Same with a costume. In a nutshell, Tolkien Elves appear to act (and think and feel and literally BE) the same as Humans. How could this be possible? Well, because Tolkien's very Human mind imagined them.
This isn’t entirely true. Tolkien’s elves are what I’d call “human,
but.” To be specific, they’re “human,
but with limitless lifespans.” That’s the main thing that Tolkien used elves to explore - the implications of immortality. What would a person (and here we can read “human person” since we have no other persons to compare to) who could not die of old age be like? What would a whole culture of such people be like? How would they feel about mortality as a concept? It’s a sort of speculative fiction. Obviously he can’t have truly known how that kind of longevity would affect a person’s psyche, but he could make some educated guesses based on imagining them as “human
but.” And more than anything the thought exercise tells us about Tolkien himself, what
he thought of mortality, and how he imagined it impacted his own experience.
I don't for a moment believe that players in TTRPGs are trying to examine what it would be like to actually be a person that has lived for hundreds or thousands of years. Would that even be possible as all experience is limited by our Human nature? My opinion is no. If it were, then the greatest works ever written wouldn't always be limited to those experienced by Humans.
There absolutely are players who want to explore such concepts through roleplay. Granted, we can’t truly know what it would be like to have lived for hundreds of thousands of years. But we can try to imagine what that might be like by roleplaying as “me,
but.” And while you may not believe it to be true, human brains are actually quite good at “me,
but” thought experiments. Furthermore, such thought experiments are very psychologically beneficial to perform. They expand creativity and strengthen empathy, and perhaps most of all, they are powerful introspective exercises. By imagining yourself,
but with a particular exception, you reveal a great deal about your own believes about the
but. Just as Tolkien did with his elves.
I do believe that players in TTRPGs want mechanical statistics to differentiate their PCs from other PCs. For some reason D&D especially has become focused on this aspect in recent editions by allowing a plethora of, I hate to say it, Humans With Funny Hats! Sure the dragonperson is cool looking and you made up some goofy nonsense culture for it, but how come it acts (and thinks and feels) the way a Human would. Oh yeah! Cause it's mind is a Human mind.
Obviously. The human mind can’t truly conceive of a totally alien mind. It can only imagine “me,
but.” So, yes, it is technically accurate to describe that as “human,
but with a funny hat.” But that’s the closest a human will ever get to roleplaying something inhuman. But it is still a valuable, and for many people, enjoyable exercise.
Do some players want cool powers to differentiate their characters? Of course. Do most players want that? I don’t know, but I wouldn’t be surprised. Is that the primary reason players choose to play non-human characters? Obviously not, otherwise non-variant human wouldn’t be far and away the most popular race choice. You may not believe it, but the data doesn’t lie.
Plus, considering the content of some recent discussions regarding D&D and the various Humanoid races in the game and how they reflect upon the game, maybe it would be best to eliminate all Humanoids that aren't Human from the game. Nuff Said!!!
Nah.
As a side note, I personally have found that only allowing Human PCs and reducing the reliance on mechanics to differentiate PCs is a very good thing for the roleplaying aspects of the game. For some reason players seem to work just a little bit harder at differentiating their characters through action when they don't have mechanical statistics to differentiate them.
I’d be interested to see a comprehensive study to see if there’s any real merit to this apparent phenomenon, or if it’s simply a product of various observation biases.