the brain is fully developed, a person cannot be fully mature.
Regardless, this has gone way off topic, and I will not be responding further. I suggest that the thread returns to topic rather than derailing it further. If you want to learn more, there are penny of places to do so.
If you're not willing or able to to discuss in good faith, then don't be surprised if I don't respond, there are better things in life for me to do than humour you. This signature is that response.
Cultural maturity also changes in humans depending on wealth and need. E.g. in a wealthier country/place, maturity as in self-sustainability, working, etc is often delayed to realise other benefits from education and experiences. That is just within the human race, so now we are extrapolating this variability across many different species of humanoids!
I tend to think of the same for the D&D species - e.g. the common pattern for an elf would be that after a century, they are culturally and spiritually ready to set off out into the world to make their own achievements. In the name of balancing, elves are probably nerfed pretty hard in the system. Imagine a young elven warrior with 50-75 years to refine their archery training, craft their own bows etc - their skill set should probably by definition be much deeper than many other species. But that's not to say you couldn't have a 25 year old elf out adventuring - forced by circumstances.
As always, the great thing about D&D is that you make it your own
Tell me what you you are trying to achieve - we're telling this story together ....at least I thought we were - Now I am not so sure [OGL 1.1]