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<blockquote data-quote="Yaarel" data-source="post: 8862328" data-attributes="member: 58172">Regardless of the cosmology of a particular D&amp;D setting, for the gaming mechanics to separate the inborn species Traits from learned cultural Background helps avoid problems. The setting creators still need to be charitable when describing an in-setting culture. But at least the existences of several cultures that any species can choose from helps relativize any particular unfortunate reallife stereotype.Heh, not really seeing how it is even possible for the Elf to be anything other than: what if a human was in such-and-such a situation. As you say, &quot;we&quot; humans &quot;have to use our own experience as a baseline&quot;.For example, here in the ENWorld threads there was an interesting discussion about Elf cultures. To what degree did their lifespans impact their culture? I found intriguing the suggestion, that with eternity ahead of them, it makes sense to require a century of self-exploration to discover who oneself is, before &quot;growing up&quot;. It is sorta like spending some years in college for self-exploration to decide what one wants to do with ones life. But it isnt just what to do for the next few decades, one has to decide moreorless for eternity to come. (Meanwhile, there is probably a kind of going back to school later on in life, to choose a different course.)Obviously, all of this is human psychology that we project (consciously or unconsciously) onto the concept of an Elf.</blockquote>

[QUOTE="Yaarel, post: 8862328, member: 58172"] Regardless of the cosmology of a particular D&D setting, for the gaming mechanics to separate the inborn species Traits from learned cultural Background helps avoid problems. The setting creators still need to be charitable when describing an in-setting culture. But at least the existences of several cultures that any species can choose from helps relativize any particular unfortunate reallife stereotype. Heh, not really seeing how it is even possible for the Elf to be anything other than: what if a human was in such-and-such a situation. As you say, "we" humans "have to use our own experience as a baseline". For example, here in the ENWorld threads there was an interesting discussion about Elf cultures. To what degree did their lifespans impact their culture? I found intriguing the suggestion, that with eternity ahead of them, it makes sense to require a century of self-exploration to discover who oneself is, before "growing up". It is sorta like spending some years in college for self-exploration to decide what one wants to do with ones life. But it isnt just what to do for the next few decades, one has to decide moreorless for eternity to come. (Meanwhile, there is probably a kind of going back to school later on in life, to choose a different course.) Obviously, all of this is human psychology that we project (consciously or unconsciously) onto the concept of an Elf. [/QUOTE]

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