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

[Maxperson]

What are they blowing glass out of? Do they have magical sand plants?

Do you imagine that sand is terribly hard to get? You do have them living in a desert growing rice.

So, they can't make books, like I said, and they'd need to engage in trade, like I said.

Aaaaaaaand which nobody has said doesn't happen. They do trade. They don't trade a often or in large amounts.

And you still insist that somehow trade and selling is an important enough difference to hammer home.

Trade for what you need and nothing more is not the same as selling for profit and money. Try this experiment to see if there's a difference. The next time you go to a grocery store, bring some pillows from your house to trade for food. See if they will accept them. Then offer them money. See if they will accept it. If the grocery store will accept your pillows the same as they accept your money, I will concede that there is little difference.

So, you can't send mail home to your folks, because no one can find halflings.

Why would Halfings ever send mail when they can travel(they love to travel) home to get good food and see their parents(they love to socialize)? You're inventing problems that don't exist and then saying, "Look! Look! Problems!"

 

[Minigiant]

The idea that you need spices from a far away land to make a good meal is just absurd.

Careful.
Thou art getting closer to heresy.

Spice is life.

 

[Oofta]

D&D. D&D usually has goblins and kobolds scrounging for scraps to make improvised items.






So if goblins lived near humans, goblins would live in happy rustic villages too?

I don't see goblins ever being happy. They're greedy, vicious little SOBs who enjoy causing other pain in my campaign. But in a different campaign that doesn't use default goblins as written in the MM? I don't see why not.

 

[Minigiant]

I don't see goblins ever being happy. They're greedy, vicious little SOBs who enjoy causing other pain in my campaign. But in a different campaign that doesn't use default goblins as written in the MM? I don't see why not.

So halflings are just one trash pantheon away from being goblins?

 

[Oofta]

Careful.
Thou art getting closer to heresy.

Spice is life.

Which is why we grow things like basil, oregano, marjoram, mint, as well as rosemary, thyme, lavender, summer savory and sage. Throw in some potatoes if you like along with a nice apple cider (add in some cider vinegar for cooking, even though we haven't had enough apples for that yet). Rhubarb strawberry cobbler for desert? Hmmm.

 

[tetrasodium]

Fantasy plants don't need magic (unless you say they do), they are imaginary after all. And this is not suggesting that there is no need for trade, just that halflings, specifically may not need it.

falling back to "fantasy plants" to dismiss all of the other problems created through the initial dismissal of a ranger being able to find a village introduces a different set of problems stemming from the fact that more advanced races or even merchants who embrace things like magic & some level of military investment. At a certain point the idyllic shire life stops making sense for the halflings living like ascetic refugees

So if goblins lived near humans, goblins would live in happy rustic villages too?

goblins live so much better in eberron compared to FR that it's almost misleading to call them goblins rather than a Dar subrace & even then they are dealt a pretty bad hand that prominently features a phrase like "systemic generational poverty". Of course halflings in eberron are very much not shirefolk & there are a number of well established reasons reflected in culture & history why both races have the cards they hold

 

[Maxperson]

So halflings are just one trash pantheon away from being goblins?

Yep. Same as every other race.

 

[Oofta]

So halflings are just one trash pantheon away from being goblins?

I just run goblins as described in the MM. In my campaign goblins are closely related to gnomes, both originated from the feywild and have the same origin. Goblins rejected peaceful society, gnomes embraced it. More or less.

 

[Vaalingrade]

D&D. D&D usually has goblins and kobolds scrounging for scraps to make improvised items.

Which is weird because the ISO standard goblin has a freaking morningstar.

For reference: the guys on forged in fire don't make people do morningstars because they're too difficult.

 

[FrozenNorth]

Being bigger has pros and cons based on the environment you live in, and broadly is not a particularly predictive factor in successful living, else cows and pigs would have very different lifestyles.

That’s just what the cows and pigs WANT you to think.