Elves are not winners, not successful, not able to adjust or cope, not able to survive. These realities are built into the race in 3rd edition (as it was in 2nd and 1st edition and OD&D)
We as players ignore this reality, even as we ignore the problems of kender when we play them. Nevertheless, the underlying reality remains, and nobody has an answer that negates it.
Or do they have an answer?
First, let's look at the problem.
In the real world, back in medieval Europe, life was - to use a clique - hard and short. The people faced trouble from both the natural world and the manmade world, and from their own needs.
Their own needs meant 90% of the population had to engage in farming, from sunup to sundown, their whole lives, if society was to exist. The remaining 10% of the population could do something else. This assumed good weather, good crop yields, and peacetime.
The natural world was not very nice to these people. Bad weather ruined crops and brought famine. Plagues swept through cities, towns, and fiefdoms alike. A host of personal illnesses saw sky-high birth mortality for women, sky-high mortality among children under 5, and an unpleasant life for the survivors (if you count having all your teeth decay and fall out as unpleasant ... or convulsing in tetanus because you suffered a minor, dirty injury ... or repeatedly ravaged by influenza ... or working until you drop dead from it.)
Manmade troubles included wars (nothing like the Hundred Years War to engender merriment), taxes (medieval taxes ...), conscription, forced labor, and a social feudal system from deepest nightmare.
Let's take this reality, and assume for a moment that the Fantasy World reflects it. In the Fantasy World, reality for the human race is this bad. Humanity must endure medieval conditions as we think of them in our own history.
This is a reasonable assumption to make. The Greyhawk Wars exemplify the suffering of the human race in the Flanaess. The War of the Lance, Test of the Twins, Rise of the Knights of Takhisis, and War of Souls exemplify the suffering of mankind on Krynn. On Toril, this suffering is shown in the detailed history of that world, with it's countless wars, humanoid invasions, beholder and djinn empires, drow assaults, illithid deprivations, collapse of one civilization after another, and as usual the uproar produced by the elves, phaerimm, Shade, Thayvians, Zhentarim, and other groups like that. On Athas, harsh takes on a whole new meaning as all life there is caught up in a final, twilight effort at survival. (Of course, in Hyboria it wouldn't be Hyboria if it wasn't a harsh place for harsh endeavors. In Nehwon, the Gray Mouser strides through a harsh world and thrives therein.)
In other worlds, life stinks, it is short and grim, and it's joys fleeting and to be grasped at while one has hands to use (or, as the Norse thought, make a big splash in your world. And hope Wotan approves of it.)
Now we understand the predicament of humans. So what of elves? Well ... in the Rules as Written ...
Elves have all the problems of humans.
They have all the problems of humans because they 1: have no special immunities to the horrors of nature, and 2: have no special immunities to manmade (and other races and monster) horrors, and 3: have to eat like anyone else.
But elves have handicaps that humans do not have, in their endeavor to compete and survive.
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Humans in the medieval world had eight children. In good times, they could expect four to survive to adulthood. This occurred over a thirty year period. Thus, in a thousand year period, assuming good times (but if it is bad times, remember the bad times affect the elves also) you have around 8,589,934,592 descendants (2 x 2 for every 30 years.)
In that same time, a typical elven couple will have had 2 children, and their 2 children may or may not have had their first children yet. Total cumulative elven population? 5. Two older adults, two younger adults, and one child.
And again, remember that if bad times stop those two humans from producing eight billion descendants in a thousand years, bad times affect elves too!
8,589,934,592 versus 5 are large odds. And the humans will gladly accept resurrection. Elves never do. Or so I've been told. That stacks the odds more. And now it is said that elves believe those who chose baelnornhood and nymphdom and the like were insane (FOR5 Elves of Evermeet) which stacks the odds further: plenty of humans are glad to choose lichdom.
Furthermore, humans have this bad tendency to find longevity magic (you know exactly what I'm talking about ...) And in some settings, longevity is easy to obtain, or perhaps even semi-immortality as well.
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Elves, for some reason, like forests. They do not clear these forests. Witness Qualinesti and Silvanesti Forest, or the elves skulking around in assorted Flannae forests, or the great Forest Nations of the elves of Toril (such as Cormanthor.)
That is all fine and well. But you cannot grow crops in forests. Wheat, corn, barley, oats, rye, will not grow under the trees. Grass for grazing, will not grow under a canopy of branches.
You cannot build houses in forests, unless of course you clear away the trees necessary to make room for a house. If there are thousands of elves wanting thousands of houses, this would require considerable clearing.
You *cannot* set up forges in a forest, unless you use wood (a great deal of wood) to fire them. If you try to use coal instead, say hello to some serious air pollution (and exactly where is this coal being mined? Not under the forest in question, I hope ...) But without forges you cannot produce anything made of bronze, iron, or steel, which means no elven armor or weapons.
Forests are not exactly comfortable places even in real life. Poison ivy and oak proliferate. Brambles trail away from thickets of thorns. Branches slap at the face and body. Footing is difficult, and falls and injuries easily obtained. Stagnant water is undrinkable, and what little food there is comes only in Season (witness Mirkwood, from The Hobbit, in which Thorin and Company almost met their demise.)
Of course every form of disease imaginable occurs in forest settings, and critters make things worse (that's right, there is no anti-venin for that rattlesnake bite, and yes there *are* black widows living in that tree and countless others, and yes the ticks, fleas, mosquitoes, and others bite, annoy, and carry horrible ailments for the victim's pleasure.)
In short, you can't build a civilization - even a civilization in the medieval sense of the word - in a forest.
Yet for some reason, elves insist on living in forests. Which means that, realistically, they never progress past the Stone Age (and the famous Elfquest strips and novels bear that out.)
For some reason, elves like to dance and sing, frolic and be merry. They apparently like to waste their time (purportedly because they have so much time to waste.)
But frolicking does not put supper on the table. It does not purify polluted water. It does not create weapons or armor. It does not cure illnesses or wounds. It does not even protect from the occasional rainstorm and the pneumonia that can cause (didn't someone mention that -2 penalty to Constitution for elves? LOL ...)
Now, the OTHER races do *not* waste time. Orcs procreate like bunnies and make war. Humans build vast empires (clearing forests along the way.) Illithid plot and scheme to dominate utterly the snackthings. Phaerimm plan world destruction. Manshoon (all 50 of him) creates anarchy. Aerdi destroys Almor, and the Adri will probably be next (after they wipe the floor with Drax.) Qualinesti Forest is burned, because the Knights of Takhisis got themselves a world class champion. The Dragon rose in a certain Athan city, destroying plants, animals, and humans to achieve ultimate supremacy.
But elves waste their time. It says so in the book.
Nothing like playing a game of RISK, and the Elven Player decides to take Australia and sit there. He does not take his 3 Armies per turn, he does not pick up cards, and he does not make attacks ... although he does defend and holds Australia. Until, of course, someone gets 50 Armies from a card and obliterates him along with all the other players.
But that is how elves supposedly work. Or, in this case, *not* work, but dance, sing, frolick, and make merry. *Humans* must slave away from sunrise to sundown just to survive, but elves need not do so. Or so it says.
So elves:
1: Do not procreate.
2: Live in forests under conditions that make any civilization beyond the Stone Age impossible.
3: Waste time in singing, dancing, and making merry.
And:
4: Humans and other races are on the aggressive against elves
5: Monsters infest the lands and forests, making survival even more difficult
6: Many of the other races are supercompetitive, superpowerful, and hate the elves like bad spinnach
Result: extinction. (Or, as the Daleks would say: Exterminate!)
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The upshot of the above is that players invariably play elves as humans. And elven civilization is depicted as being humanlike (sometimes, it is more humanish than the humans make things, which is nasty ... witness the drow. Witness Melnibone, if you call those people elves.)
But what if some of us don't like elves as humans? What if we don't want that?
What if we want elves as ELVES? As a people who actually *do* procreate slowly, *do* live in forests, and *do* spend a lot of time in merriment?
The question is, how to approach that - in D&D terms, and these terms and rules make it possible and even easily done - and make it work. How to have your elves as elves, in spite of all of the above, and still have them as winners.
In fact, it is my opinion that, only through being Elven elves, do the elves have *any* chance at survival. Playing human inevitably destroys them. So it's either be true to themselves, or face obliteration.
The simple question is how to do that, within the game mechanics.
The answer starts with spells like Lifeproof (see the AL-QADIM Setting Boxed Set) Because that spell alters the fundamental realities I have discussed above.
And aren't elves supposed to be strong in magic?
