Why can't we portray societies of orcs, goblins, brain-eating squids, dark elves, snake-human hybrids, etc as just funny-looking humans like we do for the "pretty" dwarves, elves, hobbits, and gnomes?
What would be the point of that? If everything in the game acts like funny-looking humans, then why not just have everything in the game be humans.
I take rather the opposite tack. If the characterization of some non-human race is so trite that they are just 'funny looking humans', then they don't belong in the game. The goblins, elves, dwarves, dark elves, snake-human hybrids, and so forth that exist in my game are fundamentally inhuman.
For example, a race that ate their own children and didn't think this unusual might be interesting. Or at least, it's a race with a different enough outlook on life that I'd think about it. A race that is just funny looking humans wouldn't. One of the PC races in my game - the Orine - are destroying themselves with uncontrollable blood rage, and they are a 'pretty' race. For that matter, the 'dark elves' of stock D&D are a 'pretty' race also.
So, if you look at my PC races, the biology and culture is non-human:
Dwarf: Racially more inclined to the group than humans. Live roughly twice as long as humans, and are hardier and more durable. Live in very dense populated communities, work in groups, and can feel monophobia if alone. Hermits strike dwarves as being insane. Typically a stubborn, arrogant, and intolerant of fault in themselves and others. Dwarfin culture is dominated by the fact that male children are born at least twice the rate of female children, which means at least half of all male dwarfs never marry. Of all the races, Dwarves are the most polyandrous culture - though chaste loyalty to the family leaders is the Dwarven ideal, giving them something of a 'pack' culture. Unmarried dwarves devote themselves to war or crafts and the service the family. Prefer to live underground, and are naturally adapted to such life. Do not adapt easily to farming, which they consider drudgery, and prefer to trade with neighbors for basic foodstuffs.
Elf: Racially more individual than humans. Age at roughly 1/9th the human rate, including pregnancy, childhood, etc. Very prolonged childhood results in a family experience alien to the other races. Fundamentally connected to flora and fauna in the way that humans just aren't. Can easily survive and thrive as vegans, with no dietary supplement. Fragile and prone to illness - as such they avoid contact with strangers and avoid high population density. Require intake of beauty in the same manner that other races require food, water, and air. If deprived of beauty typically fall ill and die within days. Cannot be enslaved; enslaved elves refuse to work, lose the will to live and die. It's suggested that the goblin fondness for elf as a food meat, results from the failure to enslave them. Entirely different set of passions compared to humans. Not particularly prone to greed or lust, making crimes like lust and rape virtually unknown within elfin society. Gluttony is rare. Suffer however from
anarooth and
dhahelx as ordinary vices which would strike humans as insanity, and also suffer from a variety of vices and manias related to overindulgence in beauty, sensation and novelty. If you are playing elves from my world like a pointy eared human, you aren't doing it right.
Orine: Entire race strikes other races as insane. Although generally conforming to humanoid norms of appearance, are avian rather than mammalian. Feathers cover body, especially scalp, rather than hair. Oviparous. Eyes and vocal organs are more birdlike. Also have two eyelids. Poor impulse control combined with almost complete lack of a 'flight' instinct means that insults within Orine society are almost always lethal. Highly developed manners and customs to avoid giving insult and offense. Generally avoid contact with other races, and other races avoid them. Are not cosmopolitan and do not build cities. They live exclusively in tight knit nomadic family groups, banding together in alliances only for war. Nearly as obsessed with beauty as elves, but are a far more carnal and lusty race whose passions are more familiar to humans.
Idreth: Called by other races 'the born old', Idreth are born with collective racial memory. Although memory recall and retention is not perfect, Idreth individuality is nonetheless blurred, since an Idreth remembers himself doing many things in former lives - and can even remember himself meeting himself. Idreth consider themselves as much a part of a lineage as they do themselves individuals. Idreth have nothing like what the other races would consider a recognizable childhood, since they are born with adult memories which often include memories of their own parents lives. Idreth live as if understanding their own memories and passing on interesting memories to their future selves was the only thing worth doing, and omniscience was the only thing worth having. Prone to almost none of the vices of the other races, they can be either wise and gentle or completely amoral and ruthless depending on their inclination in achieving those things. Prone to injury, they avoid war and political conflict, often integrating themselves into the social fabric of other races, and forming monastic like communities which maintain strict neutrality when they can not. The only race with generally favorable relations with all the other free peoples, they are still sometimes feared and persecuted by those that believe that the are engaged in a vast conspiracy against the other races.
Goblins: The most salient trait of goblinkind is the fact that they practice deliberate selective breeding on themselves, and possible something not unlike genetic manipulation. This has resulted in goblin-kind diverging into a number of divergent physical castes, which are in turn subdivided into many other social castes. Appear fearsome and unattractive to the other races, including it is said sometimes to themselves, though it is said in their original forms they were not so. Goblins are utilitarian to the point of considering usefulness the aesthetic standard. Thus, horny hide, shaggy hair, fangs, claws, and so forth are more desirable traits than beauty. Consider themselves the rightful owners of the world, and their own gods the rightful kings of the universe - usurped from their position by younger races. Fiercely loyal to their own pantheon and generally will not serve or worship other deities. Some members of other races therefore do not consider them free peoples, but mere servitors. Prone to carnivorous diet, as raw vegetable matter is often poorly digested or not at all. Cannibalism is a common and accepted practice, as is the consumption of the flesh of other sentient beings. Almost fully nocturnal and fully adapted to living in the dark. Are out of their element in bright light. High resistance to disease makes them generally unconcerned with cleanliness and sanitation. Usually live underground. Usually keep to themselves, and are generally regarded as monsters by the other free peoples - but some individuals and groups are more or less integrated with human society although generally relegated to jobs and roles which humans find odious.
Fey: Whether changling, sidhe, pixie or other these beings are fundamentally not human, but more of the nature of 'small gods'. They are immortal. They are very nearly spirit beings, animating some principle or role within the universe. They are innately magical, and can see into and move between the other worlds more easily than other races. Many if not most are not born, and have no parents, but are rather the result of spontaneous generation. They have no childhood. They change and learn rather slowly, but are born with profound if often very narrow and seemingly spotty understanding.
It is a mistake to consider any of those races to be just funny looking humans.
