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Message: <blockquote data-quote="Chaosmancer" data-source="post: 8709725" data-attributes="member: 6801228">Well, this is part of the problem where multiple conversations happen at once. I tend to not fully agree with Mind of Tempest's claims. I see where they are coming from, if you want to have a race that is the "Good Race" in a game where paladins are the ultimate expression of Good, going out and smiting evil, then it is a problem that halflings don't do that. However, I don't think that having a "Good race" is acceptable at all. I also find the ways that halflings fit into the world to be problematic, but I haven't even gotten through the conversation of what a halfling even is. The closest we've come here recently is that halflings are small people who are good. I don't feel the need to argue about armies and wars and fighting, because we have yet to get to a point where halflings are even defined enough to exist in the game beyond bland statements of moral superiority.However, Faolyn's comment drew me up short, because it was in-line with exactly what Gammanoodler had been saying, but put in terms that I thought truly highlighted the problem.No, this is a misrepresentation of my point. My point is that if halflings are "the small acts of kindness" race, as in that defines them as a race, then it cheapens and undercuts that behavior from everyone else. The exact same way I pointed out that halflings being "the brave race" cheapens and undercuts any other member of the party being brave. For example, if you have a game where you go to a halfling town, and the halflings are more than happy to provide you free lodging, cook you dinner, and help you and then later in the game the party is defeated in wakes up in the home of a goliath woman who has taken them in, fed them and cared for them... well, she's not especially good, she's just like the entire village of halflings who would do the same thing. Unless we want to say that while halflings would do that as just part of being halflings, it is "unusual" for a goliath to be this kind to strangers. Which... leaves a bad taste in my mouth. This doesn't happen by letting anyone be this good, it happens when you say "these people in particular are this way" to make them unique from everyone else.So, it is an unneccessary inference to take the thing said as meaning what it says? See, we don't say "Dwarves are the smiths of the world", which would imply that no one else does smith-work. Instead we say "Dwarves are the best smiths" and then we go further by pointing out that this is do to dedicating an extremely long life to honing their craft. Which even further allows us to consider that if other people learned dwarven smithing techniques, they'd be just as good. Additionally, it is more than just smithings. Dwarves are master craftsmen. They are the best, in theory, at Jewelery work, stone work, it is a broad skill set that we build their culture around. They are good at metal and stone work, so they are good at mining to get the materials they use for metal and stonework, and since they are good at stonework, they live in mountains, because they can shape the mountains.However, the equivalent for halflings seems to be having them care about other people. You don't start with a skill, you start with a personality trait. Then they start building on ideas of "well since halflings care about other people, they'd do X, and since they would do X they would be the best at that." But... this falls apart. There aren't any special halfling techniques to running an inn. It's just... caring about people. And if you say that caring about people is what makes them special, if you say that is something you can build an entire unique society around... well... how do you explain humans being social creatures that care about each other? Because we do. We are hard-wired to care about other humans and their opinions. So either you have to boost halfling's "caring" beyond the scope of the reasonable into pure celestial spirit levels of wholesomeness... or you have to downplay the fundamental truth that societies only work because people care about each other. And that is made only worse when you go as far as to say that "halflings are the light of the world" because now you are saying that they are so good, that they are the best things in the world.Well... neither interpretation is useful to me. Every good community contributes small but meaningful good things to the world. This is the thing that just does not compute. Not every single human is out there with a sword smiting evil, or slinging spells to fight abominations. The vast majority of humans are normal everyday people living their lives and doing the best they can. Why is a halfling community just flat out better and more caring than a human community? Because halflings care and humans don't? That doesn't work. And this is the fundamental problem I keep running into in this discussion, no matter how many times it happens. Halflings are "the everyman" the "simple folk just living their lives" and that is supposed to make them special.... but everyone is the everyman simple folk just living their lives. There is no race that doesn't have those sorts of people, because those sorts of people are the people the PCs are supposed to go and protect. It isn't that I hate the idea of having an normal people who just live their lives, it is that I do that for every single race. If that is the only thing halflings can be, then they have no value. And inevitably, this complaint has someone "challenge" me by asking "well, what is the point of dwarves, if other races can have smiths"? And that misses the point. Because dwarves aren't "just smiths". They aren't the best designed race of all time, but they have far more going on than that. They have a connection to stonework, building, mining, a clan structure, a unique living environment, biological differences. I've read a story where Dwarves weren't smiths, but they were still dwarves. You can take it away and dwarves are still dwarves. But if you take away halflings being "everyday people"... there isn't anything left that has solid value for the table. There are things left, but as I've pointed out, luck and bravery aren't good for the table, and short is something that we can get from a dozen other places.It was a reference to how one of the defining traits of a mary sue is that everyone who doesn't like them is bad and evil and wrong, because everyone who is good and right loves them. It just amused me that it seemed to almost incidentally apply here. Because I've been told repeatedly that my complaints are "just because you don't like them" and while I haven't been accused of it this thread, I was accused of the "all edge, no point" grim-dark world thing before when I mentioned that halflings being 'the good people" wasn't a good design.Thanks</blockquote>

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