Immortal elves and skills

Fuchs · Post by **Fuchs** » Wed Oct 05, 2011 11:06 am

One thing that started to annoy me lately is the blind worship some fanboys have for immortal elves. It's usually the old "they had millenia to hone their skill and accumulate knowledge, they are gods compared to runners" drivel.

Most of us who had a hobby that they stopped years ago know that no matter how good you are at something, once you stop exercising/training/using your skills you start forgetting/slowing down.

Most of us also know that you also need to keep up with progress just to keep your skill level, be it games or professions. If you want to stay a good laywer, for example, you cannot afford to miss new laws or decisions by your country's supreme court. New rules or expansions can change a game. Patches changes computer games. Tactics in sports change as well.

Unless you keep up with all the new stuff you'll be falling behind compared to those who do.

And most know that the day just has 24 hours, even if you have pointy ears and were born in the blood forest.

So, does anyone honestly think that Treahuggael Thornhide can be a superb swordsman even if he hasn't trained, much less fought for real with a sword for decades? Compared to world-class swordsmen who train daily for hours? Or that he can be a world class hacker without dedicating alot of his time to keep ahead of the technology curve? That he can outshoot a sniper without actually training regularily as a sniper?

I don't. The most I see is a good base rating, but not really exceptional skills. Which means all those thousands of years of experience amount to is a free skillwire system rated at 4 with lots of obscure skills.

Knowledge skills? Same thing. It's rather improbable that any IE actually has that much first hand knowledge of history, most he will have heard or learned. And you know how much knowledge we forget once we stop using it. And how many personal memories are factually wrong, the results of rose colored glasses or subconscious changes.

So, why should an immortal elf be that much better at anything than a dedicated mortal, given that both need to spend the same amount of training just to keep up?

Ancient History · Post by **Ancient History** » Wed Oct 05, 2011 12:44 pm

Aside from the inherent futility of trying to apply real-world logic to a fantasy/sci-fi RPG, the main issue for most editions of SR is that skills do Not degrade with time, unless a SOTA optional rule is in effect.

Fuchs · Post by **Fuchs** » Wed Oct 05, 2011 2:51 pm

Character generation and advancement is for creating and advancing runners. NPCs are not covered by it. There's no need to use an optional SOTA rule just to apply logic to NPCs.

hogarth · Post by **hogarth** » Wed Oct 05, 2011 2:58 pm

The Ringworld game had an interesting approach to old characters. IIRC, you could start anywhere from 12 years old (for a young kzin) to ~450 years old (for an old human on boosterspice). The longer-lived you are, the more careers you get (rolled randomly), but that mostly gave you breadth of skills, not depth of skills.

Ancient History · Post by **Ancient History** » Wed Oct 05, 2011 3:01 pm

I am not disagreeing with you, I'm just saying that's the rationale people would use. Outside of the SOTA rules, there is no rules for skills degrading over time. Literal-minded fans argue that sort of shit all the time.

Now, if you want to talk about IEs and IE-type characters outside the Shadowrun setting...well, you get into God-NPC and Mary Sue/Gary Stu NPC, and GMPC situations.

hyzmarca · Post by **hyzmarca** » Wed Oct 05, 2011 3:35 pm

Well, it makes sense that whatever magic prevents their brains from degrading over time also keeps their memories fresh. Hence they're got perfectly clear highlander flashback powers.

Let's face it, if they were constrained by real world neurology they'd all be senile as hell.

JigokuBosatsu · Post by **JigokuBosatsu** » Wed Oct 05, 2011 4:01 pm

I always liked the WoD Mummy rule where you were able to sometimes "conveniently" remember skills, but not have them all the time.

Fuchs · Post by **Fuchs** » Wed Oct 05, 2011 4:02 pm

Ancient History wrote:I am not disagreeing with you, I'm just saying that's the rationale people would use. Outside of the SOTA rules, there is no rules for skills degrading over time. Literal-minded fans argue that sort of shit all the time.

Now, if you want to talk about IEs and IE-type characters outside the Shadowrun setting...well, you get into God-NPC and Mary Sue/Gary Stu NPC, and GMPC situations.

You don't have to go outside Shadowrun for that - IEs start in that area already.

And even if their memories were kept fresh they still have to keep up - technology and tactics advance. Facing the modern world with skills gained in the medieval age is a recipe for disaster.

...You Lost Me · Post by **...You Lost Me** » Wed Oct 05, 2011 5:23 pm

I wouldn't say better at everything, that's dumb.

But If I'm a human and I've trained for 20 years with a sword (like a boss), and you're an immortal elf and you've trained for 200 years with a sword, then you will win sword fights. Because you know sword 10x better than me.

Neurosis · Post by **Neurosis** » Wed Oct 05, 2011 5:25 pm

Ancient History wrote:Aside from the inherent futility of trying to apply real-world logic to a fantasy/sci-fi RPG, the main issue for most editions of SR is that skills do Not degrade with time, unless a SOTA optional rule is in effect.

Pretty much this.

TheFlatline · Post by **TheFlatline** » Wed Oct 05, 2011 6:06 pm

...You Lost Me wrote:I wouldn't say better at everything, that's dumb.

But If I'm a human and I've trained for 20 years with a sword (like a boss), and you're an immortal elf and you've trained for 200 years with a sword, then you will win sword fights. Because you know sword 10x better than me.

Maybe, if the fight happens at the end of that 20/200 time period, sure. I might argue diminishing returns though as there's only so fast and so good you can possibly get with a sword. Now if it's been a thousand years since you picked up a sword, that 200 year training stint isn't going to matter a whole lot. You've lost a lot of muscle memory, your brain isn't used to thinking like a swordfighter, and in a general sense the art of swordplay has progressed somewhat in that time.

It may only take a couple years to brush up and become really good again (or not) but really just because you have experience doesn't mean you win automatically.

Edit: Let's take it further. If the human has spent 20 years dueling with swords in hot blood fights, and the IE has only spent 200 years on the training floor, my money is on the human at that point.

Wesley Street · Post by **Wesley Street** » Wed Oct 05, 2011 7:17 pm

TheFlatline wrote:I might argue diminishing returns though as there's only so fast and so good you can possibly get with a sword.

I agree with this. Everyone plateaus in their skills and practice becomes a matter of maintenance rather than improvement.

You can swing a sword for 10 years or 1000 years but eventually there are only so many ways it can be done; and only a handful that would be considered the "best" techniques. After that there's nothing more to learn.

CatharzGodfoot · Post by **CatharzGodfoot** » Wed Oct 05, 2011 7:39 pm

Wesley Street wrote:You can swing a sword for 10 years or 1000 years but eventually there are only so many ways it can be done; and only a handful that would be considered the "best" techniques. After that there's nothing more to learn.

No. People will always try to come up with fighting styles focused on nothing more than beating the 'best' techniques. And the unexpected is more dangerous than the 'best'.

Just another user · Post by **Just another user** » Wed Oct 05, 2011 10:35 pm

OTOH elves are not humans (nor other races) and it is silly to expect that their mind and bodies works the same. maybe IE have perfect memory, once they learn something they never forget it, and the same is true for muscle memory.

But I not really familiar with shadowrun, so I don't know if there is some part of the setting that contradict this.

not really related but I remember an article about warhammer elves where it was said that elves periodically does a form of meditation that does a kind of "de-fragmentation" (so to speak) or their memory, deciding on a day to day to day basis what to remember and what to forget. maybe immortal elves do something like that, periodically they relive those 200 years of training (at a fast forward pace, of course) and that has the effect of a refresher course.

K · Post by K » Wed Oct 05, 2011 10:55 pm

Considering the number of 80-year-olds who are far less accomplished than 30-year-olds, I don't see any compelling reason to think that 180-year-olds would have better skills that anyone else.

PoliteNewb · Post by **PoliteNewb** » Wed Oct 05, 2011 11:42 pm

CatharzGodfoot wrote:
Wesley Street wrote:You can swing a sword for 10 years or 1000 years but eventually there are only so many ways it can be done; and only a handful that would be considered the "best" techniques. After that there's nothing more to learn.
No. People will always try to come up with fighting styles focused on nothing more than beating the 'best' techniques. And the unexpected is more dangerous than the 'best'.

Isn't it generally true that after a while, the entire "game" changes to the point where beating the best techniques is moot?

It's not that there are only so many ways to swing a sword that can be developed...it's that people stop developing new sword swings when something comes along that renders swords largely meaningless, regardless of technique. I seriously doubt people are still coming up with new techniques for swordfighting...because swords were replaced by guns. And in another few hundred years, guns may be replaced by something else, and mastery of the best gunfighting techniques may be moot.

Living a long time and "perfecting" your skill assumes your skill will remain relevant for a long period of time...and that's just not true for many skills.

fectin · Post by **fectin** » Thu Oct 06, 2011 12:54 am

The words you're looking for are "disruptive technology".

Psychic Robot · Post by **Psychic Robot** » Thu Oct 06, 2011 3:51 am

just make the average elf higher level

Count Arioch the 28th · Thu Oct 06, 2011 5:24 am

Psychic Robot wrote:just make the average elf higher level

Very similar to what I did with my game.

First, I'm taking the flavor text in Races of Rabbit-Fucking literally: Elves physically mature only slightly slower than humans, that's when a PC elf usually starts adventuring (20-30ish, give or take). An elf is just not considered a citizen until their first century. I statted the average citizen NPC elf has having 3 levels of Magewright and 2 levels of Expert (the average elf spends time puttering around working on various skills and minor, craft related magic tricks; a bog-standard NPC elf has spent nearly all of his skills on knowledge, craft, profession, and perform skills). That is balanced by the fact that there are so few of them. Every elf in the Army of the Elvish Brethren are a minimum of 6th level, but they're seriously only about 50 dudes in all.

Elves tend to be remarkably hardy, knowledgeable, skilled in crafting, and appreciate a good song or verse to please the elf fetishist, while not giving a PC elf overwhelming abilities at level 1.

I did something similar for all long-lived races. Average Dwarves were warrior/experts. Average Gnomes were warrior/magewrights.

And no one was a commoner. If you didn't apply yourself to be an adventurer (the elite), or at least gotten into a half-assed skilled position (warrior, expert, aristocrat, adept, or magewright), you had one hit die of Humanoid. When you reached middle age, you got a second hit die of humanoid. When you were old, you got a third hit die of humanoid. You got nothing when you hit venerable.

In addition, whenever I advance a monster by hit dice, I apply the benefits/penalties for aging when I double and triple the hit dice, respectively. That means that there are certain very old animals that can understand human speech, and I am honestly okay with that.

Chamomile · Post by **Chamomile** » Thu Oct 06, 2011 5:32 am

Count Arioch the 28th wrote:That means that there are certain very old animals that can understand human speech, and I am honestly okay with that.

That actually strikes me as a really awesome side effect. My opinion on the system went from "interesting, but meh" to "hey, maybe I should try that" just from that effect.

angelfromanotherpin · Post by **angelfromanotherpin** » Thu Oct 06, 2011 1:08 pm

Back in the day I used an 'elves are plants' thing (like in Glorantha) to explain their 100+ starting age - they counted from their first sprout, but the PC had quickened and started walking around only a few decades ago.

I still think it's not a bad idea that elves start life as manavorous plants, and when they eat enough sun god they anthropofy. It's flavor that gives strong ties to both trees and shiny light at the same time like people seem to want, so you don't have to do the night elf/blood elf bullshit.

Wesley Street · Post by **Wesley Street** » Thu Oct 06, 2011 1:25 pm

CatharzGodfoot wrote:No. People will always try to come up with fighting styles focused on nothing more than beating the 'best' techniques. And the unexpected is more dangerous than the 'best'.

You're talking about fighting style of which there is no "best" technique (though the Wu-Tang Clan would disagree). I'm talking about taking the best of what's possible and creating your own thing, like Bruce Lee.

At the end of the day there is still a finite number of ways that a person can hurt another person with his body (or melee weapon). Punch. Counter-punch. Counter-counter-punch. Counter-counter-counter-punch, etc. It will eventually come full circle back to "punch" as the metahuman body can only accommodate a set variety of movements. It's a wiiiide range but it's still a range which means there are limits.

Also, everyone plateaus. 1980 Paul McCartney is better than 1970 Paul McCartney. 1990 Paul McCartney is worse than 1980 Paul McCartney. Skills are still there but his new direction led to crap music. It's true of anyone with a talent, be it music or sword play.

Stahlseele · Post by **Stahlseele** » Thu Oct 06, 2011 4:43 pm

What other way would you try and go with swords? O.o
Hitting them with the blunt side?

fectin · Post by **fectin** » Thu Oct 06, 2011 5:04 pm

Stahlseele wrote:What other way would you try and go with swords? O.o
Hitting them with the blunt side?

Mordschlagen?

The German fencing teams swept the olympics for a while with their new techniques.

Martial arts is not a new field, but off the top of my head, Krav Maga, Aikido, Jeet Kun Do, and MCMAP are all new variants in the past century.

Wesley Street · Post by **Wesley Street** » Thu Oct 06, 2011 7:51 pm

Gymkata...