Why do elves suck?

[Dark Jezter]

And apparently, he never read The Hobbit, where a bunch of elves (of the exact same ethnie as Legolas, they're his kins) get completely drunk on HUMAN wine (no silliness about "feywine" or whatever that's more potent than what mere mortals can stand), so drunk that Bilbo manages to free the dwarves from their prison cells.

It's interesting, really: In The Hobbit the elves were thoroughly silly; they'd sing bad poetry and get drunk on wine. But when Tolkien wrote The Lord of the Rings, elves suddenly became too dignified and pious for such nonsense.

 

[Nyeshet]

I find it interesting that the only real reason listed for elves being subpar (having Wizard as a favored class) is second lowest on the pole - lowest, actually, if you exclude the "other" category.

 

[Kae'Yoss]

!!!

I can't believe you said that, Kae'Yoss!

Had to be said. And you know what? They all saw Snow White 1000 times and still cry when she eats that apple !

 

[Desdichado]

I find it interesting that the only real reason listed for elves being subpar (having Wizard as a favored class) is second lowest on the pole - lowest, actually, if you exclude the "other" category.

I'm not sure what you mean or why that's interesting. The text answers are presumably for "other" responses and/or other discussion, so why would there need to be a lot of discussion around items that score higher on the poll?

For that matter, favored class is also the easiest thing to fix. I think it's been 5-6 years now since I decided that I was going to completely ignore the favored class rules and allow players to take levels in whatever classes they wanted to.

 

[Doug McCrae]

Gary Freaking Gygax didn't take his inspirations from Tolkien

Halflings (actually called hobbits in the original game until the Tolkien estate got wind of it)
Orcs
Half-orcs
Long-lived elves that use bows, live in the woods in harmony with nature and have pointy ears
Dour, avaricious dwarves
Half-elves
Rangers
Balor = Balrog
Wights
Iuz = Sauron
Iuz (the country) = Mordor
Adventuring party = Fellowship of the Ring
Dungeon crawl = Mines of Moria sequence in LotR

 

[Dark Jezter]

Adventuring party = Fellowship of the Ring
Dungeon crawl = Mines of Moria sequence in LotR

Read some Howard, Vance, or Lieber. The concepts of adventuring parties and dungeon crawls existed long before LotR was ever published.

 

[Doug McCrae]

Read some Howard, Vance, or Lieber. The concepts of adventuring parties and dungeon crawls existed long before LotR was ever published.

Give examples from the authors you mentioned.

 

[Gez]

Long-lived elves that use bows, live in the woods in harmony with nature and have pointy ears

Where did Tolkien say elves had pointy ears, again? (Related question, where did Tolkien say orcs were green? But there's fewer people thinking green orcs originated from LotR.)

 

[Desdichado]

Where did Tolkien say elves had pointy ears, again? (Related question, where did Tolkien say orcs were green? But there's fewer people thinking green orcs originated from LotR.)

Ironically, the orcs being green has more basis in Tolkien than pointy eared elves. He did describe at least some them more than once as "sallow" skinned.

Which I don't think should be taken to mean that they're literally green, but at least it's not too far a stretch.

 

[Dark Jezter]

Give examples from the authors you mentioned.

You're joking, right?

Fritz Leiber created the original adventuring team, Fafhrd and Grey Mouser. And Conan was going through dungeons containing monsters and traps 20 years before LotR was written. The Conan story Red Nails is pretty much one great big dungeon crawl.