The importance of the Short Stuff

[Glade Riven]

I'll be honest - I have trouble designing with the shorter races in mind. Oh, kobolds and goblins are easy enough, but halflings, gnomes, etc are always kinda just there. Build their own little world around them and they are just another near-human, with everything built to their scale. In a "big" society around humans, the scaled up world isn't too much of an issue except they have trouble reaching the top shelf.

For me, it's a bit of a weakness because I'm just not interested in playing as a small size character. Yet I know other people do. So other than the typical arctypes, what makes having small characters (or playing as small characters) importaint to you?

 

[ahayford]

I think your problem is you are trying to create a society around a race who's only defining characteristic is that they're "small". Not really a lot to go on there. Try and think about what makes those races unique in your world. Come up with an interesting race description other then...."They're small"

 

[anest1s]

In my world gnomes fell from the sky, and the gods copied them to make almost all the other races so they are not small - everyone else is just too large.

 

[Glade Riven]

Coming up with something interesting isn't the roadblock. Making their interesting something mesh in a world where they are smaller than the other interesting somethings seems to be an issue with me.

Easy enough to shunt the bulk of halflings off to another continent, where they have a sorta-persian empire and ride giant lizards. Harder to integrate them in a society of taller people. It is a mental roadblock - I haven't been short for a long, long time.

 

[ahayford]

In a situation where you have these races living in a cosmopolitan city of many races, that they'd tend to gather in "quarters' and ghettos that tend to cater to the that particular social group (Much like a China Town, Little Vietnam, Little Italy etc etc). You will always get those more adventurous or accepting of those groups that might wander into the other parts of the city, or travel out of their quarter to work/play etc.

And then you get to the question of the division in culture between the different races and citizens of the city itself. Halflings outside the city might live the old traditional lives of Tolkein halflings, but city Halflings of a bustling port town probably have adapted much of the culture and mannerisms of the city in which they live....separating them from their farming pipe smoking brethren in the hills.

 

[Whizbang Dustyboots]

See my not-linked (because it doesn't work for me, currently) URL in my sig for gnomes' "place" in the world.

The hook for gnomes, kobolds and other shorter-than-dwarves races is to remember that EVERYTHING is a threat. Some, like kobolds, create deadly burrow communities to ward against the outside world and lash out at it when they can. Others, like gnomes, outwit a world full of predators.

Just remember that you're probably not talking about a race atop the food chain, but several rungs below it. That changes everything. They're not short humans -- they're more like intelligent rabbits or raccoons.

 

[Whizbang Dustyboots]

Coming up with something interesting isn't the roadblock. Making their interesting something mesh in a world where they are smaller than the other interesting somethings seems to be an issue with me.

Easy enough to shunt the bulk of halflings off to another continent, where they have a sorta-persian empire and ride giant lizards. Harder to integrate them in a society of taller people. It is a mental roadblock - I haven't been short for a long, long time.

Their shortness is an advantage that they'd use, whether it's kobolds with "trade tunnels" that they can force almost everyone but gnomes to use (since they won't fit into the other passageways) and which are full of murder holes, etc., or a halfling inn where the tall folk literally only fit into a few "common" rooms and where the valuables -- as well as private halfling/gnome-only areas -- are in rooms the big folk can't fit into.

On their home turf, shorties' communities should make a virtue of their height, and outsiders should be very aware that they're only able to go where their hosts allow them to go. A halfling thieves guild would contain escape passages where anyone taller than them should have almost no ability to squeeze into, along with all of the other tricks and traps present in other thieves guilds.

Invading a kobold-made dungeon ought to be the stuff of nightmares, even if they're not fully "Tuckerized."

 

[amerigoV]

Build their own little world around them and they are just another near-human, with everything built to their scale.

I find that is a general problem with the so-called classic fantasy. 1/2 Orcs are just barbarians, dwarves are Scottish miners, elves are pointy-eared tree-huggers. All are basically Star Trek aliens -- humans with a bit of make up.

Its hard to make the races unique without making them so strange that players are either not interested or that it breaks the world (law of unintended consequences).

In a "big" society around humans, the scaled up world isn't too much of an issue except they have trouble reaching the top shelf.

I have a 15 month and 2+ year old running my house now - halfling sized folk, to say the least. The top shelf is not even the question - they have to climb to sit in a chair or couch. The 2+ year old can just snag things off the counter edge and can climb up on the table if a chair is nearby. Steps are doable, but slow. Dogs are a menace (dogs rushing to eat or go outside tend to leave a wake of scattered children on the floor). Its quite a different view from their perspective - its amazing what one finds when you get on their level.

That does not help with your what to do with them issue, but I think that the little folk would not integrate that well into a human society after watching my kids totter about the house.

 

[Whizbang Dustyboots]

I find that is a general problem with the so-called classic fantasy. 1/2 Orcs are just barbarians, dwarves are Scottish miners, elves are pointy-eared tree-huggers. All are basically Star Trek aliens -- humans with a bit of make up.

Its hard to make the races unique without making them so strange that players are either not interested or that it breaks the world (law of unintended consequences).

I don't think it's hard to make them unique, it's just easier not to put in the work.

 

[ahayford]

I think they are largely that way on purpose in the "intro" campaign worlds. These are settings designed such that the average newbie can look at it and understand what each of the races are and what their culture is like. Tropes are tropes for a reason. Advanced settings like Dark Sun, Planescape, etc turn a lot of accepted standards on their heads to make things more interesting.