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

[billd91]

If the only adventurer option are Rebellious Punk, Disaster Survivors, and Street Urchins... is that race complete as an adventurer option.

Can you even play a halfling adventurer straight?

Yes - broken homes aren't the only motivations to get out of the burrow and travel, even adventure. Halflings can be motivated by a lot and still retain their casual folksiness and attraction to going and being home. You just have to recognize that their homebodiness isn't some crippling limitation any more than haughty aloofness is to an elf, or dour greed is to a dwarf, or blinding ambition is to a human.

 

[Charlaquin]

If the only adventurer option are Rebellious Punk, Disaster Survivors, and Street Urchins... is that race complete as an adventurer option.

Again, these are popular hero archetypes, so yes. There’s also the reluctant hero angle, the curiosity angle, and plenty of others, not that they’re really needed.

Can you even play a halfling adventurer straight?

None of the adventuring halfling concepts you’ve suggested are anything but halflings played straight.

Its easy.

Halflings, based on 3/5ths of their lore, only adventure when life forces them or if they take the role of the quirky kid who does something different.

Again, I say “and?”

Dwarves have greed or honor that makes the adventure. Elves have their sense of superiority, pride, and boredom that drives them. Satyrs need funds to fund their parties. Humans have all kinds of excuses.

Halflings also have all kinds of excuses. You’ve given like three so far, and you’re actively trying to be dismissive of their potential as adventurers. Just imagine how many you could come up with if you actually wanted to.

Halflings want to stay home, smoke, eat, game, and talk to family members endlessly about the time they went to the BIG CITY. A halfling might be fearless in the presence of a dragon but halflings don't seek out dragons.

Again, this is only a problem if you assume this broad tendency is both universal and insurmountable.

 

[Mind of tempest]

With all the discussion about accessibility and representation these days I want to bring up how I came to understand why representation matters.

During my 1e/2e playing days I was at most a 4'6 under 100 pound kid who was always the smallest kid in school, to include places where I was three+ years older than other students (middle school specifically, and even tinier than above).

I always played halflings and gnomes.

It took me until recently to understand that part of the appeal was specifically because they were heroes that were small. As someone who could never, ever be an athlete, I could play someone athletic and heroic. I could mimic Bilbo and become greater than my peoples say I could be.

Without this representation would I have gone on to join the US Army and eventually serving in 5th Special Forces Group? Probably not. Because the representation of the tiny heroes is part of what helped me believe in myself.

Don't remove halflings and gnomes because you don't understand them. You're closing off stories that other people at your tables will understand, and need.

representation is an odd concept for me as I have been told since I was 14 I was supposed to identify with I had nothing in common with nor any character to be honest so the concept does not really make sense to me. tell a lie I could get one but he was nuts and honestly should not have been chosen for the task.

Kinda seems like you just dislike both races, and maybe are gonna have a hard time with this project because of that.

In my buddy's setting, where I have been given a lot of latitude to decide how the gnomes of the northern-most part of the continent look and feel, the red hat is an old gnomish tradition when gnomes go to war, and is the origin of the Redcap myth.

Also garden gnomes are a racist caricature that is slowly being phased out in the nation of Eladin and High Elves with a decent gnomish minority, and at times when things have gotten violent, elven homes with lawn gnomes have received a dire warning in the form of the decorations' hats being painted red, and there even might be an order of assassins that leave small statuettes of lawn gnomes with red hats in the presence of their target, upon completion of the assassination.

Which can be used to extrapolate that halflings are much more audacious in the face of danger. I like to think of halflings as being peaceful but terrible when roused, and part of that is that they are just sort of always equally ready to smoke a pipe and take a nap, or sprint grinning into the dragon's maw with nothing but a long knife and their luck.

I will confess I do not get the appeal as most of what they are like for is things I do not understand but I agreed I would try and all I really have is my word so I should honour it.
the latter is of being terrible when roused is more familiar territory but that is too odd somehow.

 

[Minigiant]

Yes - broken homes aren't the only motivations to get out of the burrow and travel, even adventure. Halflings can be motivated by a lot and still retain their casual folksiness and attraction to going and being home. You just have to recognize that their homebodiness isn't some crippling limitation any more than haughty aloofness is to an elf, or dour greed is to a dwarf, or blinding ambition is to a human.

I'm not talking travel.

I could see halflings being big travelers.

I'm talking being an adventurer. Going into a dusty tomb full of deathtraps, monsters, and violent humaniods. I just can't seea normal minded halfling doing that constantly without being dragged or forced to. Same with a race like kobolds who are known for their extreme cowardice.

To me, adventurer is already a weird life choice. So a culture against parts of it seems to be weird if placed at the forefront.

Halflings also have all kinds of excuses. You’ve given like three so far, and you’re actively trying to be dismissive of their potential as adventurers. Just imagine how many you could come up with if you actually wanted to.

But that is what they are. Excuses.

Humans, elves, gnomes, dwarves, and even orcs don't have to fight their own culture to make sense of them going into the Caves of Doom voluntarily.

 

[Charlaquin]

But that is what they are. Excuses.

An excuse is all that’s needed. The regular Joe who gets swept up into adventure is, once again, a popular hero archetype, and with good reason.

Humans, elves, gnomes, dwarves, and even orcs don't have to fight their own culture to make sense of them going into the Caves of Doom voluntarily.

And?

 

[aco175]

Every PC in 5e I played has been a halfling with the exception of one dwarf. I find them to be better options than a lot of other races that are in other books. They are mostly human like elves and dwarves and are not monsters like playing orcs and goblins.

 

[Oofta]

...

Humans, elves, gnomes, dwarves, and even orcs don't have to fight their own culture to make sense of them going into the Caves of Doom voluntarily.

In my campaign, at least a certain portion of halflings would say "Ooooh, Caves of Dooooommm!!! I wonder what's in there, I bet it's just a scary name to keep tourists out let's go find out!"

Curiosity killed the cat, but halflings are lucky and small enough to hide behind the barbarian.

If you want it to make sense, you can always do the rebellious teen thing. No matter how green the grass is, someone will always get tired of green and want to check out the wide world. They may not care about riches and fame, but they can be curious about what's over the next hill.

 

[Levistus's_Leviathan]

We have Halflings because of Tolkien had hobbits. The stereotypical halfling rogue came from Bilbo being a thief.

We have Gnomes because folklore gnomes, which are basically Santa's Elves, but with a bit of a fey theme. People play them because they want to be fey related, a crafter, or roleplay a person with extreme ADHD and a squeaky voice.

I'm not a huge fan of Halflings. I just don't see anything really compelling in them, they're basically just humans but short (Talk about "humans with silly hats"). However, I do like Eberron and Dark Sun's takes on halflings, and even the Kender from Dragonlance are more interesting than hobbits.

Gnomes are my favorite of the "standard" races. They're fun to roleplay and give so many ideas for me when making characters/NPCs. Deep Gnomes are gruff and easily annoyed, Forest Gnomes are magical and sneaky, and Rock Gnomes are isolationists and mad-scientists.

 

[Benjamin Olson]

We have Gnomes because folklore gnomes, which are basically Santa's Elves, but with a bit of a fey theme. People play them because they want to be fey related, a crafter, or roleplay a person with extreme ADHD and a squeaky voice.

Indeed, I would extend this to say that we have gnomes to represent what elves mostly were in non-Tolkien traditions. So really both halflings and gnomes are his fault.

 

[jgsugden]

You know, this thread is just ticking me off.

We have gnomes and halflings in the game for same dang reason we have elves, aarakocra, humans and goliaths: Because you can make a character that is one of them, tell good stories about them, and have fun doing so. That should be the beginning, middle, end, and after credits scene of the discussion.