mhacdebhandia
Explorer
Krynn wasn't exactly without hope. They did win.
It's somewhat embarrassing, as I look back from my position now fifteen years later, that my introduction to D&D came about because of elves. Well, it was actually a novelisation of E.T. that exposed me to the game (which I bought a copy of shortly thereafter), but I thought elves were so great in that game (it was the UK printing of the Third Edition D&D Basic Set, the "red box" although this was one thick A5 book) that I got hooked on Dragonlance's "Elven Nations" trilogy shortly thereafter, and that led me into the wider world of those novels and eventually back to the game, as AD&D this time.
I'm probably an unusual D&D player in that I had never read anything by Tolkien before I was exposed to bastardised versions of some of his ideas in D&D; I still haven't bothered to finish The Lord of the Rings nor The Hobbit and likely never will.
As a young boy I grew up instead on my father's science fiction collection, and the closest I came to fantasy was an abiding interest in classical mythology from Greece, Rome, and Egypt, and reading C.S. Lewis' elf-free "Chronicles of Narnia". While I thought elves were cool at the age of ten and for a few years thereafter, I quickly outgrew it (probably because they come off badly as a culture in the Dragonlance "Chronicles", and weren't all that loveable in the "Elven Nations" trilogy either).
Since I've been serious about the game itself, I don't think I've ever felt an inclination to play an elf or had much time for them in any campaign; the only exception that comes to mind is playing an elven cleric of Annwn the Celtic death god in a Planescape campaign, and I think the only reason he was an elf was because the Celtic deities were loosely associated with them in On Hallowed Ground, or such is my memory at the time.
Now I also really like all of the elven cultures from Eberron, but I think it's fair to say that they're interesting because they're nothing like the standard, pseudo-Tolkienesque treatment of elves in D&D. Had I been into Dark Sun more when it was still being published I might have found those elves pretty intriguing too, for the same reason.
It's somewhat embarrassing, as I look back from my position now fifteen years later, that my introduction to D&D came about because of elves. Well, it was actually a novelisation of E.T. that exposed me to the game (which I bought a copy of shortly thereafter), but I thought elves were so great in that game (it was the UK printing of the Third Edition D&D Basic Set, the "red box" although this was one thick A5 book) that I got hooked on Dragonlance's "Elven Nations" trilogy shortly thereafter, and that led me into the wider world of those novels and eventually back to the game, as AD&D this time.
I'm probably an unusual D&D player in that I had never read anything by Tolkien before I was exposed to bastardised versions of some of his ideas in D&D; I still haven't bothered to finish The Lord of the Rings nor The Hobbit and likely never will.
As a young boy I grew up instead on my father's science fiction collection, and the closest I came to fantasy was an abiding interest in classical mythology from Greece, Rome, and Egypt, and reading C.S. Lewis' elf-free "Chronicles of Narnia". While I thought elves were cool at the age of ten and for a few years thereafter, I quickly outgrew it (probably because they come off badly as a culture in the Dragonlance "Chronicles", and weren't all that loveable in the "Elven Nations" trilogy either).
Since I've been serious about the game itself, I don't think I've ever felt an inclination to play an elf or had much time for them in any campaign; the only exception that comes to mind is playing an elven cleric of Annwn the Celtic death god in a Planescape campaign, and I think the only reason he was an elf was because the Celtic deities were loosely associated with them in On Hallowed Ground, or such is my memory at the time.
Now I also really like all of the elven cultures from Eberron, but I think it's fair to say that they're interesting because they're nothing like the standard, pseudo-Tolkienesque treatment of elves in D&D. Had I been into Dark Sun more when it was still being published I might have found those elves pretty intriguing too, for the same reason.
OMG, I've had players like that. It can really go two ways: one way is that it's good role playing and it makes the story interesting. One player of mine loved elves, but as soon as any PC, or NPC (non elf of course) would talk to him, you're immediately looking at him through his nose he had it so high in the air. While annoying to the point where you wanted to smack his character, he at least cooperated and the game was more colorful becuase of the roleplaying effort.
