Not quite. What you're being told is that these are some of the traits that help define halflings, and that these traits are enough to justify their place in the worlds of DnD.
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.
No. For the, what...3rd time? No. You are inventing the idea that a race needs to be or even can be the only way to experience a trait in order for it to be a valid playable race trait that defines the race. How unique to halflings a given trait is does not matter. No other race is defined by the same combination of traits, aesthetic, and ethos, that defines halflings. More importantly, halflings are a people that many players really enjoy, some players so much so that they rarely play anything else. That is literally enough to justify their place in the game.
I mean, you keep adding things in your reply that weren't in the text you replied to, so...yes.
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 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?
Okay.
How do you read that in what you quoted? Discussing things with you sometimes feels like I'm trying to communicate in two languages and neither of us is fluent in either. I don't know how else to describe it. I genuinely do not experience this outside of enworld, and even here only with a handful of posters, so its just very frustrating.
The statements that you are choosing to take that way are actually saying that halflings don't need anything beyond those traits to justify their place, to be a worthwhile PC race.
Except you keep misrepresenting the point in order to argue against the weakest possible version of it.
No, I'm not really misrepresenting it. I mean, you seem to be arguing from a point that says I want to get rid of halflings. I have never really said that in this thread. I've said I find them uninteresting. I've said that I've seen a larger trend in fantasy to subsume them into gnomes, because they seem to lack a solid identity. But I don't think I have ever once said "And I want to remove halflings from DnD!"
Before you started responding to me, I made two posts. The first post was the result of me realizing that I could not remember the mythological origin story for halflings. So I went looking in the Forgotten Realms Wiki. The Forgotten Realms is one of the most over-written and popular settings in DnD, so I figured it was a good place. And I found nothing. I really found basically no foundational or cultural lore for halflings at all. So, I posted that. I posted that I found nothing, and that what very little I did find basically said that halflings don't have these things.
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.
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.
Welp. if you really can't see any way in which you might possibly have misunderstood their point, even by reading what else they've said ITT and comparing, then we probably aren't going to get anywhere.
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.
lol no. It's not my fault your behavior caused a reaction. You add things to people's arguments when you reply to them, rather than replying to what they said and only what they said. It's disrespectful.
I added nothing except an assumption that they were making an argument for halflings and against people who don't like halflings. That was my only addition to their post.
If they didn't mean in their argument to imply that people who disagree with them about halflings hate humble heroes, then they made an incredibly poor argument. And if your reaction to me saying that is anger, then I'm really confused about where this anger comes from.
Especially since, in terms of disrespect, laughing at other people's arguments and rolling your eyes, as you have done on multiple of my posts, is not only disrespectful, but explicitly the mods have told people not to do so. So, maybe, you should show a little respect yourself, as you berate someone for being disrespectful.
For example, you've added the bolded to what I said. It isn't present in any statement I've ever made, and yet you're replying to my statements as if this nonsense you've added is the crux of my position.
Halflings allow people into their inner circle more readily than both real life humans, and fake fantasy races. There are human communities like that, and families, and people, but in general humans need to be taught to do that, because our instinct is toward some amount of tribalism. Halflings instinct is to consider an "outsider" to just be a person they don't know yet, just as capable of being someone they'll love as a brother in a few years as someone they'll have to fight in a few minutes. Basically, they give strangers a fair shake more readily.
I'm fine with clarifying that, but the part Ibolded in your reply is just...a total non-sequitor from what I said.
Okay, but 'giving strangers a fair shake" isn't "fierce loyalty". This is the disconnect. You are saying one thing, but then defining it differently. Halflings being open and kind to strangers I can agree with, but that isn't being loyal. Loyalty is meant as honoring a bond between people. You can be loyal to family. Loyal to country. Loyal to friends. You can't be loyal to someone you don't have a connection with, because loyalty requires that connection as part of the definition.
If your point is that halflings make these bonds easier than other races and then they are loyal to those connections... then doesn't that circle back to making friends easier and being loyal to your friends? The very thing you railed against me saying?
This is where the confusion is. You don't seem to be using Loyal in a way that fits the definition of loyal, if your various points about being upset at me "adding" to your argument are to be believed.
Nope. Their post made perfect sense, without saying that at all.
@steeldragons can correct me if I'm wrong, but what they were saying is that halfings have those traits, and even if that is all there is to halflings, that is plenty to make a compelling playable race, and none of the other stuff that defines other races is needed. The game doesn't need every race to be some combination of the traits they listed that you're somewhat hyperbolising (maybe consider that hyperbole is...bad for communication, actually?), eg edgelords or super-men, in order to be a good PC race. A race can just be quiet, friendly, curious, humble, folks. That is a good PC race concept.
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.
My post was quite literally just saying, that you can play something other than an edgelord or anime character
without playing a halfling. Without even liking halflings. In fact, you can not like halflings and feel like they are a weak race thematically, and still play a humble character who fights only to defend and enjoys the comforts of home.
Did I say "therefore halflings should be deleted from the game"? No. I didn't say that. I just said that their argument was bad. That's it. Their argument that being against halflings means being against all characters who are "quiet, friendly, curious, humble, folks" is wrong.
You can play, again, every archetype with any race. This is not a valid argument for or against any race, ever. It's completely irrelevant.
Then why was the above claim that being against halflings meant not seeing the point in playing the game unless you are an edgelord or anime character made?
The gruff tough guy with a heart of gold is the point of dwarfs, depsite that being something you can do with literally any race, too.
And I would never try and argue for keeping dwarves just because they are gruff, tough guys with a heart of gold. Because it would be a poor argument.
Not at all. Explicitly. In the text you claim to have read and so are apparently just ignoring. It is explicitly normal for halflings to go adventuring in their youth and then settle down to start a family afterward.
I see. So, every single halfling in the entirety of the world goes on adventures.
Why then does the text tell us things like halflings who show a wanderlust are referred to as having "fancy feet". That wanting to go beyond the limits of the community is seen as odd, and some villagers try and persuade the halfling in question to not leave?
I mean, if it was common and expected for every halfling to leave the village, they wouldn't need a special name for it and see it as unusual, would they? It would seem to me, that if you have a special term for the rare individual that wants to leave the community... that they would be unusual, or odd, not common place.
It is part of their lore by long tradition that while they love comfort and good food, they're quite capable of being happy without it. It's explicitly part of lore, part of their longtime tradition, and even part of their mechanics, that they aren't overmuch ruled by fear.
Halflings are perfectly illustrated in The Lord of The Rings. Some of them wanted to stay home but couldn't once they knew their friend had to leave home to go on a dangerous quest, while others were eager to leave and see more of the wider world, and Frodo was fairly well split between them. And one of them did stay, and doesn't appear in the film, of course, though he had his own adventure back home in the meantime.
The point is, halflings are the first 20 minutes of Fellowship, all parties and food and fine smoking herbs in their comfy homes, and they are Mariadoc Brandybuck screaming Death! right alongside the Rohirrim before charging into battle. They are Samwise waxing philosophical about potatoes and Samwise routing a tower full of orcs with nothing but a sword and a bright light of hope to save his best friend.
If all you see when you read that is, "well humans could do all that too" then this entire discussion is completely pointless, because you're just not going to ever get it, no matter what any of us say.
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.
What vehemence? I didn't get vehement at all until you'd replied directly to me.
I only replied to you, when you started attacking my critique of Steeldragon. Quite literally my post critiquing them is #642 and you replied on #643. Starting with your very first line being "You are off base on every single claim in this post."
You then accused me of strawmen, said "Bologna. You keep reducing halflings from what is actually written about them and then claiming they are bad because they're only the one thing. " which, I will remind you was in response to me
SECOND POST on this thread. So, I'm not sure how I "keep reducing them" when I'd only posted twice. And rolled your eyes at me.
So, you started off this entire conversation incredibly aggressively, right out of the gate.
-flat stare- You described 3 races. Out of a hundred or so. And then acted like you had shown that the majority of races fit the mold you are describing. And then when I challenged that you acted like I was speaking against irrefutable evidence in the form of...your description of the flaws of 3 races.
Four of the major races of the game. Humans, Elves, Dwarves and Gnomes. Tielfings are variant humans and their story is rather obvious. Half orcs and Half elves are half-human and their stories are really more about the interactions between the two races.
That means out of the Player's Handbook I have covered 8 out of the 9 races.
Sure, I guess I could talk about the monstrous races, but again, aren't they self evident? Do we need to discuss Orcs, Goblins, Kobolds, Lizardfolk, Yuan-ti, Minotaurs, Drow, Duergar Bugbears or Hobgoblins? Genasi and Aasimar are also just variant humans, so I don't think we need to discuss them, and again, their story is fairly obvious.
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. I shouldn't need to compare them to something like Tortles. Tortles aren't prominent, they don't really matter much to the state of world-building, because most people don't play them or think about them. But halflings are supposed to be a big deal.
I mean, if we ended up ranking it, and a member of the Big Four is in the 20's in terms of complexity of presentation and lore.... doesn't that kind of prove my point that their lore is very lacking? If you need to say "but you didn't discuss every possible race in the game, so how can you say halflings are bad" when they are supposed to be one of the most important races in the game... that's a problem.
So, Uldra defines Talenta halflings completely, but Ghallanda doesn't count. Oookay.
Not what I said at all. You are adding to my argument.
Well, no, obviously not. The fact that there is a faction of halflings that want to change Talenta's culture to be a closed culture with closed borders does not mean that Talentan Halflings are not welcoming and hospitable. Especially when that faction only has any traction because they just got out of a 100 year long war they had no actual stake in where people kept trying to force them out of their own land.
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.
Gallanda is a halfling family. They started as and still are part of Talenta culture, though much of the house no resides outside of it and includes people who've never been to the plains. The core of the house is still Talenta Halflings. Their whole thing developed out of Talenta culture and it's focus on hospitality. None of the dragonmarks are total non-sequitors with the people they deveopled on. The closest to such a thing are Finding, Detection, and Storm, but even they don't contradict the culture or nature of the people they developed on. Ghallanda isn't some wild cultural aberration.
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?
Yes! Just like how the Medani are very much a khoravar house, who remain part of khoravar culture and work to better to situation of their folk, every halfling faction in Khorvaire has lasting and important ties to Talenta, has family there, are still part of the tribes. There are individual halflings within those factions who don't care, and halflings who are totally detached from their people's past and just think of themselves entirely as Brelish or Aundairian or whatever, but these larger groups are, as groups, part of branching geneologies of related cultures, all tied back to Talenta, and Gatherhold.
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.
A failing of that book, as good as it is, is that it simplifies a lot about the people of Eberron, and sometimes what they chose to simplify ends up giving the wrong impression.
This is also a tangent, I hope you realise. Even if we look at Ghallanda halflings as wholly separate from Talenta halflings, and we shouldn't, we still end up several cultures of halflings who have common threads with eachother.
The fact that some halflings are bascially just short Brelanders or whatever isn't even unique. Every race is like that. Even the monstrous races have some small numbers who just think of themselves as Brelish or Thranish or whatever, and don't care about Drooam or Dhakaan outside of how they effect their own home country. That's a big part of Eberron.
But every culture that is a halfling culture, has some version of lack of friendliness, quiet strength, and willingness to fight hard and without fear for their homes and fellows.
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.
And "friendliness" is just... generic. Most races are rather friendly across the multiverse. The exceptions are notable.
They conspired to take his wealth several times.
And hobbits are part of the history of lore of halflings.
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.
