Elves - Love em or Hate em?

[interwyrm]

Personally, I hate the bastards.

 

[Crothian]

elves are great when done right. Too many people though buy into the cliches and make them uninteresting

 

[Kunimatyu]

Most elves I see played are simply Human++. Immortal, more beautiful, better at magic, etc, etc. It's the sort of blatantly obvious wish-fulfillment that really gets in the way of telling a good story.

Eberron's xenophobic Mayan/Egyptian death-cult elves, I can deal with.

 

[Sejs]

elves are great when done right. Too many people though buy into the cliches and make them uninteresting

Seconded.

Elves fall into the same general category as paladins. When done well, they can be quite cool. When done poorly, they can be godawful.

 

[Psion]

elves are great when done right. Too many people though buy into the cliches and make them uninteresting

Hmmm... I find the problem is not cliches, but that people play them like pretty anemic humans.

And that 3e makes them not too appealing, mechanically.

 

[Truth Seeker]

Instead quoting...I will state. It all depends on your taste, imagination, how Elves should be presented in the world.

I am currently playing an Elven Paladin, female, who is much as down to earth, as you can get, and very pratical to everyday living of life. I will loved to go into it, but I am at work.

If you don't like them, then as your choice, don't play them. But don't let that hubris carry over to other players, who are enjoying playing them.

It will be consider rude, and unsportman like behavior, in spoiling someone else's...fun.

 

[IronWolf]

I like elves and have no issues playing them. I think it can be a fun race to play.

 

[iwatt]

Tolkien elves I have no problem with. They're explicitly stated to be near perfect demigods.

DnD elves annoy the crap out of me. Actually, DMs who took to heart the Complete Book of Elves in 2e are the ones who ruined the elves for me.**


** I have no problem with accepting elves as a superior race in a game, but this should be reflected by actually making them more powerful (i.e spell-like abilities or abilty modifiers, but with the LA to back it up). Nothing annoys me more than fanboy DMs who have elven PCs have better items, for free, great connections, and even the Cha 6 ranger elf is supposed to be better looking than the Cha 18 human paladin.

 

[Crothian]

And that 3e makes them not too appealing, mechanically.

Going just by mechancis I think 3e makes most races unappealing

 

[Ralif Redhammer]

I've been fine with the elves as generally presented in the PHBs. What bugs me are the million and one variants the invariably show up. I don't need or want sun elves, moon elves, or laser-beam-eye elves.

In my homebrew, I'm working at taking elves back to their more folkloric roots, a la the Broken Sword by Porl Anderson, without giving them any fancy-schamcy abilities.

I've played a few of them, but I wouldn't say they're my favorite race to play.