D&D General My Problem(s) With Halflings, and How To Create Engaging/Interesting Fantasy Races

[Chaosmancer]

Yes it does. Time and effort have value.

If you value stories and not money, what you want and expect in exchange for that time and effort would be related to the stories you can hear, witness, and retell, rather than the gold you expect to walk away with.

It's a fundamental difference in how you negotiate trade of goods and services. And it is an explicit reason to believe that halflings do not value money, since it is an explicit statement that they don't.

No, it isn't. They are explicitly talking about possessions. Nowhere was does it say that Halflings don't value money, they just don't value possessions purely for how expensive they are.

 

[Chaosmancer]

I don't agree.

Okay. Can you give me something that a dragonborn commoner can't do or embody that being an "ideal commoner" does?

 

[doctorbadwolf]

It’s like a carousel. Not a big one with fanciful beasts and carriages (like Elves would make), but a simple small (like a Halfling) playground one.

If it facilitates corgis zooms, it’s a good thing.

 

[Chaosmancer]

The problem is that you personally may just be the worst person on the planet to expand halfling lore.

It is obvious you don't get halflings and their appeal. You've said that and continued to not get it even when it's been explained to you. You also don't like halflings, possibly because you don't get them. And you are clearly deeply passionate on the subject based on the dozens of posts you've made on this thread.

If you don't get the appeal then any changes you make can only be from the perspective of someone who misses the appeal and is therefore unable to make things that will appeal to those that like them because you don't understand why.

And no one else has proposed any changes at all. They all want them to be kept in the status quo.

Oh, plenty of people have put forth "this is what I do in my campaign" and a lot of them are great ideas. But no one is taking that the step further and saying "maybe we should do this with all halflings"

 

[Gammadoodler]

No, it isn't. They are explicitly talking about possessions. Nowhere was does it say that Halflings don't value money, they just don't value possessions purely for how expensive they are.

It literally describes one way in which they specifically do not value money.

Not metaphorical "literally"..literally "literally".

Your claim:

Except that there is not a single reason to believe that Halflings don't care about money.

Is objectively false.

 

[Gammadoodler]

And no one else has proposed any changes at all. They all want them to be kept in the status quo.

Oh, plenty of people have put forth "this is what I do in my campaign" and a lot of them are great ideas. But no one is taking that the step further and saying "maybe we should do this with all halflings"

Objectively False.

 

[Chaosmancer]

The Elves that are part of the Material Plane, in fact, eat food. The require a source of food.

But there are several reasons why the Elf does not farm.

• The Wood Elf (at least my campaign emphasizes this) is a nomadic hunter-gatherer, traveling in extended families.

• The High Elf lives in the forest, not in open grasslands that suitable for farming crops. This Elf eats from tree products.

• The Uda Drow probably have slaves do the farming, to farm funguses and various subterranean meats.

• The Eladrin are ethereal spirits in the Feywild, seem would not need to eat, but enjoy it, and magically conjure food.

This notable aversion to farming, makes the Elf feel alien to most of Europe where farming is ubiquitous. However the Elf feels somewhat Nordic, where the farmable land can be scarce, and most of the population subsists on hunting-gathering, including fishing and berry picking, at least seasonally.

I disagree with this.

You can farm in a forest, it is just not the same type of farming that is done by other races. You can't grow fields of wheat for example. But you can raise free-range animals in the forest, and you can farm other products.

 

[Chaosmancer]

I dont call the Elf "gathering" tree foods, to be the same as if "farming".

With various magics, including druidry, the Elf shapes the trees magically to produce various fruits all year round, with minimal magical maintenance.

It conceptually resembles a magical hunter-gatherer. Not a herder-gardener. Tho it is somewhere in between, for the non-nomadic Elves who live in and cultivate a settlement.

See, I am going to take a moment and remove magic from the equation. Under the assumption that Magic ~ Technology

Cultivating plants to provide food, which you then gather up and prepare is exactly what farming is. There seems to be this point hiding in this discussion that when you add magic, you are no longer farming, but I don't think that is true. You are simply farming differently.

 

[Chaosmancer]

As for elves and agriculture... wild farming is a thing. Elves would totally engage in that. Humans and others might not even realize they're in an elven farm.

Exactly this

 

[Chaosmancer]

It literally describes one way in which they specifically do not value money.

Not metaphorical "literally"..literally "literally".

Your claim:

Is objectively false.

No, it literally, as in literally literally, talks about how they don't value possessions based on their monetary value.

"As do many other races, halflings enjoy accumulating personal possessions. But unlike with most other races, a halfling’s idea of value has little if anything to do with monetary concerns. A typical halfling’s most prized possessions are those that have the most interesting stories attached to them."

To break this down.

Halflings enjoy accumulating possessions "BUT" (by using But, a conjuction [an uninflected linguistic form that joins together sentences, clauses, phrases, or words] they are explicitly tying this new sentence to the old sentence)

Unlike other races (who accumulate personal possessions) a halflings idea of value (for their possessions) has little to do with money. Now, this is where you stop, and say " AHA! They don't like money, they wouldn't take payment for work in Money! Because they don't value it!" However, this is still EXPLICITLY tied to the idea of possessions. And the following sentence clarifies, by telling us that the POSSESSIONS a halfling values have the most interesting story.

This is explicit and literally referring back to the idea of monetary value in that sentence. Not because halflings don't use money and don't want to be paid in money, a thing that is mentioned nowhere in these three sentences. It is all tied into their possessions. They aren't going to value an expensive dress just because it is expensive. They aren't going to value expensive dishes because they are expensive. Their most valuable possessions are valuable because of sentiment.

But, if you try and pay a halfling through "the expeirence of working for me" I'm sure they are going to insulted, just like most people would be. Because they do use money. And they still believe money has value. They just don't like possessions for their monetary value.