I can understand a broad range for starting Elf charcters, but how did the figure 100 to 500 years for Wood-elf heroes come about?

Prof. Tolkien indicates in his essay "Laws and Customs Among the Eldar" (in Morgoth's Ring - HOME X) that Elves reach maturity around their fiftieth year and often marry soon after. Prior to that, my impression was that Elves reached physical adulthood around age thirty. I know that Legolas was probably well over five hundred years old when he became his father's emissary to Rivendell, but shouldn't the Adventuring Age for beginning Wood-elf characters be something like 50 to 500 years?

When you're immortal, does it really matter how old you are?

100-500 years sounds young enough for an Elf. Old enough to be solidly physically mature, unmarried, and I have a feeling that fewer Elves are having children in the late Third Age. Also Battle of Five Armies may well have skewed the age curve in the Woodlamd Realm.

Starting at 100 is just so--D&D. It doesn't feel right to me for Middle-earth.

That's a good point. I wonder if the Adventuring Age range for Elven characters other than the Wood-elves of Mirkwood will differ.

Elves live for 1000's of years and the adventuring range of 100-500 is well beyond the scope of the TOR setting which spans 70's years.

And D&D elves are derived from Tolkien's works, so a D&D elf starting age of 100 is just so.... Tolkien!

I will admit that I am a little surprised at some of these responses. I expected that players would want the game to reflect more fidelity to Tolkien's canon.

Still, it has been pointed out that the Wood-elves are recovering from their losses at the Battle of the Five Armies. Also taking into account that they tend to be insular, I would expect Elven adventurers from Mirkwood to be few and far between. Maybe a starting age of 100 is not that unreasonable as a cultural variation.

Can't all you elves just get along!

It's Tolkien, wherein Elves are potentially Immortal. I've always kind of assumed that they are racially constrained to check all possible variables before declaring boredom and moving on to another area of interest. (Like adventuring.)

So, after say, 10 years of skipping stones in the local pond - after trying all shapes (yes, they crafted the rocks into different shapes) and then trying various trajectories (yes, they've mastered the mathematics) they made extensive studies recording the data and coming up with solid, investigated resolutions, like: Dodecahedrons don't skip at all well.

Then their is a couple of years gambling on which way a specific leaf is going to fall (when exactly, face up or down, rate of fall, season, etc) and other such chaos-theory based indulgences which they cannot personally affect.

By which time the Elves are just plain bored. Bored, bored, bored. I mean, BORED. Like:

• A Dwarf at a Shaving Convention.
• A dieting Hobbit.
• A Dragon in a world completely without mineral resources.
• An Orc living in Mr. Rodger's Neighborhood.
• A Man... oh, wait, Mankind is never bored - they die first.
• Sauron, finding his Ring, but only after everyone else in Middle-earth has moved to Aman.

I would be inclined to note that Tolkien talks about 'physical' maturity. Perhaps emotional maturity plays a role in when Elf characters begin adventuring. That seems to fit appropriately with the race IMO.
An analogy from real life is that some boys can grow beards and have bulked out their muscularity by age 13-14. They are still boys though, not men, if you see what I'm getting at.

Although I'm in favour of sticking with the spirit of Tolkien, it's a game we're playing, not fiction we're writing, so some inaccuracy is fine.

Elves are the 'Eldar' and should 'feel old'. An elf that's 50 is more like a father figure to a human and doesn't seem that old.

Add another 50 years and they seem old enough to be elves, as you don't really appreciate how old something is until it hits a century.

Elves are a diminishing race, as the time of man is coming, so they should be at least as old as an 'antique', not as old as a 'collectible'!

But that's just an opinion.

I can certainly respect the diversity of opinion among my fellow users. It will be interesting, though, to see how other Elves (Noldo vs. Sinda, Rivendell vs. Lorien, etc.) are written up in future suppliments.