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

[Paul Farquhar]

Sure, but I think that is a valid concern when asking "why are we doing this" if the answer is "Well, we have to suspend disbelief, because it wouldn't work like this, but we are doing it that way anyways."

You can do that, but why when you could just acknowledge that that version doesn't work and you should probably try and find a better version?

Because the "better" version, by which I assume you mean "more realistic" would have no role for adventurers.

 

[Chaosmancer]

Just to clarify, are you talking about a few opportunistic orcs turning up and running off with livestock from an outlying farm? Or are you talking about an organised raiding party/small army that gathers and moves towards Phandalin with the intent to invade and occupy it long enough to loot it, then cart their plunder back towards the mountains?

Are you also making the assumption that if a place with Waterdeep's resources decides to send a group of high-level adventurers to defend from or retaliate to a raiding party at an isolated town they are going to expect them to walk there?
Even if the response party arrives too late to actually defend the town, they can probably ensure that the raiders never make it back to their tribe deeper in the wilderness. Stories of how the tribe lost half of its members three generations back can be an effective deterrent.

Looking at the Lore I found on the FR Wiki, there is a major unifying Orc force called the Brotherhood of the Scarlet Scourge in the Sword Mountains.

At one point they drove out the Trolls, causing something called the Trollwars.

They have gathered four hordes at various points in history to attack and try and destroy Waterdeep.
Twice they were defeated in the attempt. Twice they were thwarted by the intervention of a Dragon. One was a Bronze, one was a Gold.

So, this is a force that has gathered multiple times to attack one of the strongest cities in the region, and twice needed to be stopped by a powerful Dragon. If it were actually possible for Waterdeep to hit them hard enough to be an effective deterrent, do you think they would have just not done so after the first horde tried to destroy the city?

And this is just one force in the Sword Mountains. This doesn't cover the threats in the Neverwinter Wood, the Mere of Deadmen (which is just bursting at the seams with threats, and while not likely to attack Phandalin, they are right next to Leilon, which would also need to be rescued by Neverwinter or Waterdeep) and The Kyrptgarden Forest.

Actually, I just pulled up Phandalin itself to see if there were any notable locations nearby I missed, and look what I found

"Phandalin was originally a farming community. However, when the orcs of the realm of Uruth Ukrypt had destroyed all game in their realm, they went in search of food and turned on the human settlements in the area, raiding them. Phandalin was one of these settlements, and in 951 DR, it was overrun and then abandoned."

That Uruth Ukrypt was one of the groups with the Scarlet Scourge, in fact it was the tribe of the founder of the organization. Which had already attacked and effectively destroyed Phandalin, seemingly with no repurcussions from the nearby major powers, since, looking at the timeline... yep, that was between the raids. The Orcs formed two more hordes in the years following that attack, and this was not too long after the gold dragon prevented their attack on Waterdeep.


So... yeah. "We are safe because they would fear reprisals" is not how the setting works, by the settings own lore.

 

[Chaosmancer]

No, the PHB is “the rules”, and even then we are discussing flavor text, which isn’t rules. Mordy’s is an optional supplement, meaning nothing in it has the same rules status as what’s in the phb.

Dude, don't start making tier lists of which rules count and which ones don't. If that was the case then any information from any book that isn't a PHB doesn't count. And a lot of people were posting lore from books that weren't PHBs.

And, unsurprisingly, the PHB paints a very similar picture.

 

[Chaosmancer]

Because the "better" version, by which I assume you mean "more realistic" would have no role for adventurers.

No?

There is still plenty of work for roving mercenaries and treasure hunters. Still ruins of ancient places, still threats that exist out in the wilds that the towns aren't equipped to send their defenders to go and deal with. I mean, just because you have a home security system and a gun doesn't mean there is no role for the Police and FBI. It just means you have a better chance of making it through the month.

 

[Gammadoodler]

So it seems there are two strains of argument here that have gotten tangled occasionally.

1. Halflings don't make good (or shouldn't be good) adventurers.
2. Halflings aren't well embedded in "the setting".

I think 1 can only be answered in headcanon. My personal take is that they're fine. #2 depends on frame of reference, what kind of embedding you want, and even whether that is a bad thing if it's true (the problem with firmly embedded races is they're more resistant to tailoring, if a race doesn't have that, it's like giving the DM a wild card.. as well as a chore)

 

[Minigiant]

So it seems there are two strains of argument here that have gotten tangled occasionally.

1. Halflings don't make good (or shouldn't be good) adventurers.
2. Halflings aren't well embedded in "the setting".

I think 1 can only be answered in headcanon. My personal take is that they're fine. #2 depends on frame of reference, what kind of embedding you want, and even whether that is a bad thing if it's true (the problem with firmly embedded races is they're more resistant to tailoring, if a race doesn't have that, it's like giving the DM a wild card.. as well as a chore)

I don't think anyone is saying 1.
No one is saying halflings are or should be bad adventurer (not here anyway. Old School fans who go out their way to make halflings suck might.)

People are saying that halfling culture as written in much of D&D's life is more antithetical to the concept of becoming an adventurer than the other popular races. No other race has the game go on and on and on and on about how halflings like staying home and don't get involved in the event of the world.

 

[Gammadoodler]

I don't think anyone is saying 1.
No one is saying halflings are or should be bad adventurer (not here anyway. Old School fans who go out their way to make halflings suck might.)

People are saying that halfling culture as written in much of D&D's life is more antithetical to the concept of becoming an adventurer than the other popular races. No other race has the game go on and on and on and on about how halflings like staying home and don't get involved in the event of the world.

Ok, that might be a distinction I missed then, because I could be persuaded that they're not written deeply into the lore, but I'd disagree that the lifestyle described is any more antithetical than most other races.

 

[Minigiant]

Ok, that might be a distinction I missed then, because I could be persuaded that they're not written deeply into the lore, but I'd disagree that the lifestyle described is any more antithetical than most other races.

The other races are written with easy to pluck adventurers embedded deep into their cultures.

Dwarven have warriors, warrior-smiths, warrior-priests, warrior-enigineers, and the like front and center int their society. And greed, honor, and revenge are highly mentioned for easy motivation. So it is easy to explaina mess of highly trained dwarves roaming around killing monsters and exploring traps for money, power, and xp. Same with elves, half elves, orcs,half orcs, dragonborn, tieflings, and even gnomes.

Halflings is one of the few races that goes on at length explaining why they don't adventure. Sure it makes halfling adventurers charming and more heroic. But reasons to not adventure are literally the opposite of reasons to adventure.

Socombine that with #2 before and it feels like designers always attempt to recreate hobbits. However 80% the way through the writing realize that the race they've described doesn't fit the game. So they attempt to walk it back but don'tremove the previous statements.

 

[doctorbadwolf]

Dude, don't start making tier lists of which rules count and which ones don't. If that was the case then any information from any book that isn't a PHB doesn't count. And a lot of people were posting lore from books that weren't PHBs.

And, unsurprisingly, the PHB paints a very similar picture.

Mordys is a generally bad lore book, and not at all core. Only the phb is core for 5e, and in a broader sense nothing is really core except maybe the very most basic info that is shared across editions.

There are no tiers, there is just the phb, mm, and dmg, which are core, and everything else, which isn’t.

Other sources can be useful to inform opinions, but only the core books are anything remotely like “The Rules”.

And the core books don’t support the notion that halfling villages don’t get attacked because Avandra likes them, or the ridiculous dismissible out of hand “tactics” presented in Mordy’s.

 

[Mind of tempest]

okay, so what are our present conclusions?
as they seem to be that halflings and gnomes may have a place but they seem to not be integrated properly for whatever reason with them ending up with a tacked-on feel that world builders need to fix?