The gaming/fiction disparity, or "Why are dark elves cliche?"

[Sejs]

Dark Elves are cool. Warhammer has dark elves and they're cool. Gurps Fantasy has dark elves and they're cool, too. It's Drow that are the crap ones. And really, even then drow could be recovered from the pits of lameness if they were given some depth and good, solid thought. It would take a bit of work and some established (short-sighted, dumb, or juvenile)things would need to be changed, but it could be done.




Except on the lingere thing, of course. No need for any change there. Mmmm, boobies.

 

[The Sigil]

While I agree with you that gaming tends to be white-person-centric, drow are not black-skinned as in African, they're black-skinned as in black. I assume the contrast was meant to be to the Tolkien-style pale, fair-haired foresty sort of elf.

Um, Tolkien had dark elves in his mythology, too... anyone remember Eol from the Silmarillion? He is described as a "tall elf, dark and grim, of the kindred of the Sindarin" and is quite evil, as I recall.

Dark elves/drow weren't dredged up out of nowhere, as others have noted, and I find it interesting that Tolkien had them too.

--The Sigil

 

[Aaron L]

Tolkiens dark elves were dark because they didnt go to see the trees of Valinor. The high elves went to see the trees, and the grey elves started to but didn't finish. They weren't dark skinned, and they were pretty decent people.


Anyway, I like drow. We have'nt used them very much, and ignore how often they appear outside of our games.

 

[Flexor the Mighty!]

Also, D&D dark elves were originally presented as the embodiment of a purely evil race more powerful than elves, humans or dwarves, and kept in check only through the alliance of the surface dwellers. Then along comes Drizz't, the 'dark elf with a heart of gold', and every munchkin power-gamer in the world says 'I'm a drow, but a good one, cast out from the Underdark. I get to keep all the perqs and suffer none of the drawbacks.'

Bingo!

"Well I wear a hood that keeps the sunlight out of my eyes so I shouldn't get the penalties..." Don't know how many times I heard that.

Plus you have the books RAS wrote...

 

[madelf]

Actually I don't mind drow at all. I've rather liked them most times I've read about them.

What has come to annoy the hell out of me is Drizzt. I even used to think he was all right, but that Ranger is the definition of overused. All you have to do is look up "overused" in the dictionary and there's his shiny black mug. The thought of reading another Drizzt book is enough to make my brain try to climb down my spine just to get away from my eyes. And I haven't even read about the last four.

If I ever meet Salvatore I'll have to grab him by the shoulders, and shake him, and yell "For the love of god, man! Of all the great characters you've introduced in your stories, why on earth are you still writing about that boring, self-obsessed, irritating drow ranger?!"

And then, of course, he'll tell me, "Because WotC is paying me to. Now get off me you weirdo freak!"

 

[Wombat]

Personally, I just stay away from game-based fiction because just tends to be so bad. Same goes for a lot of movie and/or tv series based novels. I love to read and, much like with wine, I would hate to spend my time on something that doesn't match my tastes.

As for dark elves/drow, per se, I have less against them than I do against, say, mindflayers, beholders, rust monters, and other over sillies. But, truly, most of my problem with them is that they feel so D&Dish; the whole Underdark just feels like the uberdungeon, where everything is darker, nastier and tougher because they happen to live underground -- never made any sense to me at all.

 

[BigFreekinGoblinoid]

Why I hate Drow:

Over the past week, I spent 6 hours (!) painting a Drow mini: Jet Black Skin and White hair! Gimme a break already!

 

[Teflon Billy]

That's exactly why. Those three thiings have always attracted argumentative players. And I've had players that were absolute pains in the butt when they played a monk/drow/katana-wielder that were totally cool when they played something else. I've had the same experience with ninjas and samurai, too.

Eerie conicidence Rodrigo. I also have had nothing but grief from players with Monks/Nijas/Katanas/Samurai!

One guy actually managed to get that type of character "named" in our gaming circle.

Anyone who shows up with a Ninja/Samurai/Katana/Trenchcoat themed hero is labelled a "Katana Dan"

 

[RangerWickett]

Well, I ask because I have a story with a group of adventurers delving into the deep, located here. I'm hoping a few people will read it and see if they think I've managed to buck the cliches.

 

[Gothmog]

Overexposure is what had turned a lot of people off to them, plain and simple.

Personally, and I know fewer people share my feelings on this, I also find the concept of an "Underdark" leaves a bad taste in my mouth. Journey to the Center of the Earth is one thing. Lost civilizations, degenerate races and forgotten elder things are all one thing. But the concept of a vast interconnected network of (relatevly) large tunnels and caves that spans the entire globe, has ready access to the surface in most places, and houses dozens of thriving intelligent civilizations (each with hundreds of thousands of members) which regularly come into contact with each other and the surface world (often manipulating events on the surface) just strains my brain a bit too much. It seems, to me at least, to be a major part of the "toss in everything but the kitchen sink and then toss in that too" mentality of FR that I dislike. And the Drow are typically the linchpin of almost all Underdark activity.

Bingo! I think you're got it right- the Underdark is pretty lame IMO too. Its just TOO unbelievable that there are that many thriving civilizations underground, which is for all intents and purposes, pretty desolate.