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Message: <blockquote data-quote="Ruin Explorer" data-source="post: 4376916" data-attributes="member: 18">It is all Tolkien's fault, really, because as others in this thread have mentioned, he effectively made elves more "god-like" than humans, and thus better at pretty much everything on a micro scale (i.e. maybe their civilization is failing and their birth-rate is near zero, but they're smarter than you, better looking, quicker, longer-lived, etc.).Then of course Gary has to give in to demands that people be allowed to play elves in D&D, and it's all downhill from there, because elves retain their key trait:They're better than humans, in pretty much every way that counts in a game, and they're generally portrayed as both smug and serious.This problem is self-compounding, in that the sort of people who constantly play elves and think about them a lot also tend, strongly, to be smug, humourless and self-regarding types who think they're better than everyone else, especially if we're talking teenage players. Either that or they're just helpless elf-worshipper, who totally buy into the "better than humans" deal and are keen to go on about it.Then this whole "they're better than humans" angle often expands into a kind of sub-nazi racial supremacist deal (to the point where "elf nazis" is a not uncommon trope, I'd suggest), which just adds fuel to the fire, because I think to the modern mind, a race which is inherently superior to others in all ways, is somewhat offensive.Recently, trends have been away from this, I note. 4E's Elves are no longer clearly "better" than humans, indeed they're kind of arsebastards, which is nice, and back to the Hobbit in a lot of ways (as opposed to LotR), and we've seen enough "Creepy bad fae" portrayals to last a lifetime. If only Drow could somehow be made interesting. Perhaps by de-evil-ing them, heresy though that might be (and "up-evil-ing" the other Elf-types).Oh well. I'm probably baised. Every time someone says "Eladrin" in my group someone sings "Dance the magic dance!" or the like, and I think they're the new focus for annoyance. Not many people really hated Wood Elves that much, it was the bloody smug High Elves they despised.As for Dwarves, they're typically less annoying because they're never portrayed as clearly "better than humans" and rarely have the same psycho fans. However, the dangerously high leves of cliche than are increasingly associated with Dwarves and the fact that we've not seen an interesting or different mainstream RPG portrayal of them since, like, the early '90s worries me. I think if I see one more dwarven smith or dwarf who loves ale I may throw something. Even bloody elves aren't so consistently written and/or roleplayed so purely in terms of cliches.</blockquote>

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