Things that break verismilitude for you in a fantasy setting

[Mechalich]

One of the things that annoys me most about fantasy settings is their need to stretch the timeline out over thousands of years.

Fantasy settings that have long-lived beings need to have long timelines - and they need to have a mechanism to deal with their timeline length and the 'static' development problem that results.

D&D demands elves that live for centuries, dragons that live for millennia, and outsiders that are immortal. Not even counting gods, most D&D settings will have beings, usually powerful outsiders, who have existed from the beginning of the setting. As such, there is no prehistory there is only history, and in fact all history is living memory of something - often a very perceptive something that is extremely smart (ex. Pit Fiends have an intelligence of 26).

The history of modern humans stretches to maybe 50,000 BCE, though admittedly we're talking about nothing more than scattered hunter gatherers for most of it, but there's no reason why a fantasy setting can't have a history around that long and be aware of all of it. Since D&D history is far more cyclical than actual Earth human history - it is far easier for knowledge to be persistently lost, and most settings have undergone multiple 'apocalyptic' events. That's perfectly workable. The Forgotten Realms has a roughly 37,000 year history, which is manageable, especially given that only about 5,000 years of that is the modern human period.

Hundreds of thousands or millions of years of history is indeed ridiculous, but various points in the low five figures can work out fine.

[Milo v3]

I got around the timeline issue in one setting by having it only "start" around 250 years after creation of the universe.

[Tiktakkat]

Humans and their immediate kin are the only races that would not have a century gone war within living memory. For most races, the children of that generation are just now adults. I think we might be ignoring the effect the long lived races might have on the scope of time lines. For elves alone, 300 years is within living memory.

Also, we people living in 2016 still feel the geopolitical effects of the First World War, a century past. There is a lot to be said that the West's intervention in the collapse the Ottoman Empire has profound effects on today's conflict in the Middle East, for example. And we still deal with specters of the Cold War, which emerged out of the Second World War, which was a direct result of the First. And it just so happens that a handful of humans who experienced that war are still alive even today. So, something to take into account...

I was explaining this effect elsewhere recently, particularly how it cascades with longer lived races.

Example:
The last verified Confederate veteran died in 1951, while the last surviving Union combat veteran died in 1953.
That means someone born at the end of WWII could have directly heard 1st hand accounts of Civil War combat.
Such a person could have served in Viet Nam, and then be able to pass that knowledge on until an expected point sometime around 2020 at the earliest, directly influencing someone born in the last few years, with second-hand accounts of the Civil War.
That person will very likely make it to the next century.
Now granted that is just "anecdotes" and not "data", but this is social memes, not hard research.

Compound that with a 750 year maximum Elven lifespan, and you have the potential of "My teacher told me about when his teacher told him about Caesar crossing the Rubicon." (Or campaign equivalent of course.)
And thus when Elves talk to humans, you get the "My father told me when he watched your ancestors migrate to this land. My son will tell his children about when you left" trope.

[BootStrapTommy]

I'll try to answer these as best as I can. I'll also mention that I haven't read the books, but have watched the first 4 seasons of the show and have done some wiki walking when things made absolutely no sense to figure out what happened.

First and foremost, making any assumptions off of 'a perfect rectangle' North doesn't provide us with any particularly useful information, as the base numbers are more flawed. From the graphic provided, the North appears to have a more triangular shape, since it includes the region referred to as "The Neck". Rather than trying to determine the exact area of Westeros' irregular shape, I merely went with what was given to us as raw numbers, hence the "South America". "1/3", and "40 Million" points.

South America is 6.888 million square miles. The "rectangle" measures are the max length and max width as stated by the author, 4.822 million square miles. The obvious problem being that your estimates are even more wildy inaccurate than the "rectangle" and dilute the numbers.

Now, this wasn't suggested to be to the degree of, say, Russia in World War One, in which they eventually ended up fielding close to 10% of their total population, and suffered complete economic collapse. I'll admit I can't remember quite where I got the source for 5% or more (it was from a long time ago) but I've seen it on more than a few forums, including this one, over the years; I'll try looking again when I have more time. However, it is enough to place significant strain throughout the North and rob it of its ability to protect itself from even casual raiders and bandits. Again, this suggests a very limited population, further troubled by the empty territories of "The Gift", along with the Wolfswood, which takes up an incredible amount of territory. It is also important to note that, as is the case in most of the world of Fire and Ice, the women of the North are treated as non-combatants, and thus something such as an army that eats up 5% of the available population is really saying more of "10% of all physically able young men who would otherwise be farming and preforming other manual labor".

I actually thought this might be a tad low, honestly. The Plague claimed 30-50% of Europe's population within seven years. That certainly reshaped society significantly, but oddly not nearly as much as the collapse of the Western Roman Empire...

Now, for numbers concerning medieval populations, this is a fairly good resource for medieval populations, though it does stray more towards late medieval France's numbers. That being said, I'm not sure precisely which Persian Empire you're describing, but regardless, most of them take place before 1,300 and the one you describe, again, has a significantly higher population density than Westeros. Roman is even higher, as you clearly pointed out. Suffice to say, I think we can at least agree that Westeros is woefully underpopulated? (In all likelihood, Essos is probably even worse, but at least it has the excuse of being largely hunter, gatherer, and raider.)

My calculations are putting 11th Century Britain about half the number proposed there. Still grossly outnumbering Westeros though.

That being said, my bigger concern with the army sizes themselves (I can understand them being smaller than expected due to the relatively sudden outbreak of combat and other factors) is more along the lines of "They never seem to change". Tywin always has twice as many troops as Rob, Rob always seems to have 20,000 men, the Riverlands supposedly has an army but is functionally useless and never included in anyone elses calculations and is often pointedly excluded (cue: "We need our men more than Tywin needs his!"), even though Rob is supposedly winning every battle. Even after the battle at the Wall Mance's Army "Still outnumbers us a thousand to one" in regards to the Watch....even though the Watch lost at least a couple dozen of their men of all sorts to the attack on Castle Black, and probably didn't even put a dent in the Wildling Army's size (other factors, such as the White Walkers and even straight up starvation, however, are another story...).

Robb Stark gathers near twelve thousand northmen to Winterfell, including two thousand foot and three hundred horse from Karhold. Robb's force includes three hundred or four hundred knights among the other three thousand northern cavalry. Others wait to join them when Robb marches south along the kingsroad. With the addition of near fifteen hundred Manderlys, the northern force numbers eighteen thousand men at Moat Cailin. When they arrive at the Twins, Catelyn Tully warns Lord Walder Frey that Robb has twenty thousand troops against Walder's four thousand, but the Starks and Freys agree to an alliance, with the Freys contributing one thousand knights and near three thousand foot. While Lord Roose Bolton leads the northern foot and a tenth of the cavalry south along the eastern shore of the Green Fork, Robb takes the majority of the northern cavalry west to Riverrun. Robb's host is augmented by House Mallister and other forces as they travel near the Blue Fork. Their six thousand defeat Ser Jaime Lannister and three-quarters of his two or three thousand horse in the Battle of the Whispering Wood, and Jaime's twelve thousand foot are then defeated in the Battle of the Camps.

The TV show seems to take liberty with the numbers presented in the book. Worth noting the Battle of Camps goes the way it does due to nighttime surprise and the fact that Jaime's army is caught between the rivers, Riverrun (containing the Rivermen), and Robb's army. Later in the books, Ser Rodrik Cassel, the castellan of Winterhold, raises an army in the thousands to oust Theon. That army gets massacred when Ramsey Snow betrays them.

On that note, my more prominent concern with the Wall isn't necessarily it's height (though it could still stand to be halved or something) but more of its apparent width, or rather the lack there off. I'd even accept that it was reasonably built by human hands if one or two of its dimensions were altered to be more reasonable.

I can't seem to find a figure for width, which would be my main concern. At 200m high it would have to be 8km wide to be structurally stable! Even then it would still flow like a glacier. That being said the books don't in the least bit skimp on the detail that it was originally built with magic, during a generation long winter/perpetual twilight when powerful magic being still inhabited the world. Presumably the same magic that kept people feed...

Which brings me to a point, why question the Wall in face of the even more impossible variable seasons thing?

I was explaining this effect elsewhere recently, particularly how it cascades with longer lived races.

Example:
The last verified Confederate veteran died in 1951, while the last surviving Union combat veteran died in 1953.
That means someone born at the end of WWII could have directly heard 1st hand accounts of Civil War combat.
Such a person could have served in Viet Nam, and then be able to pass that knowledge on until an expected point sometime around 2020 at the earliest, directly influencing someone born in the last few years, with second-hand accounts of the Civil War.
That person will very likely make it to the next century.
Now granted that is just "anecdotes" and not "data", but this is social memes, not hard research.

Compound that with a 750 year maximum Elven lifespan, and you have the potential of "My teacher told me about when his teacher told him about Caesar crossing the Rubicon." (Or campaign equivalent of course.)
And thus when Elves talk to humans, you get the "My father told me when he watched your ancestors migrate to this land. My son will tell his children about when you left" trope.

To add a personal ancedote, my grandmother was old enough to have remembered the First World War ending. And to have meet her great granduncle, Newton Knight. Newton Knight rebelled against the Confederacy during the Civil War, leading Jones County, Mississippi to secede from the Confederacy. Matthew McConaughey is gunna play him in a movie that comes out later this year. No, I'm not totally absurdly siked about it or anything...

Thus I was able to here a secondhand account of how much of a badass my great-great-great granduncle was over 150 years ago! And I'm totally not an elf or anything. What would make you think that?

[Talion]

South America is 6.888 million square miles. The "rectangle" measures are the max length and max width as stated by the author, 4.822 million square miles. The obvious problem being that your estimates are even more wildy inaccurate than the "rectangle" and dilute the numbers.

I actually thought this might be a tad low, honestly. The Plague claimed 30-50% of Europe's population within seven years. That certainly reshaped society significantly, but oddly not nearly as much as the collapse of the Western Roman Empire...

My calculations are putting 11th Century Britain about half the number proposed there. Still grossly outnumbering Westeros though.

The TV show seems to take liberty with the numbers presented in the book. Worth noting the Battle of Camps goes the way it does due to nighttime surprise and the fact that Jaime's army is caught between the rivers, Riverrun (containing the Rivermen), and Robb's army. Later in the books, Ser Rodrik Cassel, the castellan of Winterhold, raises an army in the thousands to oust Theon. That army gets massacred when Ramsey Snow betrays them.

I can't seem to find a figure for width, which would be my main concern. At 200m high it would have to be 8km wide to be structurally stable! Even then it would still flow like a glacier. That being said the books don't in the least bit skimp on the detail that it was originally built with magic, during a generation long winter/perpetual twilight when powerful magic being still inhabited the world. Presumably the same magic that kept people feed...

Which brings me to a point, why question the Wall in face of the even more impossible variable seasons thing?

Admittedly, Westeros has undergone some serious depopulation issues of its own in the last 300 years. Of course there was the intial Targaryian invasion, which was excessively brutish, wiping out untold families and old powers, which would require its own restructuring. More recently we've seen Robert's Rebellion, the Greyjoy Rebellion, and the War of Five Kings, but these alone do not seem to account for Westeros' universally and unusually low population.

I'll admit 5% still seems within relatively reasonable boundaries for a large nation that needs an army of that size. Moreso if the country in question happens to have all the resources it needs to maintain and equip that army. Though, again, as the percentage increases, so does the inherent strain on the supporting economies. At 7%, where I'm given to understand the military starts to become truly out of hand, we're really looking at 14% of the total male workforce, itself an even larger percentage of the healthy male worker population. By comparison, the United States military comes to somewhere in the range of 2 million people including reserves, which is less than a percent of the total population. Of course, all of this is without accounting for the various weapon, armor, and other industries needed to support all those troops as well. All of which amounts to a more than healthy chunk of the country's budget and economy, but at the same time nowhere near enough to create an actual deficit of workers in other industries.

And the width is the truly concerning point, since without it the darn thing should have collapsed on itself some time ago, particularly with the ever lowering frequency and quality of maintenance. The seasons I can deal with more readily because that is blatantly magic, and heavily based on the actions of the White Walkers (or "Others" as the book refers to them and their associates). The multiple year summers are harder to justify, since it doesn't have an apparent force that contributes to it, but the long winters I can believe without much difficulty.

[Sam113097]

Admittedly, Westeros has undergone some serious depopulation issues of its own in the last 300 years. Of course there was the intial Targaryian invasion, which was excessively brutish, wiping out untold families and old powers, which would require its own restructuring. More recently we've seen Robert's Rebellion, the Greyjoy Rebellion, and the War of Five Kings, but these alone do not seem to account for Westeros' universally and unusually low population.

I'll admit 5% still seems within relatively reasonable boundaries for a large nation that needs an army of that size. Moreso if the country in question happens to have all the resources it needs to maintain and equip that army. Though, again, as the percentage increases, so does the inherent strain on the supporting economies. At 7%, where I'm given to understand the military starts to become truly out of hand, we're really looking at 14% of the total male workforce, itself an even larger percentage of the healthy male worker population. By comparison, the United States military comes to somewhere in the range of 2 million people including reserves, which is less than a percent of the total population. Of course, all of this is without accounting for the various weapon, armor, and other industries needed to support all those troops as well. All of which amounts to a more than healthy chunk of the country's budget and economy, but at the same time nowhere near enough to create an actual deficit of workers in other industries.

And the width is the truly concerning point, since without it the darn thing should have collapsed on itself some time ago, particularly with the ever lowering frequency and quality of maintenance. The seasons I can deal with more readily because that is blatantly magic, and heavily based on the actions of the White Walkers (or "Others" as the book refers to them and their associates). The multiple year summers are harder to justify, since it doesn't have an apparent force that contributes to it, but the long winters I can believe without much difficulty.

Additionally, if you can field an army of ten thousand soldiers, it means that you have an army of far more than ten thousand men. It takes a hell of a lot of people to keep troops fed, led, and trained. A military has what is called the "tooth-to-tail" ratio: the proportion of soldiers (teeth) to support personnel (tail). In modern armies, there are a lot more support personnel than there are combatants, somewhere around 2-to-1 for the United States (my data is as of 2005). Older armies had fewer support personnel (probably closer to 2 troops for every non-combatant), but it still would take thousands of men to support a ten-thousand-man army. You need doctors and nurses, cooks, builders, messengers, etc.

[Mechalich]

In terms of Westeros, GRR Martin has made it explicitly clear that he's bad with numbers and doesn't think about them too hard. It is an acknowledged weakness of the setting. So it actually should be verisimilitude breaking since the author hasn't invested energy in preserving verisimilitude in the area of numeric values.

[Yora]

Fantasy settings that have long-lived beings need to have long timelines - and they need to have a mechanism to deal with their timeline length and the 'static' development problem that results.

No, they don't. While an individual might live very long, day to day activities don't happen any slower. And most memories aren't well preserved very long. After some days or weeks you only have a memory of a memory left. Anyone working in Law and History knows that eyewitness accounts are always highly dubious and have been filtered and restructured countless times before they are being told. It's a first start to get an idea where to look, but to learn something for certain you have to find material evidence that supports those reports before you can start to tell which parts might have been true and which must have been misremembered. Life spans of individuals should have a very low impact on how history plays out. Societies can cling to grudges for centuries, while individuals can reconcile after pretty violent conflicts after a decade in some cases. Whether any currently living people have been alive during events that are long past doesn't make a big difference.

[Tiktakkat]

No, they don't. While an individual might live very long, day to day activities don't happen any slower. And most memories aren't well preserved very long. After some days or weeks you only have a memory of a memory left. Anyone working in Law and History knows that eyewitness accounts are always highly dubious and have been filtered and restructured countless times before they are being told. It's a first start to get an idea where to look, but to learn something for certain you have to find material evidence that supports those reports before you can start to tell which parts might have been true and which must have been misremembered. Life spans of individuals should have a very low impact on how history plays out. Societies can cling to grudges for centuries, while individuals can reconcile after pretty violent conflicts after a decade in some cases. Whether any currently living people have been alive during events that are long past doesn't make a big difference.

Which is exactly why they have such an impact on society.
It isn't whether the individuals "remember" and "report" what is true; it is that the individuals "remember" and "report" what "they saw with their own two eyes!" And what others can "remember" and "report" what those people told them about "what they saw with their own two eyes!"
Clinging to a grudge becomes much easier when you have a direct participant complaining about it for two centuries instead of just two decades.

[BootStrapTommy]

Life spans of individuals should have a very low impact on how history plays out. Societies can cling to grudges for centuries, while individuals can reconcile after pretty violent conflicts after a decade in some cases. Whether any currently living people have been alive during events that are long past doesn't make a big difference.

No. A human can expect to live no longer than 110 years in D&D. That creates a set of economic preferences very different than the elf who can live as long 750 years.

Life expectancy has a huge effect on how people behave economically, even with the variability on our planet and within our own species. A race that expects to live for centuries? They would possess a completely different set preferences than any human has ever experienced. The longer you live, the less likely you are to feel the necessity of rushing. Not to mention the conservative effects century old rulers would have. If your king potentially rules for 500 years or more, your society only has the capacity to change only insofar their ruler is willing to or insofar as they are willing to rebel. Not to mention how being long lived would effect reproduction...

[Mith]

To add a personal ancedote, my grandmother was old enough to have remembered the First World War ending. And to have meet her great granduncle, Newton Knight. Newton Knight rebelled against the Confederacy during the Civil War, leading Jones County, Mississippi to secede from the Confederacy. Matthew McConaughey is gunna play him in a movie that comes out later this year. No, I'm not totally absurdly siked about it or anything.

Congrats! That will add some awesome points to the movie if I see it, although it will obvious be infinitely less than your experience.

[Mechalich]

Long life spans also impact things simply because every species that actually qualifies as a species - and not a group of magical outsider entities like demons - needs to put a few generations between itself and the beginning of time.

Most D&D worlds experience some kind of Creation event. Either the gods bamf everything into being, the world is opened to the planes/wildspace, or whatever, but regardless there is some singular date, at some measurable point in the past, when things began. Generally, because evolution isn't happening and everything was specially created int its current form, that date wasn't millions of years ago - and if it was you have a whole different set of weird problems because what were all your dragons/demons/mind flayers getting up to for millions of years or if they were then you're running the Malazan Book of the Fallen and your setting is so overburdened by its history as to be positively obtuse.

The longest lived thing that is generally both important and in possession of an actual reproductive cycle in most D&D settings is dragons. A draconic generation is around 500 years, while individuals have a lifespan capable of easily pushing 3k. If you want there to be ten draconic generations and you want to make sure all the dragons who were born/around during the creation of your world have managed to die off, you're looking at 5000 years of history minimum. It doesn't have to be a history of civilization - a number of D&D settings have an early 'draconic period' where the dragons fly around ruling at their whims and everyone else cowers as hunter/gatherers, but that block of time needs to exist, and people should be aware that it exists.

[Milo v3]

needs to put a few generations between itself and the beginning of time.

Not necessarily. Not every setting needs hundreds of generations of history before the present.

[Mechalich]

Not necessarily. Not every setting needs hundreds of generations of history before the present.

I wasn't talking about hundreds. I was talking about maybe ten.

Dragonlance is a good example. It's got a roughly 10,000 year history. it's managed all of like 5 dragon generations during that time and actually a frightfully small number of elven generations. Yes there have been hundreds of human generations during that timeframe, and that's something the setting has to address, but considering that multi-generational events involving both elves and dragons are a thing in the setting it really can't compress the timeline any further.

Fantasy settings often place long-lived races like dragons and elves and even dwarves 'in decline' with humans as a newly developing rising power. Partly that's cause Tolkien did it, but it's also because it works. It gives you the years necessary to set up mature cultures of long-lived species without having to stretch complex human history over too much time.

[Milo v3]

I wasn't talking about hundreds. I was talking about maybe ten.

Even that's not necessary IMO.

I think any number greater than -1 is fine As Long As The Results Of The Timeline Is Still Sensible... The second part is very important.

[jqavins]

No, they don't. While an individual might live very long, day to day activities don't happen any slower. And most memories aren't well preserved very long. After some days or weeks you only have a memory of a memory left. Societies can cling to grudges for centuries, while individuals can reconcile after pretty violent conflicts after a decade in some cases. Whether any currently living people have been alive during events that are long past doesn't make a big difference.

Good point, as far as grudges, recalled glory, etc. go. Not the only consideration, but a big one (and the one mostly focused on prior to this post.)

Which is exactly why they have such an impact on society.
It isn't whether the individuals "remember" and "report" what is true; it is that the individuals "remember" and "report" what "they saw with their own two eyes!" And what others can "remember" and "report" what those people told them about "what they saw with their own two eyes!"
Clinging to a grudge becomes much easier when you have a direct participant complaining about it for two centuries instead of just two decades.

But if those individuals don't keep complaining to centuries, as was Yora's point, the societies don't get that boost in grudge duration. If the participants spend centuries saying "But, that was a long time ago, and the world has to move on; forgive and move on" then it might even make societal grudges die out faster, not slower. Maybe. I guess it could plausibly go either way.

No. A human can expect to live no longer than 110 years in D&D. That creates a set of economic preferences very different than the elf who can live as long 750 years.

Life expectancy has a huge effect on how people behave economically, even with the variability on our planet and within our own species. A race that expects to live for centuries? They would possess a completely different set preferences than any human has ever experienced. The longer you live, the less likely you are to feel the necessity of rushing. Not to mention the conservative effects century old rulers would have. If your king potentially rules for 500 years or more, your society only has the capacity to change only insofar their ruler is willing to or insofar as they are willing to rebel. Not to mention how being long lived would effect reproduction...

Well, now, that too is a very good point. Leaving behind societal and personal grudges etc., there should, indeed, be economic and other societal effects which are well worth exploring. Just an initial thought: elves in a predominantly human society, predominantly elven societies, and humans in predominantly elven societies would all manifest differences as compared to the people in wholly human societies such as those irl, as well as all different from one another.

OK, here's another perspective. What if the lifespans of these creature was decided on by game and setting designers to fit their long timelines, rather than the other way around. "I'm designing this 15 thousand year timeline. I need some creatures that have seen it all within just two or three generations, so I'll give dragons a 10 thousand year lifespan." This whole conversation has got me thinking that, in my own slowly peculating setting, I'll shorten life spans as well as keep the timeline short. Perhaps elves with a 200 year average and exceptional individuals reaching 250 (similar to Vulcans.) Dwarves don't need to be long lived at all, and exceptionally long lived species like dragons top out at about 1000 years.

[Yora]

But if those individuals don't keep complaining to centuries, as was Yora's point, the societies don't get that boost in grudge duration. If the participants spend centuries saying "But, that was a long time ago, and the world has to move on; forgive and move on" then it might even make societal grudges die out faster, not slower. Maybe. I guess it could plausibly go either way.

Take France and Germany for example. Pretty much 1000 years of endless conflict, but then in the 1950s people said "Okay, this has really gotten out of hand. We can't keep doing this. This insanity has to stop." And they did, just like that, while they were pretty much still clearing away the debris.
And it's not unique. There are plenty of conflicts in the past and present that are dragging on for many generations. But when these finally end it's often not only once the last people who actually were involved in direct hostilities have all died. Sometimes you even have the older people having to stop the younger ones from making the same bad mistakes that they did themselves 20 or 40 years before.

[Tiktakkat]

And it's not unique. There are plenty of conflicts in the past and present that are dragging on for many generations. But when these finally end it's often not only once the last people who actually were involved in direct hostilities have all died. Sometimes you even have the older people having to stop the younger ones from making the same bad mistakes that they did themselves 20 or 40 years before.

So do the previous participants cause the next conflict or stop it?
The answer is "both", and that is what you are missing about the effects of age on a society.

Extended lifespans will tend to reinforce existing social conditions, contributing to social stagnation.
If the society tends towards vengeance, having elders harping on what happened will keep the antagonism going.
If the society tends towards reconciliation, having elders harping on what happened will keep the next generations from restarting the conflict.

That's why you can have Elven society failing within 5 generations due to stagnation from living as if it were one thousand years ago and the political, technological, and magical milieu were completely different, and thoroughly incompatible with the current milieu, while the 10 generation Human society is still expanding due to rapidly adapting without elders from 200 years ago looking over their shoulders, nagging them constantly.

[jqavins]

Extended lifespans will tend to reinforce existing social conditions, contributing to social stagnation.

Why? Why shouldn't long lived people continue to learn, develop, and grow throughout their lifetimes just as we poor humans do?

That's why you can have Elven society failing within 5 generations due to stagnation from living as if it were one thousand years ago and the political, technological, and magical milieu were completely different.

From what does this follow? In the sciences and art, people tend to grow more skilled as they continue to practice their craft. The stereotype of creativity declining quickly with the bloom of youth may have some basis in truth, but 1) it is far from universal and B) there's no reason to suppose that the youthful creative period might not ne extended along with the lifespan. So long lives would mean people who have more decades to develop skills*, taking those into extended creative periods, and extending their own work many decades rather than having to pass it on after only a few. Science, technology, the arts, and presumably magic would thus advance faster when long lifespans allow experts continue contributing for a very long time. Politics, religious thought, and other aspects of a thriving society may or may not follow a similar pattern.

OK, maybe some of us won't buy this. You don't have to, it's all conjecture. But how can one state the opposite, that stagnation would be the result of long lifespans, with any certainty? In the real world, the human lifespan has been lengthening as the pace of scientific and technological development has been increasing. It is usually assumed that the latter is the cause and the former the effect. I wonder if it is not that simple, that each may already be contributing to the other synergistically.

* I mean skills in the general sense of being good at what one does, not in any game mechanical sense. That's another topic.

[Tzi]

The easier solution might be to simply "remove long lived races from the world," not necessarily get ride of them but remove them from the sphere of play-ability and make them substantively OTHER.

Even in Tolkien Elves were substantively isolated and by the end entirely retreated from the world.

One method of avoiding weird problems like that is simply carving the Elves and other "1000! year lifespan," races from playability and from the mortal world.

[Yora]

I feel pretty happy with having elves who live for over 300 years, assuming they survive three centuries without being killed by disease, war, or accident in a premodern society. Some do, but they are more rare than 80 year old humans.

[jqavins]

I feel pretty happy with having elves who live for over 300 years, assuming they survive three centuries without being killed by disease, war, or accident in a premodern society. Some do, but they are more rare than 80 year old humans.

OK, interesting point about disease, etc. But it raises another question: How or why would such a long lifespan evolve? I would guess that these elves would have to be more resistant to early death in its various forms than humans, or else it would be advantageous to "live faster" as it were. (I read somewhere that most animals from mice to elephants get about the same number of heartbeats in a lifetime.) Which means all the long lived races should have to have a better ability to avoid and/or to survive accidents and illness than humans. (Poor, poor, pitiful us!) To some extent this is built into D&D, with elves' higher dex and dwarves' higher con, etc. But dex doesn't help the elves with disease.

[Yora]

That's the point where I am content to say "it's fantasy" and leave it at that.

[Tiktakkat]

Why? Why shouldn't long lived people continue to learn, develop, and grow throughout their lifetimes just as we poor humans do?

"learn, develop, and grow" is not the same as "change your cultural paradigm".
One of the reasons we are so awed by musicians who change genre from album to album is that so few do it, compounded by so few doing it well.

From what does this follow? In the sciences and art, people tend to grow more skilled as they continue to practice their craft. The stereotype of creativity declining quickly with the bloom of youth may have some basis in truth, but 1) it is far from universal and B) there's no reason to suppose that the youthful creative period might not ne extended along with the lifespan.

Yes, they practice their craft; they do not develop a new craft.
Elves become awesome at working with mail, long bows, and long swords. Then their armies die in droves against humans with plate that their weapons cannot defeat, and heavy arms that crush through their mail. And if gunpowder shows up . . .
Elves become awesome at dealing with goblins and orcs that can barely maintain stable villages with one thousand inhabitants. Then they are out-thought by humans with cities with one million inhabitants.
Elves become awesome with the spells they developed at the dawn of magic. Then their kingdoms are laid waste by magic advanced hundreds of times over the centuries.

So long lives would mean people who have more decades to develop skills*, taking those into extended creative periods, and extending their own work many decades rather than having to pass it on after only a few. Science, technology, the arts, and presumably magic would thus advance faster when long lifespans allow experts continue contributing for a very long time. Politics, religious thought, and other aspects of a thriving society may or may not follow a similar pattern.

Or, more commonly, it means they keep redoing the same experiments over and over again.
Their art becomes defined by a single idealized form that is copied and recopied to the exclusion of any variations or new forms.
Their science becomes "settled" and nobody even contemplates new theories.
Their technology is "perfected" at the level it is at, with innovation "unneeded".
Politics is fossilized by tradition.
Religion is dominated by orthodoxy.

OK, maybe some of us won't buy this. You don't have to, it's all conjecture. But how can one state the opposite, that stagnation would be the result of long lifespans, with any certainty? In the real world, the human lifespan has been lengthening as the pace of scientific and technological development has been increasing. It is usually assumed that the latter is the cause and the former the effect. I wonder if it is not that simple, that each may already be contributing to the other synergistically.

Pretty much.
Especially since a lot of issues with life expectancy have more to do with birth, infant, and child mortality than with senescence, with battle deaths causing even more issues.
To some extent though there seems to be a confluence between social change, which affects the rate of technology change, and general lifespan.

One critical thing to note in addition is observer bias.
Our milieu, and thus our core paradigm, is predicated on change to the point that there are even discussions about The Singularity.
We live expecting, even planning, for things to be dramatically different before we graduate/have children/our children graduate, both socially and technologically.
Especially in the standard fantasy paradigm of near-total technological stasis, the effects of long life, and the influence of elders set in their ways that have worked not merely for their father and their father's father, who was around when civilization was created, but has worked for them for the past two centuries, on all facets of development is going to be compounded.

[BootStrapTommy]

Well, now, that too is a very good point. Leaving behind societal and personal grudges etc., there should, indeed, be economic and other societal effects which are well worth exploring. Just an initial thought: elves in a predominantly human society, predominantly elven societies, and humans in predominantly elven societies would all manifest differences as compared to the people in wholly human societies such as those irl, as well as all different from one another.

In the context of D&D, the elf would outlive every human he grew up with and be a wizened eldest elder of the human community by the time he reaches the age his people acknowledge as adulthood (min 110). The human would die of old age before the elves he grew up with were even considered adults. D&D addresses this problem with half-elves, who sit oddly in the middle.

Why? Why shouldn't long lived people continue to learn, develop, and grow throughout their lifetimes just as we poor humans do?

Because we are notorious bad at that.

From what does this follow? In the sciences and art, people tend to grow more skilled as they continue to practice their craft. The stereotype of creativity declining quickly with the bloom of youth may have some basis in truth, but 1) it is far from universal and B) there's no reason to suppose that the youthful creative period might not ne extended along with the lifespan. So long lives would mean people who have more decades to develop skills*, taking those into extended creative periods, and extending their own work many decades rather than having to pass it on after only a few. Science, technology, the arts, and presumably magic would thus advance faster when long lifespans allow experts continue contributing for a very long time. Politics, religious thought, and other aspects of a thriving society may or may not follow a similar pattern.

OK, maybe some of us won't buy this. You don't have to, it's all conjecture. But how can one state the opposite, that stagnation would be the result of long lifespans, with any certainty? In the real world, the human lifespan has been lengthening as the pace of scientific and technological development has been increasing. It is usually assumed that the latter is the cause and the former the effect. I wonder if it is not that simple, that each may already be contributing to the other synergistically.

You're looking at is as "We have more time to perfect our talents" when the elves are honestly more likely to be like "Well, I do have more time to learn my talent, so I'll take my time". This is a race that waits as long as the maximum human lifespan just to grow up, after all. They don't appear to be in a rush...

[VoxRationis]

"learn, develop, and grow" is not the same as "change your cultural paradigm".
One of the reasons we are so awed by musicians who change genre from album to album is that so few do it, compounded by so few doing it well.



Yes, they practice their craft; they do not develop a new craft.
Elves become awesome at working with mail, long bows, and long swords. Then their armies die in droves against humans with plate that their weapons cannot defeat, and heavy arms that crush through their mail. And if gunpowder shows up . . .
Elves become awesome at dealing with goblins and orcs that can barely maintain stable villages with one thousand inhabitants. Then they are out-thought by humans with cities with one million inhabitants.
Elves become awesome with the spells they developed at the dawn of magic. Then their kingdoms are laid waste by magic advanced hundreds of times over the centuries.



Or, more commonly, it means they keep redoing the same experiments over and over again.
Their art becomes defined by a single idealized form that is copied and recopied to the exclusion of any variations or new forms.
Their science becomes "settled" and nobody even contemplates new theories.
Their technology is "perfected" at the level it is at, with innovation "unneeded".
Politics is fossilized by tradition.
Religion is dominated by orthodoxy.



Pretty much.
Especially since a lot of issues with life expectancy have more to do with birth, infant, and child mortality than with senescence, with battle deaths causing even more issues.
To some extent though there seems to be a confluence between social change, which affects the rate of technology change, and general lifespan.

One critical thing to note in addition is observer bias.
Our milieu, and thus our core paradigm, is predicated on change to the point that there are even discussions about The Singularity.
We live expecting, even planning, for things to be dramatically different before we graduate/have children/our children graduate, both socially and technologically.
Especially in the standard fantasy paradigm of near-total technological stasis, the effects of long life, and the influence of elders set in their ways that have worked not merely for their father and their father's father, who was around when civilization was created, but has worked for them for the past two centuries, on all facets of development is going to be compounded.

Except the elves had to come up with their technology and magic and art at some point. It doesn't make sense that an entire culture, an entire species, was extremely productive at the very beginning and then became constitutionally incapable of improvement after that. Even China continued developing technologically and culturally after its big period of innovation. If elves and dwarves are intelligent in any meaningful sense of the term, they will learn, adapt, and innovate.
Frankly, the culturally stagnant elf thing is another aspect where Tolkien's world-specific scenarios—and remember, everyone except the bad guys were culturally and technologically stagnant in that setting—which others have copied, regardless of whether it makes sense. Tolkien's elves were stagnant because their society and culture were, like the societies of all good things, in decline, largely because they were all waiting their turns to get out of Middle-Earth (it doesn't make sense to invest a lot of time in building your society when you'll have to leave it soon anyway). In most settings of the modern period, Blessed Isles-analogues don't exist, and the elves aren't trying to go anywhere. Furthermore, in most modern settings, the Classical/medieval paradigm of "everything's slowly going to pot," which was one of the key aspects of Tolkien's world, isn't found.

Also, science that doesn't end up contemplating new theories is either not really science or extraordinarily lucky, lucky enough to strike gold every single time.

[Tiktakkat]

Except the elves had to come up with their technology and magic and art at some point. It doesn't make sense that an entire culture, an entire species, was extremely productive at the very beginning and then became constitutionally incapable of improvement after that. Even China continued developing technologically and culturally after its big period of innovation. If elves and dwarves are intelligent in any meaningful sense of the term, they will learn, adapt, and innovate.

The China that destroyed its entire fleet of ocean-going vessels capable of multiple trips to Africa just to maintain social stability?
Or the China that went through multiple dynasties burning all books of competing philosophies?
Or the China the set the tests for its bureaucracy around a dozen or so classic works and absolutely nothing else?
Really bad name to drop when discussing cultural stagnation.
Pretty much the only reason China managed any sort of cultural development over the centuries is because its dynasties constantly fell, compounded by the times they were replaced by non-Han dynasties.

Intelligence, and wisdom for that matter, have nothing to do with cultural tendencies towards adaptation and innovation.

Tolkien's elves were stagnant because their society and culture were, like the societies of all good things, in decline, largely because they were all waiting their turns to get out of Middle-Earth (it doesn't make sense to invest a lot of time in building your society when you'll have to leave it soon anyway).

Tolkien's elves were stagnant because they either never went to the West, or because they did and were cursed for leaving, or even doubly cursed for the crimes they committed when leaving.
Also, as far as technology, magic, and culture, Tolkien's elves were almost completely taught such by their divine entities rather than actually developing those themselves.
So yeah, Tolkien's elves are a lousy model for other elves, but also a useless model for stagnation patterns.

Also, science that doesn't end up contemplating new theories is either not really science or extraordinarily lucky, lucky enough to strike gold every single time.

Just because it stops producing more doesn't mean the body of what it has stops being science.
It just means its development is stagnant.

[VoxRationis]

The China that destroyed its entire fleet of ocean-going vessels capable of multiple trips to Africa just to maintain social stability?
Or the China that went through multiple dynasties burning all books of competing philosophies?
Or the China the set the tests for its bureaucracy around a dozen or so classic works and absolutely nothing else?
Really bad name to drop when discussing cultural stagnation.
Pretty much the only reason China managed any sort of cultural development over the centuries is because its dynasties constantly fell, compounded by the times they were replaced by non-Han dynasties.

Exactly that China. A culture almost wholly dedicated to not changing or advancing, and it still experienced technological progression and one-way cultural shift while remaining within the same cultural continuity.

Tolkien's elves were stagnant because they either never went to the West, or because they did and were cursed for leaving, or even doubly cursed for the crimes they committed when leaving.
Also, as far as technology, magic, and culture, Tolkien's elves were almost completely taught such by their divine entities rather than actually developing those themselves.
So yeah, Tolkien's elves are a lousy model for other elves, but also a useless model for stagnation patterns.

Isn't that what I said? That the Tolkienesque precedent of stagnant elves isn't a useful model for other settings?

Just because it stops producing more doesn't mean the body of what it has stops being science.
It just means its development is stagnant.

No, at that point the body of what it has is knowledge. Any culture, no matter how unscientific, can have a body of knowledge. Science, its etymology notwithstanding, is a process of investigation, as well as the body of knowledge it has produced.

Edit: Fundamentally, the question of whether elves, a specific long-lived race with specific ties to certain themes, is given to stagnation is one matter, separate from the issue of whether longer generational times in general lead to stagnation. On that, we have some (admittedly limited) data, and none of it points to that conclusion. Human lifespan has increased dramatically in the past few centuries, with no commensurate trend towards intellectual stagnation. Humans are long-lived by the standards of most mammals, and significantly longer-lived than our closest relatives, and have much greater capacities for innovation. Now, this isn't the best data, since there are several unaccounted variables, but it still is more than supposition about the effects of elders or the comparative abilities of individuals and societies to hold a grudge.

[Sam113097]

Here's an interesting theory: perhaps elves and other long-lived races are the reason that most settings have medieval-level technology stagnation?
In most settings, elves, as a race, are depicted as prideful, resistant to change, and holders of ancient grudges. What if they simply refuse to adopt new technologies? If elves were the first race to build civilizations, wouldn't they think of themselves as inherently superior? Additionally, most settings have magic that can do the same thing as machines. Elves could purposely reject new technology, preferring their traditional magical lifestyles.
This could also be used in a sinister way, where elvish agents seek to prevent scientific advancement so that their magic will remain the predominant power in the world.

[Tiktakkat]

Exactly that China. A culture almost wholly dedicated to not changing or advancing, and it still experienced technological progression and one-way cultural shift while remaining within the same cultural continuity.

Except it didn't experience technological progression.
While the West was developing airplanes, automobiles, and steamships, China was developing . . . kites, carts, and barges.
While the West was exploring art forms through the Renaissance and beyond, China was exploring . . . reiterations of "classic" forms.
While the West was creating armies with rifles, China was maintaining armies with . . . spears and bows.
China completely shut down innovation for centuries. It took a massive cultural shift for it to break out of that, but it still is nowhere near close to catching up.

Isn't that what I said? That the Tolkienesque precedent of stagnant elves isn't a useful model for other settings?

Yes, but you had the reason wrong, missed that it is not a useful pattern for any kind of cultural stagnation.

No, at that point the body of what it has is knowledge. Any culture, no matter how unscientific, can have a body of knowledge. Science, its etymology notwithstanding, is a process of investigation, as well as the body of knowledge it has produced.

Ignoring the definition is never a useful way to define something.

Edit: Fundamentally, the question of whether elves, a specific long-lived race with specific ties to certain themes, is given to stagnation is one matter, separate from the issue of whether longer generational times in general lead to stagnation. On that, we have some (admittedly limited) data, and none of it points to that conclusion. Human lifespan has increased dramatically in the past few centuries, with no commensurate trend towards intellectual stagnation. Humans are long-lived by the standards of most mammals, and significantly longer-lived than our closest relatives, and have much greater capacities for innovation. Now, this isn't the best data, since there are several unaccounted variables, but it still is more than supposition about the effects of elders or the comparative abilities of individuals and societies to hold a grudge.

Nothing in the increase in human lifespan is anywhere near the level of elven lifespans.
Comparison to other mammals is utterly irrelevant given their level of sapience.

As for what evidence there is, the more people can know of the past, the more likely they are to desire to imitate it. That has been a pretty general constant across cultures. It is only when there is significant disruption that a culture will look forward to change, and that has just as strong a feedback loops as cultural stability.
Lifespan, as a mechanism for "remembering" the past, will just generally tend to increase cultural stability, and inevitably lead to stagnation

Here's an interesting theory: perhaps elves and other long-lived races are the reason that most settings have medieval-level technology stagnation?
In most settings, elves, as a race, are depicted as prideful, resistant to change, and holders of ancient grudges. What if they simply refuse to adopt new technologies? If elves were the first race to build civilizations, wouldn't they think of themselves as inherently superior? Additionally, most settings have magic that can do the same thing as machines. Elves could purposely reject new technology, preferring their traditional magical lifestyles.
This could also be used in a sinister way, where elvish agents seek to prevent scientific advancement so that their magic will remain the predominant power in the world.

That . . . makes perfect sense.
It can even expand to explain most "core" racial conflicts, with the various races having different standards for the "proper" level and rate of cultural development, and being fundamentally in conflict with others at different levels and rates of change.