Why, I feel as though I hardly know you...

[Mobves]

My friend and I have played DnD for as long as we have known each other, and we have an extremely differing opinion on one of the fluff rules; aging differences.

My friend thinks that having elves, gnomes, dwarves, and halflings live much longer than humans is a good flavor rule, and it makes them seem mystic and prestigious and all that. I, on the other hand, think this rule is annoying, and creates complications when it comes to mating, friendship, social interactions, learning, and so on.

What do you think, people of the playground? Have you ever encountered troubles with interspecial age differences? Have you ever houseruled them away?

[Another_Poet]

I think the aging and cultural differences are a big part of what make those races different from humans at all. And if it causes difficulty in socializing, love, or international relations - that's the whole point.

There's nothing wrong with running a campaign that's all-human, or that has remarkably humanesque races of elves and dwarves. But the use of iconic fantasy races is kind of a baseline in most D&D worlds, and helps add that high fantasy feel.

I've run games where I made custom races or human-only games, but I've never houseruled elves, dwarves or gnomes to be more human.

[Rubik]

Why is it that orcs are the ones with the penalty to Intelligence, but elves aren't even potty trained until they're 20 years old?

[Nettlekid]

I have never really known what to do with the aging differences. It never seems to be troublesome when you have an adventuring party of "young adults," be they human, elf, dwarf, or halfling. The human might be 20, the elf 120, the dwarf 50, and the halfling 30, but they all count as the same level of maturity and development, and most importantly are all level 1 adventurers, so there's no problem. But it's weird when you think that this elf may easily have been acquainted with the human's grandfather. In the eyes of the elf and dwarf, the human must seem like a baby, or like a housefly seems to us with its short lifespan. But the weirdest thing is when you take leveling into consideration. Let's say this party fights together for 50 years and get to level 20. The human is at death's door. The halfling is feeling the years, but still has a bit of pepper in him. The dwarf is barely aching. And the elf is basically as young now as the human was when he human first started out. The elf could adventure for hundreds of years more, after the human's grandchildren die of old age, and still have pep. So the question begs, how can the elf ever see the human as more than a passing acquaintance, while the human sees the elf as a lifelong friend? And why aren't there more Epic-level elves running the show?

[The Rose Dragon]

Why is it that orcs are the ones with the penalty to Intelligence, but elves aren't even potty trained until they're 20 years old?

Races of the Wild, at least, disagrees with elves maturing slower than humans, where they physically mature at roughly the same rate, emotionally and mentally slightly slower, and nothing is wrong with a 20-year old elf going adventuring with humans his age other than the social expectations of their society of extreme dilettantes.

Now that I've embarrassed myself by displaying that bit of knowledge...

There is nothing wrong with humanoid races living longer than humans as a baseline. Yes, it does create complications, but elf-human relationships in a lot of fantasy fiction thrive on those complications. On the other hand, it is certainly not obligatory. Dragon Age, for example, has their elves live the same amount as humans (possibly shorter due to their worse living conditions), and dwarves only about a decade longer, largely due to their hardier constitutions. As long as you keep in mind player expectations and how it would affect racial societies, you can rule it however you like in your own settings. I would not, however, suggest removing the aging differences from established settings, unless they are extremely bad written to the point where their differing life spans do not at all affect interracial relations or racial inclinations.

[Joe the Rat]

Ever see "The Two Towers?" The "Eowyn's horrible, horrible stew" scene? "He says you rode to war with my grandfather..." Yeah, it's kind of like that.

Those differences in ages - Dwarves having friendships for generations of a human family, elves living long enough to be in the expository introduction - are part of what makes the races strange and difficult. Long lives make for long perspectives. The biology comes into play too - Your half-elf matures slower than his human cohort, but still outpaces his elvish relations in terms of maturity - showing the insight at 20 that most elves don't capture until their first century - and will show signs of aging long before then too.

Another way to look at this is not "Why do the elves take so damn long to learn this stuff" as "Why are humans so damn fast at learning this stuff?" An elf spends centuries perfecting her archery, and a human pops up and out-performs her with mere decades of training. The only time elves are improving as fast is when they are caught up in the frenetic drive of the human adventurers. That may be a big part of it - humans are more driven, more immediate, more focused on doing while they can. This whole "class-level adventuring" thing is not a big priority for other peoples. There is a flip side to this as well - holy crap those goblins learn fast!

I think we become a bit complacent in our cosmopolitan perspective on the adventuring party. Humans and elves and gnomes and far more exotic races easily intermingling and establishing long friendships as par for the course. From a literary perspective, this is unusual. We're not talking about different nationalities here; we are talking about several different species all hanging out together. There are more differences here than culture and size categories. Different values. Different priorities. Different requirements.