D&D 5E What is the appeal of the weird fantasy races?

[Jack Daniel]

This touches on an issue I have with Elven culture (and individual elves) as commonly portrayed: for a race that supposedly has a chaotic bent, they really seem very lawful and traditional most of the time.

Often, elves are most characterized by their complacency, lack open-mindedness, and adherence to elven traditions, which are negative stereotypes associated with lawful alignments, not chaotic ones.

Oy vey. This sort of thing is half the reason I don't use alignment. It's too reductive.

 

[EzekielRaiden]

That is a shame and I am sorry you have had to deal with that. Maybe it just really boils down to how one views creativity.

Could be, not sure. My theory is, it comes from

That is disheartening to say the least. Most authority figures, especially teachers that I know (I know many), would actually want to know the real answer. <snip> That is a shame it left such an indelible mark on you.

I mean, it didn't really shape my opinion of teachers. I'd say 90% of my student/teacher relationships have been thoroughly positive. It just stuck out as such an incredibly weird behavior. I never had any actual classes with that teacher, even. I was only in that classroom for outreach purposes (pitching Speech & Debate team) between classes, so it wasn't even like I could be seen as challenging her "in public" so to speak. But it did show me that sometimes, even people who should be open to knowledge and truth...just aren't. Even if they're rare, it's important to think about their impact.

Like I said, I am just incredibly lucky and feel even more fortunate to have had the groups I have had. It makes me want to thank them each time I think of playing.

I'd say it's less "incredible" luck and more just good luck, but I'm glad you've had such a good run. I find, like with most semi-insular communities, "gamer" tends to result in one of two attitudes. Either there's an inherent tendency to trust and support, because "we're in this together" so to speak; or there's an inherent distrust, because "how do I know you're safe?" The majority tend to fall into the first group, but a sizable minority make up the second--and, unfortunately, I find the latter is slightly more driven to seek the DM role, because then they know things will be done (as they see it) "right."

My point is there shouldn't be an ugh. It should be, I wonder what makes this one different.

Well, if you've seen the same plotline done a hundred times, and all but the first have been done poorly, indeed a general trend of each being more poorly-written than the last, I can see fatigue setting in. Tolkien gave a clear reason for the unease between dwarves and elves in his cosmology....and also prominently featured a dwarf sorta-prince who thought Galadriel was the most beautiful woman on (Middle-)Earth and whose mutual best friend was an elf. A lot--and I really do mean a LOT--of later works never bother to give an explanation. They JUST assert "dwarves and elves dislike each other" and explain nothing.

It's the Planet of Hats problem, just in microcosm form. We don't have to do the balls-to-the-wall worldbuilding that Tolkien did, but even for a lot of well-loved, famous fantasy literature, they just don't do any of that stuff. They rely on cliches and dead-horse tropes. Consider The Belgariad or the Inheritance Cycle. The problem isn't even restricted to fantasy; consider comic books. The 90s Dark Age of Comics happened in the wake of bold, nuanced works like Watchmen and The Dark Knight Returns that prominently featured dark themes but weren't solely ABOUT being super ultra dark. They then spawned an enormous wave of entirely plastic, hollow imitations that pumped the GRIMDARK to 11 without justifying it, and (more importantly) without showing that this is a mistake that powerful-yet-disconnected-from-humanity figures are prone to experiencing.

So frame it in those terms: If you see a new, black-trenchcoat-clad, blood-dripping-down-his-sword "dark and troubled" super-so-called-"hero" with a name like "Youngblood" or "Darktalon" or "Slayter" etc., who "doesn't play by the rules" and all that...are you honestly going to say that 100% of the time you'll excitedly say, "Ooh, I wonder what they've done to make this concept actually work?" Because I'm going to be very surprised if you don't have at least a little reaction of "oh God, another one of THESE?"

If I've seen a stereotypical story done a dozen times without justification, I need more than just the statement that it exists for me to get on board. Maybe dwarves are leading the industrial revolution (a la Zeitgeist) while elves remain linked to the fey-lords, and the animosity is mostly due to machines driving the fey crazy. Maybe the Wyldking Arawn made an ancient pact with the Dwarf-Queen Brinhildr, but the dwarves feel they broke it when the Wyld drifted away from the mortal world for a couple millennia while the eladrin believe they upheld their end by placing an enchantment that would last until they returned. I can come up with more examples, I'm sure. The point isn't that the cliche CAN'T be explained, it's that because this is such an often poorly-used trope, I don't feel bad rolling my eyes if the DM drops it on us with no further explanation.

Surely there are nuances that are different, and part of the fun is identifying and exploring them.

That's the problem. All too often, there aren't nuances. It's just an author (or, in this case, DM) riding on Tolkien's coattails.

 

[Jack Daniel]

That's the problem. All too often, there aren't nuances. It's just an author (or, in this case, DM) riding on Tolkien's coattails.

Funny how things come full circle. I entered into this thread 196 pages ago expressing my dismay that all too often players portray non-human characters by riding Tolkien's (or maybe Peter Jackson's) coattails.

 

[Hussar]

Well, like it was said so eloquently earlier in the thread - so much of the hobby is chained to the corpse of Tolkien.

Which, circles around to why "weird" fantasy races are popular. It's often an attempt (whether a good one or not) to escape from the tried and tired. I loathe elves in the game, mostly because over the years, every (or mostly every) time I've seen a player take an elf it's basically a human that can see in the dark. There's is absolutely no attempt whatsoever to portray the fact that this character isn't human.

To the point where other players turn to the player and says, "what race is your character again?" And, frustratingly enough, this does not spur these players into making any sort of attempt at differentiating their characters. Yet another Drizz't clone? Heck, that's never been a problem I've seen. It's the yet another elf character that's identical to every other elf character and largely indistinguishable from the human characters.

So, give me your tabaxi or holyphant, or sentient skeleton characters. At least at that point I know the player has actually made something of an attempt to make a character that will be interesting to see played and not yet another player who I could replace with a dice bot and no one would notice.

 

[Chaosmancer]

This touches on an issue I have with Elven culture (and individual elves) as commonly portrayed: for a race that supposedly has a chaotic bent, they really seem very lawful and traditional most of the time.

Often, elves are most characterized by their complacency, lack open-mindedness, and adherence to elven traditions, which are negative stereotypes associated with lawful alignments, not chaotic ones.

I've noticed that as well. Most elves portrayed are not nearly the free-spirited individuals that we are told they are. Heck, the closest seems to be that they love music and dance... which don't really strike me as being terribly chaotic.

 

[Chaosmancer]

Nothing arbitrary about it. The reason for it is Tolkien and his dwarf/elf enmity. It carried over to the earlier editions and is now a sacred cow.

Right, and why did Tolkien Elves and Dwarves not get along?

I remember one part "you didn't help defend our homes against that dragon, leaving our people to exile" and a whole lot of... not much else. I mean, all the dwarves we see in the series are same clan, who were betrayed by the elven King, so even if they professed a whole lot of "well, you are crude" and "You are tall and thin and prissy" the root seems to be that one historical moment, something that shouldn't be passed down without context.

 

[Azuresun]

I agree with this. A lot can be added to the spirit of the game using an oddball character, including one outside the DM's initial impression or prewritten lore.

I think when I DM and someone asks for an oddball character, my reaction will depend not on the concept, but how it's presented. If they suggest the quirky character as one of multiple possibilities or they're making an effort to integrate the odd thing with the setting ("...so I know tieflings don't exist in your world by default, but maybe they could come from the land of fiends up north that your campaign notes mention, seeking to escape their overlords and make a new life for themselves?"), that makes it much more palatable. If they just drop a gnome paladin into a Dark Sun game and say "deal with it", that's suggesting they didn't bother to read the pitch, or did read it but don't care about it.

 

[Hussar]

I mean, if you really want to delve into it, 5e elves are downright alien.

Non-CIS gendered individuals who change from one gender to the other at whim, remember past lives when trancing? That new Trill from Star Trek Discovery is probably the closest thing to an actual D&D elf you could see in pop culture.

 

[Azuresun]

Man, can I just say it sometimes feels like I am playing a completely different game than some of the people I communicate with in this community. I mean, I get the young DM having trouble at the table because they haven't honed the craft or the oddball player at the table causing friction. We have probably all seen those at some point in our gaming life.

But, when I see debates as in depth as most on this board, about playstyles, races, ASI's, DM's control, etc. it boggles my mind. I can say, in general, it seems like most people come to quick conclusions regarding specific rules - like what a polymorph can and can't do. Those questions seem to get resolved rather quickly. Yet, things like this... I have never seen a table even dream of debating a quarter of this stuff. We just sit down and play.

Just my 2 copper because I find it, at times, fascinating.

Well, most of the really protracted debates usually come down to two or three hardcore posters who just cannot let a topic rest and who quickly get down to oh-my-god-nobody-cares levels of precision and pedantry that have little to do with how people talk in actual games.

 

[Azuresun]

The way I look at it is that elves live for a long time. So what seems to be constant and never changing to humans is relatively rapid change for the elves.

Of course I also have my elves be more chaotic than many representations. Different elves may be "king" or "queen" but it just kind of changes at a whim. In elven the truer meaning of the name is basically "the person who happens to be in charge right now".

One of my favourite "elf" cultures was the Obun from Fading Suns (okay, it's sci-fi but they are pretty much elves) and their native culture being a quite benign and chilled form of semi-anarchism. One of my favourite bits of lore concerned how they used to have a ruling caste of those who claimed descent from the gods, but over time their commands became corrupt and capricious, more concerned with their own glory than the welfare of their subjects. So the Obun collectively just stopped listening to them.