Hiya!
So you don't think elves are different than humans? That's what it sounds like. Elves are NOT HUMAN. Why to some people keep equating all "playable races" as basically humans with funny suits? A creature that lives for several hundred years would likely have a significantly different outlook on life and the world. Maybe the DM wants them to be as 'free as the wind' and go the whole "unpredictable Fey" route. Maybe another DM wants them to be a "rooted firmly in tradition" route. And maybe a third DM wants them to be "basically human", but where an elves personality/sense-of-being 'dies' every 75 years and the elves "personality/mind" is reborn as a new, well, 'person'. This is another reason why I don't like/want/need "Sourcebooks" like MToF; the so-called designers aren't "expanding" a games capabilities...they are
reducing them. Now, weather or not you use MToF in your game, when you talk to someone at a game store, for example, there's a good chance that they are now talking about how elves "are" because they read it in MToF. Now that person has a reason to "not like" what you are saying...just on the point of not seeing elves the same way. Look at how modern society, especially Western society of late, has become more and more polarized. If you don't like X, then you are Z; there is no Y. Sourcebooks like MToF, imnsho, don't "add" to the game as a whole...they codify and dictate. This is anathema to the whole "a game of imagination" bedrock of what an RPG is.
You want boring? Have elves be nothing more different than "...if a human lived for hundreds of years...". THAT is boring. IMHO,obviously.
*shudder* Don't even bring 3e's "ECL Template" wackadoodle rule into it. Please, anything but that! It was and absolutely
horrible way to just "1-up" a creature/monster. Yuckko!
^_^
Paul L. Ming