'>>92602708
Every fantasy race is 'Humans but'. And you can't get around that when you have an audience of primarily humans.

Dwarves are 'humans but manly', elves are 'humans but snooty', and Orcs are humans but 'uncivilized', and these are pretty good and easily recognizable niches to start building societies around. Halflings are more hit and miss as they are the POV characters in Lord of the Rings and essentially just humans (Tolkien based their society on rural England) while Humans are more like idealized warrior-poets. Japan tends to broaden the archetype to 'human but smol and cute' cause they like that shit.

You can of course do more. Just gotta figure out what the 'but' is. Humans 'but pirates' can work, or 'humans but horse nomads' or 'humans but peaceful pastoralists', or an inverse to dwarves 'humans but girly'.';

'Because statistics say it's what most people want.';

'>>92602708
Because you’re an unbearable cunt. Now fuck off and stop shitting up the board.';

'>>92602708
Because Tolkien was one of the foundations of modern fantasy and enough people tried to copy him that elves, dwarves and orcs became easily recognizable to most people, meaning that if you use then you don't really have to explain much beyond the points where they are different in your world';

'>>92602708
>Why is it always the things people are familiar with and can intuitively grasp?';

'>>92602708
Because you people stick your fingers up your assholes and rip them up to the back of your necks if there's anything else.';

'Because fantasy fans are not a very imaginative people. They want the same things reharsed over and over.';

'>>92602708
How would you make these races less generic?';

'>>92603252
Elves have been given a lot of variety, being examples of classical civilization, or tribal tree-huggers, or downright eugenecist fascists.

Dwarves meanwhile tend to stick to a pretty conservative vision of society, often with a capitalist bent. However- I think a sort soviet communist model of their society would fit very well. Maybe also a conservative islamist theocracy type of society could work well with them.

Orcs usually fit a mold that's antagonistic to settled society. Tribal or nomadic, the big difference is more if they are of an evil morality, or a more grey one where they are antagonistic but not inherently evil. Elder Scrolls has it be interesting that the Empire is actually about the only faction that actively treats Orcs as equals, as everyone else is busy trying to wipe them out. Orcs could be interesting being seen in the role of mercenaries by different powers.';

'>>92603306
that one dnd minis game had commie dwarves';

'At first I hated tieflings and all types of genasi and freakshit races, but now after playing with so many DRG-playing dwarfiest dwarfbros I'd rather have common races banned.';

'I genuinely don't get it either. Seeing the same races all the time in numerous different settings as well as prevalence of very standard repeatable conventions just kills it for me because it makes it feel like every setting is actually just repeatedly copying someone else but doing it worse or at best a sidegrade.';

'>>92603306

Its all about narrative role. There is a reason we see more versions of elves and orcs than we see dwarves and hobbits.

Elves are the older civilization responsible for COOL THING that happened thousands of years ago, or the ones who made the MAGIC SWORD or the ones who SEALED THE GREAT EVIL etc etc etc. Basically every fantasy setting relies on the idea that some previous, more advanced in some way civilization was able to do things that the modern setting cannot hope to reproduce, providing both an explanation for where a plot point came from and why no one knows much about it/no one can make another one.
Tolkein designed elves to fill the same role for Middle Earth as Rome did for England: all those big impressive ruins you see that predate your village by hundreds of years? They made those.

The 'older civilization, whose time is over' niche is one that is extremely narratively useful, but also is very flexible. You can make them warmongering imperialists, or tree hugging forest people, or anything in between. All they have to do is be older than you, and wiser/more powerful than you in at least one important way. The rest is free game. Which is why you have high elves and wood elves and dark elves and space elves and so on. Its a very malleable archetype. Some fantasy races get called out as being Elves for filling the same niche even though they don't look like Elves at all, like FF12's Viera or Mass Effect's Asari. What they are called and look like is actually less important than the role they fill, it just happens that Elves fill their role *very well*, to the point that anything else trying to compete would have to copy their homework enough that the imitation became obvious.';

'>>92603634

Elves are not unique in filling their niche well. Orcs are also a strong narrative niche. For writers, having a huge army of brutish monstermen for the heroes to mow down without having to worry about the ethics of slaughter is just really convenient. Overly simple, sure, but for a long time thats what people wanted. Good vs Bad in very clear colors.

Like the elf archetype, what Orcs are actually called and what they look like doesn't really matter. Green musclemen? Fine. Snake people? Fine! a weird mishmash of mutants? Fine! There is some narrative overlap here between the Orc army and the Undead Army, though the key difference is that Orcs are still 'people', just evil people. You still have to lead orcs and they have to worry about internal politics and morale and strategy and shit. Whereas a single powerful asshole with no friends can raise an army of undead because the plot says so, and thus the story only REALLY needs to worry about one central villain and the minions are irrelevant beyond being an obstacle.

Strangely, people are much more likely to change the details of their monsterman army than they are to change the details of their elves. Despite the fact that the culture and powers of elves is constantly up for grabs, they almost always look like elves. Whereas the monsterman orc army can be a real wildcard.';

'>>92603646

This is all in strong contrast to Dwarves and hobbits. But mostly Dwarves. Dwarves have no narrative niche. No, stop typing, you're wrong. They don't do anything the story requires. They are just a watered down version of elves: not as old, not as strong, didn't make as much cool stuff. Elves can be flexible in their details because they are anchored by their strong narrative niche, but Dwarves don't have that. Dwarves are ONLY the details, because if you change the details too much what you have are elves again. This is why EVERY SINGLE FUCKING DWARF is a viking-helmeted, ale drinking, elf-cursing, axe swinging, gold loving miner with a big beard and a scottish accent. If you want to be REALLY ORIGINAL with Dwarves you drop, like, one of those details and still keep the rest. "Oh wow, my Dwarves are different because they SHAVE." And even that minor change is sure to piss people off, because Dwarves can only be one thing.

Elves and Orcs are examples of fantasy races that fill a specific story purpose and thus you can play around with them a lot so long as they still fill their core function. Dwarves and hobbits don't have that, they are all just superficial details and if you change those too much you don't have anything left of what you started with. You can come up with your own versions of orcs and elves and still have a story that need not be entirely derivative, but if you are using dwarves or halflings its a big red flag that you had zero interest in any kind of originality when you came up with this setting, you just wanted to use the toys that came in the box and smash them together and go 'rawr!'.';

'>>92603306
>>92603672
Dwarves have another trope you haven't discussed, they're usually in decline, their holds are taken or unimpressive. You can rebrand dwarves simply by making them successful expansionists. Dwarves now fill the niche of your robber baron, and they're spreading the scourge of capitalism across the land, but you can't just kill them because what they're doing isn't illegal.';

'>>92602708
Why are you speaking english?';

'>>92603816
Again, not unique to dwarves. Elves are also usually in decline, to make room for humans to be important now. Dwarves and Elves are both either going to slowly going extinct or so isolationist that they are removed from events going on in the rest of the setting.';

'>>92603634
Aren't the Veira the sexy rabbit people?';

'>>92604007
Yeah. In 12 the Viera are the rabbit people that live in the forest with explicit magic sensitivity, a druidic connection with nature tot he point that the forest they live in reshapes itself to their commands and leaving the forest gets them functionally exiled from their people, and slow-aging that means they stay young for at least 300+ years and their maximum lifespan is left unsaid.

People commonly call them out for what they are: wood elves with rabbit ears.';

'>>92602708
>image
That's not a half-orc. That's maybe a half-ogre. Maybe.
Also, one of the halflings is mislabeled a gnome.';

'Orcs are hot, dunno about the rest.';

'>Space Elves
>Heavily implied to be a leftover slave race of the elders
>Space Dwarves
>Heavily implied to be from Asgard but have been stuck in space for so long they don't remember being divine
>Space Orcs
>No one knows where they came from, but now they serve as a slave race to one of the major power blocs
>Space Ogres
>All male human offshoot, also a slave race to the power bloc who enslaved the orcs
>Space Minotaurs and Space Ratmen
>Both former servants to the Dwarves';

'>>92603634
>>92603646
>>92603672
Another solid write up ruined by unnecessary condemnation at the end, that drives all discussion towards the condemnation.
Shame';

'>>92602708
Mostly because they are fun and relatable and also widelt recognizable.
Every other Race your create in fantasy somehow ends up being a variation of these things.
Really, Id suggest that If one wants to tackle this problem he should limit fantasy races to two. Human and a Magical-race.
This Magical face can be elfs, dwarfs, fairies, whatever really.';

'Good Elves -> Namekians with females
Bad Elves -> Frieza's race
Dwarves -> Tuffles
Orcs -> Saiyans';

'>>92602708
Short answer. Lack of creativity. And this truth hurts most idiots who zealously cling to those fantasy races.';

'As companions to humans, they are the best.

Dwarves serve the role of the great brother. They are equals but not on par with humans. Better in some ways, worse than others, and culturally loyal to create strong bonds.

Elfs are the higher other. They are mystical, beautiful, sometimes unobtainable and always just a bit otherworldly. They are what humans could be if they ascended to a greater level.

Orcs are the base of humanity personified: the most barbarian traits embodied, brutish and violent to a fault. They are not always unintelligent, but it is not their greatest point of strength.';

'>>92602708

People copying Tolkien's homework.
>so where are the hobbits then
Nowhere because hobbits are gay as hell.';

'>>92602708
I think we only need elves.';

'>>92605288
>space elves
>Space Minotaurs

I will now play your game';

'>>92608081
Reeks of SLOP';

'>>92605564
How are merfolk a variation of any of those? What about winged-races.

They only wind up being variations on that if you use the Tolkein ones as inspiration, but it's really easy to diversify the ideas from the source material.

Hell, just look at horror, with its classic core two: Vampires and Werewolves and how unlike they are to Elves, Dwarves, etc.... proving these are not some archetypal base roles that cannot be altered. People are just fucking lazy and lack creativity.';

'People always pretend like it's impossible to deviate from these 4 like they're the core of all fantasy. I raise you one simple contradicting example:

Super Mario

Toads and Koopas

Check Mate.';

'>>92602708
All three absolutely rule. Chuck skellies in there too.';

'>>92602777
"It must be human-like to be relatable" is a meme for retards. Everyone and their mother read stories or watched cartoons with and about talking (and occasionally not even talking) animals and other non-humans at some point and had no issues with empathizing with characters';

'>>92602708
Because you like it that way.';

'>>92610052
That doesn't go with today's sensibilities that say that the character has to look exactly like you, up to the skin color and beyond, or else you don't relate to it';

'>>92602708
>Saxons
>Picts
>Cymri';

'>>92608096
Honestly the coolest shit to me from Pox Nora was while minotaurs did have violent shock troops, those were clearly the poor/grunts of their society
Meanwhile most minotaurs were established mages, and masters of portal magic, with nobility and kingdom building.
Fuck hippie cows and fuck idiot bulls.';

'>>92610052
Reading a book or watching looney toons is vastly different than playing pretend in a group game. The real reason people generally avoid anthromorphic stuff in TTRPGs is its far too close to furfaggotry for anyone's taste. Chances are as well if you are playing a game with anthro races that you'll rub elbows with vocal furfags, which is alsp something most people won't want.';

'>>92610439
This.
My games do sometimes have sex or seduction as viable methods of influencing people, with the players I trust I can have all sorts of weird races because the players know when it's appropriate to push.
With the randoms it's all humans because I am tired of furfags who immediately thinks it's an invitation to fuck as soon as I mention that a creature has any kind of fur or a snout.';

'>>92602708
The industry demands humans, elves, dwarves, and orcs. Said industry also restricts offer and publishes a fake demand for three races of elf and a copy&paste race of dwarf. The best way to keep 'that guy' off your table is making dwarves pointy-eared. Works everytime and I wish this was hyperbole.';

'>>92610462
>>92610439
>The real reason people generally avoid anthromorphic stuff in TTRPGs is its far too close to furfaggotry for anyone's taste. Chances are as well if you are playing a game with anthro races that you'll rub elbows with vocal furfags, which is alsp something most people won't want.
See, that's a reasonable and practical reason for sticking with humanoids for your game. I can understand that. But that's not what the post and the image I was replying to was about. It was SPECIFICALLY about non-humanoid beings supposedly being "unrelatable" to overwhelmingly human auidience, which is simply bullshit of the highest order. If it was actually true stories about talking animals (not even anthropomorphic ones) wouldn't have been so popular for the entirety of humanity's existence. Not to mention numerous plots about aliens, robots, AIs and other kinds of non-human and occasionally even non-sapient beings.';

'>>92602708
Because tolkein did it, and everyone wants to be tolkein instead of actually innovating the fantasy genre and making an interesting selection of races/species.';

'>>92602708
Tolkien';

'>>92602777
Trips.
Step 1: restrict offer.
Step 2: publish loaded questions in a poll.
Step 3: produce only games with the exact same formula for the races (see step 1)
Step 4: take the poll to justify step 3.
This is why elves have deathly sins as their qualities, orcs are mysteriously taller than humans, and dwarves are repetitively bland and boring.
>>92610905
Tolkien had dwarves losing to elves, and only one race of ideally Catholic elves, while orcs were literal c.h.u.d.s. from a 1984 horror movie.';

'>>92610892
I thought the reason talking animal stories were so popular is because when people do something stupid we try to justify it, while when the animal does something stupid we recognize the action as stupid, so they make for far better morality tales or educational examples.';

'>>92610004
Vampires and werewolves are not races.
Flying races are flying elves
Merfolk are water elves.
Their civilizad versions are both always played as more mysterious and sophisticated than humana, versed in Magic and in an ancient foreign knowledge.
Like elves.
Now If they are Evil, villanous or just antagonists of shorts, then well, flying orcs and water orcs.';

'>>92602708
>Why is it always dwarves, elves, and orcs?
No idea, and I wish it varied WAY more than it does.';

'>>92602777
What a faggot. Dismissive answers to every single question.';

'>>92611945
>Flying races are flying elves
If you make them that, you stupid idiot
>Merfolk are water elves.
See above. There are tons of depictions of Merfolk that aren't remotely like Elves.
>Now If they are Evil, villanous or just antagonists of shorts, then well, flying orcs and water orcs.
Easily the stupidest statement itt by far. How the fuck are the fish people from Insmouth remotely like orcs?';

'>>92612116
Like many things where you consider the genre to be too stale, your answer is japan. Different cultural context, different set of tropes.';

'>>92602708
>As a DM, try my own unique races and setting.
>Players ask for elves, dwarves and rat people.
>Forced to scrap my setting for standard dungeons and dogshit setting to appease people.
It was the same thing when I wanted to replace the dragon niche with something else (Thunderbirds), it was not well received. People seem to have an expectation of fantasy and feel alienated by anything else. You might be able to innovate a bit, add a race or two and the players might take a peek but without the basics they get upset.

>>92603252
A concept I want to play with is desert eleves. The desert is a place where life perseveres despite harsh conditions, that a cactus thrives in a burning wasteland is a testament to nature's resilience. Throw in a couple of oases, something akin to the Nile river to sustain agriculture and sun worship, I might be cooking.';

'>>92602708
That's why my last three characters have been, in order: Gnoll, Ogre and Lizardman';

'>>92612116
You say this, and will not play Talislanta or RuneQuest?

>>92612624
So, egyptians as elves? Interdasting...

>>92610462
Prolly this, too.

>>92610052 this, that >>92610951
and another thing >>92611084

>>92603672
>>92610827
Duality of Dwarf-fags.

My take: I've always wanted to play elves; orcs are the guilt-free enemies to slaughter heroically; dwarves make the magical treasures that are always cursed in some way.';

'>>92602708
Because you're incapable of making what you want, apparently. I don't make my games with dwarves or orcs, and my elves aren't "human but pointy ear", so I literally never have this issue.';

'>>92602777
Why would a planeswalker need to be relatable to be something people would want to play? They're literally from other universes, they should be fucking crazy. That would be fun. There's absolutely no reason people wouldn't play a crazy, strange planeswalker like a gigantic kaiju squid thing';

'>>92610004
Vampires are just evil undead elves.';

'>>92612461
>Humans
>Humans with animal ears
>Humans who are permanently children for the pedo appeal
>Humans with horns
These are somehow even worse and more boring than elves, dwarves and orcs.';

'>>92612739
>So, egyptians as elves?
Or nubians as elves. Or even berbers as elves. All could work.';

'>>92613996
No joke, because they need them to be marvel heroes.';

'>>92614156
They have several dozen planeswalkers. Even if that pathetically opaque reasoning is the reason they're making this choice, they've already made more than enough humanoids to satisfy that purpose. They don't need any more. I also highly doubt the viability of the IP in books, film, and television anyways, but that's neither here nor there.';

'>>92602708
You weirdos are all the same. You can't be satisfied with an elf or something like that, you need all your games to have a race selection like this:
>Human
>Sharkgirl
>Jumping cactus
>Marionette
>Fire elemental
>Giant intelligent friendly talking spider';

'>>92602708
It just werks.';

'>>92614609

Fuck yeah I'd play a cactus';

'>>92611945
>mystical/advanced = elves
>violent/barbarous = orcs';

'>>92614609
people obsessed with novelty. It's a disease of the internet age.';

'This is why its best to not have any other races at all. The less races a story has, the more nuance it can have.';

'I feel like this thread has gotten a bit reductive. Yes, most things can be boiled down to elves or orcs if you strip away their uniqueness, but this is due to the fact people branched out these ideas substantially, and these ideas in stories have existed long before Tolkien. People write what they know and inspiration comes from the real world.

A monstrous horde of culturally backward warriors? These are just steppe tribes raiding agrarian civilizations. More broadly they could be any foreign "barbarians" with customs unfamiliar to the writer.

Wise, ancient beings with access to lost arts/technologies? That's just mythologies of fallen civilizations of antiquity. Bonus points because elves generally have a direct connect to the origin of the world, the gods, or human civilization, all analogy about our connections to our ancestors. Elves are interesting because they allow for a direct examination of our relation to the past and where we and the world are going. You can see this in both the high elves who look down on the ignorance of humanity or the wood elves and their connection to nature opposed by the expansionism and exploitation of nature by humans.

To answer the thread question though, as others have pointed out its just writing short hand. Audiences know what these fantasy races are about, so the author doesn't have spend as much time bring them up to speed. Whether or not this implies other lazy writing decisions is a case by case basis.';

'>>92614609
I think Pathfinder 2e has all but one of those';

'>>92615186
>This is why its best to not have any other races at all.
>The less races a story has, the more nuance it can have.
This is nonsense, because you'd start whinging about a setting that only offers tieflings as a playable race.';

'>>92614609
When you're shitposting strawmen you're supposed to make your opponent look ridiculous, not fun.';

'>>92614609
Giant intelligent talking spiders are as much from Tolkien as dwarves, elves and orcs are. They definitely should be restored to their rightful place as a playable race.';

'>>92615357
Maybe the troons would just want a bunch of races would feel that way. It's like if you were to remake the movie The Breakfast Club, the movie loses all nuance and meaning if it was a burgerking kids club where every character is replaced with a 5 different races. But if you redo it as just a cast of Koreans, it can actually have something interesting to say.';

'>>92615385
>Giant talking spiders
>Playable
Sure, they are giant antropophages and hated by all other races.
They will be killed on sight anywhere except among their own kind - and other people will rightly rejoice when they are slain.
Happy now?';

'>>92615493
You've lost me. In what way is The Breakfast Club meaningfully changed by the cast not being monoracial?';

'>>92608081
barf';

'>>92602834
This & it also reflects how little fantasy fiction they consume. It's common in garbage and slop. Other settings just don't have these things, or just call them something else.
Being creative is hard, especially for people who will argue that copying Tolkien IS creative. Regurgitating other people's effort is what non-artists with money do. Now imagine you think you're creative and have no money. You just attempt to steal things from others.
Orcs, Dwarves, Elves are things people are comfortable with and accustomed to.
They can be pitched better and sold easier. When I see these things I can make the assumption it's garbage.
I like it. Most people are so fucking stupid. They only want what they know. It's gotten easier and easier to recognize.';

'>>92603816
That's basically Kharadron from AoS, the answer to the question of "what if dwarfs DIDN'T have their anti-progress ancestor autism"';

'>>92615321
Sharkgirl - merfolk or reskinned athamaru (nonD&D kuo'toa) or literally a shark who is a girl (awakened animal), Howl of the Wild
Jumping Cactus - cactus leshy, Player Core 1 or reskinned Ghoran (Thorned Rose), Lost Omens: Impossible Lands
Marionette - Poppet, Grand Bazaar
Fire Elemental - Ifrit versatile heritage from Ancestry Guide or whatever the future fire genie blood heritage will be called in Player Core 2. Actual fire elemental isn't possible, though loading up on fire themed stuff will get you extremely close.
Giant friendly Spider - Anadi, Lost Omens: Mwangi Expanse, literally giant friendly spiders who developed magical shapeshifting to not scare nonspider people.

And you can still play orcs, elves, and dwarves who are all core ancestries. And about a couple dozen other ancestries, some who are very weird like short Indian psychic rhinos with crystal horns, multieyed horse xenos terrified of things with two eyes, or ancient golem robots powered by human souls that can pull off a Bastion/Galvatron at high levels. Or just be a hyena person, cat person, or rat person. Or maybe a skeleton.';

'6 half elf races for more colored waifus.

The Vain.
The Autistic
The Vengeful.
The Elitist
The Greedy';

'>>92615212
>I feel like this thread has gotten a bit reductive.
It's not just being reductive. It's also conveniently ignoring every single example that doesn't fit their narrative.

As soon. As you start branching out into non-European cultures you come up with hundreds of examples of other possible races that are nothing like Elves, Orcs, and Dwarves.

China:
>Jian-chi
>Demons (of all kinds of varieties, usually disguised as humans).
>Demigods
>Stone Monkeys

Japan:
>Kitsune
>The thousands of other different YouKai
>Haniwa
>Kami
In fact, I'm gonna put a pause on things as well, because writing this made me realize something, and it's a huge point everyone seems to have missed.

In LotR, Tolkein never presented the other races as this "alternative to humanity" so people could roleplay under the guise that all these different races were capable of happily coexisting in harmony. Hell, the concept of the Fellowship was that it was unique, and even at its foundation he quickly highlighted just how difficult it would be for them to work together. It's also funny that people always leave out the Hobbits. But the point is, the point of the races is to highlight, from a human perspective, the struggle of humanity to survive in a world far more competitive and far more mysterious. You notice this when you start to look at other cultures like China, Japan, India, and hell on the Europe side, the Greeks, and even the Nordic cultures from where Elves come from. The idea is that of framing humanity within a world far more dangerous and magical than we perceive. I think that aspect quickly gets lost when you begin to use the fantasy races as window dressing for roleplaying as special Snowflake humans and a metaphor for modern diversity politics.';

'>>92616040
Shark girl was meant to be the “but one” but that’s neat';

'OP can't handle posts like >>92613281, because it points out harsh realities like how having even the barest sense of agency allows one to avoid most problems in this hobby.';

'>>92613281
>includes elves in his games
You're boring.';

'>>92614936
Pretty much. Its reductive, as another anon said, but really, It is what It is. If they are not any of these the then they are just reskinned humans
>>92612275
>There are tons of depictions of Merfolk that aren't remotely like Elves.
Such as?
>How the fuck are the fish people from Insmouth remotely like orcs?
Shadow water-elves.';

'>>92602777
Holy circular reasoning Batman
>humanoids are more relatable because people buy those cards more
>people buy those cards more because humans are more relatable';

'>>92616163
>Jian-chi
The fuck is this
>Demons
Not a Race. But may show up as Orcs or humans, dependendo on How bestial orncivilized they are.
>Demigods
Not a Race, humans.
>Stone monkeys
Sun Wukong? Reskinned humano
>Kitsune
Evil Forest elves/dark elves or hot sexy humans
>Yokai
If Evil orcs, If good elves
>Haniwa
What the fuck are these
>Kami
Gods, not a Race, humans.
>people always leave out the Hobbits
Reskinned humans. They are interesting in lotr, dont get me wrong, but they are Just reskinned humans.';

'Shut up you stupid shitposting nigger, there are no (You)s here for you';

'>>92611064
Doesn't matter, it's because tolkein had elves, dwarves, orcs, humans and hobbits that everyone else has them and the genre has stagnated into generic regurgitated slop.';

'>>92618205
>Pretty much. Its reductive, as another anon said, but really, It is what It is. If they are not any of these the then they are just reskinned humans
Single digit IQ take';

'>>92602708
Why not?
What is wrong with it?
Did reddit convince you that replacing dwarves with [insert real life culture] but bearpeople makes fantasy totally different and unique?

I hate you nu-fantasy/weird-fantasy fags like you wouldnt believe.';

'>>92615953
Why would they all be anthrophages? The only reason the spiders of Mirkwood and Shelob were people-eaters were because they were literally the descendants of a gigantic wicked spider-demon.
If that weren't an element, intelligent spiders that only eat giant insects (like real spiders) would be just as workable.
Most people probably wouldn't want them around, but I'm sure one could easily own and operate a tapestry business with a human salesman as a front, and so on.';

'>>92610905
>tolkien le bad
>"innovating the fantasy genre"

Jesus Christ the absolute narcissism in the people that state this shit is mindboggling. You cant even write a setting that people care about but you convinced yourself that you are the one to judge whether something needs innovation.';

'>>92618225
>The fuck is this
Jiangshi. Chinese Vampire Zombie things
>Not a Race. But may show up as Orcs or humans, dependendo on How bestial orncivilized they are.
Definitely treated as a race in Asian culture. It's part of the reincarnation cycle in Buddhism. Read up on the six realms of reincarnation. It's not dissimilar to the world tree in Nordic Mythology, which is exactly where the Elves, Dark Elves, etc... stuff from Generic fantasy stuff comes from. There's a definite parallel.

So if you actually wanna create six Races based off the Buddhist cycle of reincarnation with a totally different interpretation and way more flavor, you easily could.
Deva (Gods)
Asura (Demigods)
Humans
Animals (could easily be interpreted as Animal humanoids eg. Sun Wukong before he got divinity, and Pigsy)
Preta (Hungry Ghosts)
Naraka (Demons)

>Sun Wukong? Reskinned humano
No. Sun Wukong, like all monkeys in AJttW are special monkey is that are born from Stone. They're not reskinned humans at all, and Sun Wukong himself is a demigod.
>Evil Forest elves/dark elves or hot sexy humans
Stupid
>If Evil orcs, If good elves
Not all Yokai are Oni you stupid fuck. Yokai fall under the interpretation of "Hungry Ghosts" from Buddhism, and several are literal spirits. Like Yuki Onna.
>Gods, not a Race, humans.
Kami are literally NOT humans you imbecile. They are more akin to shamanistic nature spirits if anything. Watch Spirited Away.

>What the fuck are these
Pic
They are based on actual real pottery.

>>92618205
>Such as?
I literally gave you an example. You chose to be retarded.';

'>>92619184
>You cant even write a setting that people care about but you convinced yourself that you are the one to judge whether something needs innovation.
>you must be an architect/tailor/painter to tell if the building/dress/drawing looks ugly or not';

'>>92619184
>You cant even write a setting that people care about
People don't care about settings. They care about stories.';

'>>92602708
>Why is it always dwarves, elves, and orcs?
In my world the 3 playable races are fungi, mold and bacteria. Each has two unique genders.';

'>>92619207
>No. Sun Wukong, like all monkeys in AJttW are special monkey is that are born from Stone. They're not reskinned humans at all, and Sun Wukong himself is a demigod.
Its not a out aesthetics, its about How they are played. Its would just be a reskinned human. Heck, a reskinned cleric.
Nigga, I wont even answer the other points. Once again, its no about aesthetics or backstory, but rather about how they can all be played.
And what the fuck How is pottery a Race?';

'>>92619900
>How they are played
It depends on the game you stupid fucking moron. Obviously you'd design a game system around an Oriental/Cultivation Martial Arts type genre.

At the end of the day, elves in modern fantasy are literally humans with pointy ears. Hell, all D&D races can literally be summed up as "reskinned humans." The only real differences are mechanical. Which is easy to create differentiations if you build something new from the ground up. Ofc if you copy D&D's homework you wind up with reskinned elves. Which is funny, cause the example I gave that offered the most mechanical distinction, merfolk, you dismissed as water elves due to perceived aesthetic similarities and creative laziness on your end.

But for the sake of argument, let's take the Asian Monkey under a Cultivation style fantasy system.

Well, monkeys would fall under the Animal Race, as such, they'd have all the benefits that animals have over humans. Enhanced smell, enhanced hearing, enhanced agility, etc... Perhaps some rage bonus or beast/primal instinct ability. Maybe something like Spiderman's Spidey sense. The monkeys specifically would be born from stones, but that's more of a flavor thing. You could give them all a Kinto-Un cloud to ride in like Wukong. Additionally, you could pull ideas from the Saiyans in Dragonball. Such as a permanent stat boost every time they come close to death. A great ape transformation under a full moon. Their tails can offer extra dexterity and is their weakness. And you could even do the golden haired "awakened form" as a nod to Dragonball.

Take you fruity fucking elves and shove them up your ass.';

'>>92617220
My elves aren't like the typical, regurgitated portrayal as humanoids with pointy ears and long lives.';

'>>92602708
I'm a big fan of Delves, which to be clear is dwarf-coded elves.';

'>>92620125
So do you like the dwarves as they were originally in the myth?';

'>>92615385
I don't remember that they can speak, but the giant spiders are a typical monster because of Tolkien.';

'>>92610439
>anthro races
>anthro
Fuck that shit, if I want to be a beast I'm going all the way. >>92610892 has it right. Not all games have to revolve around non-humanoids but "nuh uh never can't be done" is an extremely dumb take.';

'>>92602708

I've had a fun game where each ethnicity was "it's own race" and was represented by ethnic stereotypes, caricature body proportions, and referred to by "tastefully chosen" ethnic slurs.
Doesn't work in the US too well since they didn't grow up with "anecdote" style jokes and don't know most slurs or stereotypes besides the most obvious ones.';

'>>92602708
Because your quirky blue NOT elves and green NOT dwarves and wish.com draenei with side shaves and neon hair colors in a fantasy setting are dogshit.';

'>>92602708
they are easy to understand and have a relatively diverse range of character traits from which to make a character off. and momentum';

'>>92626519
Also realistic enough for player characters to play and interact with commonly and fill the worlds with various forms of civilization.

Sit down with a player who wants to play a dragon while everyone else is playing human adventurers and the dragon player is going to consistantly whine that he can't be a big awesome dragon without ruining the experience for everyone else.';

'>>92626519
Its not even that tolkein fantasy races are somehow the best range of character archtypes, its just that they are ones that you can reasonably assume your readers/players to already be familiar with. No explanation needed. All of the work building these toys has already been done by better writers than you, all you have to do is play with them.';

'>>92626663
That's a shitty excuse.';

'>>92626832
Doesn't have to be a good excuse to be right. People do dumb things because its easier than doing something harder all the time.';

'>>92613996
I'm waiting for WotC to run out of ideas and print the Demon-Leviathan that Bolas fought and ate a bazillion years ago.';

'>>92627013
People will just eat up what's marketed to them. That much is obvious. But it doesn't excuse the creative void I often see in this board where people build original settings and begin to populate them with Elves, Dwarves, and Orcs.';

'>>92627943
As someone whose run games with settings that try to be more original, its simply harder to onboard a group with custom races. Not impossible, but harder and requires them to be willing to put in the extra effort to engage with your autistic worldbuilding. Not every player will want to do that.
Presumably an actually official published game book has less of an issue with that than the singlular game I run, but its still something to be considered.';

'>>92628003
It's an understandable reaction if you're playing D&D, and I don't think anyone is questioning that. OP seemed to be more of a generalized question that extends even out of /tg/ into /v/ which saw a lot of people defend the generic 3 as sone sort of universal baseline, when that's certainly not true at all.

Short answer for why it's always those three is because people lack creativity, and prefer to just borrow what's popular. But it's certainly not mandatory when you're building a new setting to have those three, and I'm sure several people would prefer to see other things from time to time. But we sit here and see people pretend like all variations of the generic three are just redskins of those, when that's also not true.';

'>>92628112
It's a similar question to "why is it always the four elements" when you could just as easily build a magic system around different flavors and organizational patterns than elemental magic which has been done to death.';

'>>92618205
This post betrays your low IQ and outsized self esteem';

'>>92619384
People definitely care about settings, this thread in itself proves it as does every wiki for every show, movie, or book series ever. What a retarded thing to say, and as always accompanied by the arrogant tone of an autistic teenager.';

'>>92628310
You just proved my point you fucking imbecile. All those settings are attached to stories.';

'>>92619267
>retardo accidentally confirms that it was about being contrarian all along
I bet you were so proud of that analogy.';

'>>92628415
So..
In other words..
People care about settings?';

'>>92628978
I'm not the anon you were arguing with and I frankly don't even care about that stupid debate about contrarians, I was merely pointing out that you're a retard for saying what you did';

'>>92629452
>im not that anon buuuuut!
How embarassing.';

'>>92628990
Can't you read? They care about stories. If there wasn't a story to go with that setting, you wouldn't have wikis detailing it.';

'>Zero creative discussion
>Nothing but shitflinging
Why are any of you posting in this thread? Are you even people, or just a collection of bots mimicking what they think 4chan is like?';

'>>92629590
shut up, Pavol';

'>>92629791
There's a couple posts with creative discussion but they largely went ignored.';

'>>92630379
I can't read 120 shitposts to get to the one or two that might be serious.';

'>>92614609
Tfw when no romance plot with cactus waifu asking me to fertilize her stem by peeing on her.

Games are just not diverse enough today.';

'>>92616163
The examples you gave are just monstrous races.

>Jian-chi
Vampiers
>Demons
Already exist in Europe
>Demigods
Already exist in Europe, and can hardly be considered a race
>Stone Monkeys
I have no idea what this is.

>Kitsune
Any furry race.
>The thousands of other different YouKai
The entire monster manual.
>Haniwa
Golems
>Kami
Fey

Like, I even kind of agree with your point, but the way you framed your examples is terrible. You could have just said that you like playable monsters.

Anyway, personally, I think that most people have no use of any races other than humans, because most players aren't capable of enough empathy to imagine themselves as someone else. In a hypothetical universe where people other than me are deserving of life, I would like each race to have its own mechanical gimmicks and its own psychological traits, such that playing it not only feels different, but presents an interesting role playing challenge.';

'>>92628173
Betrays my low IQ? Guess Im smart then, thanks';

'>>92610414
Literally Pendragon.
You can use Hate as a power-up.';

'>>92620100
Look at how many little mechanics you have to input into this fantasy Race for It to barely feel unique
There is where my original point stands.
Have one human Race and one "special" Race. That way they feel unique because, yes, you are right, nowadays even the standard races are Just "reskinned" humans.';

'>>92603306
>not Hacidic Jew dwarves.
Shame.';

'>>92602777
Who is this and why should I take what they say at face value?';

'>>92603252
Ill approach this from a different angle.
In my atrempt to make races unique, I decided to differentiate them by separating them by their roles in the setting and also mechanically.

My games arent that narrative. Yes they have a plot, as in a main villain, but I really enjoy dungeon crawling and wargaming, and so do my players, as long as there is a sidequest or small story guiding them.
You see, backgrounds are rolled at chargen and they give you a skill (maybe two) and a starting item.
Most are common background for a medieval setting: peasant, Baron, inquisitor, mercenary etc.
Dwarfs are really just shorter stronger long-lived humans, even in tolkien they were as such.
So they are simply playable in my world, purely. Their societies nowadays are mostly isolated villages in mountaintops, but most dwarves inhabit human towns as common people, although shorter.
Elves however arent common. They are creatures not from Earth, that ended up here eons ago. You cant play them, in fact. Rather, you can only get elf-blood as a background, in which your character bloodline will have some ancestral connection to elves. The Elf-blooded people get access to magic despite not having picked a mage class, just like the race-as-class elves from B/X.
Now the real elves arent playable, as I said, they are evil. You can fight them, but they are highly powerful, and involved in many of the villanies that the players will have to vanquish.
Now Orcs, they are well, monsters. They arent even Orcs, they are just demihuman bandits for the players to kill and raid, and are pretty much interchangeable with goblins.
As you can see, all of them fit different well-defindd roles.
Dwarves are Just there because my players like these short guys, and find It fun to roleplay them.
Elves fit the role of villains, a demon-loving Race, that attempts to corrupt human minds, but whose presence has been mostly gone.
And orcs, orcs are mooks.';

'Remember when people on /tg/ created things? I remember. Anyway, rate my racial lineup.';

'>>92628415
People who autistic obsess over star wars expanded universe lore do not give a fuck about the stories, which are extremely poor. They don't even necessarily read them. The people consuming wookiepedia in the current year are not doing it because they enjoy the movies and that's it. It's because they enjoy the setting itself.';

'>>92629675
>nobody has ever bought a splatbook
>Setting books without attached stories absolutely do not exist';

'>>92630985
>rate my racial lineup
I give you a reddit/10';

'>>92631493
>>92631466
I don't know why you insist on having this autistic meltdown. How hard is it to understand that settings devoid of character and plot are not interesting to anyone without autism. No one will ever read about your setting. We don't care.';

'>>92631916
>settings devoid of character and plot are not interesting to anyone without autism
So you've moved the goalposts from "nobody cares about settings" to "only autistic people care about settings"? On a board comprised mostly of autistic people, about a hobby comprised only of autistic people, specifically after I called caring about settings autistic? And you think this means you've won the argument? You've completely capitulated to what I just said.';

'>>92602708
>Human with pointy ears
>Pygmy
>Human with overdeveloped canines and pointy ears
>Muscular pygmy
>Another fucking pygmy
>Another fucking human with pointy ears';

'>>92602708
People can't move past them and when they try the races get called "freakshit".';

'>>92602708
Why not?';

'>>92614119
>Makuria
>Arabs returned blind from all the arrows they were taking to the eyes

Pretty kino actually.

https://youtu.be/12iF-m2r518';

'>>92631651
>Making things is reddit now
And people wonder why 4chan sucks so hard these days.';

'>>92602708
People seem to have a conservative expectation of fantasy settings. They demand them to be done-to-death bargain-bin LotR or else people "won't be interested"';

'>no one wants to play my sooper cool OC donut steel races!!!

Try making something good or interesting and people will play it.';

'>>92632322
Fuck that noise, it's not conservative enough, I'm drawing from shit like the Travels of Sir John Mandeville.';

'>>92627943
This. It's always three races of prideful elf, copypaste dwarves, and devs are eternally butthurt when normies keep asking why orcs are taller than humans.';

'>>92602708
What about Tieflings and to a lesser extent Aasimar over Genasi, how can the Genasi be improved so more people will play them without making them OP?';

'>>92632322
Because for most people, having a fantasy world around them is fantasy enough. There's a good reason why elves and humans by far are always the most popular races.';

'>>92632007
Case in point.

I love how this shit gets tossed around by the same crowd that says this shit >>92632373


All because it's too hard for autistic nerds that Elves Orc and Dwarves are a tired trope that could easily be altered.';

'>>92632132
Is this supposed to be an elf or an orc, I can’t tell.';

'>>92638604
a wood elf, her mother was a dryad';

'>>92638604
Dunno.

I used that one for my elf-orc mix character, though.';

'>>92602708
Because Tolkien got it right the first fucking time and 99% of the people who came after him who tried to be 'Original' were uncreative cringe who's shit sucked and no one remembers.';

'>>92602708
Baby duck syndrome';

'>>92630985
Ignoring the furry artstyle employed in some of the guys there, your drawings are good and I found some of them interesting. The gnome for once looks pretty Nice, and distances this not so interesting Race from the Very similar dwarves.
Nonetheless, its pretty clear to me how these are just, well, standard fantasy races/species repainted.
Im not saying that to criticize you, by all means, Just to point out how hard It is to escape the paradigms of already established races.
Your Grey are elves
Gnomes are gnomes
The dino thing is a kobold
Cyclop is cyclops but hairy
Wargs are tolkien
Yeti are centaurs.
Once again, not specifically to criticize your creativity, but its good to point out, especially seeing the discussion being hard, that these are all repaintings of already established fantasy races.
Its hard to create something completely New, especially when you want to create many fantasy races, rather than one or two.';

'>>92619184
Yes, the fantasy genre has been stagnant for decades. Everyone copies tolkein and quite frankly kudos to Paizo for adding a bunch of absolutely bonkers race options to PF2e, that's the most innovation the genre has seen in decades.';

'Too many people copy Tolkien. Not enough copy Howard. We need more Howardian fantasy.

>humans are the only playable race
>plenty of ancient civilizations without elves, dwarves, etc.
>the gods are mysterious and distant, but sometimes they intervene and provide a miracle
>warriors, thieves, assassins, huntsmen, merchants, explorerers, etc. are the standard
>wizards and sorcerers are almost always evil freaks needing to be slain
>plenty of cool monsters from ancient stygian vampires to giant freakish demons and of course reptile-people pretending to be humans

In many ways, I view settings like Elden Ring, Dark Souls, and even Diablo, extremely favorably for providing us cool fantastical worlds without relying on the old Tolkienesque tropes and expectations. I know Diablo is shit now, but I give it serious props for how delightfully unique it is. Diablo and EldenSouls are, IMO, Howardian fantasy and not Tolkienesque fantasy. Sure, they're not perfect 1:1 examples of Howardian fantasy, but they are definitely descendants of that line.';

'>>92602708
Because the people who worldbuild and create their own races (by building stuff around their fetishes) write sci-fi';

'>>92608104
Yes, it says 1024x1536 and the name is just 00081-(seed). You figured it out anon.';

'>>92641687
>humans are the only playable race
>wizards and sorcerers are almost always evil freaks needing to be slain
That's really boring anon. Might as well make it urban fantasy slop.';

'The 3 popular races.

Hotter than humans.
More badass than humans.
More cozy than humans.

Combine with popular powers.
Water breathing.
Flight.
Night vision.
Super hearing.';

'>>92642874
>That's really boring anon.
Everyone is entitled to their opinion, though I respectfully disagree with yours.

Any non-human race is, in play, functionally just a human anyways. The players are humans and the races themselves are near enough to humans that there is nothing gained from playing a non-human except mechanical benefits. Any story-related elements that you could get from playing an elf, you could get by playing a human cursed with immortality or something.

Elden Ring and Dark Souls are massively popular. They are human-only games. Nobody ever says that playing an elf in Elden Ring would make the game better. (I am aware that that Elden Ring has the stone/dragon/silver tear races as starting templates, but these are effectively just uniquely colored humans.)

As for magic users being mostly non-playable, why is that boring? The real interesting elements of magic users is the utility they bring to out of combat play, which is just another way of saying that magic users give you cheat codes to circumvent a lot of mundane problems. There's no reason you actually need a magic using class when you can just delegate a lot of their out of combat utility to potions or something.

Frankly, I'm tired of wizards being everywhere and solving all problems. That, in my opinion, is what's really boring.';

'>>92642986
Unless you're intentionally going for some kind of minimalism challenge, this isn't a useful way to look at things.';

'>>92642874
Human only settings are fun, though.';

'>>92602708
Say you want goblins as a race and not just a kind of monster, what are some ways to make them more unique besides giving them a bunch of different variations/evolutions like Eevee in Pokémon?';

'>>92641687
that's all fine and good, but I'd still like scantly clad elves';

'>>92642986
>Nobody ever says that playing an elf in Elden Ring would make the game better
I say this.';

'>>92645177
Best I can do is a Stygian sorceress.';

'>>92641687
>Too many people copy Tolkien.
When have you seen a game not featuring scantily clad elves or dwarves hating elves?';

'>>92643316
"useful"

Pseud alert. Nowhere in the creation of a fictional setting is there a requirement for a thing to be "useful."';

'>>92646331
There shouldn't be elves or dwarves at all.';

'>>92642986

I agree that the anon you are responding to is stupid, but it totally depends on setting and use how close other species are to humanity. It certainly feels like you are rendering things down too much to say "Being a fat short guy is the same as being a tolkien dwarf!" - yes you -could- make it work through culture and other stuff, but even in their most boring, stereotype form I'd say the baggage that comes with the race is distinct from just being a human. For examples Not all elves are this way, but - haughty, backbiting, and nature-loving to just grab some stereotype elf tropes don't tie to just being a human who lives forever, for example. Elden Ring and Dark souls also feel like bad examples because -they are not really RPG and they have no real plot. I know that will piss people off but, what you are does not matter literally because the game is killing monsters, even if you care about the plot - the way they are constructed makes it so you could be a fucking robot suit of armor with no personality and it'd not impact anything.';

'>>92610439
>anthromorphic
Stop using this word wrong.';

'>>92646385
This.';

'>>92612624
>>Forced to scrap my setting for standard dungeons and dogshit setting to appease people.
You weren't forced to do anything, you caved because it was the path of least resistance.';

'>>92633114
Genasi are basically just humans with unusual skin colors, they really need their own culture.';

'>>92644069
I made goblins a race that was once on par with the elves in terms of territory, magic, and culture. The elves and the goblins fought, and the elves won. Won so hard that they went out of their way to make sure that the goblins could never, ever rise to threaten the elves again.

The goblins you fight are essentially post-apocalyptic raiders after their civilization was brutally dismantled hard enough that the vast majority of goblins don't even know that there ever WAS a great goblin empire.';

'>>92646339
Settings can afford to have useless things, because the real world has useless things and thats just how things are. But a game should consider its major building blocks carefully. You are supposed to design with intent, not just throw random shit on the page without thinking.';

'>>92646562
Duh. The person I replied to suggested that the other poster's preferences were minimalist and "not useful" which makes absolutely no sense in the context of the conversation. Useful to who? Obviously a world should be constructed carefully - but that isn't the question.';

'>>92602708
Because they’re fun
>>92603252
I wouldn’t. Novelty for novelty’s sake is for ADHD tranime kids';

'>>92632500
Old freakshit you found in some random medieval manuscript is still freakshit.';

'>>92635874
>case in point

>>92646760';

'>>92602708
Because people won't buy it the further you stray away from elves, dwarves, and orcs

For every Redwall, there's a litany of miserable too-clever-for-their-own-good failures.';

'>>92616040
>>92616363
Howl of the Wild isn't out yet so he has a month before he's right';

'>>92603252
My races are all aligned with a different aspect of one of the elements. For instance, while both Dwarves and Elves are aligned with Earth, Dwarves represent the veins of metal deep in the stone, while Elves represent the longevity, wisdom, and rigidness of elder trees. You with me so far?';

'>>92646385
I want to like the obstinate dismissal here, but like. help me out here with where I can look for elf-&-dwarf-free inspiration? elves and dwarves are *great* for getting at the core identity of 'standard fantasy' and the themes therein; it annoys me that they're always assumed to be there, but when works try to do away with them while doing classic 'fantasy', it just feels like a weak subversion. I like all-human settings, or stuff depicting a more magical or folkloric 'other'. any insights?';

'>>92646538
it should be an obvious idea but I've never really thought about what a genuine goblin empire would look and feel like, if it were more than a bunch of nasty little guys in shanty towns. I really wonder what the jewels of goblin culture would be?';

'>>92602708
Because that's what people are familiar with and people like things that are familiar';

'>>92602708
Dwarves, elves, and orcs are unique enough. If you think they're boring it's because you're boring.';

'>>92610905
Thinking you're capable of innovation is far more Tolkien-wannabe than just using established stuff because it's good enough';

'I like how Guild Wars 2 subverts it by having humans play the role of elves, the orcs (char) being an industrial powerhouse, the sylvari (nymph/elves) the youngest and most innocent race, the asura (gnomes) are magitech inclined, and the Norn (giant-folk) are shapeshifter hunters and vikings.';

'>>92610905

Amusingly Gygax did everything he could to divorce D&D from Tolkien.';

'>>92641687
>the gods are mysterious and distant, but sometimes they intervene and provide a miracle
lame, unless done right with extreme difficulty (not done here)

>wizards and sorcerers are almost always evil freaks needing to be slain
VERY lame. Let's take something that's cool and then make the causality arrow point towards the heroes inevitably making the world more like the real life world i.e. mundane and boring. It defeats the purpose of escapism.

Look, I don't know why people keep pretending to be ignorant and confused by this. People are not "copying" Tolkien. What happened is western fantasy is an aesthetic like detective Noir, space opera, gothic or Lovecraftian horror. Like Lovecraft one guy got so much right in one go it's almost totally attributed to him, but the structure of the idea and its inspiration is greater than one man's bibliography. It's as if it was sitting there in the platonic realm of ideas, and in the 1900s it finally got farmed out to the real world by artists with mental resonance with the platonic realm of "Western Fantasy."

People like it. So it will continue to have elves and dwarves because other attempts to refine the aesthetic have resulted in alternatives that are not as popular. The same way you could have a noir story with laser pistols or one set in the medieval ages with swords, which has probably happened, but people still prefer old style guns and fedoras.';

'>>92647841
I genuinely don't understand this. It's like going to the movies and its the same actor over and over.';

'Elves are one of those player character races that I personally love to HATE. even though I do find myself playing plenty of elves. I like elves because in theory there's sort of these graceful arcane race. They suggest a certain gravity of character or era or a nobility or a majesty that if I want to impart that on a character I will use them.

Elves often fall short. They are often NOT Tolkien enough and TOO Tolkien. So we've got Tolkien elves, different kinds of elves, and have the abilities that they have because they travelled a certain distance toward the light of heaven, and some of them made the journey across the sea. They dwelt there for a while and then there was the whole thing with the jewels the Silmaril and then the civil war that followed that and Melkor and Sauron. Elves are SO tied up in that setting, Tolkien's world, so much and so intimately that just pluck them out of Middle-Earth and drop them into Greyhawk, drop them into Forgotten Realms, drop them over here, even if you put another jacket on them, they are still Tolkien elves. When you take them out of the context of Middle-Earth they lose something.

Elves in Middle-Earth are tragic, they have a kind of sadness to them and grief is a big part of being an elf. They live forever they have to deal with all of the crap that Melkor and Sauron and every all the other forces of darkness have have polluted Middle-Earth with that weighs heavily on them. That's why Tolkien elves work and it's difficult to replicate that. It's difficult for DM trying to come up with a with a thing for them, they're just trying to do their campaign and they're not linguistic scholars with a huge background in history and mythology nor the time and ability to write and craft these worlds. They just want a gameable setting in a gameable world so they just copypaste stuff. When they they turn to these tropes and these characters and it just doesn't work as well.';

'>>92648122
true!!! it's part of my frustration and part of why I like them, and part of why I think they're interesting as foils or hypocrites; they have all this spiritual baggage. even outside of middle-earth, elves to me are creatures of reverence for the world. they're awkward and pathetic at times bc they're just sooo sensitive and magical; but their long life makes it justifiable for them to be any and every extreme of human personality. you have to do a lot of work for all elves' connotations to make sense in your world, so I like if you don't see too much of them and there's space to slowly tease that apart.
there are also more opaque fae-like elves, who are as magical but less spiritual. I feel like they fare better when transplanted?';

'>>92645894
basically dark elves. I'll meet you half-way and have conan-inspired themes and cultures, but also pointy ears and stunties (orcs and various monsters already exist, either literally or in all but name)';

'>>92648080
nta but there's a lot of variation within the classic fantasy races. and even if there weren't, you can still tell very different stories using common elements. you can do other stuff if you want, but there's practically inexhaustible novelty with just that (depending on what purpose you're writing for)

it's like going to the movies and every time there are multiple characters that interact and want things from each other. maybe there should also be movies where people do stuff alone or something. but I think if I got bored of movies where characters interact, that'd say more about me being bored of movies, than about that particular element being boring';

'>>92648238
I just don't see it personally, granted I grew up on fantasy and thus had a lot more exposure. But I feel genuine exhaustion from seeing the same races and defense for them because everywhere I look in all forms of media it's just about always the same races because they are the path of least resistance, and while there are outliers most of the time nobody does anything interesting with them and you are basically just getting another carbon copy of the usual traits and characters over and over.';

'>>92642874
>If I can't roleplay as a freak then it's boring
Kys';

'>>92648305
If you're not playing solely as a human who has limited capabilities in accordance to real life you may as well be playing a freak too even if they look normal.';

'>>92641118
>Yeti are centaurs
>Not knowing a cannibalistic white ape of Mars when looking at one
Seriously, how new are you?
Also, poor artists copy, great artists steal. You get to judge which is which.';

'>>92632500
Cyclops are monsters, no one told me so.
Cynocephali could work, but will attract furries. So that's a no for me.
Blemmyes are just comedy, even in the original manuscript.
What the fuck were those one-legs called, monopeds or something? I'd rather use hottentots with poison arrows.
Actual siamese twin: You know, this could actually work. The smaller head is evil, and has taken over the body. They are a necromancer and a necrophile. If smaller head is beheaded, there's a small chance that the good one survives.';

'>>92641118
>its pretty clear to me how these are just, well, standard fantasy races/species repainted.
How different would something have to be to you to be something else?';

'>>92603306
Kill yourself you commie trash.';

'>>92602708
Character archetypes, my guy.
Human = John Everyman self insert
Dwarf = Grumpy uncle with a heart of gold and folksy wisdom
Elf = The beautiful people who exist on the edge of knowing. They represent "the other world" like how the aristocratic and nouveau riche occupy a different world from the common man
Halfling = The funny best friend, the wisecracking tom-fool to the the Humans straight-man in a two-man routine.
Orc/Half-Orc = The muscle. Big and strong and sometimes dumb, aggression is bot their virtue and their vice.
The Half-Elf = A character in transition. Caught between worlds or situations and looking to find their place in society.

All of these archetypes can and regularly are portrayed by normal humans across all forms of media but fantasy and sci-fi allow you distinguish them visually and culturally in a way less accessible to other genres of media and fiction. That fact means that even people with a lower level of narrative interpretation skills can very easilly key in on what stock archetype a character is intended to fill in a story - the same way the ancient greeks had characters and masks and roles that were shared across plays to key audiences in on important themes and motifs the various fantasy races do the same.

Shit's literary, yo.';

'>>92602708
because you masturbate too often';

'>>92603634
>>92603646
>>92603672
Good posts, took the words right out of my mouth and expressed them better. Although I agree with your point about dwarves and halflings I think their real role is as a sort of side-kick role. Elves are off being fancy and the orcs are trying to invade but dwarves are right there along with the humans dealing with their shit. This isn't really an archetypical role however so it can be filled by basically anything so people gravitate to comfort food basically which means classic dwarves very often.';

'>>92647763
For me, I made the distinguishing feature of goblin civilization 'simplicity'. As a species they gravitate towards very simple solutions to complex problems. This does not mean that they were stupid, but rather that they found excessive complexity to be distasteful. A knife is simple, it isn't complicated and its useful in a ton of different ways. Thats the sort of things that goblins gravitate towards.
I also gave them an entirely different magical tradition from what humans consider magic, under the premise that human magic is really just them copying elvish magic. Goblin magic was emblematic of their desire for simplicity, but was no less dangerous for it. A goblin mage would never throw a fireball at you under any circumstances. They would simply cast a spell that turned you dead. After all, thats what they wanted to achieve, wasn't it? Killing you? Why fuss about with all of this in-between shit like elements and channeling and damage. Just fucking make the guy die.';

'it's mostly a problem of audience desire.
most roleplayers ultimately want to play an archetype which is not a fucking pain to roleplay which means most are going to be reasonably "human" in behavior and therefore could reasonably be just as well a human character. those settings with races closer to "human" in flavor stand a better chance to see popularity do to ease of onboarding, and therefore get spread by word of mouth/marketing/algorithm to your eyes.
if you wish to see more "alien" cultures in your games, either look for or host settings from games that aren't D&D or outright homebrew';

'>>92650829
i mean its certainly the goal to kill the enemy (or at least make them flee but i figure magic is considered too complex for such a task) though i gotta wonder if in your setting "death" is a state to be flipped to or if there is a little nuance like eragon style "spinal nerve snap" instakill spells';

'>>92647641
>help me out here with where I can look for elf-&-dwarf-free inspiration?
>I like all-human settings, or stuff depicting a more magical or folkloric 'other'. any insights?
As mentioned before, there are the works of Robert E. Howard. Specifically, Kull of Atlantis and Conan the Barbarian are excellent areas to start looking into. This is fantasy written without the idea that demihumans have to be present. I'd also suggest Dune, at least the first book, by Frank Herbert. While not technically "fantasy," it might as well be.

Staying within the realm of books, another strong recommendation of mine would be Jack Vance's Lyonesse trilogy. This is grim and "twisted" Arthurian fantasy about magic and political schemes. There are fairies in these stories, but they are not anything like "Tolkien elves" but proper, mythological fairies as we understand them. Tricky, fey, mischievous, etc. I'd start there, desu. No point in sending you a long ass list when just working your way through these few recommendations will take you a decent bit of time and open your mind significantly.

As for video games, literally just fire up Diablo II. A whole fantasy world with literally no elves or dwarves at all, just humans heroically struggling against the forces of darkness. After playing Diablo II, play Fable 1. Play Demon's Souls or Dark Souls. Play Dragon's Dogma 1. Play Banner Saga. Play Dark Messiah. There are a million fantasy games out there which do not include or rely upon elves and dwarves.';

'Joe Abercrombie's First Law trilogy also a good place to begin. There's really a ton of fantasy stuff without elves and dwarves, people just can't be bothered to look.';

'>>92648536
Take a second look, they are clearly posing as centaurs.
>>92649262
Good question. I dont know, but really, effectively, If there were no drawings of these races, Just descriptions and roles, how different would they be?
Much less Im certain, that is the sum of my point. Especially because in ttrpgs you are imagining everything you "see".
Lets describe the grey for once
"Extreterrestrisl race, white pale humanoide with ears and deep Black eyes. They used to be a prosperous civlization but now they live among Men for reasons unknown."
Elf or Grey?';

'>>92638604
This, i know sexual dimorphism is a thing but can we please make fem orcs retain their orcness that isn't just megan fox with green skin and pointy teeth';

'>>92651953
not to bitch about your recommendations but I *am* familiar with a lot of settings that don't have elves or dwarves lol. I was more hoping you could demonstrate that elves and dwarves are unnecessary - that the kind of stories elves and dwarves feature in don't require them. I don't usually include elves and dwarves, but I do when I want to incorporate or respond to high fantasy as a genre. they're a great shorthand for all kinds of stuff.
but thanks for the recs + the effort.
my first thought when it comes to 'fantasy without elves or dwarves' is actually Earthsea, which is a great example of something that's 'fantasy' but not trying to tell a tolkien-esque story.
I love dark messiah! it has got orcs though. diablo is a genuinely pretty interesting one.
I think I'm personally inclined more to 'just human' settings because - depending on the medium and context - it's not worth including fantasy races if they don't serve a valuable role and I don't put the effort into developing them. humans are more familiar and there's inexhaustible variety in human culture and disposition.
I haven't read Lyonesse, but I'll look out for it. fae-inspired + arthurian stuff are both things I've meant to look out for more';

'>>92602708
Because the fantasy genre is uncreative.';

'>>92654790
>I was more hoping you could demonstrate that elves and dwarves are unnecessary - that the kind of stories elves and dwarves feature in don't require them.
NTA but do you have some specific examples in mind?';

'>>92655502
I mean, I was responding to the original reply saying 'there shouldn't be elves and dwarves at all'; as though using those tropes means you're telling a worse story. I think there are good reasons to incorporate them and good reasons to avoid them, depending on what you're trying to do.
if anon's point is just that you don't *have* to use them, then that's obvious. as it turns out, most stories don't have elves or dwarves lol. but how integral they (or analogues) are to the fantasy genre is up for debate.

I guess the interest for me is whether you're likely engaging in a cheap, narrowed form of fantasy if you use this trope. even if you're engaging with fantasy races deconstructively, is that a waste of time and thought? maybe the most interesting fantasy has nothing to do with elves or dwarves, and the writing process doesn't think about races at all. I think very loosely about races when gestating a setting or story bc I think that's usually more interesting. but I don't think this discussion can get much deeper with me bc I don't know how to get into the writing process as a whole lol. I was just curious if anon was seeing something I wasn't';

'>>92655502
sorry, I didn't really answer your question. it's a bit hard bc the example I'm referencing *is* nebulous and unclear.
to take a wild swing; elves live longer, and at least at one time more deeply, than we do, but they're still limited, fragile beings. 'elf and dwarf stories' are about the persistence of magic and faith between creatures from different worlds.

lotr is as much a hobbit story as it is an elf and dwarf story, and I guess all stories are human stories. the core story is martial and personal but the world is painted through these side stories about mysterious creatures, reclaiming lost relationships, the passing of the torch, and generally the value of caring about the world in different ways.
would lotr be as good if it were all human? there's no reason, I guess, you couldn't just have the hobbits be simple human farmers and the elves erudite super warrior-poets. but if you make them too mystical they're just going to read as elves anyway lol.

I haven't read much conan but I imagine in a conan story, people like that are very suspect; it's suspect that anything different can really emerge from what we know of human nature (which is often petty and bitter). elves aren't human; that's established at a variety of textual levels and ig can be part of the conflict too, but you're asked to at least consider that they really are that magical. in a lot of way they represent a natural order that doesn't end at humans; they inhabit somewhat the same existential ranges as us, but they're distinct.

so my question to anon was kind of - from what theory of writing, or of fantasy, do you say that there's nothing of value in including elves and dwarves in your setting? lol. I kind of sympathise if you say, 'if we're going to tell a story about humans, let's tell a story about humans'. but I also think a valuable element of fantasy is to borrow from myth, and include things that are magical, that we don't fully understand, that don't map cleanly';

'>>92602708
Because you nigger keep playing d&d, !d&d, old-d&d or d&d-but. Stormbringer only has pseudo-elves-but-not (melniboneans), Cthulhu Dark Ages is only humans and fucked up things, Talislanta selling slogan is literally "no elves", plenty of Sword & Sorcery tolkien-races free, etc... Just look around you lazy faggot.';

'>>92659162
also sorry lotr nerds, my take is probably basic as hell bc I'm not a big lotr nerd lol. feel free to outdo or skewer me

I'd also say like, people want to play elves and dwarves irl (elfkin lol) even though there aren't elves or dwarves there either lol. the more established an idea the more attractive it is and elves are pretty real to people at this point';

'>>92653273
No.';

'>>92654819
The industry is uncreative. Try denying three visually distinct races of elf and see normies struggle with novelty. How in God's green Earth do they expect spies to stay long enough to gather enough intel to be the useful asset their polity has trained for years? Spies literally always needed to "fit in" to do their job.';

'>>92653273
No you don't understand "they" can't have sex with it in their thoughts if it's like that, so "they" have to make it human like.';

'>>92663171
>they can't have sex with it in their thoughts if it's like that
O ye of little faith.';

'>>92663171
>No you don't understand "they" can't have sex with it in their thoughts if it's like that, so "they" have to make it human like.
You're too innocent. It's even more so the other way around. Most people I've seen arguing against too conventionally attractive humanlike females for fantasy races are arguing against it because THEY can't have sex with something that vanilla in THEIR thoughts, due to them being a furry or some other kind of fetishist that ain't attracted to normal humanlike girls. The image attached to the post you're replying to was seemingly made by or for the kind with a fetish for landwhales.';

'>>92648070
...Huh, so that's what my asshole philosophy professor meant when she was talking about Plato and the realm of ideas.';

'>>92648562
That's not a cyclops, you dimwit, that's a Arimaspos. They lived in northern Scythia and battled gryphons for their gold.';

'>>92614609
>WeAreHololive.jpg';

'>>92615385
Anon, none of those giant talking spiders were friendly.
Unless you think Shelob webbing up that goblin was some sort of prank.';

'>>92602761
>humans but girly
An entire race of femboys...
(And femgirls, I guess?)';

'>>92616010
I assume because Anon thinks only a group of kids of the same race can get into arguments in detention over how they treat each other.
That or he thinks the character archetypes are essentially white. Which is claptrap, I've met brown versions of the Basket Case.';

'>>92665244
Ungoliant was reasonable and friendly enough in the Silmarillion, and only turned hostile when Morgoth doublecrossed it. In addition, Sauron too was on friendly terms with Shelob, showing that you can indeed reason with them. And the only scenarios where we see giant spiders attacking people in The Hobbit and LotR are when people literally enter their homes and get entangled in their webs, which seems a pretty reasonable cause for aggression.
So I would say that Shelob was friendly, just not towards our protagonists. As for the Mirkwood spiders, they are harder to judge since we don't see anyone except the dwarves and Bilbo interact with them, and they had barged into their home as previously mentioned.';

'>>92665631
>Holy subversion, Batman! The thing that big bad was afraid is now actually good!
To others: don't listen, Ungoliant was the darkness personified and Mirkwood spiders were antropophages.';

'>>92668536
>Ungoliant was the darkness personified
There's nothing fundamentally evil about darkness though. Unlike someone like Morgoth, Ungoliant doesn't seem to be actively malicious, after draining the trees (something it only did at Morgoth's behest, an evil act to be sure but hardly enough to condemn it as evil incarnate) it seemed perfectly content to just chill and leave the rest of the world alone. Like this thing was powerful enough to beat up Morgoth but never made any trouble or attacked anyone else.
>Mirkwood spiders were antropophages.
Citation needed. Yes, they were going to eat the dwarves, but that's just them being pragmatic with dealing with the corpses of home invaders. They obviously don't eat humanoids as their mainstay meal because they live in fucking Mirkwood that has very little traffic, zero permanent humanoid residents except for the elves who are wise enough to avoid the spiders, and where any traveler with any sense knows to stay on the road while the spiders and their webs are off the road.';

'>>92602708
There's a fine line to walk really.
Like you see some worldbuilders who go too over board with trying to steer far away from Humanoid.

In my setting, basically I'd go back to Elves and Dwarves and the like being 'Demi-Humans', AKA they're from Humans.

It's going to be awesome.';

'Then there's the instinct to just say "Anthro people".

I have those too in my setting. You know, Gnolls and Moth People.';

'>>92615212
Also, every vaguely humanoid race you could possibly cook up is open to the accusation of "lame, they're just humans but x". So what's even left to do at this point? Introduce races whose biology defy human understanding to the point of breaking the laws of physics like every other Xeelee Sequence race?';

'>>92669410
It's not lame that it's 'just humans but x'.
I like Star Trek Aliens, for example. You want some familiarity mixed with some strange.

Maybe your setting has a bunch of humans but x and some really alien stuff like blob people.';

'>>92669441
Never said it was lame. I'm actually pointing out that criticizing "humans but x" doesn't really leave a whole lot of room to actually do anything without overcomplicating stuff';

'>>92669289
>In my setting, basically I'd go back to Elves and Dwarves and the like being 'Demi-Humans', AKA they're from Humans.
I've occasionally toyed with the idea of a "fantasy but actually it's sci-fi after the apocalypse" setting where elves are just descendants of humans who did extensive genetic modification to have longer lives, better reflexes etc. Could easily work other fantasy races in with similar reasoning.';

'>>92603252
Anything besides humans is really superfluous, apart from as a source for magical items';

'>>92669793
Modified human races is absolutely the way to go, because you can pretty easily explain many fantasy races that way. Dwarves = heavy worlders, halflings = people who needed to fit in cramped spacecraft, etc. etc.';

'>>92603629
Well, Elves are cool, and I wanna make my own spin on Elves. Then in my setting I also have things that are more unique to my setting.';

'>>92616020
I don't know, anon. Having orcs and calling them "Porcine Forest Ogres" isn't exactly being creative if all you change is the name. If anything, it's revealing that the author is a completely uncreative twat and his setting is probably even more uninspired than most shit you're calling slop, because he put all his effort into making it "his" through rename backpacking.';

'There is some merit in having cool spins on familiar races such as Elves. Can easily just have them alongside the more original creations of your setting. It's all in good fun.';

'>>92602708
They’re the best ones…?';

'>>92602761
>audience of primarily humans
nigga what the fuck else sits at your table?';

'>>92602708
I need 7 races for the Seven Deathly Sins.
Orcs are wrath, dwarves are pride, goblins are greed, what else? My goal is to make it acceptable to portray 7 races in the worst light possible to gatekeep my open table against 'that guy'.';

'>>92674371
Subhumans.';

'>>92674396
Surely dwarfs should be greed and elves pride? Gluttony being ogres seems pretty obvious, but also fits halflings quite well. Humans could be envy, as in they are envious of all the other races having cool abilities while they have none, although goblins could also be envy for a similar reason. Can't think of any good fits for sloth and lust of the top of my head, although lust could be any number of "rapey" races. I guess elves could fit sloth with "we are immortal and really good at everything but just sit on our asses all day and get nothing done".';

'>>92674598
Elves being prideful is overdone and bland. Have you read how /tg/ depicts dwarves? Read how the Bible describes pride. They match.';