I've made the slog through the Silmarillion. I'm just ignoring it because it clearly wasn't meant to be read by anyone the casual fantasy reader. I'm basing my opinion on the Hobbit and LotR alone because those are what shaped the rest of modern elf fantasy.
Pardon, but that is like saying the rules in the DMG don't count since, as a player, you are not meant to read them.
Not at all. The readership of the Hobbit and LotR series is much much larger than that of the Silmarillion. I'm ignoring the Silmarillion because it isn't nearly as influential in shaping our collective fiction about elves. When you ask a casual fantasy player to describe their platonic ideal of an elf, they're going to think of LotR Legolas, not Feanor and his sons circa the Doom of Mandos.
Yeah Tolkien ruined elves. They're just not interesting. They excel at everything and have no flaws except for being too forward looking *cough humblebrag cough*. In my preferred style, the elves in the Shadow of the Demon Lord rpg are actually interesting. They are immortal, but their immortality has made them bored and decadent. They see other races as playthings to entertain them and to be experimented on.
Tolkien just returned elves to their folklore origins as the Fair Folk who were stronger, smarter, and gifted in magic. If it weren't for that, the only elves we'd have today would be making toys for Santa and baking cookies for Keebler.
There's a third route: make them actually interesting. Legolas is the least interesting member of the Fellowship because he has no weaknesses. Nobody is ever concerned that he's going to make a mistake, be corrupted, show any real emotional development. He's just a super soldier that can run fast, fight with anything, see a mile away, etc... and he's not even that old for an elf.
As I've said, elves can be interesting if you really consider what immortality can do to a person beyond making them all perfect.
I'd just like to point out, in one of Tolkien's books, Legolas is in the Fall of Gondolin. And he's already fairly old in it. That means, with the exception of Galadriel and his dad, he is the oldest thing in Middle Earth. In the fall of Gondolin, Elrond's dad is only a toddler. As NaivaraArnuanna said, you should read more of Tolkien's books. The elves are more interesting then any other race. They just didn't have the time to portray it in the movie.
I've made the slog through the Silmarillion. I'm just ignoring it because it clearly wasn't meant to be read by anyone the casual fantasy reader. I'm basing my opinion on the Hobbit and LotR alone because those are what shaped the rest of modern elf fantasy.
Are you insulting a Tolkien book while quoting the leader of the Tolkien Cult? If so, it isn't very wise. I've got a whole cult to back me up. Also, so LotR and the Hobbit shaped modern elf fantasy. What shaped them? The Silmarillion. Everything to do with Tolkien's elves was shaped from the Silmarillion, and so modern fantasy elves were shaped by the Silmarillion. You can't ignore it.
I'm not ignoring that at all. The "fading" made the elves even more boring. They were torn between doing something to help save middle earth, but instead spent all their time defending their own homes until their folks had all moved west. In the books, Legolas was the only elf at Helm's Deep, which makes this point more stark.
I've made the slog through the Silmarillion. I'm just ignoring it because it clearly wasn't meant to be read by anyone the casual fantasy reader. I'm basing my opinion on the Hobbit and LotR alone because those are what shaped the rest of modern elf fantasy.
Correct. In econo-speak, magic would only increase the marginal productivity of technology. Imagine how much more powerful steam engines would have been if we had an infinite source of dense energy more easily collected than coal?
'Econo-speak' while ignoring they do not have human birth rates. Or even Dwarven birth rates. They cannot easily replace losses so they have to be very careful how and where they deploy.
If you weren't ignoring the Silmarillion, you would realize that they were betrayed when they lived more openly and it cost them heavily.
I've made the slog through the Silmarillion. I'm just ignoring it because it clearly wasn't meant to be read by anyone the casual fantasy reader. I'm basing my opinion on the Hobbit and LotR alone because those are what shaped the rest of modern elf fantasy.
Pardon, but that is like saying the rules in the DMG don't count since, as a player, you are not meant to read them.
Not at all. The readership of the Hobbit and LotR series is much much larger than that of the Silmarillion. I'm ignoring the Silmarillion because it isn't nearly as influential in shaping our collective fiction about elves. When you ask a casual fantasy player to describe their platonic ideal of an elf, they're going to think of LotR Legolas, not Feanor and his sons circa the Doom of Mandos.
As has been pointed out, Legolas is not a typical elf. NO fellowship member was typical of their races. They were all exceptional, of high bloodlines. Every one of them was a Gary Stu. Even the Hobbits. Frodo and Sam marched all the way through enemy territory surviving being captured twice. Made two successful deception checks on their second capture (to pretend to be Goblins and later to convince their unit leader into fighting the other unit, giving them the chance to escape). They killed Shelob, the greatest child of Ungolant, the first spider.
And you are complaining about Legolas being over the top? He at least had a history and a pedigree to back his skills.
Hot take: I don't give a damn about Tolkien's elves, or how interesting they may or may not have been. Whatever the Silmarillion is can sod itself in a corner.
Keyword: been. Because the entire fantasy fiction world has been force-feeding the archetypical Tolkienite Elf to everyone on the planet for the last billion years, and we're all sick of hearing about how pretty and graceful and ethereal and perfect and better than you Proper Elves are. Elves may have been literal demigods in Middle Earth, and had a whole huge deep rich story behind why they were so much more awesome and perfect and just super cooler than everything else.
This is D&D. This is Faerun, or Exandria, or Eberron, or Etharis, or my homebrew world, or your homebrew world. Yes, Lord of the Rings is why we have these games and these genres in the first place. Lord of the Rings is also seventy years old. It's had its time. It does not need to be the only thing anyone does anymore, and at some point elves can stop being "humanity, but better in every conceivable way" whilst dominating every facet of the fantasy where they show up.
I'm more interested in worlds where species are in contention and have reasons to either hate and fear each other or stand in solidarity with each other. Worlds where elves are the BBEGs, because their absurdly long lifespans, surreal natural aptitude for magic, and easy mastery of any skill they decide they want causes them to become decadent and cruel, enslaving and abusing the shorter-lived lesser species they see as little more than amusing monkeys. Worlds where humanity's explosive breeding and insatiable drive for growth, expansion, and conquest causes the other sapient species of the world to see them as a pestilence and constantly fight to stave off constant invasions from aggressive, hyper-imperialistic war freaks. Worlds where the old gods have been overturned and the new pantheon smote the species those old gods created - the societies of the world are made up of goblins, kobolds, lizardfolk, and other 'monstrous' species, with the ragged remnants of the PHB species have been driven into bitter seclusion within their isolated fortress cities and the sight of a human, elf, or dwarf is as unexpected and alarming as stumbling across a dragon.
I don't want more games where everybody's fighting over being the Elf so they can be the one in the party who's better than everybody else. I want games where people get inventive with this shit, where nobody is quite sure what happens next because we haven't read this book a thousand times. And that means elves get to stop being the Better'n'Yew Sues of the RPG world.
You seem to be ignoring the part about the Elves diminishing 'fading' and leaving the world. Or about Legolas being a supporting character who is barely developed or focused upon. Most of the fellowship were just NPC supporting cast for the Hobbits (and possibly for Aragorn).
I would actually argue that Aragorn is the main character. One could be forgiven for thinking that it was Frodo, as so much time is spent on him and his journey to mount doom. However, Aragorn plays a large and significant part that can not be understated. Although the part he plays is different depending on whether you are referring to the books, or the movies.
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A caffeinated nerd who has played TTRPGs or a number of years and is very much a fantasy adventure geek.
Hot take: I don't give a damn about Tolkien's elves, or how interesting they may or may not have been. Whatever the Silmarillion is can sod itself in a corner.
Keyword: been. Because the entire fantasy fiction world has been force-feeding the archetypical Tolkienite Elf to everyone on the planet for the last billion years, and we're all sick of hearing about how pretty and graceful and ethereal and perfect and better than you Proper Elves are. Elves may have been literal demigods in Middle Earth, and had a whole huge deep rich story behind why they were so much more awesome and perfect and just super cooler than everything else.
This is D&D. This is Faerun, or Exandria, or Eberron, or Etharis, or my homebrew world, or your homebrew world. Yes, Lord of the Rings is why we have these games and these genres in the first place. Lord of the Rings is also seventy years old. It's had its time. It does not need to be the only thing anyone does anymore, and at some point elves can stop being "humanity, but better in every conceivable way" whilst dominating every facet of the fantasy where they show up.
I'm more interested in worlds where species are in contention and have reasons to either hate and fear each other or stand in solidarity with each other. Worlds where elves are the BBEGs, because their absurdly long lifespans, surreal natural aptitude for magic, and easy mastery of any skill they decide they want causes them to become decadent and cruel, enslaving and abusing the shorter-lived lesser species they see as little more than amusing monkeys. Worlds where humanity's explosive breeding and insatiable drive for growth, expansion, and conquest causes the other sapient species of the world to see them as a pestilence and constantly fight to stave off constant invasions from aggressive, hyper-imperialistic war freaks. Worlds where the old gods have been overturned and the new pantheon smote the species those old gods created - the societies of the world are made up of goblins, kobolds, lizardfolk, and other 'monstrous' species, with the ragged remnants of the PHB species have been driven into bitter seclusion within their isolated fortress cities and the sight of a human, elf, or dwarf is as unexpected and alarming as stumbling across a dragon.
I don't want more games where everybody's fighting over being the Elf so they can be the one in the party who's better than everybody else. I want games where people get inventive with this shit, where nobody is quite sure what happens next because we haven't read this book a thousand times. And that means elves get to stop being the Better'n'Yew Sues of the RPG world.
That's your opinion. You're completely entitled to it! If you want elves to be evil decadent BBEGs who treat everyone like they're made of dirt, go for it! I think they're like that in Shadow of the Demon Lord (Which I've never played, so I may be wrong, excuse me if I am). There's no need to get aggressive and rude about it. I may be a world-class Tolkien fan, but I believe everyone is entitled to their own opinions and mine is not everyone's piece of cake. I might not agree with you, but I never try to force my beliefs upon anyone. It's your game, you can do whatever you want in it!
I simply found myself annoyed by people saying it was Totally Not Okay to ignore the Silmarillion (i.e. Tolkien's private world bible notes/personal stories, never meant for public consumption and published after his death without his instructions or consent) because it showed everybody why the elves in the Middle Earth cycle are absolutely deserving of being the best possible fantasy species ever created. It is absolutely okay to ignore the Silmarillion and base one's opinion of elves solely on the Lord of the Rings and the Hobbit, because those are the books that were supposed to be published. In those books, Legolas is Captain America Middle Earth the elven superhero, and the rest of the elves have all ****ed off and left everybody else to clean up the mess because their sorrow is just too pure for this sinful world anymore.
Unfortunately, people have been using Tolkien's work to bludgeon other people's fantasy to death for decades. So many really cool ideas have floundered or been shot down entirely simply because they stray from the roots of Proper Tolkienite Fantasy. It's why I'm so very sympathetic to folks being sick of elves. I'm honestly very strongly considering doing more work on that idea of a world where the "normal" species have been driven into fearful, bitter seclusion and the whole adventuring part is made up of 'monster' species, just because the idea is super amusing even if it came to me in a fit of irritation. Heh...perhaps the whole plot for that game will be stopping an elven elder from unleashing a magic that would scourge all the 'monstrous' races of the world and wipe clean the civilizations that the younger species have built. That would certainly be a fun twist - put the elves in the positions of being Sauron for once, aided by dwarven steel and human inventiveness.
People stated "I'm sick of elves. They're overdone and boring, and they get preferential treatment from Wizards of the Coast", which is absolutely true for a large contingent of the pllayerbase. The counterargument mostly consisted of "What? Elves are super interesting and cool. Haven't you read Tolkien's work?"
My rebuttal to the counterargument is "Tolkien's work is why elves are overdone and boring". Because Tolkien positioned elves as the bestest, most amazingest and awesomest sapient beings to've ever lived, better at everything than every species to've come afterwards, and that ethos has stayed with elves through seventy years of storytelling and fantasy fiction. Elves in the PHB are the most mechanically powerful species by a country mile, contested at all only by dwarves - coincidentally, the other Tolkienite species that existed primarily to make humans feel bad about being human. Only in much later books did other species come anywhere close to the mechanical power of elves, and only because Mordenkainen went nutso on minor tiffle variations in his tome of DM Headaches is there any other species that comes remotely close to having the overwhelming number of subspecies options elves do. Most species have two or three at best. A significant number of species have none. Elves have thirteen.
Tiffles have nine - thirteen if you count Devil's Tongue and Winged versions of classic and feral tiffles to be completely different tiffles, which I don't know that anybody does. And even tiffles are all basically the same set of traits with minor spell variations based on which Archfiend is your great-great-x grandpappy. Humans - the species actively called out as being the most diverse, eclectic, and varied of all sapient species - have six, the majority of which are Dragonmarks. Excise Dragonmarks and humans have two options, while elves only lose one of their thirteen.
It's time for somebody else to be in the limelight. Sure, I mentioned on page 1 that this situation leaves us plenty of room to homebrew our own variations on the species, and I stand by that. But man, it'd be nice if we didn't have to. If someone else was allowed to be the hero for once, y'know?
In my setting, Elves are immortal. They are Chaotic Good, and every single one of them is a Special Snowflake. I can't imagine how a being could live essentially forever with a strong desire to help other people as well as help them be free to choose their own destines, without being pretty unique themselves. They don't build cities. They don't build *houses*. They live in tents if the weather calls for it. They live in small bands of Elves that swap members freely when they meet, without leaders of any kind, wise enough to listen to someone with experience, but totally unwilling to follow anyone's orders. They are hunter/gatherers with no need or desire for material things.
For all their advantages, as a general rule they aren't snooty. They are kind and generous, polite in their way. They find Humans *fascinating*. In such a brief time Humans can do anything an Elf can do except live a long time. They can master skills so fast it makes one's head spin. Civilizations rise and fall, and Elves find them sort of humorous if nothing else, but those hives of activities produce so many interesting new things and ideas an Elf could spend their entire, very long, life and never learn it all.
Half-Elves are tragic figures. To the Elves they die before a true Elf reaches adulthood. To the Humans they are alien and never to be fully trusted. Lean into the stereotype, ignore it, play against it, whatever, just have fun.
Strictly speaking Humans are better at everything but sticking around. That's why they come to be the dominant race in most settings. Who needs other races or sub-races? I have no use for any of them myself.
I feel that nobody actually read my post. Tolkien wrote the Silmarillion, and to him the elves in that book are similar to the elves in LotR and The Hobbit. But to most people out there, Tolkienesque elves mean one thing: Orlando Bloom effortlessly killing an elephant, being unable to swing a weapon without killing several orcs, being a fast runner, and not having personal issues (or much of a personality at all). Yurei seems to have made my point much more eloquently.
'Econo-speak' while ignoring they do not have human birth rates. Or even Dwarven birth rates. They cannot easily replace losses so they have to be very careful how and where they deploy.
<snip>
If you weren't ignoring the Silmarillion, you would realize that they were betrayed when they lived more openly and it cost them heavily.
1) Low population growth rate makes the need for labor-saving technology more pressing, not less. 2) Again, most people who base their perception of elves on LotR have not read the Silmarillion, and thus have no idea why the elves are insular. In the LotR and Hobbit books, they just seem like disinterested melancholics.
People stated "I'm sick of elves. They're overdone and boring, and they get preferential treatment from Wizards of the Coast", which is absolutely true for a large contingent of the pllayerbase. The counterargument mostly consisted of "What? Elves are super interesting and cool. Haven't you read Tolkien's work?"
My rebuttal to the counterargument is "Tolkien's work is why elves are overdone and boring". Because Tolkien positioned elves as the bestest, most amazingest and awesomest sapient beings to've ever lived, better at everything than every species to've come afterwards, and that ethos has stayed with elves through seventy years of storytelling and fantasy fiction. Elves in the PHB are the most mechanically powerful species by a country mile, contested at all only by dwarves - coincidentally, the other Tolkienite species that existed primarily to make humans feel bad about being human. Only in much later books did other species come anywhere close to the mechanical power of elves, and only because Mordenkainen went nutso on minor tiffle variations in his tome of DM Headaches is there any other species that comes remotely close to having the overwhelming number of subspecies options elves do. Most species have two or three at best. A significant number of species have none. Elves have thirteen.
Tiffles have nine - thirteen if you count Devil's Tongue and Winged versions of classic and feral tiffles to be completely different tiffles, which I don't know that anybody does. And even tiffles are all basically the same set of traits with minor spell variations based on which Archfiend is your great-great-x grandpappy. Humans - the species actively called out as being the most diverse, eclectic, and varied of all sapient species - have six, the majority of which are Dragonmarks. Excise Dragonmarks and humans have two options, while elves only lose one of their thirteen.
It's time for somebody else to be in the limelight. Sure, I mentioned on page 1 that this situation leaves us plenty of room to homebrew our own variations on the species, and I stand by that. But man, it'd be nice if we didn't have to. If someone else was allowed to be the hero for once, y'know?
Funny, I totally agree with your conclusion but not with your reasoning. Tolkien’s elves are indeed interesting and cool, but all the “super awesome” elves since, including D&D elves, stink. The exceptions, ironically, are elves that don’t conform to the Tolkien stereotype, like the Nazi-styled high elves in Skyrim. (If someone else did Tolkien-styled elves with as much nuance/alien-ness as Tolkien, that would also work, but no one really has.)
So while I’m with you on the “elves are overrated” side, I totally disagree on the “Tolkien is the problem” thing. Incidentally, I know Tolkien-bashing is sexy these days, but while I don’t care if anyone reads the Silmarillion or not, I’d ask people to at least have a good close look at LotR before judging it based on hearsay, distant memory, or the movies. Legolas, for a less important example, is not the superhero of the films, though he’s not very interesting either: he’s actually a very peripheral character. Feel free to blame the movies or legacy/imitators of Tolkien, because they very much are the problem, but don’t insult the man himself for stuff that isn’t his fault.
Edit: I also dropped a like on your other post (#53) because it’s so right on about this. The coolness of Tolkien elves is totally irrelevant, it’s today’s elves we’re questioning.
I feel that nobody actually read my post. Tolkien wrote the Silmarillion, and to him the elves in that book are similar to the elves in LotR and The Hobbit. But to most people out there, Tolkienesque elves mean one thing: Orlando Bloom effortlessly killing an elephant, being unable to swing a weapon without killing several orcs, being a fast runner, and not having personal issues (or much of a personality at all). Yurei seems to have made my point much more eloquently.
'Econo-speak' while ignoring they do not have human birth rates. Or even Dwarven birth rates. They cannot easily replace losses so they have to be very careful how and where they deploy.
<snip>
If you weren't ignoring the Silmarillion, you would realize that they were betrayed when they lived more openly and it cost them heavily.
1) Low population growth rate makes the need for labor-saving technology more pressing, not less. 2) Again, most people who base their perception of elves on LotR have not read the Silmarillion, and thus have no idea why the elves are insular. In the LotR and Hobbit books, they just seem like disinterested melancholics.
This may come as a shock but some of us grew up with the books, long before the movies. This game that we are talking about now is a quarter century older than the first movie in Peter Jackson's trilogy.
Also if it is all about the movie, why aren't Dwarves more popular? Also please explain where in Tolkien's writings you will find Drow (pattered vaguely after Norse mythology, actually) or Sea Elves or Ravenloft Elves`? There are a lot of depictions of Elves outside of LoTR, which is far more likely the explanation for the wider variety of Elves.
Honestly, as another books before movies fan, I think the movies are one of the reasons dwarves are underrated. Gimli, who in the book is grave and well-spoken, is often reduced to bumbling comic relief, and the dwarves in The Hobbit movies are even sillier.
If we're looking at what to blame for the popularity of elves among the consumers, Tolkien is not cause. Sure, he made "sexy elves" but in the books they weren't even recognized for sexieness as much as elegance.
I'm serious here: We need to blame Santa and then the Matrix before we even look at Tolkien. People like what they already know, and a really common take on Santa here in the US is that he lives at the North Pole and has elves build his toys.
Santa is how we get Keebler Elves, and Elf Bowling. Dwarves are not a thing in the common US mythos, but Elves are.
After that was the explosive success of the Matrix who really launched the idea of the skinny super hero which matches the Elf Build and makes the skinny hero sexy (which as I said, Tolkien himself really didn't do). Before the Matrix, if you had a skinny protagonist, they were still tall and broad and powerful because they were built powerfully. Clint Eastwood sold himself as a hardass with a gun who still had the bone structure to pull his stuff off... otherwise the heroes were all Schwarzenegger or his clones. Y'know, Orc and human friendly builds.
Elves are popular because we're accustomed to them, they can be sexy, and all new players want to be sexy and something they're at least slightly familiar with.
I hate elves... or at least the preferential treatment they get in fantasy. Elves get all of the subraces, and more text space than any other race in general. I hate it.
Crack open your PHB and you'll find three to four elf races... and one orc, and at best two of everything else. Go two chapters farther and you'll see four different height x weight rows for elves. Dwarves get two. All other races get one. All halflings are built the same. All gnomes are built the same. Dwarves stop getting special heights and weights after the PHB, just following in the footsteps of the Hill Dwarf... but not Elves. All elves are perfect and unique.
Then move on to Sword Coast Adventurer's Guilde and you get several takes on the Half-Elf.
Then you get Mordenkainen's Tomb of Foes and you get three to seven more elves! There are a million ruddy elves and nobody else gets any love (stay out of this Tieflings).
Worse yet, most Elves don't even fit the best Elf Model that WotC has made. For that you need the M:tg packet made for Zendikar.
Sure, I don't hate elves in the abstract, just in the execution... and over execution. Anybody else with me?
(I'm an Annah fan from Planescape: Torment, so... I don't approve of the new tieflings.)
Elves are the easiest race to Cosplay. lol. When guys start sitting around drawing attractive women, they're usually in their teens and don't have actual human models. Then when artists DO start to get live models, those models are A LOT friendlier to guys who draw them as exotic and fey Elves! It's like how girls all photoshop their selfies to give themselves bigger eyes and higher cheekbones. In other words, fantasy games and worlds have a built in bias to appeal to women, because... let's face it: if every D&D session consisted of equal numbers of men and women... it'd be more group date than game session.
I mean... who fantasizes about sexy Orcs!? Ohhuurrhhh. Man o man, Female Hobgoblins are so freakin' HOT! lol.
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“Desitutus ventis, remos adhibe” When the Winds fail you, row.
Just gonna point out that underestimating the perversity of the Internet will get you in trouble every time. It is...let us simply say not difficult to find examples of 'Sexy Orcs' online, and not that much harder to find 'Sexy Hobgoblins'.
Also worth noting is that 'Group Date' has never been a description of any of the games I've run or played, including the ones with female players. I imagine most ladies who sit down to play a game of D&D are there to play D&D, not to trawl for breeding partners. And frankly, if a pair wants to make moon eyes at each other and engage in Romantic Activities they can do so on their own time - table time is game time, not sexy time. We don't luridly spell out all the details of a PC's romantic encounters at the table, and we ain't about to start just because the romantic encounter includes more than one PC.
And that's about as far as I'll go on the list of many, many, many things I'd otherwise have to say about that particular post. It's almost impressive, really - it's very rare for a given piece of writing to offend me as both a man and a woman. Well done...?
Could someone please explain to me how this thread went from being about the overabundance of Elves in fantasy to D&D as Tinder and the bangability of Hobgoblins and Orcs?
Also, there isn't a *single* hetero person at my table, so just...wut?
Also also, fantasy worlds having a built-in bias to appeal to women is the single most *hilarious* thing I'll probably read all month.
I hate elves... or at least the preferential treatment they get in fantasy. Elves get all of the subraces, and more text space than any other race in general. I hate it.
Crack open your PHB and you'll find three to four elf races... and one orc, and at best two of everything else. Go two chapters farther and you'll see four different height x weight rows for elves. Dwarves get two. All other races get one. All halflings are built the same. All gnomes are built the same. Dwarves stop getting special heights and weights after the PHB, just following in the footsteps of the Hill Dwarf... but not Elves. All elves are perfect and unique.
Then move on to Sword Coast Adventurer's Guilde and you get several takes on the Half-Elf.
Then you get Mordenkainen's Tomb of Foes and you get three to seven more elves! There are a million ruddy elves and nobody else gets any love (stay out of this Tieflings).
Worse yet, most Elves don't even fit the best Elf Model that WotC has made. For that you need the M:tg packet made for Zendikar.
Sure, I don't hate elves in the abstract, just in the execution... and over execution. Anybody else with me?
(I'm an Annah fan from Planescape: Torment, so... I don't approve of the new tieflings.)
Elves are the easiest race to Cosplay. lol. When guys start sitting around drawing attractive women, they're usually in their teens and don't have actual human models. Then when artists DO start to get live models, those models are A LOT friendlier to guys who draw them as exotic and fey Elves! It's like how girls all photoshop their selfies to give themselves bigger eyes and higher cheekbones. In other words, fantasy games and worlds have a built in bias to appeal to women, because... let's face it: if every D&D session consisted of equal numbers of men and women... it'd be more group date than game session.
I mean... who fantasizes about sexy Orcs!? Ohhuurrhhh. Man o man, Female Hobgoblins are so freakin' HOT! lol.
You don’t know a lot of women, do you? “Opposite sex” does not equal “sexy time.” One of my close friends and players is a girl, and I can assure you nothing is further from our minds than “group date” during a game session. We’re friends, just the same as my guy friends. I’m not sure whether to laugh or be insulted.
This may come as a shock but some of us grew up with the books, long before the movies. This game that we are talking about now is a quarter century older than the first movie in Peter Jackson's trilogy.
Also if it is all about the movie, why aren't Dwarves more popular? Also please explain where in Tolkien's writings you will find Drow (pattered vaguely after Norse mythology, actually) or Sea Elves or Ravenloft Elves`? There are a lot of depictions of Elves outside of LoTR, which is far more likely the explanation for the wider variety of Elves.
Sure, but my point is not about the movies, really. It's about the depiction of elves in LotR and the Hobbit, movie or book. In fact, the movies somewhat mitigate the issue because they invented an elf legion for the Helm's Deep battle, and invented a fight between Elrond and some Nazgul. Strip Orlando Bloom from my comment and it's still true. The vast majority of people who have read LotR and The Hobbit will likely never attempt the Silmarillion. As a result, those books will be more influential in the popular conception of elves.
Just popping in to note the title of this thread immediately brought to mind a memory of a Dragon magazine ad late 80s likely for Tekumel/Empire of the Petal Throne with the heading "No Elves." I always thought it was a cool ad, probably the first time I got curious about a non-Tolkienesque fantasy world.
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Not at all. The readership of the Hobbit and LotR series is much much larger than that of the Silmarillion. I'm ignoring the Silmarillion because it isn't nearly as influential in shaping our collective fiction about elves. When you ask a casual fantasy player to describe their platonic ideal of an elf, they're going to think of LotR Legolas, not Feanor and his sons circa the Doom of Mandos.
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This.
I'm the Valar (leader and creator) of The Lord of the Rings/The Hobbit/Anything Tolkien Cult!
Member of the Cult of Cats, High Elf of the Elven Guild, and Sauce Priest & Sauce Smith of the Supreme Court of Sauce.
If you want some casual roleplay/adventures in Middle Earth, check out The Wild's Edge Tavern, a LotR/Middle Earth tavern!
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Hot take: I don't give a damn about Tolkien's elves, or how interesting they may or may not have been. Whatever the Silmarillion is can sod itself in a corner.
Keyword: been. Because the entire fantasy fiction world has been force-feeding the archetypical Tolkienite Elf to everyone on the planet for the last billion years, and we're all sick of hearing about how pretty and graceful and ethereal and perfect and better than you Proper Elves are. Elves may have been literal demigods in Middle Earth, and had a whole huge deep rich story behind why they were so much more awesome and perfect and just super cooler than everything else.
This is D&D. This is Faerun, or Exandria, or Eberron, or Etharis, or my homebrew world, or your homebrew world. Yes, Lord of the Rings is why we have these games and these genres in the first place. Lord of the Rings is also seventy years old. It's had its time. It does not need to be the only thing anyone does anymore, and at some point elves can stop being "humanity, but better in every conceivable way" whilst dominating every facet of the fantasy where they show up.
I'm more interested in worlds where species are in contention and have reasons to either hate and fear each other or stand in solidarity with each other. Worlds where elves are the BBEGs, because their absurdly long lifespans, surreal natural aptitude for magic, and easy mastery of any skill they decide they want causes them to become decadent and cruel, enslaving and abusing the shorter-lived lesser species they see as little more than amusing monkeys. Worlds where humanity's explosive breeding and insatiable drive for growth, expansion, and conquest causes the other sapient species of the world to see them as a pestilence and constantly fight to stave off constant invasions from aggressive, hyper-imperialistic war freaks. Worlds where the old gods have been overturned and the new pantheon smote the species those old gods created - the societies of the world are made up of goblins, kobolds, lizardfolk, and other 'monstrous' species, with the ragged remnants of the PHB species have been driven into bitter seclusion within their isolated fortress cities and the sight of a human, elf, or dwarf is as unexpected and alarming as stumbling across a dragon.
I don't want more games where everybody's fighting over being the Elf so they can be the one in the party who's better than everybody else. I want games where people get inventive with this shit, where nobody is quite sure what happens next because we haven't read this book a thousand times. And that means elves get to stop being the Better'n'Yew Sues of the RPG world.
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I would actually argue that Aragorn is the main character. One could be forgiven for thinking that it was Frodo, as so much time is spent on him and his journey to mount doom. However, Aragorn plays a large and significant part that can not be understated. Although the part he plays is different depending on whether you are referring to the books, or the movies.
A caffeinated nerd who has played TTRPGs or a number of years and is very much a fantasy adventure geek.
That's your opinion. You're completely entitled to it! If you want elves to be evil decadent BBEGs who treat everyone like they're made of dirt, go for it! I think they're like that in Shadow of the Demon Lord (Which I've never played, so I may be wrong, excuse me if I am). There's no need to get aggressive and rude about it. I may be a world-class Tolkien fan, but I believe everyone is entitled to their own opinions and mine is not everyone's piece of cake. I might not agree with you, but I never try to force my beliefs upon anyone. It's your game, you can do whatever you want in it!
I'm the Valar (leader and creator) of The Lord of the Rings/The Hobbit/Anything Tolkien Cult!
Member of the Cult of Cats, High Elf of the Elven Guild, and Sauce Priest & Sauce Smith of the Supreme Court of Sauce.
If you want some casual roleplay/adventures in Middle Earth, check out The Wild's Edge Tavern, a LotR/Middle Earth tavern!
JOIN TIAMAT'S CONGA LINE!
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Sure.
I simply found myself annoyed by people saying it was Totally Not Okay to ignore the Silmarillion (i.e. Tolkien's private world bible notes/personal stories, never meant for public consumption and published after his death without his instructions or consent) because it showed everybody why the elves in the Middle Earth cycle are absolutely deserving of being the best possible fantasy species ever created. It is absolutely okay to ignore the Silmarillion and base one's opinion of elves solely on the Lord of the Rings and the Hobbit, because those are the books that were supposed to be published. In those books, Legolas is Captain
AmericaMiddle Earth the elven superhero, and the rest of the elves have all ****ed off and left everybody else to clean up the mess because their sorrow is just too pure for this sinful world anymore.Unfortunately, people have been using Tolkien's work to bludgeon other people's fantasy to death for decades. So many really cool ideas have floundered or been shot down entirely simply because they stray from the roots of Proper Tolkienite Fantasy. It's why I'm so very sympathetic to folks being sick of elves. I'm honestly very strongly considering doing more work on that idea of a world where the "normal" species have been driven into fearful, bitter seclusion and the whole adventuring part is made up of 'monster' species, just because the idea is super amusing even if it came to me in a fit of irritation. Heh...perhaps the whole plot for that game will be stopping an elven elder from unleashing a magic that would scourge all the 'monstrous' races of the world and wipe clean the civilizations that the younger species have built. That would certainly be a fun twist - put the elves in the positions of being Sauron for once, aided by dwarven steel and human inventiveness.
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Of course not.
People stated "I'm sick of elves. They're overdone and boring, and they get preferential treatment from Wizards of the Coast", which is absolutely true for a large contingent of the pllayerbase. The counterargument mostly consisted of "What? Elves are super interesting and cool. Haven't you read Tolkien's work?"
My rebuttal to the counterargument is "Tolkien's work is why elves are overdone and boring". Because Tolkien positioned elves as the bestest, most amazingest and awesomest sapient beings to've ever lived, better at everything than every species to've come afterwards, and that ethos has stayed with elves through seventy years of storytelling and fantasy fiction. Elves in the PHB are the most mechanically powerful species by a country mile, contested at all only by dwarves - coincidentally, the other Tolkienite species that existed primarily to make humans feel bad about being human. Only in much later books did other species come anywhere close to the mechanical power of elves, and only because Mordenkainen went nutso on minor tiffle variations in his tome of DM Headaches is there any other species that comes remotely close to having the overwhelming number of subspecies options elves do. Most species have two or three at best. A significant number of species have none. Elves have thirteen.
Tiffles have nine - thirteen if you count Devil's Tongue and Winged versions of classic and feral tiffles to be completely different tiffles, which I don't know that anybody does. And even tiffles are all basically the same set of traits with minor spell variations based on which Archfiend is your great-great-x grandpappy. Humans - the species actively called out as being the most diverse, eclectic, and varied of all sapient species - have six, the majority of which are Dragonmarks. Excise Dragonmarks and humans have two options, while elves only lose one of their thirteen.
It's time for somebody else to be in the limelight. Sure, I mentioned on page 1 that this situation leaves us plenty of room to homebrew our own variations on the species, and I stand by that. But man, it'd be nice if we didn't have to. If someone else was allowed to be the hero for once, y'know?
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In my setting, Elves are immortal. They are Chaotic Good, and every single one of them is a Special Snowflake. I can't imagine how a being could live essentially forever with a strong desire to help other people as well as help them be free to choose their own destines, without being pretty unique themselves. They don't build cities. They don't build *houses*. They live in tents if the weather calls for it. They live in small bands of Elves that swap members freely when they meet, without leaders of any kind, wise enough to listen to someone with experience, but totally unwilling to follow anyone's orders. They are hunter/gatherers with no need or desire for material things.
For all their advantages, as a general rule they aren't snooty. They are kind and generous, polite in their way. They find Humans *fascinating*. In such a brief time Humans can do anything an Elf can do except live a long time. They can master skills so fast it makes one's head spin. Civilizations rise and fall, and Elves find them sort of humorous if nothing else, but those hives of activities produce so many interesting new things and ideas an Elf could spend their entire, very long, life and never learn it all.
Half-Elves are tragic figures. To the Elves they die before a true Elf reaches adulthood. To the Humans they are alien and never to be fully trusted. Lean into the stereotype, ignore it, play against it, whatever, just have fun.
Strictly speaking Humans are better at everything but sticking around. That's why they come to be the dominant race in most settings. Who needs other races or sub-races? I have no use for any of them myself.
<Insert clever signature here>
I feel that nobody actually read my post. Tolkien wrote the Silmarillion, and to him the elves in that book are similar to the elves in LotR and The Hobbit. But to most people out there, Tolkienesque elves mean one thing: Orlando Bloom effortlessly killing an elephant, being unable to swing a weapon without killing several orcs, being a fast runner, and not having personal issues (or much of a personality at all). Yurei seems to have made my point much more eloquently.
1) Low population growth rate makes the need for labor-saving technology more pressing, not less.
2) Again, most people who base their perception of elves on LotR have not read the Silmarillion, and thus have no idea why the elves are insular. In the LotR and Hobbit books, they just seem like disinterested melancholics.
Funny, I totally agree with your conclusion but not with your reasoning. Tolkien’s elves are indeed interesting and cool, but all the “super awesome” elves since, including D&D elves, stink. The exceptions, ironically, are elves that don’t conform to the Tolkien stereotype, like the Nazi-styled high elves in Skyrim. (If someone else did Tolkien-styled elves with as much nuance/alien-ness as Tolkien, that would also work, but no one really has.)
So while I’m with you on the “elves are overrated” side, I totally disagree on the “Tolkien is the problem” thing. Incidentally, I know Tolkien-bashing is sexy these days, but while I don’t care if anyone reads the Silmarillion or not, I’d ask people to at least have a good close look at LotR before judging it based on hearsay, distant memory, or the movies. Legolas, for a less important example, is not the superhero of the films, though he’s not very interesting either: he’s actually a very peripheral character. Feel free to blame the movies or legacy/imitators of Tolkien, because they very much are the problem, but don’t insult the man himself for stuff that isn’t his fault.
Edit: I also dropped a like on your other post (#53) because it’s so right on about this. The coolness of Tolkien elves is totally irrelevant, it’s today’s elves we’re questioning.
Wizard (Gandalf) of the Tolkien Club
Honestly, as another books before movies fan, I think the movies are one of the reasons dwarves are underrated. Gimli, who in the book is grave and well-spoken, is often reduced to bumbling comic relief, and the dwarves in The Hobbit movies are even sillier.
Wizard (Gandalf) of the Tolkien Club
If we're looking at what to blame for the popularity of elves among the consumers, Tolkien is not cause. Sure, he made "sexy elves" but in the books they weren't even recognized for sexieness as much as elegance.
I'm serious here: We need to blame Santa and then the Matrix before we even look at Tolkien. People like what they already know, and a really common take on Santa here in the US is that he lives at the North Pole and has elves build his toys.
Santa is how we get Keebler Elves, and Elf Bowling. Dwarves are not a thing in the common US mythos, but Elves are.
After that was the explosive success of the Matrix who really launched the idea of the skinny super hero which matches the Elf Build and makes the skinny hero sexy (which as I said, Tolkien himself really didn't do). Before the Matrix, if you had a skinny protagonist, they were still tall and broad and powerful because they were built powerfully. Clint Eastwood sold himself as a hardass with a gun who still had the bone structure to pull his stuff off... otherwise the heroes were all Schwarzenegger or his clones. Y'know, Orc and human friendly builds.
Elves are popular because we're accustomed to them, they can be sexy, and all new players want to be sexy and something they're at least slightly familiar with.
(I'm an Annah fan from Planescape: Torment, so... I don't approve of the new tieflings.)
Elves are the easiest race to Cosplay. lol. When guys start sitting around drawing attractive women, they're usually in their teens and don't have actual human models. Then when artists DO start to get live models, those models are A LOT friendlier to guys who draw them as exotic and fey Elves! It's like how girls all photoshop their selfies to give themselves bigger eyes and higher cheekbones. In other words, fantasy games and worlds have a built in bias to appeal to women, because... let's face it: if every D&D session consisted of equal numbers of men and women... it'd be more group date than game session.
I mean... who fantasizes about sexy Orcs!? Ohhuurrhhh. Man o man, Female Hobgoblins are so freakin' HOT! lol.
“Desitutus ventis, remos adhibe”
When the Winds fail you, row.
Just gonna point out that underestimating the perversity of the Internet will get you in trouble every time. It is...let us simply say not difficult to find examples of 'Sexy Orcs' online, and not that much harder to find 'Sexy Hobgoblins'.
Also worth noting is that 'Group Date' has never been a description of any of the games I've run or played, including the ones with female players. I imagine most ladies who sit down to play a game of D&D are there to play D&D, not to trawl for breeding partners. And frankly, if a pair wants to make moon eyes at each other and engage in Romantic Activities they can do so on their own time - table time is game time, not sexy time. We don't luridly spell out all the details of a PC's romantic encounters at the table, and we ain't about to start just because the romantic encounter includes more than one PC.
And that's about as far as I'll go on the list of many, many, many things I'd otherwise have to say about that particular post. It's almost impressive, really - it's very rare for a given piece of writing to offend me as both a man and a woman. Well done...?
Please do not contact or message me.
Could someone please explain to me how this thread went from being about the overabundance of Elves in fantasy to D&D as Tinder and the bangability of Hobgoblins and Orcs?
Also, there isn't a *single* hetero person at my table, so just...wut?
Also also, fantasy worlds having a built-in bias to appeal to women is the single most *hilarious* thing I'll probably read all month.
Don't think about it too hard, Mezz. The more you think about it, the less sense it makes.
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You don’t know a lot of women, do you? “Opposite sex” does not equal “sexy time.” One of my close friends and players is a girl, and I can assure you nothing is further from our minds than “group date” during a game session. We’re friends, just the same as my guy friends. I’m not sure whether to laugh or be insulted.
(Plus, Orcs are hotter than elves. Just saying.)
Wizard (Gandalf) of the Tolkien Club
Sure, but my point is not about the movies, really. It's about the depiction of elves in LotR and the Hobbit, movie or book. In fact, the movies somewhat mitigate the issue because they invented an elf legion for the Helm's Deep battle, and invented a fight between Elrond and some Nazgul. Strip Orlando Bloom from my comment and it's still true. The vast majority of people who have read LotR and The Hobbit will likely never attempt the Silmarillion. As a result, those books will be more influential in the popular conception of elves.
Just popping in to note the title of this thread immediately brought to mind a memory of a Dragon magazine ad late 80s likely for Tekumel/Empire of the Petal Throne with the heading "No Elves." I always thought it was a cool ad, probably the first time I got curious about a non-Tolkienesque fantasy world.
Jander Sunstar is the thinking person's Drizzt, fight me.