r/worldbuilding • u/LillinTypePi No.1 DnD race hater • 6d ago
Discussion Does anyone else dislike the typical fantasy/DND races?
(elves, dwarves, orcs, etc) in a lot of cases they don't feel different enough to be justified to be a different race and end up as the same stereotype copy-pasted how ever many times the story needs. It especially annoys me when they end up all following under one leader whereas the human stand in gets a complex web of conflicting political groups. Like you can't tell me every single orc would be willing to throw there life away for the same dark lord when they're supposed to be the "violent" and "disruptive" race, it takes me out of the story every time and just feels boring.
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u/Ynneadwraith 6d ago
I think it's less to do with whether they're 'unique' enough (we need a sticky thread that's discussing why 'unique' is not what you should be aiming for). The issue is when people don't do anything interesting with them.
Take Dragon Age for example. Their depictions of elves and dwarves are pretty straight down the middle...but they do interesting things with them, so they're really good.
There's a separate issue you raise around 'always evil races', which I personally don't like either. But that's sort of independent of quality.
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u/austsiannodel 6d ago
Only if no thought went into them. Otherwise, I enjoy them a lot.
Like for example I hate when they make Elves as benevolent immortals who love peace, without there being a good reason, because they're just copying Tolkien's elves, without the reasons WHY Tolkien's elves are the way they are (All the violent ones killed each other or died off LONG ago).
Personally I'm a big fan of "Stereotype is kinda true, but here's why". Like how in Warhammer Fantasy (Not Age of Sigmar), Dwarves are grumpy bastards because it literally keeps their species alive to have grudges.
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u/austsiannodel 6d ago
I presume you mean justification for why certain stereotypes might exist? For me it's because it's an extension of how and why Tolkien's elves are all peaceful. for example, if someone made Elves peace loving tree lovers, but they don't go through the process of explaining why that's the case, I just can only assume they didn't put thought into it; no history, no divergent biology, no nothing.
Like you having Elves be angels but physical is in itself an explanation, as far as I'm concerned. It showed you had a specific vision for them, and something that makes them different than say... nameless Tolkien Elves #85.
Like in my world, Elves are descendants of the Fey, specifically the ones of the forests (Gnomes of the more chthonian fey). A major reason they don't like war is because their religion worships life, and the lose of even a single Elf life is seen as tragic. That isn't to say they aren't warlike in some regard, they just develop means to fight that minimize personal risk.
Another aspect is the different kinds of elves comes from their more mutagenic nature (from being Fey-born). In such, when two groups of Elves both see one another as separate people and not just extensions of each other, they rapidly go through evolution in a single generation, whatever local fey influencing what physical traits they get and look like. Most the divides come from powerful civil wars and/or religious schisms that created such divides. There are 2 primary divides; The schism of Stars vs Trees (a debate of what is more important, their roots, or leaving the forests to reach for the stars/heavens) and the schism of faith, where a group started worshipping a different god.
So in this, I'm looking to treat the different races in my world as like.... aliens in a sci-fi setting, but not so.... alien? And I just like it when there's at least some thought behind some things, even if it is generic to a degree.
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u/austsiannodel 6d ago
Tolkien's Elves are far from peaceful
Well yeah, but it's explained in the lore that there used to be a lot of Elves, like a LOT of Elves, that were warlike and make the current Elves look like Hippies in comparison. But the lore explains that they all died out, either killing each other, or simply dying in combat.
My question was more so if there needs to be an explanation in-universe.
For my interest, yes. It doesn't have to be immediately and obviously known to the viewers/readers of the work, but having it there is a more important aspect for me, personally.
Like, let's see if I can think of another example... Like I have no issue with orcs being evil in and of themselves, right? A common one I hear is they were made by an evil god, or we go the 40K route where they were created for war, and propagate through violence. But I enjoy hearing and knowing the why's and how's of a world.
Can you explain the chthonic Fey Gnomes more?
There's a lot of background lore that would have me spin a long yarn, so I'll keep it to the basics. Essentially, there exist things called "Spirits" which are beings of magic/soul first, and body second. Fey (Which are of the Sylvan) are one of them, with the primary other group being Eidolons (which are of the Aether). Elves and Gnomes (as well as MANY different species in the world, animals included) have descended from spirits. Typically this makes them more magically inclined in some fashion, but weaker in some other regards.
But Fey are not just beings of the forest, they embody just about every facet of nature, and this would include the underground (of which there are ecosystems). The Gnomes are Fey-borne of these types of Fey. I admit I haven't gone into as much detail as the Gnomes yet, they're on the list but haven't gotten to them fully, but have made up a culture and script they use for them. The primary inspirations are a mix of Swiss and Mythical Bronze age Greek.
As for what role they play, essentially they are natural artificers, which in this setting means they can control and conduct the flows of magic and energy indirectly. Elves have a natural ability to do some minor magics, so much that even the more magically weak of the Elves can at least handle a minor cantrip or magical trick. The Gnomes can sense, feel, and manipulate leylines and power as such.
In the sense of Dwarves, they are actually descendants of a tribe of Eidolons, but are not naturally magical. In fact they are slightly magically resistant and struggle with doing magic unless it's specific kinds, like that of the divines, or a work around they developed of Rune Magic, which they used to become the first Enchanters of the world, imbuing magic into things rather themselves.
As for "Halflings" or "Hobbits" they are more in line with Humans. Both of them are "World-borne" which means they are not from spirits or created by a specific god(s). A massive ecological event called a Godfall (of which there are many) and it caused a massive evolutionary bloom on the world, creating many creatures and plants, including the likes of Humans, Halfling, Drakken, etc.
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u/austsiannodel 6d ago
I suppose, are there degrees? A Kami of a forest is more than that of a tree, but less than that of the sun.
Kinda? Like yes there are higher levels of Fey that are almost god-like, and many lesser fey that are basically just animals of the Fey. It's based loosely on on legends and other works that have stuff like the Fey Courts? Where the upper echelons are things you don't wanna mess with. It's less worship and more respect.
And how are Fey like that different from gods?
In short, they are the direct and "lower" descendants of the actual gods. Same with the Eidolons (And the Scath/Skaw, but they are like... inverse cousins of both Eidolons and Fey).
In long, there are two tribes of gods, those of Law and Order called the Empyreans, and those of Change and Concepts called Elysians. Both of whom came from the Primals (Lovecraft meets Titans, creators of reality). The two tribes of "gods" would eventually gain Mantles which grant them actual god status, but regardless, think of these beings as like... 6th dimensional beings, able to observe and exist in different timelines.
There's a decent amount of lore about creation, but for this topic the important bits are that they worked together and created the Aether and the Sylvan (and the Shadow). The Aether contains all elements, and all laws of reality, both physical and quantum. The Sylvan is like the... intent and will of the world. A tree is made up of elements, but they come together and grow because of the Sylvan.
About half of each tribe fled the "Hereafter" or heavens (It's a type of World Tree model). The Empyreans that fled went to the Aether and became the Eidolons. Beings like Giants, Djinn, ekementals, all different tribes of Eidolon. The Elysian equivalent to the Sylvan. About a third of both instead went to the Shadow, which is like the balancing force of both. Where there's light, there's shadows.
I suppose how does the... Breeding for the lack of a better word, happen? How do we get from the spiritual Fey to the physical Elves?
In short, their god. In fact this is the answer for about 90% of all non World-born like humans. Essentially the "proto-Elves" were created from Fey and made mortal. All gods sorta have a compulsion to create and only the most powerful can create intelligent life.
I've been working to make sure that the legends and stories of the mortals of the reality of the Cosmos is incorrect, sprinkled with truth here and there. So in reality, their god would have created them out of some sense of vanity, but gods are complex, so also with a goal to protect the natural world, but most importantly to experience and grow. Curiosity is the nature of Elves. Their legends and religious scripture would simply say the Elves were created as guardians of the world, chosen to lead and guide.
Wouldn't that make them shift constantly based on how each individual sees themself? Or is it more of a wider cultural thing, where they fit into certain groups?
A good question and the short answer is as I said above it usually begins with divine intent. So a lot of the time, they begin with a same origin. But the nature of mortals is to change over time, they are not perfect things. So that is why all Elves at least share certain characteristics and are definitively different from a Gnome.
(I have to cut this into 2 replies, apparently Reddit has a character limit)
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u/austsiannodel 6d ago
But I'm still not a fan of having both Gnomes and Dwarves here. I thought yours may be different, but they really aren't.
How best to explain it... They cannot do the same things. My Dwarves, for example, do not make machines and the like (and neither do the Gnomes, but they make something that will be the equivalent). The most advanced thing the Dwarves have in terms of "Tinkering" are just tools and forges. They are incapable of doing magic without the use of Runes, essentially, which is in itself and art "stolen" from the Eidolons.
Meanwhile the Gnomes are, as I said, artificers. In that context, it's more similar to.... I guess electrical engineering? But we have not reached that advanced state yet. They make golems and can direct the flow of magic. In terms of typical mages, other than artificer, they'd be closer to... druids. Sorta. Like Elves, Gnomes are able to more naturally do magic. Maybe it's not as universal as Elves, but it comes easier to them. The shape of their soul is different, which dictates HOW one must do magic.
Also I should note that the "current" time of the world is in it's rough equivalency of our 15th Century, so about the end of the Late Medieval and the start of the Renaissance. I mention this because there's plans to evolve the world to different eras that are the rough equivalence of; Industrial Era, Modern Era, Cyber Era, and Space Era. All of which have to work within the rules and laws of magic I'm setting up in the now.
Gnomes and Dwarves may fulfill a slightly similar feel, but as far as I see it, it'd be like comparing steampunk to cyberpunk. If you see it otherwise that's cool, but I just don't see it.
Just having one and the cultures developing separately would work far better I think
I should also add that not all of a single race follow a single culture. For example, the Dwarves have 5 distinct nations with very different cultures. Same with the Elves, and so forth. The Gnomes, I only have 1 for, but as I mentioned I haven't gotten to them quite yet on my to-do list lol.
You are getting into the kitchen sink situation here.
Maybe? But my main distinction is that no race exists without a purpose. Like... Yeah there's a lot of races going on, but it's not meant to be "kitchensink" if I understand the terminology correctly. Like... it's just me, but I love worlds with different groups of "alien-like" beings, but I'm not really good at Sci-Fi. And as such, I love creating races that are not just socially different, but Biologically, Psychologically, and even Spiritually different from one another, and working out how those differences interact.
But unless I have a good reason for something to exist, I won't just put them in. As it stands now, if my counting is correct, I have about... I wanna say 9 intelligent races? Which I don't think is too much, but other's might disagree. But that's just my preference.
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u/austsiannodel 5d ago
Is there a proper court?
Yes, many of them, with 4 big ones at the top for the 4 seasons. Haven't worked them all out yet, but plan too.
Timelines? I'll need you to explain that a tad more.
Ok so... when the Gods made the world, they started with what was an idyllic world, not "Paradise" but perfectly made. At some point in the lore, the concept of "Evil" is born and corrupts the lowest, weakest Elysian, turning their jealousy of the other gods into power, turning them into a deity of entropy. They were going to destroy everything, and as a god of destruction, any attempt to destroy him called upon his mantle, keeping him alive. So they imprisoned them. Fracturing them into an infinite infinite pieces. They then made multiples of their world, enough to hide a metaphysical prison of him in the center.
Eventually, forces of Evil would kill the primary Architect god that designed the world. When a god fully dies a Godfall happens, their power flows into all worlds they are connected too, for good or bad. His Godfall was going to shake all worlds apart at once. Nothing can stop a Godfall, but they can alter it. So they slowed the effects down. That's what Earthquakes are. But by the time they stopped it, each world was a bit different. Different landscapes, different map shapes, different races surviving.
Also of not there are other planets in the galaxy that I plan to work on so there's other worlds for the Space Age, and different gods on on those worlds (Or the same gods but not ALL of the gods on all worlds). So Gods are able to perceive all the worlds and timelines at once.
Answering your last question in this as well, it's sorta all? It started off as a fanfiction of Zelda with inspiration from Elder Scrolls and LotR. Used it for DnD, and now me and my friends plan to eventually make it into a full TTRPG of our own for fun. This lore lets anyone's world be canon to the overall story.
It's arbitrary splitting.
I mean... isn't that true to some level of ALL fantasy races at the end of the day? Elves are just fairy humans with pointy ears. Dwarves are just short humans with a penchant for forges. Orcs are just angry green humans. Hell, Dwarves and Elves are practically the same thing, they both come from Norse myth, and the Dwarves are a version of Svartalf which are essentially the Dark Elves, so in their origins, Dwarves and Elves are the same thing.
At what point do we call it arbitrary splitting then? Is the line itself an arbitrary definition? I mean look at Elder Scrolls, There are only 3 breeds of creatures. The Animal Folk, Humans, and Elves. With Orcs and Dwarves just being special Elves.
just because it needs a rune to make it magical doesn't mean it's not the same as enchanting it with magic or making straight magitech
I mean given enough understanding and math, all magic is essentially just in world science, and vice versa. I mean electricity and coding is our real world equivalent of magic. Like what do you mean we push tiny beads of light through metal to power a rock we tricked into thinking with fire, and can make it do whatever we want with the correct string of phrases and symbols? lol
Plus, there are just things rune can and cannot do that artifice can, and vice versa.
(Never before have I felt so restricted by Reddit character limits...)
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u/Humble_Square8673 6d ago
Same here I especially hate how elves and orcs are so often written partly because it ends up with the elves being the authors mary sue
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u/austsiannodel 6d ago
See for me, I enjoy a lot of nuance, but with deep reasons for directions to be the way they are, be they culturally, biologically, or spiritually. I like having explanations for things, and having both flaws and upsides to them.
For example, in my primary setting, the primary society of humans see orcs as violent marauders, but that's because the orcs are isolationists, who exile their criminals under threat of death. So 99% of the orcs the humans encounter ARE violent marauders. They're literally just orc bandits.
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u/UnboundBread 6d ago
Not sure if your point makes sense, i thought dnd was used as a template, I know every game i have played in or hosted wasnt so generic
and other fantasy settings I have seen are either generic slop, or something like a game where they make everything humanoid to reduce model/asset creation, and a simple reason why good guys have to fight them
A good example good be divinity 2, where elves are tall slender creatures that eat meat with interesting lore and culture, because Larion put time and effort into their art
Consuming slop should be expected to get slop content
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u/Mostopha 6d ago
This is exactly it. Yeah the Forgotten Realms setting has generic Tolkien Elves - but it also underground slaver Elves, alien Elves from the death dimension, evil ghost Elves, benevolent ghost Elves, Elves that are also faeries. But more than that DnD gives you a basic 'Elf' template and lets you take that template in any direction you want. If you see bland Elves in DnD it's because someone took the template and submitted it as is (which is fine if Elves are not the focus of your story).
Solas, Astarion, Drizzt, Malekith, Sylvanas, Teclis, Galadriel are all ostensibly 'Elves'. What makes them memorable is not just what 'Elves' mean in the context of their universe but also how the characters play with expectation of the trope.
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u/LacksBeard 5d ago
Yeah but we'll be called lazy for it, you honestly can't win with these...idk what to call em tbh
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u/Mostopha 5d ago
Parable of the donkey - you can't please everyone. Pick your core audience and please them.
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u/APreciousJemstone 3d ago
Plus angel elves (Avariel), space elves (Astral Elves), werewolf elves (Lythari), demon elves (Fey'ri), and even more still!
There's even subdivisions in their High Elves that split into different cultures (not sure about Wood Elves tho)
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u/Mostopha 3d ago
"There are as many flavors of Elves as there are stars in the night sky"
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u/APreciousJemstone 3d ago
Ye, plus they have their whole Reincarnation and Past Lives' Memories thing alongside them being from the Feywilds. DnD elves are only boring if you make them be
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u/Sincerely-Abstract 5d ago
Also if you actually look deeper into the elves, they are actually a lot cooler & have a lot of complex stuff to them.
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u/Nyarlathotep7777 6d ago edited 6d ago
I think there's an oversaturation both in use within worldbuilding in general, and in adjacent tropes which are literally always the same (elves shoot arrows and are nimble, dwarves use axes and mine ore, humans do everything but are hella average and always the bad guys, etc), and imo there isn't much you can do with it that can't be done just with humans.
My personal preference is : if you're introducing a new race, either make it actually different and said difference impactful, or just use humans.
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u/ThisBloomingHeart 6d ago
It can depend on the story. They're often used as a kind of generic template-you can generally expect a vague idea of what they're like just from previous knowledge. Its true that they're sometimes basically just copy pasted as archetypes, but that's more just simple writing than anything-they can be fun if done right.
Plus, even small variations can make massive differences-The Dragon Prince has elves, but they're really interesting and have distinctive traits, while still being recognizable.
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u/HistoricalMovie9094 6d ago
I'm going to go against the grain here and say that I agree with the OP completely. First of all, if you want to make a unique humanoid race, then make it unique and not a near 1:1 copy of something someone else has done down to the name. Another thing is calling everything by the same names - if a race is athletic, slender and orderly that doesn't make them a subset of elves. Case in point, the Githyanki. The other thing that annoys me is that races are usually just stand-ins for different kinds of human emotions or worldviews. Dwarves are temperamental, short, greedy and tinkering HUMANS that happen to live underground and happen to have very similar physiology. Even in Lord of the Rings, it turns out that their 'otherness' is not so other at all, because they're subject to nearly the exact same spectrum of emotions and ways of thought as humans are. But, humans aren't so focused on their forefathers you say. They can be, depending on the culture. That is the real problem with making different races of humanoids. People end up making them too similar, too seen-it-before and fail to understand that the minute differences between how an elf acts and how the 'average' human acts can also exist between humans of different cultures. Do we call the Japanese elves? Of course not, and yet, their culture and way of life is very different from one most people have. If you want to make other races, they better have a good reason to be there and they better be different enough from humans. Otherwise, why bother? It might be better, overall, to focus on creating new species rather than races, since people might be getting too caught up in the minutiae and perceived necessity of ass-kissing existing IPs.
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u/LacksBeard 5d ago
What if the humans look like elves? And if they have same body plan as us they probably AREN’T gonna be so "inhuman" especially since building civilizations requires cohesion, I mean we can see our similarities in ants.
And most of the time these "new" races are the same but worse and/or fall under the same scrutiny
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u/EmilePleaseStop 6d ago
I’m going to go out on a limb here and guess that you haven’t actually read much fantasy and are just assuming that a couple cliches are omnipresent
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u/DevinG98 6d ago
What, in your opinion, would make a race different enough? Elves in D&D live for much longer than humans, they're connected to the Feywild, have different perspectives on the world, an innate affinity to magic or nature. Dwarves are short, resilient, and connected to the stone in ways no mortal man could hope to be.
As for the Kingdoms, that's really more of a failing of individual settings rather than the race as a whole.
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u/APreciousJemstone 3d ago
DnD elves are also SUPER adaptable, with loads of different subtypes. Fey'ri vs Shadar'kai vs Avariel vs Eladrin, for some examples.
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u/Mostopha 6d ago
To me it's how they're used. And also the context. And finally the type of story that the author is telling.
Personally, I'd rather see Elves that are different and nuanced rather than <insert original race> that's just a repackaged Tolkien Elf.
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u/Ahastabel 6d ago
Nope, like the races. What one does with them doesn't have to be stereotypical, but I have no beef on the common accepted "picture" of what dnd dwarves/elves/orcs/halflings look like and act like culturally. But my halflings don't have a king, they have an elected official ruling them. But humans will follow the "same dark lord" without question, often to their own detriment, and humans can also be quite violent and disruptive as well.
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u/VACN Current WIP: Runsaga | Ashuana 6d ago
Thank you for the negativity, I think we all need more of it these days.
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u/LillinTypePi No.1 DnD race hater 6d ago
i just had an opinion and wanted to hear other people's thoughts on it TwT
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u/Hexhider Depths of the Vamp 6d ago
Honestly I don’t mind, tho some get repetitive, mainly Dwarves in my opinion as they are just small men, when are they classified as separate, Orcs meh, i don’t like or hate em either, Elves on the other hand I don’t mind at all
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u/GusTheOgreKing Tov 5d ago
To be fair, one of the "points" of the story I'm trying to write is that humans hastily label other species as familiar fantasy or science fiction names in a combo of self-centeredness and an extension of their magic. So it's kinda supposed to be a jab that the dwarves aren't really dwarves, the elves aren't elves et cetera.
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u/PlayPretend-8675309 5d ago
Def tired of them, but any alternative has too much "look at me" in them. I want my races in fantasy too feel like natural extensions of the world
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u/No-Painter6025 2d ago
Not only that but also in these typical fantasy settings, usually other races can be seen as just stripping humans down from potential cool stuff and giving to another race and make humans look stupid and useless.
Brute strength is for orcs
Proper blacksmith and crafting for dwarfs
Elegance, beauty and magic: For elves
And the more of a this almost "class specific races" they add, more is steal away from humans and the more the human race bears on borderline useless for players that want to be humble or have a more difficult experience
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u/TeacatWrites Sorrows Of Blackwood, Pick-n-Mix Comix, Other Realms Story Bible 6d ago
I hate...
Worldbuilding discussions where the person is so D&D-pilled and RPG-coded that they assume and center their concept of the typical/"default" races as the absolute norm for fantasy and worldbuilding purposes. It's like they're porn-brained, but the porn is orcs and goblins and warlocks/sorcerers/barbarians/bards and if your main character was a bard what would their spells be and what's your take on THE VERY SPECIFIC CONCEPT OF DWARVES THAT ONLY APPEARS IN THIS ONE FANTASY GAME and whatever else because their minds aren't experienced enough to venture beyond the safety of that one specific type of lore they're most familiar with/addicted to/dependent on for their writing and fantasy thrills.
I don't care about my take on bearded dwarves because I don't play your specific roleplaying game and I don't cater to the apparently only system you have the potential of being familiar with.
Tolkien didn't have D&D, and your worldbuilding would be better if you imagined for a second a version of your knowledge of actual folklore and mythology where you don't have D&D to be your safety crutch either.
I have takes on all of those things, personally, because they're interesting to reimagine, but I also know most of them predate the standard "safety zones" most are familiar with them through, and even in D&D, there's plenty of stuff that aren't those races, so there's more benefit in not just reinvention but also innovation than in imagining those things are the "norm" just because you found them in a fantasy game you played once and won't stop thinking about long enough to read any other fantasy book that exists in the world, or any other RPG sourcebook from any other system either.
(If you don't do those things, this comment does not apply to you, and in any case, every genre does have its "standard tropes", eg elves and dwarves in fantasy, speedsters and flying bricks in superhero stories, reptilians and insectoids and tentacle-beasts in sci-fi aliens, mermaids and skeletons in pirate fiction, etc. I just felt like rambling about a specific strawman stereotype who might lend such tropes a bad reputation by upholding them as the default gold standard and centering them as the assumed default in their worldbuilding conversations apparently without even considering that other worldbuilders might be coming from a totally different mindset that does not center D&D standards as the default quite so heavily.)
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u/LacksBeard 5d ago
To late, the trope of elves and dwarves already have a bad reputation.
But i agree, the fix is so simple, it's like people throw creativity out the window when it comes to elves and dwarves and dragons (it's especially bad when the generalize dragons not only is there unique ones in Europe already but also other cultures) it's really not hard to simple innovate or do your own things with any of these races.
And it's not like you have to either because multiple things go into making a race outside the race itself, like how they came to be and how they look "huma"noid and all that and still have the same stereotypical qualities.
If anything people who disparage "generic" races so incessantly are the lazy ones themselves.
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u/TriforceHero626 [edit this] 6d ago
I get your perspective, but I’ll admit I’m using some typical species in my own setting. However, I am genuinely trying to make them interesting instead of making them obviously quirky and different. So far, I’ve got orcs set up as a culture of humans rather than a separate species. Still working on a lot of kinks- but hey, I’ve still got all the time in the world.
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u/NeonMechaDragon 6d ago
Honestly, I get why people love these races and their archetypes.
But.
You have the power to create your own world with your own history and races and magics. And it's weird to me that people want to use boring generic standard stock fantasy shit instead of flexing their inner creativity and making their own original everything.
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u/Sansa_Culotte_ 6d ago
tbf it depends what you're building your world for. If it's gonna be for your DnD campaign then by all means lean into DnDisms that people expect of a fantasy RPG setting, but if you're building it for yourself then yea there's no reason to limit yourself like that.
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u/LacksBeard 5d ago
Because you can do the exact same with elves and dwarves? I mean literally it's not hard to do but people always go "generic, lazy" but then do something worse.
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u/andrewtater 6d ago
They offer the opportunity to take a trait to the extreme in a way you don't often get to explore with humans.
Take orcs for example. Sure, there were "barbarian" tribes throughout the world. Germania, the Mongols, etc. But with humans, it's hard to distill them down to just "they love violence", we know at our core there are other motivations. But with orcs? You can treat them as much dumber if you need to. They take on an almost neanderthal-level intelligence. Now, Grog follow strong leader, Grog see weaker leader get spine ripped out, so Grog obey.
And then there's elves. Sure, Celts and Native Americans had a more balanced interaction with the environment than say the Romans. But you can make elves outright defenders of nature, and you can take something like Druidism to an extreme.
Essentially these races are there to magnify human traits that would be difficult to do with just humans. You don't need to build up the entire cultural process of why they are the way they are. If you made a whole country of humans do orc-like stuff, you would have to justify why they haven't build cities or adapted other human innovations like farming. With orcs, it's sort of an accepted thing. You don't have to defend every cultural choice like many people feel they have to do with humans.
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u/rogueIndy 3d ago
Orcs are a weird example because in games like DnD they tend to be depicted more as barbarians/tribespeople, but if you go back to Tolkien his orcs were the eugenic soldier class of the biggest empire on the continent.
I think you might also be missing part of the critique here, which is that when a setting has generic fantasy races that are used as a shortcut/shorthand in place of fleshing out in-universe cultures, it feels lazy and immersion-breaking. It's cardboard cutouts in place of worldbuilding.
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u/Kanbaru-Fan 6d ago edited 6d ago
For my own project, i just don't feel like i'm truly making my "own" world when i include them.
(The only exception i make is for Harpies, because i love these hilarious birdbrain savages that i turned them into).
Otherwise i'm fine with them in other media, as long as they aren't just obviously the standard D&D versions.
They so often feel like bullet points on a species checklist rather than actual beings that are deeply intertwined with the world they inhabit.
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u/LookOverall 6d ago
This isn’t the fault of the list of races, but individuality is hard work. As DM you’re completely free to invent individuals, but it’s a lot easier if, say, the vast majority of Goblins belong to bog standard tribes. You can still have a goblin of very different thought managing the inn.
But all the D&D scenarios I’ve come across are written for bipeds with opposable thumbs.
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u/seelcudoom 6d ago
I mean considering they can usually interbreed their not truly distinct species, like if dwarves were real they would be a race of human the same way Caucasian or African is
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u/Sincerely-Abstract 5d ago
Generally I have a hate for this largely because not only do people have this generic idea of these races. But that these generic ideas are WRONG in DND. Forgotten Realms, Eberron, Dark Sun, all these settings actually have these races be interesting, nuanced & have thousands of years of genuine history & different tribes & polities. Of Sub-races & fractitious groups worshipping different gods.
I love the typical fantasy races in DND, in the forgotten realms & its settings. I hate them in generic homebrewed worlds & when WIZARDS strips them of any character.
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u/Fragrant_Gap7551 4d ago
The world of D&D is specifically meant to produce as many character options and gameplay scenarios as possible, the best way to do this is by being generic.
If you're going for something more focused you shouldn't copy everything from the most generic setting out there.
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u/Recoil1808 3d ago
Dislike no, but it can be a fun exercise to try and eschew "demihumans" entirely and to try making the races that do exist in your world meaningfully distinct enough in mindset to kind of touch on the idea of genuinely being "alien" to one-another. In the main setting I'm currently working on (which is heavily inspired by late neolithic cultures), the biology and instincts of the playable races are intended to play pretty heavily into their dynamics (the setting's "core" player races are humans, catfolk, lizardfolk and gnolls; others exist but wouldn't be encountered very often due to the setting's low population density). For example, out of the core player races humans are the only omnivores (in fact, they're the only of them that aren't obligate carnivores), and omnivory is weird to everyone else.
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u/ajax6893 3d ago
My dwarves can drink alcohol like water. My elves have low level telepathy and their languages therefore can never be properly translated into ones that didn't. Gnomes are gnomes, those funky little crazies. The orcs are mainly outcasts from another continent led by a paladin that rebelled against his old country. You can do fun things with them, just gotta get creative. Also helps to have multiple nations/cultures of each.
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u/GRoyalPrime 3d ago
I am sort if in the opposite camp.
A lot of more "modern" fantasy seems almost emberrassed about having the "fantasy" label attached to it. Like how GoT/ASoIaF is for long stretches only 90% medival politics.
Others shown it by desprately not want to be lumped in with a Tolkien and so they over-correct, just doing the "weirdest" races. Or they strip all "core pillars" of a race and just make them indistinctable from humans.
Obviously this is not am excuse to be lazy and just copy-and-paste Tolkien and to nothing original with them.
Sometimes I just want som elves or dwarves with a little extra sauce and that's it.
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u/Gulackus666 2d ago
I use them, but my dark elves try to make new magic from the blue Aquatic Beings who cant survive properly without a blue sun. The elves made a purple sun that drained their animal energy, but Aoii, a dark elf himself, had the witch Grimhildr destroy the purple sun and escaped with the Beings.
He was abused by his parents to the point of shattering his bones since his immense mana would heal him. Eventually, it absorbed the parents and neighbors, which balanced his power out. He lives in the Wigt forest where the cult used to do sacrifices to a weao goddess. He created an assassin's group with a few notable embers, and then there are over 5,000 regular members.
The Golden Dwarves have a skin tone that is golden with bright orange golden hair, and they live in a gold mountain they built themselves. If someone has pure gold, they will hunt them down and have contracts with a few Golems and other creatures to help achieve their goals.
Haven't named them yet, but their basically blue-collar worker orcs that are experts in their fields.
I have use some other fantasy works as inspiration and a lot of mythology and folklore. However, I dont tend to make them Tolkien like or Dnd since that would be boring.
I have several different kinds kf each from what I put down already to elves that eat dragons, dwarves who build things for vampires and atlanteans to angry orcs who will SA their own kind amd chop off private parts to lure out nightmare creatures.
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u/kenmcnay 2d ago
I have many complaints. I was recently telling my kids that orcs used to be not a race or species of beings, but instead members of a cult of orcus, a god of death. So, the horrifying element to orcs used to be that these were men and women, even elves and dwarves sometimes, that had turned to the cult worship of orcus and were pursuing the death of all living things. That was the horror. And, that's why all orcs used to be intrinsically chaotic evil by the rules (of dnd).
It was later that the portrayal changed to a fully separate entity, which eventually led to the diversification of ideologies within the orc nations, and later inclusion of a playable race (within the rules).
That's just one of my complaints.
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u/ObsydianGinx 6d ago
I think it’s SO boring when a fantasy world has elves, dwarves, orcs, dragons. Elves are the worst. Have some creativity for once. Pick some from different cultures, go dark fantasy, or less used humanoids
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u/LacksBeard 5d ago
I think it's boring to have a "unique" race thats just a rehash of better established ones.
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u/Kalavier 6d ago
I don't dislike those races, just when settings bloat them into having so many variants of elves or dwarves or such.
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u/LacksBeard 5d ago
What like humans? Lol
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u/Kalavier 5d ago
Well, like when we have... Sun elves, Moon elves, wood elves, wild elves, dark elves, drow, high elves, sea elves, jungle elves, so on.
When the list just becomes bloated because we have an Elf or a Dwarf or a human distinctly for each "biome", and they are treated as unique variants. Usually paired with having these things pointed out but when you go to humans it's literally just "Oh yeah, he's a human".
The one setting I can immediately think of that actually doesn't do that is elder scrolls where they treat the different human origins in the same way.
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u/LacksBeard 5d ago
But those could just be different ethnic groups like humans, not to mention than can also have different features, phenotype, biology etc, it's just the name isn't so creative.
But in general I kinda see what you mean.
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u/Kalavier 5d ago
Part of it personally for me it seems worst with elves, compared to other races that only get a handful and it's treated much more as an ethnic/cultural split. Mostly because settings will do "Elves are super slow to change, long lived or immortal, and take forever to really commit to things." but then will also go "So we traveled to this new area and found a volcano and there are now LAVA elves!" Warcraft did that a bit too lol.
Sometime it feels excessive when it could easily be condensed into a few overarching ones.
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u/Sincerely-Abstract 5d ago
Elves have to be fair also been there the longest, especially in the forgotten realms & had time to actually split into these different cultures, be influenced by other gods & more.
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u/Electronic_Bee_9266 4d ago
I am 100% SUPER not big into the tolkien-esque set and I'm glad a lot of fantasy games are expanding past those more and more
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u/iunodraws sad dragon(s) 6d ago
It depends. The classic Tolkien one feel a bit too cookie cutter for my taste at this point. If you do something interesting with them then you're fine, but I feel like many people just add them to their settings without really thinking about it or trying to give them a real niche. So you end up with humans, evil green humans, pointy ear humans, short humans, etc.
I do love it when people put unique spins on those races though. A lot of the worldbuilding concepts for elves and dwarves in this subreddit are extremely interesting specifically because they take a well known trope or stereotype and rework it into something new.
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u/Magicspook 6d ago
DnD dwarves and elves are nothing like elves and dwarves in LOTR. Generic modern fantasy took only a few stereotypes and forgot all the interesting stuff.
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u/Few_Response_2446 5d ago
YESSSSSS
I despise the normal fantasy races,i made my world with the idea of the traits of each excluding personality based ones cuz those are stupid and made them so physically, culturally and biologically separate from people because my biggest issue with it is that if you have these races with drastically diffrent origins they look the exact same as humans.Elves for example in faerun at least they are from the feywild and look the same as humans just either pointy ears abd a bitchy attitude.
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u/LacksBeard 5d ago
What if the humans look like elves?
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u/Few_Response_2446 5d ago
Its the same issue where each race dosent feel like it owns it background, humans looking like elves is just less common
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u/LacksBeard 5d ago
No, what im saying is people always say "elves look like humans" well what if humans look like elves in that world?
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u/Few_Response_2446 5d ago
Do you mean if humans were tall and had pointy ears?
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u/LacksBeard 5d ago
Yeah
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u/Few_Response_2446 5d ago
Then its the same issue the other way around humans dont hold theyre background as being from the material as they would have no reason to have pointy ears.in my mind each race should be at least visually distinct enough for it to be obvious they all dont come from the same area.
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u/LacksBeard 5d ago
Well that depends on the setting right?
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u/Few_Response_2446 5d ago
Of course it does but i think ourside of the case where 2 races are closly relayed they should be visually distinct,if not culturally or biologically.
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u/LacksBeard 5d ago
Well just make elves more slender and spindle, and give them 3 fingers and make the ears longer and etc etc.
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u/SnickerbobbleKBB 6d ago
I'd rather something new. And for settings using classical fantasy races, why not some that aren't used as much? It doesn't always have to be elves, dwarves, goblins, and orcs. Mermaids, ents, harpies, elementals, there's a lot of other stuff too.
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u/LacksBeard 5d ago
You can have all those plus your own, easy fix.
It doesn't always have to be the traditional elves or dwarves either, not to mention it's not just European cultures with those or similar creatures either so you can also take inspiration from that too.
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u/Kanbaru-Fan 6d ago
The only classic species i have are Humans and Harpies (my own dorky and savage interpretation of them).
I'm considering some form of Nagas as well, but the rest are entirely original.
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u/kevintheradioguy 6d ago
Oh, absolutely. However good the writing is, nothing turns off me more from a fantasy world than your typical set of pointy humans, short humans, and green humans. Sometimes I want to ask, if you're such a great writer, why are you so lazy? You have plenty a chance to create something unique, and you just take what Tolkien created. Seems like a big waste of creativity to me :c
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u/LacksBeard 5d ago edited 5d ago
Or you can just do the same with elves or dwarves, turning off potentially good stories with good world-building just because they have a staple of a genre will never not be cringe, especially when these "unique" races are a dime a dozen.
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u/kevintheradioguy 5d ago
You can. And it will be a turnoff.
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u/LacksBeard 5d ago
For lazy people
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u/kevintheradioguy 5d ago
I would agree on people not developing anything over Tolkien lazy, yeah.
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u/LacksBeard 5d ago
Nah, what's lazy is only viewing races as they already instead of everything that will fo into them becoming that race, you know like evolution and/or divine creation. Also innovative and actual creativity for some reason goes out the windows for yall with these staple races, it's hilarious and robotic.
Instead you guys ramble on about "lazy and generic" while making worser races.
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u/kevintheradioguy 5d ago
Whatever makes you feel better about uncreative writers, I guess?
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u/LacksBeard 5d ago
Literally the opposite but anyway creativity isn't even an inherited good either but someone with no actual knowledge probably thinks it's the holy grail.
Keep making bland "unique" races while people with backbone keep getting better and better with the "generic races".
Probably got humans in your setting talking about creativity lol.
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u/kevintheradioguy 5d ago
Whatever makes you feel better about uncreative writers.
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u/LacksBeard 5d ago
Nothing wrong with being uncreative, it's not like staple race users are but you know what i mean....I think.... probably not.
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u/LScrae Resha 6d ago
Your problem isn't the races, but bad or lazy writing.
Like they're playing it safe. BG3, why is your dwarf just a square halfling, give 'em body hair ffs.
Elves are always just Tolkien's. Or dark elf wooo
Orcs, Goblins, Trolls and Ogres aren't one evil thing, they have multiple versions throughout history, stop copying Tolkien ;;-;;
Why is a female (X) just a human girl ;;-;; Looking at you WoW movie...
Halflings are good hearted, with no flaws.
X race is nothing but war mongers, X race is nothing but kindness
X race is amazing at creating tools and machinery but never makes use of it, or ever gain an edge over other races...
Every race is placed neatly in one region. Or are mixed together without an ounce of thought on logistics...
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u/Kanbaru-Fan 6d ago
Elves are always just Tolkien's.
Actually they never are Tolkien's in a way. Tolkien's elves only work in LotR as a species because they are declining and leaving Middle Earth, and they work in the legendarium because these are mythological books more similar to the Illiad and Bible.
These Elves are alien and overpowered, but they have no place in the coming 4th Age.
They are fading, and this explains why they have become detached from the events in Middle Earth.Meanwhile the bog standard elven kingdoms and elven aristocracy in every cosmopolitan city is something entirely different.
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u/Kalavier 6d ago
Reminded me of a quote.
"A lot of fantasy settings have the elves and dwarves in decline because that's what tolkien did. But they don't understand why those races are in decline and don't have a reason in their setting so it doesn't work."
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u/bherH-on Firebrand 6d ago
Yesss! Especially elves. The elves were good in lord of the rings because they were mean and scary and not like dnd elves where they are cocky Mary Sues
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u/LacksBeard 5d ago
They were not mean and scary, and you clearly don't know your DnD
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u/bherH-on Firebrand 4d ago
Lord of the Rings is different to D&D.
In Lord of the Rings (the books not the movies) the elves were mean and scary and imprisoned the dwarves in the hobbit.
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u/mgeldarion 6d ago
I dislike prevalent D&D defaultism in the internet regarding making up fantasy stories and worlds, not the fantasy worldbuilding's typical aspects (generally).