Our Humans Are Better (but it's bullshit)

>>54365139
Because we're humans and want to see humans succeed.
If you don't like it then change it.

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>>54365139
>They're also almost always white, privileged or not.

You've uhhhh... never read the 5e Player's Handbook, have you?

>>54365139
Human writers, human readers, easier to self-insert that way, nobody got Lovecrafts point, but rather fellate ourselves in fictional works because reality is harsh.

It sometimes doesn't even make much sense if you think things through and ultimately just amounts to writers bias. Personally I'm tired of it, there is nothing original or engaging about it and most of the time I'm not even sure what the author wants to tell me with it.

>>54365193
Sorry, it was more of a jab than bait. Everything else is quite genuine on my part.

5e has been very inclusive.

elves reach maturity @ 120 years old
>twenty years of potty training
>sixty years of adolescence.

>>54365249
The poor parents

Magical elf condoms are an absolute necessity.

>>54365249
I'm not seeing you complaining about dwarves. Also you got this completely wrong, they are considered by their fellow elves to be adults, but they mature at a similar rate as humans.

This isn't what this thread is supposed to be about, anyway.

>>54365277
>they mature at a similar rate as humans

Not according to Drizzt's fabulous creator
Elves are like children before they reach the three digits.

>>54365293
That changes from writer to writer and from edition to edition. At most they have an extented tie as teens.
>criticize hfy
>but muh elves
Good job. Again, why am I not hearing anything about dwarves?

>>54365310
Dwarves are considered men at birth

>>54365324
That explains the lack of dwarven girls.

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>>54365324
Sorry, I'm not finding anything about this.

>>54365277
>>54365310
>>54365342
Are you obsessed with dwarves?

>>54365139

>They're also almost always white, privileged or not.
What the fuck is this?

Well, getting upset that humans look like the creators AND audience of the genre, in settings where evolution and melanin differences doesn't even have to exist is not the most retarded thing you'll find on /tg/, but it's up there.

>>54365139

Modern fantasy is heavily based on Western folklore by way of Tolkien. When described in stories, these beings would either be explicitly or implicitly compared to humans i.e. trolls are stupid (compared to humans), elves are beautiful and long-lived (compared to humans). It's simply much easier to work from a person's own frame of reference when it will suffice rather than ask them to imagine a different reference frame so as not to insult the sensibilities of fictional gnomes. And of course they're much fewer than humans at least where humans tend to dwell because otherwise, where are all the dwarves? Even when the reigns are let down , people tend to stick with their ingrained instinct on the matter.

Everything else in your post is bad generalization.

>>54365195

>nobody got Lovecraft's point

Which is strange because everyone seems to tell me that.

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>>54365139

I really don't see humans succeeding so much in a setting with races like orcs or elves around. Dwarves I can understand since they stick to the mountains.

But orcs are stronger and breed much faster. They would dominate primitive human tribes with no problems.

And imagine how scary elf tribes would be in primitive times without armor to protect from arrows. And their natural magic.

Humans being the dominant race always needs some stupid shit to happen to other races like War of the Beard in Warhammer.

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>>54365139

This is an Eberron picture, right?

Why are half of these obvious transvestites?

Dwarves; They hide in their mountains seeking riches...
Elves; They live half-dreamt lives within their forests
Gnomes; Gardening and with ambitions that never reach further than their homesteads
Hobbits; They are content within a good meal and a pint of beer
Humans; Fuck Yeah!

>>54365555
>Humans; slaughtering each other over imaginary friends.

>>54365537
Sounds like you hate your own species

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>>54365139
Daily reminder modern homo-sapiens literally wiped out Neanderthals(!notorcs)

>>54365632

Not about hate, but it's pretty easy to recognize that orcs would out compete us in the hunter-gatherer phase because the main advantages that humans tend to have over orcs is technology, resources per person, applied knowledge, and societal and military coherency. Take things back to the stone age and humans are basically just smaller, weaker, less prolific orcs.

Of course most fantasy settings get around this by the world usually being young and wrought fully formed by [your creation myth here].

>>54365728
You make this sound like more of a straightforward race war than it was.

>>54365728

Neanderthals were shorter, stouter, considerably stronger, but considerably less prolific than humans so they were more like !notdwarves. Also the most likely reason they were eliminated was simply because there were more of us pouring into Eurasia than there were Neanderthals, so really, we orc'd them.

>>54365139
Looks like white human guilt: the post

>>54365538
>This is an Eberron picture, right?
>Why are half of these obvious transvestites?
The first question is the answer to the second question.

>>54365632
>humans need to auto succeed and be mary sues because I'm human

This is why 99% of fantasy writers are garbage.

>>54365781
we interbred with them and outcompeted them, so more like, one day grampa neanderthal notices that there are just less and less full blooded neanders around. and a few generations later there is just humans.

>>54365728
After many years arguing its generally agreed upon that Europeans and near-easterners have chunks of Neanderthal DNA in our genome

Love can bloom

>>54365728

They breed slower than humans and lived in small communities.

They were nothing like orcs. It's more like homo sapiens was the orcs in this case.

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>>54365139
>Why is it that humans are constantly and consistently depicted as the quintessential race and culture within the bounds fantasy?
Because you can't go too far from established standarads in fantasy, or you lose your audience.

Literal humans with knife ears and long lifespan with human-like culture as one of the quintessential races? Everyone jizzes themselves over it.
Telekinetic hivemind rocks with inhuman culture as one of the quintessential races? Sorry, you just lost your entire audience.

People are mindless. They use shorthands all the time. And if the culture you are using isn't human-like, then no one wants to bother learning about it.
That's the thing, elves can be replaced by a similar human culture, with only exception of the long lifespan. Same can be said about dwarves and orcs and halflings etc.

Standard fantasy races are boring as fuck. They also are convenient shorthands that everyone is familiar with, so everyone keeps using them.
Personally, I don't see the point - if your culture can be replaced by a similar human one, why bother making another race in the first place?
But people like it. People want the human values and human culture to apply to fantasy races, because that's what they are familiar with.

This is why humans are constantly and consistently depicted as the quintessential race and culture within the bounds fantasy - because every single fucking thing is modeled off them.

>>54365881

I think the point was that humans shouldn't be #1.

I can see them being one of the more influential races, but definitely not the most numerous strongest race in control of 3/4 of the world.

>>54365881

If someone said this to me during a conversation, I'd be looking for the moment they stopped respecting me and started putting me on.

>>54365139
>They're also almost always white, privileged or not.
Nobody wants to play as a nigger.

>>54365139
>Think elves are the masters of magic? Nope, humans have pushed it further and produced far greater wizards.

I never liked elves being the absolute best at magic. I prefer it when there's no blatant superior, as it gives a variety to the magic in the setting.
Humans being -at least- as powerful as the elves when it comes to the arcane really evens things out.

Of course in some settings the reverse has actually intrigued me. Warhammer being an example.
Not that humans can't surpass the high elves assuming they follow Nagash as a role model.

>>54365881
All the shit you wrote can be just summed up as
>waaaah I am bitter because no one liked my new and unique setting

No anon, the reason no one liked your setting is because it wasn't interesting. In this short text alone you are jumping through so many mental hoops to justify your taste in fantasy being superior to all others its not even funny.

More annoying than any genericness elves and dwarfs are people like you, who are so disgustingly tryhard at being unique and special snowflakes and yet wonder why they fail at trying to reinvent the wheel.

>>54365817

Doesn't contradict what I said. Whether we killed them, fucked them, or food yoinked them out of existence (or more likely a mix of the three), they got orc'd.

>>54365965
>humans
>better than the elves at magic
>every d&d setting ever

it gets tedious anon

>>54365965
>I prefer it when there's no blatant superior
Why the fuck shouldn't be there someone being better than someone else at something? What's the point of fantasy races if they can't have their pros and cons, be it in fluff or crunch?

>>54365139
Gonna start of by apologizing for taking the bait.

>Most land resources
They are the guys we identify with so they are usually the winners, it also makes it easier to contrast with everything else.

> Shorter lifespans etc.
If you have 3 months to write 1000 words or 1 week to write the same thousand words which gets completed faster? There's also bioological and cultural reasons but mostly depends on the setting.

> Magic
Same as the former. Also if someone has the potential to be a great magician appears say ocne every million births, which race is going to have more, basically quantity > quality. Humans have both the worst and the best mages, elves have a better average in a chunk of settings. Again depends on the setting.

> Gods
Most fantasy settings I've read, each race has their own pantheon, your argument here is poorly though out.

>White
Until you mentioned privilege I almost thought it wasn't bait.
Most fantasy is/has been written by white people for white people in fantasy not Europe. Get over yourself and stop trying to push a nonexistent narrative. If I went to china, japan korea or any middle-eastern country and complained there books were mostly about and included people of their race I'd be laughed off of the continent or more likely ignored because if I did that I'd be a fucking moron, kinda like you actually.

>>54365977
Nah, I never wrote a setting in my life. I can wrtie for shit.
But when every single fantasy setting makes it a point to include elves|dwarves|etc. in some capacity, just because "everybody does it", you know you have a problem.

>>54366038
I should have worded it better. More so they're not better based on innate ability.

Rather every race has a chance to become one of the great ones. That kind of thing.

>>54365195
>nobody got Lovecrafts point
The point being that 'life sucks'? I'm pretty sure every gets that which is why most people like feel-good-happy-time fiction because we can get more than enough 'life sucks' in, you know, real life. Also since you are such a Lovecraft loving intellectual could you tell me what he was trying to tell me in "Facts Concerning the Late Arthur Jermyn and His Family" other than "I'm a paranoid racist"?

>>54366038
Because elves are fucking retarded. They're also pretentious as fuck with their magic. Human wizards get shit DONE.

>>54366047
That's still the same. What's the point of having any fantasy creatures if they don't have innate abilities? Just aesthetics?

>>54366066

You could write fantasy novels Anon.

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>muh humans

In reality humans would go extinct or get conquered.

>>54366078
Yes anon, having longer lifespans usually means you procreate less.

>>54366069
I don't know? Magic based on ethnicity and culture? All different and unique?

It's rather more interesting.

>>54365139
It's because we are white humans. All fantasy is riffing off of white human traditions and folklore. Shut the fuck up idiot.

>>54366078

>it takes them much longer to die
Only of old age.
Humans beat elves because of raw numbers, not because 1 on 1 humans are superior.

>>54366069
>muh innately magical elves
>still worse than not-magical humans

kek

>>54366093
Didn't know that elves are real so we could quantify that this is an established fact.

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>>54365734
In warcraft orcs aren't native to the world and was lead by the burning legion (space demons) to invade the world and destroy the elves. They had a war with humans and basically destroyed one of the (2 or 3 in total) human kingdoms as well as destroying some minor dwarven kingdoms.

Humans only defeated the orcs once they allied with the elves and dwarfs to counter attack them.

It's kinda interesting that humans have nothing to do with the war but get caught in the crossfire and the elves just use the humans as meatshield against the orcs (and hire human soldiers to hunt the trolls that infest elven forests).

It's kinda sad to see that most warcraft books focus on the orcs (especiall Thrall, he is such a boring character) instead of the politics of the world.

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>>54366078
In reality only humans exist. So kind of a moot point, you stupid fuck.

Fantasy races were a mistake. They're only ever used as a crutch for the world. Need a savage foreign group to be antagonists, or possibly noble savage protaganists instead? Orcs. Or maybe woodland elves. Need a luxurious noble race of angellic beings? High Elves.

>>54366078
>idiot weeb poster

Pay no attention

>>54366107

In pre firearms times elite warriors almost always slaughtered much larger armies of less competent warriors.

>>54366107
>not because 1 on 1 humans are superior

1 on 1 humans are always superior, anon

the rule of cool says so

>humans are the ancient race
>get oppressed once or twice making em violently chimp out
>someone else chimps out
>they chimp out HARDER
>someone tries to subdue them
>chimping out just goes full retard
>finally decide to just put them om their own agic bubble to avoid the humaning
>main religion is a literal genocide endorsing death cult
>supposed to be the good boys
Ophiel is right.

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>>54365139

>a setting and genre created entirely by white male humans, for a massive majority white male human audience, prominently features white male humans...
>HHMMMMMMMMMMM
>REALLY FIRIN UP MY BRAIN ALMONDS

>>54366098
>Magic based on ethnicity and culture?
You mean like the difference between moon elves and wild elves? Ultimately it's exactly the same, there is really nothing more interesting about this.

>>54366112
Yeah, human authors are really retarded if they let their own bias influence their writing.

>>54366124

Try to counter that. Imagine elves forcing human army to have a night battle. Literally one sided slaughter even if there are 10x more humans.

>>54366141
>he thinks human wizards being better than elf wizards is based on bias
>the irony here is that he's probably a bias elf retard

:^)

>>54366128
Nope.
Post firearms era is actually way more in favor of elite soldiers

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>>54366120
>>54365881
These guys know what's up.

>>54366148

Of course you would think that

>>54366120
>Need a luxurious noble race of angellic beings? High Elves.
I prefer mine to be a dying race of assholes who are wiling to help you, but they're still a bunch of assholes. What the fuck is with everyone shitty on humans, when we are selfs are humans and humans make the god damn literature and media outlets for fantasy. I swear if people hate humanity that much they have to make their own little world where humans are the shittest of shit, then maybe they should kill themselves. After all, if you dislike humans that much, then you must hate yourself for being human.

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>>54365139
>fucking homo

>>54366152

Anon, warrior cultures with elite armies always slaughtered more numerous but less warlike cultures before gunpowder happened.

>>54366141
Tell me, why should elves be the best at magic? Because they're magical?

That apparently doesn't stop humans from outplaying them at every opportunity.

>>54366149
Anon, both are completely made-up things, yet one of these goes around with + INT and is often described by human authors to be the better mages, so it's only the authors fault if they can't follow their own rules.

>>54366171
>Tell me, why should elves be the best at magic?
They don't need to, but they, or moreso some of their subraces, is often described as such and there is no good, innate reason for humans having the superior mages over anyone else.

>>54366116

It's also pretty common for orcs to be an invented race, either created whole cloth through sorcery or being a magically twisted form of an existing race. Point is, there are a lot of ways to get around orcs wrecking our shit before the end of the Pleistocene.

>>54366114
It is real in the DnD settings. And animals with longer lifespans usually reproduce less.

>>54366192
>often described by human authors to be the better mages
>so it's only the authors fault if they can't follow their own rules.

Except it's the exact fucking opposite. Not just with the authors, but in previous editions as well

Remember when elves couldn't be magic-users? I sure do.
Remember that time Ed Greenwood said humans were at least as good as the elves? Yeah, me too.

Humans being better than the elves at magic has always been a thematically appropriate plot standard.
Elves respect magic, humans abuse it. There is a clear contrast.

>>54366171
>Because they're magical?

Yes? They have innate magical abilities. Humans don't. They live much longer giving them more time to learn.

Humans outdoing elves at magic is retarded.

>>54366216

You need to ditch that bias, son.

>>54366205
>And animals with longer lifespans usually reproduce less.

Because they are larger? Are you really comparing rats to human sized animals?

If you look at mammals with similar size to humans they breed at very similar rates to us.

>>54366168

That's retarded.

>>54366223

You need to ditch human bias first.

>>54366060
That's not the point. The point is humanity is only but a small thing in the universe.

>>54366247

There is no human bias. You're complaining about something that has been pivotal for decades.

>>54366244

Look at Rome or China. Or even some stuff already form gunpowder age.

https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Battle_of_Kirchholm

Elite highly trained warriors always slaughtered standard soldiers unless some kind of disaster happened.

>>54366257

Maybe in D&D.

>>54366247
>You need to ditch human bias first.
How the hell can he when he's a fucking Homo Sapiens. What are you, a fucking Homo Neanderthalensis? Homo Heidelbergensis? Or maybe your a bonafide faggot?

>>54366216
>Humans outdoing elves at magic is retarded.

Why are you playing D&D then? Anti-Netherese scumbag.

Run along to Warhammer now.

>>54366261

In what fucking world are the militaries of ancient rome and china elite forces?

>>54366275
>Why are you playing D&D then?

Dude, I'm no longer 14. I stopped playing D&D ages ago.

>>54366288

That's the point you idiot. Romans and Chinks got fucked by actual warrior cultures.

>>54366214
>Remember when elves couldn't be magic-users?
You mean when they were fighter-mages?

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Anyways, all fantasy races are literally just thinly-veiled nonwhite cultures with a paintjob. May as well drop the act.

Also, what the fuck are you even arguing about, elves are a fake race. They're not real. And theres a thousand different kinds of them depending on the fantasy universe. Originally, elves were just invisible wise spirits that caused disease and sometimes helped people. Pretty much a metaphor of a sort for disease and genetics by the Germanics.

>>54366298

>Romans and Chinks got fucked by actual warrior cultures.

HAHAHAHAHA

>>54366251

That wasn't really his point either insofar as he had a point. His writing isn't didactic.

>>54366214

The entire point with DnD human mages is that there are so many humans and they are so varied genetic freak accidents happen. Very few humans can be very good at magic but the best 0.001% can surpass even magical races.

The stupid part is humans outnumbering races that live for centuries. Even if elves breed few times slower (without real reason) they would still have high population just because they can live for 800 years. And they are all fit through all this time only getting better while humans reach the peak around 25 and then start going downhill.

>>54366347
Humans don't need to be genetic freaks to outshine the elves, anon.

Most of the worlds greatest wizards have been ordinary humans. Ed Greenwood for some reason loves his humans. Especially the women.

Humans also learn magic faster than elves for some reason.

>>54366325

Romans started as a warrior culture. Then got soft as Empire grew. They got fucked numerous times by warrior cultures like Huns.

Chinks were always terrible at war.

>>54366347
The innate spark of magic isn't enough to become a great wizard within the confines of the D&D multiverse.

Humans are literal proof of this fact.

>>54365606
*tips fedora*

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>>54366381
The Romans were never real warriors. Their success was mostly economic. Their concept of war was inherently monetary by nature. Most of the great conquests were fueled by moneylenders and debts and political reasons. The Legions were a new, strange kind of army. Rome was just a big corporation with a very large paramilitary arm.

That said, you're both very ill informed and not qualifed to talk about this in any way. But neither am I, and it's fun to talk shit.

>>54366347

Why should a race of magically long-lived beings have the same reproductive instincts as humans? It's probably fair to say Darwin didn't sign off on elves.

>>54366381

>They got fucked numerous times by warrior cultures like Huns.

Rome was in a massive tailspin, had a devastated economy, foreigners and barbarians serving as its soldiers, and incompetent leaders.
And they never even sacked Rome.

You obviously don't know shit about history.

Meanwhile in real life:
https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Gallic_Wars

>>54366347
White people live way longer than the average African. And have more food and water, which insures a healthy pregnancy, and in depth scientific knowledge of fertility and genetics, all of which should translate into a huge birthrate- but nope. Culture. Elves and Whites just don't want babies.

>>54366429

Rome was at it's peak when it was getting fucked by Parthians.

Gallic Wars is just a big army destroying tribes one after another.

Same shit that happened in Spain with Tariq.

>>54366423
>reproductive instincts

When your race is supposedly dying out in a hostile world this shit stops to matter.

>>54366471
>>54366471

>Rome was at it's peak when it was getting fucked by Parthians.
Holy fuck dude please.

https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Trajan%27s_Parthian_campaign

Say it with me guys: I M A G I N A T I O N
In a game of pretend, your humans, orcs, elves, purple man eaters, and whatever the fuck else can be how you, YES YOU, want them to be. Sure it won't help with reading shitty fantasy novels, but then most of those are garbage. When it comes down to it, P&P games of pretend are literally one of the few things on earth you can change the setting of however you want. Hell, you are in fact, encouraged to do so!

tldr you want shitty humans? You can have 'em.

>>54366549
We get that, you ass. The discussion has broken down to Rome being good/shitty at war, elves and white people not breeding enough who brought politics in here?, and the one faggot who legitimately dislike humans while being human themselves.

>>54366168
Correction. Warrior culture means little. Its more abour proper training and tactics. Romans slaughtered more numerous and more warlike cultures.
Now I want to play a game with Roman elves bringing culture through steel to the savage germanic human tribes.

>>54366491

My headcanon for Tolkienesque elves is that they have no instinctive reproductive drive and only enough libido to make sex not undesirable so they only reproduce on a cognitive/romantic basis.

>idiots bitch about humans when every dwarf and elf are exactly the same
>furthermore human characters always invariably have more depth because the dwarf is always a drunken loud midget and the orc always acts like a fucking orc

More news at 11, but you know whats worse? People thinking any variation of -humanoid animal person- is interesting or original. Fucking cavemen literally thought of that shit, your cricket person race is actually more boring than a loud drunken midget with an axe.

>>54365450
>race is just skin tone
you fuck up

>>54366580
Piss off you cunt, it takes time to type things on a phone.

Rome was great at large formation warfare, sieges, and economic warfare. Piss poor at everything else, which is why they hired entire tribes as auxilliaries, and got their teeth knocked in variously at sea during the Punic Wars, in the Black Forest, and in Persia. However, up until the decline, they could always raise another legion to replace any lost. Which is why despite losing half a dozen legions, Rome still pacified most of Gallia and a good chunk of the Teutonic tribes.

>>54366549
>>54366580
True. Creating shit is hard though and thats why there are so many base worlds to all these games and why people like to set a game in X book, movie, vidya etc. It would be nice to have some reference material, some works to use or at least to pick out what was shit about to make ours better.

>>54366680
Wrong cunt your talking to. I'm the guy bitching at the dude who's talking about human bias. I just answered you because we all know it's
>I M A G I N A T I O N
But this is what happens on /tg/. It comes down to who's imagination is right and who's is wrong

>>54366634
>idiots bitch about humans when every dwarf and elf are exactly the same

Not every fantasy is DnD shit.

>>54365277
straight from the tit to the tankard

dwarf rearing is easy

>>54366719
Frankly, I just like talking about Rome.

>>54366634

Cavemen thought of a lot of shit. Doesn't make it bad.

>>54366747
That's perfectly fine.

>>54365139
Monsters besides bandits are rare, and the others are killed by adventurers

Plus all town guards are level fifty due yo the amount of combat experience

Plus we breed fast

>>54366817
In corruption of champions the bizarre is guarded by one level 30 dude

If an area has any money flowing through it at all, it's probably protected by a hired hero

>>54366586

Do we get to have the incident where a human auxiliary knight betrays them and coaxes an entire legion into a forest deathtrap?

>>54366634
Its a different problem, but one that annoys the shit out if me too. I think the real problem is people think they need more races rather than more cultures. Its ok to have short alchoholic jews in the mountains, but maybe rather than making the empire of blue skinned people make a nation of dwarves who are tired of that shit. Or maybe have nations built on ideologies rather than race. The mountain people might have many dwarves, but there are humans and elves there who like the work ethic and don't mind the dark. Barbarian tribes of mixed woodelves humans and orcs, who see themselves as representatives of different totems.
Just make a culture and throw some races already in the setting at it, rather than add dogpeople and make them all samurai and call it a day.

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>>54365537

>Humans discover Cold Iron.
>Elves and fey are alergic to it and it works against magic.
>Elf empires get conquered by horse-riding humans with cold iron arrows, armor, and swords.

>>54365728

Neanderthals were smarter than homo sapiens, but had lower social intelligence.

>>54366918
Sir Armin should never have been trusted, nor should he ever have been given citizenship!

>>54365139
It's because that's how they were depicted in Tolkien, and everyone follows the leader. Dwarves were in the middle of a diaspora, Elves were in decline, and Hobbits just want to be comfortable.

Personally, I like having the Elves and Dwarves in the middle of a millennia-old Cold War, using various human societies as their proxies.

>>54365139

I once made a setting where the gods resembled humans because they were literally descended from gods. The intended mortal inhabitants of the world were halflings and dwarves (and their hybrid race, gnomes), but after a while the gods had a civil war and the losing side lost most of their powers and got kicked down to the mortal world. They started off as demigod-like giants but over time and generations the remaining divinity thinned and eventually you got left with just some tall fuckers, with only a few bloodlines who still had a little echo of power.

Elves and orcs, after that, were magically modified humans, with goblins and trolls as modified halflings and dwarves.

So hopefully that sort of arrangement would make it less bullshit.

>>54366044
>in some capacity, just because "everybody does it"
But that's not the reason they are doing it for. And how do you know its the reason if you are not an author.
Do you know any authors personally?

>you know you have a problem.
How do you know its a problem?
How many books do you read a month?
You are not a writer by your own admission so how do you know its a problem?
Is that you speaking out of your ass again?

>>54365537

Orcs are generally limited by fighting each other more than they do anything else, and elves are generally described as having low fertility, either biologically or because being long-lived makes them slow to bother having kids (like what's been happening among modern humans).

>>54365728
They wiped themselves out by being maladapted to warmer climates devoid of megafauna

>>54366078
>Argues low sexual dimorphism makes all elves combat capable
>Ignores the fact their low sexual dimorphism slants both genders towards feminine

>>54366664
>>race is just skin tone
Well, in taxonomy, race is arbitrary and usually based on genetic phenotypes, so race litterally can be based on skin tone alone.

>>54366664
No, it's not, but you can't bring up the culture part without realizing that you're projecting real world stereotypes onto a fantasy setting that don't need them at all.

I'm not sure how parallel counter cultures and socio-economic failings as racial traits would enrich random fantasy setting #1283134141

>>54367233
>the fact
There's nothing about low dimorphism that says "they're all weak and timid".

>>54367094
Why did dwarves and halflings just look like small humans who just look like small gods if they have no relation to this human-god ancestry bullshit?

>>54367001

>born in the wrong species

No solid evidence of complex symbolic thinking doesn't mean they weren't socially intelligent, it means they were likely straight-up dumb. Cranial volume means little across species.

>>54367264
>penalty to con
>shorter on average
>slender builds, low body weight
Sounds pretty weak to me

>>54367284
If I could blacklist you, I would.

>>54367001
That's blind guessing. All we know is that there skull cavities were bigger and their tool technology remained static longer than ours.

>>54367243

>genetic phenotype

Watch where you're singing those words, you might hurt yourself.

>>54365139
Why is it that undead are constantly and consistently depicted as the quintessential race and culture within the bounds fantasy? This is especially prevalent (and notorious) in Dungeons & Dragons.

They're always portrayed as having conquered the most land, resources and overall influence compared to the other nations
Weaker bodies? Means jack shit, you can't fight them 1 on 1 anyway. Immortal Liches? My god.
Think elves are the masters of magic? Well they can't raise the dead unless they are allied to the undead
The gods are modelled after fucking skeletons, waht gives? Can't we have a god without a skeleton?

They're also almost always white, privileged or not.
What the fuck is this?

>Why is it that humans are constantly and consistently depicted as the quintessential race and culture within the bounds fantasy?
Because humans are real and we are humans so that is what we base the perspective on.
Otherwise you'll just get mary sue bullshit suspiciously like the martial/caster divide where fantasy race is the best thing ever because it's fiction and there's no rules saying they can't.
You write an unrealistic in character elf and no one can say anything because elves aren't human.
You write an unrealistic personality human and you get rightfully told to fuck off.

>>54366078
>Elf gets shot with an arrow
>Dies
>Takes 100 years to replace

>Human gets shot with an arrow
>Dies
>takes 15 years to replace

Hmmm

>>54367362
>we are humans
did you just assume my species? I identify as a dark elf thank you very much.

>>54367394
>Our soldiers are 15 year olds
kek they're just gonna get slaughtered even faster anon

>>54367362
>You write an unrealistic personality human and you get rightfully told to fuck off
No, you get threads of HFY-wankery where they endlessly fellate their human Mary Sues. Humans are as much a fantasy race in fantasy-lands as any other race. That this thread argued about human wizrads for some time should illustrate this point. What humans are capable of in fantasy-lands depends entirely on the author, though often it seems that they will make other races just stupider or weaker to make humans look good, because this takes less effort.

Which is why in my setting elves and dwarves are the dominant (warring) species, and humans and dwarves and halflings are all client races that work for these two larger empires who field them to make up for their low birthrates. So essentially the human and orc kingdoms are proxy states propped up by the elves and dwarves and they're at eternal skirmish war at the behest of their masters. Halflings are basically everybodies breadbasket being excellent farmers so they tend to be off limits for most day to day warfare, and negotiate from this position to protect themselves.

Gnomes are inscrutable and alien creatures from deep within the earth, nobody knows what the fuck is up with them.

>>54367394
>Human gets shot with an arrow
>Dies
>takes 15 years to replace

>Goblin gets shot with an arrow
>DIes
>takes 3 years to replace

Hrrrrmmmmm

>>54366345
Not the one you answered too but still. Yes, Lovecraft was xenophobic and in a lot of his writtings, this tone is showing up, but I think the point here is that a "lovecraftian point of view" evolved beyond the original author work, as it was more the core of what he did, depicting a humanity helpless beyond forces we cannot even conceived. Lovecraft was indeed paranoiac (and maybe his xenophobia came from this issue), but he created an interesting setting which is not human-centric, that other people used to build on top.

On a side note, it's not because you make an innsmouth campaign (where lovecraft obviously put all his hatred for the countryside people AND foreigners AND foreign culture) that you have to carry the same message

Screw elves. Why dont dragons domimate?

>>54367472
The difference here is that goblins can't organize themselves into complex and massive armies. They're either a random horde, or cannon fodder for some dark lord.

The disparity between elves and man is much smaller.

>>54367472
Yeah but goblins are eeeeeevil

THE BOOK SAYS SO

>>54366100
>All fantasy is riffing off of white human traditions and folklore.

...No, that's just western fantasy, dude.

You realize other places do have their own fantasy stories, right?

>>54367492

Depends on the setting. I prefer elves to work in more fey-like and alien ways.

>>54367394
That's not how elves work anywhere.

The idea that elves take a hundred years to mature is just /tg/ wankery. In every edition of D&D and every setting otherwise, elves mature at the same rate as humans but age slower. Elvish STANDARDS of maturity are different - because they live longer, they consider adulthood to be a matter of greater experience and wisdom than humans do.

In a realistic scenario, the elf and the human would take the same amount of time to replace. There would be more elves, though, because they live and remain fit far longer, and even if they reproduced 10x slower than humans a lifespan of 500+ would make for a MASSIVE population explosion.

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>>54367531
>That's not how elves work anywhere.

https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Elf_(Middle-earth)#Early_life
>Physical puberty comes in around their fiftieth to one hundredth year (by age fifty they reach their adult height), and by their first hundred years of life outside the womb all Elves are fully grown. Elven bodies eventually stop aging physically, while human bodies do not.

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>>54365139
We're humans so we like to have humans succeed most of the time. I agree with you, which is why I change the focus for humanity on my games so instead of automatically being the favorite and most successful of the races, they showed up late to the party and although are growing quickly, there's little room for growth when elves and dwarves have the upper hand half the time.

It's still a bit of a humanity fuck yeah, but at least it's because humans have to struggle, not that everything's handed to them on a silver platter.

>>54367531

Just how many would get killed out of some random thing long before even their first hundred years? Just think of the many ways that can get yourself cripple, catch a nasty disease, get murdered, die of cancer, drug yourself to death, die of lead poison (lead-based makep for example),fall of your tree and get killed. In reality, few if any would ever surpass even a fraction of tveir lifespan.

>>54367491
In a lot of settings, dragons were the dominant species, but internal conflict/decreasing of magic in the world led other races to steal the lead.

Also, most of the time, they're not enough to truly impone their domination or they don't care of pesky short living empires

Nevertheless, last time, I thought of a setting where dragons awaken and enslave the world (full human world), using art as a form of treasure, and considering all "live performance" as the highest currency, so they exchange painters, music band and theater companies. Each dragon has his human community around it, and they are not allowed to go out and meet other humans...

>>54367492
>>54367524
Likewise. I prefere my goblins to be cunning and intelligent, just limmited by strength and what resources they can steal and scavenge.

>>54367266

Gods made them as their "children". So in their own image, but smaller and weaker.

>>54366989
I actually made that an important historical point, but not between elves and humans, but between wood elves and mainly high elves. Humans started having more independent kingdoms at contested regions between elves and dwarves, kinda like the gap between Egypt and the Hittite Empire

>>54365193
>almost always
>B-but what about that one specific thing!
do you not understand what the word "almost" means?

>>54365139
In most such settings humans are the m9st fecund and adaptable, so they're everywhere like roaches. In most older fantasy, e.g. Tolkien, which most fantasy authors draw from if only subconsciously, humans precisely because of their shorter lifespans were always the "get shit done" species whereas everyone else was too busy farting around their centuries away or too in tune with nature to break the cycle.

Elf, dwarf, etc lifespans are in the centuries to millenia. Individuals are stubborn and the same people they were a hundred years ago. Meanwhile, five generations of humans have cropped up, three are dead, and they've evolved.

>>54367394
>human is an effective warrior for 30 years max

>elf is an effective warrior for 600+ years

And disparity is nowhere near as bad. Elves don't take 100 years to grow up. They take 30 years max. They are just not considered fully adult by elf law.

>>54367120
>Orcs are generally limited by fighting each other more than they do anything else

Are you implying that humans don't fight each other? Really?

>>54366989

How is cold iron going to help against elf arrows they can fire with perfect accuracy at night?

Seriously, human armies would get destroyed at night by elves. Morale would be fucking terrible since everybody would know they are helpless prey at night.

Just look how much difference night vision made in real wars.

>>54367491
I did that for a game. Dragons had mostly fucked off to space, but they maintained an orbital ring around the world for trading, development, and as a neutral ground where nobody would have territorial disputes. The other sapient races developed societies underneath this shining band in the sky, and came to the natural conclusion that the dragons were Gods, or at least angels.

Elves are depressive and melacholic, dwarves are paranoid and greedy, orcs are hateful and ultraviolent for no reason.

>>54367052

Tolkien elves are not in decline. They are just leaving for a better continent.

This is nothing like D&D bullshit with elf empires of old falling to humans.

>>54367936

Horses.

>>54367942
For a second I was gonna ask you to tell me more about your ultraviolet orcs and how that affects them.

>>54367284
>penalty to con

Not anymore.

And fuck D&D.

>>54367571
So, he's correct.

Elves are of fighting age by fifty in Tolkien's works, not 100.

>>54365139
Because you know, these games are made by humans.
>They're also almost always white, privileged or not.
Same as above, also minorities rarely spend as much money on it as "whites"

I remember in the Burning Wheel elves fade out into spirits if they ger depressive enough.

>>54367574
Most humans don't die of injury, and we don't even have healing magic. Making it to a hundred shouldn't be so hard.

Making it to five hundred is certainly more of a feat.

>>54367472

This really. Realistically humans would get wiped out by greenskins or survive only in remote areas or islands.

At least elves have their magic, archer commandos and connection to fey creatures. Humans have nothing.

>>54367936
>elves have perfect accuracy even at night time
where the fuck are you getting this from?

>>54367491
Because the intelligence of dragons is largely a non-factor, it's just there to be like oh wow, look how powerful and smart this thing is. But in the end, it's still just a thing players are meant to win against, and dragons are very often portrayed as conveniently inept in just the right ways to keep them as monsters you kill because that is what people expect and want.

>>54367961
>Tolkien elves are not in decline.

Yes they are. They're literally dying out as the magic of the world is dying out, that's why they're going to the 'undying' lands to escape their own death.

The only thing that kept their lands from dying for all these years where the rings of power the elves got from Sauron but once the one ring was destroyed (and Sauron) there was nothing powering the elven rings.

>>54367879
Depends on the fiction.

But really the only popular narrative where elves mature slower than humans is Tolkien, and in his works they can fight by fifty.

In D&D and basically everything else they mature like humans, and then functionally stop aging when they hit physical maturity.

>>54367974

Tolkien elves also don't die of old age at all. Many of the ones in books are thousands of years old.

4 out of 6 babies did never reach their 1st anniversary. That's without counting abortions and the mother dying of childbirth. Elve's smaller hips makes them more likely to have childbirth complications.

>>54368011
Not that guy, but basically all fantasy with elves?

Perfect accuracy is pushing it IMO, but vastly superior accuracy? Yeah, better senses/hand-eye-coordination/more training is kinda their thing. There's a reason a lot of games give elves re-rolls to hit. I can think of any elves in fiction that can't see in the dark, too.

>>54365139

In Warhammer high elves are the most powerful nation of the world. They are fantasy British Empire and are in decline only because of apocalyptic civil war with dark elves.

>>54367472
>Human gets shot with an arrow
>Dies
>takes 15 years to replace

>Skeleton gets shot with an arrow
>Doesn't die
>takes 0 years to replace

>>54368052

Now this is bullshit. Elves have much higher standards for hygiene and medicine that medieval humans. Also magic.

If anything it's the humanity fuck yeah crowd that completely ignores how many humans used to die before they even hit puberty.

>>54368065
They're also utterly based.

>Empire: "Hey, uh, Ulthuan, elf guys, there's this worryingly huge Chaos horde coming down from"-
>Ulthuan: "I'm literally already there."

while I agree humans would be kind of fucked in a stereotypical high fantasy setting, it probably wouldn't be the elves to do it. It'd probably either be all the orcs, gnolls, goblins, giants, etc. grouping into a massive XBOX HEUG horde and just stomping everything under them, or dwarves and/or gnomes (depending on setting ) with their advanced technology and metallurgy.

Correct me if I'm wrong, but aren't humans usually just the "protagonist" species? They're not the fastest, strongest, smartest, most magical, etc., but they're the best at taking a bad situation and turning it in their favor.

So while humans may get dominated in a pre-iron world, what with elves being able to snipe and orcs bezerking up, they can invent a way to win/escape and still survive.

It's like we aren't the best at anything but are really good at everything- not as wise as elves, but wise enough. Not as inventive as dwarves, but inventive enough. Not as numerous as orcs, etc. and due to sheer jack of all trades people flourish

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>>54368080

Well, yeah. Vamps should rule the world.

>>54368089

They live in the fucking trees. They live in the middle with trolls, animals, orcs and other filthy things. Nature is not clean. It's dirty and violent.

>>54368107
>Vamp gets shot with an arrow
>Doesn't die
>Milks your dick dry for more vamps/half-vamps

>>54368124

They are fae. And have much higher standards of hygiene in literally every fantasy setting ever. To the point humans smell like shit to them.

>>54368139

Projecting much?

>>54368104
Yeah, that kind of vague human ingenuity thing is probably the exact shit OP is talking about.

It makes no sense. Elves and dwarves are basically just better humans. What exactly makes them less adaptable and ingenious? We think of ourselves as the super adaptable hero species because on Earth we totally are, we outcompeted everyone else and our ingenuity as made us king. But in a world where there are other sapient, intelligent beings that are functionally humans with more advantages, this shouldn't be the case.

>>54368139

If they are fae, they dont give a crap of nortal affairs other than their sick and twisted amussement. You cant have it both ways. Either they are fallen fae, humans but better, or they are creatures that could carw less if the world is destroyed.

>>54368100
>elves are so few (generally) massive campaigns are difficult to maintain
>dwarves are for whatever reason uninterested in combat, but honestly barring super advanced tech is just a midget, and wouldn't be as good.
>goblins and orcs is retarded, yo.
>same shit with trolls.

I think it's important to remember among the 'more intelligent' races humans are probably the dumbest, but also the most cunning and numerous. So they get to play both sides of quality and quantity by being just average enough to outsmart gobboz and outnumber elves.


That's at least how classic fantasy seems to portray it, though now I'm curious why dwarves aren't better. Are they stronger/tougher than humans by a significant margin?

Do elves sweat?

If they dont, they are fucked.

>>54368147

Have you ever read any fantasy Anon? It's always like this. Be it Tolkien or D&D.

>>54368188

Dwarves would have a big disatvantage when it comes to reach.

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>>54368124
>They live in the fucking trees.

...Excuse me?

Seriously though, most wood elf types don't actually live in trees, they live in dwellings built around the trees. Which is no less filthy than living anywhere else, really.

>>54368165
Write your own decline of humanity type setting before criticising others who choose not to

>>54368201

Only because romantics fantasize farming life and other hippy bs..

Just how low would elf birthrate have to be to make them so few in numbers compared to humans?

Humans used to have very high child mortality rate. Average lifespan was 40-45 years until early XXth century. Epidemics were common.

Meanwhile elves live for centuries and are almost immune to disease. They would need to have like 30 times lower birthrate.

>>54368165
I imagine part of it is humans are the only race we put the rebel idea into. So while elves and dwarves probably win one on one, in groups humans
1) outnumber them greatly, which overcomes physical/mental weaknesses and
2) have virtually no standards of honor or society, and are far more willing to try out crazy and depraved shit. Elves and dwarves are bound to their culture, human culture is just "find a way to win"

Also like >>54368215 pointed out dwarves wouldn't be great at full-on conquest due to size, actually would be far more fit in enclosed spaces and limited visibility where limited reach is negligible, unlike on an open field. I guess there's good reason they stick to their caves

>>54368165
Exactly. People always go on about how humans compete in some other ways that make them capable enough to survive, but it doesn't take into account that in order for humans to actually compete they usually have to be at a certain level of technology/society.

The thing is, humans likely would not have even made it to that point, and been wiped out very early, like at prehistoric stage by the other races. This is usually entirely side-stepped by having humans automatically existing already at a competitive level of civilization and society and zero detail is given to them or other races at their respective stage of prehistory/society.

>>54368125
>train females to fight the vamps instead so they don't get milked
>they get bitten
>become vamps
>go back to their village and milk your dick dry to make even more vamps/half-vamps

How do we defeat this?

>>54368235
I'm not saying humanity has to be in a decline. Personally, for D&D at least, I ignore the dumb wee daa moost adaptable horseshit and have elves have reasons not to care about the mortal realms. If humans are fighting the dark elves or whatever then it's a desperate fight against a superior foe, which is more exciting for the players anyway.

Also,
>you can't criticize writing until you've written a book!

is the fucking dumbest, weakest counter argument in existence, maybe even more pathetic than a "like your face!" type retort. Shit, we're on an anonymous message board, how do you know I haven't written something?

>>54368286
Mankind is doomed

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>>54368286

We don't. We join them.

Are there elves garbagemans, elves gong farmers, or even elves farmers?

If the answer is not, elf pouplation cant be that high or they would die of starvation.

>>54368252
Well, if we're talking proper medieval period plague was far less common and lifespan was closer to 55 in the cleaner/more settled parts of Europe. But most "medieval" stuff is pseudo-renaissance, so plague and shit would be more common.

I guess it all comes down to exponential increase. When both races were tiny elves had a chance to stomp humans with equal numbers, but they missed out and now human society increases at a rate far beyond them.

It's not so much elves have 1 kid in the time it takes men to have 30, its humans are so numerous and sex crazed they pop out kids like there's no tomorrow (which for most of the kids their probably won't be)

>>54368338
Why wouldn't there be? Even in high fantasy all you'd get are elves that use fucking magic for farming to make it even more effective.

>>54368275
>have virtually no standards of honor or society

Humans often do have this though.

There have been a lot of battles won or lost by humans in our history because one side was adhering to a less viable model of the world. Crecy for example was an astounding English victory mostly because the French were still living according to the myth of invincible chivalrous nobleman, and they didn't let common sense or logic get in the way of perpetuating that myth.

These traits we apply to other fantasy races are traits we see in ourselves.

>>54368125
>>54368286
Vamps get defeated because as most media have shown us, there will always be some legendary super strong half-human who sympathizes with humans and defeats the non-human race because of self-hatred of the part of them that isn't human.

>>54368356

But burning trees for farmlands and cattle is evil, anon.

>>54368338
Elves don't poop, so elves don't eat, and they recycle all their garbage into works of beautiful art and craftsmanship and homoerotic paraphernalia.

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>>54365277
>>54365293
>>54365310
Reminder that elves having double digit childhoods and multiple years of potty training is only weird because of relative comparisons to our own species.

Meanwhile the Gnomes get to laugh and call us retards because it takes us 2 years to be potty trained and 16 years to be an adult, while it takes them 2 months to be potty trained and 5 years to be an adult.

"How could you possibly care for a giant shitting baby for 2 years? That's ridiculous! Wouldn't you just give up eventually?"

"You mean you couldn't do algebra at 3 years old? You humans must be retarded."

>>54368393
A lot of civilizations farmed and tended to cattle without doing any of that bullshit, you fucking faggot hole cocksucking poopy man

>>54366347
>The stupid part is humans outnumbering races that live for centuries. Even if elves breed few times slower (without real reason) they would still have high population just because they can live for 800 years. And they are all fit through all this time only getting better while humans reach the peak around 25 and then start going downhill.

That would only be true if elves and human had similar yearly reproductive rates. Most settings give humans and elves similar generational reproductive rates.

>>54368393
Why would you even need to when druid is one of your favoured classes?

>>54368338

Depends on the setting. If elf kingdom is open to other races most of that stuff will be done by immigrants from lesser races or slaves if they allow them.

But if they are elf only they obviously need to have elf dishwashers and garbage cleaners.

>>54368196
What do you think sweaty elf smells like?

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>>54368408
How would humans react to be "out-humaned' by another race?

If they were to encounter a race that grows twice as fast, breeds twice as much, and builds whole cities and empires in the blink of an eye?

Where it might take 100 years for the humans to have a sprawling empire, the other race did it in 20.

Also they are all very stocky and muscular, and their men seem to think human women or half humans are the hottest thing ever for some reason. And that they want to pursue relationships despite ending up as wrinkled old men with grey bears at the age of 40.

>>54368468
Aphrodisiac pheromones

Elves are aristocrats. The image of an elf farmer makes me chuckle.

>>54368408
Okay.

Still doesn't make it legit, bruh. Elves mature at the same rate as humans in D&D.

>>54367894

No, not at all. Just that orcs do it more.

>>54368472

To be honest dwarves or high elves should already be much better at building empires than humans.

This happened in Warhammer until elves had a horrible civil war and then war with dwarves that lasted 400 years.

Without those wars crippling other races human kingdoms would never be more than elf vassals.

>>54368472
>If they were to encounter a race that grows twice as fast, breeds twice as much, and builds whole cities and empires in the blink of an eye?

So, China?

>>54368504
Unless your elves fell from the skies, they had to farm to even begin as a civilization. Elves who get their hands dirty are hot as fuck.

>>54368504
I would assume it's all done with magic or by constructs.

>>54368421

And they got conquered by civilizations that didnt care about that stuff.

>>54368504

It's kind of funny really. Just imagining life of elf dishwasher in a high elf city makes me laugh.

>>54368472
>Castles and Cucks: Age of NTR

>>54368520
Really? Can you give me some examples? I don't remember the Babylonians and Persians being wiped out because they couldn't burn down forests, because they already had all the land they needed for cattle, idiot.

>>54365139
>They're almost always white
Gee, it's almost like RPGs were created in a white European country to emulate white European medieval fantasy.
If you MUST have the multikulti, it's not like there are NEVER any non-whites depicted in modern RPGs.

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>>54368512
>So, China?
Except not crippled by luddite ideology and failure to industrialize.

Unless you intend to imply that elves will embrace technology and industry faster than humans.

>mfw a handful of Elves with Guns defend their embassy in the human Kingdom against mobs of anti-elf peasants ala Boxer Rebellion
>Invent powerful drugs and get the entire kingdom addicted
>Eventually humans catch up but it takes centuries, but by then they are the #1 world producer of consumer items, cheap labour, and engaged in perpetual cold war with the elves

>>54368560

But elves live in the forest nos in some wasteland. Elves are going to get outnumbered by humans because humans farms and elves dont. Its that simple of a solution.

Farming ad cattle is slavery. Only dark elves would do it.

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>>54368542
>"Did you hear? The Gnomes really like smut where human women get captured and raped by Orcs for some reason. They find it hotter than their own women."

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Warhammer dark elves would be the perfect elves if they were 2x less edgy.

>>54368610
This argument is getting nowhere because your elves are such a special snowflake niche there's no point for them even existing

>>54368680
But why did you post something that isn't an elf?

>>54368680
But then they'd just be regular elves with a Goth fetish that buy their clothes at hot topic.

>>54368686

Just like every elf with my magic and free energy no downsides attached.

>>54368713

And actively try to rule the world by enslaving other races.

>>54368717
Well, yeah.

>>54368408
Have fun with Alzheimer's by the time I'm 40

>>54368686

You see. This is a purple vs green debate. No agreement can be reach because it all depends on ongoing assumptions.

>>54368762
The elf said roughly the same thing about you at 80 anyway.

That said, when you were entering highschool, the gnome was the CEO of a caravan company with 8 wagon trains in his command, plus a wife, a family of 5, and 2 servants and a veteran of 1 war.

>>54368306
You misunderstand, there are far more wonders to the world than humanitys power level, if you fixate so much on humanitys power level then write your own setting because other people don't make their settings to appeal to you

>>54366216
Having innate magic abilities just means the floor is higher. It has nothing to do with the ceiling.

>>54368805
I think that instead of trying to argue that elves are x or elves are y, it's more constructive to think of how elves can live if such and such conditions are imposed.

Reminder that alchimist dont want to turn gold into lead. That's a byproduct of their true objective: restore mankind to their place before God punished them and expelled them from Paradise. They want tot turn humans into elves.

>>54367431
nigger

>>54368520
Nigga, one of the greatest and most successful empires on Earth was created by a people that used none of the farming tactics you desperately wank.

>>54368704
Technically old wizards in Nasuverse are the origin of the 'leaf eared elf' myth for that universe. Humans who have a lot of magic going on back in those days would mutate slightly, usually gaining elongated ears.

So she's kinda an elf.

>>54368882
Humanity being actual humanity, not some kind in inexplicably super powerful mary sue race, enhances those wonders you speak of.

It also makes the narrative more coherent than the mess that is most modern high fantasy.

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>>54369005

Conquering the land is easy, anon. Ruling it and taxing farmers is hard.

>>54368393
These are elves, they would juxt politely ask the trees for fruit

>>54365208
I'm ready for the "muh inclusivity" meme to die.

>>54367451
15 year olds are already fit for military service.
In a tough environment, it's unlikely that you'll ever have human manchildren

>>54367500
Pretty much only the gooks, and they copy a lot of western culture

>>54367492
This is utterly arbitrary for no good reason.

>>54365139
>Why is it that humans are constantly and consistently depicted as the quintessential race and culture within the bounds fantasy? This is especially prevalent (and notorious) in Dungeons & Dragons.
Luck

>>54368885

Bullshit.

>>54368885
>Having innate math talent just means the floor is higher. It has nothing to do with the ceiling.

That's how stupid you sound.

Humans have higher stamina than any other animal in existence barrinh few. This is rarely portrait in riction or otherwise. On the other hand, animals can wrap around their heads how humans can throw things at them from the distance.

>>54365264
Why do you think Elves rarely get more than a single child?

>>54369250
>Luck
So why aren't leprechauns ruling the world then

>>54369281
Being able to create a ball of light innately doesn't give you the temperament, affinity, or circumstances for loooong studying. Nor does it give you the extra-special blood of dragons/gods/whatever.

>>54365821
There's also strong correlation between Neanderthal DNA and the spread of autism.

>>54369142
I dunno Genghis you made that shit look pretty easy.

>>54369318
Yes. Being able to genetically solve for certain specific formulas doesn't let you do general algebra at a higher level than anyone else. It just means that you don't have to learn as much to get up to speed.

>>54369324

Also superior heat-management. Sweating is a huge advantage.

>>54369005
>>54369388
Genghis empire, much like any other empire that has attempted to conquer as much land as possible as quickly as possible fell apart quickly. It's not a long term strategy.

The main reason Rome and China lasted as long as they did was because they didn't go around and conquer every neighbor they could find and instead only conquered the land that would be profitable to own.

What if elves have breeding seasons?

>>54369380

Elves literally have the special fae blood.

And holy fuck, this 100% depends on what the writer wants.

>>54369380
>doesn't give you the temperament, affinity, or circumstances for loooong studying
There is nothing saying that elves can't have that, and nothing that humans should be superior in this regard.
>Nor does it give you the extra-special blood of dragons/gods/whatever
We aren't talking about humans anymore if you bring this into this discussion.

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>>54365139
>They're also almost always white, privileged or not.

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>>54365139
>Why is it that humans are constantly and consistently depicted as the quintessential race and culture within the bounds fantasy?

>>54369470
>>54369485
I didn't say that elves are worse than humans, but if you're including them as a normal race and not a mythical one, then there's nothing about them that makes them innately better at magic. They have a higher floor, in that they start with some minor talent with no effort put in. They don't have a higher ceiling. Their tippy top spells are the same as anyone else who reaches the tippy top.

>>54369554

They have innate magic. Humans don't. By all logic they should be better at magic than humans.

You just want humans to be as good at magic as elves and that's it.

>>54369554
Well, this is just one setting, but: high magic.

>>54369618
Their innate magic doesn't give them strong magic in any setting or system I know of. Elves don't get free gestalt into wizard, and many have no magic at all. They need to practice and train and gain power the exact same as.everyone else. Their top plateau after gaining power in the conventional way is no higher. In fact, it has been lower, historically. In fiction, their built in magic has all kinds of restrictions, rules, and specific themes they can't escape from that learned spellcasters don't, and in games, they've capped out lower than humans.

>>54369652
In high magic settings, everyone has built in magic.

>>54369720
http://warhammerfantasy.wikia.com/wiki/Qhaysh

>>54369742
>have "best" magic
>still lose

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okay but hear me out here:
Elves are gai lol

>>54369832
Just accept defeat in this matter.

Elves lose by attrition and war fatigue. Even if they're twice as good in all respects, humans breed faster and culturally mature faster. One elf soldier going down is 100 years of training that will take 30 years to replace if the elves are desperate enough to send what they consider children. One human soldier going down is 6 months of training that takes 16 years to replace.
Elves pride themselves on their culture. They couldn't stomach a war like that. Unless one side is literally gunning for fanatical genocide, elves won't participate in long, aggressive wars where they need to occupy land. They will have to find other solutions.

>>54369869
I don't consider Warhammer fantasy to be a good source for elves being better than humans, when they lose to humans repeatedly.

>>54369851
I agree entirely.

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Steven Brust's Dragaera setting is interesting in this regard. "Elves" (the Dragaerans) are the dominant society, and humans a generally repressed minority in the culture. The longevity, physical strength, and magical prowess of Dragaerans gives them military supremacy. It's very interesting worldbuilding--the two cultures are similar enough to coexist in urban settings, but their inherent differences give them noticeably different worldviews and temperaments.

>>54369937
Moving goalposts, aren't we? It was about magic, the argument wasn't about elves being superior at everything.

>>54369916
Humans lose by attrition and war fatigue. Even if they're twice as good in all respects, humans breed faster and culturally mature faster. One human soldier going down is 6 months of training that will take 16 years to replace. One goblin soldier is 6 weeks of training and 6 years to replace. Humans pride themselves on their culture. They couldn't stomach a war like that. Unless one side is literally gunning for fanatical genocide, humans won't participate in long, aggressive wars where they need to occupy land. They will have to find other solutions.

>>54369976
It was about magic in general, yes. In most settings, their innate abilities (if they even have innate abilities) are limited by esoteric fey rules, or entirely unrelated to strong magic because they don't stack with the required time and effort it takes to learn strong magic. There is nothing innate to elves as a concept that says they are better at magic. It usually comes easier to them, but they are rarely better when you get to the real power.

>>54370210
If goblins were organized or intelligent, your find->replace might make sense.

>>54370229
Throughout the history of DnD there have been enough subraces of elves that start with + INT to be better than standard humans in magic.

>>54370246
If elves are twice as smart as humans and they still lose, then even if humans are twice as smart as goblins the humans still lose as well.

If there aren't any arbitrary differences in intelligence, then if the humans can beat the elves the goblins will beat the humans too using on the very same merits.

>>54369916
>A race twice as smart
>losing to a race that isn't
Yeah, no, any race who is twice as smart as humanity would be mowing us down with breechloaders while we are still using spears. Having more numbers didn't help the Aztecs against the Spaniards one bit.

>>54370393
In editions where elves get +int, everyone gets stat bonuses at certain intervals, or int doesn't actually impact magic too much. In 2e, a human with int 13 could beat an elf with int 17 because the human could reach higher levels entirely.

>>54370496
Intelligence doesn't measure advancement. Plenty of low tech people were smart, and there are lots of dummies now.

>>54370519
Well then by that logic humanity is doomed.

If humans beat elves because of breeding speed and numbers despite a lower intelligence and a lower advancement level

then goblins would beat humans using the very same to tactic but being much better at it.

>>54370501
>In 2e, a human with int 13 could beat an elf with int 17 because the human could reach higher levels entirely
Crunch is not always an accurate depiction of fluff.

>>54370496
Yearly reminder that Spaniards counted with the help of numerous tribes which were fed up with the Aztecs´ rule.

>>54370565
Goblins can't organize enough for that.

>>54370581
I'd imagine in any war the Elves would do their best to recruit numerous human tribes with bribes and technology as well. Likely tribes that were oppressed by the larger human empires.

>>54370568
Then don't argue that +1 or 2 int makes them actually better at magic as a whole.

>>54368380
One Half-Vampire
One Quest
To fuck all the humans.

>>54370610
Assuming the elves have any technology to offer. Having longer generations and a tendency to remain isolated in magical woodland probably puts a damper on technological growth.

>>54370601
Then humans can't organize well enough to defeat elves.

>>54370616
But giving them more INT is a conscious decision, while humans somehow ending up to be better mages at the table due to the systems mechanics may not have been intended.

>>54370631
Britain's people lived longer with medicine and healthcare, and had a tendency to remain isolated on their island.

They ruled 1/4 of the world from one single city.

Living longer and isolation doesn't dull advancement anymore than it did to the island people who invented the railroad and the machine gun.

>>54370501
I don't see how you could say that.

INT is basically the must have stat for wizards in every edition. ESPECIALLY the editions where there are elves that get +2INT.

>>54370666
Britain wasn't isolated. Europe was right there, and France had a lot to say.
And you'll note that Britain barely even controls itself nowadays.

>>54370686
Everyone getting stat bonuses at intervals means that +2 isn't relevant in the end, only at the beginning.

>>54370631
>Having longer generations and a tendency to remain isolated in magical woodland probably puts a damper on technological growth.

When has longer life expectancy EVER made people technologically stagnant or complacent? Pretty much all our greatest advancements have come from societies with relatively good individual lifespans for the times they lived in.

Hell, see this thing you're using right now, to send these messages? It was invented by a guy from an isolated island nation of people with a higher lifer expectancy than most of the world's population at the time.

>>54370703
>nowadays

Nice backtracking.

>>54370631

Why is it always fucking woods? High elves exist you know?

And having longer and longer lifespans sure damper our technological growth. It's not like the exact opposite happens or anything.

>>54370714
It's relevant all the way up to epic levels, though it is only a relatively small boost.

Yeah, when you get to the point where the entire party has essentially outgrown their mortal coil and become a gaggle of unruly godlings, it ceases to matter. The vast majority of humans and elves are never getting to that level, though.

>>54370734
Human societies with longer lifespans measure those long lengths in measures of 5 to 10 years. Elves have a looooong time to get set in their ways, and an even longer time for the next generation with potentially different ideas to take over when their curmudgeonly parents finally croak millennia later.

Elves are declining because writers want it. Elves are low in numbers because writers want it. Elves are technologically stagnant because writers want it.

It makes as much sense as studded leather armor.

And there are settings that do the opposite. There are plenty of settings with humans as second rate species and elves with great empires.

>>54370738
I hope you aren't implying that elves are somehow immune to decline and losing their potential empires.

>>54370798

Humans used to live 40 years on average. We live double that now.

This entire point is bullshit and shit writing.

>>54370799
>It makes as much sense as studded leather armor.

It was actually used very frequently by non-European countries. Both the Mongols and the Turks used them as their standard armor for several hundred years.

Heck, the Turkish army book (which dates back to when they were invading Byzantium) had a part on how the field commanders ordered his men to build a leather cooker because they couldn't get enough tanned leather imported from their main base to make armor.

>>54370760
Don't compare an increase of about a decade within one species to an entirely different species living for thousands of years. Their brains would have to work so differently just to avoid dementia in the triple digits that it isn't even comparable.

>>54370798

Grannies who grew up when radio was the greatest technological achievement learn to use smartphones today.

>>54370851

Leather armor existed. Studded leather is fiction.

>>54370816
Not that anon, but I'm seeing them doing exactly that as a rule that I'm getting tired of it. The exact opposite would also be lame, they should be allowed to rise and go down like anyone else.

>>54370855
But you can draw analogies from it.

If by the time humans have developed feudal systems of castles and metal armor and the goblins are still chucking spears and stones, then by that time the elves are building railways over continents and toting gatling guns around to mow down the human savages.

It's rediculous to have a longer lived and more intelligent race not be the dominant species on the planet.

The neanderthalls certainly didn't beat the homosapiens because they were stronger.

>>54370855
>decade

Hunter gatherer humans could have average lifespans as low as 30. 40-50 was the norm just a century ago. We live twice as long now.

This means everyone has more time to learn and society benefits from best individuals for longer.

Claiming that elves work different and are immune to change is as stupid as simply claiming they are idiots.

>>54370837
More than double that.

The first generation assumed to hit a hundred at least has already been born.

>>54370905
Assuming that elves started at exactly the same time as everyone else and had similarly liberal growth tendencies and organized themselves into one superpower rather than fighting or keeping themselves separate to preserve clannish societal ties, then sure.
But then you've just got humans who somehow made a megastate and live forever. How boring.

>>54370965
40-50 is the lifespan if you use an average that included child deaths. Chances were high that anyone living past 20 would make it to 60+. The sheer number of people who died before hitting 20 really drags the average down.

>>54371027
>Assuming that elves started at exactly the same time as everyone else

Which is sort of silly, because the second most prevalent trait for elves in fiction is that they've been around much longer than all the other humanoids.

>>54370965
Claiming that elves are each an endless font of creativity and would never become socially and technologically conservative as they grow much, much older is silly.
More often than not, the biggest changes happen when the oldest generation dies off and younger people take their place. Elves can go through dozens of generations before one dies off.

>>54371066
According to themselves, usually.

>>54371027
> organized themselves into one superpower rather than fighting or keeping themselves separate to preserve clannish societal ties, then sure.
Europe is as divided as any region on earth by clannish, societal, and cultural ties and yet this small area of the world not even 1/5th of its size dominated the rest.

Because its people lived longer, and were smarter as a result.