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

[doctorbadwolf]

It should be obvious how Halflings would hide their villages. They do it by living in holes in the ground.

Think of the fancy houses of hobbitton as a middle class evolution of the original hobbit hole in an environment where halflings no longer feel under threat.

In areas where they do, they would have one or two entraces for the whole village and they would be well hidden.

Don’t forget that in the hobbit the Shire is described as being situated in such a way that a human can walk clean through it without ever realizing that they’ve been walking through civilization.

 

[Chaosmancer]

I am not talking about trade or humans at all. I'm just pointing out that its easy to be both self-reliant as a small population and at the same time have a variety of things that are needed in small quantities.

Why is it that people seem to forget their own posts so quickly?

Me: "Sure, maybe fantasy plants.

But, think this through. Nothing about halflings suggests that they have plant magic. So, these plants would be something anyone can grow. There is nothing in the lore about them having access to crops no one else can grow.

So, anyone could grow all of these fantasy plants in their farms. So, since humans and halflings tend to live so close together, humans would be growing those plants.

So, Humans no longer need to trade for spices... so what are they trading?"


You: "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."

Me: "Why not everyone else? They are just plants. Anyone can grow them.

It wasn't like people in Europe couldn't grow potatoes after they were found."

You: "Because everyone else is growing trade crops with adequate yields to allow for profitable trade.
When you're growing food for self sufficiency and based on personal preference, you can afford to be less efficient in your fantasy botanical pursuits.

But to your point, other similarly self-sufficient and insular communities could exist if they're not particularly interested in accumulating wealth. And.. they may not make for particularly attractive raiding targets."

Me: "That makes no sense.

If it is a plant, it can be grown. If it can be grown, it can be grown in quantities for consumption and trade. Somehow these magical spice plants can't be grown in enough quantity for trade, but they can be grown to support an entire village's needs? No. That isn't how growing plants works."


You: "One year my wife and I grew a dill plant in our kitchen."

So, we went directly from trade, to you talking about Dill, and now you want to claim you aren't talking about trade at all. Maybe you just were ignoring that I was talking about trade, but that doesn't change that that was what I was talking about.

 

[Chaosmancer]

Ok seriously. What is the issue? Why not just say the default halfling village is something that only exists in the parts of a setting that are very well settled and orderly.

Like in Forgotten Realms you might get that kind of village somewhere in the middle of the kingdom of Cormyr or something like that - and not on the savage frontier.

If the problem is that the default halfling village can only exist in the midst of some kind of secure well-ordered political state, then, well, put them there. If you're setting doesn't have such a state, well then, you opted for worldbuilding, do some. Why are you running homebrew if you find basic worldbuild so onerous?

You don't see a problem that one of the four most iconic adventurer races requires a secure, well-ordered political state run by someone else to exist?

Again, I can, I have and I do homebrew halflings. But if halflings require fertile farmland in the middle of a human kingdom, protected by their larger neighbors, I find that to be a bit of a problem with the default halfling.

 

[Chaosmancer]

How about we just shift gears totally....lets look at dwarves as described...

snip

I already know you have come up with 7 witty replies in your head about how the dwarves could still find wood, still get coal, and still use lava, and.....I AGREE WITH YOU. They can use all 3 in whatever quantity makes sense to play D&D.

I am now asking why you don't just make up those same answers for yourself on why halflings can't live in peaceful shires and you instead call them out as being "the big problem nobody else has".

Because dwarves can be explained within dwarven logic.

You said the lava is dangerous for an enclosed city, same with coal smoke, very deadly. But Dwarves are master stonesmiths, known for carving out entire mountains. Just to do that and live inside of a mountain would require a complex ventilation system, something master builders and stone masons would be able to craft. Therefore, those toxic gases and smokes are not an issue, they can be ventilated. Dwarves own skill and lore provide a workable solution.


With halflings, the best we can come to is that they live deep inside human, dwarf or elf kingdoms, and are protected by the other races establishing political states. It works, but it is a rather ironic twist that the race most known for simple idyllic living and a lack of ambition requires the ambition of other races to survive with that lack of ambition. Explaining halflings within halflings ends up with either that, or everyone's favorite "because the gods will it"

 

[Gammadoodler]

Why is it that people seem to forget their own posts so quickly?

Me: "Sure, maybe fantasy plants.

But, think this through. Nothing about halflings suggests that they have plant magic. So, these plants would be something anyone can grow. There is nothing in the lore about them having access to crops no one else can grow.

So, anyone could grow all of these fantasy plants in their farms. So, since humans and halflings tend to live so close together, humans would be growing those plants.

So, Humans no longer need to trade for spices... so what are they trading?"


You: "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."

Me: "Why not everyone else? They are just plants. Anyone can grow them.

It wasn't like people in Europe couldn't grow potatoes after they were found."

You: "Because everyone else is growing trade crops with adequate yields to allow for profitable trade.
When you're growing food for self sufficiency and based on personal preference, you can afford to be less efficient in your fantasy botanical pursuits.

But to your point, other similarly self-sufficient and insular communities could exist if they're not particularly interested in accumulating wealth. And.. they may not make for particularly attractive raiding targets."

Me: "That makes no sense.

If it is a plant, it can be grown. If it can be grown, it can be grown in quantities for consumption and trade. Somehow these magical spice plants can't be grown in enough quantity for trade, but they can be grown to support an entire village's needs? No. That isn't how growing plants works."


You: "One year my wife and I grew a dill plant in our kitchen."

So, we went directly from trade, to you talking about Dill, and now you want to claim you aren't talking about trade at all. Maybe you just were ignoring that I was talking about trade, but that doesn't change that that was what I was talking about.

Probably because most of those quotes are mine not @Sabathius42 s. In fact all of them except for the last, but who's counting?

 

[Chaosmancer]

It's pretty simple. Are your human farms operated as commercial enterprises? If so, those farmers are incentivized to grow the thing that grows the best, the easiest, that they can extract the most value from. This needs zero correlation with what the individual farmer enjoys consuming, and varying correlation with what the community enjoys consuming.

If one farmer really enjoys consuming one kind of product that has no trade value, they have to decide how much time, energy, space, and return on investment they are willing to sacrifice to produce that thing. By contrast, for the halfling who is farming for the enjoyment of what they produce, as long as they've cleared the bar for basic survival, they can choose to allocate their resources solely based on maximizing their personal enjoyment.

So, your argument is that humans are too greedy to become self-sufficient. Can't grow a variety of spices, instead we are going to grow what makes us the most money (traditionally spices) and then sell that to make money, so we can buy fine things... like spices.

Oh sure, cotton (why can't we just grow this too? Halflings do it), silk (why can't we just grow and harvest this too? Halfings do it) don't need to grow wood, or iron or steel, ... So, how is this supposed to work again? Halflings can grow everything they need to be self-sustained, because they only grow what they need, but humans are so greedy they will gorw what makes them the most money so they... can... buy what they need....

 

[Chaosmancer]

A 11th level rogue with expertise in stealth, perhaps reliably talented in it, and lucky to boot, probably would employ the same principles they use for hiding themselves to hiding the village.

This may include some combination of misdirection, obfuscation, disguise, etc. Would it be as simple as waving a magic wand, no. But the good news is that they'd be working to hide a village full of lucky stealthy homebodies who like to stay out of the way rather than a group of pranksters, and reckless inventors who may occasionally detonate things for science. So perhaps the gnomes gneed more of an easy mode.

Obfuscation how?

What disguises hide an entire village, the farms, the animals, the people, ect?

Misdirection by doing what? Turning a road sign? That only works as long as they don't, you know, turn back around


You are just waving your hand and saying "they'd do it" without giving me much more to work with here,

 

[Chaosmancer]

You were comparing apples to oranges. Skilled gnome illusionists (you know leveled creatures of some variety) vs basic common halflings.

I was confining the points of extrapolation to the same base point. In some circles, that's called fairness.

I didn't say basic common halflings. I'm just saying that halflings haven't been said to have any skills that could hide a village. That's why I asked. What are they going to do that is going to hide the village and make sure ti stays hidden basically all the time, from any threat?

 

[Chaosmancer]

Would you get into a fight with another god over a measly village? Even the orc gods aren't that dumb. They don't do it, because it would be stupid to do it.

So now it isn't that they can't do it (which I originally claimed) but now you want to say that they would be stupid to do it because it isn't worth it.

Keeping shifting Max, eventually it will be that it is their own idea to have Yondalla protect the halflings, so that the halflings can be safe because Gruumsh thinks they are cute.

 

[Gammadoodler]

So, your argument is that humans are too greedy to become self-sufficient. Can't grow a variety of spices, instead we are going to grow what makes us the most money (traditionally spices) and then sell that to make money, so we can buy fine things... like spices.

Oh sure, cotton (why can't we just grow this too? Halflings do it), silk (why can't we just grow and harvest this too? Halfings do it) don't need to grow wood, or iron or steel, ... So, how is this supposed to work again? Halflings can grow everything they need to be self-sustained, because they only grow what they need, but humans are so greedy they will gorw what makes them the most money so they... can... buy what they need....

Replace "need" with "want" in most places, and basically yeah. Halflings value tasty food more than humans, and other stuff less. So they allocate more resources to tasty food production. Really not sure how this is at all controversial.