Logic would suggest that even relatively young adventurers of these races have still been around for a while and have had time to pick up a variety of skills and tricks. The 5e rules support that concept, sort of. Elves for instance get weapon training while Dwarves of all types are made proficient with weapons, tools, and knowledgeable about stonework.
The problem here, of course, is that the game allows for no variety. In the worlds of D&D, all elves and dwarves apparently have weapons training, and while all dwarves may not be stone masons (they can also craft weapons or brew beer, so take that typecasting!) they all definitely know a lot about masonry.
Perhaps this is okay in your world. Maybe, for instance, all elves and dwarves may go through a period of mandatory military service between childhood and adulthood, or are trained in weapons skills as a matter of course so as to defend settlements in an emergency.
Personally, I would prefer for the dwarven and elven characters in my world to display a bit more variety. I'd like their racial traits to reflect extra skills, or perhaps personal hobbies, picked up in addition to those granted by the character's background—representing the fact that characters of these races have more background.
For some reason, bonus skills as a racial feature is the province of one of the races with the shortest lives, humans (or at least, the variant human), as well as half-elves, because of their human blood. There's not really a decent justification for that, beyond the metagame fact that it's hard to come up with interesting racial features for humans when they are, in essence, the baseline against which all other races are measured. This is explained away with some balderdash about humans being somehow more adaptable, versatile, and ambitious than other races. But is it actually a feature of human blood rather than culture? The half-elf seems to imply this is so. Otherwise, why would a half-elf raised among elves be so much more skillful than their elven family and friends?
Below I offer some alternatives for those who're interested in shaking things up.
Skilled Dwarf Variant
- Dwarven Cleverness. Due to your lengthy adolescence and your slow ageing, you have more time in your life to pick up knowledge. Choose either one or two of the following features:
- Dwarven Combat Training (as PHB).
- Stonecunning (as PHB).
- Proficiency with your choice of any one tool.
- Optional Bonus Skill. If you choose only one Dwarven Cleverness feature, you gain proficiency in one skill of your choice.
Skilled High Elf Variant
- Elven Experience. Due to your prolonged youth and your exceptionally slow ageing, you have time to dabble in and even master a variety of skills that interest you. Choose either one or two of the following features:
- Cantrip (as PHB).
- Elf Weapon Training (as PHB).
- With Age Comes Wisdom (described below).
- Optional Bonus Skill. If you choose only one Elven Experience feature, you gain proficiency in one skill of your choice.
Skilled Wood Elf Variant
- Elven Experience. Due to your prolonged youth and your exceptionally slow ageing, you have time to dabble in and even master a variety of skills that interest you. Choose either one or two of the following features:
- Elf Weapon Training (as PHB).
- Mask of the Wild (as PHB).
- With Age Comes Wisdom (described below).
- Optional Bonus Skill. If you choose only one Elven Experience feature, you gain proficiency in one skill of your choice.
Skilled Dark Elf Variant
- Elven Experience. Due to your prolonged youth and your exceptionally slow ageing, you have time to dabble in and even master a variety of skills that interest you. Choose either one or two of the following features:
- Drow Weapon Training (as PHB).
- Drow Magic (as PHB).
- With Age Comes Wisdom (described below).
- Optional Bonus Skill. If you choose only one Elven Experience feature, you gain proficiency in one skill of your choice.
Optional Elf Trait - With Age Comes Wisdom
Provided you spend an action to think about the best way to undertake an ability check, if you roll that ability check before the end of your next turn you may do so with advantage.If you're using the above variants to support the idea that longer-lived races have more time to experiment with a wider variety of skills, you may wish to restrict humans from getting similar mechanical benefits. The simplest solution is to simply prohibit the variant human at your table. Yet since +1 to all ability scores is about the blandest possible racial choice, here's a new human variant that you could offer instead of the variant in the PHB.
Determined Human Variant
- Ability Score Increase. Two different ability scores of your choice increase by 1.
- Human Determination. Humans thrive and spread throughout the world in spite of their disadvantages because, as a species, they seem unable to accept their limits.
- You have six determination dice, which are d4s. When you spend determination, you decide how many dice you want to roll and roll them all at once, adding their results together.
- Whenever you make an attack roll, an ability check, or saving throw but fail to beat the target armor class or DC, you can roll one or more of your determination dice and add the result to your total.
- You can also roll one or more determination dice after you have been hit by an attack to reduce the attacker's roll by the total of the determination dice you roll.
- Determination affects the final result of a roll, not the natural roll on the d20. Therefore, you cannot turn your own attack into a critical hit, nor can you turn an attacker's critical hit into a normal attack (though you can make it miss).
- You regain expended determination points when you finish a long rest.
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