Gan The Grey
2009-11-15, 10:58 PM
Uh, actually, this is incorrect. The heavy rate of technological advance that has occurred in the modern west is pretty much 100% a consequence of its large middle class. Boredom is the mother of invention, since it means you have time to innovate rather than run away from utahraptors.
Being middle class doesn't mean you have enough money to keep you bored. Being middle class means you have to work to survive. Boredom is the right of the rich, something the large middle class is not. The reason the middle class invents so much is because they feel they need to invent in order to procure financial security or solve a problem in their life that would otherwise be too expensive to fix. So, actually, you are incorrect.
Historical tribes lived in all the countries which are now agrarian. African tribesmen remained so because there wasn't much arable land and until less than a couple centuries ago they had never encountered agrarian societies.
This point does not change the similarities between the Talenta halflings and the Plains Indians. Also, according to a chart in the PHB I believe, halflings tend toward the more chaotic side of the alignment spectrum, as is also evident in their innate wanderlust and mischievousness. This does not make them stupid. This makes them free-spirits. My mother wants to buy a motor home and live all over the country, and she is one of the wisest, smartest people I know. (bias :smallsmile:)
dunno, raising carnivores for food is kind of dumb. I mean, plant-eating animals already eat a whole lot, and carnivores have to eat even more (effectively). Did hunter-gatherers even raise animals for eating at all?
I could potentially take this flat observation at face value and agree, but it takes me little extra thought to balance the issues. The main question is whether the benefits can outweigh the detriments. Maybe they are highly nutritious. Maybe they are super tasty. Maybe they require only small amounts of food to grow, and grow quickly. Also, maybe only the more respected halflings possess such mounts. Maybe only special hunting parties do. It isn't hard to reconcile the problems with a little creative thought, and your previous response that it is physically impossible for you to do so is less a declaration of incapability, and more an admission of willful stubbornness. Just calling it as I see it.
EDIT I misread the part about being physically impossible to imagine this. I apologize.
It takes little difficultly to dispute many elements of DnD. The true test lies in justifying its seemingly improbable or illogical aspects, and in fact, can be one of the most enjoyable and rewarding tasks in world-building and campaign-consistency.
Being middle class doesn't mean you have enough money to keep you bored. Being middle class means you have to work to survive. Boredom is the right of the rich, something the large middle class is not. The reason the middle class invents so much is because they feel they need to invent in order to procure financial security or solve a problem in their life that would otherwise be too expensive to fix. So, actually, you are incorrect.
Historical tribes lived in all the countries which are now agrarian. African tribesmen remained so because there wasn't much arable land and until less than a couple centuries ago they had never encountered agrarian societies.
This point does not change the similarities between the Talenta halflings and the Plains Indians. Also, according to a chart in the PHB I believe, halflings tend toward the more chaotic side of the alignment spectrum, as is also evident in their innate wanderlust and mischievousness. This does not make them stupid. This makes them free-spirits. My mother wants to buy a motor home and live all over the country, and she is one of the wisest, smartest people I know. (bias :smallsmile:)
dunno, raising carnivores for food is kind of dumb. I mean, plant-eating animals already eat a whole lot, and carnivores have to eat even more (effectively). Did hunter-gatherers even raise animals for eating at all?
I could potentially take this flat observation at face value and agree, but it takes me little extra thought to balance the issues. The main question is whether the benefits can outweigh the detriments. Maybe they are highly nutritious. Maybe they are super tasty. Maybe they require only small amounts of food to grow, and grow quickly. Also, maybe only the more respected halflings possess such mounts. Maybe only special hunting parties do. It isn't hard to reconcile the problems with a little creative thought, and your previous response that it is physically impossible for you to do so is less a declaration of incapability, and more an admission of willful stubbornness. Just calling it as I see it.
EDIT I misread the part about being physically impossible to imagine this. I apologize.
It takes little difficultly to dispute many elements of DnD. The true test lies in justifying its seemingly improbable or illogical aspects, and in fact, can be one of the most enjoyable and rewarding tasks in world-building and campaign-consistency.