[RPG] With the lifespan of elves, would you ever encounter a low-level elf

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Elves and other races have hundreds of years to get good at what they do — is the expectation that NPCs of these races would mostly be of high level?

How do I build a campaign setting that makes sense when elves live hundreds of years and should be mostly high-level characters?

Best Answer

The current answers try to patch the existing setting in order to make sense out of this broken and unexplained stereotype: the elves live much longer than humans.

If you want to fix the level inbalance problem, the best approach you can take is just to scrap the silly "the elves live longer" rule, assume they live more or less as much as the humans, and the problem is solved.

If something doesn't make sense, don't patch it: fix it at its core.

If you try to create a complex explaination to explain something incredibly senseless, you'll likely end up with many more broken things elsewhere. Don't dodge the problem, solve it instead!


Please notice I'm not claiming it's senseless that the elves live longer than humans; it's (obviously) senseless that if they live much longer they are supposed to be on-par with them, instead of incredibly more powerful.

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