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EvilElitest
2008-04-18, 11:00 PM
now here is something that has always bothered me. Elves live to be around 700 right? Thus three generations of elves would be around 2,100 years on average right? According to most D&D creation myths, elves came before humans



So why are they generally on the same middle age tech level? Look at humans and how much they advance in two thousand years (the entire C.E. period)

Now i have a few ideas

1) As they generations are very long lived, they are like normal generations in that they dislike accepting change.
2) Conservative and isolationist
3) Spend all of their time perfecting one particular thing or perfecting a single art
4) Humans are just fast movers

your ideas?
from
EE

Drider
2008-04-18, 11:03 PM
Alot of people claim your number 4, that humans are fast and have the best diplomatic-ey stuff.

TehJhu
2008-04-18, 11:04 PM
This is the issue with pretty much any fantasy story:

"TEN THOUSAND YEARS AGO VILE DEMONS WERE SEALED AWAY ECT ECT..."

If demons had been sealed away on earth 10,000 years ago, they'd be suprised as hell to awaken now.

Even saying magic makes people not learn tech isn't enough. Eventually you'd either learn a way to have everything we have via magic, or people really would just invent a microchip.

neochaos
2008-04-18, 11:08 PM
My DM once joked about it, saying "This elven public official is doing his job for three hundred years, and is veteran....well, good luck with convincing this guy."

Bag_of_Holding
2008-04-18, 11:10 PM
According to RotW, elves tend to live in the past more than it is healthy for a race. They are just... slow to take up new things and all that jazz, I think.

MeanJoeSmith75
2008-04-18, 11:12 PM
A level of magic that precludes inventing technology to overcome inconveniences.
Not only are generations long lived, but childhood is extended. Maturity in most cases takes 100 or more years. That's a lot of time to get indoctrinated into your societal roll.
DnD and Tolkien elves are depicted as being very environmental, thus there development of technology is hampered by greater awareness and an unwillingness to harm nature.
Imagine the bureaucracies that have developed. Trying to get everyone on board with an idea would take several human generation just to get past committee.:smallbiggrin:

EvilElitest
2008-04-18, 11:12 PM
But if one group of elves became became industrialist for example, how much could they do in a few generations?
from
EE

Nebo_
2008-04-18, 11:13 PM
According to RotW, elves tend to live in the past more than it is healthy for a race. They are just... slow to take up new things and all that jazz, I think.

Because D&D is generally in a medieval like setting and giving elves more technology would ruin the verisimilitude.

If you need to think of an in game reason why that is, then you could say just about anything.

Kantolin
2008-04-18, 11:15 PM
You know, if there was a race that hit adulthood at 3, then became old and died somewhere around 20, I think most people would find it odd that they mature as quickly as they did and wonder how they managed to cram a growing up worth's of knowledge in 3 years.

Of your four options, now, I'd say 2 and 4. Humans just mature and grow ridiculously quickly - I'd assume that most modern-day elven sequences exist due to the necessity of having to keep up with the arms race, and otherwise they'd have continued at their normal pace.

MeanJoeSmith75
2008-04-18, 11:16 PM
Again, dnd elves, even those that are not druids and rangers, tend to be more harmonized with nature. The sedate life style and the magical conveniences make for a less industrialized society.
When everyone can easily support yourselves, markets for needs become less industrialized. Quality reigns as you would need to buy several cheaper products over your lifetime.

EvilElitest
2008-04-18, 11:17 PM
forgot about the maturity thing
from
EE

MeanJoeSmith75
2008-04-18, 11:18 PM
Buying a single, well made item becomes more economical.

Bag_of_Holding
2008-04-18, 11:19 PM
But if one group of elves became became industrialist for example, how much could they do in a few generations?
from
EE

Sure they live long, but humans breed fast! Given 400 years (3 generations of elves), humans would've gone through something like 20 generations, with their number multiplying exponentially.

Therefore, I don't think they'd achieve any more than a given human family could achieve with the same amount of time.


p.s. Oh sweet lord, while I was typing this it occured to me that to elves humans might look like bacterial growth...

MeanJoeSmith75
2008-04-18, 11:20 PM
More like a cancer

EvilElitest
2008-04-18, 11:20 PM
I can imagine a society of humans ruled by a single elven king for a few hundred years. Enlightened monarch
from
EE

Bag_of_Holding
2008-04-18, 11:20 PM
More like a cancer


Ewww :smallyuk:




I can imagine a society of humans ruled by a single elven king for a few hundred years. Enlightened monarch
from
EE


That'd be like 1984 the novel but with elves.

Nohwl
2008-04-18, 11:20 PM
i always thought elves were just stupid when it came to technology.

EvilElitest
2008-04-18, 11:21 PM
Ewww :smallyuk:

or like this speedy thread
from
EE

Demented
2008-04-18, 11:21 PM
Humans tend to be around in these settings for several thousand years, and still end up being in the same middle age tech level as well, despite the presence of magic.

Methinks it has something to do with the lack of rules for science and research. =P

Or possibly, it just takes forever to innovate, and when humans arrive they steal everyone else's technology, instantly leaping to the fore of technological superiority. The exception being those ancient obscure races, for whose technology nobody writes instruction manuals for, and the knowledge of which somehow happens to be lost even though elves were around during its creation.

...Maybe this suggests a tendency of elves to lose instruction manuals, thus never climbing very far up the technological level. There's apparently only so much you can teach someone in 700 years if you don't have reference books.

TehJhu
2008-04-18, 11:21 PM
Sort of off topic but...

Why does EVERY race seem to live at least twice as long as humans? Dwarves? Gnomes? Halflings? Whats the deal?

Bag_of_Holding
2008-04-18, 11:21 PM
i always thought elves were just stupid when it came to technology.

It is a poor sign when elves are doing stonemasonry.



Sort of off topic but...

Why does EVERY race seem to live at least twice as long as humans? Dwarves? Gnomes? Halflings? Whats the deal?

Nah, it's just that humans live about half as long as most other races.

MeanJoeSmith75
2008-04-18, 11:22 PM
Orcs are shorter lived then humans

EvilElitest
2008-04-18, 11:23 PM
Orcs are shorter lived then humans

I think that is half orcs actually, i think orcs live to be 150
from
EE

Collin152
2008-04-18, 11:24 PM
When you can age your own wine a few decades for maximum flavor without wasting your life, you'll find yourself less occupied with trivial nonsense like industry.

See, the elves live long lives, and therefore have no fear of losing time.
Because of that, they put everytihng off.
It's a culutrual lethargy.

Bag_of_Holding
2008-04-18, 11:26 PM
I think that is half orcs actually, i think orcs live to be 150
from
EE


REALLY? :smalleek: That was unexpected... 150 years...

Demented
2008-04-18, 11:26 PM
Actually, the evil races (provided they aren't aberrations or off-shoots of the other races) always seem to be shorter-lived. Maybe it's so we have a reason for why they aren't using epic magicks to melt our faces off.

On the other hand, it could also imply that humans are a semi-evil race.

EvilElitest
2008-04-18, 11:29 PM
REALLY? :smalleek: That was unexpected... 150 years...

i think so, because they were one of the creater races, but i'm not sure

Also demented, i think races like goblins less less because they are breed in massive numbers
from
EE

3Power
2008-04-18, 11:32 PM
I have pondered this for a while, and I finally came up with an explanation I'm satisfied with: Elves are lazy.

Elves have all the time in the world, so there's no need for urgency most of the time. This means they procrastinate like heck. If a human wizard spends, I dunno, six hours studying per day, an elf spends 1. The other 19 hours he's awake, he's viewing the beautiful gardens of his elven city, watching elven opera, and taking part in a number of other enjoyable past-times. This means that beyond the arts, elves tend to accomplish very little when it comes to advancing their society, hence the reason elven wizards are as knowledgeable as human ones, and why they still use bows instead of having developed rifles by now.

Collin152
2008-04-18, 11:36 PM
I have pondered this for a while, and I finally came up with an explanation I'm satisfied with: Elves are lazy.

Elves have all the time in the world, so there's no need for urgency most of the time. This means they procrastinate like heck. If a human wizard spends, I dunno, six hours studying per day, an elf spends 1. The other 19 hours he's awake, he's viewing the beautiful gardens of his elven city, watching elven opera, and taking part in a number of other enjoyable past-times. This means that beyond the arts, elves tend to accomplish very little when it comes to advancing their society, hence the reason elven wizards are as knowledgeable as human ones, and why they still use bows instead of having developed rifles by now.

Yes! Exactly!

They are the most ironic of the races. Despite living for years and only wasting two hours a night, they waste their time on fruitless pursuits. No wonder every elf has such skill in at least one art; what else are they to do with all that time?

Worira
2008-04-18, 11:36 PM
The same reason it takes an elf 120-170 years to learn magic, and 17-27 for humans. Elves are stupid.

EvilElitest
2008-04-18, 11:43 PM
The same reason it takes an elf 120-170 years to learn magic, and 17-27 for humans. Elves are stupid.

we prefer the term "less motived by the needs of inferor beings"
from
EE

Collin152
2008-04-18, 11:44 PM
It's also possible that elve have a very intricate beuracracy.
What should take a few months, due to the many regulations and laws, takes several years to finally get done.

EvilElitest
2008-04-18, 11:44 PM
It's also possible that elve have a very intricate beuracracy.
What should take a few months, due to the many regulations and laws, takes several years to finally get done.

that would make sense
from
ee

Norsesmithy
2008-04-18, 11:58 PM
I once heard a beautiful In Character reason for the slow development of Elves.

"Every creature in our world shares a few things in common. From the Air we breath, to the Sunshine we all share, we find that we are not so different from others as we may wish. Did you know, youngling, that the shrew in the woods has the same number of heartbeats in his 9-moon life time as the venerable tortoises that laze in the royal gardens? So too is it with we Elves. We take longer to learn, longer to eat, longer to walk, longer to die, longer to forget, longer to live than our human cousins, accomplishing no more, and often less in our lives, than those harried, scurrying denizens. It is true that an Elf who lives and works with Men can often keep up with their breakneck pace, but it comes at a terrible cost. Every season an Elf spends trying to keep up with Humans shortens his life by as much as a decade. Adventuring with men is a foolish errand, you give up much to little gain. Now return to your lessons, and do not ask me about your father anymore.

The_Werebear
2008-04-19, 12:07 AM
I do one of two things to explain it.

1- Elves are fey like. They may live to be 700 years old, but they can only spend so much of that time in true focus. Most elves spend the majority of their time in trance, simply meditating on the nature of life and reality. In elven villages, there is a rotation. In times of calm, one elf in five will be awake for a year, responsible for guarding the others, maintenance of the village, diplomacy, and preservation. Then, they switch off with the next shift and go into contemplative mediation themselves. In times of war, the entire population will become alert and defend themselves, but will just as quickly return to mediation as soon as the immediate threat is quelled, making them seem flighty, unpredictable, and short sighted to other races.

Most of the power elves gain in the lives come in the first two hundred years, when driven by wanderlust and energy, many drift through the lands of other races. Few, however, can keep up with the frantic pace and level of dedication for long, and quickly withdraw back to their villages after a few short decades of adventure. Those who don't tend to die of stress at a very young age, sometimes as little as 300.

2- Elves live to be 250 at the oldest.



Either way, it solves the problem.

FlyMolo
2008-04-19, 12:11 AM
But if one group of elves became became industrialist for example, how much could they do in a few generations?
from
EE

Pretty far before they ran up against their neighbors and were wiped out in a cataclysmic war.

Collin152
2008-04-19, 12:13 AM
Also, elves have a constitution penalty.
It may not be much, but it lends itself ot overcomplaining.
So nothing ever gets done.

EvilElitest
2008-04-19, 12:18 AM
I once heard a beautiful In Character reason for the slow development of Elves.

"Every creature in our world shares a few things in common. From the Air we breath, to the Sunshine we all share, we find that we are not so different from others as we may wish. Did you know, youngling, that the shrew in the woods has the same number of heartbeats in his 9-moon life time as the venerable tortoises that laze in the royal gardens? So too is it with we Elves. We take longer to learn, longer to eat, longer to walk, longer to die, longer to forget, longer to live than our human cousins, accomplishing no more, and often less in our lives, than those harried, scurrying denizens. It is true that an Elf who lives and works with Men can often keep up with their breakneck pace, but it comes at a terrible cost. Every season an Elf spends trying to keep up with Humans shortens his life by as much as a decade. Adventuring with men is a foolish errand, you give up much to little gain. Now return to your lessons, and do not ask me about your father anymore.

nicely done, but wouldn't that have mechanical problems
from
EE

FlyMolo
2008-04-19, 12:30 AM
The elves aren't more advanced because they keep normalizing themselves against the background noise. They give their technology away to humans, and the like.

EvilElitest
2008-04-19, 12:31 AM
The elves aren't more advanced because they keep normalizing themselves against the background noise. They give their technology away to humans, and the like.

that could work i suppose
from
EE

Collin152
2008-04-19, 12:32 AM
Elves could also be of teh pre-industrial-age mindset that there is nothing left to be made, and tryign is a waste of time.
With so much magic, there is little to drive change.
Since they all apparently live their full life spans instead of dying as fast as humans do due to the complications of life, they have no need or ability to improve the quality of life, either.

EvilElitest
2008-04-19, 12:34 AM
Elves could also be of teh pre-industrial-age mindset that there is nothing left to be made, and tryign is a waste of time.
With so much magic, there is little to drive change.
Since they all apparently live their full life spans instead of dying as fast as humans do due to the complications of life, they have no need or ability to improve the quality of life, either.

alll of these therios indicate that elves don't orginize easily it is worth noting
from
EE

Lord Tataraus
2008-04-19, 01:27 AM
I once heard a beautiful In Character reason for the slow development of Elves.

"Every creature in our world shares a few things in common. From the Air we breath, to the Sunshine we all share, we find that we are not so different from others as we may wish. Did you know, youngling, that the shrew in the woods has the same number of heartbeats in his 9-moon life time as the venerable tortoises that laze in the royal gardens? So too is it with we Elves. We take longer to learn, longer to eat, longer to walk, longer to die, longer to forget, longer to live than our human cousins, accomplishing no more, and often less in our lives, than those harried, scurrying denizens. It is true that an Elf who lives and works with Men can often keep up with their breakneck pace, but it comes at a terrible cost. Every season an Elf spends trying to keep up with Humans shortens his life by as much as a decade. Adventuring with men is a foolish errand, you give up much to little gain. Now return to your lessons, and do not ask me about your father anymore.

This is kind of what I always use to explain it. Basically, elves are retarded (from a human perspective) by a factor of 10 in almost every aspect of life. They live about 10 times as long, they take 10 times as long to mature, their breeding and pregnancy cycle is 10 times as long, etc. Of course you might say that a 7.5 year pregnancy is ridiculous, I would like to point out the phenomenon that everyone experiences at some point which is your perspective on the passage of time based on your age. The older you are the faster time seems to pass. My 8 year old brother thinks of 1 hour as a tortuously long time to stay in time out, while I on the other hand as an 18 year old college student see 1 hour as a tolerable length for my classes and sometimes its seems to pass very fast. To the 8 year old, 1 hour is approximately 0.00143% the length of his entire existence thus far while to the 18 year old, 1 hour is approximately 0.00063% the length of his entire existence thus far, thus the hour seems twice as long to the 8 year old as to the 18 year. Using this same method, 7.5 years to a 300 year old elf is approximately 2.5% the length of his entire existence thus far while the 9 months to a 30 year old human is approximately the same percentage. Thus I can conclude that the the elf's perception of the time of her pregnancy is no longer than the human's. (Note this is all rough approximation, such relativity is extremely hard, if not impossible, to measure)

Jayngfet
2008-04-19, 01:30 AM
This is kind of what I always use to explain it. Basically, elves are retarded (from a human perspective) by a factor of 10 in almost every aspect of life. They live about 10 times as long, they take 10 times as long to mature, their breeding and pregnancy cycle is 10 times as long, etc. Of course you might say that a 7.5 year pregnancy is ridiculous, I would like to point out the phenomenon that everyone experiences at some point which is your perspective on the passage of time based on your age. The older you are the faster time seems to pass. My 8 year old brother thinks of 1 hour as a tortuously long time to stay in time out, while I on the other hand as an 18 year old college student see 1 hour as a tolerable length for my classes and sometimes its seems to pass very fast. To the 8 year old, 1 hour is approximately 0.00143% the length of his entire existence thus far while to the 18 year old, 1 hour is approximately 0.00063% the length of his entire existence thus far, thus the hour seems twice as long to the 8 year old as to the 18 year. Using this same method, 7.5 years to a 300 year old elf is approximately 2.5% the length of his entire existence thus far while the 9 months to a 30 year old human is approximately the same percentage. Thus I can conclude that the the elf's perception of the time of her pregnancy is no longer than the human's. (Note this is all rough approximation, such relativity is extremely hard, if not impossible, to measure)

there is the BoEF I think, for that sort of thing.

Anon-a-mouse
2008-04-19, 01:32 AM
Perhaps they are entirely capable of industrialising but choose not to. The life of a farmer seems a lot more attractive than that of a factory worker. Given that modern medicine would be redundant in a world where healing magic exists, what actual advantages are there to modernisation? Maybe the elves have the foresight to realise that industrialisation would ultimately result in a world in which crap manufactured by 6 year old girls in a sweat-shop would cost as much as superior products made locally by hand.

Serpentine
2008-04-19, 01:44 AM
I have an idea. Perhaps technology doesn't advace in years, but in generations. In humans, each new generation of scientists brings a new mind, new perspective, new ideas, and builds upon the progress of the generations before. An elf might be able to get a lot more done in their lifetimes (or maybe not, if it's just all spread thinner), but it will still take much longer for someone new to come along and expand and improve on their work. With this in mind, if anything, elves should be quite a bit behind humans.

Jayngfet
2008-04-19, 01:45 AM
Perhaps they are entirely capable of industrialising but choose not to. The life of a farmer seems a lot more attractive than that of a factory worker. Given that modern medicine would be redundant in a world where healing magic exists, what actual advantages are there to modernisation? Maybe the elves have the foresight to realise that industrialisation would ultimately result in a world in which crap manufactured by 6 year old girls in a sweat-shop would cost as much as superior products made locally by hand.

yeah, in a factory you don't have to handle disease laden crops and livestock

and not everyone is a cleric, and even then not many are very high level, if a plague breaks out you will run out of spells, provided you're even there on time.

FlyMolo
2008-04-19, 02:30 AM
See the custom magic item section of the DMG. Item of remove disease at will- not very expensive. Hirelings sent around to plague areas with these items- still cheap. Penicillin being obsolete before it's even invented? Priceless.

Works with create food too.

Reinboom
2008-04-19, 02:37 AM
Ignoring the crown wars, viewing modern civilizations, there are other huge factors that alters technology - the arms races/wars, food, and settlement/need to 'raise'.
Smelting Bronze for spear ends, forging steel for more durable swords, black powder for boom sticks. The creation of the technology may not have always been intended for weaponry, but it's the weaponry that generally spreads it from one nation to the next. Of course, this is not as true once the energy focus was hit (industrial age) and even less true once the modern age and especially the information age were hit, but it was one of the most significant factors of technology in the long past ages.
Why is this important? Other than the crown wars and the drow that followed from it, elves I've viewed as a rather docile race that rarely fights en masse with itself. The need to advance isn't as strong.
Further, magic does play a minor factor in to this with one of the most important creations - black powder. Black powder may have been invented in elven communities, sure. However, that bat guano is better applied in the elven wizard's fireball. Also, a significant amount of deaths from early firepower occurred from gut wounds and poor medicine. Medicine advances in counter to diseases and weaponry - however, here we have a cleric to handle it. The need isn't as significant.

Food is also a significant factor. The best example here is the native american tribes. You will notice simplistic construction advancement for the tribes that lived in the midwestern plains. Their food is a small harvest at times, but more significantly, they need to move to hunt bison and other game. They did not settle to let them concentrate on making things 'better', and their most significant advances occurred from the hunt. Yet, view the Incan or Aztecs. The aztecs had a major city and extensive farming around it, the desire to hunt game in that portion of the world isn't as significant due to smaller or more fickle wildlife, and the requirement to settle down to use crops for food raises more. This settling and concentrated communities allowed technology to advance. If elves live as the northern or middle native american tribes, fancying the hunt, and having an ease in food, especially among wood elf tribes, the technology advancement would definitely slow down.
Compare the native americans, after at least 10,000 years, to the europeans who visited. Now let the native americans be a good set up for your elves, and it could make more sense.

Of course, this leads to settlements and the need to raise in to the sky. How social are the elves with other elves? The more of a race you can group together, the more likely they are to share ideas and advance. The more sparse or more singular they are, the less likely they would. If elves stayed in their family houses and sections as commonly described and only moved away to join another family or enjoy the arts without a strict community or schooling practice, they wouldn't advance that far. Further, the fewer elves you have in an area, the less likely you would get them to advance. However, there is another significant aspect about this... the Myth Drannor effect of fantasy. A common occurrence in many fantasies is that once a city/area/civilization grows grandeur enough - significant outside forces no longer approve and crush it. Another significant example, and another from Forgotten Realms since it's the history I know the best, would be the Nether Empire. Their own 'technology' crushed themselves via Karsus. Myth Drannor was taken by an onslaught of forces out of an evil desire. There are other realms long forgotten that have been devastated in similar fashion.
Technology may have advanced, sure. The ability to raise a settlement isn't as powerful, since the gods or other force will just destroy it - and the technology will be lost.
Imagine how much farther we would be today if the Library of Alexandria didn't get destroyed. That was just one occurrence, this kind of thing happens all the time in most fantasy realms.

The real world has clear examples that can be used to figure it out.

hamishspence
2008-04-19, 04:56 AM
I kinda liked the theory in Science of Middle Earth: Elves have great tech, its just very, very unobtrusive. As they say, sufficiently advanced technology is indistingishable from magic (Arthur C. Clarke) "a Ship then new they made for him, of mithril and of elven glass" Spaceship, anyone? True Bilbo didn't know everything about elves.

Then there is the spelljammer setting, where the elves have a star spanning Imperium, and one elven spelljammer was wrecked and had its crew bail out and arrive on Faerun.

Bur then, thats a more high tech setting. Core D&D tends not to show much elven tech.

AslanCross
2008-04-19, 05:25 AM
I'd think that due to their common superiority complex, elves would rather not hasten about their lives so much since they do live longer anyway. At the same time, I'd also think they tend to become impatient with many things (which is kind of ironic). It's one of the reasons why their birth rate is low: They'd rather not be committed and hence do not get married. (I don't know if premarital sex is taboo in elf society. Maybe the BoEF would tell us more about that :P) From the way things look, they have pretty lousy fertility as well.

hamishspence
2008-04-19, 05:33 AM
With Races of the Wild, elves grow to maturity almost as fast as humans. And they tend to prefer cohabiting, at least while child grows up. But Till Death Do Us Part is a bit more of a problem when that can last 500 odd years, so marriage for life is rare. Again, thats why half elves aren'd that rare: staying with a human for 50 years is no big deal to a long lived elf.

Zocelot
2008-04-19, 07:02 AM
Three generations of elves would take 2100 years to develop, only if elves procreated immediately before dying. That said, 3 generations could easily spawn 1000 years.

Eldariel
2008-04-19, 07:10 AM
My theory is that Elves have had technological advancements, such as working metal et al. and they've simply taught it to the younger races once the time came to that; they haven't really existed long enough for one to expect them to be discovering the theory of relativity and all (especially since those don't apply to the D&D world apparently).

Riffington
2008-04-19, 07:13 AM
You learn things best by consolidating knowledge in your sleep. And elves don't sleep...

The real question is why dwarves haven't created technological miracles. They can sleep, plus they actually know how to work hard...

Talya
2008-04-19, 07:28 AM
That's it. You've convinced me. I'm houseruling all elves start with 8 skill points in any craft skill(s) of their choice, and those 8 points can be used to advance beyond the level limit for skills.

malagigi
2008-04-19, 07:47 AM
Some insight may be gained from our own medieval development. Consider Europe and Asia. China invents paper, gun powder, and so forth; Europe takes these things and goes nuts with them turning them to a variety of uses. They both invented, but Europe clearly lead in innovation.

It has been hypothesized that part of the reason Europe innovated so much and China did not was that Europe was balkanized, and every advantage gave you an edge over your neighbor. Conversely, China was a continuous landmass under a single empire and you didn't leave your class so a competitive edge didn't buy you anything so there was no point in pursuing it.

So, a cultural and social reason could easily explain the Elves' slowness to develop. Of course this means in a different setting, the Elves could innovate much faster. This makes sense to me, as nothing in the rules suggests otherwise.

Hallavast
2008-04-19, 08:22 AM
You guys can have fun manufacturing all kinds of reasons for something this nonsensical to be so, but the real answer is simply this:

Most elven civilizations reside in a fantasy setting. It's not futuristic or space fantasy. It's not steam punk. It's fantasy. If it weren't, then elves might have some edge over humans in the tech department (provided they have the same headstart idea). But in a fantasy setting, science is ignored. It doesn't make much sense to have vastly varying degrees of technology within the same fantasy setting unless that is a deliberate and specific theme of your story/campaign. So as long we're talking about traditional sword and sorcery fantasy, science will always take a back seat to magic. Thus some things will be let go in order for you to get the necessary feel of what you want your game to be.

Now, with all that said, there is no reason for elves to not surpass human tech level unless you don't want them to.

PollyOliver
2008-04-19, 08:25 AM
Well, in RotW it says that elves often adopt new technologies or magics for short periods of time if they find them useful, but that usually they'll quickly abandon one advance for another if it turns out to be better--on some level, at least, they do value efficiency.

Which actually kind of provides a reason for why elves don't really have all that advanced technology. One technological development often comes from another--fireworks lead to crude guns lead to cannons and better-made guns, which, with a lot of other advances, eventually lead to automatic weapons--and if your society already has a ton of wizards (which elves do) who can do far more amazing things than fireworks or firearms with backfire more often than not, why even bother with those, especially since they're smelly and ugly and produce choking smoke and don't even work as well as magic or your awesome longbows (which all elves have proficiency in)?

So the early steps to the development of modern weapons are actually a significant step backward, in terms of efficiency, utility, and aesthetics, for the elves, even if the later steps would be advances. Similarly, the driving force for a lot of medical research was the the fact that people had been getting sick and dying of just about everything for as long as mankind could remember. But if you have a society as firmly grounded in magic as the elves are, with people and probably items that can cast cure disease, there's little reason to bother.

At least, that's how I've always thought of it.

Tallis
2008-04-19, 12:43 PM
I once heard a beautiful In Character reason for the slow development of Elves.

"Every creature in our world shares a few things in common. From the Air we breath, to the Sunshine we all share, we find that we are not so different from others as we may wish. Did you know, youngling, that the shrew in the woods has the same number of heartbeats in his 9-moon life time as the venerable tortoises that laze in the royal gardens? So too is it with we Elves. We take longer to learn, longer to eat, longer to walk, longer to die, longer to forget, longer to live than our human cousins, accomplishing no more, and often less in our lives, than those harried, scurrying denizens. It is true that an Elf who lives and works with Men can often keep up with their breakneck pace, but it comes at a terrible cost. Every season an Elf spends trying to keep up with Humans shortens his life by as much as a decade. Adventuring with men is a foolish errand, you give up much to little gain. Now return to your lessons, and do not ask me about your father anymore.


Oooooh....
I really like that quote. I might ven incorporate some rules for that into my game.

Recaiden
2008-04-19, 01:04 PM
Elves really don't care, and take a long time to do things, like several people have said.


Also, in FR, didn't humans come before elves? Why haven't they advanced more?

Tsotha-lanti
2008-04-19, 01:28 PM
Also, in FR, didn't humans come before elves? Why haven't they advanced more?

Not too sure about that. Elves are outsiders from a Fey realm, but they had their empires long before humans (after the dragons and concurrent with the giants; Elven High Magic created the Dracorage "mythal" over all of Toril, shattering the dragon rule by plunging them into anarchic, all-destructive rage every 1,000 or so years).

In fantasy settings, magic advances instead of technology; and the "forgotten realms" referred to in the campaign setting name are largely human realms. Faerūn sees often millenia-long cycles of rising and falling empires. The humans were advanced - probably more advanced than the elves are in the modern age (late 14th century Dale Reckoning), but Netheril was brougth low by the usual agent: hubris and overuse of powerful magic.

It happened to the empire that once ruled where Calimshan now is, and to many, many other realms. Even after Netheril's fall, many great realms in the North alone have been wiped out by orc hordes or careless magic (see Ascalhorn, which caused the destruction of at least a few adjacent realms, too). The old elven kingdoms, likewise, were ruined by magic and civil wars (some areas are still barren from Elven High Magic used to raze entire kindgoms and kill hundreds of thousands).


Incidentally, Lost Empires of Faerūn is a great book...

Roderick_BR
2008-04-19, 01:36 PM
A common theory is that creatures with a shorter lifespan tends to advance faster.
So, elves took several thousands of years, thought many generations to finally master sword smithing to the finest level. They weren't that much in a hurry.
Dwarves came along later, and their love for smithing made them learn it quickly, in several hundred years, througth generations.
Humans came last, and with their incredible "fast" life circle, learned it from the elves and dwarves in less than 1 or 2 thousand years, less than the dwarves, and a heck of a lot faster than the elves.

It's like comparing humming birds with turtles. Humming birds are incredible fast, but live only a few years. Turtles are slow, but live over almost a hundred years.

Draco Ignifer
2008-04-19, 02:03 PM
I've thought about this problem for a long time, and never came up with anything I considered a good answer myself. Even if elves weren't more advanced, dwarves and gnomes should definately be. It doesn't make sense for human-intelligence species with an interest in toolmaking and productive lives at least twice that of humans (possibly more) to wind up just as advanced as humans.

I never came up with any answers, but I think it'd be a pretty neat world idea myself. It'd be one with very different playable races (modern dwarves, slightly-past-modern gnomes, or medieval humans? I know where I'm going), but some very different plot hooks than the standard (e.g., instead of "the BBEG is trying to destroy the world, the BBnsEG is about to perfect hydroponics, rendering trades of food for ore slowly meaningless and destroying human civilization).

One other thing to keep in mind... Considering the even greater intelligences and longivities of certain other species, what keeps, for example, the Pit Fiends from becoming arms dealers selling incredibly destructive weapons technology to exacerbate wars between humans, or dragons from reaching out into the stars in search for treasure with devices so powerful they might as well be magic?

GoC
2008-04-19, 02:12 PM
your ideas?
I say that there are simply too few of them. Less than 1 in 10,000,000 humans make an important discovery and as the total elven population is about 100,000 there have only been a few occasions when an elf felt the need or desire to invent something new.

Of course should an elf ever decide to actually start using science the result will be amazing. Think of a transition from medieval society to the late 19th century with just one creative elf.
In fact... Imagine an elf in the modern world, they would have more than enough time to take a post-graduate degree in every subject!:smalleek:

EvilElitest
2008-04-19, 03:35 PM
In fact... Imagine an elf in the modern world, they would have more than enough time to take a post-graduate degree in every subject!:smalleek:

When ever i hear about modern vampire stories, i always think

"wait, if he lives for hundreds of years and doesn't need to sleep, shouldn't he super educated
from
EE

Saihyol
2008-04-19, 04:49 PM
I've always considered that elves are content with the world as it is in a way we don't understand and part of that is because they have so much time.

Q. Why did humans invent the railway/tv/automobile/radio/cell phones?
A. Because we want to do things faster.

Q. Why do we want to do things faster?
A. Shorter lives.

As someone else mentioned the real question is why dwarves haven't developed being as industrious as they are.

Also magic make a lot of technology look stupid to the point where you wouldn't bother and so stunts development (elves are a decidedly magical race remember).

So you turn this handle really fast, the copper thing turns, then it passes through hard to make wires, to this very finely made glass thing with really fine and even harder to make wire in it and then it glows for ten seconds? Why didn't you just cast 'light' which lasts for at least 10 minutes for the cost of a firefly?

When you could have an everlasting torch for 110gp what possible benefit could you see in creating light bulbs and electricity with the cost of manufacture and powering them?

Wraithy
2008-04-19, 04:54 PM
I'd go for the "because they've never needed to" argument, and the "they're slow" one.
RotW (as allready mentioned) says elves mature at a similar rate to humans physically, but aren't really mature yet. For me this conjures up the image of a fully grown elf playing with a block puzzle and drooling.
Also there hasn't been the need, elves generally seem to live healthy lives and take care of themselves, this coupled with low level healing magic halts the need for sophisticated medicine (unless you're in Forgotten realms, in which case one of the many epic level NPCs will offer you complementary true resurrections). Warfare is mainly waged against Orcs, which explains the autoproficiecy with longbows. Most innovation seems to come from healthcare or warfare, otherwise there is entertainment, which seems to have manifested itself in elven art, so really there isn't anything else they want.
As for why Gnomes and Dwarfs are at the same level; they are more advanced in certain areas. Dwarfs often wage war with the countless "monster races", so their weaponry and armours are of a better quality (I seem to remember Dwarvencraft being a term for masterwork in some book or another). Gnomes only really have to deal with kobolds, who tend to take a more defensive stance with war, so that leaves us with entertainment, andthis manifests in silly gadgets (http://www.thepeon.com/link.php?l=familyguybreakfast&PHPSESSID=5dd8c4776c7eb6731241ff7e3120ce3c).
So elves are advances, just in art... honestly I think they got a s**tty deal there.

Matthew
2008-04-19, 06:40 PM
The premise of this discussion is a bit on the silly side. Even if three generations of Elves spanned 2,100 years (and a Human 'generation' is actually a twenty year span), it wouldn't therefore follow that they would be technically advanced. It's actually only in the last few centuries that we have surpassed the achievements of some ancient civilisations and there's no particular reason that we should have done.

The idea that more time leads to more progress is only viable if the environment remains stable enough to support technological advancement and is directly related to resource control. Even now, the level of technology available to first world countries is very different to that available to third world countries.

In a hundred years, we may be very little further on in terms of technological development than we are now. Indeed, we may have lost much of the knowledge and technologies previously available.

Also, the assumption that Elves continue to get more educated as they get older assumes that there is not a limit to what a person can know at any one time. I would have trouble recalling some of the things I learned ten years ago, never mind a hundred years ago!

Squidmaster
2008-04-19, 07:31 PM
I like the explanation in SoD:
elven insensitivity to the flow of time. They get distracted for hours and think it is only a few minutes.

Krrth
2008-04-19, 07:36 PM
EE: If you want to see what a society of humans ruled by an elven king is like, I'd recommend "The Deed of Paksenarrion". Good description of a paladin as well.


As for the advancement issue, I've always looked at it like this:Elves don't care. 2nd edition mentions they might spend an entire week doing nothing but sleeping in a meadow and watching the clouds. Why should they bust their butts creating technology, when they have the magic to simply "copy" it from the "lesser" races. On a related note, many irl stories about the Fey mention they are simply not creative. That might have something to do with it.

Myatar_Panwar
2008-04-19, 07:56 PM
I like to think of it all like this:
Elves: Not ambitious, just enjoying life for what it is.
Humans: Very ambitious, always looking for ways to improve their short lives, continually moving forward.
Dwarfs: Ambitious, yes, but almost single minded. In a sense, they don't really progress, but just keep doing what their doing (Mining, forging), continually trying to improve their current craft, without much innovation.

Tsotha-lanti
2008-04-19, 08:19 PM
Looked it up, and yeah, on Faerūn at least, humans are older than elves, as a race/species. They're one of the five or six creator races (although there's apparently no record of what they created, and unlike the Batrachi and Sarrukh, they apparently didn't have great empires until thousand of years later, after the elves - who planar-travelled from Fey or whatever - had ruined themselves in the Crown Wars...).

GoC
2008-04-20, 12:51 AM
Also, the assumption that Elves continue to get more educated as they get older assumes that there is not a limit to what a person can know at any one time. I would have trouble recalling some of the things I learned ten years ago, never mind a hundred years ago!

That could be attributed more to the decline of memory as you age then to being "out of space".:smallamused:
In fact the human brain has something like 10x the memory it will ever need (can't remember where I read this though...).

Matthew
2008-04-20, 01:22 AM
That could be attributed more to the decline of memory as you age then to being "out of space".:smallamused:
In fact the human brain has something like 10x the memory it will ever need (can't remember where I read this though...).

I think you're misunderstanding my meaning. I don't recall a good deal of what I knew about the Wehrmark that I knew when I was 19, but I don't attribute that to a decline of the memory, since it's only been ten years. There is a limit to the amount of active data you can keep 'fresh' in your mind, but it has more to do with how recently you last recalled or used it. You can recall a great deal of information you had 'forgotten' given the right prompts, but you won't have the same command over it you previously had without investing some time and effort.

A D&D related example would be the number of people who migrated from AD&D to D20 and now cannot recall the rules of that game accurately (given that they understood them at the time). Maybe that's a weak example, but it's part of a general trend.

That said, Elves supposedly live ten times longer than men, but their brains aren't any bigger, so I imagine they will be pushing the boundaries of what their heads can contain. :smallwink:

Quorothorn
2008-04-20, 11:45 AM
I think that is half orcs actually, i think orcs live to be 150
from
EE

Well gee.

...How does that make sense?


That's it. You've convinced me. I'm houseruling all elves start with 8 skill points in any craft skill(s) of their choice, and those 8 points can be used to advance beyond the level limit for skills.

I would personally have it be Craft/Profession/Perform, not just Craft. Elven art and all that (maybe Perform should be always in-class?).


I like the explanation in SoD:
elven insensitivity to the flow of time. They get distracted for hours and think it is only a few minutes.

Actually, that's in OtOoPCs, but good point.

LibraryOgre
2008-04-20, 12:52 PM
now here is something that has always bothered me. Elves live to be around 700 right? Thus three generations of elves would be around 2,100 years on average right? According to most D&D creation myths, elves came before humans

Not hugely important, but you made a mistake in how you calculated a generation. It's not from the birth of a generation until that generation's death; it's from the birth of one generation until the birth of that generation's children. In the case of elves, we're probably talking around 150-200 years (though they become adults at 100, they don't dive right into parenting).

However, one thing to consider with the extremely long lives of elves is that they will have an extremely strong cultural conservatism. You don't just learn from your father, but your grandfather, and possibly your great-grandfather and great-great-grandfather. Furthermore, the 2nd edition interpretation of the reverie (aka "trance") was that you went into your head and relieved parts of your past, reviewing your life. That would also tend to enforce cultural and technological conservatism.

Then you add in that elves tend to pick a homeland and stick to its borders. "Mithrilwood is our forest, which we will defend and never, ever leave." They tend to be insular, shunning trade. They tend to have a lot of contact with their deities, who remind them of the glories of their past, but do very little to push them into the future. It's a cauldron of stagnation; I've long felt that elves should be lawful in alignment as a culture.

Look at humans, by contrast. You learn from your father or master, and MAYBE one generation above that... someone of the third generation past you is likely to be a vague memory even with modern health-care. Dreams borne of sleep don't inspire you to examine your past... they put together your present, which helps to kick-start your future. If you've been dealing with someone in the forge, a reverie memory of how you learned how to do it might remind you of the old ways... a dream will help you sort out a better way of doing it in the future.

Humans tend to expand into frontiers. They tend to trade with whoever they can find, which means cultural exchanges. "That's how you're doing it in Dwarfholme? We've been doing it this way!" And humans have contact with their deities in D&D world, but their contacts are not about the past.

Wulfram
2008-04-20, 03:14 PM
The presence of magic could reasonably be expected to discourage technological advancement. Intelligent people don't spend there time inventing new stuff, which might not work and probably won't be all the effective even if it does, they become wizards. Wealthy people don't risk their money on untried technology - they hire wizards. Of course, this can apply to humans in fantasy settings as well as elves.

I'd guess a society with elven demographics wouldn't be particularly innovative, either. Too many old, wise and respected elves who've learnt that something can't be done, not enough young, reckless and foolish kids who want to try it anyway.

I try to ignore the whole Elves become adults at 100 - it doesn't make much sense to me. Perhaps as a legal age of maturity, when they acquire full rights and come into inheritances, but if they want to leave home and go adventuring as callow youths of 30, they should be allowed to.

hamishspence
2008-04-20, 03:20 PM
again, see Races of the wild, which stresses a 20 year old elf is about equal, maturity-wise, to a 15 year old human. while 100 odd is guideline starting age, it does suggest option is there for younger elven heroes. No 20 years in diapers for these guys, unlike in OOTS: Origin, where Vaarsuvius suggests elves mature much slower.

Starbuck_II
2008-04-20, 03:30 PM
When ever i hear about modern vampire stories, i always think

"wait, if he lives for hundreds of years and doesn't need to sleep, shouldn't he super educated
from
EE

Nope. Vampires are Pot Heads. Except replace pot with existing. No wonder they get the munchies.