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

[Oofta]

Hear me out for a second.

If I said that there was a human militia with chain mail and pikes guarding a town, would people tell me that that goes completely against human nature? Would people tell me that according to the books, human knights and court mages simply aren't assumed? If I said that the human sheriff of a town was the veteran of the King's army, would it seem strange to you?


But what about halflings?

And armored contigent of halflings as a militia seems entirely bizarre to people. Enough that claiming one should exist got be accused of wanting to make DnD Grimdark and not worth living in. Halflings don't have knights. They don't have court mages. If I told you that you were in a Shire, full of halflings, and I said that the sheriff was the veteran of the King's Army, you know what would be the first question I would expect? What King? Because he has to be a veteran for an army that was led by a human, an elf, or a dwarf.

That is a pretty major difference. If I said a human town was walled, people wouldn't be accusing me of anything. The armed guards welcoming you at the gates to the town is a well-worn trope. It fits... but it doesn't fit halflings. For whatever reason, people don't want them to have defenses, guards, soldiers, any of it.

Yes, those human towns should have walls. They should have something like a sea wall too, to defend against the oceanic threats, but the oceans are big enough and contested enough I can buy there isn't a huge budget for defense in that direction that overrides the need for sailing vessels. But even if they don't at least it is not against their lore and image to have armed guards ready to defend the people.

Would Halflings use the exact same tactics as humans? No. But I don't have a problem with this image

or even

But we're not talking about armies made up of halflings. Halflings don't have kingdoms, they have villages. Most are probably embedded in other race's kingdoms. That doesn't mean they don't have defenders against raiding parties.

But you still haven't addressed my question. How do most small villages and farming communities of any race survive? They aren't going to have a large enough contingent of heavy infantry to defend themselves, they couldn't afford it.

 

[Oofta]

Of course you can use a mule.

But you know what carries more? A cart. That's why traders who could afford it got carts, pulled by oxen, to carry their things.

Also, look at where that mule is. That is a trail. A trail that can be followed. And one that isn't super hidden to the point that a professional tracker couldn't find it and follow it.

You know what carries even more then a cart? A wagon. No, wait, river barge. In today's world, a grain truck. Still more? A train. Not enough? Ocean going cargo ship. Yet somehow people throughout the ages and even today somehow manage to get crops to market using only pack animals. Not carts, not wagons, not river barges. Mules, donkeys, llamas, camels have been used for millennia to transport goods.

Also, the fact that one picture showing a clear path means no path could be hidden is simply ... not sure what word to use without violating policy ... goofy.

So unless you can answer my other question or explain how somehow nobody carries goods to market using nothing but pack animals, have a good one.

 

[Maxperson]

I didn't say that fantasy games must have Halflings. I am saying it is an weird few games keep Halflings but snag tons of D&Disks.

Or, they snag a bunch of stuff from mythology like D&D and Tolkien both did. Just because a game has Dwarves and Elves, doesn't mean that they did so because D&D or because Tolkien. Just because a game doesn't have Halflings, doesn't mean that there was a conscious effort to exclude them or that they wouldn't fit.

If you look at it from a design stand point, it makes perfect sense for a game based in mythology to have things like Gnomes, Elves and Dwarves, but not Halflings. The former three all appear in mythology. The latter is a creation.

Some games will be rooted in D&D and/or Tolkien, and they will have Halflings. Others won't be rooted like that, and they won't.

I think you're reading too much into the games that don't have Halflings. Confirmation bias.

 

[tetrasodium]

But that's my point. Halflings are allowed to have these believability issues in D&D because the fanbase wants them in and doesn't care if they have issues.

But once you leave D&D and LotR, halflings don't get a free pass and often get dropped or downgraded for these issues.
This is why halflings on many homebrew and new settings look very very different from base D&D ones.

The PHB halfling doesn't even persist once you start looking into d&d settings not named or derived from greyhawk like FR was (and maybe that 4e one? I dunno). Both Eberron & Darksun have wildly different halflings that would laugh hysterically if someone tried to suggest that phb writeup applied to them but for whatever reason wotc couldn't bring themselves to put aside the setting exclusivity to include mention of those other halflings.

You know what's easier to track and requires a road? A cart! You know what you will choose not to use if you don't want to be tracked or have a road to your village. A cart!

It may be more work, but so what. Better more work than to risk the village.

Where are you getting this idea that halflings are living in extreme paranoid secrecy like they are refugees living in lands where they are subject to ethnic cleansing or magic faeries hunted for luck glands to make this seem reasonable?

 

[Maxperson]

Where are you getting this idea that halflings are living in extreme paranoid secrecy like they are refugees living in lands where they are subject to ethnic cleansing or magic faeries hunted for luck glands to make this seem reasonable?

I asked you not to respond to me if you are going to twist things. No concept of paranoia has been put forth by me.

 

[doctorbadwolf]

I dunno, to hear max tell it they don't even have an interest in simple things like spices & they draw the line at "generous" portions of unsalted boiled or baked vegetables/grains with personally brewed "drink" made entirely with things they grew themselves. Pointing out the unusual combo of salt & fertile farmland problem was an inconvenient thorn he chose to ignore so I guess they both trade for expensive salt* and don't trade for it going by his minced words both do & do not use carts & wagons stance. I'm not sure that unseasoned boiled/baked vegetables & meats spoiling due to lack of preservation are things I'd consider "good foods".

* PHB157 lists the cost of 1lb salt equal to 5lb wheat or 2.5 chickens... 2lb of salt for an entire goat

In general, I don’t worry about what other people in a discussion say, I just hold myself to what I’ve said.

 

[tetrasodium]

I asked you not to respond to me if you are going to twist things. No concept of paranoia has been put forth by me.

• Cool, but there is no "said road" to follow. Halflings as written simply don't work like that. They live in out of the way places with trails that are hard to locate, even by Rangers.
• If they were stupid, sure. I didn't say wagons. I said animals. Those can go in a narrow pathway until you get close to the road. Then you vary up where you had, not repeating the same way often enough to form a well worn trail. There are ways to minimize the terrain damage, including not using it often and letting it bounce back..
• Blah blah Strawman blah. I explicitly said they would deliberately use different routes .

I could go on with even more examples. The only confusing aspect of this is why you still deny it & try to pretend this sort of behavior is normal for anyone but refugees being actively hunted.

 

[Maxperson]

• Cool, but there is no "said road" to follow. Halflings as written simply don't work like that. They live in out of the way places with trails that are hard to locate, even by Rangers.
• If they were stupid, sure. I didn't say wagons. I said animals. Those can go in a narrow pathway until you get close to the road. Then you vary up where you had, not repeating the same way often enough to form a well worn trail. There are ways to minimize the terrain damage, including not using it often and letting it bounce back..
• Blah blah Strawman blah. I explicitly said they would deliberately use different routes .

I could go on with even more examples. The only confusing aspect of this is why you still deny it & try to pretend this sort of behavior is normal for anyone but refugees being actively hunted.

No paranoia there dude. They live in out of the way places and don't make roads. So what. That doesn't equate to paranoid. But sure. Go ahead and dig up more examples of me not saying what you want me to have said.

 

[Minigiant]

Or, they snag a bunch of stuff from mythology like D&D and Tolkien both did. Just because a game has Dwarves and Elves, doesn't mean that they did so because D&D or because Tolkien. Just because a game doesn't have Halflings, doesn't mean that there was a conscious effort to exclude them or that they wouldn't fit.

If you look at it from a design stand point, it makes perfect sense for a game based in mythology to have things like Gnomes, Elves and Dwarves, but not Halflings. The former three all appear in mythology. The latter is a creation.

Some games will be rooted in D&D and/or Tolkien, and they will have Halflings. Others won't be rooted like that, and they won't.

I think you're reading too much into the games that don't have Halflings. Confirmation bias.

Now we are going to mythology? When dwarves and elves arevery removed from their mythological roots? And the D&D versions of dwarves, elves, gnomes, and orcs are the ones commonly copied?

But I am glad people are beginning to state how the D&D halfling has little crossover appealas it struggles to adapt to a setting outside of Middle Earth. And that it is so one-note that it's cukture and roles are very easy to replace with other race outside of D&D.

 

[Maxperson]

Now we are going to mythology? When dwarves and elves arevery removed from their mythological roots? And the D&D versions of dwarves, elves, gnomes, and orcs are the ones commonly copied?

No. We've been there ever since D&D and Tolkien. You can't have either without mythology. You brought it further in that direction by bringing in outside games. Mythology is central to the creation of most, if not all of them.

And not every game has orcs. Lots of them don't. By your logic orcs must be an ill thought out race that doesn't fit.

But I am glad people are beginning to state how the D&D halfling has little crossover appealas it struggles to adapt to a setting outside of Middle Earth. And that it is so one-note that it's cukture and roles are very easy to replace with other race outside of D&D.

Any race, outside of maybe humans, can be easily replaced. You have yet to prove that there is any struggle with Halflings within D&D, let alone in other games outside of it. There are personal preferences about them here, but no proof of them not adapting outside of Middle Earth.