D&D General So how do Half-Elfs feel different to Elfs?

[Charlaquin]

That wasn't really the main point of my post. The main point was you could feel like an outsider even when you're not experiencing overt or subdued bigotry.

No, but it was the main point of my post. Yeah, anyone can “feel like an outsider” but there are different kinds and degrees of that feeling, and the kind half elves would be likely to experience is akin to the kind mixed race people experience. And to be clear, that experience doesn’t have to be a matter of oppression or bigotry either. I haven’t had any direct experience of bigotry related to my mixed heritage, and because of that, I almost feel guilty claiming that heritage, because I have that distance from it, and benefit from the privilege that distance affords me. But I can point to specific ways that heritage has affected my lived experience that would be totally alien to non-Latina white folks. There’s both a belonging to and a distancing from both sides of that mixed heritage, and that’s a powerful thing for a roleplaying game to be able to represent.

 

[W'rkncacnter]

Oh man, that reminds me.

As much as I personally want to think of half-elves as a proxy for children of loving and consensual mixed-race marriages, the fact is that elves and humans have an extreme age gap and IRL we do find that to be problematic. Consider also the power dynamics between, say, a highly developed and urbanized elven civilization with things like consumer magic and supernatural healthcare, and a human whose highest level of education is "don't eat those berries" and whose day to day involves hunting, gathering or subsistence agriculture.

How is that any different from a rich 80 year old American man having a mail order teen bride from a deeply impoverished part of the global south?

probably the fact that the human is (presumably) at least an actual adult and not a teenager. which, to me, is a pretty important factor in whether a relationship like this is actually gross or if it's just kind of strange.

there's also the fact that the elf probably isn't mail ordering the human and is more likely to be travelling to the human themselves (or maybe vice versa, if the human is an adventurer or something). that...also seems important.

I know this particular line of thought, sometimes problematic, is actually really prominent in communities of mixed Asian and White parentage who have a lotta issues (not all necessarily justified) with "WMAF pairings", and a half-elf could also be an interesting way to explore this concept by proxy.

i mean...it could, yeah.

 

[Maxperson]

But we humans do not fall in love with our pets, form "lifetime bonds of marriage" with them, nor procreate with them to product children that we know are also going to die 50 years before we do. I mean if a person knew that every single child they were going to produce in a very specific relationship outside the norm was going to pass on after merely a decade... I personally have an exceedingly hard time believing the sheer numbers of people that seem to get into these relationships to produce the massive swathes of half-elves that exist in every setting.

As I said... the one isolated Elf out of hundreds of thousands who take the plunge and willingly dive into this kind of relationship with a Human that is going to end in heartbreak several times over just due to the passage of time? Fine. I'm right there with you. But to have hundreds of thousand of elves forsake other elves to marry and have children with all these short-lived humans in the massive quantities we see in all these D&D worlds where half-elves are like the third or fourth most populace species in the land? Nope. I don't buy it.

But if others do... that's cool. People can accept and go along with whatever they want, and my opinion has no impact on that.

You don't have to, though. if 1000 elves do it over 100 years, that's 1000 half-elves that if they get together, produce more half-elves. Now over 10,000 years increase that by 1000 new half-elves a century PLUS all the half-elves produced by other half-elf pairs. Eventually you're going to have a large population of half-elves.

 

[Misanthrope Prime]

No, but it was the main point of my post. Yeah, anyone can “feel like an outsider” but there are different kinds and degrees of that feeling, and the kind half elves would be likely to experience is akin to the kind mixed race people experience. And to be clear, that experience doesn’t have to be a matter of oppression or bigotry either. I haven’t had any direct experience of bigotry related to my mixed heritage, and because of that, I almost feel guilty claiming that heritage, because I have that distance from it, and benefit from the privilege that distance affords me. But I can point to specific ways that heritage has affected my lived experience that would be totally alien to non-Latina white folks. There’s both a belonging to and a distancing from both sides of that mixed heritage, and that’s a powerful thing for a roleplaying game to be able to represent.

Straight up, my mixed race heritage has opened a lot of doors for me. I'm a nepo baby through one of my white parents in my industry, but I keep on getting put on professional boards or sought out for interviews because I'm one of the rare Latin people in it as well. I 100% equate this to the way that a half-elf character in D&D can qualify for feats that require you to be an elf and/or human.

 

[Maxperson]

I never had a problem with the concept of half-elves, I just found it rather silly they were so abundant. Especially when some settings had half-elf communities.

See above. They'd eventually accumulate in enough numbers to self-sustain new generations of half-elves. They live a long time.

 

[MGibster]

See above. They'd eventually accumulate in enough numbers to self-sustain new generations of half-elves. They live a long time.

I suppose if you get enough half-elves. But what's the point of a half-elf then? Why even have them in the game?

 

[Remathilis]

I suppose if you get enough half-elves. But what's the point of a half-elf then? Why even have them in the game?

There are plenty of tales you can tell about not-first generation half-elves coming from creole societies. The most obvious one being Khoravar in Eberron

 

[Yaarel]

I have always felt Half-Elves work best when you think of them as D&D's "Dunedain." They are descended from Elves, live longer than other Humans, and have certain "Elven" traits.

In Tolkien's legendarium, Half-elves who have an Elven parent are given a choice, and that choice was granted to all of their descendants - to live as mortals, or to live as elf-kind. Elrond chooses Elf-kind, so in D&D terms, "Elrond the Half-Elven" would be...an Elf. His brother Elros chooses mortality, so he'd be a Half-Elf. And Arargorn, who's descended through many generations of interbreeding Half-Elves remains a Half-Elf.

But what about Arwen? Well, her mom is an Elf, but because her father is (technically) one of the Half-Elven, it seems Arwen (and one would assume her brothers) get to make the same choice, and can choose mortality at any time. Arwen lives as an Elf for nearly 2800 years and then...changes her mind. She then lives another approximately 120 years.

If you follow Tolkien's system, any children of Half-Elves would be Half-Elves or Humans, unless their other parent was an Elf, in which case they would get the same choice.

This Tolkien lore correlates with 5e 2024 mechanics, where a mixed-species character can choose either parentage for the statblock.

A Half Elf can use either Elf or Human for the species stats, and if Human can use the extra feat for a hint of elven heritage.

 

[Charlaquin]

I suppose if you get enough half-elves. But what's the point of a half-elf then? Why even have them in the game?

Because mixed-heritage experiences are a valuable thing for the game to be able to represent. It can make mixed-heritage people feel seen, and give non-mixed-heritage people the opportunity to try to put themselves into the shoes of a mixed-heritage person.

This is like roleplaying 101.

 

[Necropolitan]

Oh man, that reminds me.

As much as I personally want to think of half-elves as a proxy for children of loving and consensual mixed-race marriages, the fact is that elves and humans have an extreme age gap and IRL we do find that to be problematic. Consider also the power dynamics between, say, a highly developed and urbanized elven civilization with things like consumer magic and supernatural healthcare, and a human whose highest level of education is "don't eat those berries" and whose day to day involves hunting, gathering or subsistence agriculture.

How is that any different from a rich 80 year old American man having a mail order teen bride from a deeply impoverished part of the global south?

I know this particular line of thought, sometimes problematic, is actually really prominent in communities of mixed Asian and White parentage who have a lotta issues (not all necessarily justified) with "WMAF pairings", and a half-elf could also be an interesting way to explore this concept by proxy.

The same way people can have a problem with a 18 and 38 year age gap but not a 40 and 60 year age gap.

Same year difference, vastly different ability to meaningfully consent to it and have an equal power dynamic.