D&D General why do we have halflings and gnomes?

[Charlaquin]

Their folksy homebodiness makes them a monster.

Beware, the dreaded couch potato monster! (??)

It's the curiosity that 3e/4e jacked up that moves them to adventurer. 5e toned it down a bit. 1e and 2e halflings needed to be prodded to leave home.

While I like the curiosity angle, it really isn’t needed for them to work as adventurers unless you assume that their folksy homebodiness is both universal and insurmountable.

 

[Charlaquin]

There're articles out there talking about how reluctant Gygax was to include "Hobbits", but the players insisted.

And rightfully so! They’re a very important piece of the modern fantasy canon.

 

[doctorbadwolf]

okay so lots of people have an idea for gnomes but they have somehow ended up the red-headed stepchild of dnd.

halflings are nothing then just the faceless masses people use fantasy to escape from being?

why was I asked for the lest workable of the classic demihumans?

Kinda seems like you just dislike both races, and maybe are gonna have a hard time with this project because of that.

Without gnomes, who would wear all the pointed red hats?

In my buddy's setting, where I have been given a lot of latitude to decide how the gnomes of the northern-most part of the continent look and feel, the red hat is an old gnomish tradition when gnomes go to war, and is the origin of the Redcap myth.

Also garden gnomes are a racist caricature that is slowly being phased out in the nation of Eladin and High Elves with a decent gnomish minority, and at times when things have gotten violent, elven homes with lawn gnomes have received a dire warning in the form of the decorations' hats being painted red, and there even might be an order of assassins that leave small statuettes of lawn gnomes with red hats in the presence of their target, upon completion of the assassination.

smiled upon by Lady Luck for their sheer audacity in the face of improbable odds.

Which can be used to extrapolate that halflings are much more audacious in the face of danger. I like to think of halflings as being peaceful but terrible when roused, and part of that is that they are just sort of always equally ready to smoke a pipe and take a nap, or sprint grinning into the dragon's maw with nothing but a long knife and their luck.

 

[Guest 6801328]

So, I play in a game run by a friend of mine - his young daughter also plays, and I wanted to make sure I watched my language...

"Smurf," in gnomish, is a rubbery blue residue resulting from botched alchemical processes. Lumps of the stuff are most often created in failed attempts to create homonculi, it is however not uncommon in other processes when the reagents weren't pure. It is rubbery, slightly tacky... and has no purpose the gnomes have yet discovered. It is not sticky enough to be an adhesive, it has only marginal structural integrity, is not edible (but is basically non-toxic). It is... a little blue lump of failure.

It thus becomes a bit of gnomish invective. "You smurfhead!" "What the smurfing smurf?" "Well, that's smurfed it." "We're smurfed." and so on.

This smurfing smurf is smurfing smurfed.

 

[Charlaquin]

Which can be used to extrapolate that halflings are much more audacious in the face of danger. I like to think of halflings as being peaceful but terrible when roused, and part of that is that they are just sort of always equally ready to smoke a pipe and take a nap, or sprint grinning into the dragon's maw with nothing but a long knife and their luck.

The man himself did say that if you’ve ever seen a dragon in a pinch, you’ll know that the comparison is only poetic exaggeration applied to any hobbit.

 

[Minigiant]

Beware, the dreaded couch potato monster! (??)

While I like the curiosity angle, it really isn’t needed for them to work as adventurers unless you assume that their folksy homebodiness is both universal and insurmountable.

I'm not saying halflings can't become adventurers. I'm saying that halfling culture actively discourages leaving home and disruption. Most halflings adventurers would be the weird kids and disaster survivors.

Halflings are more like a monster race with PC stats. Many of the other monstrous races of have cultures that would pump out more tomb raiders, door kickers, and murderhobos.

Halflings feel closer to Angels than Elves. Stuff for evil PCs to fight.

 

[Ath-kethin]

The halflings of Dark Sun - especially with their Life Shaped Creations - and the halflings of Eberron's Talents Plains validate the existence of halflings for me. While you could argue that these are radical takes, they both merely reinvent the homebody halflings to be a little more assertive/aggressive about it.

For gnomes, my template is Dragonlance (which was my first experience with D&D stuff in general) and again Eberron. Both take the curious and attentive nature of the race and apply it to an in- world logic that makes them interesting and gives players an easy hook to play into - or against.

I don't find another race redundant. They are and can be their own distinct entities, without even having to stretch the vanilla descriptions of the PHB too much. If they're dull in the Forgotten Realms, I say blame the creators of the Realms and those who adhere to that dullness. Others have done wonderful stuff with them.

 

[Charlaquin]

I'm not saying halflings can't become adventurers. I'm saying that halfling culture actively discourages leaving home and disruption. Most halflings adventurers would be the weird kids and disaster survivors.

And? Thats an incredibly popular hero archetype, for good reason.

Halflings are more like a monster race with PC stats. Many of the other monstrous races of have cultures that would pump out more tomb raiders, door kickers, and murderhobos.

Halflings feel closer to Angels than Elves. Stuff for evil PCs to fight.

I think you have a lot more work to do to demonstrate that this in any way makes them better monsters than PCs. Right now it just looks like you’re asserting it with no supporting argument.

 

[cbwjm]

I find gnomes to be more interesting than halflings, I tend to have them as part of the Feywild often with villages centred around a portal between prime world and Feywild (at least the forest gnomes do, not that fond of the current iteration of rock gnomes).

 

[Minigiant]

And? Thats an incredibly popular hero archetype, for good reason.

If the only adventurer option are Rebellious Punk, Disaster Survivors, and Street Urchins... is that race complete as an adventurer option.

Can you even play a halfling adventurer straight?

I think you have a lot more work to do to demonstrate that this in any way makes them better monsters than PCs.

Its easy.

Halflings, based on 3/5ths of their lore, only adventure when life forces them or if they take the role of the quirky kid who does something different.

Dwarves have greed or honor that makes the adventure. Elves have their sense of superiority, pride, and boredom that drives them. Satyrs need funds to fund their parties. Humans have all kinds of excuses.

Halflings want to stay home, smoke, eat, game, and talk to family members endlessly about the time they went to the BIG CITY. A halfling might be fearless in the presence of a dragon but halflings don't seek out dragons.