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

[TwoSix]

I don't agree. If you look way back it started because people pointed out the halfling totally not hobbiton shire didn't make sense for not getting wiped out by monsters or consumed by a more advanced culture simply absorbing them into their territory.

I thought most people assumed that halfling populations were surrounded by more "advanced" (or, more martially inclined) cultures? That's certainly the way I've always run them. Halflings are very common, but there isn't any "halfling nation" (bar the Talenta Plains when I run Eberron.)

 

[Whizbang Dustyboots]

I grew up in rural Michigan in a small town of about 400 people, where we all used wood stoves for heat in the winter. From a mile away you couldn't see the town or any smoke from chimneys. You're overestimating how visible simple chimney smoke is. You'd have to be fairly close to the town already and, "Although halflings aren't reclusive by nature, they are adept at finding out-of-the-way places to settle in."

In my campaign, one of the ways gnomes hide is through geography. Roads subtly curve around hills that are just high enough to hide smoke, strands of trees -- planted decades or centuries ago -- screen views and muffle sounds. Settlements are built into hidden glacial valleys high atop "impassible" mountains. Most passersby don't realize they've just been in the vicinity of a gnomish settlement, because the easy, natural path makes them walk straight past it, without knowing anything was there.

There's no reason that halfling rangers and druids, over the course of many generations, wouldn't be using the same techniques, especially since they only rely on forethought and long lifespans, and not magic.

 

[tetrasodium]

Which is patiently untrue in basleine DnD, so they started inventing this fantastical murder world where even 40K's Chaos demons are like 'dude, chill'.

I know it's been like 15 pages but none of that violence needed.. Continuing from there here we wind up with the response to being asked why "the gods" only applies to halflings being little more than those other gods need to be super exlicitly slated to be thwarting broad interpretation of halfling gods. That was questioned with a problem seemingly ignored for it's inconvenience & we looped right back to one sided application of "the gods". FR & FR style halflings impose so many levels of plot armor to justify isolated racial monocultures that don't interact or notably mix in logical ways that it creates some kind of oppressive big brother ruled hellscape where the poor nerve stapled mortals don't even act logically when different cultures meet in order to avoid things like nations existing in FR.

 

[Vaalingrade]

So here's how I handle my halflings:

There are three types: the wanderers who roll around in wagons, the homesteaders, who are the typical rural folk halflings, and then the city halflings. No one else considers them different types, but each of the three groups thinks it's unfortunate that their cousins chose poorly.

Keep in mind that mine is a genuine Death World not just full of predators and bandits, but elemental leakage, magic pollution, and the chance any random organic being (including grandma and her little dog) might digi-volve to ultimate thanks to the afterlife being broken by dumbass dragons and become a living engine of confused magical destructions.

The wagoneers deal with it thusly:
1) back in the day the original halflings were humans transformed by the god of revelry, luck and adventure into tiny badasses to show off to his brother. He traveled with them for decades as a halfling himself and occasionally hurls himself and his wife into the world to find and fall in love with one another again as halflings. The world knows that is always a non-zero chance that messing with a halfling means messing with the god of luck and making you look stupid before you die. At this point even animals kind of understand this.

2) failing that, they were wolf-riders with kusari-gami and spears backed by honest to god snipers and at least a couple of clerics. Sadness is the best outcome for those messing with them. In the book series, they also hire mercenaries to reduce their own casualty risk.

The homesteaders do what everyone else does: build a wall, raise every kid to at least know the murder end of a pitchfork and then if trouble's a'comin', send someone out to bring samurai... I mean adventurers... before the stalks of rice bend. Because this is a Death World and not an ongoing apocalypse, this works well enough. Sometimes the monsters win and they have to scatter.

The city folk are city folk and are safe from the Death World. They sleep at night comfortable in the knowledge that they won't be eaten by the ogre that just punched down their door. Because they have his boss's money or at least he know's their good for it.

 

[Vaalingrade]

I know it's been like 15 pages but none of that violence needed.. Continuing from there here we wind up with the response to being asked why "the gods" only applies to halflings being little more than those other gods need to be super exlicitly slated to be thwarting broad interpretation of halfling gods. That was questioned with a problem seemingly ignored for it's inconvenience & we looped right back to one sided application of "the gods". FR & FR style halflings impose so many levels of plot armor to justify isolated racial monocultures that don't interact or notably mix in logical ways that it creates some kind of oppressive big brother ruled hellscape where the poor nerve stapled mortals don't even act logically when different cultures meet in order to avoid things like nations existing in FR.

I mean canonically, the halflings are the only ones whose gods aren't total knobs.

Corellion is busy being in a love triangle and raising orcs to death.
Gruumish is canonically too drunk to drive his plane of existence.
Moradin Is trying to build a better dwarf.
Bahamut is a dragon, which is self-explanatory.
Tiamet read too much DL and is now just Takisis, who is Dollar Store Azula.
Garl is busy being annoying to Kobold Jaysus.
Kobold the Unspellable is busy being annoyed by Garl the-only-one-with-a-full-name.
Lolth sucks at godding and the drow have been death for centuries. Anything to the contrary is just her fever dream as she mashes two painted Barbies together and sobs.

Only the halfling gods actually care about their people and provide.

 

[tetrasodium]

I grew up in rural Michigan in a small town of about 400 people, where we all used wood stoves for heat in the winter. From a mile away you couldn't see the town or any smoke from chimneys. You're overestimating how visible simple chimney smoke is. You'd have to be fairly close to the town already and, "Although halflings aren't reclusive by nature, they are adept at finding out-of-the-way places to settle in."

No I'm really not. If haflings pay the local lord or engage in trade of things like crops, there needs to be roads for that payment/trade. A scout like a ranger who can follow deer tracks can sure as heck follow said road. If you look back at what italy did in the new world, they found other tribes to conquer less by chance than the one they were robbing saying "oh gold! yes we don't have any more but this other tribe we know of does here's a map" It's trivial to follow a road from the place you just left or the place you robbed blind before to the other place it goes.

If the place is so out of the way & perfectly bountiful with no dangers to settlements it will be taken away once they engage in trade. Someone will figure out where they came from to go trade with them again if nothing else & from there they are a point on the map that conveniently develops a well worn path or even a road. Living in such an incredibly perfect place is what happened to all the people in the new world unlucky enough to be living in such a perfect out of the way place filled with rich animal mineral & land resources.

 

[Maxperson]

No I'm really not. If haflings pay the local lord or engage in trade of things like crops, there needs to be roads for that payment/trade.

No. Not really. The Halflings can journey overland to the road if they want, carrying the goods on pack animals. There is no requirement whatsoever for the roads to go to the Halfling villages.

A scout like a ranger who can follow deer tracks can sure as heck follow said road. If you look back at what italy did in the new world, they found other tribes to conquer less by chance than the one they were robbing saying "oh gold! yes we don't have any more but this other tribe we know of does here's a map" It's trivial to follow a road from the place you just left or the place you robbed blind before to the other place it goes.

Cool, but there is no "said road" to follow. Halflings as written simply don't work like that. They live in out of the way places with trails that are hard to locate, even by Rangers.

 

[Maxperson]

In my campaign, one of the ways gnomes hide is through geography. Roads subtly curve around hills that are just high enough to hide smoke, strands of trees -- planted decades or centuries ago -- screen views and muffle sounds. Settlements are built into hidden glacial valleys high atop "impassible" mountains. Most passersby don't realize they've just been in the vicinity of a gnomish settlement, because the easy, natural path makes them walk straight past it, without knowing anything was there.

There's no reason that halfling rangers and druids, over the course of many generations, wouldn't be using the same techniques, especially since they only rely on forethought and long lifespans, and not magic.

Yep. Halflings would know all those tricks as well as have their luck, gods and live in out of the way places. Good points.

 

[tetrasodium]

I mean canonically, the halflings are the only ones whose gods aren't total knobs.

Corellion is busy being in a love triangle and raising orcs to death.
Gruumish is canonically too drunk to drive his plane of existence.
Moradin Is trying to build a better dwarf.
Bahamut is a dragon, which is self-explanatory.
Tiamet read too much DL and is now just Takisis, who is Dollar Store Azula.
Garl is busy being annoying to Kobold Jaysus.
Kobold the Unspellable is busy being annoyed by Garl the-only-one-with-a-full-name.
Lolth sucks at godding and the drow have been death for centuries. Anything to the contrary is just her fever dream as she mashes two painted Barbies together and sobs.

Only the halfling gods actually care about their people and provide.

Waukeen god of wealth & many others thwart that bit of plot armor

No. Not really. The Halflings can journey overland to the road if they want, carrying the goods on pack animals. There is no requirement whatsoever for the roads to go to the Halfling villages.

That's how a path or trail forms. Over time it becomes a well worn trail. Especially once they start using things like a wagon pulled by pack animals or they start trampling it clear with a huge train of wagonless pack animals down the (dirt) road being formed.

Cool, but there is no "said road" to follow. Halflings as written simply don't work like that. They live in out of the way places with trails that are hard to locate, even by Rangers.

You just created it in the prior statement of the same post you are claiming it doesn't exist in, see above because I quoted your whole post rather than just a selective portion. Halflings as written simply have too many levels of plot armor extending into too many areas for suspension of disbelief.

 

[Maxperson]

Waukeen god of wealth & many others thwart that bit of plot armor

That's how a path or trail forms. Over time it becomes a well worn trail. Especially once they start using things like a wagon pulled by pack animals or they start trampling it clear with a huge train of wagonless pack animals down the (dirt) road being formed.

If they were stupid, sure. I didn't say wagons. I said animals. Those can go in a narrow pathway until you get close to the road. Then you vary up where you had, not repeating the same way often enough to form a well worn trail. There are ways to minimize the terrain damage, including not using it often and letting it bounce back.

You just created it in the prior statement of the same post you are claiming it doesn't exist in, see above because I quoted your whole post rather than just a selective portion. Halflings as written simply have too many levels of plot armor extending into too many areas for suspension of disbelief.

There isn't as much plot armor as you think. There's some, but really no more than Orcs, Gnomes, Gnolls, Drow and other races with gods have.