Author Topic: Immortal Elves  (Read 24358 times)

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Offline markc

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Re: Immortal Elves
« Reply #60 on: December 13, 2007, 04:45:11 PM »
LM,
 Wrote "Elves and Humans can cross breed. . .an empire run by half elves, with humans below them as commoners. (Seen that a few times in both lit and RPGs.)"

 Maybe have 1/2 elves are those who stayed or are more closely related to elves and RM's High Men be those who stayed or took on more of human parents genetic make up.
 Just another game twist if someone needs it.

MDC

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Offline Marc R

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Re: Immortal Elves
« Reply #61 on: December 13, 2007, 10:17:26 PM »
True, high men always struck me as 1/4 elves, or perhaps less. . .a line of men with a few elves back there somewhere. . .the elf genes certainly seem to be good ones (This whole thread seems based around the supposition that they're too good.)

Anyone get RMC Creatues & Treasures yet?

The RLO option might moderate the elf problem a bit.
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Offline markc

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Re: Immortal Elves
« Reply #62 on: December 13, 2007, 11:09:51 PM »
LM,
 I liked how RMSS dealt with elves and other high stat races. They gave them less talent points. In my game if a person want to play a arcane user they pay 1 level since IMO arcane is powerful. I can do this as I start PC's at 3rd to 5th level and it seams to have worked ok. Also in a SM:P game I let PC's convert 1 level to TP's so they could buy social talents, contacts ect if they wanted to. It also worked out well.
 I do have to note that I rewrote the talents and the costs from the main book and from Talent Law to tone them down and get rid of the ones that did not fit the story.

 IMO, if their is a benifit then it might require a sacrifice.

MDC
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Offline Marc R

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Re: Immortal Elves
« Reply #63 on: December 13, 2007, 11:39:40 PM »
That adjustment was in RM2 also, via variable levels of Background Options. Talents seem to me to essentially be the "point buy" version of BGOs from one of the companions, but expanded out a bit more.
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Offline Blakkrall

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Re: Immortal Elves
« Reply #64 on: December 18, 2007, 12:42:34 PM »
Grumph grumph. Elves good. Roasted with apples in the "bip". Or rotten after a month or two... Should try.

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Ramoran

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Re: Immortal Elves
« Reply #65 on: December 20, 2007, 02:07:33 AM »
Yeah...hate to say it, but DnD doesn't have that problem.  Sure, elves have great longevity in that game (several hundred years), but they're certainly not immortal, and in many ways they're not even the "best" race to play, though that's entirely a matter of opinion.

Offline Arioch

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Re: Immortal Elves
« Reply #66 on: December 20, 2007, 04:05:36 AM »
I think the problem is not "immortality", but long lived races: having a race that live for 500 years or one that never die of age is not very different, IMHO.
Still such long lived races (and not only elves) are part of many fantasy setting and yes, they give a lot of problems but since many players love to roleplay them, I think the best thing to do is stop bothering and just have fun  ;)
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Offline Setorn

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Re: Immortal Elves
« Reply #67 on: December 20, 2007, 09:34:45 AM »
Well, the issues that I have had with immortal elves are memory, family/marital structure and ennui.  Immortal elves pose the problem for if they are that old it makes lost civilizations and great secrets of the past difficult.  This is when their negative twenty to Self-discipline comes handy most are just too distracted and flighty to focus.  I really play up on that the average Elf has stats from 40 – 60 and they would have a self-discipline bonus of negative twenty.  Their racial bonuses represent the average stat bonuses for the race.  The average core rules Elf has a bonus of five for memory.  On a purely percentile basis, it is arguable that they only remember five percent more than the average human.  So, they are very undisciplined and really don’t remember much more than other races limiting how much information that they have.  Add in a few quirky social limitations: Isolated communities, coming form other realms (plans), and the issue of memory for me is solved. 


In modern times, nearly fifty percent of all American marriages end in divorce.  How many Elven marriages end in some kind of Elf divorce, especially considering their Self-discipline?  In most of my campaigns, Elf marriages are fluid and ever changing.  Parenting becomes a community based commitment and duty.  This causes societal diffusion and isolation with no strong family unit.  While it may endear a greater sense of racial and community identity, it would weaken the society as a whole. 


In my current game, ennui is the secret that Elves do not talk about with outsiders.  In this game, I have no dark Elves, but the Elves warn their young, “Fear the Elf with no lust for life!  For with those all deeds are possible.”  How does an immortal entertain himself for millennia without sinking into depravity as a diversion.  The great and powerful evils are ancient bored Elves.   
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Offline yammahoper

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Re: Immortal Elves
« Reply #68 on: December 20, 2007, 02:05:28 PM »
Well...common, honestly, in most games, age is never a factor.  Really, how many have as a GM or had their GM apply age modifiers to stats?  Skill loss after not using a skill for a long period of time?  Even bothered to routinely keep track of a characters age and then be forced to retire the PC because they grew old?

Yeah, me neither.  At some point the GM just needs to say character concept only goes so far.  You wanna be a Noldo who is 15, 50 or 5000 years old, great, but you start at level one and I expect your background to reflect that...or i will make your background for you.

The only time I have ever been in a game were age mattered was an ADnD game where the DM used the age tables AND aged PC's for Speed Potions, Wishes and the like.  Of course, I simply paid a trusted NPC to wish Gwen young again, so no big whoop.

lynn
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Offline Setorn

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Re: Immortal Elves
« Reply #69 on: December 20, 2007, 03:16:51 PM »
Well, I have played RM2 games set latter than the last game in the same world where old PC had grown old and died.  We did not play them that old just as long as the story required.  With Ars Magica, I have played games where pc's have grown old and died.  Age is very important to Ars Magica - so that is one game that I have seen age matter.  I would hope to see aging rules for RMC at sometime and might even work on some.  It's not the age of the PCs that I am conserned with but the NPCs. 
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Offline Marc R

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Re: Immortal Elves
« Reply #70 on: December 20, 2007, 10:42:57 PM »
Lifespan is almost useless in play. . .like how many DP would you pay for +10 years lifespan. (In real life, probably a lot, in game, it's a waste, unless your character starts at 100 and is human.)

I have a feeling that people who live 500 years would be really ALIEN. . .as in forign to our experience in such a great manner that commonication between us would be annoying and/or difficult on both ends.

Generally, races in FRP are star trek "alien". . .humans with pointy ears and wrinkly foreheads. . .

It goes from really REALLY hard to frankly impossible to play an actual alien that actually thinks and behaves not like a human. . .I know very few people who'd be willing to go to the effort or deal with the hassle of doing it.

And if you're not, well, we're talking minor adjustments to the pointy ears and wrinkly foreheads here. . .really taking on a non human mindset is probably more work than it's really worth. (And rampantly speculative.)
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Offline markc

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Re: Immortal Elves
« Reply #71 on: December 20, 2007, 11:01:49 PM »
 LM,
 As to your "alien" remark I agree that having a common frame of reference for races is a good thing and that truly playing a race can be very difficult for the player. I can think of a tournament I went to that I played a CoC game where i was to be a sweeting, very overweight, bald man who was allways hungry. I did not read the notes the GM game me as we started at 8am and you could say I enjoyed my vacation too much the night before. Any way after the game finnished the GM and talked about the point score he gave everyone for playing. Then and thier I learned that it is very important to play the role you are given.
 As a GM I try and make sure that players are capable of playing a specific race based on the paramiters I have set for the race and the campain. If a new player walks in and says I want to play an X because they have the best bonuses, I also give them a background on what I expect them to be like or at least a frame of reference. If thier is a problem later on I talk to the player and we work something out so they are not just humans with pointy ears, wrinkeled forheads or different skin color.

 I think it is a big part of the GM to set the tone of the world and story and make sure the players are on board. But then again you are thier to have fun so do what makes you and your players happy. Just be sure everyone is on the right page at the begining.

MDC
Bacon Law: A book so good all PC's need to be recreated.
Rule #0: A GM has the right to change any rule in a book to fit their game.
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Offline Arioch

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Re: Immortal Elves
« Reply #72 on: December 21, 2007, 05:11:24 AM »
Yeah, me neither.  At some point the GM just needs to say character concept only goes so far.  You wanna be a Noldo who is 15, 50 or 5000 years old, great, but you start at level one and I expect your background to reflect that...or i will make your background for you.

I do exactly the same: you can be what age you want, just explain me why you're still 1st level (or the level we're starting at) and no, you won't remeber things happened X time ago unless you have payed DPs (or BOs) for it!
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Offline Temujin

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Re: Immortal Elves
« Reply #73 on: December 24, 2007, 02:58:20 PM »
Immortality can matter in Rolemaster, if you allow downtime for level up and taking training packages.  I've had that experience...  humans will "budget" the time of the training packages, because past a certain point, you end up middle-age and get aging checks.  Elves don't have that problem, but they also take a lot longer time to complete their training due to differences in Self-Discipline.

Alternatively, if you roleplay the time of the training package, you'll find an elf taking hermit will have to roleplay it for quite a while...

Offline munchy

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Re: Immortal Elves
« Reply #74 on: December 25, 2007, 03:54:49 AM »
We used this downtime levelling only once and it did not really matter as everyone did it beyond level twenty which meant that even the human characters had ways to push back old age ... of course most of them would die several years into the future but they seemed still pretty young when the group met again.
The Elves on the other hand had real problems levelling up as much as the humans as they due to their immortality in the tranquility of Elven lands or even their own workshop lacked the discipline to move on that quickly.
Immortality has proven interesting though as some of our old characters have resurfaced in recent campaign where they have become advisors, people giving quests or granting support usually without the former player knowing that his old character would play a role in the recent adventure. Was fun most of the time although I have to admit immortality really became an issue when some of the fromer characters had proven to turn out bad over the time being a threat to the actual characters and the world ... nice situation to be up against your former character knowing what he was able to do years ago ... really scary sometimes.
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Offline Blakkrall

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Re: Immortal Elves
« Reply #75 on: December 27, 2007, 05:04:01 AM »
You should have a look on H?rn Elves. They are very interesting.
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Offline mocking bird

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Re: Immortal Elves
« Reply #76 on: December 27, 2007, 03:41:01 PM »
Bloodelves in Earthdawn are a little 'off' as well.  While not immortal they do have thorns growing from their skin causing them constant pain.   And yes they did it to themselves on purpose.  On thinking on this further I wonder if the idea came from yamma's subconscious...

In Terry Amthor's Shadowstone Chronicles (Shadow World) he described the elven memory in an interesting way.   Elves may be immortal but they do not have an ever-increasing memory capacity.     Elves would have a difficult time remembering things from a long time ago, to the point where they would completely forgot about some things entirely.   

Similar thing happens to Nathan Brazil who is millenia old. There simply isn't enough room in his brain to remember everything so he forgets his early years.  As I recall Methos still remembered his first head, but then again he was a putz.
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Offline yammahoper

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Re: Immortal Elves
« Reply #77 on: December 27, 2007, 05:59:31 PM »
Elves in constant pain?  Sounds fair since they put ME in constant pain (in my ahh...right, family board).

lynn
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Offline rdanhenry

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Re: Immortal Elves
« Reply #78 on: August 21, 2008, 03:16:37 PM »
A 1000 year old Elf will be 16th level even if he has only averaged 1 experience point a day. So much for starting a campaign with a 1000 year old character (unless he has slept through most of it, solving most problems) unless you are generating a high-level character, in which case you should be able to deal with 1000 year old characters.

As for thousands-years-old NPCs having a lot of knowledge, they still have less than gods do. If your game can survive having Clerics in it, it can survive having Elves. Even if they like you and know the answer you seek, they'll still likely couch their answer in a riddle. Old and wise equals cryptic in fantasy cliche land.

Arguments against risk-taking Elves actually seemed to be based on making them humans-with-pointy-ears. Or at least assuming they are like Tolkien Elves in one respect: low birth rate.

How's this: Elves follow an unusual biological strategy of long life and prolific reproduction. Since Elven health prevents childbirth woes, a female Elf can produce hundreds of offspring. Furthermore, given the low death rate, there is little need to worry about replacing lost population. Young Elves are risk-taking to the point of recklessness. In battle, they can make human berserkers look like chess players. They tend not to parry and they aren't afraid of risky spell-casting either. Most don't survive to become adult, careful Elves. This is okay because few adult Elves are needed. In wars, they send out their scary young folk, so even then the adults rarely die. Adventuring Elves are allowed out alone because the young are expendable. It isn't that Elves don't care about their children. They do, just with a sort of detachment that humans find hard to grasp.

And by the time a PC Elf would get out of hand due to immortality, he achieves adulthood and goes off to join the serious folk and ignores the ephemeral mortals. In the unlikely event he lives that long in the first place.
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Offline Arioch

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Re: Immortal Elves
« Reply #79 on: August 21, 2008, 03:56:31 PM »
How's this: Elves follow an unusual biological strategy of long life and prolific reproduction. Since Elven health prevents childbirth woes, a female Elf can produce hundreds of offspring. Furthermore, given the low death rate, there is little need to worry about replacing lost population. Young Elves are risk-taking to the point of recklessness. In battle, they can make human berserkers look like chess players. They tend not to parry and they aren't afraid of risky spell-casting either. Most don't survive to become adult, careful Elves. This is okay because few adult Elves are needed. In wars, they send out their scary young folk, so even then the adults rarely die. Adventuring Elves are allowed out alone because the young are expendable. It isn't that Elves don't care about their children. They do, just with a sort of detachment that humans find hard to grasp.

Very cool concept! Have an idea point!

BTW this would also give a good reason for their low SD!
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