Roleplaying Elven Identities

[ibusoe]

This poll is an attempt to survey player sentiments on role playing elves from different climates.

To illustrate, imagine an interaction between a dwarf named Bob and an elf named Angela.  If Bob the dwarf asked an Angela the elven character whether the character was a coded merchant-class or a coded warrior-class, most players would respond to Bob with a somewhat indignant outrage, the outrage being that players are not supposed to play their characters with any sort of meta-knowledge about game mechanics, outside of basic requirements about movement, perception, etc.

If Bob the dwarf asked Angela the elven character how many hit-points the elf had, the level of outrage would likely escalate.  Certainly, there exists only a tenuous connection between a character's hit points and the knowledge and psyche of his character and game persona.  In fact, if Bob the dwarf were to make a frequent habit of similar blunders, there would likely attract specific correction from the staff.

And yet, if Bob the dwarf were to ask Angela the  elven character whether a she were a city elf or a desert elf, the player would likely expect a straight answer, would probably receive a straight answer. If the player of the elven character were to respond with any sort of indignation, they would probably find very little sympathy from other persons in the player base.   I find this disconcertingly inconsistent.  

For one, imagine the level of difficulty that Angela the Elf would have in answering this question.  Unlike most humans, elves are largely considered to be lacking in any kind of a national or ethnic identity.  The game documents state that an elves first and only loyalty is to their tribe.  Their loyalty to their tribe is often total and complete.  Anyone else, regardless of common language or ethnicity, is regarded fundamentally as an outsider.  

Probably, Angela the Elf would know that she was born –IN—Allanak.  Certainly, she would know that the name of the city where she currently resides –is—Allanak.  However, if offered the choice between living in Allanak or Red Storm, her answer would likely be:

"I want to live wherever the rest of my tribe is living."

For as long as her tribe resided in Allanak, she would want to live there.  If her tribe picked up and moved to Red Storm, Angela the Elf might have some misgivings about leaving her regular stomping grounds.  However she would go without hesitation.  Angela would cheerfully cross one hundred miles of desert to be with her tribe, or one thousand if necessary.  Distance would not be a consideration for her, so much as tribal unity.  While she might have a preference between wilderness life and city life, she would be willing to follow her tribe no matter where they went.  Because she was brought up in the city, her skills would better dispose her towards survival in the city.  
All elves, however, are disposed towards roaming and are likely to have covered considerable ground within their own territory.  

Compounding this sentiment is the likelihood that most tribes of Zalanthas cannot operate with full independence of either the city environment or the desert environment.  Take House Salarr, for example.  House Salarr employs both clerks and hunters.  The hunters operate mostly outside of the city for the necessary role of providing raw materials to the house.  The clerks operate mostly in the more civilized areas, interacting with the general public to buy and sell weapons.  Both of these types of roles are necessary for the continued operation of the house.  Although House Salarr is mostly a human tribe and not an elven tribe, it is easy to see how this logic extends to the circumstances of elves.  It would be a very rare elven tribe that grew all of the food that it needed –inside—of a city, and likewise it would be a rare tribe of elves who spent so much time in the desert that their members never approached a city for purposes of trade and commerce.  Any tribe would need to develop inter-regional capabilities or would be stuck with interdepence on other tribes.  

My argument is not that a large number of elves (or humans for that matter) have never left the city state they were born in, nor is it that desert-elven tribes do not have cultural aversions to city life.  Nor is my argument that all tribes will have taken the time to train their each of their members on cross-cultural survival.  Rather, I am alluding the probability that many elves will have at least some exposure to both city and desert cultures, and will not think of themselves as belonging exclusively to one environment.  The elven urge to run draws them to vast open spaces.  The elven urge to steal draws them back towards civilized regions.  

Also, easy identification of elves is not always possible.  If you were to take one-hundred elves and put them in the same room, one might be able to make educated guesses about them based on their clothing, tattoos or hairstyle.  If the elves weren't wearing clothes or were examined only precursorarily, identifying them would become more difficult.  Even though there is a difference between game-coded city-elves and game-coded desert elves in terms of physical anatomy and musculature, there is significant overlap.  The tallest elves and the shortest elves could be identified on physical basis alone.  Those belonging to the sizeable "statistical-normal" region would require further study.

To further blur separation between game-coded city-elves and game-coded desert elves is the problem that cultural differences between desert elves and and city elves on the tribal level are not always strongly pronounced.  Elven tribes can be often segregated and characterized based upon their factors that include the style of theft that they have as a tendency to involve themselves in, their traveling range, the goods and services that they offer to outsiders, their level of contact with outsiders, their spiritual beliefs, their interest in perpetrating violence, and their standards of living.  These tendencies have very little correlation with the disposition of the tribe to either city or desert locales.  In essence, I suggest that a desert elf from a mercurial, hustling/trading tribe in the Gol Krathu region will have more in common with a city elf from a separate mercurial, hustling/trading tribe in the Gol Krathu region than he will with a desert elf from a war-like, raiding/hunting tribe in the Vrun Driath region.  Add all of this up and it makes telling them apart that much more difficult.

As if this weren't enough, one must take into account that knowledge of game cultures, while fairly universal among players who are familiar with game documentation, is hardly universal among characters.  Taking an example from real life, if you were to put a few members of the Kikuyu tribe and the Ashanti tribe in front of me, I would be completely at a loss to identify them.  Certainly, I have heard of both tribes.  I have a vague idea that both of them come from Africa.  To look at a representative from either tribe, it is likely that I would be able to identify that person as being –from—Africa.  However the particulars of their tribal cultures and lifestyles are beyond me.


This from a college-educated enthusiast of global cultures.  Imagine how much more rare it would be for any in-depth anthropological learning and education on Zalanthas, where any kind of education is an extreme rarity.  Add to this the tendency that most humans find elves distasteful, and that bigotry tends to serve as a barrier to cultural knowledge and understanding.

In summary, what I suggest is that:

If your character meets an elf,
--he probably doesn't know the difference between a city-elf and a desert-elf as such.
--he probably doesn't care.

If your character –is—an elf, he probably doesn't know that he is a game-coded city/desert elf.  He probably has some aversion to leaving his native locale, but this is by no means a universal circumstance.

[Many Faces]

I voted but I am so not reading all of that.

Sorry, I already made my choice.

Damn, dude.

[Cale_Knight]

Could you tell a person from New York City apart from a farmer?

Maybe not by sight, if they were naked and silent. But they dress differently, talk differently, act differently, etc.

Tribals and city folks are very, very different, but city elves and desert elves are the same race, just as tribal humans and city humans are the same race.

[Marauder Moe]

The difference is city elves live in the city, desert elves live in the desert.  Right?  *scratches head*

Yes, I think the difference would be quite apparant, though mostly because of clothing, jewelry, tattooes, etc.  Is that what you were asking?  It's hard to tell; that was an exceedingly long post.

[Cenghiz]

Desert elves would be harshly-tanned, rather more muscular and durable, maybe even stronger. City elves would look more... silken. I believe it can be understood at first glance most of the time and as far as I have seen, the pbase is perfect at forming main descriptions fitting to the main habitat of the character.

[EvilRoeSlade]

Your poll is biased and therefore worthless, I haven't voted in it.  EDIT:  Just noticed your third option and voted for it.  I still maintain that your poll is biased.

I usually don't need to ask "are you a city elf or a desert elf" to be able to tell whether or not the character is a city elf or a desert elf.  Nor do I need to ask "are you a city human or a desert human" to be able to make a similar discernation.  And quite frankly, I think that this is as it should be.

City elves and desert elves are different races.  Unlike the other races, they enjoy genetic and cultural identicality, but despite that, there are game differences that will become apparent to the character of Zalanthas, just as a character of Zalanthas will notice differences between a dwarf and a mantis.

[bloodfromstone]

City elves and desert elves are different. They're the same species, but they're still different. It's easy to tell the difference between someone who has lived their entire life in the sands and someone who has lived their life in Allanak. It's really not the same concept as hit points. It's a bit closer to class, but it's perfectly okay to ask someone what they do for a living and what they're good at. I don't really see how asking someone if they live in the desert or the city is bad. I can usually spot someone who is a desert type by their clothing, description and mannerisms, human or elf.

As far as city elves getting desert exposure... Well... I'm sure it happens. But city elves can't run like desert elves. They are also to proud to ride. I would say that a good number of them are too proud to subject themselves to huffing and puffing through the desert because they aren't the runners that their cousins are. Even if they aren't too proud to put themselves through it, it's just really inconvienent and illogical, not to mention dangerous.

Sorry if it sounds like I'm immediately disregarding your post or anything, but I really think the whole thing is a non-issue for one, and secondly I think it's perfectly IC for people to be able to seperate the two.

[Anonymous]

I agree with ERS.

Clothing will be the predominant distinction, but I think the importance of the distinction is tantamount to the distinction between "city humans" and "desert humans", and given that elven culture as a whole should be mostly alien to anyone who didn't come with Allundean, the fine line would be largely irrelevant and unrecognizable.

I would equate it to an American attempting to distinguish between a relatively metropolitin Berliner and someone from a farm on the other side of Bumfucksberg.  You can't understand a different accent in a language you don't speak, you don't know why they act the way they do or if it's different from someone else, and your only real clue would be how they look.

[jmordetsky]

Could you tell a person from New York City apart from a farmer?

Maybe not by sight, if they were naked and silent. But they dress differently, talk differently, act differently, etc.

Tribals and city folks are very, very different, but city elves and desert elves are the same race, just as tribal humans and city humans are the same race.

This is right way to look at it. And to be fair you actually wouldn't need to ask, it would/should be aparent in their dress and mannerisms.

[HunterKiller]

heh, shiaaat.  If you some of you played with the zeal with which you make your posts on these boards, the game would be an interesting place indeed.

- HK

[Maybe42or54]

If you see an elf and can't tell if they are a desert or city elf, then you aren't trying hard enough, or they aren't.

[Pantoufle]

Your post was too long to be readable and the addition of useless poll options such as "My true purpose here is to disrupt this poll" only serves to weaken the attention (and sincerity) of your audience.

I'm not saying this to be a pissant with the sole purpose of insulting you, I'm just being brutally frank.  I understood your post and where you were going with it, but this whole Bob dwarf and Angela elf analogy was too long winded and unnecessary.  I could have understood the direction you were taking had your post been less than half as long.  But anyway...

If someone asks you if you are a "warrior" in-game I wouldn't find this akin to asking what someone's "hitpoints" are.  The word 'warrior' is a bonafide, non-technical, non-mechanical term.  The use of the word warrior is likely as common a term in Zalanthas as the word hunter or craftsman or merchant, etc.  Sometimes people get too caught up in what they're trying NOT to get too caught up in.

On the subject of elves, city elves and desert elves are the same race.  According to the code (and, thus, according to assess -v) they're not, but this is only to represent coded differences.  If a desert elf settled down in the city evermore, he'd lose his ability to run long distances, essentially becoming "out of shape"; if a city elf fled his city-state and began toughing it up in the desert, he'd eventually gain the ability to run long distances -- after all, they're the same race.  Additionally, city elves, by and large, probably haven't chosen to live in the city of their own free will.  The wilderness possesses scarce resources at best, most of which are violently faught over.  Many generations of elves have found themselves forced to venture into the shelter of the city-states in order to earn a living, having lost one territorial feud or another.  In these cases they likely view themselves as "victims of the system" rather than devout nationalists.  So if you ask such an elf whether he's a "City Elf" or a "Desert Elf", I think he'd be likely to just shrug and say "I am what my oppressors have made me."  Come to think of it, they probably don't have time to contemplate silly labels.  But it should be appalingly obvious based on appearance which elves were raised in the streets or ghettos and which elves were raised in the desert wastes.

[Maybe42or54]

"I'm not a desert elf. I'm a *insert tribe name*"

[FightClub]

Only way to really tell, in my opinion, would be from their clothing, markings, and the way they talk.  Each of these would require you knowing about them.  So in my opinion.  No average Joe Shmo wouldn't know shit.

EDIT:  And I don't think the racial feature of assess -v or the given sex should be used for rp.  I've heard some things about this that I don't like.  Like right off bob looks like a girl, but he's a man, sdesc bob is a girl, assess -v man.  Or half-elf E looks like a human, humans look at E and think he's a man, they assess -v boom breed, or some other mutant, freak whatever.  Nah I don't buy it.

[marko]

I dunno what's with your polls ibusoe - I hope that one day I'll see one that is written without any particular bias.  A simple poll, in this case, would have been:

Can a person distinguish between city elf and desert elf?

Yes
No
Sometimes

I really don't know why you had to add the other options or word them as you worded them.  As Pantoufle pointed out,  you put readers off just by the poll options.

Anyway, in terms of a response - yes, typically, your average person will likely be able to determine who is a city elf and who is a desert elf within moments of meeting them.  

Aspects such as speech, mannerisms, the tribe they claim (or don't), their ability to even speak sirihish, gear, and their comfort level in the location they are met will all give indications of City Elf or Desert Elf.