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Message: <blockquote data-quote="I'm A Banana" data-source="post: 855099" data-attributes="member: 2067">I was a little hard on the elves above, I admit. I was reacting against the whole 'elves are the best!' movement. <img src="https://cdn.jsdelivr.net/joypixels/assets/8.0/png/unicode/64/1f642.png" class="smilie smilie--emoji" loading="lazy" width="64" height="64" alt=":)" title="Smile    :)"  data-smilie="1"data-shortname=":)" />D&D elves do suffer from a bit of a conception problem. On one level they're faery forest spirits, on another the great warlike nations whose dedication to the art of fighting is quite astonishing. Effectively, they're like hill-fairy-folk and Tolkien's elves-as-kick-ass-archers all rolled into one. On one level they're playful and free and appreciative of the heartbeat of magic, on the other they're hardcore militant warriors with a superiority complex.I really think elves, like any other race, have their place. They're not better than everyone at everything (which is what I hear all too often), but they're better than a few people at a select group of things, such as being back-line warriors, making 'virtually pointless but pretty' magic items, etc.IMC, the fact that elves drop more commonly from diseases, tend to stay back in battle, generally lurk at the edges, and only warily tread into the open (and only when they have the clear advantage) makes many people in the world regard them as cowards. Combine that with their penchant for getting over-emotional, their superiority complex, their love of completely non-functional art, and their obsession with asthetics (all of which D&D elves have pretty hardcore), and you have something that IMC has been regarded as weak, fearful, and too wrapped up in themselves. They like to dance (prancy, poncing), they like to do battle at a distance (limp-wristed, captain of the wus patrol), and they appreciate beauty to an extreme degree (tiara-wearing). This, of course, leads to the same problem every race has (though elves, of course, will refuse to acknowledge. <img src="https://cdn.jsdelivr.net/joypixels/assets/8.0/png/unicode/64/1f609.png" class="smilie smilie--emoji" loading="lazy" width="64" height="64" alt=";)" title="Wink    ;)"  data-smilie="2"data-shortname=";)" />): A bad stereotype.It's a stereotype. Just as, foriegners and those different have been stereotyped for years: seeds in truth, exaggerated and applied universally and so hyperbolic as to be unfounded. Yet still, you meet some people who more closely fit it than you'd expect.I'll play an elf in the right conditions (when I want to play a character who views combat as an art, with a strange sort of detatchment, or am feeling egotistical). It's just that I have to react against those who view elves as the pinnacle of what they should be, without flaw, and without unkewl powers. I just spout out the stereotype.I'd be the first to call all dwarf women bearded she-dictators who wear iron aprons and bake stone for dinner. <img src="https://cdn.jsdelivr.net/joypixels/assets/8.0/png/unicode/64/1f609.png" class="smilie smilie--emoji" loading="lazy" width="64" height="64" alt=";)" title="Wink    ;)"  data-smilie="2"data-shortname=";)" /> Or gnomish inventors batcrap insane maniacs without their heads grounded in reality. Or halflings kleptomaniacal lazy greedy little twerps. Or orcs...well, I guess Orcs don't really need more insults. <img src="https://cdn.jsdelivr.net/joypixels/assets/8.0/png/unicode/64/1f642.png" class="smilie smilie--emoji" loading="lazy" width="64" height="64" alt=":)" title="Smile    :)"  data-smilie="1"data-shortname=":)" />It's just that elves need to be braught down a few notches, and playing up the negative stereotype is a good way to do that (and can relate to how elves are viewed in a campaign world, as well). <img src="https://cdn.jsdelivr.net/joypixels/assets/8.0/png/unicode/64/1f642.png" class="smilie smilie--emoji" loading="lazy" width="64" height="64" alt=":)" title="Smile    :)"  data-smilie="1"data-shortname=":)" />Anyhoo, babble over, I'm just excited I got in someone's sig. <img src="https://cdn.jsdelivr.net/joypixels/assets/8.0/png/unicode/64/1f642.png" class="smilie smilie--emoji" loading="lazy" width="64" height="64" alt=":)" title="Smile    :)"  data-smilie="1"data-shortname=":)" /></blockquote>

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