*D&D started as a pure emulation of Arthurian Chivalric myths. It is evident in the art and text of the ODD. There are Galahad-like knights and there are Merlin-like old wizards.
*With the success of the books, the need to expand was born. Thus came the Barbarian, the Ranger and even the Monk (because kung-fu was popular in the 70s)
*So to this Arthurian, Chivalric Romance Euro-influence, they started to add American Pulp Sword and Sorcery tradition...
*...and of course the inevitable Tolkien influence was too great to ignore. So, elves+dwarves+halflings were in the blend all along.
*As decades passed, the roots all these diverse influences were forgotten, and they amalgamated into what we call generic fantasy.
*But, the trouble with generic fantasy is that it is a dead horse in terms of originality. How many more Elven archers are we going to see? Or Dwarves with axes, who like ale?
These are all Tolkien's stereotypes...and how sad that the genre couldn't even move a single step in the direction of originality.
*Solution? In my opinion there is only one way to breathe life into the stale fantasy genre...and it is reviving the roots.
e.g. Discard the "assumed generic world"
Forget Greyhawk or Blackmoor and set your campaign in a historically loose Europe...with uncanny dwarves under northern Germanic mountains;
with beautiful faerie folk in deepest parts of France's magical Broceliande forest. And there are of course little people living under hills in rural England and Ireland...
Paladins? French Knights
Barbarians? Vikings, Mongols, Picts
Fighters? Saxon warriors...
Rangers? They live in Sherwood forest...
etc.
*In short, my proposal is to discard the American influences and decades of in-breeding fiction debris and return to the European, Arthurian, Chivalric Legends influences. Let's return to a legendary medieval Europe and call the Mongols as Mongols, instead of "Tuigan" or any made-up name...
Enough with the analogies.
Thanks for listening.