Timeline for Balancing Humanoid fantasy races: Elves
Current License: CC BY-SA 4.0
33 events
| when toggle format | what | by | license | comment | |
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| Feb 10, 2021 at 20:17 | comment | added | chiggsy | Finally, has everybody thought this through? You love dogs. Wolves? Not so much. That's why you turned wolves into dogs. How'd that happen? Some wolves asked for help. Some of those got it. Those wolves now play frisbee. With no balls. The difference here is that it could be the SAME DANG ELF running the breeding project. So, these near immortals are going to fight shoulder to shoulder with you. Who cuts down the most trees? You. Who digs up the most iron? Also you. So why are they helping you? Are you sure this is "help?" | |
| Feb 10, 2021 at 19:05 | comment | added | chiggsy | All their artifacts seem simple, but are so good that we call them magic, although notably, they do not. Still sure they are backward? Human expansionism is only sustainable via fossil fuels, and at odds with the biosphere. Physics, we are good with, biology not so much. Computers? Or thousands of years of life free of illness? Which tech is more advanced? | |
| Feb 9, 2021 at 22:35 | comment | added | chiggsy | These comments about elves miss some key points. Does technology advance linearly given unlimited time? Not necessarily. Human technological development has much more to do with competition. Elves, who, if they are constrained by cold iron, have solved living on a profoundly hostile planet, eons ago, binding themselves to the biosphere, which means making do with the energy from the sun, since mining might be problematic. Humans think in terms of physics, Elves might think in terms of biology. They don't sicken. They live long. Any skill based task they are vastly superior..... | |
| Aug 5, 2019 at 10:57 | vote | accept | Umbra | ||
| Aug 3, 2019 at 1:46 | comment | added | John | two things to note, your elves technology and especially society will only advance at a crawl. one of the upside of having a short lifespan is old ideas die out fairly quickly if new people fail to pick them up. Imagine the US with elves people who kept slaves would still be running the place. Elven social norms should be several hundred years behind the times at least. | |
| Aug 2, 2019 at 3:29 | answer | added | MParm | timeline score: 2 | |
| Aug 2, 2019 at 3:21 | comment | added | Someone Else 37 | Frame challenge: You may not need all the races to be balanced against each other as long as none is definitively at the top or bottom- if each can beat some but not all of the other races, rock-paper-scissors style, the system can stay balanced as a whole. Example: Elven archers can shoot avians out of the sky, while humans (lacking elven eyesight) can't easily defend against flechettes dropped from high altitude. However, elves are allergic to iron weapons, which humans manufacture and/or buy from the dwarves. | |
| Aug 1, 2019 at 23:29 | answer | added | Willk | timeline score: 2 | |
| Aug 1, 2019 at 21:54 | answer | added | gbjbaanb | timeline score: 7 | |
| Aug 1, 2019 at 21:28 | answer | added | Liam Morris | timeline score: 3 | |
| Aug 1, 2019 at 21:15 | comment | added | Paul TIKI | Something I have seen as a folklore reason to nerf elves some is the allergy or aversion to cold iron. In various stories it disrupts magic, suppresses abilities, or outright acts as a poison to the fey. Since Iron produces superior weapons to copper and bronze, human weapons would not only break elvish arms, every blade would, in effect, be poisoned. Giving humans superior numbers would mean even more trouble for elves. | |
| Aug 1, 2019 at 20:32 | comment | added | jean | Note, in most scenarios elves breeds a lot slowly than humans, in this case, humans got strength in numbers | |
| Aug 1, 2019 at 20:15 | answer | added | AleAve81 | timeline score: 2 | |
| Aug 1, 2019 at 18:24 | review | Close votes | |||
| Aug 1, 2019 at 20:47 | |||||
| Aug 1, 2019 at 18:10 | comment | added | Mindwin Remember Monica | There is no way to develop a "balanced" system without input on the value of the racial abilities. I'm voting to close it as primary opinion based. | |
| Aug 1, 2019 at 17:41 | history | became hot network question | |||
| Aug 1, 2019 at 16:48 | comment | added | BKlassen | most fantasy settings with elves such as you describe have them weaker and more fragile than humans, though quicker | |
| Aug 1, 2019 at 15:35 | answer | added | The Square-Cube Law | timeline score: 0 | |
| Aug 1, 2019 at 14:04 | answer | added | ksbes | timeline score: 0 | |
| Aug 1, 2019 at 13:01 | answer | added | Demigan | timeline score: 6 | |
| Aug 1, 2019 at 12:32 | history | edited | Umbra | CC BY-SA 4.0 |
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| Aug 1, 2019 at 12:25 | answer | added | Olin Kirkland | timeline score: 1 | |
| Aug 1, 2019 at 10:17 | history | edited | Umbra | CC BY-SA 4.0 |
Extra clarification on the advantages and disadvantages I have so far, as well as a reason why I do not want to just nerf their numbers.
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| Aug 1, 2019 at 10:14 | answer | added | Klaus Æ. Mogensen | timeline score: 14 | |
| Aug 1, 2019 at 10:07 | answer | added | Thorne | timeline score: 5 | |
| Aug 1, 2019 at 9:57 | comment | added | Umbra | @cyber101 Yes, just for the fun of it and for bragging rights. | |
| Aug 1, 2019 at 9:55 | history | edited | Klaus Æ. Mogensen | CC BY-SA 4.0 |
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| Aug 1, 2019 at 9:55 | comment | added | Kepotx | this is only up to you, but I found odd that a race with several centuries lifespan have a technological backwardness. I expect them to be more developped, at least in some fields, maybe non-martials such as philosophy if you want to keep the balance | |
| Aug 1, 2019 at 9:54 | history | edited | Klaus Æ. Mogensen | CC BY-SA 4.0 |
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| Aug 1, 2019 at 9:53 | comment | added | Separatrix | The races are normally balanced by numbers. An elf may live 10 times as long as a human, but there'll be 10 humans for every elf. | |
| Aug 1, 2019 at 9:50 | history | edited | Kepotx | CC BY-SA 4.0 |
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| Aug 1, 2019 at 9:48 | comment | added | arpanet101 | Are the gods specifically creating inter-species war for the fun of it? Just want to clarify. | |
| Aug 1, 2019 at 9:36 | history | asked | Umbra | CC BY-SA 4.0 |