| Dante9 said: Actually diverse things like the elves, dwarves and qunari are just humans with accessories here, it's unimaginative and stupid because these people don't have the capacity to see beyond their personal circumstances in the real world. |
Yes, that modern trend of treating different species as "humans in rubber masks" is terrible worldbuilding and pandering to current trends.
This is example of good worldbuilding, from TTRPG "Into the unknown" (it's combination of D&D 5e and OSR (Old School Renaissance) principles):
"Demi-humans are not merely different cultures wearing rubber masks with pointy ears. They are different species, in-human. The way they perceive and think about life, the world and morality are not just different from human thinking, but in a way alien to them in origin, nature and outlook.
Elves are not just long-lived forest humans who like arts, archery and magic. They are creatures of Faerie, embodied nature spirits to whom magic is as natural as dancing and who frequently fail to grasp the many implications of time passing. They have a morality more aesthetic than ethical. Nor are dwarves just short dour miners with a Scottish accent. They are of stone, their affinity with it is familial and their character is moulded as firmly from it as stone. Dwarves are not known for changing their minds often. They chip stubbornly at all aspects of life until it slowly reveals its intended shape, one grain at a time.
To demi-humans, the defining racial trait of humans is diversity, which, in their eyes, make humans a rather confused species. That humans could want and do such myriad and vastly different things to each other is to demihumans a cause of human inequality, and hostility. A weakening of their strength and purpose as a species. Mankind, unsurprisingly, beg to differ. Not to say all elves are just the same. But, unlike humans, they have more shared traits in common and tend to get along better with each other than humans do. These traits are not just in their character. They are in their nature."
Not to say that you can't make worldbuilding however you like - but when it's done like it's done with a lot of modern fantasy games/worlds, where every species/culture boils down to "humans in rubber masks", it indeed takes away so much of actual diversity.
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