Having played the game at parties in the past, I didn't really have any plans of buying it. Now I know to never make those plans.

Thanks for sharing this.

If you really wanted to model this in some way you'd need some kind of character development minigame.

Human Starting Age: 14 + 1d6 years.
Every year roll on Human Profession/Skill/Event table.

Elf Starting Age: 22 + 6d6 years
Every year roll on the Elf Profession/Skill/Event table


Even if you assume Elves are spending a majority of their time on the equivalent of watching TV, what becomes apparent is if you want this to make any sense at all you need a real setting (and not a D&D-like implied "generic fantasy") setting to be able to describe what these characters are doing.

Greetings!

Very good point, Zelen! You need a real setting! Very true!

In my Thandor campaign, I definitely have Elves for example, being firmly rooted in a quasi-mythical, mystical tradition. The Elves live in the physical, earthly world, but at the same time have deep connections to the Spirit World.

Besides Elves having particular game-related abilities, I also assume some large degree of mystical capabilities and senses that are very much quasi-supernatural. Elves are NOT humans, so they don't need to abide by or submit to every kind of Human convention or expectation. Take a 50-year old Wood Elf adventurer, for example. If I assume a roughly similar maturity rate for Wood Elves, then they have reached the age of Majority, at by age 25. That mean they have been occupied doing "Wood Elf Things" for the last 25 or so years, presumably before their fateful meetup with the rest of the adventuring band.

What has the young Wood Elf been doing all of these years? Yes, indeed, the maturity rate is similar, but with time--the experience and perspective of *time* is different for a long-lived race like the Elves, in comparison to lesser-lived races, like Humans. That 50 years of childhood and adolescence for the young Wood Elf goes by *like a blink*. It seems very swift, and while meaningful to them, not terribly monumental. I always remind myself, that Elves are not Humans, and do not experience time the same way we do. They live much longer, far more years, so their perspective I different.

As for "Wood Elf Things"--I assume the young Wood Elf knows a 50-mile or 100-square mile area around their home settlement, village, or town, extremely well. The Wood Elf, regardless of their main "Class" and favourite profession, knows many, many more things, very well, in addition to all that. They know the weather, the weather patterns, the plants, the crops, the herbs, the changing seasons, the rituals and habits of a dozen kinds of animals. Maybe they know several families of squirrels, and routinely speak to them. As well as a few Hawks, and a family or several, of weasels that live in the nearby forest. The Wood Elf know how to hunt, travel, and live amidst the hill and forest, knowing all the trails, the best meadows, the fastest streams, the deepest and strongest river rapids. At all times, and in all seasons. Nuts, roots, fruits, edible needles, besides fish, frogs, amphibians, rodents, deer, wolves, bears, wolves, beaver, birds, and insects.

Knowledge of local civilized communities or bands, other tribes, monsters, humanoids. Dangerous threats, as well as more seasonal, localized threats and problems. After all, there are many challenges in life that are serious problems, and yet, not an existential threat at all times to the entire community.

Add in some tribal lore, some specialized knowledge and class abilities, a few hobbies or special talents the character wants to focus on, and there you go. The Wood Elf has been busy *LIVING LIFE*. That is how I try and think about it.

Semper Fidelis,

SHARK

If you really wanted to model this in some way you'd need some kind of character development minigame.

Human Starting Age: 14 + 1d6 years.
Every year roll on Human Profession/Skill/Event table.

Elf Starting Age: 22 + 6d6 years
Every year roll on the Elf Profession/Skill/Event table


Even if you assume Elves are spending a majority of their time on the equivalent of watching TV, what becomes apparent is if you want this to make any sense at all you need a real setting (and not a D&D-like implied "generic fantasy") setting to be able to describe what these characters are doing.

Quote from: Rob Necronomicon on August 07, 2022, 01:25:28 PM

Quote from: SHARK on August 06, 2022, 05:22:00 PM

I know some people get all squicky about having dreaded backgrounds that are fucking detailed, but to my mind, the depth, the details, and the fun make it worthwhile for a good campaign.

Fantasy campaigns of course not only have human groups, but also humanoid and crazy animal races. The variety is endless, and the different cultures that can be created and developed can be very interesting.

I highly recommend embracing such ideas for a great campaign!

Semper Fidelis,

SHARK

Yep, nothing wrong at all with having a detailed background especially if you're expecting to be playing a longer campaign. And mixing things up as you say provides a great source of inspiration and also adds lots for the GM to get hold of. That's one of the reasons I really like Hyperborea.

I actually find its the other way around. Detailed backstories can be an asset in a shorter campaign, where there isn't time to flesh out the characters in game. In a longer game, the written backstories should get superseded by the history the characters build through actual play.

I think the hatred a lot of DMs have for detailed backstories comes down to personal experience of one of two things.

1. It can be a way of putting pressure on the DM to run a particular type of campaign, which the DM might not to. If one of my players turns up with a backstory all about their mysterious older brother, that creates an expectation that that character will have an important role in the campaign. I'm currently running a campaign where I told my players up front it would be concentrated on a group of five different countries on an island, and one of my players has a backstory entirely built around political conflict on a different continent. I could completely ignore that, but the player is going to be disappointed if it doesn't come up at some point down the road.

2. Players failing to exercise discipline in writing their backstories. I once ran a Cyberpunk game and had a player show up with her starting level character, but with a backstory of how she was a beautiful hacking prodigy from a wealthy family (none of which was reflected on her character sheet), with an established romance with a character she made up and added into the campaign world. She was clearly more invested in her elaborate head-canon about the character than she was in anything going on in the game. Later I played in a Faerun game with the same group, and another one of the players came in with a character that was Khelben Blackstaff's niece and a senior Moonstar at the beginning of the campaign. As a player, that's a non-issue, but as a DM it would have annoyed me.

Greetings!

Good points, ForgottenF! Yeah, I can see how those two problem would be frustrating.

I suppose I am spoiled. My players in my home games are all mature folks, and they abide by my instructions, guidelines, and parameters for character creation and development.

Semper Fidelis,

SHARK

Quote from: 3catcircus on August 11, 2022, 12:22:17 PM

You're ignoring the part where they knew what he had and asked that an additional lock be placed on the storage room - because the Trump folks had already been working with them to disposition documents that the Government Services Administration *sent* to Mar-a-Lago. Stop acting like he did a Sandy Berger and snuck off with them.

Of course he is.  You're talking about a room-temperature IQ on that one.

Besides, that's exactly the narrative the FBI is aiming for.  Let's review what we know.  Trump declassified a large number of documents by executive order, mostly relating to the Russia collusion investigation by the DOJ and FBI against him.  Despite declassification, they were never released to the public or media.  When he left office, the National Archives requested Trump turn over his documents, including the bunch of those he declassified about Russiagate.  The reporter John Solomon has stated that he recently put in a FOIA request for those documents with the National Archives, and the Archives discovered they didn't have the documents.  Then, when asked, Trump's camp told Solomon that they handed over those documents to the DOJ at the DOJ's request.  The Archives says they never got any documents from the DOJ.  Now the FBI is searching Trump's house looking for the documents Trump claims he's already turned over.

Considering that Trump, his lawyers, and a number of reporters all assert that the documents in question suggest malfeasance on the part of the FBI and DOJ, what makes more sense?  Trump has declassified documents that show the FBI and DOJ acted with bias and malice towards him, but he's hiding those documents from the public and the Archives so that they can't be accessed by Solomon.  Or that the DOJ has the documents and the FBI is performing kabuki theatre raids in order to pretend that Trump still has them, so that the documents never have to be turned over and released to the public (via the Archives)?  Cui Bono?

I wouldn't even conclude either of those scenarios is the most likely. We're talking about government, so it's even odds that they were already in process to be sent, were sent and still stuck in the process of being delivered to DoJ, received and misfiled by DoJ, or simply sitting in someone's queue at DoJ and haven't even been looked at yet.

Classified material is like porno - when it is mailed, it's in a plain wrapper, so there is no way of knowing what it is (or even that it is classified) until you open the outer wrapper and see the markings on the inner wrapper to match it up with the transmittal documents

What would be great is if Trump's people continue to let DoJ and FBI embarrass themselves a little while longer before producing the registered mail receipts showing the documents they were looking for had already been sent weeks prior.

I'm also hearing reports that DoJ is starting to panic over the realization that security cameras that were still recording may have caught them exceeding the authority of what they could search specified in the warrant (with the speculation that they may have engaged in illegal activities during the raid).  That is - if they spent 9+ hrs doing a fishing expedition, that is clearly a violation of the 4A since the warrant *has* to be specific ("nuclear launch codes located in a safe in a secure area in his home office" rather than "anything that he might have in his house that is marked as classified.") If they talked about their motivation for the raid or are seen planting evidence - game over.

The real issue here is that GSA *sent* these documents to him when he left office - like they do with many presidents after they leave office.

I do hope Trump runs again and wins. He should do the following:

1. Immediately give every political appointee the boot.  4000 mouth breathers that will no longer be burdens on the taxpayer.
2. Immediately rescind as many EOs as he can without jeopardizing national security.
3. Immediately declassify everything that isn't military or sources/methods. All of it. Too much stuff is classified because it hides violations of the constitution by government (fast and furious, cointelpro, NSA surveillance of US citizens, etc.), because it is politically embarrassing to other governments (yes every government spies on their allies), or because it is proof that a particular politician has broken the law (drugs, sex crimes, murders, etc.)
4. Have a "you fucking guys" discussion with every shitbag RINO to make it abundantly clear that they had better get their act together or they're out.
5. Pressure Congress to enact term limits in the law - utilizing all of those declassified files as political leverage.