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

[Oofta]

That would be post 850 that started the line of halflings personally brewing/distilling whatever they drink @Vaalingrade happened to have a relative that made moonshine.


That's a pretty major difference because not doing that means they need to produce everything that would be gained through trade by producing it themselves. Once they start engaging in trade you have a different set of problems being dismissed by the schrodinger's trade

No my argument is that someone engaging in such monumental levels of production doesn't have the time to engage in the sort of weaving long distances through the forests shunning the use of carts wagons & trade. If that person does have that much time then what they have is an incredibly valuable tract of land or is themselves far too skilled to exist as a group of free people not forced into production.

Moonshine is legal to buy. It's also legal to produce. Despite recent history so is absynthe

You're taking an example of how real world people were primarily self sufficient with minor income and making a gigantic leap to "halflings make moonshine". No. No one said halflings make moonshine other than you. No one says they have to have pepper other than you.

From time immemorial many people have either been completely or largely self sufficient. Are spices in high demand? Sure. Are they necessary for survival? No. Is moonshine one way of making money? Yes. Is it the only way? No. Do halflings even care much about making money? Again, no.

When I propose what I think would be logical for halflings to produce for sale if they care (finely crafted goods with low weight, high value) it gets discarded as "homebrew". Which is true It's just one example of nearly endless possibilities. Could one of those possibilities include alcoholic beverages? Sure. People have been making alcoholic beverages forever without access to sugar. So maybe in one person's world they make a highly sought after alcohol, in others they make lace.

You grasp every tiny straw people throw out there to make entire fields of strawmen.

 

[Paul Farquhar]

I'm pretty sure halflings do make moonshine...

 

[Oofta]

I just wanted to know how a race of little folk with no magic and minimal military survive so I could I could understand why one would leave. The answer to the fist part informs the second.

It's been answered repeatedly. How does any commoner live to go onto adventuring? Why are halfling commoners so incredibly vulnerable that they would not survive?

 

[Vaalingrade]

I just wanted to know how a race of little folk with no magic and minimal military survive so I could I could understand why one would leave. The answer to the fist part informs the second.

I feel like that's the same for all races: raging psychopathy.

The game's assertions aside, most adventurers are not good people and just don't fit with their home society on account of being inured to death and theft.

 

[Vaalingrade]

I'm pretty sure halflings do make moonshine...

Now I need a scene with a pair of halfling brothers in a wagon with the Eye of Sauron painted on top leaping a gorge pursued by an overweight Goliath riding a black and white dire bear.

 

[Oofta]

I'm pretty sure halflings do make moonshine...

Haven't you been paying attention? You can't make moonshine without sugar. Maybe they could make sake using the rice they're growing in the desert?

 

[tetrasodium]

'Feed a family' is not a monumental task. Cavemen did it. Squirrels do it.

When you go out of your way to do things like traipse long distances through the forest with a mule rather than using "modern" inventions like the wheel roads or even well worn paths to bring goods to distant market in small batcheswhere you trade but don't trade with people who themselves take some of those raw goods you produce to turn them into finished products that time significantly eat into the time that is available for that task. When you also have all the comforts of things most people would gain through trade but don't do that & make it yourself it further eats into the time available for that task. You can only work so many full time careers & farmer refiner mill operator distiller brewer etc is too many plates to be spinning there & they all have different sets of problems.

Actually, why couldn't halfings do the same? Orcs show up, the halflings get them hammered on corn squeazin's. Orcs learn that destroying the source of their inebriation condemns them to sobriety, so they just stop by for a banging party every few months on the way to raid the naughty words who keep trying to genocide them.

Obtaining a license to produce alcohol is not impossible & small scale producers have certain loopholes. The idea of halflings surviving by paying off whoever has the biggest collection of swords in the area like that is not unreasonable either, but it brings with it a different set of problems. The halflings in the PHB dismiss all problems with the shire where suddenly the rest of the world just looks away from this pristine ultraproductive land filled with short humanoids with no real defenses and the ability to individually each be more productive than multiple commoners due to sudden nervestapling. Defenders of the shire halflings want to dismiss all problems simultaneously just as the shire does and cry foul whenever the unbelievable combined result is questioned.

 

[Vaalingrade]

Mostly because you keep making crap up both about our stance and the status of halflings.

 

[Minigiant]

It's been answered repeatedly. How does any commoner live to go onto adventuring? Why are halfling commoners so incredibly vulnerable that they would not survive?

They are half the size of humans, had strength penalties in most editions, and don't have magic/psionic/tech powers to make up for it. All the other small magicless folk in D&D live terrible lives.

 

[Oofta]

They are half the size of humans, had strength penalties in most editions, and don't have magic/psionic/tech powers to make up for it. All the other small magicless folk in D&D live terrible lives.

You don't like halflings. Fine. Don't play one, don't allow them in games you run.

Halflings have capabilities humans do not yet human commoners survive just fine. Whether or not they lead terrible lives in your campaign doesn't affect anyone else's campaign. You make very broad assumptions based on your personal prejudices.