Hoooly cow I'm not going to even try to engage with all of that. I'm sorry but I'm just going to have to pick out a few bits and respond to them. Even on a day off I just can't dedicate the time required to engage with....that much point by point argumentative back and forth.
I am sorry for that, because you clearly put a lot of time into this, but...it's too much. it's either snip and reply to a few bits, or not even read it much less respond to any of it. Just the thought is giving me mild anxiety in spite of meds.
No, that was not what Steeldragon was saying. They didn't even mention halflings until their third paragraph break, and they started by lamenting the fact that this list of traits was somehow unheroic, and said, to directly quote word for word "Clearly if one isn't a moody broody dark misunderstood antihero, or some manganime uber-powered and proportioned mega-man, there's just no point to going on adventures or playing a fantasy RPG."
Tell me how that is a defense that halflings are justified in the world and not an attack that says that if you are against their position then you are against all of those traits? And then the MAJORITY of their post was devoted to their own homebrew.
Again,
@steeldragons can correct me if I'm wrong, but that entire post is in direct reply to posts about halflings, and is thus pretty clearly
about halflings. I don't understand how you can read the literal text you just quoted and see anything else, frankly.
I am not adding anything, except the additional traits you decided to throw onto the list. Which, since you did not refute their thesis that being against halflings means that you are against those personality traits... doesn't change anything.
I gave an example of how you are adding things to other people's statements in the process of replying to them.
I didn't invent this point. That was their complaint. IF that was not their complaint, then why did they devote the entire first part of their post to how this list of traits is somehow unheroic now and that lament that somehow the only way people play fantasy adventures is either dark and moody or JRPG Anime. What sense does their post make in a thread about halflings, if they were not trying to draw this connection that you are telling me I am making up?
You could ask them, instead of assuming the worst possible interpretation of their post and angrily replying to it in that context.
My second post was responding the accusations of steeldragon. And you immediately started attack me for how, I guess, this list of traits means that halflings should exist. Because... character traits justify a race? That is a bizarre arguement. That would mean I should be able to justify a thousand new races just by assigning them character traits. But, I suspect your argument is supposed to be more nuanced than that. Or maybe you don't feel like you need to do more with your argument, because halflings have been "established" for a while.
I have made it super clear that my position is that "people like playing halflings and having them in the world" is all the justification that is needed. I have only talked about specific traits in refuting the notion that it could ever possibly matter in any way whether a given trait is unique to them. Halflings don't have to have detailed histories of impacting the world, or obvious character flaws, or anyting else you keep acting like a lack of matters at all. People like them because of exactly what and who they are,
as written.
But, part of the issue people have is that their "establishment" is mostly... that they exist. They are short humans who live in human lands and act mostly like humans, maybe with a bit of the gnomes child-like wonder of the world. Most of their other traits seem fairly generic, and they don't have any solid myths or lore or anything to hook onto. I devoted an entire character and cult to a hook in Gnome Mythology from the Forgotten Realms. I can't seem to do that with halflings. There aren't any hooks I can find.
So what?
What do you mean what else they said? They only posted once in this entire thread. Literally. I did a search of the thread, they only have a single post.
Are you expecting me, who quite literally said in the very first post that I made in this thread that I had been gone for a few months, to have searched the entire forum to read every post by this poster just in case there was extra context? No. I didn't go looking for other threads to compare their post to. I responded to their post in this thread, and that was it.
Their full post is pretty clear to me, in the context in which it was posted.
Okay, but 'giving strangers a fair shake" isn't "fierce loyalty".
I literally never said or implied that it is. You're on a wild tangent that I am uninterested in following you on.
Then why did they start by lamenting the fact that those traits were considered unheroic? Why did they state that, to again directly quote them word for word, "Clearly if one isn't a moody broody dark misunderstood antihero, or some manganime uber-powered and proportioned mega-man, there's just no point to going on adventures or playing a fantasy RPG."
I even bolded a section for you. To rearrange the sentence, "Clearly there is no point in playing a fantasy RPG if one isn't a moody, broody, dark misunderstood antihero, or some manganime, uber-powered and proportioned mega-man" Those are all his words. His argument.
You want to say that he is saying that because he things that halflings make a good race, but that isn't what he actually said. He was talking solely about PCs and dividing them into three camps, with everything except the two I listed above being put forth as the reason for the halfling.
This is a really wild forced misunderstanding of a post. Statements don't exist in a vacuum. I don't know what else to tell ya.
My post was quite literally just saying, that you can play something other than an edgelord or anime character without playing a halfling.
Which is wholly irrelevant to someone's post lamenting that people seem to think that halflings aren't worthy of being a core race because they don't have any of those traits.
Did I say "therefore halflings should be deleted from the game"?
I'd say "show me where I said that you did", but judging by your evidentiary quotes so far in this exchange, it would just be a random quote that has no relation to what you're trying to prove.
I see. So, every single halfling in the entirety of the world goes on adventures.
When you stop doing this, I'll be happy to engage more fully with your arguments. When the hyperbolic strawmen come out, I tend to tune out.
Again, you're attributing an argument to me that I never made. Or perhaps you don't know that there is a difference between "not uncommon" and "every person does it"?
No, actually what I was thinking was that you listed off four people who were considered odd by the community to be paragon examples of what the community represents. After all, I can't really imagine Samwise or Frodo screaming DEATH! and riding with Rohirrim, or most of the population of the Shire. And, I'm also a bit baffled why in showing "these are fine halflings, truly representing what DnD has done with them" you put to Hobbits from the Lord of the Rings.
Can you give me some... halflings, from DnD? Not kender like Tasslehoff Burrfoot. Are there particularly notable halflings in the game? I'm honestly not aware of very many of them. I think Regis was one, he was from the Crystal Shard. A thief and conman who got over his head in the city and fled north. Doesn't really sound anything like Frodo or Sam.
Hobbits are halflings. Stop trying to pretend they aren't. We all know they are the origin of the concept in fantasy. Which is the primary reason they don't show up in other fantasy, because adding them in makes it feel like you're trying to do either Tolkein or DnD, rather than your own thing.
And thank you for the longwinded equivelent of, "no, i don't understand what you're saying with those examples or how a people can be both things or why that combination of traits is compelling for a lot of people".
So, yeah. I didn't want to discuss every single race in the entire game. Partially because this is an issue with prominence as well. Halflings are one of the Big Four.
This whole line of argument is based on the false premise that a core race needs to have obvious flaws and the like in order to deserve it's place in the core.
Is it a change? It seems to me that the idea of the hook is that the halflings are split on the issue. It seems to my reading to be that if Talenta halflings were as open and friendly as you seem to want to say they are, that they would view Uldra as a radical, not as a figurehead of a faction that is potentially defining their entire culture for generations to come.
None of that follows. An extreme faction having some traction in a community doesnt mean that most of the community doesn't view them as radical or at least worrisome and misguided. And where are you getting "potentially defining their entire culture for generations to come."?
So can you find any mention of how Ghallanda handles their dinosaur mounts? Perhaps something about how the house honors the spirits and their ancestors?
Can you find ANYTHING that connects them to the Talenta plains at all, beyond this idea that because Ghallanda are halflings and about hospitality, that therefore Talenta halflings must be all about hospitality? Because, I will remind you, the book explicitly states this "The halflings who migrated across Khorvaire in the company of humans ended up looking very human in dress, manners, and customs. Their cousins who remain in the Talenta Plains could hardly appear more different."
Ghallanda? They were halflings who migrated across Khorvaire with the humans. That is why the joke point in the mark of hospitality preparing them for the arrival of humans. They are stated to explicitly be incredibly different from their cousins in Talenta. So, why should I assume that their hospitality is a feature that is shared, when nowhere in the Eberron book it states this as a fact?
Okay, there is a HUGE difference between the most powerful group of half-elves in a society where half-elves band together because they don't receive any cultural support from their elven ancestors, and the idea that somehow all halflings are connected to Talenta, when explicitly they are not.
Yes, Ghallanda upkeeps the city of Gatherhold, that is an important tie between the Talenta halflings and the House. But that does not mean that the house and the Talenta halfings share a culture. And it completely ignores House Jorasco, who doesn't have any connection to the plains that I could find whatsoever.
The only halfling culture in Eberron that is explicitly halfling is Talenta. They don't have a "quiet strength" they have a rather explicit strength. Fighting hard and without fear? Yep, I'll give you that. But... does that describe a Jorasco house, willing to fight hard without fear? I'm not saying they are scared, but they are healers, not warriors.
They're combat medics. As for the rest, I'm not going to get into a nitpicking the lore contest with you. It literally doesn't even matter. There are several halfling cultures in Khorvaire, with different hooks. Whether Ghallanda and Jorasco are tied to Talenta (they are), doesn't particularly matter to the larger argument.
And "friendliness" is just... generic. Most races are rather friendly across the multiverse. The exceptions are notable.
The fact a trait is shared with other races is, again,
completely irrelevant on every possible level.
Yes they are part of the history of the race. That doesn't mean that they are the same race. That doesn't mean I should be familiar with the Sackville-Bagginesses to have an idea about the dark side of halflings. It seems like people want to rely on the hobbits and Tolkien to prop up the Halflings. But, I feel like that is the wrong way to take it. We don't rely on Tolkien for supporting elves, dwarves or orcs. They became their own things.
This is why I don't like people referring to Hobbit lore to defend halflings. The very fact they find it neccessary is a mark against halflings.
Okay, I don't care. The fact that hobbits are part of the history of halflings isn't a mark against halflings, and the idea that it is is just patently absurd nonsense you're making up because you don't like halflings and want to win an internet argument.
And elves dwarves and orcs don't come from Tolkein! Of course we don't talk about tolkein as much when discussing them, although I will note that because orcs are mostly defined in their fantasy fiction origin by Tolkein, Tolkein is brought up in literally every single thread that becomes about orcs that I have ever seen, here or elsewhere. Because of course it does, because that's their origin! LOL what completely nonsense it is to suggest it should be otherwise!
I'm going abandon this argument with you after this post. The mods have made it clear over time that criticising someone's behavior in a thread is only tolerated if it is brief and not repeated, and I don't think I can go another round ignoring certain things.
Happy gaming, have fun doing whatever you want with halflings in your game, and I'll have fun watching them never leave the core 4 and probably never get a major rewrite again.
