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Message: <blockquote data-quote="Chaosmancer" data-source="post: 8806996" data-attributes="member: 6801228">Honestly the "should halflings exist" argument is missing the point I think. For me, I ended up finally subsuming them and blending them with gnomes, because it made for a better and more interesting fantasy race for me. My only issue with the "future" of halflings is hoping that they get more interesting things done with them. Which is actually something I argue for all the races. I want to standardize elves as being reicarnating, gender-fluid beings that do not sleep but instead revisit the memories of their past lives. That is awesome. I love the inclusion of dwarves having tremorsense, that works so well. I think the issue is more that there are people trying to drag DnD back to a conception of a low fantasy game. And, frankly, it isn't going to work and I think isn't doing anything but dragging out the natural progression of the game. I won't try and pretend that NO ONE wants a low fantasy games. There are a handful of games where people play as a collection of humans in armor who fight a single monster, probably summoned by a single magic-user who does nothing but summon the monster and then pulls a dagger to wildly slash at the men. But that just... isn't DnD to me. But that style of game is exactly what the "core fantasy" of a halfling relies on. You can't have this underdogs everyone underestimates in a game with high magic and mythical action. In a game where Cu Cuchulain takes on an entire army, is healed by his war god father, and is only killed by the combination of a spiritual assault, magical trickery and enchanted spears, you can't look at Cu Cuchulain's 3 ft tall partner who is just as deadly as him and say "nah, he isn't a threat". Clearly he is a threat, unless he ISN'T as terrifyingly deadly. And nobody who lives in a world of magic and is strong enough to be deadly to high level characters is stupid enough to think that appearance matters AT ALL. Like, stop and think about this for a moment. What do you think the point of myths like Odin disguising himself as an old man traveling alone or Pele disguising herself as a vaguely homeless woman are meant to do? Why would these Deities do this? The entire point of their actions was to cause their followers to respect "marginalized" people and not judge people based on appearance. Sure, you could try and stab that old man on the road, but you know three years ago someone tried that, turned out the old man was Odin, and he cursed all of those bandits to a fate worse than death, so you really want to roll those dice? Sure, the old woman asking for beer and cigarettes might be a vagrant you can kick out, but it could also be the volcano goddess and pissing her off could cause the entire island to be destroyed, so maybe just hand over a few cigarettes? It is an INCREDIBLY common fantasy trope that only the foolish or the ignorant judge people by their appearance. It is done over and over and over again and the people who fall for those tricks are never worthy of everything. Well, a fantasy world would be a place where those stories will have ACTUALLY happened, and will have ACTUAL historical evidence for them. And no one who gets to the "I'm a threat to the world" level of power is actually going to be stupid enough to think that size matters at all. Because to be a real threat they cannot be a fool and they cannot be ignorant. And without that "they are the underestimated underdog" halflings lose the only actually interesting story beat people keep trying to give them. So, they will need to evolve and change with the times. It just has to happen.</blockquote>

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