"You're a half elf? Really?" From the P.A. Podcasts

[Storminator]

But what do I know? I'm just a grumpy drunk.

Dwarf...

 

[Umbran]

Aww, sure it was.

So...

You realize that you're now admitting to being willfully insulting. You don't leave us a whole lot of wiggle room here, dude.

Respect. If you can't show it, please don't post. Grumpy and drunk is a crappy excuse for treating fellow gamers poorly.

 

[Wik]

Hunh. I call them Attacks of Opportunity still.

Guess I don't know the rules. News to me.

Onto the subject at hand... it happens, for some reason. I think because there's very little that says "half-elf" that makes them different from humans, either mechanically or characteristically, unless the player makes a special effort.

 

[Hussar]

If you are a half-elf, should you be all that different from full human, especially if you grew up around humans?

Absolutely yes.


This goes beyond simply a racial difference. You are actually a different species than your parents. Assimilation is one thing, but, if you're a half-elf, or whatever, you actually don't think the same way as your adoptive culture. You can't. You are physiologically different.

So, play it up. For example, in 3e, a half-elf ages at about 1/2 the rate of a human. That's huge! The half-elf's adoptive parents will likely die of old age long before the half elf is even all that old. That, right there, should set you pretty far apart from being human.

In the States we call it nit-picking and I completely agree.

He's only half an elf, and he quite easily could have been raised by humans. Omin probably doesn't look like an elf in the comics, because the guy drawing it did not know he was a half-elf.

And you have no problem with the fact that one of the other players, into the third adventure, doesn't actually know that the other player's character isn't human? That's a pretty big character element, I would think, to be completely hidden.

More importantly D&D is about having fun. Mike, Jerry, Scott, and Will are obviously doing that. They're not going to come into your house and tell you how to play your half-elf, let Jerry play the way he wants.

Sigh. So, we should never comment on play because it can only be a badwrongfun post? Come on.

Sure, you are absolutely right. He can play it however he wants. But, you know what? In all the time I've played D&D, I've seen this happen time and time again. Almost always elves. And, yes, it drives me up the wall.

If you're going to play a non-human, it should come up EVERY SINGLE CHANCE you get. This should be important. Look at pretty much every TV show or novel you read where there are non-humans. How many have you read or watched where the fact that Character X is different from everyone else is not brought up at least a little bit? Whether it's Worf or the half-klingon woman in Star Trek and Voyager, or G'kar in B5, or Romy in Andromeda, or the former demon girl (Xander's girlfriend whose name I forget) in Buffy - pretty much every single story where you have a half whatever or a non-whatever, it's a big deal.

 

[Rechan]

Is there even a stereotype for half-elves?

 

[RefinedBean]

Is there even a stereotype for half-elves?

A human that doesn't do things as well as other humans, but talks about them way more than an elf would.

 

[Hussar]

Rechan - I suppose that's an issue too. No stereotype does mean that it's difficult to start with. With a dwarf, you have an instant character hook. And, even if you don't want drunk shortarse, you can at least play against type and that still brings a certain amount of recognition.

What would a half elf be like that would make the character stand out from just being a slightly better kind of human?

 

[Jack99]

What would a half elf be like that would make the character stand out from just being a slightly better kind of human?

How about the inner conflict of where he belongs or something. Fairly classic for an half-elf, and not something the other players would pick up upon during the first few sessions.

 

[RefinedBean]

How about the inner conflict of where he belongs or something. Fairly classic for an half-elf, and not something the other players would pick up upon during the first few sessions.

See, that's really setting dependent. Half the time relations between elves and humans seems to be cordial enough, to a point where it shouldn't be THAT hard for a half-elf to come to some kind of understanding. "I'll celebrate human holidays, but still take the elven ones off from work."

Half-orcs, on the other hand, not only look hideous, but their parents probably didn't, ah, get along. Lots of conflict there.

 

[Rechan]

How about the inner conflict of where he belongs or something. Fairly classic for an half-elf, and not something the other players would pick up upon during the first few sessions.

As RefinedBean said, depends on setting. For instance, in Eberron, Half-Elves and Half-Orcs breed true. I think in the 4e core, Half-Orcs also breed true.

So if your parents are half-elves and your grandparents are half-elves, then you may not feel like you're "Between worlds".

Also, the "between worlds" is rather hard as a character type. I mean, unless you want to break into monolog, or there are a lot of racist humans giving you gruff about being pointy ears (or elves giving you gruff about being a dirty human), then it's just Not Going to Come Up.