Other Species Age Categories

[The Intendant]

In the core book, it lists age categories for Adult, etc. for the species in the book. However, not in the Narrator's Guide, Starfleet Operations Manual or Aliens do they list age ranges for any of the other new Species. Does anyone know where I can find such a list?

[Balok]

Questioned about this, one of the designers (Jesse Heinig?) stated that the team had changed its mind on the relevance of this information, and so it was omitted by design. They seemed to feel that aging would likely come into play only as a story element, not as something characters would last long enough to worry about. I tend to agree. For that reason, I don't believe you'll find any "official" data, i.e. data by the Decipher design team.

Added to that is that there simply isn't much canonical data about how long some species live.

The easiest thing to do, in my view, is take a WAG at the upper limit of life, which will generally be in the low three figures. Then calculate it using the same rough percentages as shown for the species on PG p.145, adding your own twists as desireable.

[The Intendant]

How lovely...create a game mechanic with age modifiers and then don't support it. Great...so, basically, just make crap up? That's ridiculous. Don't put stuff in if you're not going to use it...

[Balok]

I'm not sure that's a fair way to put it. I think it would be closer to correct to say that they decided the mechanic was pointless.

I'll ask you this: how many times have you actually had to deal with this issue for player characters?

In a rule set with limited space, it makes more sense to me to provide rules that cover situations players are likely to encounter frequently, and leave situations that are encountered infrequently (if at all) to the GM's judgement.

Add to this the fact that there's not a whole lot of canon evidence out there for the lifespans of most species. Hell, we don't even know how long humans live: the book says 111+ is very old, but how old was McCoy in "Farpoint"? Much older than that; he wasn't young during TOS era. So clearly there's tremendous variability.

Aging, and the consequences thereof, simply don't play that big a role in my campaign, which doubtless gives me a different perspective on it than you have.

[Sea Tyger]

McCoy was 137, or right around there.

Fesarius is correct; there is very little canon information about lifespans, even for humanity (heck, more is understood about the Vulcan and Klingon lifespans).

Of course, you can always go thumbing through FASA stuff, as they have information on "critical ages" for species (which generally equates to middle age).

[Tobian]

I beleive that the ICON books had that data too - in the players handbook I think (without looking)

I have to say that unless you want to ropleplay an ancient character then I can't really see the need for it for PC's - and for characters well I tend to just give them what they need in terns of skills and the the rest is just roleplay - you aren't going to have a 130 year old human leaping round on wires doing high kicks so it's not something I need to worrry about