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

[doctorbadwolf]

Reading 40 years of out of print books should not be required to understand the basic structure of halfling society.

And it isn’t. That’s covered in the PHB.

 

[Chaosmancer]

Disassociated just means they're encountering the world with a different, perhaps less informed, perspective. Hobbits were disassociated from broader Middle Earth. Was that bad?

Cutting a lot of this, because I'm getting exhausted covering the same ground over and over.

Regarding Hobbits... No because that was the point.

The point of Hobbits were that they were the idyllic simple folk that could save the world from the evils of power and industrialization. No one else could carry the ring, because no one else was so pure. If the world had been full of hobbits, Sauron's evil would never had grown and infected Rohan, Gondor, and the other powers of the world.

And that works for a story trying to make a point. That works for symbolism to have a bubble world where we can point and say "this is how all people should be". But it doesn't work for DnD.

DnD isn't a story that we tell to show that the best people are simple folk with no ambitions. The very fundamental genetics of DnD fight back against this assertion. DnD worlds don't have orcs as corrupted elves for purposes of duology and symbolism. They don't have the king fall into immediate paranoia to show the evils of greed and money. They don't contrast the evils of industrialism with the good and pure of nature.

You can do some of this, but DnD isn't built for that. And so, having halflings in their own bubble, unlike all the rest of the world, is strange. Why are they over there? Why aren't they like anyone else? Are we really saying that all of our adventures and seeking of power and influence are wrong and the root of the evils of the world, soon to be corrupted and twisted to foul ends because we aren't simple farm folk?

Tolkien =/= DnD. They don't work the same way, they aren't serving the same purpose. And that is the biggest issue.

 

[Vaalingrade]

Minigiant,

I'm not saying to be snarky or mean or anything, but while you say you don't hate halflings, is it possible you harbor an unexamined bias against them?

You seem to prefer darker, more militant stories and worlds. The idea of a society of peaceful agrarians who are untroubled by war and strife, living for food and song and comfort goes against your preferred aesthetic. It may even grate at you like a thousand nails on a thousand chalkboards.

And rather than accept this as an affront to your personal sense of how a fantasy world should be, are you perhaps trying to rationalize that they, as written, simply shouldn't be? Cobbling together what seems to you canonical and logical arguments that you don't want to see refuted?

I get it. I felt the same way about gnomes. Gnomes are goofy little jerks that exist in many settings just to make magitech and steampunk elements (some of my favorite things) look like a joke.

for a long time, I railed against them; how they're either halflings with a gimmick or dwarves with the serial numbers filed off and thus redundant. I even gave them an unnecessarily awful extinction event in my original concept campaign setting. But as I go along, I realize I don't have to justify not liking gnomes. I don't have to prostheletize the unworthiness of gnomes. I can just plan hate them without trying to fight everyone that likes them.

And that gives me peace.

That and the Gravity Falls portrayal of gnomes as sapient pests.

 

[Maxperson]

1) Without a population distribution, you can't say how few.

2) It says they were taught. Not given.

3) Now we have moved from "there aren't enough who don't get it to matter". Funny how that just seems to keep shifting.

What, that a god can teach something that can eventually can become innate to the people?

Do you know what innate means? And it does not say that they were taught their innate magic. Nowhere. You're inventing a Strawman for the books now. Is there no line that you wouldn't cross to be right on the internet?

And so we get back to your imposing your logic on the world. You have decided that it is impossible to teach something that became innate to the race. That isn't something that we are told, and in fact that is something that is often done in mythology.

It has to do with teach vs. innate and what those two things mean. D&D 5e specifically uses common word usages and you are murdering those in your efforts to be right. You aren't. You are wrong. You are literally claiming that Baravar taught them the equivalent of a heartbeat.

You have also assumed that Baravar taught them wizard magic, and granted them additional magic above and beyond the magic they are known for. The book doesn't tell us that, that is your assumption. It just says "magic", which is what they have, and so what possible reason could there be to assume he taught them magic, and then gave them entirely separate magic?

Because arcane magic is the sort they are best at and it's the only sort of arcane magic(so far) that you can be taught. I suppose she could have taught them prayers for divine magic, but she certainly did not teach them innate magic, since innate magic can't be taught.

We know that not every Deep Gnome has this magic, both from using the NPC statblocks in the back of the MM and from PC builds. So, this innate magic can remain unavailable to the Gnome. Perhaps it is much like sorcery. Sorcerers can be born with innate magic due to living in high magic environments, but must be taught how to use that magic. Perhaps the Deep Gnomes were taught this magic, then simply used it so much and so often, it has become innate to them, but they still must be taught the proper ways to use it. This solution seems to work for everything, them being taught, it being innate, not everyone having it... except then their God taught them. Like I said and like the book said. Which would make me right.

Sorcerers are not taught to use their magic. At all. Period. They gain an innate understanding of how to use it. Again, your lack of understanding of what innate means seems to be working against you here.

"One can't study sorcery as one learns a language, any more than one can learn to live a legendary life. No one chooses sorcery; the power chooses the sorcerer."

Interrestingly, one of the ways to explain where Sorcery comes from is the gift of a god. Not teaching, but gift. You can't teach innate ability.

You know, I can think of a great example too, after looking at the Forest Gnome entry on Illuisions. It states: "Forest gnomes have innate magical ability, letting them create simple illusions. They practice the use of illusion magic from an early age." Know what this made me think of? Cats. Cats have an innate hunting ability, they are natural born hunters. And yet, in the wild, their parents teach them how to hunt.

And yet you deliberately cut out the rest of that passage that says that because of that practice, almost every village has a full blown Illusionist and apprentices, showing that the practice is with wizardry, not innate magic.

And yet you are more likely to find bent spoons, broken pottery, floral drapes and other mundane items than a single gold piece or gem in a goblin lair.

They suck at raiding. They're goblins. They also take over abandoned mines and such, and would have that sort of stuff to scavenge from the abandoned areas.

 

[Chaosmancer]

That's campaign dependent isn't it? I mean, look at Phandalin. It's written up as a "Frontier town" yet it has no walls and has had only minor issues.

Most farm villages throughout history have had little in the ways of defenses.

It had more than minor issues. I have covered this. Repeatedly.

Just because one person had died so far doesn't mean that the Cragmaw tribe, the Red Brands, The Drow, the Undead, The Orcs, The dragon, and the Blights were not serious threats that would have ended the town if not addressed.

Heck, the fact that the Red Brands and the Cragmaw were working together under the Drow were probably the only reason that the Goblins didn't attack the town directly. The Drow wanted to keep the town seemingly okay, because they wanted to hide the fact that they were going to be using the Magical Forge to increase their own military power. Likely for a massive attack on the surface.

Goblins aren't going to tell the scary drow wizard no, so they don't go and wreck the town. Orcs are still scouting, ect. But that doesn't mean that if things had gone on another year things wouldn't have turned absolutely bloody. Or that the town wouldn't have been under the thumb of the Drow Empire, via proxies.

 

[Maxperson]

The point of Hobbits were that they were the idyllic simple folk that could save the world from the evils of power and industrialization. No one else could carry the ring, because no one else was so pure. If the world had been full of hobbits, Sauron's evil would never had grown and infected Rohan, Gondor, and the other powers of the world.

That's not correct. They were more resistant to the influence, but were nowhere close to be immune. Smeagol fell to it, Bilbo and Frodo were falling to it, Sam would have had he had the ring for more than 10 minutes. Had Sauron bent his well to The Shire, it would have eventually fallen into evil as well. They survived, because Sauron was unaware of them.

 

[doctorbadwolf]

The problem is that there is something between Real life and Grimdark.

Hobbits would not survive Azeroth. But World of Warcraft isn't Grimdark.

Yes, they would.

 

[Paul Farquhar]

Cutting a lot of this, because I'm getting exhausted covering the same ground over and over.

Regarding Hobbits... No because that was the point.

The point of Hobbits were that they were the idyllic simple folk that could save the world from the evils of power and industrialization. No one else could carry the ring, because no one else was so pure. If the world had been full of hobbits, Sauron's evil would never had grown and infected Rohan, Gondor, and the other powers of the world.

And that works for a story trying to make a point. That works for symbolism to have a bubble world where we can point and say "this is how all people should be". But it doesn't work for DnD.

DnD isn't a story that we tell to show that the best people are simple folk with no ambitions. The very fundamental genetics of DnD fight back against this assertion. DnD worlds don't have orcs as corrupted elves for purposes of duology and symbolism. They don't have the king fall into immediate paranoia to show the evils of greed and money. They don't contrast the evils of industrialism with the good and pure of nature.

You can do some of this, but DnD isn't built for that. And so, having halflings in their own bubble, unlike all the rest of the world, is strange. Why are they over there? Why aren't they like anyone else? Are we really saying that all of our adventures and seeking of power and influence are wrong and the root of the evils of the world, soon to be corrupted and twisted to foul ends because we aren't simple farm folk?

Tolkien =/= DnD. They don't work the same way, they aren't serving the same purpose. And that is the biggest issue.

I mostly agree with that. I only disagree with your suggestion that there is no place for symbolism in D&D, and your implied suggestion that all the other races have no symbolic interpretation. I view D&D as a storytelling game, and symbolism is part of storytelling. But that's just opinion and playstyle.

 

[Paul Farquhar]

That's not correct. They were more resistant to the influence, but were nowhere close to be immune. Smeagol fell to it, Bilbo and Frodo were falling to it, Sam would have had he had the ring for more than 10 minutes. Had Sauron bent his well to The Shire, it would have eventually fallen into evil as well. They survived, because Sauron was unaware of them.

I also think Sam, as a working class gardener, is the most hobbity hobbit of all. Tolkien stresses the point that Sam is the only character ever to give up the Ring willingly.

Oh, and Bilbo. It's easy to forget these minor characters...

 

[doctorbadwolf]

@Maxperson btw yeah, my position is definitely not that we should only ever look at the phb.

What I said was rather that only the core books have to be part of the discussion, because they are the only lore that is core/canon.

Mordy’s is a grab bag of stuff you can use or ignore as you like, most of it outright awful IMO, with a few gems. Mostly in the gnome writeup, especially their gods.

My point was that if it bothers someone that Mordy thinks that Halflings fight ogres with sticks, then that person should just ignore that very stupid optional lore, and assume that Mordy is the multiverse leader equivalent of the rich kid math and physics genius who went to Harvard as a legacy and has published books about quantum mechanics, and has a lot of wierd ideas about cultures and sociology because he is too full of his own genius to challenge his own ideas.

He went to a halfling village once as a tourist and wrote a travelogue article about their culture as if he was an expert.