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Message: <blockquote data-quote="Faolyn" data-source="post: 8190765" data-attributes="member: 6915329">Which goes right back to the biological determinism that a lot of us have a major problem with. It's also dumb. Let's say I'm a halfling and I really want to be a strength-based Fighter. So I'm going to practice with weapons, toughen myself up, lift heavy things to tone my muscles, and go out of my way to be as strong as I can. Mind over matter; in this case, the mind focuses the matter. If Bob the player wants to play a strength-based halfling fighter, then make Bob write a background that explains why. It's as simple as that.  Yes.First off, in the real world, there are women's divisions because of physical differences between men and women. There is no reason why there wouldn't be Small Lineages football division. In that case, strength would be still useful, even if all the players were under four feet tall. And if there weren't Small Lineages divisions, then strength would be even more useful.Secondly, also as an example from real life, basketball used to be a "Jewish sport"--there's at least one book about that--and there were all sorts of (bigoted, biologically determined) reasons as to why. <a href="https://www.npr.org/sections/codeswitch/2014/04/08/300279224/how-stereotypes-explain-everything-and-nothing-at-all" target="_blank">Here's an article</a>, with one of the slightly less bigoted reasons being "Coaches back then [1920s-1940s] also tended to view Jewish players — who were perceived as shorter — as better suited for the game, because the game's rules at that time actually disadvantaged taller players."Thirdly, to quote Terry Pratchett: Until an unfortunate ax incident, Gloria had been captain of the school basketball team. Dwarfs don’t have height but they do have acceleration, and many a visiting team member got a nasty shock when Gloria appeared rising vertically out of the depths.Fourth... you're again assuming that there will be a bazillion big muscular halflings when in reality, there's only going maybe a PC and maybe an important named NPC. You still haven't said why there can't be one or two halflings in the entire world who are super-muscular due to spending their early lives lifting weights, or who, due to a genetic quirk, are the halfling equivalent of Wendy the Whippet. Your only reason seems to be "I don't like it."And as for firefighters... I think that halfling Luck and Bravery would really come in handy in a dangerous and frightening situation like battling an inferno.</blockquote>

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