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

[Gammadoodler]

Look man, it isn't fair to you, but after I spend 45 minutes to an hour responding to Max, I'm exhausted when I got to this post. So, I'm skipping things because I can't spend another hour and a half on this thread.

6) There might be smaller pastoral towns. Many of them are attacked by raiders. The only other specific examples we got from the Ten Towns, when I looked into them, they had guards, soldiers, militias, I don't remember the exact wording. I remember it was 25 people which was 16% of the population of the town. The other town had a dedicated temple to the God of Warriors, and a famous armory which raises questions "who is buying these weapons and armor on a regular enough schedule to keep them in business?"

7) And how do they hide their villages? Divine Intervention. What luck allows them to always avoid notice? Divine Intervention. This has been a point of contention, I know, but that is the narrative that is being pushed.

8) Dissociated is bad. It means they don't fit into the world, and that is a sign of poor world building.



Because.... they.... should.... allocate.... resources.... to.... defense....since..... living...... is ..... important..... and..... allocating...... resources...... to...... pleasant......expeirences..... includes...... trading...... for...... things...... they...... don't...... already....... have......

Did spacing out every word help you like you thought it would help me?



Halflings making high quality meals is in the lore. That isn't up for debate.

You insisted that if humans had access to easily grown spices, they wouldn't grow them because they are all commercial farmers. That is what I challenged. Not that halflings are trying to be millionaires, that isn't part of the discussion at all. The point was if there is a plant halflings can grow, other people would grow it.

That has nothing to do with money. Money is a means to an end. One of those ends is buying things to improve foods. If you can grow them easily at your own farm without impacting your ability to grow food significantly... you are saving money. You are getting for "free" what you otherwise would have to pay for.

How many people are going to turn down a price of free? And since these spices tend to be more expensive than the food, then growing them would increase profits if they had excess.




We have very different experiences. Your interpretation of stealth is not usual.

I get it. I've been on the other side as well. It's strange here.

We disagree on how dangerous D&D worlds must be. The difference between us is that I don't think you're position is wrong. It's just your opinion.

I've pointed out my opinion on how they hide their village and you dismiss it without adequate justification in my opinion. Note that my version hasn't involved the divine intervention which you dislike so much. But if you'd rather avoid a reasonable interpretation that fits with how halflings are described in favor of judging to them defenseless, ok.

Disassociated just means they're encountering the world with a different, perhaps less informed, perspective. Hobbits were disassociated from broader Middle Earth. Was that bad?

And now we get to the section where you move some goalposts, because now it's defense that's eating into halflings good time. Covered the underlying setting assumption above.

And...now we're going to circle back to the damn spices..again?? I'm not even sure what you want here. Please see the section in my previous post, directly above the spaced out sentence.

Our experiences are different..which means that they are different.

 

[Paul Farquhar]

`Nope. But again, I don't think hobbits fit the default assumptions of a D&D setting. Not as humaniods anyway.

Then you should, so you at least understand what the appeal is.

And that is your bias showing. You love the idea of hobbity halflings so much, you cannot percieve others having legitimate confusion to them and see any criticism as a need for more exposure to LOTR.

I can perfectly understand why they wouldn't appeal to those who aren't fans of Tolkien - which I assume you are not since you haven't read the book. But there is no point in such people having halflings in the first place. I refer you to my first post in this thread:

"I think its fairly obvious why hobbits where included - LotR fans wanted to be like their heroes."

You can have fun and expect your DM to be serious about their role and the beings in the world to treat as real.
You treating halfings like a joke proves my point that many treat halflings like a joke and not at the same level as elves or dwarves.

Light-hearted is not the same as a joke. The Lord of the Rings is a serious novel with an author working though their trauma from the WWI battlefields. That's why the lightness of the hobbits is so important. It stands in contrast to the darkness and shines through it.

“Do you remember the Shire, Mr. Frodo? It'll be spring soon. And the orchards will be in blossom. And the birds will be nesting in the hazel thicket. And they'll be sowing the summer barley in the lower fields... and eating the first of the strawberries with cream. Do you remember the taste of strawberries?”

If any race gets treated as a joke, it's dwarves.

 

[Minigiant]

Then you should, so you at least understand what the appeal is.

I can perfectly understand why they wouldn't appeal to those who aren't fans of Tolkien - which I assume you are not since you haven't read the book. But there is no point in such people having halflings in the first place. I refer you to my first post in this thread:

"I think its fairly obvious why hobbits where included - LotR fans wanted to be like their heroes."

Again. I don't hate halflings. I get the appeal.
I am just saying they are treated different.

Light-hearted is not the same as a joke. The Lord of the Rings is a serious novel with an author working though their trauma from the WWI battlefields. That's why the lightness of the hobbits is so important. It stands in contrast to the darkness and shines through it.

“Do you remember the Shire, Mr. Frodo? It'll be spring soon. And the orchards will be in blossom. And the birds will be nesting in the hazel thicket. And they'll be sowing the summer barley in the lower fields... and eating the first of the strawberries with cream. Do you remember the taste of strawberries?

You can't both say "No. We like that halflings are different." and "No. Halflings is not different."

If you say Hobbits being carefee and lighthearted is a ploy and narrative device used to force softness into the story, then having Halflings act as hobbits means designers are forcing something into a game that doesn't match the base tone of it.

And if fans go even further and make them even sillier and ridiculous then you can't at surprised from where it comes from.

If any race gets treated as a joke, it's dwarves.

That'sall on the fandom. The lore is more complete for dwarves in the intial presentations.

 

[Paul Farquhar]

Again. I don't hate halflings. I get the appeal.
I am just saying they are treated different.

That's because WotC are dodging round another Tolkien Estate lawsuit. What you need to know about Halflings is in Concerning Hobbits, but that is what WotC simply cannot include.

You can't both say "No. We like that halflings are different." and "No. Halflings is not different."

If you say Hobbits being carefee and lighthearted is a ploy and narrative device used to force softness into the story, then having Halflings act as hobbits means designers are forcing something into a game that doesn't match the base tone of it.

You clearly haven't read LotR, They are not a "narrative ploy" - Tolkien was not a professional writer, he was a PTSD academic. Tolkien identified himself and the ordinary British Soldiers in the trenches with hobbits. They didn't want to be there "adventuring", they wanted to be at home with their families tending their gardens, and it was the memory of home that kept them going. They where "small" because the events they where caught up in made the feel small, but they had to believe that what they where doing mattered, despite their littleness.

Different?- no, Halflings are the ordinary folk, it is "the big people" who are different.

As for the base tone, you seem to be fixated on the idea that D&D must be Grimdark. You can play it Grimdark if you want, but that is certainly not the "base tone". In my experience the "base tone" of D&D is much more Guardians of the Galaxy than Tolkien, never mind Game of Thrones.

That'sall on the fandom. The lore is more complete for dwarves in the intial presentations.

Err, no. you can find the idea that dwarves are a joke going way back before fandom. We have Rumpelstiltskin, Disney's seven dwarves, it's even in The Hobbit, although Tolkien writes Gimli straight in LotR, even if Jackson doesn't in the movie.

 

[Minigiant]

As for the base tone, you seem to be fixated on the idea that D&D must be Grimdark. You can play it Grimdark if you want, but that is certainly not the "base tone". In my experience the "base tone" of D&D is much more Guardians of the Galaxy than Tolkien, never mind Game of Thrones.

I'm not saying D&D is Grimdark.

I'm saying the safest D&D is in the baseline is real life.

The LOTR is safer than real life except when the main plot goes down.

And Hobbits lived a safer life that that. If the hobbits were in D&D, 50-60% of them would be dead or enslaved when they got "attacked" by "ruffians".

 

[Maxperson]

it's even in The Hobbit, although Tolkien writes Gimli straight in LotR, even if Jackson doesn't in the movie.

That's because The Hobbit was a children's book and the LotR books are not.

 

[Oofta]

I'm not saying D&D is Grimdark.

I'm saying the safest D&D is in the baseline is real life.

The LOTR is safer than real life except when the main plot goes down.

And Hobbits lived a safer life that that. If the hobbits were in D&D, 50-60% of them would be dead or enslaved when they got "attacked" by "ruffians".

That's campaign dependent isn't it? I mean, look at Phandalin. It's written up as a "Frontier town" yet it has no walls and has had only minor issues.

Most farm villages throughout history have had little in the ways of defenses.

 

[Vaalingrade]

I'm saying the safest D&D is in the baseline is real life.

But peaceful agrarian groups that weren't militant naughty words exist and continue to exist in real life. It's only in the cartoonish world of Grimdark that there is only war.

Absolutely nothing happened new in this thread while I was on vacation did it?

 

[Maxperson]

I'm not saying D&D is Grimdark.

I'm saying the safest D&D is in the baseline is real life.

The LOTR is safer than real life except when the main plot goes down.

And Hobbits lived a safer life that that. If the hobbits were in D&D, 50-60% of them would be dead or enslaved when they got "attacked" by "ruffians".

The Hobbits repelled an orc invasion all by themselves earlier in the third age, and again when Pippin led them to evict the ruffians and orcs in The Shire after Mordor fell. During the latter fight, 19 Hobbits died and so did 100 of the enemy before they fled. Are you suggesting that 19 Hobbits was 50-60% of the population.

 

[Paul Farquhar]

I'm not saying D&D is Grimdark.

I'm saying the safest D&D is in the baseline is real life.

Quote?

The LOTR is safer than real life except when the main plot goes down.

It's not safer than my real life.

And if you mean "medieval real life" you are simply wrong. Undefended villages and a population of almost entirely farmers have always been the norm.

And Hobbits lived a safer life that that. If the hobbits were in D&D, 50-60% of them would be dead or enslaved when they got "attacked" by "ruffians".

Really, not. It might be the case in your D&D setting, but it's not the case in my setting, and it's not the case in standard D&D setting either. There are no "ruffians" wandering around Cormyr. You need a licence to carry a sword. And halflings are no more vulnerable than normal humans. If an area is to dangerous for halflings it is also too dangerous for humans.

But if you feel that your setting is a deathworld where every village is behind heavily fortified walls, then it is perfectly reasonable to rule that halflings are extinct, just like the "gelfings"* in The Dark Crystal.

* Definitely not hobbits Tolkien estate - look, the girls have wings!