D&D General why do we have halflings and gnomes?

[Chaosmancer]

Humans are more numerous and do many different things. You aren't going to see 100 households in a human town growing dill. Food isn't as important to them(other than survival) as it is to Halflings.

So, now we are going to claim that humans, who in our world altered the very nature of the world in pursuit of spices and exotic food and drink, wouldn't care enough about food and drink to grow easily grown spice plants?

Yeah, no.

 

[Chaosmancer]

Yep!

Well, at least you are acknowledging the ridiculous now

Right, because money corrupting isn't a well known phenomenon. Kinda like power.

And swords make people violent.

Not wrath, not anything actually associated with the acts of war and cruelty, it is the tool that is the cause of the problem.

That's why everyone in the world is now inherently corrupt, because we all started using bits of clay as a monetary system. (sarcasm)

This isn't how it works.

Or...................they don't send mail. Or.....................if they do it's another Halfling. Or..........

There's no need to reveal the town to all the hordes of nastiness hanging out in the safe areas of country that wander through nowhere land looking for poor Halflings instead of going to rich Human towns.

I mentioned not sending mail. Glad you can repeat what I say, really makes it seem like you are reading and comprehending my posts.

And halflings don't seem to be nearly that poor. They have books, glass, finely made furniture, plenty of food, rare spices, seems like the human town is the poorer target.

Oh wait, they only want the shiny bits of metal they can't use, don't they?

 

[Gammadoodler]

Wait. Why can the halfling village enjoy greater variety, but the human village would be limited?

The desire to trade is to get things you can't otherwise get. If everyone can just grow enough to support the entire village in the first place, trade wouldn't be a thing.

Unless you are somehow taking the problem of cash crops from the 1700's, which was driven by incredibly large trade markets which generated excessive wealth, and saying that humans just naturally default to that system by nature. Which... is kind of like Max claiming that money corrupts people. No, that isn't how these things worked. Cash crops came because of massive trade networks, not the other way around.

Are we saying that humans are not motivated to accumulate wealth and would deliberately eschew more efficient ways to accumulate it?

 

[tetrasodium]

Are we saying that humans are not motivated to accumulate wealth and would deliberately eschew more efficient ways to accumulate it?

I think that it's more pointing out the problems caused by the idea that a random shire halfling village being able to accomplish the idyllic utopia lacking for nothing without engaging in trade as some have been suggsting

 

[Maxperson]

Except for all those "savage races" that don't just follow the roads.

Yep. They make a straight line for the human settlements and the chances of randomly wandering into a small village is almost non-existent.

And, since halflings are trading even occasionally, they would be connected by roads, somewhere.

By small trails that get overlooked. Yep.

 

[Chaosmancer]

Glass windows are far too common in most fantasy images and stories. They weren't common until the 16th century and even then they were very low quality by our standards.

But where, pray tell, did anyone on this thread mention glass windows other than you? What image in a D&D book show glass windows on halfling villages? AFAIK I'm the only one who mentioned glass which had nothing to do with windows. You ignore my response that it was just one of many possible items that they could produce was glass figurines. The only one? No. So if they have the proper materials at hand they might make things out of glass.

Same way with the magical greenhouse. They exist in D&D fantasy. So it's possible that they might have one in a village. But again. It's not that they never trade, just not as much as some other races because they aren't very interested in material wealth.

This image

I also mentioned the book and the pipeweed.

And, I guess I'm confused why "Well, they might possibly have this thing" is suddenly an acceptable measure. But my "They likely have walls and guards" was vehemently denied as destroying their simply agrarian lifestyle.

I mean, a magical greenhouse? Magical buildings aren't really a thing, this would be a treasure a kingdom might requisiton to show their wealth and power, but it is perfectly meaningless to just assume a halfling town of less than a hundred people might just have one lying around?

 

[Chaosmancer]

Are we saying that humans are not motivated to accumulate wealth and would deliberately eschew more efficient ways to accumulate it?

Did most serfs seek gold and fortune?

Sure, a lot of people are motivated by wealth, but as I said, you are missing up cause and effect. Trade routes were not formed because people had cash crops to sell. Cash Crops became a thing because of massive trade networks that could allow you to sell Cotton from the American South across the entire globe and make tons of money.

Before those trade networks were established, people didn't grow exclusively cash crops in the most efficient manner possible. They tended to grow... food.

 

[Minigiant]

Which, amusingly, is exactly what Gnomes do. They live underground.

The example Gnome town give in AD&D is:

1. Completely underground
2. Has all the entrances disguised as natural objects
3. Has a whole clan dedicated to defense

The halfling village in the same book, although in a valley, is only a mile off a major highway and has a road from it in the middle. One sheriff. One old sheriff

 

[Maxperson]

Well, at least you are acknowledging the ridiculous now

Nope! Don't apply your subjective opinion to me and shove words in my mouth. I don't agree with it.

 

[Don Durito]

Pastoral fantasies are never real. The stuff in the books is probably how aristocrats in big cities fantasise that halflings live. In their sophisiticated literary salons poets opine on the idyllic lifestyle of the rural halflings, while just outside young halflings are sleeping in the streets among the refuse, because they have come to the city to find work (but so far have not), in order to escape the crushing drudgery of rural poverty.