Quote Originally Posted by Boci View Post
It could be, but I doubt it. Elves are just too popular. And when you realize their stick is "humans except better looking, more graceful and better at magic. Oh an in some IPs stronger and more endurance too", well that can maybe supply a hint as to why they will likely survive the next big shift as well.

Especially since they're tied to the fey, which are centuries old and have captured human imagination for literal millennia. Sure the paintings of water nymph from hundreds of years ago aren't strictly speaking elves, but they could be, there is a big overlap between the ideals of the two. They definitely aren't dwarves though.
Oh I totally agree, elves dropping in popularity would be exceedingly unlikely (especially given their high popularity across cultures.)

Quote Originally Posted by Mordar View Post
Mostly AD&D times. I never sat at a table with a naturally evolved Bard or a Monk of any flavor that I can recall...until 3e, of course. I did (in my head) include the Rangers in the elves but I typed multiclass. Probably because my recollection is very heavily tilted towards the rangers being half-elf then human then elf-elf. I wish to ruminate on that for a while though.
I mean, ruminate away... but my point is, Dwarves were behind all three of those in terms of iconic variation.
Hobbits meanwhile were behind them - but that's because, well, they were based on Bilbo who barely wanted to adventure to begin with, and was seemingly only hired because all the rest had dex penalties.

Quote Originally Posted by Mordar View Post
Re: People playing dwarves because they were short and fat and beardy

We were a different generation back then, and in my neck of the woods it was probably closer to an 80/20 (down to maybe 70/30) split between 98-lb weakling nerd and stunty chubsters...and beards were seldom seen until the later college years. Gen Con skewed that perception for me, but still not much lower than the 70/30. Seems hygiene was better in the 80s than 90s, too.

I don't recall much of the "playing idealized version of myself" perspective at my tables, but more "playing an idealized version of something cool". Power fantasy existed, and it seemed unshackled from the bonds of "looking like yourself, but better".

- M
I mean, I wasn't born yet (and even after I was, I wasn't in this country) so I have no idea what the demographics were, but looking at Gygax and Arneson I can get at least a rough idea behind dwarven affinity