Why do elves suck?

[HeavenShallBurn]

I don't mean to be a old stick in the mud, but if your talking about Tolkien and the word elf, he didn't exactly invent it, but he did make it widely popular. I saw a book that had the world elven or elves and its publish date was 1910'sh. I too thought elves was a word made by Tolkien, but it would seem he did not, or at least this book was published first, before the hobbit.

It was about a guy who finds a elven babe in his fathers desk she takes him to underhill/fairy or something of that nature. I forget the name of it. I have it laying around here but I cant find it and I cant remember the name. The elves were tall and fare, so i don't think Tolkien has a monopoly in that department. He did do alot to popularize them and he did give them warrior features.

I don't and didn't think he invented the term but when he reinterpreted elves they became something very different. In their place Tolkien elves are actually interesting but as they seeped into pop-culture and were twisted and copied hundreds of times they became something I just can't like. I prefer the more traditional Sidhe interpretation.

anyway, um sorry for all the posts. i will shut up now and let everyone pretend to commit genocide and hate speech rhetoric. I will be someplace else pretending something else entirely.

I do tend to agree with the get rid of them theory but mostly because they've become sitflingly boring to me. Mostly I just post that guy because he's so over the top with his hatred of elves it's funny. And hey better a fictional genocidal hatred of a fictional species than real hatred or real genocide it probably helps the guy who originally posted it on the WoTC boards blow off steam.

 

[MoogleEmpMog]

Have you seen 'em in game? They are fancy, prancy ladyboys.

Maybe in WoW, but in the Frozen Throne, blood elves were wicked awesome.

Anyway, elves suck because they have -2 Con and a favored class that doesn't play to their racial strengths.

Other than that, I like elves - though I've always been partial to the more unpredictable, violently isolationist, untamed fey-style elves on the one hand and the well-meaning yet toweringly arrogant Spelljammer elven imperialists on the other.

 

[frankthedm]

Have you seen 'em in game? They are fancy, prancy ladyboys.

Sadly yes.

http://www.worldofwarcraft.com/burningcrusade/images/screenshots/ss13.jpg

 

[blargney the second]

It's the plethora++ of subraces that gets my goat.
-blarg

 

[jdrakeh]

Elves suck because they were overpowered in 1e/2e, they're irritatingly perfect in Tolkien and they're a bunch of effeminate, arrogant hippies.

Agreed on all counts. Except they aren't hippies (if any D&D race is representative of hippie culture, it has to be the Hobbits Halflings with their communal living arrangements, fondness for pipes, and unfettered appetite). Elves are more like Green Peace (some of whom are hippies, but many of whom are merely radical causites).

 

[Moon-Lancer]

in case anyone cares, i remember the name of the book. It was called Phantastes: a faerie romance by George Macdonald 1905. George Macdonald died in 1905, so I have no idea when he actually wrote the book.

HeavenShallBurn, i know that you really didn't mean all of what you quoted, but gods, that guy was a tad unstable sounding.

 

[Gerion of Mercadia]

Slipping into an old character of Mine... Arvenkiir of Celadonis...

****
It's Not elves that "suck" - it's the humans.

Humans have this uncouth unwarranted arrogance. They think they know everything. They say "Never in a thousand years", when they can't even BEGIN to comprehend how long a thousand years really is. They think themselves "better" - more highly evolved than others - and they aren't even close. They are incapable of appreciating the finer things in life... no sense of taste or refined things whatsoever. Heck, the only thing the typical male human wants to do when they see an elf is try and "make love" to you, even if you aren't a female. Probably why they can breed with orcs so well; despite their towns and cities they are just as barbaric and uncouth. The human women... if you wanted to - ha, just walk into one of their taverns one evening. The womenfolk will swoon over you if you treat em with any kind of dignity at all. They are utterly incapable of percieving another's perspective.

You see, orcs - at least they have an art. Their canvas is flesh, the paint is blood, and their art is war. Humans, they are too busy "adapting" to master ONE thing. In every regard - they are SO third rate at best. Most of the time - they aren't even on the scale.

When it comes to magic, they view spellcasting as little more than a set of tools to do certain things... they have no sense of the Art of Magic. Trying to teach them? Pointless, they lack the patience and discipline to take a little at a time, and appreciate the whole. They want what they want, when they want, how they want it, all the time. Greedy, avaricious, self serving fools. They bicker, whine and moan amongst themselves readily for no purpose whatsoever, unlike the other more civilized races who at least don't deplete their resources with infighting so the orcs and goblinkind don't overrun them.

At least they make for a good source of ready slave labor... they can be reasonably organized once made to appreciate their superiors. All you have to do is divide them. Keep them divided - and you will conquer them one by one.

***

 

[Kobold Avenger]

I don't hate elves, and do have some things about them that I like, but there still are many things out there included in the list that I hate them for.

One of them being that too many people just copy from Tolkien's elves and the other being certain fanboy elements.

I think they should honestly stop this whole race in decline thing, because they obviously aren't. I wouldn't mind if they were closer to the Sidhe archetype, and were simply feytouched humans sort of divided between the seelie and unseelie courts (morally ambiguous version). It makes them more interesting to me, because then you can play with a lot of other faerie politics and fey creatures.

Secondly I don't mind this "elves are gay" thing, in any campaign I run, well all elves will indeed be gay (or at least bi) and it will be something mandated on all elf PCs. Somehow I think that'll cut down on some of the bad fanboy elements (or maybe not).

 

[Someone]

In my experience, no angsty drama queen, stupidly incompetent characters when it comes to do things related with the actual module the group is supposed to be playing, haunted with a dark past that spends hours at a time dissapearing without pevious notice and doing things totally not related with the current adventure's players are also attracted to elves like moths to the flame. Because the character described above isn't enough, and they also must be insufferably arrogant (when they are not tortured by angst)

 

[StreamOfTheSky]

Elves suck because they rule flavor-wise. It's a sad paradox. Many people want to play an elf, but dwarves, not so much. So, WotC puts an LA +1 or 2 package onto the dwarf and makes the elf mechanically inferior to a kobold as well as inferior to nearly every other race in the game at their favored class.

Also, many of your reasons for why elves suck are highly debateable. Elves are elitist? And the dwarves who think, "Aye, ye' weak-boweled humans can't hold yer liquor like a dwarf! And ye' alcohol tastes like me' piss!" are not elitist, how?

What elves were like in previous editions shouldn't matter for a discussion of them in 3rd edition. If you'd care to hold a discussion on why you hate them in a previous edition, feel free to start a thread about that, while I and and all others who never play in an earlier edition anymore can look at the thread and think, "Oh, that carries absolutely no relevance to me. Moving on..."

Your entire opening post seemed to be an attempt at being inflamatory to me, but since a mod already posted in the thread without saying so, I guess I'm just interpretting your meaning wrong.