Dwarves aren't cool anymore

[Psyren]

You quoted a forum post and complained about the forum post missing a qualifier, but the post contained the qualifier you claimed was missing.

I think we have similar thoughts, if not perfectly aligned, but I'm just using your posts as a jumping off point, not as a point of disagreement.

Before we had weird jungle illusion drow, we had Lolth drow. And the society there has been delved into in many novels, and to call it boring is, in my opinion, BS; something that is very easy to do, pretending that the accuser has some hidden knowledge of truly interesting stuff. You may not like it, but a culture built around deceit and back-stabbing ambition, and demon-calling and raiding, etc. was made to be interesting, whether people want to admit it or not. At the time, drow were basically always evil (in the figurative sense, of course), and of that was born Drizz't, now a cliche and easy to dunk on, but I have no qualms saying I enjoyed the Salvatore novels delving into Menzo and the Underdark and Drizz't's journey to escape it.

Lolth doesn't force her drow to be evil, but she encourages that culture, and punishes those that turn away from it or fail to succeed in it. They then embrace the culture and enforce it on their own, and so on and so on.

There is really NO REASON to delve into this and over explain it. Unless again you're confusing all of this for "biological evil".

Similarly, orcs believe in certain values, as taught to them by their gods. And their culture reflects that, and they conserve that culture and enforce that culture on each other.

To have a problem with this is to basically have a problem with evil creator deities. And also to make special non-humans creatures, since humans are allowed to have whatever type of culture/gods the story calls for, but it appears to be a problem for non-humans.

And to make another point clear; "it's boring" is purely subjective, unsubstantiated, and a cop-out reason for not including something. In fact, it's almost projection to call it lazy, since one can turn around and call it lazy that someone can't make a concept interesting. Probably best to leave "it's boring" out of the conversation.

Where?

They're also not impotent and have actual power and influence in the world.

I agree, which is why they've succeeded at creating certain loci of influence, like insular cities and tribes. But neither of those are absolute, even just within the confines of a single setting like FR, never mind outside it.

No one said mindless. And they haven't failed. Hence why orcs and elves are sworn enemies, and drow are evil as well, and dwarves do battle with goblins and giants, and gnomes with kobolds, etc.

The qualifier is missing here too. Some orcs and elves are sworn enemies, some drow are evil, some dwarves do battle with goblins and giants...

In Eberron for example, orcs and elves don't have any kind of relationship to one another; if anything, the Gatekeepers might actually be more inclined to ally with elves than be in opposition or neutral, since they all have Daelkyr aberrations to worry about.