D&D General what are the setting functions of elves?

[Stormonu]

in all seriousness I think I have not phrased the question right, I was not asking what the traits of an elf is but the role they eat in the setting like the endless big tough strong peoples what is that role?
what traits of elf are the role and what is only the traits of the elf?

The combine the roles of martial prowess (fighter) and arcane skill (wizard).

 

[Yaarel]

The combine the roles of martial prowess (fighter) and arcane skill (wizard).

In my eyes, some elves are gish, the ones that are part of human cultures.

But most elves are fullcasters, especially the fey and astral.

 

[Mind of tempest]

What do you mean role?

look you know how most settings have the big tough guy races and the small folk I want to know what the one the elf seems to always own so I can make competition.

 

[el-remmen]

A mysterious and waning power, imperious and fey, delightful and surrounded by a nearly-frightening mantle of puissance, but mostly a ghostly presence in isolated and abandoned places in wooded hills that seem untouched by time. Where did they come from, where have they gone. . .?

Elves are unavailable as player characters.

Oh wait, that is just their role in my current homebrew setting. . .

 

[Shades of Eternity]

honestly....sniper archtype.

you don't see them coming until you got an arrow sticking out of you.

 

[Snarf Zagyg]

Q. what are the setting functions of elves?

A. Elves primarily exist to anger my blood.

 

[Maxperson]

In my grand quest to make something that can fill the role of elf without being an elf I realised that outside of being overly romanticised and if left in any environment spawning a new type with a retroactive history of ten thousand years.
I do not really grasp outside of being magic call and mystical in a vague sense what they bring to a setting and why a player might play them outside of magic being overly romanticised and being able to outlive most nations.
anyone got ideas as I am lost?

They're stewards of nature. For the most part they nurture the environments that they live in and live harmoniously with it. They also have access to ancient magics, since they tend to be old/first born and have been using magic for millennia when the younger races are entering their magical infancy.

 

[Scribe]

look you know how most settings have the big tough guy races and the small folk I want to know what the one the elf seems to always own so I can make competition.

Idealized, former glory/super power.

 

[Weiley31]

They are the chick you totally wanna pick up at the bar, and then brag about it all and how awesome you were to the rest of the party when you appear the next day after vanishing. And you're not even the party rogue.

 

[CreamCloud0]

look you know how most settings have the big tough guy races and the small folk I want to know what the one the elf seems to always own so I can make competition.

Typically they’re the intellectual ones although it can take different forms, the natural wisdom of the wood elves, the magical studies of the high elves, long lives may lead to them taking a ‘condescending adult’ role to the ‘younger foolish races’ or years of patient study, research and observations, huge libraries of books and scrolls, records of past events, prophecies and predictions of the future, tomes of every subject.