Elven Artisan Economy

[virgil]

This is presuming low-level and low-magic, so there's no wishes or mass stone wall production. For a nation of elves that aren't xenophobic, nominally capable of feeding themselves off the land without struggling but otherwise relatively resource poor, what would be the most likely economic model? Every adult is over a century old, so could their nation survive off of a population of artists and old-fashioned craftsmen with as much experience as any human master? Could a notable export be drill sergeants and dojo masters, teaching their lifetimes of combat training without putting their limited population at risk?

[Ancient History]

I'd probably go for the pre-Roman Celtic gift economies. You'd have settlements with limited agriculture surrounded by large patches of wilderness that provide game and other foodstuffs, with a military and religious elite; the king (or queen) would be the dominant military force and would travel with a large retinue between the different settlements, extracting money from the people by fines and exacting gifts and taxes, dealing justice, and regifting large portions of this wealth to his nobles to retain their loyalty (who in turn would re-gift much of it to their warriors, and on down). Main exports in the Roman era were foodstuffs (smoked hams, mainly), urine (Romans had this thing about brushing their teeth), crafts, and mercenaries; trade between internal settlements was more general (grain for meat, amber for skins, pots for salt, etc.)

[OgreBattle]

This is presuming low-level and low-magic, so there's no wishes or mass stone wall production. For a nation of elves that aren't xenophobic, nominally capable of feeding themselves off the land without struggling but otherwise relatively resource poor, what would be the most likely economic model? Every adult is over a century old, so could their nation survive off of a population of artists and old-fashioned craftsmen with as much experience as any human master? Could a notable export be drill sergeants and dojo masters, teaching their lifetimes of combat training without putting their limited population at risk?

A human can obsess over how he learns Ranger-jutsu from an authentic Elvish sensei with a scimitar made from 1,000 foldings of mithril.

[Stahlseele]

Books. Knowledge in general.
Being longlived means you probably know a metric shit ton of stuff that can be applied to many many things!
If more elves just left to become teachers for schools then they could kickstart a cultural and maybe industrial revolution i'd guess.

[Ravengm]

This is presuming low-level and low-magic, so there's no wishes or mass stone wall production. For a nation of elves that aren't xenophobic, nominally capable of feeding themselves off the land without struggling but otherwise relatively resource poor, what would be the most likely economic model? Every adult is over a century old, so could their nation survive off of a population of artists and old-fashioned craftsmen with as much experience as any human master? Could a notable export be drill sergeants and dojo masters, teaching their lifetimes of combat training without putting their limited population at risk?

A human can obsess over how he learns Ranger-jutsu from an authentic Elvish sensei with a scimitar made from 1,000 foldings of mithril.

Glorious elvish mithril. Folded over 1,000 times. Can cut through anything. Enhanced by magic.

Now only 20,000 gold! Direct from Elfland!

[K]

There is no reason to believe that greater lifespan makes people actually more skilled. A gardener with five years experience is just as good as a gardener with fifty.

You really only have to meet people who are old to know that age doesn't translate to skill. Eighty-year-olds don't fix cars or make better dresses than 25-year-olds with four years of experience. Skill caps out.

To do the thing you want, you'd have to posit magical skills that grew over them. Only then would an eighty-year-old weapon master who has been doing forms in his dojo be better than people who have doing forms for ten years, and only then would an 150-year-old gardener be capable of feats of gardening that would put a ten-year gardening veteran to shame.

[deaddmwalking]

Assuming low-level and low-magic, elves aren't really better than anyone. If you're a 3rd level Expert with a +3 Int and max ranks, your skill modifier is +10 whether you're a human just out of the Academy or an Elf that has studied the lore of his people for a thousand years.

There are a couple of ways to make the elves seem...more elvish. The first one is to think about humans today. You may have noticed that when you're young and you have NOTHING, you spend a lot of time getting cheap crap to fill your apartment. As you get older, you start getting nicer and nicer things. When you're old, your house is full of things that you've had for the last 30 years.

Elves have to take a 'long-term' view for things like furniture... They have to last a REALLY LONG TIME so they're not constantly replacing stuff. If it takes ~100 years to get all the nice stuff they're going to want and they're around for another 900 years, they have a lot of time/disposable income if they keep doing what they've been doing (outside of the costs to maintain their existence). Elves really can be 'semi-retired' for most of their adult life.

I think that elves could largely exist as 'artisan craftsmen'. While humans are busy making as many pipes as they can each week to feed the family and buy a new wardrobe, the elf is content to spend a week or a month on it... As a result, they can often collect a premium over 'basic' equipment. Elven goods shouldn't work any BETTER than human-made goods, but it'll likely have more effort put into the construction. Among people that care about that type of thing, Elven craft goods would be highly desriable.

[virgil]

There is no reason to believe that greater lifespan makes people actually more skilled. A gardener with five years experience is just as good as a gardener with fifty.

I very specifically said that the elves would have as much skill as a human master, not greater. The lifespan just means they can keep producing the same quality without age taking them out, and there's more time for a greater ratio of the population to be an artisan at something.

[Stahlseele]

Basically, the elves have to live with the Players Problem of skills/attributes not going higher or costing stupid ammounts of ressources to improve for a measly little improvement . . so once you hit the cost/effect barrier, you don't continue to hyper specialize but broaden out your skillbase.
A Human could master one craft with 100 years of lifetime.
So if there isn't more to learn to any given field, an elf with 1000 years of lifetime can become a master of 10 different fields of craft.
And if he does not want to do any of these anymore, he can still become a teacher of any of these 10 fields of experience chosen by him!
Or write master piece level books on these subjects. because even if writing such a book takes 10 years, what is it to an elf?

Or they could start to combine things that take a master of both fields to propperly do maybe? usually, you need 2 old masters of smithing and magic to produce masterfull magic weapons, an elf that has mastered both of these fields can do that by himself.

Learn all the languages! become master diplomats and translators for different cultures. Travel all of the available realities and create maps and translate these into other languages.

Old age and treachery will always beat youth and exuberance.

[Whipstitch]

I've long wanted to kill the whole "elves are in less of a rush than humans and thus less industrious" idea with fire. D&D elves have relatively poor constitution but they are famously dexterous, have a sleep replacement that only takes four hours and are better at working by star or candle light than humans. Those are real productivity advantages in any field that doesn't involve back breaking labor as the primary time sink. The part where their retirement is a long, long way off is just a bonus.

[OgreBattle]

I've long wanted to kill the whole "elves are in less of a rush than humans and thus less industrious" idea with fire. D&D elves have relatively poor constitution but they are famously dexterous, have a sleep replacement that only takes four hours and are better at working by star or candle light than humans. Those are real productivity advantages in any field that doesn't involve back breaking labor as the primary time sink. The part where their retirement is a long, long way off is just a bonus.

that's how 40k does Eldar, they go and master crafts one at a time relentlessly

[erik]

A Human could master one craft with 100 years of lifetime.

More like 10-20 years of focus on a craft, but go on.

So if there isn't more to learn to any given field, an elf with 1000 years of lifetime can become a master of 10 different fields of craft.

Master of many crafts, but not concurrently. If you don't stay in practice you won't stay awesome at something. I know RPGs, especially D&D do not model this. Once you learn something you never unlearn it. But in real life if you don't stay in practice then you lose your edge. The way we learn is by unlearning other things.

Now maybe elves being better than you means they don't unlearn anything. I'd rather it be that they've simply forgotten more than I'll ever know.

Or write master piece level books on these subjects. because even if writing such a book takes 10 years, what is it to an elf?

Now this is something that long lived critters can do. They can spend many decades on masterpieces. Elves may be writing epic treatises, shaping redwoods as they grow as a giant bonsai treehouse, breeding plants for the most delicious fruits and wines.

For an elven economy, typically elves are portrayed as an isolationist race in decline. Not really producing many goods, just resting on their laurels and producing enough goods to sustainably support a near-static population. Living in balance with their surroundings.

[Laertes]

In real life, the thing that balances out old people having more skill is that the state of the art advances. Ask any computer programmer over fifty. All those COBOL and FORTRAN skills aren't doing them a lot of good nowadays, because the world has moved on. All those skills that you spent decades acquiring are becoming obsolete at the same pace as you're acquiring them.

As such, elves might simply have an enormous backlog of useless skills, depending on the relative rate of tech advancement versus skill learning.

[Stahlseele]

SOTA Rules, the bane of any cybered-character in shadowrun . . including dandelion-eaters

[shadzar]

like the dwarves they could survive off of their building prowess. they build what only they know how and teach no one else and 100 years down the road when it needs repairing the one who built it returns to the humans to fix it for the original customers grandchildren.

works great for castles of strange designs.

trading in elves could work too. the elves get things they could use and money for an elf going to an area to teach basic things they have learned without giving away all they know and also learning about the peoples as sort of an academic ambassador.

then the elves get their hands into every bit of politics and every nation and soon take over the world due to their long lifespans and even without level 16.

i would think the writing arts would benefit greatly. the many styles and processes the elves could learn to writing and printing things without mass magic and machinery would give them plenty of work if not other arts.

cooks and such would be another good place. disposable or consumable arts.

also anything that takes a LONG time to make like say aged foods, materials etc. they have a long enough life to pass down a sword or hinge that took 100 years to forge.

also their processes could be taught for a high cost. pretty much anything that takes time to do or learn that other races dont have would be a gold mine for elves.

[codeGlaze]

There is no reason to believe that greater lifespan makes people actually more skilled. A gardener with five years experience is just as good as a gardener with fifty.

You really only have to meet people who are old to know that age doesn't translate to skill. Eighty-year-olds don't fix cars or make better dresses than 25-year-olds with four years of experience. Skill caps out.

To do the thing you want, you'd have to posit magical skills that grew over them. Only then would an eighty-year-old weapon master who has been doing forms in his dojo be better than people who have doing forms for ten years, and only then would an 150-year-old gardener be capable of feats of gardening that would put a ten-year gardening veteran to shame.

Beyond the basics, experience can make a big difference. Even in gardening. You can teach technique to people, but there are legitimately certain 'things' that only come from experience and practice.

[K]

There is no reason to believe that greater lifespan makes people actually more skilled. A gardener with five years experience is just as good as a gardener with fifty.

You really only have to meet people who are old to know that age doesn't translate to skill. Eighty-year-olds don't fix cars or make better dresses than 25-year-olds with four years of experience. Skill caps out.

To do the thing you want, you'd have to posit magical skills that grew over them. Only then would an eighty-year-old weapon master who has been doing forms in his dojo be better than people who have doing forms for ten years, and only then would an 150-year-old gardener be capable of feats of gardening that would put a ten-year gardening veteran to shame.

Beyond the basics, experience can make a big difference. Even in gardening. You can teach technique to people, but there are legitimately certain 'things' that only come from experience and practice.

The point I was making is that many skills don't improve with practice and experience, or they cap out very early. Once you've learned to shoe a horse, that's it. You know that skill and it doesn't get much better. Spending another decade shoeing horses is not going to make you into a person who shoes horses appreciably better.

Spending a lifetime writing romantic novels may actually mean that you never write good novels. Talking to other people for 80 years does not produce people who are more charming, wise, or insightful about the art of conversation. Every person who spends ten years playing guitar does not end up in a world-famous rock band even if they put in the same amount of time and effort.

Skills also atrophy when not used at a certain level over time, and so elves thus have more opportunities to lose skills. The fact that they were a badass warrior 100 years ago does not mean that they have more skill than a fully-trained soldier with a decade of experience under his belt because they spend 100 years forgetting how to be a warrior.

It's a myth that having more time leads to knowing more skills or being automatically better. You only have to look at the average 80-year-old to realize that the odds of them being a master of even one skill is very low, much less being very skilled at even a few skills. The vast majority of them became passably good at a few things and then stayed at that level for half a century.

There is no reason to believe that elves have more masters than any other population because of their lifespan.

Heck, there are even recent studies that show experience actually makes some skills worse. For example, studies have shown that police officers get worse at detecting deception and doctors get worse at diagnosing uncommon ailments because of cognitive biases that accumulate over time. They both peak just a few years after they complete their training.

[shadzar]

The point I was making is that many skills don't improve with practice and experience, or they cap out very early. Once you've learned to shoe a horse, that's it. You know that skill and it doesn't get much better. Spending another decade shoeing horses is not going to make you into a person who shoes horses appreciably better.

Reminds me of Lord Kelvin in the Jackie Chan version of Around the World in 80 Days.

putting the shoe on the horse may be learned, but you can always learn more about the horse, a better shoe, different types of shoes for different horses and purposes. that is why there is more than jsut one type of horse shoe now.

Hear Ye Hear Ye! Alquiotha of the Elven Glades has proclaimed that her people will deliver indoor plumbing to all the people's of the land!

is an outhouse or chamber pot really the best a group of elves could do with that much time?

being low magic wood and forged metal could be easily developed and used for plumbing as well as shoeing. necessity is the mother of invention, it will really just depend on how much the elves put into and what they want out of their long life spans. not every art is bound by stone carving and brush on canvas. the Alquiotha throne could just be a toilet of very majestic visage.

how much of the shoe do you incorporate into the art of the saddle, the bit and bridle?

anything given time could be made better. except sliced bread and individually wrapped cheese slices. (without the aid of magic)

there are two non-magical and non-tech inventions the elves could create. process cheese slices! sliced bread! the Elven Earl of Sandwich!

the saying does afterall go, "Build a better mousetrap and the world will line up at your door to get one."

[virgil]

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?

[Ancient History]

You could go all Temple of Financially Irresponsible Elves and the Elves have all their money invested in blue chip stocks and live off the interests of their long-term investments.

[Orca]

Seriously, long term projects. Breeding plants or animals for desired qualities makes a huge difference and it's probably easier for one guy to organise than for a family to do over generations.

Infrastructure. So long as you don't have technology advancing at industrial revolution or later speeds, or wars disrupting the project, elves could more easily take the long view about a project's profitability.

Rare products; I can easily imagine that only elves know how to produce something in your world, maybe a spice or silk or type of wine.

[MGuy]

Couldn't you assume that elven minds work differently than ours though? I assume "our" minds only hold up to our own lifespans and how 'we' evolved to use them. Wouldn't it be reasonable to assume that a race of considerably longer lived peoples that don't even sleep in the same sense we do have minds that simply "work different" than our own?

[deaddmwalking]

Since Elves are supposed to be better than you (TM), you can have most of them be very high level.

But I still say even if they're not BETTER at an individual craft, once they've earned enough to make themselves comfortable (which happens for many Americans around middle-age) there is less pressure to produce for paying the bills. This is when a lot of guys start playing a lot of golf or finding some other hobby... Elves who have their material needs met will have more free time and they won't have to worry about a mid-life crisis (seeing as how that is hundreds of years away). That gives them time to spend more time on individual projects. And since they're not making BETTER items (at least, functionally) the only thing they can do with that time is make the items more ornamented (such as they like).

I rather imagine an elf would be embarrassed by a simple corn-cob pipe because they all grow their briar thorn into pipes over decades to ensure they're perfect. They aren't any BETTER at making things - they're just more PATIENT and willing to work with something much longer to get what they desire.

[Ancient History]

Elves can't even consider the long-term ramifications of fucking unicorns. Just because you know you might live a couple centuries doesn't mean you can't be an impatient shit. Especially when your "teenage years" stretch out to decades.

"You've been mowing lawns for thirty-five years, dear. Perhaps it's time you thought about fighter college?"

"Mom, you know I don't have the grades for bladesinger school!"

[Mord]

Couldn't you assume that elven minds work differently than ours though? I assume "our" minds only hold up to our own lifespans and how 'we' evolved to use them. Wouldn't it be reasonable to assume that a race of considerably longer lived peoples that don't even sleep in the same sense we do have minds that simply "work different" than our own?

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...

There's a whole package of physiological quirks that help explain why a small tribe of elves can do what takes an entire civilization of humans, including but not limited to their longevity and hardiness. I think one additional element could be that elves maintain neuroplasticity for longer than humans of the same age as proportionate to lifespan.

If you permit elves the ability to keep learning and innovating at the rate of young humans for centuries, I think you could much more plausibly explain how tree-hugging hippy freaks could work mithril or uncover the advanced principles of spellcraft that underpin high-level spells. For elves, the Great Man theory of history may actually be true. Imagine 600 years of Nikola Tesla.

Of course, this runs completely opposite to the Tolkien image of elves as being intensely conservative and set in their ways due to their longevity. But Tolkien's high elves learned their crafts literally at the feet of demigods; his dark elves are basically unwashed savages who need to be ruled by high elves to tech up beyond "mastery of fire."