Elves and roleplaying games go together like chocolate and more chocolate. I was just reading a letter sent by Gary Gygax to Dave Arneson in 1972. Arneson had introduced Gary to the gaming tropes that would come to form the basis of Dungeons & Dragons as we know it. Everything from different dungeon layers to trekking the wilderness using the Outdoor Survival boardgame. This was about the same time that a player could be an Elf.
Well, elves have come a long way, and in my home Greyhawk campaign, I wanted to give a bit of flavor to the various sub-cultures of elves: the high elf (which is the standard elf), gray elf, wood elf, and wild elf. In addition to updating the class/level tables to expand elves' capabilities in relation to upcoming classes, I also added something that might be controversial from a mechanical standpoint: Experience point penalties whilst adventuring outside of a given elven culture's homeland. I was trying to think of reasons why not every elf character was a wood elf or wild elf. Well...that's the reason.
This article is one of a series re-tooling Labyrinth Lord character races for the Greyhawk setting (duergar, elf, dwarf, gnome, halfling, half-elf, half-orc, human).