Human beings know how to be human beings. That's all the know. That's all they can know. Therefore anything they play will always be "Humans in rubber masks". A human being trying to play a dog will be a human being playing a dog because we honestly have no idea what being a dog is. By the same token, a human being trying to play an elf will be a human being playing an elf because we also have no idea of what an elf is.
Therefore "playing an elf" means two different things-- one is using whatever game mechanics the game proscribes as the "elf" mechanics in the board game to denote that game token as being an "elf"... and two, the human being trying to portray "elf-like" qualities as best they can in the narrative story being told by the group through their choices and actions. And whether you need either or both depends entirely on what the focus of the game is for the players and DM.
For some tables... ones who are concerned mostly with playing the game mechanics... having statistics and numbers for each species is paramount because that is how each "thing" within the game is distinguished. So a table like this needs or wants half-elf and half-orc statistics and mechanics because that is how you distinguish the half-elf and half-orc "token" in the game from any other species. How you "play" the species doesn't matter, if the mechanics are not there to have an influence on the game rules and play of the game. And the more statistics and mechanics you give each species, the more distinguished each species becomes from one another because the more those statistics and mechanics will affect the mechanical rules of game play.
For other tables... ones who are concerned mostly with playing the narrative story... what is paramount is how the human being tries to think, and act, and make choices as the character through the lens of their species. For those players, statistics and mechanics are not necessary or required, because how they think, act, and make choices are what distinguish one species from another (as best they can.) Mechanics are just numbers. Numbers that can be assigned to anything and everything, so there's no specificity to them. Thus the game doesn't need half-elf or half-orc statistics because they are just random mechanics that have been "assigned" the designation of "half-elf" or "half-orc". So instead of those wishy-washy mechanics, the player can instead portray a mixed-species character (half-elf, half-orc or indeed any other) just through their thoughts, actions, and choices of that mixed-species character within the narrative and story.
Now of course... most players (and indeed the game designers themselves) will end up using a mixture of the two, based on what they themselves want and what they think other players want. Mechanics will be given out for gameplay purposes, and every gameplay mechanic will have fantasy "description" and "narrative" layered on top of them to get players to think of this roleplaying game as a "story" they are participating in, and not just a board game to play. And which mechanics get added or not added and which descriptions and narratives get used or not used will be rather arbitrary and chosen by the people in charge of setting things up. And if other people want to use ones that aren't made available or remove ones they don't like that were... that's up to each of them to decide for themselves.
Therefore "playing an elf" means two different things-- one is using whatever game mechanics the game proscribes as the "elf" mechanics in the board game to denote that game token as being an "elf"... and two, the human being trying to portray "elf-like" qualities as best they can in the narrative story being told by the group through their choices and actions. And whether you need either or both depends entirely on what the focus of the game is for the players and DM.
For some tables... ones who are concerned mostly with playing the game mechanics... having statistics and numbers for each species is paramount because that is how each "thing" within the game is distinguished. So a table like this needs or wants half-elf and half-orc statistics and mechanics because that is how you distinguish the half-elf and half-orc "token" in the game from any other species. How you "play" the species doesn't matter, if the mechanics are not there to have an influence on the game rules and play of the game. And the more statistics and mechanics you give each species, the more distinguished each species becomes from one another because the more those statistics and mechanics will affect the mechanical rules of game play.
For other tables... ones who are concerned mostly with playing the narrative story... what is paramount is how the human being tries to think, and act, and make choices as the character through the lens of their species. For those players, statistics and mechanics are not necessary or required, because how they think, act, and make choices are what distinguish one species from another (as best they can.) Mechanics are just numbers. Numbers that can be assigned to anything and everything, so there's no specificity to them. Thus the game doesn't need half-elf or half-orc statistics because they are just random mechanics that have been "assigned" the designation of "half-elf" or "half-orc". So instead of those wishy-washy mechanics, the player can instead portray a mixed-species character (half-elf, half-orc or indeed any other) just through their thoughts, actions, and choices of that mixed-species character within the narrative and story.
Now of course... most players (and indeed the game designers themselves) will end up using a mixture of the two, based on what they themselves want and what they think other players want. Mechanics will be given out for gameplay purposes, and every gameplay mechanic will have fantasy "description" and "narrative" layered on top of them to get players to think of this roleplaying game as a "story" they are participating in, and not just a board game to play. And which mechanics get added or not added and which descriptions and narratives get used or not used will be rather arbitrary and chosen by the people in charge of setting things up. And if other people want to use ones that aren't made available or remove ones they don't like that were... that's up to each of them to decide for themselves.
