Elves - Love em or Hate em?

[Ankh-Morpork Guard]

elves are great when done right. Too many people though buy into the cliches and make them uninteresting

That goes for all races, no just Elves.

 

[sniffles]

** I have no problem with accepting elves as a superior race in a game, but this should be reflected by actually making them more powerful (i.e spell-like abilities or abilty modifiers, but with the LA to back it up).

I've always thought this too. But if they did have those abilities then I'd never get to play one because my GMs usually don't allow characters with LA.

@Ravilah - there's nothing that says an elf has been everywhere and done anything just because he's lived 1000 years. I think it should be up to the GM to say whether or not a character knows something. If you don't want the elf to know, set the DC for the knowledge check higher.

 

[Kae'Yoss]

If rolling dice isn't a competition...then what is?

I think he's aiming at the whole physical exertion part. Though I sure thing it's sport carrying that backpack full of books around. Or my dicebag, for that matter.

 

[William Ronald]

Generally, I like elves as I am familiar with many of the sources that Tolkien used for his inspiration. To my mind, elves can be a very interesting race, wtih a long term view of the world. I would imagine that there would be a touch of sadness at how changeable the world is around them. Also, I think that it is important to remember that an elf (or a dwarf, a half-elf, a halfling, half-orc, or gnome) is not just a human with a few add ons. Rather, they may be very different.

Elves may be very individualistic, and passionate, but they may well take a long-term view of such issues. This may lead them culturally to emphasize enjoying the world, as everything in it -- including themselves -- will eventually pass from it. So, perhaps one way to roleplay elves is to make them passionate about the moment but also taking a long term view of life. They may have a hard time relating to some of the shorter lived races and their perspectives. (Then again, humans are not exactly known for understanding each other.)

I think part of the problem that elves had in previous editions is that many of them were portrayed as self-righteous, xenophobes. You can see this both in the elves of the Forgotten Realms and the Dragonlance novels. Of course, I like to argue that no culture is perfect but it was at times hard to call some of these cultures good. I think that there are many possible take on elves as a character race. My advice is to read a few good books, research some of the archetypes such as the sidhe and the alfar, and decide what works in your world.

 

[Mercule]

Eh, I'm pretty much a fanboy, but less so with each passing year. Basically, I'm just spent on them.

Also, the default elves really aren't much more than humans with extra coolness. There are lots of interesting things that can be done with the basic archetype (which, essentially, is someone better than humans), but it takes some work to fit them into the setting.

 

[Whizbang Dustyboots]

I've never had the good fortune to play with someone who treated D&D elves as anything other than LotR elves (i.e. "humans but better in every way"). So, yes, definitely tired of them.

Having said that, if I got to play in a campaign where the elves were, instead, closer to the Pinis' Wolfriders, I'd play an elf in a heartbeat. Alas, that seems unlikely at best.

In the homebrew I'm planning, I'm taking the elves off the table as a PC race and letting people play Feytouched instead. Elves are the winners of the big war in Faerie, and have chased out most of the other races and monsters (which is how those races ended up in the Prime Material). There are dark elves (Unseelie), but they look just like the "good guys" (Seelie), and they're all just a few points off of Chaotic Neutral anyway. I want my elves to be more like Terry Pratchett's or the Faerie King in "Jonathan Strange & Mr. Norrell." Alien, beautiful and utterly amoral.

 

[kolikeos]

nothing wrong with elves, except the way they look in the ph, i preffer the lotr looking elves, no chinies eyes, no too long ears and are human hight.
same thing with halflings, they look like crap in the ph and i preffer the lotr looking halflings.

 

[BiggusGeekus]

That goes for all races, no just Elves.

True, but elves are the most likely canidates to be turned into a "Mary Sue".

Frankly, I think the LotR movies did a fantastic job of merging the "Mary Sue" elves with the "flawed" elves. All the elves were pretty-boys, but that was used as both a blessing and a curse.


Tolkien got it right the first time and it pays to remember the classics.

 

[Kunimatyu]

That's what I say, too. Mysterically, there are no great outcries about them...

This is probably because dwarves aren't that amazing as spellcasters, and casters rule the roost in D&D RAW. Dwarves are way too good as a race, with tons of little perks, but since most of the perks help out a fighter-type, it doesn' t matter a whole lot in the end.

 

[ydirbut]

I detest them, both in roleplaying and in literature. In fact I more than detest them, I omniloathe them.