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

[doctorbadwolf]

if they don't trade with the outside world.

Well it’s a good thing no one is claiming they don’t, then.

if they trade, then they have contact with the outside world. And the outside world can find their villages

Doesn’t follow. One doesn’t mean the other, you’re just making a leap from one to the other.

Honestly, how do you hide a farm complete with cows, pigs, goats, chickens, and large enough to support multiple crops simultaneously?

Never lived in the countryside, then?

 

[Chaosmancer]

Halflings have neighbors that trade extensively.

But if they only trade a small amount with those nieghbors, what does it matter?

I mean, a weekly trip to market is considered extreme. How much are you really getting from those neighbors if you take a single mule once a month to trade?

 

[doctorbadwolf]

Being being in a place where people don't go.

And I’ve lived near lightly forested foothills and a mountain range my whole life. It’s easy to pass by a few acres of “valley” without realizing it’s there.

 

[Chaosmancer]

Now the real question is why all these unique and separate villages all speak common. In much of the world you can hardly throw a stone without hitting someone who speaks a different language.

Common is a problem. It is a problem that really doesn't have a good solution.

But, as a person who recently had to sit through an adventure where the DM insisted that none of us spoke the language of the locals, it is a smaller problem than trying to accurately portray languages, and having entire sections of the world where no one understands you and you can't understand them.

Dealing with realistic languages is just a nightmare.

 

[Maxperson]

But if they only trade a small amount with those nieghbors, what does it matter?

I mean, a weekly trip to market is considered extreme. How much are you really getting from those neighbors if you take a single mule once a month to trade?

You're getting enough. The neighbors trading extensively matters, because it means that unusual things will be more common and cheaper.

 

[Maxperson]

And I’ve lived near lightly forested foothills and a mountain range my whole life. It’s easy to pass by a few acres of “valley” without realizing it’s there.

Yep. I grew up in rural Michigan on a farm, and then to the nearby small town of 400. That's how I know that chimney smoke just isn't that noticeable until you are right up on the town. I also know how easy it is to pass by not only a few acres of valley or farmland, but also entire lakes.

 

[Chaosmancer]

And you find "they're lucky, optimistic, unambitious, and good at being out of the way" unsatisfactory, even though those might be directly responsive to the halfling mindset.

I'm not going to say that your wrong to be dissatisfied, but I'm also not sure it's really a "problem" with the halfling.

Actually, yes.

See, I mentioned this before, but this idea that halfling luck is partially derived from them being unambitious is a serious problem for me.

See, according to the book, their Goddess bends luck in their favor, but the real force behind their luck is that they are so unassuming and unambitious that the universe bends to protect them... except if that is true, then it means that the ambitions of the other races are the only reasons that they are attacked and killed by all of these violent and savage events.

If everyone was just a simple farmer with no ambitions beyond good food and friends, then nothing bad could happen to anyone in the world anymore. All of the misery or humans, elves and dwarves is all their own fault.

And this is despite the fact that, well, I found this in the halfling PHB write up about humans, "Humans are a lot like us, really. At least some of them are. Step out of the castles and keeps, go talk to the farmers and herders and you’ll find good, solid folk. Not that there’s anything wrong with the barons and soldiers—you have to admire their conviction. And by protecting their own lands, they protect us as well.”

Humans have ambitions, they have castles and barons and soldiers. Because of that they can't have the idyllic luck and paradise of the halflings, but even the halflings acknowledge that by having those ambitions, those castles, those soldiers, the humans are protecting the halflings.


Earlier in the thread people asked what was wrong with halflings being one of the core four races. To me, this is it. This is a fundamental problem. Elves, Dwarves, Humans they are independent. They survive and thrive on their own. Halflings? They need to be protected by their bigger neighbors, so they can remain idyllic, so that they are lucky enough to be protected from attack.

As written, that doesn't work.

 

[doctorbadwolf]

The phb isn't exactly an improvement

Dwarf Elf & gnome cultures embrace magic either as casters or crafters & all recognize/embrace advanced styles of government. Halflings embrace being commoners soaking in shirelife & avoid advanced styles of governance just as they avoid taking measures to protect themselves in a world at least as dangerous as ours was at a similar level of development. Advanced forms of governance look at these idyllic halfling villages and are suddenly either nervestapled into not caring to absorb one more village despite an apparent incredible level of productivity or the skilled trackers working for that advanced government are suddenly incapable of following a path. when a culture affects the free will of another to such a degree something is off

You’re making stuff up and then calling it a problem.

 

[Chaosmancer]

In an entirely optional supplement known for weird hot takes on the common races, Halflings train via sport with sticks. That’s a wild ride from that to “mockery of martial traditions”.

No. They specifically have military tactics, taught to them via stories of their war goddess, that involve them using sticks and rocks.

No matter how many times people keep trying to pretend they are just religious devotions or training, that is not what the book says. The book says that is how they defend their communities.

 

[doctorbadwolf]

But if they only trade a small amount with those nieghbors, what does it matter?

I mean, a weekly trip to market is considered extreme. How much are you really getting from those neighbors if you take a single mule once a month to trade?

Plenty, first of all. Second, why ask me, when what you’re referencing is someone else’s argument?

But even that level of trade is plenty to get seeds and the like for plants that aren’t native to the area, as well as the occasional exotic treat.