D&D (2024) Does the concept of subspecies of Elves come across as racist to you

[Vaalingrade]

It's not the word, it's the tacit endorsement of bioessentialism combined with the weird fixation on having a designer people where you have one to match every outfit, which has a dehumanizing aspect because this adaptation isn't something that's actually part of who elves are, it's all in the meta.

 

[Micah Sweet]

So everyone in ancient Greece is proficient in Diplomacy and the Xiphos? Every Medieval French person can cast Find Cheese as a cantrip?

No, but you could have the Cosmopolitan culture, or the Itinerant culture, or the Imperial culture, etc. What groups actually incorporate those cultures would be setting specific.

 

[Corinnguard]

If someone designed a setting for Level Up that was modeled after Ancient Greece, chances are the Culture portion of the setting would be modeled after a particular Greek City-state. So you would have your Sparta-like culture, and your Athens-like culture. There wasn't one culture for the entirety of Ancient Greece. Ditto for Medieval France or even Modern Day America.

 

[Frozen_Heart]

adaptation isn't something that's actually part of who elves are, it's all in the meta.

Honestly this has always confused me about elves. In most generic fantasy they're some ancient and dying species who is adapting too slowly to the changing world and the younger species. And yet in most generic fantasy there is also a flavour of elf for every single biome showing that the species can somehow adapt near instantly to live almost anywhere.

Like if you want a species which can adapt extremely quickly to have a ton of different environments, surely a short lived one with rapid generation times would make most sense? Like orcs and goblins.

 

[Vaalingrade]

Honestly this has always confused me about elves. In most generic fantasy they're some ancient and dying species who is adapting too slowly to the changing world and the younger species. And yet in most generic fantasy there is also a flavour of elf for every single biome showing that the species can somehow adapt near instantly to live almost anywhere.

Like if you want a species which can adapt extremely quickly to have a ton of different environments, surely a short lived one with rapid generation times would make most sense? Like orcs and goblins.

They're not pretty enough to want one to match your new dice set, like a purse dog with pointy ears.

 

[Scribe]

Honestly this has always confused me about elves. In most generic fantasy they're some ancient and dying species who is adapting too slowly to the changing world and the younger species. And yet in most generic fantasy there is also a flavour of elf for every single biome showing that the species can somehow adapt near instantly to live almost anywhere.

Different kind of adaptations. One being a cultural, philosophical one reflecting a lack of flexibility or desire to change for various reasons, the other a biological one. There is also no telling the timeframe for the latter.

As a long lived race, it could be they evolved over 1000's of years to adapt to these distinct biomes with the innate biological attributes present in the various 'modern day' species. With the age of the Elves, it would seem that they have just been there a very very long time.

 

[Corinnguard]

Like if you want a species which can adapt extremely quickly to have a ton of different environments, surely a short lived one with rapid generation times would make most sense? Like orcs and goblins.

What if the distant ancestors of the Elves were shapeshifters?

 

[Micah Sweet]

Honestly this has always confused me about elves. In most generic fantasy they're some ancient and dying species who is adapting too slowly to the changing world and the younger species. And yet in most generic fantasy there is also a flavour of elf for every single biome showing that the species can somehow adapt near instantly to live almost anywhere.

Like if you want a species which can adapt extremely quickly to have a ton of different environments, surely a short lived one with rapid generation times would make most sense? Like orcs and goblins.

D&D misinterpreted Tolkein's Elves (who sub-divided many times based on whether any particular group made it to Valinor or when they gave up and settled), and exaggerated the actual differences like crazy.

 

[Campbell]

I like having wood elves, high elves, dark elves, etc. I am not too fond of labeling them subspecies or bringing evolution into why there are different kinds of elves.

 

[Remathilis]

If someone designed a setting for Level Up that was modeled after Ancient Greece, chances are the Culture portion of the setting would be modeled after a particular Greek City-state. So you would have your Sparta-like culture, and your Athens-like culture. There wasn't one culture for the entirety of Ancient Greece. Ditto for Medieval France or even Modern Day America.

My two issues then are:

1. This can still be handled by player choice rather than mechanical intervention. My Athenian PC might want to represent his culture by taking diplomacy, but he might also want to be a proud warrior of Athena or a cynical mercenary who doesn't care about the art of politics. Ditto a Spartan who due to his frailty never learned how to fight, but was an amazing tactician and logistics person. I don't have the need for him to have medium armor and intimidation proficiency.

2. The thinner you slice up culture, the more unique types you need to make. A setting like Eberron, even with everyone having been part of a continent wide empire a century ago, would need cultures for the various nations of Khorvaire, Sharn, Cyre Refugees, The Demon Waste tribes who fight for and against demons, the various elven tribes, the Dhakaani nations, the Dragonmarked Houses, Lhazaar Pirates, etc. I could probably see 30 or more for just Khorvaire, not even counting the continents beyond. That's a lot to keep track of and make unique mechanical expressions for, and it still runs the risk of "Every orc or other person from the Shadows March gets a druid cantrip of their choice" style homogenization.

I get it's a fix to give elves the ability to use longswords and bows as trait again by giving them "Evermeet" as a culture that grants it, but it still feels kinda unnecessary since if I want to have that ability, I can just select those options. To each their own.