What's your view on the Elf design in DA4

There is no issue with having an original culture and behaviour for fantasy beings that are nevertheless fairly standard in appearance. I don't think anyone would insist on elves and dwarves being exactly as depicted by Tolkien and to be honest if every fantasy world had them with identical culture and behaviour that would be boring. After all in our own world we are all human but there is great variety in culture, behaviour and religion, so there is nothing wrong in having that sort of variation in fictional fantasy. Nevertheless, whilst there can be a degree of variation in features and colour of human beings, they are all recognisably of the same race. If you suddenly had humans with horns or very angular features in fantasy they would no longer be humans but something else and that is only the same principle we are arguing for with elves.



Game of Thrones wasn't the first time knights have been depicted as less than noble in fantasy works. Even in Arthurian legends there are the bad guy knights, like Mordred, the noble, good guy knights like Galahad, and the flawed noble knights, like Lancelot, to name just three.

Tolkien doesn't really have standard "fantasy knights" either. There are those who are essentially professional warriors, just as in medieval real life, those who are part-time defenders of their homeland when the needs arises and those who rely on others to defend them. Tolkien was less focussed on the mundane politics at play in his world because that was not the story he was trying to tell, which was in the grand tradition of the ancient sagas of our world.

What George Martin was focussed on was introducing a far greater level of the behind the scenes (and upfront) politics that are affecting people's actions, together with their impact on ordinary folk. In other words he was basing it far more on the real life medieval shenanigans in our own world and so his works have more in common with soap opera than traditional fantasy saga. When not following the progress of Dany but the narrative is focussed on what is happening in Westros, with the exception of the White Walkers and the odd bit of sorcery, you could be forgiven for thinking it is not really fantasy at all but simply a historical drama set in a fictional world. You will note that apart from dragons, GM steered clear of using any of the standard fantasy races, such as elves, dwarves, etc, which allowed him far more freedom to use fantasy elements as he saw fit in telling his story. His equivalent of elves/fairies would be the Children of the Forest but he made them unique to his world and thus gave them his own name.   Dwarves are not a separate race in his world but simply humans who have the dwarfism gene as in our world.

I seem to recall the writers of Dragon Age originally wanted a more GoT approach and that is why you have the politics of Loghain, the Landsmeet, the dwarven succession but then pressure was put on them to have a more conventional save the world plot, which is where the darkspawn and the Arch-demon come in. There is nothing wrong with either approach to the setting and characterisation of the story you wish to tell. However, so far as races are concerned, if you are using standard fantasy ones, then keep as far as possible to what people expect. If you want to change them, then call them something else as George Martin did.