I don't belong to a religion that espouses reincarnation, nor do I personally believe in it.
Oh, so.... it isn't true that all humans are reincarnations who can access their past lives as easily as deciding to sit down and think about it? It isn't just a biological fact about them that is, to use your favorite words, objectively true?
So, in a case where it is biologically and objectively true, that would be... different from the human experience? So your entire argument is a pointless "but there's a religion that thinks it is true!" instead of dealing with the fact that elves experience something humans don't.
This is what I wrote: "...Unless you are claiming that D&D humans have to follow a particular religious model based on an Abrahamic-style reskinning of the Greco-Roman pantheon? Or that any D&D human religion that involves reincarnation is automatically false?"
I take it by your lack of response to what I actually wrote and your attempt to deflect by saying I was being bigoted, that you do believe humans in D&D can't be reincarnated or have a religion that involves reincarnation.
I can imagine such a religion just fine. I'd have to go back and check but I'm pretty sure the main religion in the setting my friends and I built together involves reincarnation for every sentient race (I would not be the one DMing this world, so I don't know how the DM plans to handle such things mechanically). I can also imagine a religion for elves that doesn't involve reincarnation--i.e., the way elves were treated in all previous editions. In fact, the elves in my current setting don't reincarnation; they turn into nature spirits. I also don't use Correllon or Lolth.
I can also imagine a world where some humans get reincarnated and some go to an afterlife and some dissipate into nothingness. That MToF says that elves reincarnate literally means nothing beyond "here's our idea for elves, we're going to use it in our books."
And I can imagine a religion where humans worship stones and gain tremorsense. I can also imagine a religion where humans worship animals and develop animal traits. And I can imagine a religion where humans worship undeath and become immortals reliant on the feasting of blood.
Somehow, that doesn't mean that humans and dwarves or humans and tabaxi or humans and vampires are identical in every way. That just means I can imagine a religion whose power alters humans into something not human. You want to force me down this path, because then everything is just humans and you are right and fantasy races basically serve no purpose. But it is a ridiculous point. Just because I can imagine a religion where humans grow fur and claws and tails doesn't mean that humans are naturally wolf people.
He said "I don't remember ever making that argument", and I don't particularly feel like trawling through hundreds of pages of posts to prove him wrong.
And here's you missing my point.
Well, since you didn't clarify what point you think I missed...
No I didn't.
There, that should be a fine response.
You know what the cultural and mechanical differences are, because they're listed in the PHB, MTF, SCAG, and EGW. It's not my job to read for you.
And I have read them. The differences are minor to the point of non-existence on the cultural front. Gnomes are a bit more pranksterish and don't live on farms, that's about it. That is a cultural divide that can be easily overcome by saying that halflings are a subrace. After all, the cultural divide between Wood Elves and Drow is far larger than that.
And mechanics are trivially easy to change, plus are the weakest thing to base a race off of. Additionally, there is a rather easy way to slide halflings into a gnome subrace. Mechanically speaking.
So? All that shows is that the person who wrote that probably based it on D&D.
So if it is based on a DnD gnome, what's the problem with referencing it again? Based on DnD, so it should be able to be applied to DnD since you can't find the difference between them and a DnD gnome.
Yes. The reason is that the writers chose that name.
Seriously?
Well, guess I'll let you in on a writing secret. Kind of a big one, don't know if I'm supposed to share this without getting my writer's license revoked. When we name something like a race in writing? There is a reason for it. We don't just pick the name randomly out of a hat, but we name them intentionally. And, often, when we do so with a common name like gnome? It is because it calls back to that thing.
So, no, I don't think the reason is just "because that's what their name is" there are qualities between them that are shared in common.
Who, precisely, has told you that "changing any of those factors would make them decidedly not halflings"? I ask because you repeatedly misrepresent people and what they say, and so I am inclined to believe that in reality, maybe one person has said that changing a halfling would make it a not-halfling, and you decided to claim that tons of people have said that.
Right, you want me to tell you
precisely who said it. So, I'll need to go back over a year and a half or so of discussion, reading every post. And then, if I find anything, it isn't like you will immediately accuse me of misrepresenting them and what they said.
You won't, because you already have accused me of misrepresenting them and what they said. You have no evidence, you just want to believe I'm a malicious actor. Heck, we aren't even supposed to be discussing, but you had to start pulling me into another series of spaghetti posts so you can accuse me of wrong doing.
So, instead, let us go to this place called imagination for a moment. Imagine I find evidence, and I lay it out, and I prove that I was told that some people believe that changing halflings in any meaningful way would destroy them as a concept. What would you do, assuming you believed my evidence? Well, you would either agree with the person that changing them shouldn't happen, or you would disagree. If you disagreed with them, you might say something along the lines of "Well, I don't think that"
And, if you don't think that, then we could, I don't know... maybe discuss ways to change halflings? Instead of hurling insults and accusations we could.. do something productive? It would be nice for a change.
So, instead of me trying to prove to you that I'm not a bald-faced liar and a troll and anything else you may want to call me, let's focus instead on a more basic question. Do you believe that halflings can be altered without getting rid of them? Maybe given magical powers or an origin? Or Not? Because that seems like a far more productive line of inquiry.
What type of halfling are you talking about? A D&D halfling? A Tolkien halfling? A halfling as presented from a different, non-D&D game?
Because each of those types of halflings are entities unto themselves, so if I'm talking about a D&D halfling, then I will point you at the PHB, MTF, SCAG, and EGW.
Right, so you aren't getting it.
I was asking what makes a halfling a hafling. Because words have meaning, and that name supposedly has enough meaning to define the fantasy genre according to those who go "But Tolkien!!!!!", so it has to be fairly easy for you to define it.
If instead you want to point me to things I have already read and discussed at length.... okay, cool. Halflings are two foot tall humans. Their most defining trait is being a Mary Sue that is some idealized perfect form of humanity. That's what the PHB and MTF tell me. Don't remember SCAG, don't care. And EGW says that they are dinosaur riding native people. They also run two mega-corps that are indistinguishable from the human ones except that they specialize in healing and running inns. If they aren't mask wearing "wild men" from the plains, then they are just two foot tall humans.
So, since this is what those sources tell me, and you pointed to those sources, does that mean you agree? Or are you going to actually answer the question?
On what?
The lack of kings? Seems to be an accepted fact.
That halflings live in Human lands? Accepted fact
That humans go to war? Accepted Fact
That when a government goes to war, their entire country goes to war? Kind of...just how it works right? It isn't like England went around with a survey asking the various towns and villages if they wanted to participate in the War of the Roses. England went to war, so they were all at war.
I'm not sure what exactly confused you enough to require a citation.
The number of official settings I know and care about enough to comment are:
Ravenloft.
So, Delagia and Rivalis, in Darkon. I seem to recall a fan-brew halfling domain as well.
In my own game? Every major above-ground settlement.
Wait, every city in your entire world is owned and operated by Halflings? Dang, no wonder you think so highly of them. Most of my cities are split between elves, humans, goliaths/firbolgs, there is a big Genasi city, Goblins/hobgoblins. It would certainly be a different take with every single city being owned and run by halflings.
But hey, let's see about these places in Ravenloft at least right? Bigger than a village, and first up is Delagia which according to this site:
Darkon In-Depth
"Delagia is a small, unsophisticated halfling village with a striking architectural style. Although a handful of large buildings line the shore, the majority of this fishing village sits atop Lake Korst, straddling the mouth of the Foaming River. The halflings' homes are rounded huts perched atop wooden supports resting on the lakebed, resembling a cluster of beaver lodges."
Is a small village.... welp. That gets discarded immediately then. But surely Rivalis is different right?
Well, it does seem to be a city at least. One mostly inhabitated by goat herders and with log cabins and cottages... But hey, in all of DnD's myriad of worlds, we have a single halfling city. Progress right?
Beats me. I said "communities" and "settlements." But here's you misrepresenting what I said to mean cities and countries, as well as failing to understand how big (or how small) an army actually needs to be in a setting where you can throw around fireballs.
Oh, so it isn't schrodinger's halflings, it is schrodinger's army size. You can make it small enough that a small village can have an army. Well, sorry, that's not how it works. You can't really have an "army" of a hundred people, even if the setting has fireballs.
And since you need a few hundred to typically be considered an army, you need more than a "community" you need a city. Minimum.
I dunno. Why don't you do some research and come up with a list?
Why would I do your research for you? I'm doing plenty of fact checking of you already. Do your own research
Why would they? The halflings own the land, not the king.
Unless it's different in your setting, of course. Or you can find some bit of text in a D&D book somewhere that says that halflings always live on human lands.
Until you can find that bit of text, however, you are talking about something that may be true in, what, your personal setting? The Realms or Greyhawk maybe? Not something that's a universal fact in D&D.
Except halflings living in human lands is ridiculously common in DnD. Forgotten Realms, Ravenloft, Greyhawk. I mean, Rivalis that city you named is still in a land controlled by a human, and if Darkon went to war, Rivalis is part of that war.
They don't ALWAYS live in human lands, sure. But when it is the most commonly stated fact about where halflings live is that they live in human lands, then it can kind of be assumed to be true most of the time. And if they live in human lands, they are subjects of the human rulers. I mean, unless you don't have kings controlling land via feudalism, which seems like a weird thing when DnD is chock full of Feudalism.
Why? Do you insist that the books spell out every single aspect of daily and political life in every single setting?
Seems weird you jumped from "How do halflings live with humans" to "should the books spell out every single aspect of daily and political life for every single setting"
Because, you know, they DO spell out a lot of relations between most of the races. I can tell you quite a bit about how dwarves and elves interact with humans, but it seems that halflings are kind of... ignored. Which seems weird when you then want me to answer your questions, and then make it sound like answering those questions is pointless anyways and the books shouldn't bother.
Were those questions important enough to answer or not?
It usually is. You seem to have missed those bits.
And, to quote Observer, "My race is pacifist and does not believe in war. We only kill out of personal spite."
No idea who Obsever is, but that isn't what a pacifist is. And, I've read the texts. Seems like if it should be in those texts it shouldn't be that deeply hidden and hard to figure out. You seem to have figured it out, after all, because you speak with absolute confidence, so what are the answers, since you know?
I suppose you only use official settings rather than make your own, then.
Or, and this may be crazy so read carefully. When discussing the official content of the game, I focus on the official content of the game, not my creations.
Crazy, I know. Usually when discussing official content you discuss all the fan-created unofficial content, but I've just got this crazy idea that that doesn't really address the points about official content if you focus on the unofficial content.
Way to dodge the questions again. You do that a lot, you know.
Looks up at all the questions I've repeatedly asked you to answer
Projecting much?
Opinion, not fact. We had this discussion before. And the players of the three halflings in my setting think they're plenty good.
Also, citation needed.
And the twelve players I'm currently running games for think they aren't good. We can throw numbers at each other all week long. My point was "playable" is a different standard than "good".
They are playable, but that doesn't mean they are good.
And again, you misunderstand and misrepresent. You can change gender. That's great for your character. It literally doesn't matter for anyone else's character, though, except in the hands of a good roleplayer.
Why do I care if it matters for anyone else's character? I'm not roleplaying a non-human so that other people get something from it. I'm playing the character I want, and exploring the concepts that they give me access to. I don't care about whether it gives something to someone else's character. What even is this argument? A race that can change gender is basically just human because changing your gender doesn't affect other players? This argument is nonsense.
According to one book, published for this edition, which will probably be changed the next time they come up with a Draconomicon for another edition.
Really? I thought this edition was 5e, not 3.X?
Or, maybe you need to do a little more research?
But mostly humans, as evidenced by basically every single time they've ever been used.
Nope. Again, you should do some more research.
And how often have you seen mimics take the form of rocks or something like that?
I've seen them take the form of a lot of things. I've seen doors, ceilings, floors, houses, caves, ships, bags. Chests are most common, but I've also seen chairs, lounges, stools, beds, tables, tea pots, cups.
A lot of things. Surprisingly, none of them being human exclusive items.
Still wrong about dragons
Still wrong about mindflayers
Still wrong about mimics
Um... yep.
<sigh> You really don't get the difference between in-game reasoning and out-of-game reasoning, do you.
I do. But just because there is a Doylist explanation doesn't mean that the Watsonian explanation can suck.
Because sometimes, too much fantasticalness is boring.
And too much mundanity is boring. Maybe make a point?
My understanding of your maliciousness on this point out be better if it weren't for every single one of your posts on the topic was filled with deliberate misinterpretations.
Or maybe if you just... read my points. Since you seem to get them wrong very often.
But, this is probably just a futile waste of a few hours of my time. Again.
