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Message: <blockquote data-quote="(un)reason" data-source="post: 6271652" data-attributes="member: 27780">Best of Dragon Magazine 3part 2/6The gods of the elves: You know, if you say elves have lots of gods, you're inviting people to send more in, when as we've found, people need no encouragement at all to give elves cool new stuff for free, because they're just sooooo pretty. :vomits in pot plant: Indeed, we got follow-ups for this in 155, 176, 191, 236 & 251, most of which gave their speciality priests lots of cool bonus powers. Once again, the fact that these articles were pretty influential is even more apparent now I've gone through the whole magazine and seen the long-term repercussions. For better or for worse, these guys are going to be with us for a long time. The halfling point of view: While elves and dwarves have a ton of inspirations to draw upon, Halflings are still intimately tied to the LotR series, for better and for worse. In this era, it's probably for the worse, as Roger can't seem to stop himself from playing up their boring aspects. Yes, a large quantity of them may be homebodies, but even in LotR, there were plenty of hints that they got up to more fun than they let on, with the Tooks getting their fortunes from adventuring. (and being gossiped extensively about in the process) And it's not as if they can't be pretty deadly, as stealth and affinity with missile weapons is a great combo for beating stronger enemies without them being able to hit back. So in hindsight, the 3e refocussing towards them being roguish nomads might have been a little irritating, but it made a lot of sense when you consider what they'd had to deal with in previous decades. When you want to get back to the dungeon, you need to slay a few sacred cows for supplies, and those plumptious little ones looked mighty tasty. The gods of the halflings: It's interesting that Halflings are the only race here that have more female deities than male, and are presented as female-dominated. And I suppose it's one way they do differ from the Tolkien portrayal, where the focus is very much on the guys. (and religion works completely differently anyway) Still, even if the women are in charge, they still have the same traditional gender roles as humans, where the men go out, and the women stay at home. We still have some serious automatic assumptions going on here. I guess fantasy is often about an imaginary past, and so parochial tendencies are to be expected. But it is funny to see just how dated these articles appear in this respect. The gnomish point of view: Gnomes are still very much the 5th wheel as a D&D race. However, this has given the writers a freedom to change them dramatically with less complaint from players. Tricksters, animal-lovers, miners, crafters, talkaholics, bards, they have a whole bunch of hats that they can wear, and it seems quite likely more will be added in future editions if they ever go back to creating settings. Even back in the early 80's, there was plenty of nuance to their portrayal, which contrasts to the love-in of elves and the somewhat boring halflings. They can sometimes be pains in the ass, but overall, they're a valuable asset to a party, with their social skills, sharp senses and wide selection of classes. They're much better in your party than out. The gods of the gnomes: If you were in any doubt as to how Gnomes are differentiated from Dwarves, their selection of deities makes it very clear. Aside from their greater connection to nature, the way they go bad is very different indeed, becoming skulking murderous tricksters instead of greedy drunken <img src="https://cdn.jsdelivr.net/joypixels/assets/8.0/png/unicode/64/1f642.png" class="smilie smilie--emoji" loading="lazy" width="64" height="64" alt=":)" title="Smile    :)"  data-smilie="1"data-shortname=":)" /><img src="https://cdn.jsdelivr.net/joypixels/assets/8.0/png/unicode/64/1f642.png" class="smilie smilie--emoji" loading="lazy" width="64" height="64" alt=":)" title="Smile    :)"  data-smilie="1"data-shortname=":)" /><img src="https://cdn.jsdelivr.net/joypixels/assets/8.0/png/unicode/64/1f642.png" class="smilie smilie--emoji" loading="lazy" width="64" height="64" alt=":)" title="Smile    :)"  data-smilie="1"data-shortname=":)" /><img src="https://cdn.jsdelivr.net/joypixels/assets/8.0/png/unicode/64/1f642.png" class="smilie smilie--emoji" loading="lazy" width="64" height="64" alt=":)" title="Smile    :)"  data-smilie="1"data-shortname=":)" /><img src="https://cdn.jsdelivr.net/joypixels/assets/8.0/png/unicode/64/1f642.png" class="smilie smilie--emoji" loading="lazy" width="64" height="64" alt=":)" title="Smile    :)"  data-smilie="1"data-shortname=":)" /><img src="https://cdn.jsdelivr.net/joypixels/assets/8.0/png/unicode/64/1f642.png" class="smilie smilie--emoji" loading="lazy" width="64" height="64" alt=":)" title="Smile    :)"  data-smilie="1"data-shortname=":)" /><img src="https://cdn.jsdelivr.net/joypixels/assets/8.0/png/unicode/64/1f642.png" class="smilie smilie--emoji" loading="lazy" width="64" height="64" alt=":)" title="Smile    :)"  data-smilie="1"data-shortname=":)" />s. Plus, they often have sidekicks, which is ironic when the short races are more likely to be considered the secondary characters in stories told by humans. These guys still seen pretty interesting to me, even if the all-male nature of the pantheon seems a little more grating after three more decades of pushing gender equality. Maybe next edition, as I keep on hoping, although it seems unlikely at this particular point in time.</blockquote>

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