Elven Artisan Economy

[Whipstitch]

So, K, no pomt in having elves at all? Your spiel so far is fairly discouraging in even pursuing the concept of something being different than standard human settlement. Once you go down that road, why bother with fantasy?

It's more like he pish-poshed the usual "Because they're old" meme that's commonly accepted as the reason for elven excellence. He explicitly left the door open for other explanations, particularly magical ones. "Age equals bad assery" is a potentially interesting premise to build a game world around but I don't think it's nearly as plausible or self-evident a concept as so many elf wank books would have you believe.

Also, as a general rule, I prefer to have my races be powered by bullshit artifacts, vast stockpiles or other things that can change ownership. It's silly, but at least it means that intrepid adventurers or villains can steal that shit. Take a lesson from Shadowrun--players cared about the megacorps because they were the ones with all the hookers and blackjack tables. By contrast, nobody really gave a shit about the Tir books in the long run, because you can't steal or buy personal excellence as easily as you can hijack someone's sweet prototype hover car.

[Lago PARANOIA]

I feel like there kind of has to be something cognitively different about elves as compared to humans if you've got any hope of explaining why, with access to the same resources and facing the same mundane and fantastic perils, elves will hang out in forests hunting game for centuries on end while humans develop agriculture, commerce, cities, formal education...

That one's the easiest to answer. Political conservatism. You don't even have to come up with special psychological, physiological (if you're into dualism), or historical justifications. Because elves live a long time, their technological and cultural development is retarded by the elven elders. Like Taoists or the Taliban, they're willing to tolerate technological or cultural innovations that just so happen to buttress their preferred way of living, but until they're wrested from power by revolution or by generational turnover society proceeds at a glacial pace.

[kzt]

Having worked with a bunch of people in technical areas there are people who keep working at getting better and those who just get by. With some people it's always, to mis-quote Steven Barnes, "It's not that you have been doing this job for 5 years, it's that you have been doing this job for one year 5 times." So they reach a level of semi-competency and decide 'I have learned enough'. Others are always looking for better ways to do things, how to do things with less errors and/or faster and how to turn conditions (which you can't solve and have to be managed) into problems that you can solve.

I can imagine a race of people who essentially do the minimum needed to get by, so the sword they produce after 50 years of forging swords is the same quality as that by a journeymen, as that is "good enough". Or they make mediocre swords a lot faster than they did as a journeyman, but do the same number every day. Hence they have more time to play leapfrog with the unicorns (or whatever).

[Dean]

K isn't quite right about competency. Peoples skill levels do continue to rise with time it's just that as your skill level rises it takes exponentially more time to become noticeably better. If you played darts for the first time in your life you might double your average throws score in just a few hours. Someone who had been playing darts for a year would not see that level of improvement with a month of dedicated practice.

It's also not true that skills totally dissolve if you don't use them, it's vastly easier to recall skills than it is to learn them for the first time. If an elf used to write poetry and stopped for a few decades they wouldn't become a complete novice. They would be rusty and inexpert at first but they would be much more capable of returning to a high skill level than an actual beginner.

I think the Eldar model is the most interesting and plausible one. That most elves have become talented in a number of areas in the course of their lives but on the day you are talking to them they would only have mastery of one of those areas and be merely proficient in the others. So the Elf jeweler would be a masterful jeweler. Equal to extremely gifted human jewelers. He could also paint a painting, play an instrument, speak several languages passably, and hold his own in a swordfight because he used to be amazing at all those things but now only does them occasionally. Elves would just come off as Renaissance men which is a good enough fit I believe.

[Nachtigallerator]

I think elven economy would really run best on a "rare goods" basis. Conveniently, that could also explain why elves still live in forests when the rest of your setting has actual cities without making the elves look like idiots. But let's see if I can think of other reasons.

So perhaps they can maintain relatively large populations in forest tribes because they have an even more efficient metabolism than humans and need food only rarely, but then in larger amounts. Perhaps the flip side of that is that they get fantasy gout if they stay sedentiary and have access to a high-calorie diet all the time - so a few bad experiences in the past have created strong cultural taboos against living with humans or in a similar fashion.
Perhaps elves are very good hunters (with a Dex bonus and low light vision) and obligatory carnivores, but lack the large-scale agriculture to have cattle save the occasional trained wolf or such. They may keep some cultivated bushes and herbs around their village, but they don't get the majority of their calories from that - and, indeed, couldn't get them if they wanted. I like the image of Legolas sucking on bone marrow for his vitamins.
Perhaps elves also can't actually digest wheat and are violently lactose intolerant as adults, so they can't even keep down the food that a low-income human would eat for the larger part.

That taken care off, I agree that they have to trade something unique with the rest of the world to be relevant. I like the idea above that elves export mercenaries - and perhaps their idea of capital punishment is selling the criminal for the profit of the tribe? - but that can't be all they trade. With populations scattered through largely uncultivated woods, one would have to make quite the effort to get a meaningful number of elf mercenaries or work slaves together, and even if they can work and fight longer hours on less food (if you know how to feed them correctly) and with fewer lamps than any other species, that sounds more like an invitation to just do Dragon Age elves. So what else could they sell.

Rare spices and medicines would be an obvious idea, especially if the plants depend on many nutrients that only the other plants in an elf forest produce and hence can't be cultivated outside or in a classical plantation inside the forest. That might also explain why elves are opposed to lumbermills - the trees that are attractive for their wood are also a key part of the local ecosystem and losing them will mess with their other export.
Perhaps they also make lembas (magic bread with an absurd amount of calories inside) and export it because as obligatory carnivores, they don't actually have much of a use for it.

[K]

So, K, no pomt in having elves at all? Your spiel so far is fairly discouraging in even pursuing the concept of something being different than standard human settlement. Once you go down that road, why bother with fantasy?

It's more like he pish-poshed the usual "Because they're old" meme that's commonly accepted as the reason for elven excellence. He explicitly left the door open for other explanations, particularly magical ones. "Age equals bad assery" is a potentially interesting premise to build a game world around but I don't think it's nearly as plausible or self-evident a concept as so many elf wank books would have you believe.

Also, as a general rule, I prefer to have my races be powered by bullshit artifacts, vast stockpiles or other things that can change ownership. It's silly, but at least it means that intrepid adventurers or villains can steal that shit. Take a lesson from Shadowrun--players cared about the megacorps because they were the ones with all the hookers and blackjack tables. By contrast, nobody really gave a shit about the Tir books in the long run, because you can't steal or buy personal excellence as easily as you can hijack someone's sweet prototype hover car.

Right. You have to look at actual abilities that the race has and then extrapolate from there, or reverse-engineer to get the ability you want.

You totally could have master craftsmen elves who specifically retain knowledge and have long lives in order to gain knowledge. Or they might tap into racial memory. Or they all have access to a priest class who implants memories. Whatever.

Those choices actually make the fantasy race cool and memorable and lead to further choices. The Knowledge Elves will naturally lead to various memory-based skills and fighting techniques and spells based on memory. The Racial Memory Elves might be like Eldar with masks with ancestral minds in them and have a unique relationship to ancestral ghosts. The Priest Memory Implanters class might spawn fallen priests who become villains in your setting because they steal memories from others to implant in themselves.

That is why you include fantasy races.... because one cool ability leads to other cool things. You don't do it for racial stereotypes that sound like they could come from the KKK. ("You know, orcs are just all lazy and stupid and that's why they are all poor and all of their young men are in jail.")

[fectin]

Elves are fantasy Wall Street?

[OgreBattle]

I think we've just spent two pages on how to turn elves into dwarves

[K]

I think we've just spent two pages on how to turn elves into dwarves

No, this has been a conversation about how to make elves even cooler because the rules just don't accept that they are the coolest.

[Laertes]

I understand that it's important to allow your players to identify with their characters, and it's important to portray a world that people can imagine themselves in; but I've always found it odd that most fantasy games end up portraying entirely different sentient species as being less alien than many human cultures that actually existed.

It's possible that elves would shy away in horror from the notion of specialised labour. It's possible that they would shy away from the notion of innovation. It's possible that they would have social groups hardcapped at their version of Dunbar's Number, or would regard this world as a meaningless illusion which distracts us from our true natures, or believe that if another person uses a tool that you created then he can steal your soul. These are all things that actual humans actually believed at one time or another.

Making elves be nothing but europeans with pointy ears and long lifespans seems to lose the chance of creating something genuinely interesting and memorable.

[shadzar]

I think we've just spent two pages on how to turn elves into dwarves

so a two page polymorph spell? must be a second level spell then.

[deaddmwalking]

Well, I think the conversation has been exploring whether the DMG demographics make sense for non-human cultures.

We know that XP isn't tied to age; we know that long-lived races can earn XP at the same rate as shorter lived races; and yet humans and elves have the exact same level-breakdown for equal population.

If the average age of an Elf Commoner 1 is 1000 years old, they are avoiding gaining experience extremely well...

Ultimately, I think the demographic information should be assumed for human settlements and other races should include a larger percentage of high level characters.

[K]

Well, I think the conversation has been exploring whether the DMG demographics make sense for non-human cultures.

We know that XP isn't tied to age; we know that long-lived races can earn XP at the same rate as shorter lived races; and yet humans and elves have the exact same level-breakdown for equal population.

If the average age of an Elf Commoner 1 is 1000 years old, they are avoiding gaining experience extremely well...

Ultimately, I think the demographic information should be assumed for human settlements and other races should include a larger percentage of high level characters.

I never really understood why the DMG didn't basically stat up and contextualize a large town as an example of how DnD demographics work. I think people would play the game a lot differently if they knew that the local Warlord is probably 7th level and has 100 2nd levelWarriors.

[Lago PARANOIA]

If the average age of an Elf Commoner 1 is 1000 years old, they are avoiding gaining experience extremely well...

Again, this is because A.) D&D assumes that you don't forget things and B.) the game is extremely ambiguous about handing out experience that doesn't revolve around overcoming a combat challenge.

At any rate, if your average Elf basically lives out a bucolic and unchallenging life where the fundamental organizational structures of elven society changes little over their lifespan -- which is a pretty safe assumption for the non-intelligentsia until we get to the Industrial Revolution -- then most elves shouldn't be higher than level 2 or 3, even if they reach 3 centuries of age.

I think a lot of people are just underestimating how intellectually stultifying life is for non-elites in the pre-media era.

[Laertes]

I never really understood why the DMG didn't basically stat up and contextualize a large town as an example of how DnD demographics work. I think people would play the game a lot differently if they knew that the local Warlord is probably 7th level and has 100 2nd levelWarriors.

That might turn it into the sort of game people don't want, though. It's much harder to go around feeling like a badass when you know exactly how many people nearby are more badass than you, and they know it too. For people who're playing an RPG as a power fantasy to get away from the real world where they're six steps down from the big boss, the one thing they absolutely don't want is to be in a fantasy world where they are literally six steps down from the big boss.

I know a lot of people reacted very badly to Vampire setting sourcebooks when they statted up a bunch of really powerful people and said "Look at this dude. He's awesome. You're not this awesome. You should do what he says or he'll steal your lunch money."

[fectin]

There's a flip side to that too though: you hit level eight fairly quickly. At that point, you are the baddest dudes around, and you really, really don't have to take the mayor's crap anymore.

[K]

I never really understood why the DMG didn't basically stat up and contextualize a large town as an example of how DnD demographics work. I think people would play the game a lot differently if they knew that the local Warlord is probably 7th level and has 100 2nd levelWarriors.

That might turn it into the sort of game people don't want, though. It's much harder to go around feeling like a badass when you know exactly how many people nearby are more badass than you, and they know it too. For people who're playing an RPG as a power fantasy to get away from the real world where they're six steps down from the big boss, the one thing they absolutely don't want is to be in a fantasy world where they are literally six steps down from the big boss.

I know a lot of people reacted very badly to Vampire setting sourcebooks when they statted up a bunch of really powerful people and said "Look at this dude. He's awesome. You're not this awesome. You should do what he says or he'll steal your lunch money."

I've never been in that camp. I think it's because I'm from an older DnD generation who said, "if it has stats, it can be killed."

DnD can be prone to the old "you need to suck this NPCs cock" syndrome, but only because the fleeing rules suck and auto-win spell effects, and the only thing that has mitigated that has been asymmetric power advancement and tactics. The move towards less PC asymmetric power in 4e has been a real blight on the game.

I could imagine a series of changes that would made the existence of higher level characters in the game a lot less of threat to PC power fantasies.

[Laertes]

I've never been in that camp. I think it's because I'm from an older DnD generation who said, "if it has stats, it can be killed."

DnD can be prone to the old "you need to suck this NPCs cock" syndrome, but only because the fleeing rules suck and auto-win spell effects, and the only thing that has mitigated that has been asymmetric power advancement and tactics. The move towards less PC asymmetric power in 4e has been a real blight on the game.

I could imagine a series of changes that would made the existence of higher level characters in the game a lot less of threat to PC power fantasies.

I might just be speaking as a dyed-in-the-wool horror gamer, but I would adore a good, well-thought-out system for running away from and hiding from challenges.

Ideally, you'd have a separate tactical minigame you can play that consists of hiding from the big, scary monster every time it comes along, until you're eventually high enough level to fight it. You could do a whole campaign like that, where you're battling the dragon's minions and then running away when it arrives in person, until at the climax you stand your ground / lure it into a trap and kick its scaly ass. That would be so satisfying.

[Stahlseele]

having a bunch of high powered NPCs around has the main problem of:"why should i care? have one of them kill the dragon."
it could be used as a kind of:"look at that! that is where you are headed if you are a smart cookie!" and not an example of what you are not.

[K]

having a bunch of high powered NPCs around has the main problem of:"why should i care? have one of them kill the dragon."
it could be used as a kind of:"look at that! that is where you are headed if you are a smart cookie!" and not an example of what you are not.

Again, I think this problem comes down to what happens when you don't contextualize what a large town looks like.

In your player's handbook, you really need to talk about what the setting looks like. The idea that every NPC with levels is an adventurer who happens to have no other motivations than leveling up, righting wrongs, and/or getting more treasure is harmful to the setting.

The idea that many high-level characters in your setting are not interested in risking their lives any more should be boiled into the setting. Your local Warlord wants to watch his grandkids play in the yard and not risk his life, soul, freedom and/or identity in the fight against the dragon's minions because he's already won his version of the game by becoming Warlord.. The Wizard selling potions has been getting a level every five years through spell research and is perfectly happy with that rate of advancement, and he's not going to leave his shop and his wife undefended when there is a dragon on the loose. The Ranger who lives in the woods and trains young archers is broken-hearted from all the things he did in the war and now he just wants to get his deserved rest in the arms of his dryad lover.

Also, the point where levels don't automatically mean auto-win is important. The 7th level Ranger might have been able to kill the dragon, but maybe he couldn't have either. If his level isn't an auto-win, then you'll never know.

[hyzmarca]

I never really understood why the DMG didn't basically stat up and contextualize a large town as an example of how DnD demographics work. I think people would play the game a lot differently if they knew that the local Warlord is probably 7th level and has 100 2nd levelWarriors.

That might turn it into the sort of game people don't want, though. It's much harder to go around feeling like a badass when you know exactly how many people nearby are more badass than you, and they know it too. For people who're playing an RPG as a power fantasy to get away from the real world where they're six steps down from the big boss, the one thing they absolutely don't want is to be in a fantasy world where they are literally six steps down from the big boss.

I know a lot of people reacted very badly to Vampire setting sourcebooks when they statted up a bunch of really powerful people and said "Look at this dude. He's awesome. You're not this awesome. You should do what he says or he'll steal your lunch money."

I've never been in that camp. I think it's because I'm from an older DnD generation who said, "if it has stats, it can be killed."

A lot of people underestimate the ease with which a properly stated starting vampire can gain access to nuclear weapons.

In order to counter that your Storyteller needs to posit heavy vampire infiltration of the armed forces of all nuclear armed countries, which isn't something most Storytellers are willing to do.
Well, they could also bring in the Technocracy but then they'd have to do a Vampre/Mage crossover game and that's even more hairpulling.

[MGuy]

I never really understood why the DMG didn't basically stat up and contextualize a large town as an example of how DnD demographics work. I think people would play the game a lot differently if they knew that the local Warlord is probably 7th level and has 100 2nd levelWarriors.

That might turn it into the sort of game people don't want, though. It's much harder to go around feeling like a badass when you know exactly how many people nearby are more badass than you, and they know it too. For people who're playing an RPG as a power fantasy to get away from the real world where they're six steps down from the big boss, the one thing they absolutely don't want is to be in a fantasy world where they are literally six steps down from the big boss.

I know a lot of people reacted very badly to Vampire setting sourcebooks when they statted up a bunch of really powerful people and said "Look at this dude. He's awesome. You're not this awesome. You should do what he says or he'll steal your lunch money."

I've never run into the problem you describe here. It might be because I play with younger people who are used to having games where there are people higher level than you that you can't take 'yet' or perhaps it is because half of the people I play with hate having people concentrate on characters behaving based on meta knowledge and encourage the other half to not look at the game that way. In either case players (both people I've gamed with for years and players who I've been getting into the game) don't seem to have a problem with knowing that their are people who's asses they can't beat (right now) and I think the knowledge that they can someday BE that bad ass helps a lot. I think people are turned away only if there are bad asses about and they can never get to that level or don't think that they will anyway.

[Stahlseele]

@K
you will notice that i deliberately try to keep things like levels out of my postings, because i have no idea about what a level in DnD is supposed to mean due to never having bothered with even reading anything about DnD aside from here.
i am trying to keep things a bit broader and general.

[Laertes]

i've never run into the problem you describe here. It might be because I play with younger people who are used to having games where there are people higher level than you tha tyou cna't take 'yet' or perhaps it is because half of the people I play with hate having people concentrate on characters behaving based on meta knowledge and encourage the other half to not look at the game that way. In either case players (both people I've gamed with for years and players who I've ben getting into the game) don't seem to have a problem with knowing that their are people who's asses they can't beat (right now) and I think the knowledge that they can someday BE that bad ass helps a lot. I think people are turned away only if there are bad asses about and they can never get to that level or don't think that they will anyway.

Vampire's sourcebooks did it in a particularly obnoxious way, it has to be said. They seemed to be under the delusion that you cared about their NPCs more than you cared about the PCs in your game (also known as "the Elminster effect.") I've run and played in Vampire games which worked extremely well when they had powerful NPCs, but that's because they kept themselves a long way out of the spotlight, and existed as plot devices in the way that K posits.

Thinking about it a little more, I think one of the big factors in this is the extent to which the game world supports the concept of PCs existing within a society of their peers. In Shadowrun you're lone agents existing more or less as rogues within society; you don't often interact with other Shadowrunners, and my experience of that game is that people really stop having fun if another Decker (Rigger, Shaman, et cetera) who's simply better than them exists within the world. On the diametrically opposite corner, Legend of the Five Rings explicitly sets you up as a dude in a world full of dudes like you with whom you can interact, and the fact that some of them are more hardcore than you serves as inspiration and comfort more than anything else. (Unless it's one of the terrible CCG spinoffs, in which case kill it with fire.)

Both Shadowrun and L5R are excellent games, but it's interesting to see that correlation. I wonder if it's born out more generally. Guys, opinions?

[fectin]

Uh, CCG spinoffs?

I think you're confused.