I hate elves.

That is, I hate the elves of table-top roleplaying games and their spin-off media. Santa’s little helpers are just as annoying, but that’s not what I’m writing about here.

Let me be clear. I mean no offense to the wee folk of the hills and dells. But those are not the ones I’m talking about. I’m talking about the elves of gamers. You gamers all know already that they are basically Tolkien rip-offs, watered down into long-lived, pointy-eared, pretentious alt-humans who can see in the dark and don’t sleep much.

I normally don’t think about this often. Now my son is running a game for his friends at school. Literally four out of five fifth-graders want to be an elf. In our home 5e game, my young daughter plays an elf, too. They’re all wood elf druids. I guess that is because they are wood elves.

Why do players, especially new players, love elves so much? It’s not hard to find reasons: good looks, special status, and powers that humans don’t have. They pass for human and get no less respect. For kids, maybe it’s the idea that one can be ancient and have more life experience than grown-up humans while being youthful and powerful. Wood elves are like people, but thin, attractive, in touch with nature, and superior. Plus, they have pointy ears and slightly exotic hair and eye colors. The feeling of looking special is strongly appealing.

When I say that these are really Tokien rip-offs, though, I mean it. Tolkien popularized the tall, thin, lovely, long-lived, condescending elf. Tolkien’s stories are beautiful and the elves in his world work in his world. But now his elves are hackneyed rip-offs.

Not so long before Tolkien, “elf” was equivalent to “dwarf” or “goblin” or “spirit” or even “devil.” Elves were strange, small magical creatures with unpredictable powers and capricious temperaments, not stuck-up wine-sipping youthful old people who don’t make noise when they walk in the forest.

Dwarves are almost as bad as the elves. Tolkien’s world made them into what they are for table-top role-playing games: stout, gruff, honorable to a fault, axe-swinging, beard-wearing short strong guys, who see in the dark and like ale. You can see the influence of Disney’s Snow White animated feature on their image, too. For some reason, the dwarf cleric is an especially common type. Maybe it’s because dwarves are supposed to like axes and maces (bearded guys like those weapons, apparently), and there is the association between clerics and maces, another untraced vestige of Gygax’s misappropriated history.

And don’t get me started on halflings! I will never finish.

In my homebrew game (not my family D&D game), all player characters are human. Elves are weird and dangerous little creatures. Dwarves are more like the gnomes of lore. If you meet a dwarf, be on your guard. Halflings don’t even exist. Yes, it’s possible to run a fantasy game like this, and the players will have fun knowing that they are all humans in a world of strange creatures. You can even do this in D&D. Just do not allow players to play non-humans. Suddenly, all those so-called demi-humans are interesting again.