fanboy2000
Adventurer
Cut Psionics. Elves are tasty.
Which element could D&D stand to lose more?
- Thread starter Desdichado
- Start date
fanboy2000
Adventurer
I'm with you on the excessive use of non-humans. I say this in the sense that in my current game, humans are far more common NPCs than any other race. (Except for that one time when Blackmoor was overran by evil Eladrin and Pixies, then the non-human to human ratio shot up. But that was a an anomaly.) I don't expect the party to reflect the game world's demographics.
Theo R Cwithin
I cast "Baconstorm!"
Nix psionics.
Replace with coleslaw.
Replace with coleslaw.
My inclination wouldn't be to cut either of 'em. Instead I'd just shuffle them off into optional sourcebooks. In fact, elves (and all nonhuman races) would probably go in an optional section in the back of the Player's Handbook. I have nothing against demihumans and psionics per se; I know a lot of folks like them, and they're both fine in settings designed to incorporate them... I just don't like having them included by default.
However, I'm certainly not about to quit a job at WotC to save elves and psionics, so if I've got to pick, psi gets the axe.
...And now that I've read the rest of the thread, this statement is enough to make me change my mind and pick elves. Elves are NOT "vanilla fantasy," they are a very specific subgenre of epic fantasy in direct descent from Tolkien. Most original fantasy settings are devoid of elves. Conan didn't have elves. Elric didn't have elves (unless you count Melniboneans, and I wouldn't). The Wheel of Time, and the Song of Ice and Fire, and Earthsea, and Gormenghast, and the Dark Tower, and the Belgariad, and the Chronicles of Amber*, and Thomas Covenant... not one of them had elves.
Even when a work has faeries in some form, they're usually quite different from elves as we know them. Harry Dresden deals with faeries, but I wouldn't call them elves. Harry Potter's got house-elves, but they're not exactly prancing around with bows and ancient civilizations and tragic mortal-immortal romances**.
But because Tolkien had elves, and D&D imitated Tolkien, and computer games imitated D&D, now people regard them as some kind of standard and think every fantasy game world's gotta have freaking elves. And dwarves. And orcs. And all the rest of the Middle-Earth menagerie. They're a blight on the genre.
</rant>
[size=-2]*Technically, the Chronicles of Amber have everything and anything that a Prince or Princess of Amber can imagine. But to the best of my recollection, none of them took it into their heads to imagine elves over the course of the series.
**If there's house-elf slash fic out there, I really don't want to know about it.[/size]
However, I'm certainly not about to quit a job at WotC to save elves and psionics, so if I've got to pick, psi gets the axe.
...And now that I've read the rest of the thread, this statement is enough to make me change my mind and pick elves. Elves are NOT "vanilla fantasy," they are a very specific subgenre of epic fantasy in direct descent from Tolkien. Most original fantasy settings are devoid of elves. Conan didn't have elves. Elric didn't have elves (unless you count Melniboneans, and I wouldn't). The Wheel of Time, and the Song of Ice and Fire, and Earthsea, and Gormenghast, and the Dark Tower, and the Belgariad, and the Chronicles of Amber*, and Thomas Covenant... not one of them had elves.
Even when a work has faeries in some form, they're usually quite different from elves as we know them. Harry Dresden deals with faeries, but I wouldn't call them elves. Harry Potter's got house-elves, but they're not exactly prancing around with bows and ancient civilizations and tragic mortal-immortal romances**.
But because Tolkien had elves, and D&D imitated Tolkien, and computer games imitated D&D, now people regard them as some kind of standard and think every fantasy game world's gotta have freaking elves. And dwarves. And orcs. And all the rest of the Middle-Earth menagerie. They're a blight on the genre.
</rant>
[size=-2]*Technically, the Chronicles of Amber have everything and anything that a Prince or Princess of Amber can imagine. But to the best of my recollection, none of them took it into their heads to imagine elves over the course of the series.
**If there's house-elf slash fic out there, I really don't want to know about it.[/size]
Last edited:
Saeviomagy
Adventurer
Psionics. After all, it just takes a sidebar labeled "different schools of arcane magic" to reintroduce them.
Desdichado
Hero
What exactly about D&D is vanilla? I propose that "vanilla" is only true in the paradigms of those who grew up reading D&D fiction and heavily D&D influenced computer games, like Warcraft or whatever.
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