I was musing over the metatypes and their puberty and maturity rates.

In DnD, elves live for thousands of years but don't reach adulthood until their 120s. Shadowrun is a very different game, and all metas are variants of humans. Elves live for ages, Orks die young. Is there written the expected puberty and maturity rates of metas? Are orks adults at 12? Are elves children until they're 20? Does this affect laws like drinking and age on consent?

Any information appreciated, more for my own world understanding than any practical in-game use

Cheers

No, the laws do not apply.
Yes, this is very unfair.
Deal with it.

As far as I know, norms, elves dwarfs and trolls are maturing at roughly the same rate, despite their different livespans. This may however not keep a 64 year old elf from viewing the young adult as mere child. Orks are somewhat the oddball, as they mature early, procreate massively and die young. They should be biologicaly matured by an average age of 13 I think.

Also there are different challenges (especially in cultural context). Elves and dwarfs may simply be viewed as younger as they actually are as elves look youthfull anyway and may have to wait a little longe for facal hair i.e., while dwarfs are short (that really does a lot in that department). Trolls and orks grow very strong (and in the case of troll freakishly large) rather early this and an orks early puberty (hormones and such) make it hard to grow up and socialize with the kids of the other metatypes. Imagen the kids playing, with the ork having jzst entered puberty, not knowing how to handle his new strength and being tossed into mood swings and rages by hormones. This often enough leads to problems and may involve juvie- time and / or records.

Orks are rather screwed in that matter and they usually know it. They have no time to waste and if they want to live fullfilled life, they need to do it fast. Suffice to say, that this again causes friction and a trog-load of problems.

Infact I think it is even less fair, as it may be hard to gain adult rights, if you mature faster, but is rather easy to be convicted early, if you are ...say... an ork or maybe a troll for example.

I do think that maturing is a biological as well as cultural.

If a human (IRL) has more responsability due to life (must take care of his younger brother because parents are not doing their jobs for exemple), they are usually quicker mature than those who are more cocooned.

So I do think that orks, if still living in the same environement than humans, wouldn't IMO mature quicker than humans.

After all, they have same schooltimes, so in average, wouldn't evolve vastly differently.


Oh and, I always found med-fan maturing pretty stupid (hi I lived 100 years now and I'm still a total noob (lvl1)- 1 year after: "yeah I went adventuring and now I'm lvl10")

And yet Shadowrun has orks maturing early, when compared to humans (at least biologically).

Being mentally and emotionally mature, is however a completely different matter, in that I agree.

just for a sidenote

Since SR4 (the 2070s )People ingame don't use the Term Norm for Humans (Homo Sapiens Sapiens)anymore.
Its politically incorrect and insulting to the other Metavariants as it implies that they are ab-normal.

wit h a politically correct Dance
Medicineman

While we are doing sidenotes... there is no such thing as political correctness not even in a world where myths come to live (i.e. the 6th world of Shadowrun).

As to the topic of, people not using the term norm... yeah... sure. They do not use terms like breeder, trog or wageslave (to name just a few) either and they do not hate people, just because they are different. People also do not commit crimes anymore and they air is full of love. Fragging hells, the 2070s are a time of enlightenment.

People still use that term, the only difference is, that some people are more eager to frown upon it, because some guy in a tie told them to.

And You can't find it in neither the 4A nor the 5th BBB (Metatype Human ,not Metatype Norm ) see, the Books are pc

He who also dances with Trogs
Medicineman

I vaguely remember a story about a proposal to let Orks/Trolls drive earlier, which obviously got shot down -- what did you expect, a fair world?

Apart from canon, I could easily imagine special exemptions for anybody who can provide some medical assessment that he is sufficiently mature...paid out of his own pocket, of course.

Vice (page 177):
"Evo, for example, recognizes the “legal”
age of consent at different ages for different metatypes: 10 for orks,
14 for trolls, 16 for humans and dwarfs, and 18 for elves."

Since Evo is known to be quite fair regarding this topic, I always took this as a guideline.
So orks mature six years faster than humans. Trolls are two years ahead, dwarfs are more or less equal (I guess they would be a few months slower than humans) and finally, elves take two years longer to mature.

This should have quite an effect in education. Imagine an elf, a human and an ork at age 7. The ork would be ahead in development and this means mental development too (He would probably be in his puberty by this time). So he will be vastly ahead, even if his statistical intelligence is a bit lower.
Teaching all these kids in the same class in school would be like like teaching a 5 year old, a 7 year old and a 13 year old together. Well, not exactly. The development to adulthood and therefore the differences between metahumans are spread out over a longer time. So maybe it's more like 6, 7 and 11 year old childs. Still, you would not do that and I guess it won't happen in Shadowrun either.

Well, that is more or less how schools used to be, especially in rural areas...

Thanks for that, that's the sort of info I was looking for. Interesting that this is a distinction for Evo though, which suggests it's not the norm. Thinking of UK for example (where the age on consent is 16) how would a relationship between a 16yo Male Ork and a 16yo Female Elf be viewed? Technically legal - but physically the equivalent of a mid-twenties man and a 14yo girl.

Things like drinking laws and such are based on physical factors more than the emotional maturity of age of consent, so Orks drinking pre-teen shouldn't be a really bad thing (though they probably easily pass fr older anyway).

Another thing that came to mind when thinking of this was age group sports and such, especially with a UK style system. Basically all age category sports will be Ork dominated unless they are segregated. An under 12s Rugby match? That's 15 Orks a side then

While thinking about this, how did this effect Otaku?

Since orcs age 1/3 as fast as humans, did otaku orcs completely fade by the time they were 20, since most human otaku faded to mundanes by the time they were 30. Did elves never live long enough to be hit by fading, so were fine until they become TMs? Or did it hit everyone the same? So a 13 year old orc was just as good in the Matrix as a 13 year old human? But the orc was way more developed physically, so would be a way better Shadowrunner.

As I recall, the ORC has been trying to fight for legal adult rights for young Orks for quite a few years. I doubt there will be any changes, of course.

My personal pet theory on Ork/Troll intelligence stats (outside of game balance) is due to a complete failure of schools to recognize the difference in development of the Goblinized. Pretty much everyone accepts that childhood is the best time for learning. A severely abbreviated childhood will give less opportunity to throw in every piece of information that they can swallow. This translates to lower Logic and Intuition stats. Arguably it touches on Charisma as well, since they have less chance to associate with people on their developmental level.

This could be a factor. On the other hand: People who goblinize after reaching (human) maturity still suffer from reduced mental stats as orks or trolls. So it seems that their brains are less efficient for metagenetic reasons.

Still, your theory makes a point. The effects of that shorter childhood could lead to an additional effect on top of the metagenetic predisposition. It wouldn't really reduce attribute maxima (imho), but it could be an ingame reason for lower starting attributes.

The real losers here are shapeshifters, since they mature at the same rate as their mundane race. So imagine your dog puppy is born as a shapeshifter. You decide to raise him into human society. After a few months, you realize that he reached sexual maturity before he even learned to speak.

So not that different from now?

Meh, I know more than a few ladies who said they had to housetrain their men while they were going out.

So if your date turns up with a dog whistle and shock collar, watch out although it still might be fun.

There were details in SR2 core rulebook :
Elves and dwarves puberty seems to be at the same age as humans (in terms of hormones maybe, but as for the physical induced changes...)
Trolls enter puberty 1-2 years before humans, but they were already growing up far quicker anyway.
Orks enter puberty 3-4 years before humans, so around 9 ( compare to the average 12-13 of humans), and their puberty is well finished by 14 (compare to the average 17-18 of humans).

There is no adaptation of the law regarding metatypes, so full-grown orks can work as dockers, but can't legaly drive, can't legaly drink, as they are 14. And in schools, your average 12 years-old Jimmy Human would be in the same bench as his childhood friend Chloe Orkish which would by that time be a full grown female ork (meaning 6 feet tall, DD bra... at 7th grade) and sexual education is not before 1-2 years more of course.

Considering that orks give birth to average 3-4 childs each 6 months-long pregnancy, this means that you'll always have orks brothers/sisters in the same classrooms / etc...

And of course, the right to vote is not before 18. And if you lower the age, with basic demographics you obviously raise the ratio of orks voters... which explains why it will never happen.

I loled so hard on this on my boss gave me the 'go-back-to-work-look'

in the book 2XS the lead character has a run in with an ork go ganger who thinks he killed his friend.The ork is fully mature but the character reasons he was about 13 or 14 years old and had only that many years to get emotionally mature which wasn't enough.

THIS!!!

Laws of what megacorporation or nation? It's rather exquisite how you lump them all together as if they're a single legal entity.

One of the books, I forget which one, but one of them speaks as to Ork 'Litters' and how they've dropped way way off In recent years to just above average human rates. The notes indicate in game that it's happening too fast and too dramatically to be 'natural' implying someone/something did something to Orks that has drastically reduced their multiple births.

This was in game, but it may have represented an out of character 'fix' for that.

Except that human IS normal. The vast majority of the metahuman population is human. The vast majority of recorded history is human. The vast majority of objects and artifacts and pieces of infrastructure are catered to humans.

The other metatypes ARE abnormal. They are not part of "the norm". They are not "average".

Now, obviously, norms can change. As time goes by, as population percentages shift, what was once abnormal can become normal. But I've never understood why people get so uppity about being called abnormal or different when, in fact, they are.

(That said, I do not believe someone being abnormal or different is sufficient grounds for mistreating them, obviously. I feel that it is important to distinguish between the behaviors of simply calling someone abnormal, and treating them badly because they are abnormal. I blame the sickness, not the symptom.)

~Umi

And "negro" is just a description of somebody's skin tone. Words carry more meaning and connotation than just their literal one...