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D&D General why do we have halflings and gnomes?
- Thread starter Mind of tempest
- Start date
Mod Note:
EN World does not support that kind of thread ownership. You started the thread, but you do not own it, and you do not get to say when and where folks stop talking.
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Mind of tempest
(he/him)advocate for 5e psionics
my apologies I mused have missed that part of the rules, I will not do it again
If you had monster mania 24X7, the odds of most races as written surviving as written would be slim or none. If halflings were as helpless to defend themselves as rabbits, there wouldn't be any more rabbits. 
The problem with that is that there are still plenty of rabbits, even though they have many predators.
So what am I getting at? Well, rabbits are still viable because of a high birth rate and adaptations that allow them to survive. Same with all "prey" species. If we assume that the monster races are "predator" races then there has to be balance between predator and prey or there would be no more prey. If there are no more prey and the predator races can't sustain themselves, there wouldn't be any more predators either. If orcs live by raiding, if they raid too much they will starve and they will cease to exist.
This is kind of like the old philosophical question "How do I know I exist". Much like "I think, therefore I am" if you want halflings to exist in your world then the answer is "They exist, therefore they have strategies for survival". If you think they shouldn't survive because all of them are camping in the monster land wilderness (which they are not according to the lore) then don't have halflings in your campaign.
Most people don't have a problem with halflings as written. Just because they are elves or dwarves does not mean they are defenseless, they have developed strategies to survive. Those strategies aren't spelled out because they aren't spelled out for any race and will vary from campaign to campaign because most campaigns aren't "monster world".
The problem with that is that there are still plenty of rabbits, even though they have many predators.So what am I getting at? Well, rabbits are still viable because of a high birth rate and adaptations that allow them to survive. Same with all "prey" species. If we assume that the monster races are "predator" races then there has to be balance between predator and prey or there would be no more prey. If there are no more prey and the predator races can't sustain themselves, there wouldn't be any more predators either. If orcs live by raiding, if they raid too much they will starve and they will cease to exist.
This is kind of like the old philosophical question "How do I know I exist". Much like "I think, therefore I am" if you want halflings to exist in your world then the answer is "They exist, therefore they have strategies for survival". If you think they shouldn't survive because all of them are camping in the monster land wilderness (which they are not according to the lore) then don't have halflings in your campaign.
Most people don't have a problem with halflings as written. Just because they are elves or dwarves does not mean they are defenseless, they have developed strategies to survive. Those strategies aren't spelled out because they aren't spelled out for any race and will vary from campaign to campaign because most campaigns aren't "monster world".
Charlaquin
Goblin Queen (She/Her/Hers)
Oh, yeah, I don’t like Fury of the Small either.
Whizbang Dustyboots
Gnometown Hero
More general thoughts on halflings and gnomes:
With the 5E subrace structure, they could easily be one race. In Praemal, the world of Ptolus, the general public can't tell the difference between them at a glance. (Remember, Ptolus was a 3E world, with slender halflings rather than hobbits.) I was one of the people who strongly disliked the demotion of gnomes in 4E, but this would have been a good compromise in 5E for those who don't find a need for two plucky little guy races.
I would also bring back the D&D Next kender subrace of halflings. Mechanically, a kender isn't all that different than the existing 5E halflings -- the hate mostly stems from earlier editions of the game, especially 1E and 2E, meaning that there are people who've grown up and had kids who are now playing D&D who've never encountered a toxic kender player. (And those toxic kender players have no doubt moved on to other sorts of disruptive character types -- it was never about the race, and always about the player.)
That said, the suggestion upthread that gnomes be a subrace of dwarves isn't bad, either, particularly for a D&D game more closely aligned with 1E and BD&D flavors.
I personally think there's plenty to differentiate the two races and find them both fun in play and to include in my games as a DM. If you don't like them or don't find them fleshed out adequately, you can treat them like I do the dragonborn and just ... ignore them.
Which is what both the halflings and gnomes would prefer you do anyway, thank you very much.
With the 5E subrace structure, they could easily be one race. In Praemal, the world of Ptolus, the general public can't tell the difference between them at a glance. (Remember, Ptolus was a 3E world, with slender halflings rather than hobbits.) I was one of the people who strongly disliked the demotion of gnomes in 4E, but this would have been a good compromise in 5E for those who don't find a need for two plucky little guy races.
I would also bring back the D&D Next kender subrace of halflings. Mechanically, a kender isn't all that different than the existing 5E halflings -- the hate mostly stems from earlier editions of the game, especially 1E and 2E, meaning that there are people who've grown up and had kids who are now playing D&D who've never encountered a toxic kender player. (And those toxic kender players have no doubt moved on to other sorts of disruptive character types -- it was never about the race, and always about the player.)
That said, the suggestion upthread that gnomes be a subrace of dwarves isn't bad, either, particularly for a D&D game more closely aligned with 1E and BD&D flavors.
I personally think there's plenty to differentiate the two races and find them both fun in play and to include in my games as a DM. If you don't like them or don't find them fleshed out adequately, you can treat them like I do the dragonborn and just ... ignore them.
Which is what both the halflings and gnomes would prefer you do anyway, thank you very much.
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JiffyPopTart
Bree-Yark
A map was presented with some areas colored in red that were described as "This is where the monsters are". There are other areas not colored in red, that can then be inferred to be "This is where monsters are not."
But now you are saying that the entire map, even the non red hexes, are areas "Where monsters are" because they can travel. So then I ask you, what is the purpose of the original red areas if you are just going to consider the entire map "areas in danger of monster attack".
I posted earlier a map of Wales showing that attacks and raids occur along the edge of a "dangerous" territory and a "civilized" one. The farther away you are from the borderlands (and the keeps on those borderlands) in the civilized area the less likely you are to have issue with things located in the "dangerous" areas. Vikings (and yes, they are not a direct replacement for landbound orcs) generally raided coastal areas. If you had a small town in the middle of England your chance of being raided by vikings would have been much lower than if you were a fishing community sitting on the shore.
This is exactly what my worldview translates to my D&D world. There are civilized areas and there are dangerous areas and the closer you are to the dangerous area the more likely you are to have issues. Halflings, then, would tend to live in those safer areas. In your worldview you view those red areas on the FR map as being staging areas where the monsters are going to emerge from to fill up the entire rest of the map. In my worldview those red areas represent the "danger zone" of being attacked by some monster that lives somewhere inside that red blob, most likely towards the center.
In the most traditional of D&D games you will hear tale of "The dragon that lives on that mountain peak" or "This way leads to the goblin hoard". That would imply that common folk know where the bad guys are and where the bad guys aren't. It further implies that unless you go sticking your nose into the trouble, you are fairly safe from it coming to look for you.
Paul Farquhar
Legend
I'm not sure if La Sirena has a spare bunk...
Maxperson
Morkus from Orkus
Why does it matter if it takes Vikings weeks to get to a coastal area to raid? Just live inland and you will almost always be safe from Vikings.
If that was the point, you failed. An invading raid party isn't a monster living on the frontiers. The frontier monster has no reason and would in fact be a moron to try and go into civilized lands to attack when it has frontier areas. For that matter, a raid party would have to be stupid to try and go into the center of a country and then get back out. Raids have to be quick and strike at the outskirts so you can escape quickly.
coastal areas had the significant wealth to be worth raiding because they allowed industries like fishing & sea trade. If it was jut a matter of raiding "someone" the vikings could have raided inland iceland or greenland.
FR doesn't really structure like that
Halflings like simple things and pleasures and do not horde nor collect wealth. So same logic applies to them, they're not worth the effort.
Well, that and coastal cities got raided because they were on the coast. You aren't going to go more than a day or two deep into enemy territory unless you can guarantee supply lines.
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