Given the age and vastness of Western fantasy tradition, how come that everyone nowadays views "elves, dwarfs...

Given the age and vastness of Western fantasy tradition, how come that everyone nowadays views "elves, dwarfs, halflings" as the "default" set of races to treat in a game, rather than, like, "centaurs, fairies, trolls, goblins" or "werewolves, mermaids, giants, dwarfs" or really any other combination like that?

Because Tolkien invented the allegedly vast Western tradition.

>what are Greek mythology, European folklore, classical literature and fairytales

Tolkien and/or D&D are default fantasy in the popular mindset, therefore, their default is western fantasy's default. That's literally it.

Alright everybody, first retarded post of the thread.

You're not going to just come in here and deny that a LOT of fantasy works are either directly derivative of Tolkien, or inspired heavily by things like table-top RPG's which themselves were directly derived from Tolkien are you?

I'm not going to claim that unique and creative stuff doesn't exist, but there is a shitload of low-tier psuedo-Tolkien filler out there.

/thread

>elves, dwarfs, halflings
Same reason that all Star Trek aliens are just humans with funny colored skin or forehead ridges.

The more human your non-human races are, the easier it is to create a consistent and believable culture for them. It's easy to imagine what short people who like mining or tall people who live a long time would be like, but trying to figure out what a centaur civilization would be like is tricky.

There's a big difference between saying that and saying he invented western fantasy tradition, which has existed for thousands of years before in forms which are remembered to this day.

>The more human your non-human races are, the easier it is to create a consistent and believable culture for them. It's easy to imagine what short people who like mining or tall people who live a long time would be like, but trying to figure out what a centaur civilization would be like is tricky.
The Greeks didn't seem to mind it much. They're just Huns who are fused to their horses. It's about as in-depth as stereotypical dwarf culture, i.e. "mining, smithing, loves alcohol and being grumpy".