Elves are usually depicted as more longlived, more intelligent, more skilled and more in tune with magic than humans

In my setting elves are actually pretty shit-tier.

>Natural skill/learning rate is equal-to or less-than a human's
>Because they live 10x longer, many of them are pretty lazy
>Young elves are terrible at everything

>The only advantage they have is that since they live 10x longer, the few(i.e, >1%) that are passionate about combat or any given profession tend to be legendary

>but their pride was their downfall

>they are retards
that's the only plausible answer

Humans can transform their surroundings to how they like it.
Elves cannot.

So basically they're a race of of disappointments, but be very careful around old elves

They level up more slowly

Elves are super insular and don't give a shit about anything unless it's happening right in front of them

Humans breed dozens of times faster and are extremely expansionistic/ambitious, to the point that their cities grow upwards when they can't grow out

God dammit, I'm sick of all these bait threads. This board is so shitty these days.

This is remains one of the most cringeworthy comics I've ever read

Depends on the setting.

Humans are the protagonist race. Don't search for any good in-world explanation, they are just written to be dominant so you have more heroes to self-insert into.

Ironically, because their lives are so long.
They aren't as motivated to get shit done in a timely manner since they have hundreds of years to do it. On the other hand, humans only have 20-30 years to accomplish what they need to accomplish before their bones turn to glass and their skin turns to paper, so they need to make good use of that time.

Don't you enjoy that we had this thread a million times already.

It's that damn Spiral power getting in the way.

Seriously though, elves are just not proactive enough. If you lived for thousands of years, you'd probably get tired of sex, bored with children, and not give a damn about anything. You'll last long enough, so who gives a fuck about the next generation.

I honestly don't even care, but bait, dammit, you got me again.

1) Humans live fast and die young in fantasy settings, they're in a hurry, and have drive and ambition to get things done _now_, because if you don't, you'll never see it finished.

2) Elves are immortal, so there's no rush to do stuff. They'll get it done some time or other, why are you in such a hurry? Also, where the heck did all those round-ears come from, and when did they build that city? I swear, I just take one nap, make a nice cabinet to store my clothes in, and suddenly they're everywhere.

Elves, as a race, are deeply disorganized and unfocused people that care more about perfecting the water quality of a forest stream, or wharever, than advancing their race or community.

I was trying to think of an example and I remembered a bit by Christopher Titus.
Please forgive the /pol/.
The bit ends with him apologizing for white people's history of poor treatment of other races by saying "I'm Whitey, and I apologize."
Then he asks all the white people in the audience to say it with him.
Immediately, in unison, the crowd says "I'm Whitey, and I apologize!"
Then Titus adds, "And all you other races? I'd accept the apology. Because, did you see how fast we all got organized?"

Humans are just more organized.

Not a welfare state, WELFARE TREES, who provide housing, transport, healing & food for free to all elves.

Majority of deaths of elves are accidental and involve falling out of trees.

(now of course, the question then becomes: would humans live as long as elves if they also lived in trees? The answer is GET OUT OF OUR TREES ROUND EARS hissssssssss)

That raises the question if elves would welcome human refugees or build a wall.

>all this headcanon
It's not like you have any literature and sourcebooks to read up on this shit.

They'd say they'd build a wall but by the time they actually get to step one of it the land they're on will have long been one they're a minority in.

Because humans are more likely to be born with one of the most dangerous traits: ambition.

Elves are perfectly happy shitting in the woods for a thousand years. One ambitious human with a thousand years could change the world.

>more intelligent
>more skilled
this is what elves believe

>Explain this
It just works

Elves often start with extra INT and elf-made shit is most of the time better than your average human-made stuff.

You /pol/ack piece of.... actually that's kind of a good point if you think "developed world" versus "un/under-developed world".

Racism aside it's not a bad example

>we still being prettier than you

>m-muh HFY

You're underestimating Elvin Snobbery. Elves have an infinitesimally low birth rate because their sperm only fertilizes when the sex rituals are performed EXACTLY RIGHT. Worse, if the sperm fails to fertilize, the spirit of the sperm appears to criticize the couple on their performance. Can you imagine that? What would have been your son appears immediately after you cum and berates you for fumbling on groping your partner's nipples while in the doggy position.

Combine that with abysmally low sperm count and you're basically trying to please maybe one out of a dozen people to be your kid, and by the fifth time you get berated for not doing it right you both can't take it any more and you start yelling at your genitals for being such a dick.

Triggered elfaboo pls kill yourself.

Elves don't have any initiative or drive to do anything.

>Can you imagine that?
Oh boy, considering a man squirts out millions of spermatozoids at once this must be entertaining.

>Father, I'm the brave and noble son you always wanted and I can't believe you just did that. Seriously?
>I'm a permanent virgin genius and even I know to fuck better than that!
>I'm literally retarded, but not as retarded as you!

Elves aren't really expansionist by nature. Humans are. Once you have more humans spread out and having more babies then their numbers only get larger and larger.

I always got the impression elves can transform their surroundings just how they like it, too. That's why they all live in magical forests or shiny cities.

I thought Tolkien elves didn't have a say in the matter regarding how many of them there are. Eru pretty much dictated when they were all going to be born, how long they'd exist in corporeal form before returning to the planet (insert FF7 joke here), and exactly how they were going to die. So elves don't flood the world because the creator-god said so.

Man was given the gift of being able to determine these things for themselves, but there was this huge misunderstanding, and they ended up being extremely short-lived due to seeing the gift as a curse.

The answer to this question really is setting specific even if the generalization is correct.

BUT the granddaddy of this is from LOTR and in that setting Elves did dominate the world at one point because of their superior everything and humanity is only just becoming dominant not because of any Human vs Elf competition, but because the world was changing (losing its magic or something). If that did not happen humans would NEVER dominate because the Elves really were better.

Don't know user, this very popular system here says something else. It's almost nobody here actually has any books to read up on this and just makes shit up on the fly, which explains why threads like this can be of such poor quality.

and yet human empires utterly btfo elven empires.

>They tend to remain aloof and unfazed by petty happenstance.
>Except when they don't
yeah no fuck you. Elves are hedonists and wouldn't lift a finger unless some fat fuck tried to steal their salads

...

And that's why most elves turn gay. Defendants won't prosper? Better shove them up another man's anus to show them who's boss.

...

Bullshit. By that logic an even shorter-lived species in the setting should be even more advanced.

Funny, I always thought they were just a metaphor for miscegenation.

Well yea, but death of the author and all that.

Except that shorter-lived species die earlier and more often. There's a balancing point between the two extremes.

Kobolds are not a short lived species

I mean

>Goblins and whatever with crazy likely to explode tech
Seems to be a thing in several settings, so it depends.

Damnit, now I have to figure out a setting where humans are shorter lived than most, but there's an even shorter lived species than them that have surpassed them technologically.

Don't need to be the smartest to be the dominant one. China outfucks everyone and it's made them a super power.

And yet a level 1 elf is 110 years old while a level 1 human is 15+2d6 years old.

>Bored with sex & don't give a fuck.

Gotta make the elven race like this asshole.

Of course the Salarians literally think faster so relativity might be helping them.

It's almost like this is completely retarded.

Elves have usually progressed beyond things like the desire for empire or dominance.

In most settings they've already ruled the world and realized that it was a futile and shortsighted endeavor, or they're in the world for a specific purpose, like fighting the big evil.

Accomplishment isn't always advancement.

Elves are usually more advanced than humans in fantasy settings. Better medicine, better cities, better magic, better smithing, more extensive and insightful philosophies, etc.

Henceforth, in all my settings applicable, the only reason elves continue to exist is because they have yet to decide the best variety of cheese

Elves have racial level limits, while humans do not. The Elven champion at the absolute peak of Elven ability is somewhere between level 14 and 16 and his handful of seconds are somewhere between 8 and 12. The human champions are all level 20 and their big pile of assistants and allies are between 15 and 18. Checkmate invading elf horde.

The classical reasoning for obviously superior fantasy races not being dominant is twofold. They once actually were, to such an extent that they nearly obliterated themselves and everyone else so now all they do is lazily exist to be bitter or snarky about it.

Or, because they're so long lived, they see no reason to be urgent in their actions lacking the human emphasis on ambition.

Personally I like the second one, because if you knew you had 3000+ years to live like a classic D&D elf, you really wouldn't feel the need to conquerors. When you can sit on your ass and carve a piece of wood for a hundred years and call it a hobby, you've already won.

Tolkien effect and shit writing.

In LotR elves were retreating from the human world so every setting must do it.

It's completely fucking ridiculous in many. Like in Warhammer where high elves are somehow dying out but dark elves who are literally a high elf country gone dark side have enough manpower to throw a giant army at elf lands every time plot demands it.

Warhammer at least has the excuse that it's supposed to be dumb as shit.

dying out doesn't mean near extinct, it just means population is no longer rising.

Elves are smarter and their scientists can work for centuries accumulating knowledge and experience. They should have far more advanced technology than humans. And that's not even taking magic into account.

Except most recent editions mention all the time how Ulthuan cities are empty and elven population drops sharply.

>Humans are the dominant race in the majority of settings

Most settings are retarded crap written by idiots.

Nice bait OP.

That's because back before they were a galaxy-wide species. An Imperium of Elf.

"Science advances funeral by funeral" - Max Planck

Longevity is not necessarily a good thing for science. Someone who has spent a millennium using geometric profs for everything is probably going to have serious issues when someone starts talking about irrational, imaginary, and negative numbers. Look at how long geocentrism held on, even after Copernicus, now imagine if Claudius Ptolemaeus was still around saying "no, fuck you, I've got 1000 years of observations" and had been refining his geocentric model all that time.

>Like in Warhammer where high elves are somehow dying out but dark elves who are literally a high elf country gone dark side have enough manpower to throw a giant army at elf lands every time plot demands it.

40K at least solves this problem by having the Dark Eldar repopulate very, very quickly through cloning and accelerated aging, as well as Haemonculi literally regenerating people from the dead with little more than a scrap of meat. Furthermore, since Dark Eldar society is "kill or be killed," and they literally do not care about feeding all of their people, being a warrior of some sort is the only real way to survive for them, so an overwhelmingly massive proportion of their population are hyper-militarized.

Craftworld Eldar live a life of self-denial and strict regimen, so repopulating is an extremely controlled thing for them.

Everyone aped Tolkien without putting in the work he put into Middle Earth to create a historical context for it to make sense.

Elves don't want to do shit, humans do.

It's like how China was more advanced than Europe for centuries, but never expanded and tried to conquer and colonize the world, while Europe ended up doing so.

>le humans are all one united people trope

This is stupid as hell and bugs the ever living shit out of me because it's such modern day mentality blindspotting of the worst degree. Dumb manling posters.

High Elves aren't dying out in WHFB. They've just isolated themselves from the mainland for the most part and only go outside the fight Chaos.

WHFB High Elves are Noldor AFTER they return to Valinor.

Nukes should be achieveable with magic too, just have right reasorces and magic spells what could replicate neccery reactions and catalists and you can make atomic weapon.

This. The more civilized a society is, the less procreating they involve themselves in.

Yeah and that's why they're internationally irrelevant and powerless.

Did you even read the OP?

Are you just realizing now that the majority of series' elves are shit?

Excellent point mein friend :^)

>elves age slowly
Nobody would take seriously a king without a beard

>elves are efeminate
Everyone would try to fuck the king/emperor/ruler if he was an elf

>lower birthrates
Blame chads for fucking all the girls and trapfags for fucking al the other girls

Men are more domintant cuz nobody can kill human penis power.

elves are essentially blonde horse-eared asians

Laundry Files most recent book had a Pratchett-y take on "elves." lots of the book might have been cringe-y. Elf society might be tuned to make everyone either a sociopathic narcissist aristo or a slave/chattel/peasant.

Being immortal/superior and long-lived doesn't make someone automatically "wise." Elves could have a cultural context that's just insular or somehow counter-productive. Look at most of Japan's history. Imperial china. Lots of "advanced" societies have ossified and wound up outcompeted by more dynamic civilizations.

To be a bit /Pol/ish, we can see modern "advanced" liberalism can sometimes get very, very very...stupid. There's some ideas so stupid you have to be very smart to believe them. If your super-advanced society gets too much white guilt that you start sepukuing yourselves for the crime of being white and cis, or voluntarily laying down on the aztec priest's altar out of respect for his ethnic folkways.

Having a sub-optimal culture is...well, you tend not to notice it until you've already lost, just like how you can't see your own eyeball unless someone's showing it to you on a fork.

Roman fashion was complete hairlessness until Hadrian, tard.

that's a greek armor you fucking nigger

I think you'll find that greece was rome.

>Greece
>relevant by itself
Greece was always a shitty backwater and the only relevant greeks exported themselves to Sicily and Macedon.

>hurrr durrr the ak47 is used by turks thus the ak is turk

fucking twats

There is a lasting superstition imparted upon the elven populace from an unknown source, maybe royals or a religious group, that states that having more than one or two children in their lifetime would bring a whole lot of curse upon yourself and your kin; solely because smart guys with a lot of foresight wanted to keep overpopulation from being a thing. This coupled with the fact that childbirth is painful as all hell without use of the little-known school of anesthetic magic because why numb pain when you can just heal the wound? and the fact that elves don't really get heated though they can get brought into the mood, humans are so demanding~ for large swathes of time due to their natural affinity to magical bullshit, giving them a longer fertility cycle based on something like planetary positions rather than seasonal/lunar.

At least, that's how I bullshit it in my game. I'm the only one in the group that plays an elf and the setting has very little established for them, so whatever I say is pretty much considered "canon" if I can make sound reasonable to idiots. I figure this works because:
>1. Half-elves are made even more rare if the odd elf that does something else doesn't want to "spend" having a bunch of kids on a relationship that could fuck over some humans they care about. Also they'd probably only be fertile a few times in a human's lifetime anyway, so the opportunities are scarce.
>2. Not worrying about piles of kids frees time to work on their craft, leading to superior elven techniques.
>3. Elven societies become more communal. If the heir doesn't follow the parent's line of work, they can become an apprentice to an elven master. Even if the student-swapping doesn't loop back, mostly-immortal elves have all the time in the world to bring in other races to teach their craft to.

Fucking apologists.

>More long lived
>More intelligent
>More skilled
>more in tune with magic
Yeah yeah but you forget their OTHER major defining aspect: They're useless aloof fagots who do nothing but hang around in the woods fucking trees. The thing that prevents them from being OP is that they don't give a fuck about taking over the world. They just want to sit in their forest fuckholes and be OH SO MUCH FUCKING BETTER than you.

Dwarves should totally fucking own the world because they have the best armor and weapons and are hard as shit, but they're too busy hiding in mountains furiously masturbating to geological features.

I'm pretty sure the reason other races hate humans is unlike them, humans aren't happy to just sit in their little cave or tree house for the entirety of recorded history. Must make them seem awfully pushy and greedy, comparatively.

Elves are racist fucks.

Not the way you think - it's the only instinct they have to prevent incest. Elves cannot stand anything familiar or well-known. Elves are the ultimate dilettante neophiles, always trying to find new experiences and new people to be around. The Elven family exists in a state of low-grade warfare, with only the most nervous and paranoid children surviving, each impelled by an uncontrollable wanderlust and thirst for novelty and the unfamiliar. After all, every time you drink the same thing three times, it ends up poisoned.

Elven communities are generally as distantly related as possible, and as the inhabitants grow more and more familiar, they become less and less trusting, with petty vengeances spiraling into bare-faced hostility, it's only a matter of days before weapons are drawn and blood is shed.

An Elf is a friend for a month.

High elves are retarded cause endogamy and incest to breed beautiful but airheaded kids, they only act as if they were wise and actually the stronger warriors and wisest mages are those from low classes

Humans are rough and smart cause they don't forcibly breed their own kin and are more centered in survival and commodities like chairs and toilets.

Orks are "retarded" because most of their advancement goes to military and not to domestic tech/magic and mostly have enough strength to solve problems easily.

it's a poodle vs hunter dog vs wolf thing.

>"We must protect the forest!"
>"We don't eat meat because it hurts the animals!"
>"We spend time and energy to nurse back hurt deer!"

All the while man is consuming his kills to gain their power and burning wood to fuel his machines of war. While the elf uses his magic to heal the deer the man is using his magic to explode a fortress in practice to explode a bigger fortress.

elf uses magic to heal bambi
man uses magic to create superior golem waifu