Quote from: Exploderwizard;789731There is also a tendency, even when detailing these races beyond their vanilla flavor, to simply apply human-like cultural traits to them. It is a common trap to fall into because the gamers designing them are (mostly human.

How would living for a couple thousand years impact elven culture?

Think about the simple things we assume as humans. When someone is heading out and says they will return "soon", how long is that? As humans, how long do we wait before becoming worried?

So when an elf says " be back soon" before a departure, he/she could be gone for 5 years and would treat such an absence like a human would if it were a mere month or so.

Dennis McKiernan had a take on this in his book series. Elves would go off and study something intensely, often for centuries at a time, just to learn about it thoroughly and write a book about it. One would think nothing of spending 100 years living on a beach to learn the ways of the tides and surf.


For a "be back soon" story there is the legend of Ruth Colbath, who waited 39 years for her husband to return. Lighting a flame for him every night:

http://newhampshireadventures.blogspot.com/2009/01/flame-of-love-ruth-colbath-story.html

I'm quite annoyed with the "all the same" scottish dwarves. I'm even more annoyed by viking dwarves.

On the other hand, I understand that people want to play dwarves and will want to do so based on the most common depiction. So I try to do some things to make dwarves less cliched and human without discarding common expectations.

Some things I've done in my Primary Setting:

Dwarves have an extremely strong sense of dwarven identity. This means, among other things, that they are have the same culture, the same religious practise, follow the same one god (who doesn't even accept non-dwarven worship) and all speak and write the same language.

A dwarf who rejects what it means to be dwarven, becomes seriously misguided or wasn't raised among his kin becomes "Durr". Culturally, this is basically a combination of banishment and excommunication, but being "Durr" is also a very real spiritual and even physical effect. Dwarves do not hunt down the Durr, but rather fear them. Being Durr is the first step towards becomming "Derro" or "Duergar".

Unlike other races, Dwarves where not only created with an express purpose, but are also well aware of this purpose. Originally dwarves ignored their purpose and build great underground kingdoms, with catharstrophic results. Afterwards the dwarves spread themself across the known land and became teachers and advisors to the other races. They do not yearn to return to their old realms, but rather consider them their form of original sin.

Dwarven society resolves around the "Mabochet", walled (and often also ceiled) enclaves in human settlements where non-dwarves are only permitted as visitors on a case by case basis and never for longer than a few hours. Most, though not all, dwarves dwell in Mabochets and those who don't visit as often as possible.

Dwarves have no priests. Or rather, every dwarf is a priest of their god.

The excellent dwarven craftsmanship and sense of duty extends to scholarly pursuits. Dwarves keep excellent documentation and have a great appreciation of Mathematics.

Few dwarves seek to rule over others. However, being well organised, united and having taught the other races a great amount of crafting and lore, but keeping the best to themselves, they tend to have a very priveledged position. Dwarves dominate the guilds, dwarves have the best connections in trade, Mabochets are very wealthy, kings have dwarven advisors, if there is a city council, there will be a disproportional amount of dwarves. In many places, a dwarf is not subject to normal jurisdiction, but only their own law. A crime that sees someone else imprisoned for life or executed might see a dwarf walk happily walking the streets ever after (though the dire threat of being declared Durr is ever present).

While the idea that dwarves are genderless and reproduce asexually is nothing but superstition, dwarves are mostly asexual in their disposition. Sex for any other purpose than reproduction is not considered sinful or wrong by them. It is just doesn't even come to their mind. If it wasn't for a strong parental instinct, dwarves would have died out long ago. Dwarves have the lowest difference in gender, both physically and socially.


PCs do not need to comfirm to the above. Adventurers are oddballs and misfits by nature and there are many ways a dwarf could be a bit weird and crazy to his kind without being declared Durr. If a player chooses to play a Durr dwarf, all bets are of. Those guys are insane.

I've never cared for elves and dwarves in RPGs, myself. When I started the current LotFP game, I thought about not including them as classes, or turning them into some sort of human class. I ultimately decided to keep them as playable classes, but no one wanted to play one, so it didn't really matter.

I did, however, use them in the campaign. The very first session saw the PCs befriended by a drunken dwarf, then kidnapped by dwarven slavers who planned on shipping them out somewhere by sea. They later found the friendly dwarf murdered with a note pinned to his back by a dagger, that said (in a dialect of dwarven) "race traitor." Dwarves have never again made an appearance in game. Although they did meet an elderly dragon who referred to dwarves as "the maggots within the earth."

So the PCs only experience with dwarves is that of evil, backstabbing, sons of bitches who sail and are not well-regarded by a dragon. Everything about them, their societies and cultures, are a mystery. Which both makes them interesting to the PCs, and makes it easy for me as a DM, since I can make up anything I want now.

The players haven't encountered elves yet, but they will soon. They probably won't be happy about it, either.

Quote from: everloss;789959So the PCs only experience with dwarves is that of evil, backstabbing, sons of bitches who sail and are not well-regarded by a dragon. Everything about them, their societies and cultures, are a mystery. Which both makes them interesting to the PCs, and makes it easy for me as a DM, since I can make up anything I want now.

The players haven't encountered elves yet, but they will soon. They probably won't be happy about it, either.

I take a similar approach in my own game.

The Elven kithbands of my world - dubbed the "Nameless" amongst the human clans - are coldly neutral, bad to the bone assholes. They're proponents of chaos, using it to counterbalance against the order of mankind. Although they are an orderly society with deeply ingrained traditions, my Elves are wildly erratic and dangerous outside of their kithband. They are also damn dirty ancestor worshippers whom revere their undead relatives, and live below the roots of massive trees. They wear scary masks to hide their faces (sort of a take on the hijab) because no one but their own kind are worthy to look upon the immortal beauty of their features.

Essentially, these whirling dervishes with pointy ears have a sword to grind against all the other races of the world. But those Elves whom have been captured and indentured into servitude (as Elven slaves amongst the human aristocracy are considered to be "all the rage") often ape the social conventions of their masters. Essentially, it turns them into fey "louchebags", personifying all of the more traditional Elven tropes.

Quote from: dragoner;789909The best distinction is from the Rat Queens post on the rpg site fb group:

This is awesome. I think I ought to follow that comic.

Quote from: flyerfan1991;789972This is awesome. I think I ought to follow that comic.

Yeah, I googled a bunch of images to read it after seeing it posted, it is pretty good.

In my game, I think of elves as being haughty, holier-than-thou types, inspired by the elves in Weird New World. They're dwindling in number, as all or most of the "good" elves managed to escape this plane long ago, leaving all the shitty, evil, or just plain jerk elves here. Since they have such long lifespans and humans tend to find them nifty and awe-inspiring, they have become very powerful in the highest levels of human society.
In game terms; elves (among others) rule the city of humans in which the PCs find themselves. However, neither the PCs nor the common folk know elves rule over them. The elves aren't too pleased about the situation, as humans might as well be swine to them. But they're making the most of it as any nigh-immortal being would - by using them as playthings in games with other ancient and terrible beings.

Quote from: Shipyard Locked;789865Making distinct elf and dwarf subcultures is tricky given how culturally established they already are, but I'll keep experimenting.

Just so.  If they're still "elves" and "dwarves" it's very difficult to overcome the common archetype.  No matter how distinct you've made your elf and dwarf subcultures, I guarantee that sooner or later you'll have a player who picks an elf or a dwarf and then runs a Legolas or Gimli by another name, or speaks with a Scottish accent and talks about hitting things with his axe.

You have to make some radical changes to overcome the inertia of the common archetype.

Dragoner's post is spot-freaking-on.

There's a site where people submit their stuff -- adventures, NPCs, cultural elements, items -- for other GMs to steal at will.  I collaborated there for a time, but the beginning of the end was when someone asked me to post some of my campaign's races there.  I did, and was immediately roasted because the races didn't have enough distinctive, monolithic cultural traits for the liking of some.

WTF?, answered I.  Do humans have monolithic traits?  Are all humans sex-crazed, all of them violent, all of them pretty much anything?  No.  They have a wide spectrum of behaviors.  In a multi-racial polity, where folks of all races dwell in the same melting pot, there'd be damn few "All Chuliks Are Cruel" elements outside of ethnically pure enclaves.

Going back to the main point, the OP might also want to look at the Aldryami and Mostali from RuneQuest.  They are so not your stereotypical elves and dwarves.

I'm pretty sure that if a non-human species were to look at us collectively, they would say that we "all" have certain defining traits.  Sex-crazed and violent (or at least aggressive) would probably be among them.

More to the point, this is not science fiction. Mythical monsters are not supposed to be "just plain people." It's not that kind of anthropology.

Exceptions can be interesting, because of contrast with the archetypes.

Does this make them easier or harder to play, more or less suitable as player-character types? Probably both, depending on perspective.

Isn't that the problem though?  We instantly view other species from an anthropomorphic perspective.  We need an easily understood definition in order to recognize behaviors that are common to our understanding.  It's hard to make races distinguishable but not archetypical because of that and even harder for players to associate with the race.

Races come with bagage. If a guy wants to play an elf  they probably have a strong idea about legolas, glorfindel, whatever. If you describe elves to them as the short guys that help santa that probably isn't going to float their boat.

You can have any race you like but it has to be grokable. Playability is king. You can create anything riffing of any culture from the arapaho to the  !kung but devising entirely convoluted groups normally sucks the joy out of the game

Long ago, I made all my elves and dwarves Anime Style which solved all problems of appreciation.

Quote from: dragoner;789909The best distinction is from the Rat Queens post on the rpg site fb group:

I saw that, checked it out, and have ordered it from Amazon.