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

[Maxperson]

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.

Not at the expense of the other luxuries. In D&D they don't care about food as much as Halflings.

 

[Oofta]

This image View attachment 132193


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?

Is that glass? Could also be parchment or sheep's bladder which was fairly common as far as I can tell. But, as I said most people don't have a realistic idea of how expensive plate glass was. I know I don't think about it in my own campaign very often.

Yes. They might have magical greenhouses because such things exist in fantasy lore. They might not. What are the odds? I don't know. What are the odds of one of the most powerful wizard in middle earth making the acquaintance of Bilbo? Just like they might make glass figurines (or windows I suppose) if they have access to the materials.

But this is just another red herring. Halflings trade, just not as much as some of the other races.

 

[cmad1977]

Mostly for the meat. If you keep them relatively immobile the beef is just so mwah.

——Why haffies and Gnomies by the great Orc chef
Toothrottah

 

[Maxperson]

Is that glass? Could also be parchment or sheep's bladder which was fairly common as far as I can tell. But, as I said most people don't have a realistic idea of how expensive plate glass was. I know I don't think about it in my own campaign very often.

Yes. They might have magical greenhouses because such things exist in fantasy lore. They might not. What are the odds? I don't know. What are the odds of one of the most powerful wizard in middle earth making the acquaintance of Bilbo? Just like they might make glass figurines (or windows I suppose) if they have access to the materials.

But this is just another red herring. Halflings trade, just not as much as some of the other races.

With all the Red Herrings and Strawmen in this thread, the Halflings and their livestock are well fed.

 

[JiffyPopTart]

Okay...

How does this prevent a dill farmer from growing dill?

How does 20 houses of halflings in the shire growing dill in the windowsill work, but a hundred households growing dill in the windowsill in the human town not work?


Because the point was, if there are these easily grown, local spice plants that every halfling village could use... then humans could use them too. And then the humans wouldn't need to trade as much either. So how does your story of dill in the windowsill prevent humans from growing dill in the windowsill, or by having one guy buy a house and grow multiple pots of dill for the whole town?

I am not talking about trade or humans at all. I'm just pointing out that its easy to be both self-reliant as a small population and at the same time have a variety of things that are needed in small quantities.

 

[JiffyPopTart]

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

Literally ONE person in this thread has been saying halflings don't trade, or trade with stealthy mules and not paths. ONE PERSON.

Everyone else has said "halflings find places to settle that don't get attacked much" and "Halflings trade if they want something, but don't have trade based empires, and instead frequently rely on subsidence farming and good vibes".

 

[tetrasodium]

Literally ONE person in this thread has been saying halflings don't trade, or trade with stealthy mules and not paths. ONE PERSON.

Everyone else has said "halflings find places to settle that don't get attacked much" and "Halflings trade if they want something, but don't have trade based empires, and instead frequently rely on subsidence farming and good vibes".

You seem frustrated about that while arguing to preserve the resulting starfish alien halflings. Oddly enough none of the people joining that one person on the idea that "a variety of things" amounting to literally anything one could possibly want in a thorp-hamlet of 100 or less people & nothing of value don't seem at all willing to so much as admit the logic involved in that particular dismissal through the use of stealthy mules might maybe be even a tiny bit unreasonable.

Edit: That almost suggests that you as the author of "Because BOOM I just willed it to be so as the GM" agrees with those ninja mules being used so extensively

 

[Don Durito]

Ok seriously. What is the issue? Why not just say the default halfling village is something that only exists in the parts of a setting that are very well settled and orderly.

Like in Forgotten Realms you might get that kind of village somewhere in the middle of the kingdom of Cormyr or something like that - and not on the savage frontier.

If the problem is that the default halfling village can only exist in the midst of some kind of secure well-ordered political state, then, well, put them there. If you're setting doesn't have such a state, well then, you opted for worldbuilding, do some. Why are you running homebrew if you find basic worldbuild so onerous?

 

[Maxperson]

Literally ONE person in this thread has been saying halflings don't trade, or trade with stealthy mules and not paths. ONE PERSON.

Who? I haven't seen anyone say that.

 

[JiffyPopTart]

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

How about we just shift gears totally....lets look at dwarves as described...

They live in mountains...they live a long time...they do a lot of mining and crafting metals. Both those occupations take a lot of wood and fuel. Lets say a particular dwarven clan has hollowed out a giant underground dwarven city over the course of 1500 years (a bit less than 5 generations). Where are they getting their fuel from?

1. They can't be popping out of their forts and cutting down the local trees to get fuel. This would strip the place of useful lumber very quickly and leave nothing for day and days travel from their doorstep. The deforestation would be massive (on the scale of what happened to Haiti since the 1700s) leaving nothing growing for the dwarves to harvest.

2. Or maybe they could mine coal for their fuel. That can be found located underground, right? This leads you to a coal production death spiral of spending more and more coal to mine farther and farther from your city to find even more coal to allow you to continue mining for more coal.

3. Or, in many artworks, they could use some sort of underground lava stream to get free fuel. Except that one of the greater known dangers with surface volcanism is massive releases of deadly gasses, easily high enough in volume to kill an entire enclosed city.

I already know you have come up with 7 witty replies in your head about how the dwarves could still find wood, still get coal, and still use lava, and.....I AGREE WITH YOU. They can use all 3 in whatever quantity makes sense to play D&D.

I am now asking why you don't just make up those same answers for yourself on why halflings can't live in peaceful shires and you instead call them out as being "the big problem nobody else has".