So, I'm running several campaigns where I'm teaching new players how to play D&D, and I've noticed that a solid two thirds of the players first characters are elves or half elves. I was lamenting all these elf fags like a loyal neckbeard, when I realized my first character was an elf too.
Perplexed, I asked my brother, and HIS first character was a half elf as well.
So, what is it with new players and elves?
>I was lamenting all these elf fags like a loyal neckbeard
Yep, surely not a bait thread that uses elves as premise. Didn't have these in a while.
Not sure.
My first character was a dwarf.
you are a pathetic and miserable shit.
You are cancer.
You and i probably shouldn't have replied and prolonged this thread's existence.
You are right, forgot to sage.
Typically characterised as a more mysterious/magical and beautiful version of human. Being human is boring because it takes no imagination to be exactly what you are.
A low-key version of special snowflakedom that usually harms no one.
This is what I assumed. Quick and easy wish fulfillment.
My first character was a centaur. I've been a DM for a long time, a lot of my first time players go elf, half-elf, dwarf, or half-orc. I very rarely see anything else.
Are you guys kidding? Dark vision. Simply mechanically more capable than base line human right away. And who wants to be short or a midget?
Which is not bad for 5he 1st did character. Let them learn a d get all the cringe mistakes out of the way niw.
Plus, darkvision
When they try to imagine being a different human they keep snapping back to their own self-image. With an elf you don't have to think about your ooc body and think about relative appearance, 'cause elves are hot by default.
Half-Orc. My buddy's first was a Sylph. Elves are familiar, attractive, magical, skilled, and slightly exotic. It's not too surprising.
Oh, I never actually thought it was that bad, my elffag comment was mostly a joke. I just found it amusing that the party was a high elf, a wood elf, two half elves, and a human.
DnD elves are manlets
They are slightly smaller than humans, but compared to dwarves and halfling no manlets.
They are similar to humans, but slightly better on the things that people who start on fantasy wants: magical, beautiful, functionally immortal and young.
It works.
My first character was basically Bilbo, and since then I have a boner for Rogues.
They are both similar to what is familiar since they have human like features, albeit desirable features, as well as being not human and completely fantasy as fuck.
Close enough to human to be comfortable
'Exotic' enough to feel fantastical
Same goes for Dwarves, except replace 'Exotic' with 'Grounded' both with heavy quotation marks and intended pun.
Are you saying that post 3.5e DnD, Elves are slightly smaller than humans on average? I thought they were moderately taller.
This is 5e. You could confuse it with Pathfinder, in which, as far as I remember, they are still taller than humans.
They're fantasy-y and different while still being basically humans. (Or played that way, at least.)
It's in the comfort zone while still jumping into something new.
This changes everything. Elves are fucking cute as hell in 5e. I'm now playing a male elf cleric when we get around to the system.
>hauntingly beautiful=/=cute
They still don't look like your shotas.
>noonee has posted this yet
Hello????
I personally prefer elves to dwarves because growing up reading LotR, I just found the elves more interesting than the dwarves. Humans seemed boring, and it wasn't until reading the Hobbit as a kid that I appreciated dwarves.
It also doesn't help that my first ever Magic block was Lorwyn/Shadowmoore block, which had bad ass elves.
Shota? No. Hauntingly beautiful, otherworldly and youthful? That's what I'm talking about.
>Hauntingly beautiful, otherworldly and youthful?
Just as an example 5e presents you this male elf Drizzt So please think again if you want to call them "cute".
My first character was a dwarf, too.
Look, you're telling me there aren't any cute ones? In the entire species, described as broadly youthful, small, and beautiful, there isn't a single example of a male elf that one might find "cute?" Why does the idea offend you so much?
MIN MAXING
ALWAYS THE BEST
NUMBER ONE
SINCE DAY 1
Forgot my image, because I'm a retard.
>there isn't a single example of a male elf that one might find "cute?"
Maybe. But why does this description of elves give you the impression that they are cute? I'm not seeing it. "Hauntingly beautiful" sounds way above "cute".
Something can be both. Are you one of these people that can't understand how a bug can be cute? Plus, you know, being daintier and smaller than human men on average, I'm sure there are some pretty adorable examples. I'm not trying to argue elves are cute. I'm arguing that they are much more likely to be, and that excites me.
Saging lets OP self-bump. If you want the thread to die, don't post.
>Are you one of these people that can't understand how a bug can be cute?
Most of the time there is something wrong in their head.
>I'm arguing that they are much more likely to be
And I'm arguing against it, because "hauntingly beautiful" sounds to me like some steps above "cute. I mean pic related are some forgotten realms elves. Do they look "cute"?
Just stop trying to take away my cute male elf cleric of Sehanine.
Why are elves always so boring? The only interesting elves I've seen in years were the X'endrik drow from Eberron and the slavic drone Veeky Forums came up with.
Elf thread? Post elf pics?
no
Dem ears man.
Nah kidding, my first character was an elf too. Because I was playing a ftr/mage and it made mechanical sense. Elves were actually mechanically superior for some things back in the days of 2nd edition. Ask enough oldfags why their first characters were elves and you'll hear this a fair bit.
How do you make elves scary to the world, if not perhaps the party?
I've never once wanted to make an elf or half-elf
I have no idea how I would play one.
Uncertain. When I first did D&D, I rolled Human. My brother did Dwarf. My sister rolled Dragonborn. My friend (Whom I introduced) rolled Tiefling. I've never seen a new person roll Elf, honestly.
Even when I hosted it for friends, I'm pretty sure I got only one Elf, and that was due to the fact he played the Sneaky Elf Rogue.
Elves could be racially pure fanatics, hellbent on extinguishing all races which resemble them. (Which in a D&D setting would be Half-Orcs, Half-Elves, Humans, Halflings, Gnomes, Drow, Dwarves, and maybe races like Minotaur. Pretty much, anything vaguely humanoid).
Throw in that their haunting beauty is actually a work of people with low will seeing what they want to see, and that elves are actually grotesque. Boom.
My first character was a male drow sorcerer.
I miss him a lot.
>dem ears
>mfw having a fetish for them
>implying I've ever played a half elf
Orcs are the superior race, user
Yes please.
Also thanks for that gay-related elf pic.
Nothing wrong with having fetish for elves fellow human being.
If you insist...
It's not particularly difficult to take typical elven traits and make them evil/dangerous.
High elves are magically and technologically more advanced than humans, and look down on other races as their lessers. They're typically portrayed as isolationistic, but what if they instead had colonial ambitions, conquering the lands of other races and enslaving their population through the use of overwhelming firepower.
And while wood elves are described as close to nature, nature in this case is usually portrayed very idealistically. In reality, nature can be a very nasty place, and making wood elves embody that kind of nature makes them a pretty scary thing to encounter while alone in the middle of the woods.
Thank you for posting the only good player race art from the 5th edition Player's Handbook
Your GM allows fantastical races. My GM won't even let us use official races that are fantastical like Aarokoa (despite saying I'd have my wings clipped), or Merfolk. We're human, dwarfs and elfs only.
I have no idea where you find these players.
>first group
>all five players roll humans
>another group
>3 humans and a dwarf
>and another group
>halfling, two humans and a dwarf
No halfling or gnomes? What a dick
You are in 6 threads right now m8 you really love that image
Drizzt a cute!
I have a fetish for long, pointed ears.
The first time I played D&D I think I played a human Bard. The only time I ever played an Elf was once when I played WF 2e. Not even D&D.
Non-human, but not too non-human.
Grab em by the ears and pull!
First character was halfling but if i had to guess it's probably because when someone is new to a game and are told they can essentially do anything, they try to diverge from what they are as far as possible. that being the case most people also don't want to stray too far from what they know. basically they want to be different, but not too different. so elves are the logical choice. I DM'd a game for my parents over thanksgiving, my mother played a high elf druid, so did my wife. my dad played a human monk and basically RP'd as chuck norris.
My first was an orc.
He would put fish in his boot and drink the fermented rotten fish.
My very first character was a
>Male human fighter
So yeah, no.
>Why do people want to play these glimmering Aryan supermen instead of the squat covetous jew stereotypes
Hmmmmmmmmmmmmmmm.
let me guess, their chars were also female
I like dexterious glass canons and magic/melee hybrids. In many settings elf fit that bill.
My first was a catfolk cleric.
You're posting about D&D on Veeky Forums.
My first character was a Dorf. Can't opine on your elf issues.
My first character was an old grumpy human wizard that thought less than highly of simple fighters.
*Now* my characters are all elves.
Elves are human-like enough that we still empathize with them and can relate to them, yet are different enough that they don't fall into the "too boring and not fantasy enough" requirement most people who like fantasy and high fantasy are looking for.
Lorwyn elves best elves
The four main choices people have when they usually make characters are...
Human, orc, elves, dwarves.
Dwarves are too short/manletish/silly looking, Orcs are typically 'villans', and humans aren't 'fantasty' like. So, elves is the next best thing.
My first character was a human who was weaboo for elves. It got so bad the local elf colony banned her from their forests.
Looks cute to me
Most of my players generally want to play monstrous races, or something edgy as fuck like a Tiefling.
I mostly stick with humans, they're usually the most well-rounded mechanically and I kind of enjoy playing the "straight man" of a group.
My mom's side of the family ears don't curl on the ends so since I have these longer rounded flat ears I thought it'd be fitting to play a half elf. Sucks that it's pretty much the designated snowflake race for beginners though
>that picture
Is the US army trying to persuade Veeky Forums goers to join the military with pics like this?
Stop bumping the thread if you don't have anything to contribute.
Well I got elf pics I can dump, and we can turn this into an elf thread in general, sooo...
Do it.
OK I'll start with a couple. But when I come back after some time. I better see others posting, talking about and shitposting about elves.
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Yes, they do. Christ, you're fucking autistic.
Seems like unofficial art. Doesn't prove a thing.
this is funny, because im a diehard elf fag, but my first character was a human fighter
>why?
because they're cool and good-looking, and tend to be badass capable warriors
>that subtle heterochromia
I'm on to you, Sue.
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Not trying to be pol here... but I notice that alot of players that come from backgrounds where their parents are to widely different cultures or races, usually have a tendancy to play half elves. I would press them abit on the matter to sate my own curiosity and they would reply back that they had read the race bios (DandD) and said they felt like they most identified with those characters because they were "children of two worlds that belonged to neither."
Or they had just pulled a marathon of the Hobbit or Lord of the Rings and wanted to play a "mary sue" type character.
My first character was a human because HUMANITY FUCK YEAH !
and because I'm a boring shit
It may be possible that people who are from parents with different cultures can recognize themselves in the half-elf, half-orc characters. They can easily roleplay the struggle of being between two cultures, aspect I have personaly not seen a lot developed by players of half-elf.
Mine too.
My first character was an Elf too.
>Two experienced guys want to get some newfags into P&P.
>2 newfags sign up for the first session
>They gave us a few premade characters so we wouldn't be hindered by character creation for too long.
>One of the experienced guys is the DM
>The other uses one of his old characters, a Dwarfen outcast who became a mercenary to make money so he could marry the girl he loved
>The other newfag makes a generic Viking-style berserker human
>Having basically no ranged fighters, nature and people skills, I come to the conclusion that the Elven Ranger sounds like the most reasonable pick.
Pic unrelated to the story, just elfposting.
Oh, it's not like the characters were entirely premade, just the crunch was premade, fluff was our choice and the oldfags encouraged us to do it right.
None of the players were elves the first time we campaigned. The DM scolded us for several minutes for our lack of elves. We're all elves now.