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<blockquote data-quote="Set" data-source="post: 4153386" data-attributes="member: 41584">The way that D&amp;D has developed has almost enforced cliches.Instead of saying that some elves live in grand cities and practice wizardry, while others tattoo themselves and run around the woods half-nekkid, the game has segregated them into subraces, Grey Elves and Wood Elves and Wild Elves and Dark Elves.&nbsp; In most of these cases, the differences between these subraces of elves, dwarves, gnomes and halflings are no more significant than the difference between a Viking raider and a Sultan's vizier.&nbsp; They don't really *need* to be different subraces.&nbsp; A 'dark' elf could just be an elf, that's dark.If an 'elf' could be a griffon-riding mithral-armored spellcaster from the crystal cities in the mountains, or a tattooed wild-woman running with the wolves, or a cold and sinister human-hating skulker underground, who likes to poison wells and shoot cattle with dung-tainted arrows, then the 'elf' stops being a cliche and becomes a word like 'human,' that can represent a *vast* variety of different people, not just 'magical tree-huggers.'The upcoming Eladrin/Elf split is just further crystalizing the cliche.&nbsp; Now they aren't even subraces, the elf-who-lives-in-the-woods and the elf-who-lives-in-town are *completely* different.</blockquote>

[QUOTE="Set, post: 4153386, member: 41584"] The way that D&D has developed has almost enforced cliches. Instead of saying that some elves live in grand cities and practice wizardry, while others tattoo themselves and run around the woods half-nekkid, the game has segregated them into subraces, Grey Elves and Wood Elves and Wild Elves and Dark Elves. In most of these cases, the differences between these subraces of elves, dwarves, gnomes and halflings are no more significant than the difference between a Viking raider and a Sultan's vizier. They don't really *need* to be different subraces. A 'dark' elf could just be an elf, that's dark. If an 'elf' could be a griffon-riding mithral-armored spellcaster from the crystal cities in the mountains, or a tattooed wild-woman running with the wolves, or a cold and sinister human-hating skulker underground, who likes to poison wells and shoot cattle with dung-tainted arrows, then the 'elf' stops being a cliche and becomes a word like 'human,' that can represent a *vast* variety of different people, not just 'magical tree-huggers.' The upcoming Eladrin/Elf split is just further crystalizing the cliche. Now they aren't even subraces, the elf-who-lives-in-the-woods and the elf-who-lives-in-town are *completely* different. [/QUOTE]

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