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

[Maxperson]

If you watch the making of docs on the DVD they show that they chose a particularly bleak and windswept plain for Edoras, because it had an appropriately shaped hill. Rohan has no shortage of fields in the book. That region is supposed to be quite green an lush, with a couple of small rivers.

I don't think that was the point @Oofta was making. I think he was just saying that things like farming are often not thought about, not that Rohan had not farms.

 

[TwoSix]

Cool. And then they raid Human settlements, not Halfling settlements.

Or they raid the halflings, some halflings die, the rest escape and rebuild when the threat is gone. Just like every agrarian settlement in human history. They don't suddenly decide to train a giant militia and found a martial tradition because that bad thing happened.

 

[Oofta]

I don't think that was the point @Oofta was making. I think he was just saying that things like farming are often not thought about, not that Rohan had not farms.

@Paul Farquhar the farms were referenced in the books, they were not shown in the LOTR movies. That series was hardly atypical though, it's rare to see a fantasy castle or town surrounded by farmland, much less enough farmland to sustain the population whether in movies, art or video games.

 

[doctorbadwolf]

Well, Mordenkainen’s Tome of Foes says it does, but I agree with @doctorbadwolf that most of the lore in that book is garbage anyway.

My argument is that a group of halfling minutemen can repel a much better armed and armored invading force with a combination of unorthodox tactics, gumption, and preternatural good luck. @Minigiant’s argument seems to be that this somehow makes them “like NPCs.”

Rather than making them sound like exactly the people that PCs come from.

 

[Paul Farquhar]

@Paul Farquhar the farms were referenced in the books, they were not shown in the LOTR movies. That series was hardly atypical though, it's rare to see a fantasy castle or town surrounded by farmland, much less enough farmland to sustain the population whether in movies, art or video games.

Giving it some thought, and I agree, at least in live action. I suspect it is because modern fields look very different to medieval fields, so it's easier just to not show the fields.

 

[Whizbang Dustyboots]

The local human lord has most of the costs already sunk & could add a few more in the ranks to cover including that halfling village over the creek for less than is gained in taxes from that halfling village as well. The halfling village gets all of those benefits as well & the benefits easily outweigh the costs

This was, of course, the basis for how a lot of medieval Europe operated. Halflings being natural vassals -- they'll move in, be good neighbors and farm the land for you -- is a perfectly viable survival technique.

We know it works because human beings survived in Europe.

 

[Whizbang Dustyboots]

You can definitely use the lucky ability of halflings as a world building thing, those halflings seem to be squirrelly, my tendency is that they have what would essentially be a symbiotic relationship with humans. They may even make up units of slingers (old lore where they had bonuses to slings and thrown weapons) in human armies.

Losing bonuses with slings is kind of a head-scratcher. Slings aren't so good that this would be unbalancing, and it'd likely just get used with NPCs, but it was a core part of their identity for a long time.

 

[Whizbang Dustyboots]

@Paul Farquhar the farms were referenced in the books, they were not shown in the LOTR movies. That series was hardly atypical though, it's rare to see a fantasy castle or town surrounded by farmland, much less enough farmland to sustain the population whether in movies, art or video games.

I've had to handwave some farmers into the area around the Keep on the Borderlands, which I've been running in my home game during the pandemic, because there's no way hunting and foraging could sustain the garrison there and, if the area is full of bandits, shipping it all in seems improbable (and expensive).

 

[Maxperson]

Giving it some thought, and I agree, at least in live action. I suspect it is because modern fields look very different to medieval fields, so it's easier just to not show the fields.

I don't think they were very different. They were probably smaller and not quite as evenly spaced, but they would have been plowed and grown in rows. Showing a modern field wouldn't be out of place enough not to be shown, unless a tractor or something was going by. Plus with CGI they could put in medieval looking fields.

It's likely laziness, ignorance or mony savings that cause fields to be omitted.

 

[tetrasodium]

This was, of course, the basis for how a lot of medieval Europe operated. Halflings being natural vassals -- they'll move in, be good neighbors and farm the land for you -- is a perfectly viable survival technique.

We know it works because human beings survived in Europe.

Indeed. The trouble comes in with FR being so loaded with plot armor to protect every illogical social structure within cultural stasis that "perfectly viable survival techniques" are subverted & supported by little more than "because the gods"