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toapat
2014-05-11, 10:10 PM
One question about DnD and RPGs in general i dont understand is, Why in the same universe do Gnomes and Halflings exist?

What purpose do they serve really before being given their extreme neiches, such as how in Eberron Halflings are Noble Savages who ride dinosaurs, while Gnomes are Phones. Alternatively theres Tinker Gnomes and Kender from Dragonlance.

But, in general what logic has them existing in the core rules together. what mythology are they pulling from differently.

~xFellWardenx~
2014-05-11, 10:16 PM
Halflings are like Hobbits from Lord of the Rings, Gnomes are fae from Germanic mythology who... Well, did a lot of things, because old mythology is almost never at all consistent. But they usually tinkered around with and either improved or screwed up other people's technology to help or troll them respectively. They also stole things and could in some renditions fly.

Halflings are... Short people with a penchant to disappear from your sight if something else catches your attention for a second? *shrug*

AdmiralCheez
2014-05-11, 10:25 PM
Different flavors I would guess. Probably same reason there are ten thousand different kinds of elf.

toapat
2014-05-11, 10:31 PM
Different flavors I would guess. Probably same reason there are ten thousand different kinds of elf.

Well, Elf lore is natively a little too niche for them to not have as many flavors of elf as there are icecream.

I just dont get why there needs to be 2 flavors of mamalian shortfolk, of which one is typically relegated to the pool of "Why does this exist?"

LibraryOgre
2014-05-11, 10:35 PM
Gnomes are the people of the hills and forest rills. While elves build great civilizations, gnomes live hidden lives in networks of communities, out of sight of the humans and beneath the notice of the elves. The elves reach for the stars; gnomes build stairs.

Halflings, however, are the people of the valley and the river bottom. Though most are not fond of swimming, they fish and farm the land, turning over the good earth and bringing forth its bounty. Humans build empires, flourishing and flowering, but, like flowers, collapsing into ruin for a season before they build anew. Halflings, however, seldom change.

In short? Halflings are the race of peasant humans who never make an impact on the greater world, save in rare instances. Gnomes are the elves who do the same.

~xFellWardenx~
2014-05-11, 10:47 PM
So being smaller makes them the same? How the heck does that work? Humans being there doesn't mean orcs shouldn't exist, zombies existing doesn't negate the value of skeletons... Actually, that's not even right. More properly, it's almost implying something like "since there are bats, there shouldn't be birds." Aside from their size and method of reproduction, they're very different.

Gnomes are stocky and technological, really more like dwarves than halflings. Gnomes are beings who thrive on experimentation and sensual experiences, with deep senses of community and a strongly bound extended family relationship, almost like a civilized fusion of wolf packs and housecats.

Halflings are like a courageous combination of mice and dogs. They slink through the dark, they take things when it's necessary, and they're vigilant and jumpy, yet despite their nomadic lifestyle and somewhat rogueish tendencies, they are, as a general rule for the species (with exceptions, as in all things) fiercely loyal and structured in lifestyle.

Where gnomes satisfy their base urges and are innately, instinctively curious to unimaginable levels and experiment both scientifically, emotionally, and in relationship regards for the sake of the experimentation and the rush, the halflings as a general racial rule focus on those skills which are practical, they are loyal and determined, and they trust to what they know works.

Some of it seems cultural more than anything, though in terms of mechanics and fluff it is literal racial instinct for them to be like this the same way cats, dogs, or mice fit into certain stereotypes. But it's bound to look that way when the authors don't want to alienate players, eh?

The two races serve two entirely different niches, even in standard D&D. They aren't just "the two small races."

veti
2014-05-11, 11:00 PM
For the same reason as there are dozens and dozens of supplements statting out new races and classes, but not a single one that removes them:

D&D is a kitchen sink. It's easy (and profitable - you can always sell more supplements) for the creators to throw more stuff in, so why bother to be selective?

Being selective is the DM's job. I don't think I've ever played in a campaign that actually had gnomes.

toapat
2014-05-11, 11:04 PM
*snip*

Humans invalidate their own existence because they serve primarily as a conceptual anchor on any setting they are in where the protagonists are humanoids.

otherwise im trying to avoid this debate because while i have my own personal oppinions, i want to see other people's logic

jedipotter
2014-05-11, 11:39 PM
One question about DnD and RPGs in general i dont understand is, Why in the same universe do Gnomes and Halflings exist?



They did not for a long, long time.

Halflings, aka Hobbits, have been in D&D from the start. 0E, 1E, 2E and D&D all had halflings as Player Character races. But not gnomes. Gnomes were a race from the Monster Manual. Eventually gnomes were added as an optional race, but they never made it into the Players Handbook.

Dragonlance added gnomes as race you could use, and gave us the 'crazy inventor gnome'. Gnomes turned out to be fairly popular.

So then 3E comes along.....and puts gnomes in as a core race along with halflings. So now it is normal to think of gnomes as a player character race, and not just some ''other'' race.

russdm
2014-05-11, 11:40 PM
For the Royalties. There is a nodwick comic about how the Halflings made both gnomes and dwarves up (I think that they were halflings) as a way to earn more money.

Aside from joking, the only reason I can think of is that D&D had them in originally and no edition has bothered to get rid of them. Some settings have dropped one of the races, dark sun has no gnomes, and most will change them.

To be honest, With halflings and Dwarves and Elves, I can't see any reason to have gnomes as they don't fit in anywhere. The only unique thing Gnomes get is their ability to talk to burrowing animals. The other stuff is in the hands of one of the other three and there is nearly no plausible justification.

We don't need thousands of different elven races when they are just usually copies with some different fluff. We don't need another short race that has a whole shtick of jokes.

Edit: I would love to go back to having Gnomes only in the MM as a non-playable race. It would be nice and relaxing.

veti
2014-05-12, 12:09 AM
Halflings, aka Hobbits, have been in D&D from the start. 0E, 1E, 2E and D&D all had halflings as Player Character races. But not gnomes.

Incorrect. Gnomes were included in the 1e and 2e Player's Handbooks as a playable race. In 1e, they were the only non-human race allowed to play Illusionists.

Mr. Mask
2014-05-12, 12:37 AM
The main problem is that gnomes don't seem that interesting. You can make them crazy inventors, but that just ruins the immersion which still makes them less interesting. Without the crazy inventor angle, they're basically lesser dwarves and halflings to lesser extents.

Ravens_cry
2014-05-12, 12:49 AM
It should also be noted that gnomes and halflings were once more separate. Halflings were ersatz Hobbits, tubby little homebodies who didn't like adventures unless forced and hated to be late for dinner, breakfast, lunch, tea, second breakfast and any other meal you care to name or invent,.

toapat
2014-05-12, 01:12 AM
It should also be noted that gnomes and halflings were once more separate. Halflings were ersatz Hobbits, tubby little homebodies who didn't like adventures unless forced and hated to be late for dinner, breakfast, lunch, tea, second breakfast and any other meal you care to name or invent,.

arent they that again in 5th? or did people hate that enough that they changed that?

LibraryOgre
2014-05-12, 01:25 AM
The main problem is that gnomes don't seem that interesting. You can make them crazy inventors, but that just ruins the immersion which still makes them less interesting. Without the crazy inventor angle, they're basically lesser dwarves and halflings to lesser extents.

I think one of the real problems is that TSR failed to embrace a lot of what made gnomes interesting, preferring to leave them as "cousins to dwarves".

EvilJames
2014-05-12, 01:39 AM
OD&D and 4th ed were the only editions without gnomes as standards. I'm not sure how being little tinkerers/inventors breaks immersion but they are mostly known as industrious pranksters and tricksters. Halflings are more pastoral they make good reluctant heroes at least that was their purpose before 3rd ed. If you are just used to 3rd then I guess I can see where you are coming from. Halflings ended up being more tricksy and sneaky in 3rd, stepping on the gnomes toes a lot.

Coidzor
2014-05-12, 01:59 AM
Well, Elf lore is natively a little too niche for them to not have as many flavors of elf as there are icecream.

I just dont get why there needs to be 2 flavors of mamalian shortfolk, of which one is typically relegated to the pool of "Why does this exist?"

Halflings are shortfolk, Gnomes are just another of the myriad flavors of elf. You're welcome.

Ravens_cry
2014-05-12, 02:05 AM
arent they that again in 5th? or did people hate that enough that they changed that?
Can't say, I am more Pathfinder cult member player :smalltongue:

BWR
2014-05-12, 02:18 AM
The main problem is that gnomes don't seem that interesting. You can make them crazy inventors, but that just ruins the immersion which still makes them less interesting. Without the crazy inventor angle, they're basically lesser dwarves and halflings to lesser extents.

How does that ruin immersion?

Coidzor
2014-05-12, 02:22 AM
How does that ruin immersion?

Having an entire race of Inventors is at odds with settings that are in a Medieval(ish) Stasis?

Rhynn
2014-05-12, 02:34 AM
OD&D and 4th ed were the only editions without gnomes as standards.

You mean OD&D (including all supplements), Basic, B/X, BECM/Cyclopedia, and 4E.

There might have been a Dragon Magazine from before 1E came out that has playable gnomes, though.


Anyway, there's plenty of easy ways to differentiate gnomes from dwarves and elves:

They live underground, like dwarves...
... but they're experts at magic, like elves...
... and they're great at disappearing, like halflings.
They're gnomes, which starts the same as gnosis, so they're knowledgeable and studious; the greatest sages are gnomes.
Maybe they're experts at numbers and figures, and make great merchants, bankers, and the like (as in Arcanum, Eberron, Harry Potter...); maybe the Medicis and Fuggers of your setting are gnomes.
Maybe they're inventors; if your setting features full plate armor, it should also have room for firearms, cannons, bombs, movable type, and many contraptions and inventions (and the only reason those would "break immersion" more than plate armor and two-handed swords would be ignorance of history; full plate came around after Leonardo Da Vinci was born).


That's a lot more than what differentiates generic halflings and dwarves from humans, really.

The question "why does a ruleset include redundant things" is silly. Because you might prefer one of those things over another, of course. The real question is, why would your setting have more than two of elves, gnomes, dwarves, and halflings? If you can't answer that, then don't have more than two of them.


Having an entire race of Inventors is at odds with settings that are in a Medieval(ish) Stasis?

Why assume stasis? The Forgotten Realms doesn't, even - around 1350 DR, the gnomes of Lantan have introduced smoke-powder and weapon using it to the world. Even if campaign material assumes a stasis, that's so it doesn't have to be changed substantially; your campaign world should still have development and invention. Unless your campaign runs 100+ years, you're not going to have to worry about this in practice.

Also: maybe most of the inventions don't work too well. The amount of things in the real world that were invented long (hundreds and hundreds of years, in many cases!) before they were really put to use or became widespread is huge.

In the real world, the age of plowing fields by hand or oxen and fighting with swords, spears, bows, shields, and armor lasted for around 4500 years.

Yora
2014-05-12, 03:16 AM
Well, Elf lore is natively a little too niche for them to not have as many flavors of elf as there are icecream.

I just dont get why there needs to be 2 flavors of mamalian shortfolk, of which one is typically relegated to the pool of "Why does this exist?"
Me neither, so that's why there are no halflings in my setting. (Also no dwarves, because they are stupid and gnomes can do mining just as well.)

The main problem is that gnomes don't seem that interesting. You can make them crazy inventors, but that just ruins the immersion which still makes them less interesting. Without the crazy inventor angle, they're basically lesser dwarves and halflings to lesser extents.
Which is a good thing, because both dwarves and halflings have long ago become nothing but parodies of themselves. Even Eberron tried to turn everything on its heads, but dwarves where the only race who stayed just the same as they always are.
With gnomes, you can have short, cave-dwelling humanoids that actually are different from what you get all the time.

mythmonster2
2014-05-12, 03:19 AM
Me neither, so that's why there are no halflings in my setting. (Also no dwarves, because they are stupid and gnomes can do mining just as well.)

I prefer to go the opposite way, with halflings but no gnomes. Dwarves can easily take over any inventor stuff from the gnomes.

Yora
2014-05-12, 03:21 AM
Yes, gnome and halfling are mostly interchangeable. But I wanted to get rid of dwarves as well, and the few good things about them could much better be integrated into gnomes, so that's what I went with.

Mr. Mask
2014-05-12, 04:12 AM
Hall: An interesting culture would certainly help. However, for the race to be interesting, you need interesting racial aspects. An interesting culture could work just as well for humans or kobolds, unless it relates to the race's biology or social niche closely.


Yora: I'm afraid I don't understand what you mean.

Dwarves often are parodied as creatures that subsist entirely on beer, have Scottish accents for no particular reason, have height complexes, and are super greedy. People tend to use parodies of the dwarves rather than write them as actual dwarves, because writing dwarves seriously is hard (writing anything seriously is hard--so is writing a good parody).

But, I'm not sure what that has to do with gnomes. I don't think people who can't write non-parody dwarves will do much better with gnomes.

Rhynn
2014-05-12, 04:38 AM
Yora: I'm afraid I don't understand what you mean.

It's a hipster-y over-thinking complex: "Oh, I can't use this, it's so overdone and silly in other things so it's ruined for my thing."

It doesn't make sense to me; how someone else somewhere else portrays elves or dwarves or gnomes or dragons or orcs has nothing to do with how I portray and use them in any one of my settings.

BWR
2014-05-12, 07:14 AM
RC didn't have gnomes in it, but they were introduced later.


Having an entire race of Inventors is at odds with settings that are in a Medieval(ish) Stasis?
That's assuming there is supposed to be stasis. Some worlds actually show progress or at least change. FR, as Rhynn pointed out, and Mystara. Also, some people might be reluctant to adopt new stuff. If the inventors are highly secretive and generally peaceful, there will be less opportunity to see the effectiveness of technology on the battlefield, and less reason for others to adopt it. Not to mention magic is better in just about every way, so we should all have Eberron/Tippyverse style worlds instead of any technology. That's the reason it hasn't spread much in Mystara. In Mystara, the gnometech stuff is basically another form of magic (you have skills called Fantasy Physics and Fantasy Engineering, which basically work along the principle of 'red makes it go faster'), and it isn't restricted to gnomes though gnomes are the most common practitioners.

Other reasons the stuff hasn't spread: in DL their inventions are so haphazard and unsafe that no one in their right mind would want to use them, and they tend to stick to Mt Nevermind, so their innovations don't really spread. Who wants a steam powered catapult that can just as easily blow up in your face as damage the fort you're aiming at?

Yora
2014-05-12, 07:38 AM
Dwarves often are parodied as creatures that subsist entirely on beer, have Scottish accents for no particular reason, have height complexes, and are super greedy. People tend to use parodies of the dwarves rather than write them as actual dwarves, because writing dwarves seriously is hard (writing anything seriously is hard--so is writing a good parody).
I think with dwarves we got the situation that they don't have any traits that havn't been turned into a parody.
The "serious" version of dwarves is a greedy bearded miner and smith who is always dour and passively hostile to any outsiders. Which still isn't much different than the silly greedy bearded miner and smith who is always drunk and actively hostile to any outsiders.
Take away their beards, beer, or mining, and there isn't really much left.

Gnomes have a lot more traits, of which almost all are optional and non really mandatory. As long as there's a good number of them, it's still recognizable as a gnome.
Gnomes live in hills, mountains, or forests, are good with mining, are skilled in engineering and alchemy, have a knack for illusion magic, feel a bond of kinship with forest animals, tend to be on good term with woodland spirits, like gemstones, are scholars, welcome strangers, value happiness, love jokes, and have keen senses. You probably never find all of these traits in the same version of gnomes, but you can freely pick some of them, add some others, and it will still be gnomes.
I do know one attempt to make dwarves different, and that's Dark Sun. Dark Sun dwarves are short and tough, and that's about all they have retained of the common dwarven traits. But is that still a dwarf?

HighWater
2014-05-12, 08:29 AM
Other reasons the stuff hasn't spread: in DL their inventions are so haphazard and unsafe that no one in their right mind would want to use them, and they tend to stick to Mt Nevermind, so their innovations don't really spread. Who wants a steam powered catapult that can just as easily blow up in your face as damage the fort you're aiming at?
That's not far away from the early medieval cannons, which went kablooie often enough to stay the heck away from them, unless it was your job to operate them. (They were also incredibly slow and not very effective.)

Most battlefield-technology that goes past bows is very sensitive to mishaps, and those mishaps can be devastating to the owning side. Even simple bowstring loses effectiveness quickly in damp weather (this is one of the reasons why real-world archers kept their bows unstrung until right before battle, another is that keeping a bow strung 24/7 ruïns the spring in the string and in the wood). A snapped bowstaff is a mild inconvenience, a snapped arm on a balista or catapult can be deadly for the operator, a pressure-cannon that ruptures is lethal for standers-by and a live bomb is just an accident waiting to happen. They are also incredibly expensive. Not all technological development is immediatly an improvement, nor is any immediate improvement a good path for long-term results. (Compare waterclocks with mechanical clocks, waterclocks were much more accurate at a much earlier t, but what kind are we using today? Mechanical clocks, perhaps infused with some atom-technology.)

In a setting that's strongly permeated with magic, hard technology would still arise, but progress would be much slower as few would invest in building something that's both much more dangerous for the user and way less effective. For all intents and purposes, technology in a magic world should be infused with magic, rather than a stand-alone concept.
If you still want "real world" tech-progression, you need some crazy tinkerers to fan that flame, hence tinker-gnomes!

More on topic:
Gnomes and Halflings are different. You get more than one "short" race, because it reduces the conspicuous notion that all humanoid races are basically humans with one or two aspects blown out of proportion: Dwarves are angry drunk human miners. Elves are lofty, tree-hugging "one with nature" long-livers. Orks are angry evil disorganised humans. Gnomes are short humans, oh and magical tricksters/tech-tinkerers. Halflings are short humans, and lazy unless very strongly motivated (such as when their clan is under threat).
Of course, all these humanoids are still strictly human, because we don't really know anything else and it's pretty much impossible to invent something that isn't based on something(s) you already know or slightly altered/meshed together. Human fantasy is very limited, this makes all fantasy-humans, in the end, somewhat alike. Gnomes and halflings are not the same though and being unable to give each of them their own little place in your story is not necessarely the fault of the writers who dreamed them up. It's just that you can populate your world with tens, maybe hundreds of "unique" humanoids, with the end-result being that none of them are unique, and that any of their roles could still be covered by... well, humans really. Selecting a "dirty dozen" that are fully distinct and fleshed out is a useful technique, but in that case generally the halfling or the gnome get the boot for being "too much like something else".

Eric Tolle
2014-05-12, 08:45 AM
People are missing the fundamental reason gnomes were put in the game: they were the short magic using race. Dwarves and halflings were anti-magical, so if you wanted to play something based on the legends of magical little people, you had to pay a gnome.

Now post 3E, you can make a spellcaster from any race, but the fundamental notion is there- dwarves and halflings as races are non-magical; gnomes are magical (also, accidentally 3rd edition gnomes made the best wizards and druids).

Rhynn
2014-05-12, 10:02 AM
People are missing the fundamental reason gnomes were put in the game: they were the short magic using race.

Well, no. Who knows why they were included in Volume II: Monsters & Treasure (where they are literally AC 5 dwarves with longer beards who live in lowlands and are 10 %-points more likely to be encountered in a lair), but the literal reason they were a playable race in AD&D 1E is probably (given how Gygax worked and AD&D developed) that enough players had wanted to play them at his table and he'd had to come up with rules, so in they go.


I do know one attempt to make dwarves different, and that's Dark Sun. Dark Sun dwarves are short and tough, and that's about all they have retained of the common dwarven traits. But is that still a dwarf?

Dark Sun dwarves are hands down the most uninteresting, depressingly boring part of the setting. "Well they're bald and they only have one goal in life at a time." Yaaaaaaawn! At least the elves have a characterization that provides ideas for how to use them (even if it is a racist stereotype); the same goes for the halflings. The only time the dwarves are remotely interesting is when they've died after abandoning their focus and become dwarven banshees. (Why they're called "banshee" is beyond me, because they don't wail and aren't ghosts... they should just be called "dwarven revenant.")

It's one of the reasons I keep thinking about dropping all three "traditional" fantasy races from my version of the setting - I can just replace halflings with pygmies (this requires exactly zero changes to anything, basically) and elves with a Romani/Fremen mix without the pointed ears.

Mr. Mask
2014-05-12, 12:06 PM
Rhynn: To be fair, what has been done in the past does effect audiences' perceptions. I generally don't see it as a reason to stop writing about something or to only write about them non seriously.


Yora: Then gnomes are generic with no defining features, if they're really so interchangeable. The same can be done with humans. Of the many qualities you've mentioned, there are mirroring qualities in dwarves. What separates them? Dwarves are loyal, value family, have great respect for fine craftsmanship, are defensive rather than aggressive fighters, prolific traders, take custom and legal agreements seriously, and are adventurous when it comes to wealth or home. Similar to gnomes, not all dwarves feature all or even some of those qualities. They tend to focus on the overt characteristics, ignoring the more interesting subtleties.

LibraryOgre
2014-05-12, 01:11 PM
Hall: An interesting culture would certainly help. However, for the race to be interesting, you need interesting racial aspects. An interesting culture could work just as well for humans or kobolds, unless it relates to the race's biology or social niche closely.



I don't think you necessarily need interesting racial traits... after all, you can, as you say, do social things with humans. Having interesting racial mechanics may make them mechanically interesting, but the social aspects have to do with how they fit into the game world, not how they fit into the game.

Sartharina
2014-05-12, 01:24 PM
Which is a good thing, because both dwarves and halflings have long ago become nothing but parodies of themselves. Even Eberron tried to turn everything on its heads, but dwarves where the only race who stayed just the same as they always are.
With gnomes, you can have short, cave-dwelling humanoids that actually are different from what you get all the time.To make Dwarves anything else is to undermine the very concept of Dwarf. And yet, despite all dwarves from all worlds being the same, they are consistently one of the best races(Not talking mechanically). Any attempts to change them merely undermine the perfection of the Dwarves.

Gnomes are the Fey, separating them from the elven High Folk.

Mr. Mask
2014-05-12, 01:30 PM
Mark: The racial aspects don't have to be mechanical, I feel. Like, hobbits don't wear shoes, their feet are just so tough shoes wouldn't be much of a benefit for them (unless it was something like steel-soled shoes). That's an interesting aspect unrelated to their culture.

Having the creature naturally have a cultural aspect also works. Humans can live underground too, but dwarves naturally embody that aspect.

russdm
2014-05-12, 01:32 PM
Gnomes are not Tech-tinkerers. This got added in by Dragonlance. The standard gnome is a joke character, performing mainly jokes and has illusions.

Nearly everything unique about Gnomes has been covered by another race. Where they live is covered by Elves, Humans, and Halflings. Kobolds get magic and do have the tinker bit, whereas Gnomes only have that in Dragonlance since its not actually standard. Elves get more of the magic bit than gnomes and are better at it.

Gnomes don't have anything that really ties them to anything unless you use what Dragonlance or Warcraft has done, then you end up with a race that is worth it because they have an area that other races don't cover. Also, In eberron, gnomes are tinkerers, but again this is not the standard as its Setting-Specific.

The Standard D&D gnome is a short dwarf that casts some minor trickery spells, talks to mice/moles, and has jokes as their primary reason as being present. This just sounds boring to me and I don't need it in my worlds. I prefer kobolds and dwarves and halflings more because each has an unique niche that gnomes simply lack. Unless its in Dragonlance, Eberron, or Warcraft. Maybe the FR too, but that still is something that is Setting-Specific not general for all worlds.

Grim Portent
2014-05-12, 01:37 PM
I'll just drop in and say that my favorite portrayal of Gnomes was in the game Majesty, where Gnomes served as a really cheap builder/cannon fodder hero. They lived in shanty houses built out of scrap from building sites, didn't pay taxes, were considered filthy and unclean and were despised by both Dwarves and Elves. Despite this the Gnomes had a really upbeat set of voicelines for when they did stuff, it gave the impression that they were optimistic little guys trying to make the best of their place at the bottom rung of society.

I kind of want to run a game in the Majesty setting at some point. It's got a pleasant amount of parody and good natured teasing of the fantasy genre in it.

EvilJames
2014-05-12, 01:40 PM
You mean OD&D (including all supplements), Basic, B/X, BECM/Cyclopedia, and 4E.

There might have been a Dragon Magazine from before 1E came out that has playable gnomes, though.




Yes I do mean that. It's just easier to say OD&D (original or old Dungeons and Dragons to differentiate it from 3rd ed AD&D and beyond since the dropped the "A" there.) Rather than try to name all it's various editions, when they don't need to be differentiated.


Well, no. Who knows why they were included in Volume II: Monsters & Treasure (where they are literally AC 5 dwarves with longer beards who live in lowlands and are 10 %-points more likely to be encountered in a lair), but the literal reason they were a playable race in AD&D 1E is probably (given how Gygax worked and AD&D developed) that enough players had wanted to play them at his table and he'd had to come up with rules, so in they go.



Dark Sun dwarves are hands down the most uninteresting, depressingly boring part of the setting. "Well they're bald and they only have one goal in life at a time." Yaaaaaaawn! At least the elves have a characterization that provides ideas for how to use them (even if it is a racist stereotype); the same goes for the halflings. The only time the dwarves are remotely interesting is when they've died after abandoning their focus and become dwarven banshees. (Why they're called "banshee" is beyond me, because they don't wail and aren't ghosts... they should just be called "dwarven revenant.")

It's one of the reasons I keep thinking about dropping all three "traditional" fantasy races from my version of the setting - I can just replace halflings with pygmies (this requires exactly zero changes to anything, basically) and elves with a Romani/Fremen mix without the pointed ears.

Or you explain dark sun dwarves as an intensely driven and stubborn people who make their living as laborers to the mighty City States. That might still be boring to you but it might not to others.



In the end though I'm not sure why people are confused by the existence of one race or another. Even if two races are similar (both being short for example) They still have different flavors and one person might find that flavor to smooth and creamy while another might prefer the other flavor. All the humanoids could be replaced by humans and humans could be replaced by all the humanoids. Some days I want to play a home body thrust into an wilderness some days I want to play a gleeful explorer. If you don't like the purpose they serve give hem a new purpose.

toapat
2014-05-12, 01:43 PM
Eberron

Gnomes get something other then being phone booths in that?

russdm
2014-05-12, 01:50 PM
Gnomes get something other then being phone booths in that?

They get the phone booth bit from a dragonmark I think. Eberron has them as being one of the main races to take the Artificiar class, the one about making magic items. Otherwise, they are usually boring and unneeded as their fluff is duplicated. Anyone else can be jokesters and anyone else can be good at using illusions.

Yora
2014-05-12, 01:52 PM
Now that I think of it, as cool as Eberron halflings are, they are pretty much Dark Sun halflings with Dark Sun appropriate mounts.

EvilJames
2014-05-12, 01:53 PM
They get the phone booth bit from a dragonmark I think. Eberron has them as being one of the main races to take the Artificiar class, the one about making magic items. Otherwise, they are usually boring and unneeded as their fluff is duplicated. Anyone else can be jokesters and anyone else can be good at using illusions.

Then no races are needed at all since anyone can be a farmer and anyone can be a woodsman. Everyone's fluff is duplicated.

Sartharina
2014-05-12, 01:54 PM
Now that I think of it, as cool as Eberron halflings are, they are pretty much Dark Sun halflings with Dark Sun appropriate mounts.That's because they live in a Death World, albeit a living rather than dead one. Instead of Post-Apocalyptia, they live in Jurassic Park, Australia edition.

toapat
2014-05-12, 01:59 PM
Now that I think of it, as cool as Eberron halflings are, they are pretty much Dark Sun halflings with Dark Sun appropriate mounts.

also less cannibalistic.

russdm
2014-05-12, 02:18 PM
Then no races are needed at all since anyone can be a farmer and anyone can be a woodsman. Everyone's fluff is duplicated.

Gnomes don't get enough unique material to justify their existence though. They don't really get any impressive illusion material and no bonuses with illusion spells at all. The fluff says that they are really good with illusions, well all they get are a few at will spells and no bonus to casting illusions. Elves are fluffed as being with magic, but don't any bonuses to reflect it.

Dwarves get fluff and benefits for it. Halflings and most of the other races get fluff and then benefits to reflect fluff. Neither Elves or Gnomes actually get much if any benefits in relation to the fluff besides Elves/secret doors, and Gnomes/talking with burrowing animals.

In Saga Edition, a race's fluff shows signs of influencing the mechanical benefits way more often than what happens in D&D. This is true of other games I think more so than D&D as well.

Example:

Humans are fluffed as being good at things and learning quickly. They get a free bonus feat and bonus skill points in D&D.

Gnomes are fluff as being good at trickery and illusions. They get a bonus to DCs against spells they cast which can be duplicated by taking Spell Focus Illusion by another race and their +2 against illusion spells can be replaced by some way of getting immunity to illusions. They get Dancing Lights, Ghost Sound and Prestidigitation, which aren't really impressive abilities or spells. If they are good with illusions so much, shouldn't they be getting faster access to stronger spells quicker? They get no abilities at making them better at sneaking or being tricksters. Heck, their favored class is bard.

Amphetryon
2014-05-12, 02:49 PM
People are missing the fundamental reason gnomes were put in the game: they were the short magic using race. Dwarves and halflings were anti-magical, so if you wanted to play something based on the legends of magical little people, you had to pay a gnome.

Now post 3E, you can make a spellcaster from any race, but the fundamental notion is there- dwarves and halflings as races are non-magical; gnomes are magical (also, accidentally 3rd edition gnomes made the best wizards and druids).

I tend to agree with this, in its broad-strokes form. Dwarves were the short martial Race; Halflings were the short sneaky/skill-based Race; Gnomes were the short arcane Race. Contrast with Half-Orcs as the tall martial Race, Humans as the tall sneaky/skill-based Race (that excelled through versatility), and Elves as the tall arcane Race.

Prospekt
2014-05-12, 03:13 PM
You know how gnomes could get their ' unique fluff'? By you making up your own lore or abilities for them. Nothing's stopping you except yourself, honestly. If you don't like how Wizards of the Coast handled it (I hate how they handled a lot of things, myself :smalltongue:), then change it. You don't even have to be the GM in most cases! I don't mean to be like, "Well, I'm like a super gnome and I was the best at what I did back home, so I should get +4 to all spellcasting," but come up with interesting things about who you are and who your people are. A good, reasonable GM will be more than interested in fleshing that out and making it relevant to the campaign if it can be.

I had a campaign setting where gnomes were the ultimate diplomat race- in a developing world where it was hard to get different races to agree sometimes, gnomes were usually used as the go-between. It also made sense for why bards were their favored class. They'd often ran taverns and shops as well, because hey, that makes a lot of sense too. Of course, I did give them the +2 to Charisma that I totally didn't crib from Pathfinder *cough* (clearly the most important thing), but hey, it was also really useful in roleplaying. The primitive humans would have a lot of trouble trying to barter with the militaristic elves, but if they had a few gnomes to help negotiate, they're going to be a lot more interested in what they have to say or offer.

AdmiralCheez
2014-05-12, 04:01 PM
You know how gnomes could get their ' unique fluff'? By you making up your own lore or abilities for them. Nothing's stopping you except yourself, honestly. If you don't like how Wizards of the Coast handled it (I hate how they handled a lot of things, myself :smalltongue:), then change it.

That's always good advice for building settings. Actually, it reminded me of The New World articles hosted on this very site. If anyone hasn't read them, part 8 (http://www.giantitp.com/articles/Y2BEzifZZgrsSdReVf4.html) completely re-write gnomes to give them new fluff in a theoretical campaign setting.

Raimun
2014-05-12, 04:41 PM
Yeah. It's just like why do we have both bows and crossbows. Both are stupid weapons for cowardly people who hide behind rocks and are stupid. Not the rocks but the weapons and the people.

Seriously though, I don't think variety is ever a bad idea in D&D. Halflings and gnomes are still distinct enough. One is suited to be a Rogue, another is suited to be an Illusionist.

Remember, it's easier to limit things in an RPG ("This world doesn't have halflings.") than homebrew new things and get them approved ("Hey, I made the perfect Rogue-race. It's Small, got bonuses to Move Silently and Saves and they get a Feat at 1st level. I could be just like Bilbo! Can I use it? ... Aw, c'mon, why not?")

I mean, this is the game with dozens of different polearms and at least a handful of spells of different levels that just make clouds.

I'm more interested why exactly there needs to be fire, desert, aquatic, jungle, etc. versions of every race. Desert dwellers could just have ranks in Survival and no one really cares about aquatic adventures.

Knaight
2014-05-12, 05:28 PM
Having an entire race of Inventors is at odds with settings that are in a Medieval(ish) Stasis?

As has been said before, this conflict is probably best resolved by telling Medieval stasis to take a hike. The actual medieval period wasn't even close to static, and fantasy loosely based on it becoming static is a bad habit.

Moreover, having a bunch of inventors doesn't necessarily get much. The inventions tend not to be mass produced, and if how to make them isn't recorded and distributed they won't necessarily have much influence. We're used to invention in the context of a culture with a lot of literacy and a lot of ways to cheaply disseminate information over huge areas, so it seems natural that a bunch of inventors would throw things off easily.


It's a hipster-y over-thinking complex: "Oh, I can't use this, it's so overdone and silly in other things so it's ruined for my thing."

It doesn't make sense to me; how someone else somewhere else portrays elves or dwarves or gnomes or dragons or orcs has nothing to do with how I portray and use them in any one of my settings.
It's more that they've been used so much that they're just not interesting, even to the creator. Moreover, the use of the standard fantasy template does send a particular message, and what message it sends does depend heavily on what else is done with that same message. There's a semiotic importance to this sort of thing, not just hipsterism.

Speaking personally, I am really, really tired of the faux-medieval fantasy setting with demi-humans stolen entirely from Tolkien. Prior to Tolkien these were big expansive mythological concepts, of which he created a particular incarnation that is much narrower. There's no reason to abandon that expanse, and yet so much does. Similarly, the medieval period is 1000 years of diverse history, with a huge number of cultures and a great deal of interest in it, yet we get the cheap coat of paint version in much fantasy, and it has an irritating tendency to be the same one.

Mr. Mask
2014-05-12, 05:55 PM
Depends how big the technology gap is. If gnomes can make advanced bombs and cannons, airships, etc., then someone is definitely gong to want that sooner or later.

LibraryOgre
2014-05-12, 06:22 PM
Mark: The racial aspects don't have to be mechanical, I feel. Like, hobbits don't wear shoes, their feet are just so tough shoes wouldn't be much of a benefit for them (unless it was something like steel-soled shoes). That's an interesting aspect unrelated to their culture.


Oh, that. 3.x stripped or ignored a lot of those, but, for rock gnomes, there was a lot to go on.

Gnomes have large noses, of which they are very proud; the men will sometimes have nose-measuring contests. Their pantheon is notable in that it is entirely male... there are legends about sisters to the Lords of the Golden Hills, but those are ancient and fragmentary.

Gnomish culture is known for its close association with animals and, indeed, almost all of their deities have close friends who are associated with them; Garl has an intelligent Battleaxe, Baervan has Chitika Fastpaws the raccoon, and even Gaerdal Ironhands has some iron golems. Gnomes tend to make close community bonds, even with their animal neighbors (that they can speak to them is a large part of this). Gnomes don't really have the tale of a lone hero out to save the world... they're far more likely to make Lethal Weapon than Die Hard.

Gnomes are also known for jokes. They tend to play practical jokes on those around them, and your reaction to them is something of a mark of your character... someone who laughs along with them is seen as a good sort (who gets a few more jokes played), while someone who reacts poorly is thought of as being, while not evil, certainly not the best kind of people to be around. Too stuffy.

Gnomes value work, but also recreation. They drink a bit less than dwarves, but more than halflings, and eat more than dwarves, but less than halflings. Their work tends to be replete with fine details, and they do better gemwork than anyone; given their origin (as gems breathed to life by Garl Glittergold), gemwork is practically a sacred calling. They're more careful than dwaves, able to eke out a little more from a seam the dwarves might consider played out. If you get a gnome-worked piece, it will have fine craftsmanship and a ton of small details.

Gnome construction tends to incorporate winding tunnels and traps... they know they're not as big as other races, so they take advantage of it, with smaller tunnels than big races are comfortable with and traps to catch the unwary. They know they're not as brawny as orcs, so why try to fight an orc on an orc's terms?

Those are a few off the top of my head.

Mr. Mask
2014-05-12, 06:46 PM
Don't dwarves make their tunnels shorter as well?

To me, even with their background details, gnomes don't get my interest. Their cheery, jovial nature is a lot like hobbits'. I'm not sure where their entirely male pantheon stems from (even very patriarchal societies tend to have female deities as well). It seems a bit odd that they're better craftsmen than the dwarves--just because being better than the race known as the best at X seems odd to me, somehow.

Largely, it feels like they'd be better if they were closely to goblins and fairies in folklore, mischievous spirits. As they are, it feels to me like a half-strength blend of halflings and dwarves, who have nose-measuring contests.

LibraryOgre
2014-05-12, 06:50 PM
Don't dwarves make their tunnels shorter as well?

Dwarves have a tendency towards Grand... vaults, huge complexes with lots of space.


To me, even with their background details, gnomes don't get my interest. Their cheery, jovial nature is a lot like hobbits'. I'm not sure where their entirely male pantheon stems from (even very patriarchal societies tend to have female deities as well). It seems a bit odd that they're better craftsmen than the dwarves--just because being better than the race known as the best at X seems odd to me, somehow.

They're not better craftsmen than dwarves... they're better at details. A dwarf will make a beautiful ring; it will be a solid chunk of gold with a big-ass ruby in the middle. A gnome will make a delicate piece, with a ruby half the size but beautifully carved.

And gnomish society isn't patriarchal. Their entirely male pantheon doesn't come out of mythology... it comes out of history. They had goddesses once. They don't now, and no one knows why.

russdm
2014-05-12, 07:08 PM
Largely, it feels like they'd be better if they were closely to goblins and fairies in folklore, mischievous spirits. As they are, it feels to me like a half-strength blend of halflings and dwarves, who have nose-measuring contests.

This is why I find them boring.



And gnomish society isn't patriarchal. Their entirely male pantheon doesn't come out of mythology... it comes out of history. They had goddesses once. They don't now, and no one knows why.

Probably because one played a prank on Garl and considering how much of a jerk he is, he probably kicked them out. That or Garl's wife was Originally Lolth...

Coidzor
2014-05-12, 07:18 PM
Dwarves mostly mine for two reasons, acquiring mineral wealth and constructing fortress halls. Presumably they also mine as part of their warfare, since collapsing stuff to make rocks fall on top of people is a tried and true DM method of insta-death.

Gnomes burrow, as if someone took the idea of hobbits living in holes and expanded it to burrow settlements with secret pathways between burrows and to scout posts. And then sometimes they also mine (or otherwise acquire gemstones) just to make things murkier for the bigjobs.

Kobolds primarily clear out living space and make tunnels to bypass areas that are too dangerous/exposed for them or to make death-trap filled kill corridors that actually go nowhere but would appear to outsiders to lead to a kobold warren. And then with the advent of Tucker's Kobolds and their impact on the cultural unconscious of the internet, they've been flanderizing over time into warrens of ridiculously complex wastes of time that are full of death traps every 5 feet.

Halflings at some point became a mixture of pastoral people and gypsies or other nomads and don't tend to live in holes in the ground like their Hobbit forebears sometimes did.

Humans only really mine for war or for wealth with the exception of the occasional undercity (http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Derinkuyu)when the geological features lend themselves to such.

Most fantasy mines are, IIRC, a mixture between idealized notions of the nicer mines humans have actually built (I.E. the ones where an adult human can actually stand up and breath without having to have a breathing apparatus or die of black lung/asbestos/???) and fantasy dwarf mines which are even nicer than that and more spacious because you've got to have room to move around the massive bilges and engines and enjoy the fact that they're able to engineer and build such large, stable tunnels just because they can.


Probably because one played a prank on Garl and considering how much of a jerk he is, he probably kicked them out. That or Garl's wife was Originally Lolth...

Magical sex changes. Garl was originally Garla.

Mr. Mask
2014-05-12, 07:21 PM
Mark: For dining halls at stuff, sure. But ,dwarves are also pretty military in nature. I'd be surprised if some of the tunnels connecting key areas weren't small (make it so a dwarf needs to crouch when going through, then you have a defence that larger creatures have to face with a shovel rather than a sword).

What you describe for dwarves isn't good craftsmanship. When it's gone into, dwarves are known for their attention to detail in decorating their jewellery, weapons, doors, etc.. In Lord of the Rings, the dwarves could make doors that fit into the mountain wall so perfectly, you can't find any sign of them.

Fair enough with the goddesses thing, I guess.

russdm
2014-05-12, 07:39 PM
Magical sex changes. Garl was originally Garla.

Garla, who was Moradin's secret lover?

Townopolis
2014-05-12, 08:50 PM
I'm pretty sure it goes like this:


Someone wanted to play a halfling, so they were added in.
Someone wanted to play a gnome--no, not a halfling, a gnome--so gnomes were added in.
People seemed to like playing halflings, so they were kept.
People also seemed to like playing gnomes, so they were kept.
Some people, though clearly not everyone, found these two races distinct, so they were kept distinct for those people.
... and that's basically it. The writers of D&D-related worlds wrote both races in simply because people might be playing either, just like 4e Devas, Eladrin, etc. were written into the Forgotten Realms after those rules launched.


In summary, as evidenced by some of the comments in this thread, halflings and gnomes exist side-by-side because some people find them perfectly distinct and may even greatly prefer one to the other; they exist so those people can play them, just like tieflings, aasimar, devas, genasi, elves, eladrin, dragonborn, and dwarves exist for the people who like those races.

Beleriphon
2014-05-12, 10:16 PM
Gnomes get something other then being phone booths in that?

Yeah, they get the KGB turned up to 11.

toapat
2014-05-12, 10:23 PM
Yeah, they get the KGB turned up to 11.

also not more distinct then them being relegated to Red Callbox duty, considering basically the entirety of The 12 is lifted from Cyberpunk's Megacorps

Thinker
2014-05-12, 11:25 PM
Time, overuse, and familiarity has certainly diluted the common fantasy races to the point where they heavily overlap within each others niches and make them seem redundant. This is because when a fantasy story uses a race, it looks for examples of other similar races in folklore, mythology, religion, and other fantasy settings. This makes it so that when someone wants to play a halfling, they think of all the similar halflings from fantasy - hobbits, kender, borrowers, etc. This makes it so that systems incorporate all of these variations into their playable races. I find that the easiest way to return these races to their niches is to rewrite them based upon specific source material.

For halflings, I use hobbits from J.R.R Tolkien's Middle Earth, which are heavily based on Snergs from Edward Wyke Smith's The Marvellous Land of Snergs. They are a modern creation, but they have several unique qualities for themselves:

They love to eat and tend to eat more meals per day than human counterparts. This suggests that they have higher metabolisms, but proportional stomachs, requiring multiple meals.
They are small creatures (in 3.5e), standing only as high as a table.
They have communal feasts whenever they can think of an occassion - in one example of Snergs, they onetime had a feast because it was nobody's birthday.
Most tend to stay at home, out of the way of larger races, considering the larger world a dangerous place for little people.
They insist on being good hosts to strangers, regardless of circumstances.
They send out invitations to not come to parties and feasts, rather than invitations for coming to them.



Gnomes are an invention by an alchemist in the 16th Century named Paracelsus, or at least he was the first to write about them. He described them as earth elementals that were 2 spans tall (about 45cm). There are some parallels between them and Germanic dwarves, but there is enough unique material about dwarves that they can be separated.

They can pass through the ground the same way that humans pass through the air.
They are tiny creatures (in 3.5e), being only 2 spans tall.
They are wary around humans, suspecting them of having malicious intent.
They ride into battle upon the backs of goats.
They are adept at alchemy.
They often live near underground treasures (i.e., precious metals), drawing on their magical power.

[LIST]

Dwarves have a lot of source material to draw on, as they are an ancient idea. Though similar to gnomes, in that they are of the earth, they have several unique traits of their own.
[LIST]
They are bar-none the best smiths in the world, with their best creations being infused with magic.
Along with creating metal works, dwarves can mend flesh and are adept with healing magic.
They also know how to craft the mead of poetry, i.e. they can grant others knowledge.
They are reluctant to help others, but can be coerced into doing so.
They are ill-tempered and easily provoked to violence.
They don't really live underground - their doorways in the mountains teleport those who enter into another realm that is their home.

Jay R
2014-05-13, 12:09 AM
The clear distinction between halflings, a non-magical race best suited to be Thieves, and gnomes who were set out to be Illusionists, was erased in 3E, when racial limits were removed.

Grytorm
2014-05-13, 12:35 AM
Yeah I have been thinking about races lately. And I would have some touble making Gnomes/Halflings interesting. But much of it is pulling of similar ideas slowly bringing them together.

Sorry for a Dwarf Tangent but they have been on my brain but nowhere to talk about them. I had an idea for a core mythological origin for Dwarves in a setting. Dwarves as transfigured miner slaves hundreds of years ago by a god prophecised to end the world because he is trapped beneath it. They stress charity and forgiveness and believe that if asked for shelter it would be wrong to say no. So they establish monastaries to keep undesirables from difficult to reach main settlements and have a large ranger corps to act as guides. Their greatest hero was a murderer prince who after 100 years in exile returned as a redeemed man who became a great king. Other factions are an apopcalyptic dwarven cult/deep dwarves, a more conservative segment of their main kingdom that doesn't tolerate magic as much, a less dwarfy group away from the stereotype, and several groups ruled by dragons. Sometimes honored slave, sometimes slaver lords. They serve the dragons with a complex relationship taking a leading position over other races in the service of dragons. This group would wear complex clothing to denote rank and race to dragon lords. Also Dwarves would practice strong Psionic tradition.

Sorry for babbling, just some ideas for a campaign world that I haven't had a chance to write down yet. But it is definately possible to explore something while keeping close to stereotypes.

TuggyNE
2014-05-13, 12:42 AM
Gnomes are fluff as being good at trickery and illusions. They get a bonus to DCs against spells they cast which can be duplicated by taking Spell Focus Illusion by another race and their +2 against illusion spells can be replaced by some way of getting immunity to illusions.

Since their DC bonus stacks with Spell Focus, this is strictly incorrect: gnomes can, with equal build resources, match or exceed essentially any race's Illusion DCs, and only humans and a few others can equal their DCs, and then only with somewhat more resources spent; a gnome maximizing their DCs will be one point higher than a human's for slightly more resources, proportionally. (That is, a gnome with whatever first-level feat and a human with Spell Focus: Illusion and whatever first-level feat will have the same DCs: the human spent half of their feats, and the gnome spent only their racial choice, so advantage gnome. Or a gnome with Spell Focus: Illusion and a human with SF and GSF: Illusion will similarly have the same DCs at the cost of their entire feat investment, so advantage neither. Note, though, that at level 3 or greater the gnome can spend a second feat to gain GSF, with DCs that cannot be matched except by races with ability bonuses to casting stats.)

Similarly, "immunity to illusions", as such, is non-trivial to acquire. Not even blindness or true seeing will defend you against all illusions, although adding mind blank to the mix will probably do the job. However, spell combos that are only available at 15th level or so are not a fair comparison for an ability available at level 1.

You could, of course, argue that these bonuses are not significant enough, and this may even be true (for most games, in general). But you cannot accurately argue that they are meaningless, because that is objectively false: the bonuses are quite difficult to strictly replicate.

Knaight
2014-05-13, 02:45 AM
The clear distinction between halflings, a non-magical race best suited to be Thieves, and gnomes who were set out to be Illusionists, was erased in 3E, when racial limits were removed.

The spell like abilities, constitution bonus, and favored class all make it pretty clear.

LibraryOgre
2014-05-13, 10:44 AM
The clear distinction between halflings, a non-magical race best suited to be Thieves, and gnomes who were set out to be Illusionists, was erased in 3E, when racial limits were removed.


The spell like abilities, constitution bonus, and favored class all make it pretty clear.

For all that I am not a fan of 3.x, and think there are some serious deficiencies in the gnome design, I have to agree that they made the gnome mechanically distinct from dwarves and halflings.

Jay R
2014-05-13, 11:50 AM
The spell like abilities, constitution bonus, and favored class all make it pretty clear.


For all that I am not a fan of 3.x, and think there are some serious deficiencies in the gnome design, I have to agree that they made the gnome mechanically distinct from dwarves and halflings.

None of which changes my intended point, which is that the clearest difference (Class restrictions) was removed. The original question would not have been asked in 2E.

LibraryOgre
2014-05-13, 11:55 AM
None of which changes my intended point, which is that the clearest difference (Class restrictions) was removed. The original question would not have been asked in 2E.

I don't agree with that; there was a lot of questioning, IME, as to the point of gnomes, dwarves, or halflings in light of the extreme similarity of the races... while a gnome could be an illusionist and a dwarf or halfling could not, that was pretty much the main mechanical difference, and there was little reason you couldn't assign the role of illusionist to one of the others (as, indeed, the first Dark Sun boxed set did).

Knaight
2014-05-13, 02:16 PM
None of which changes my intended point, which is that the clearest difference (Class restrictions) was removed. The original question would not have been asked in 2E.

The original question could easily have been asked, it would just take some re-framing. "Why are there these two races instead of just one with fewer class restrictions" basically covers it.

Yora
2014-05-13, 02:37 PM
TSR D&D loves restrictions! I don't know why, but everything is indicating that they never wanted you to make your own characters and stick as much to characters that are both randomly picked and as generic as possible.

russdm
2014-05-13, 03:38 PM
Gnomes should be a subrace of dwarves to be honest. They come across as being simply magical dwarves far more than being a separate race.

Yora
2014-05-13, 03:48 PM
If anything, I'd say be considered part of halflings. The only overlap with dwarves is metalworking, and that usually is not shown to be armor and weapons.
They do have, however, a lot of overlapp with hobbits.

Jay R
2014-05-14, 10:50 AM
TSR D&D loves restrictions! I don't know why, but everything is indicating that they never wanted you to make your own characters and stick as much to characters that are both randomly picked and as generic as possible.

Not quite. Gygax was quite open about the goal, which was that they wanted you to mostly play humans. So they were restricting all other races.


The original question could easily have been asked, it would just take some re-framing. "Why are there these two races instead of just one with fewer class restrictions" basically covers it.

Nobody playing 2E would have asked why there are non-human class restrictions on those two classes and not asked it about all the others. Restrictions and superior specific abilities defined non-human races.

Besides, halflings that can use magic would have taken away the primary reason many of us played halflings at all.

Without the 3E outlook, the question is, "Why are there these two races instead of just one," and the answer is, "One of them is a small magical race, and the other is Tolkien's non-magical hobbits with the serial numbers filed off."

Cayzle
2014-05-14, 12:49 PM
Clearly, gnomes and halflings have plenty of fans. I think they offer options that other races do not. In fact, I am currently playing (in an online PbP game) a halfling sniper who uses reduce person to be tiny size -- with advantages no other race can match for that strat.

In fact, I know of a pure halflings-only online game, currently level 3 Pathfinder Core, that is looking for players (email me at [email protected] if you are interested).

But to me, the posts several people here have made point out something interesting ... lots of people HATE halflings (and gnomes). That seems a real shame to me, and it seems an even greater shame that the Pathfinder designers share the prejudice. I actually like Pathfinder, but even so, consider ...

-- Compared to 3.5, Halflings in PF lose stealth and a +1 to attack with thrown weapons and slings that 3.5 halflings get. With no substantive compensation.

-- The PF Advanced Players Guide designers created options that highlight halflings as cowards and worse. Consider the "Craven, Low Blow, and Underfoot" abilities -- these are simply offensive and actually demeaning. Why do the PF designers think that players who model themselves after heroes like Frodo and Bilbo want to take on traits that portray them as cowardly, cheap-shot artists who you are as likely to trip over as notice?

Some of those options are for gnomes too -- the idea being that small creatures are beneath notice. Look at the feat that let's you disguise yourself as a human child.

So why? Why do people dislike the smaller races?

Ravens_cry
2014-05-14, 02:47 PM
Maybe they feel they are overly clownish and goofy. Gnomes are especially prone to this, and things like a battle ladder (http://www.d20pfsrd.com/equipment---final/weapons/weapon-descriptions/battle-ladder) do not help.

Vedhin
2014-05-14, 02:55 PM
Maybe they feel they are overly clownish and goofy. Gnomes are especially prone to this, and things like a battle ladder (http://www.d20pfsrd.com/equipment---final/weapons/weapon-descriptions/battle-ladder) do not help.

Gnomes just moved up in my estimation. Anyone who makes things called "battle ladders" is cool. Not that I disliked the Small races previously, but battle ladder.

Cayzle
2014-05-14, 03:16 PM
Maybe they feel they are overly clownish and goofy. Gnomes are especially prone to this, and things like a battle ladder (http://www.d20pfsrd.com/equipment---final/weapons/weapon-descriptions/battle-ladder) do not help.

Well, if others can find these cool, great, but to me it is just another example of Paizo anti-smallfolk bias.

Ravens_cry
2014-05-14, 03:22 PM
Well, if others can find these cool, great, but to me it is just another example of Paizo anti-smallfolk bias.
I wouldn't call it bias, but their take on gnomes is particularly clownish. Whether that's a bad thing or a good thing is itself a matter of bias.

Cayzle
2014-05-14, 03:33 PM
I wouldn't call it bias, but their take on gnomes is particularly clownish. Whether that's a bad thing or a good thing is itself a matter of bias.

LOL! Point taken. Each to his own taste.

Jay R
2014-05-14, 05:29 PM
Well, if others can find these cool, great, but to me it is just another example of Paizo anti-smallfolk bias.

To me it's an example of a weapon built out of arbitrary rules by people who don't consider such things as balance, ability to move it quickly, etc.

It's not the gnomes' fault that this impossible weapon was assigned to them.

Coidzor
2014-05-14, 05:58 PM
Not quite. Gygax was quite open about the goal, which was that they wanted you to mostly play humans. So they were restricting all other races.

And then they realized that they could accomplish the same thing while letting people play non-humans without quite so many arbitrary and draconian restrictions by just making humans the best pick 90% of the time. XD


I wouldn't call it bias, but their take on gnomes is particularly clownish. Whether that's a bad thing or a good thing is itself a matter of bias.

I don't know, you know someone who actually likes clowns? :smalltongue:


But to me, the posts several people here have made point out something interesting ... lots of people HATE halflings (and gnomes). That seems a real shame to me, and it seems an even greater shame that the Pathfinder designers share the prejudice. I actually like Pathfinder, but even so, consider ...

I think part of it is that someone decided that Saruman had the right idea about what to do with hobbits and made that the design focus of halflings in PF.

Vedhin
2014-05-14, 06:24 PM
I don't know, you know someone who actually likes clowns? :smalltongue:

Yes, myself.

Jay R
2014-05-15, 10:20 AM
So why? Why do people dislike the smaller races?

Speaking only for myself, I love playing a halfling in 2E or earlier. Of course, unlike TSR and WotC, I'm not making money on it, so I can go ahead and call it a hobbit.

In 3E, the race is far less a classical fantasy race, and far more a generic D&D construct, and I have less interest.

I've never played a gnome, not because I "dislike" them, but because I don't have an internal idea of what a gnome is, outside of the D&D mechanics. So no gnome character comes to mind as something I want to pretend to be.

VanIsleKnight
2014-05-15, 03:38 PM
I think most people think of Tolkien when they think of the races in D&D, which isn't unfair to them in the slightest. You've got your fantasy staples: elves, humans, dwarves, orcs, halflings (hobbits). People assume orcs are Always Evil so half-orc was made so people could play something orc-ish, and because of the whole Arwen/Aragorn thing (or the fact that elves are idealized humans so who wouldn't want to mate with them?) you've got half-elves.

And then for some reason you have gnomes. They weren't in Tolkien, they're similar to halflings/hobbits (in that they're short and not stocky/tough like dwarves are so they're Small), and there haven't been nearly as many famous books or movies that have been consumed by the mainstream audience to truly give them their own identity in the mind of that same audience.

Halflings themselves are a somewhat easy to understand race (they're like humans/elves, but shorter!) even without Tolkien, and the rest of the races are so widespread that it's easy to understand what they're like and to picture what they're about.

Gnomes though. People can become all "Wtf. Garden gnomes? Little dudes with pointy beards, red hats, and blue tunics? Weaker, smarter and/or more magical Dwarf cousins? Weird... underground... halfling thing? Halfling with troll hair? I don't know man, I don't know."

To a layman, Gnomes could seem like an additional race thrown in "just because" as there isn't enough uniqueness to them to warrant them being a separate playable race from the get go. They could easily be an archetype or sub-race. If they perhaps had a stronger and clearer identity (and a successful franchise), this may not be the case.





So why? Why do people dislike the smaller races?

Initial thought is Kender. Second thought was how comparatively "uncool" Bilbo and Frodo were to when you pit them against Aragorn, Legolas, Bard, Gandalf, etc. They could be viewed the same way as children in a sense. A nuisance, a weak creature that demands an escort (and nobody likes escort missions), something that could contribute very little to a battle in the physical sense because of their stature (sadly important for something created from/as a war game), and all around uncool in the immediate sense. Funny, amusing, entertaining, but not nearly as "Badass". Plus people may think of halflings and smaller races unintentionally (or intentionally) as their real world equivalents. People with dwarfism can be seen by some as individuals with a severe physical handicap.

Those are my thoughts, anyway.

LibraryOgre
2014-05-17, 07:58 AM
Having watched Frozen for the first time last night, I think the trolls from there are how I handle gnomes from now on.

Mr. Mask
2014-05-17, 08:06 AM
That should fix up your gnomes.

Sartharina
2014-05-18, 02:54 AM
I don't get the outrage over the Battle Ladder - it's a ladder weighted and balanced to be able to be used in combat, while also serving as an invaluable tool - much like the Mattocks used by English Longbowmen to turn French Knights into tinned jelly. However, for Gnomes, a polearm-sized ladder carries several advantages - as a weapon that can be used to grab (Thanks to the bars/slats), it can offset the race's low strength by amplifying it with torsion forces and leverage. It's also valuable for scouting, and gives them a little bit of (Unrepresented in game beyond the natural 5' reach) reach advantage to let them keep a comparable distance against longer-armed enemies.

As a ladder, it also offsets gnome's short stature, allowing them to get to higher vantage points quickly, navigate changes of elevation in tunnels (And slow pursuers), and also work as a squad utility for greater mobility.

And as for the "Small folk are presented as dirty-fighting cowards" - Well, of course they have to be, because there's no way they can win through strength. It's only 'dirty' and 'dishonorable' to those who are offended that people who are physically incapable of competing with them are able to resort to other manners to succeed - if you're fighting fair, you're fighting wrong and stupid.

As for "Would a hero like Frodo resort to such dirty tactics"... YES. In fact, his entire journey was a sneak-attack against Sauron, and he only got as far as he did through guile, deception, and treachery. Even Merry and Pippin, knights of Gondor and mightiest hobbits since Bullroarer Took, fought 'dirty' compared to the taller and stronger warriors of Gondor, with most of their kills, especially the most famous ones, being from behind (Though they didn't work out well in either case, being wounded in the backlash of killing the Witch King, and getting squished by the troll).

Mr. Mask
2014-05-18, 05:10 AM
How do you balance a ladder for combat? Turn it into several staffs and clubs? You'd have more luck weaponizing a detached kitchen sink (really, I can imagine better use for the kitchen sink).

You shouldn't be holding ladders where there are infantry in your way to begin with. It's not like you can afford to climb while the enemy is still in position at the base of your ladder. You can't even lighten the thing, since you don't want it snapping or being snapped by the enemy. You can't add spikes or blades to it... because you don't want to lose fingers climbing it (best you could try is some kind of hooks on the top end, but those would be terrible weapons). Aside from chucking at someone to slow them down, you'd be better off with your bare hands. When you try to trap their limbs, they can do the same to you by manipulating your ladder--and they don't have the weight and leverage of a whole ladder working against them. If you're a smaller creature, then getting into a wrestling match with a ladder is not a good plan.

The ladder wouldn't work in scouting or adventuring environments either. Even a light ladder is a big nuisance, the kind of thing donkeys hate to carry. It would be especially bad in tunnels, the tight turns guaranteeing it to get stuck sooner or later.


Fighting dirty as portrayed is a bit of an odd moral quandary in combat situations. Most of the stuff they'll do, attacking the groin or tendons in the legs or arteries, that's not unusual. Fighting fair, as you say, isn't a smart way to fight. Usually, it's not honourable either--it's stupid.

Aedilred
2014-05-18, 05:28 AM
But to me, the posts several people here have made point out something interesting ... lots of people HATE halflings (and gnomes).
So why? Why do people dislike the smaller races?...


I think most people think of Tolkien when they think of the races in D&D, which isn't unfair to them in the slightest. You've got your fantasy staples: elves, humans, dwarves, orcs, halflings (hobbits). People assume orcs are Always Evil so half-orc was made so people could play something orc-ish, and because of the whole Arwen/Aragorn thing (or the fact that elves are idealized humans so who wouldn't want to mate with them?) you've got half-elves.

And then for some reason you have gnomes. They weren't in Tolkien, they're similar to halflings/hobbits (in that they're short and not stocky/tough like dwarves are so they're Small), and there haven't been nearly as many famous books or movies that have been consumed by the mainstream audience to truly give them their own identity in the mind of that same audience.
...
To a layman, Gnomes could seem like an additional race thrown in "just because" as there isn't enough uniqueness to them to warrant them being a separate playable race from the get go. They could easily be an archetype or sub-race. If they perhaps had a stronger and clearer identity (and a successful franchise), this may not be the case.

This is precisely why, in my opinion. I don't have anything against "the smaller races", but I don't see why we need so many of them. Coming from a Tolkein/Warhammer background, the human/dwarf/elf/halfling quartet is pretty classic, and what you'd expect to see. Gnomes don't really seem to have a niche, and look a bit pointless. I also find it hard to cope with too many sentient species, and that probably feeds back into the Tolkein/WHF thing too. You can have humans here, and the elves live in the corners of the map and dwarves live in the mountains and maybe halflings have their own homeland... but gnomes seem like superfluous complexity and confusion that just aren't worth it.

(Perhaps worth noting that WHF/WFRP actually did at one point include gnomes in addition to elves, dwarfs and halflings, but dropped them many years ago as they didn't serve much purpose and nobody really cared).

In a specific setting it might be different, if you can give the gnomes enough to do that they look like they fit properly. But in the core books they don't really do anything for me, and I've never included them in a setting of my own. In fact I have been known to completely forget they exist and make up my own sentient people to take their place - although that setting didn't include halflings either.

Vizzerdrix
2014-05-18, 09:48 AM
Halflings are like Hobbits from Lord of the Rings,

In older editions, yes. This is true. In 3.x however they got a facelift and are nothing like hobbits now.
Halflings are generally nomadic opportunists that prefer a little danger as opposed to living the quiet life (PHB19). Nothing at all like a hobbit.

Gnomes on the other hand are quite similar to hobbits. Both are laid back and like to live in hills.

Prince Raven
2014-05-18, 10:55 AM
A better question is "why are there halflings and kenders?" Gnomes are as different from halflings as elves are from humans (probably more, I've never heard of a half-gnome after all). Kenders are basically slightly more kleptomania-inclined halflings.

Sartharina
2014-05-18, 11:24 AM
A better question is "why are there halflings and kenders?" Gnomes are as different from halflings as elves are from humans (probably more, I've never heard of a half-gnome after all). Kenders are basically slightly more kleptomania-inclined halflings.I don't recall there being halflings in Dragonlance.

Vedhin
2014-05-18, 01:24 PM
Kenders are basically slightly more kleptomania-inclined halflings.

Nope. Kender are like little children in that they're very optimistic and rather innocent. The perceived kleptomania is because they have hyper ooh shiny! and don't remember to put things back where they found them.

Yora
2014-05-18, 01:58 PM
Kender are a blight upon the world that requires a swift Exterminatus!

And they are also responsible for at least 80% of the bad flak gnomes are getting. Absolutely unacceptible.

Lord Raziere
2014-05-18, 02:04 PM
I remember a joke I once made in the bizarre Eberron conspiracies thread:


There is no difference between gnomes and halflings! Zilargo just wants people to THINK that so that they can keep the Talentans exiled and live out better lives in their cities while looking down upon the Talentans!


heheheheh, never have I found another thread more appropriate for it!

as for the discussion itself: why are there elves and humans? when you boil it down, an elf is nothing but a human with pointy ears. so an elf is about as different from a human as a gnome is different from a halfling. yet both are still there.

think upon this discussion:
human: why are halflings and gnomes so the same?
halfling: what!? we are NOT the same! gnomes are stuck up pointy-eared pricks! they're always going on about how they're better at magic and tinkering than us! those darn faeries wouldn't know how to sneak past a human or pick a pocket if a book on thievery hit them in the face!
gnome: don't compare me to this scoundrel! he will take your stuff as soon as see it, nothing but a ruffian who perpetrates low skullduggery for coin! I on the other hand am a refined practitioner of the arcane arts, and many of my enchanted goods have sold for high prices! and I would never stoop so low as to resort to such dishonest methods like the kender over there does....
Halfing: What'd you just call me!?
*argument*
The human looks at the elf
human: ever get the feeling that we are watching what all the other races see when they look at us?
elf: don't compare me to yourself human....

toapat
2014-05-18, 02:56 PM
as for the discussion itself: why are there elves and humans? when you boil it down, an elf is nothing but a human with pointy ears. so an elf is about as different from a human as a gnome is different from a halfling. yet both are still there.

elves vs humans is moreso a failure of a few factors, those easily named being that Humans exist, and that elves dont really get development on what makes them more then pointy eared magical treehuggers despite that they have those traits, as well as the poorly defined law/chaos axis being intrinsic to their ideas and the falacy of making characters defined by how Authoritarian/Libertarian they are.

At least personally, in the outline for the material i plan to eventually write, i renamed Halflings to Gnomes (because Gnome at least sounds like a racial name and not a permanent slur) and basically just took the shear barbarianism of the Dark Sun + Talentan halflings.

Lord Raziere
2014-05-18, 03:47 PM
I think you missed the point entirely. by saying its a failure of a bunch of factors. why do you define it as a failure, is it not good enough for you? is your standards of elfness supposed to be universal or something?

toapat
2014-05-18, 05:28 PM
I think you missed the point entirely. by saying its a failure of a bunch of factors. why do you define it as a failure, is it not good enough for you? is your standards of elfness supposed to be universal or something?

There is more wrong then what i said alone, but at its heart, Elves dont see development on the traits which could justify them as a race.

To compare: My personal Philosophy on racial design as far as Worth existing/Waste of design space is measured against the Warforged. The trait of "What is a Man" is stronger then "Short Warrior Miner", "Sentinent Green Beast" or "Pointy Eared Magical Treehugger"

Aedilred
2014-05-18, 07:12 PM
Elves, in principle, are sufficiently distinct from humans as to justify their existence, I think. The problem is that often - and generic 3.5 D&D is absolutely guilty of this - portrayed as little more than humans with pointy ears. Really, elves "should" be as different from humans as dwarfs are, their superficial physical similarity serving to make the differences more acute.

Of course, you could argue the same is true of halflings and gnomes. The problem I think that both halflings and gnomes have is that unlike elves, dwarves and orcs they've never quite made it to the status of fantasy archetype. Elves can be played straight, portrayed badly, or subverted, but everyone knows - roughly speaking - the rules. And although pre-Tolkein elves (and indeed post-Tolkein elves) do vary quite widely, the idea of "the fair folk" is I think sufficiently culturally rooted that people can cope with it. Tolkein's halflings are familiar, but remain fairly LotR-rooted, and they haven't been picked up and riffed off to the same extent. Even in LotR it's never entirely clear what purpose the hobbits serve that sufficiently well-done humans couldn't. Which isn't to diss Tolkein, and I enjoyed his hobbits, but they're conceptually not much more than small humans (indeed, small rural Merrie Englishmen) who like their food a bit too much.

Then, given that conceptually accommodating halflings is already a bit of a challenge for many people, adding gnomes on top, whose role in fantasy fiction is even less archetypal and even less well-defined, is just asking for trouble. I feel the same way about eladrin in D&D4, as it happens - I'm not sure what niche they're supposed to fill that elves already couldn't.

toapat
2014-05-18, 07:44 PM
Elves, in principle, are sufficiently distinct from humans as to justify their existence, I think. The problem is that often - and generic 3.5 D&D is absolutely guilty of this - portrayed as little more than humans with pointy ears. Really, elves "should" be as different from humans as dwarfs are, their superficial physical similarity serving to make the differences more acute.

Right,

The only reason i violated my till today policy of not contributing my own opinion to this topic is because i wanted to see other peoples, and from at least how its died down i felt it may be coming to a close. the reading was interesting but i still havent come to anything beyond what opinions i already had.

As far as hobbits are concerned, what i have read so far in the story hasnt really justified them to me. Their function in relation to the worldbuilding is great, but they basically serve only to burden the rest of the story through the comparison that they are not Legolas, Gimli, Boromir, or Aragorn. its a double edged literary device that i feel didnt help the books.

As for wanting a "reluctant adventurer" type, Dwarves fit that pretty well because greedy doesnt mean that they cant be risk adverse.

Lord Raziere
2014-05-18, 07:56 PM
what is this talk of niches and "filling"? a world is a world. it does not have one of everything. it does not go out of its way to have a reason for everything it does or make each thing distinct and so on and so forth. what is, merely is. there is no design space to "waste" or archetypes to have one of. the creation of a world is far more than just that, it is the workings of existence and civilization.

I do not see how having both halflings and gnomes in the same world is a flaw. nature is full of creatures that superficially the same but contain many little details that distinguish them- like the dog. fundamentally, they're all the same creature, but they shine in the details with so many different kinds. if the world obeyed these thoughts upon design, there would be only one kind of dog in existence, and thus the world would be lesser for it.

Amphetryon
2014-05-18, 08:03 PM
Elves, in principle, are sufficiently distinct from humans as to justify their existence, I think. The problem is that often - and generic 3.5 D&D is absolutely guilty of this - portrayed as little more than humans with pointy ears. Really, elves "should" be as different from humans as dwarfs are, their superficial physical similarity serving to make the differences more acute.

Of course, you could argue the same is true of halflings and gnomes. The problem I think that both halflings and gnomes have is that unlike elves, dwarves and orcs they've never quite made it to the status of fantasy archetype. Elves can be played straight, portrayed badly, or subverted, but everyone knows - roughly speaking - the rules. And although pre-Tolkein elves (and indeed post-Tolkein elves) do vary quite widely, the idea of "the fair folk" is I think sufficiently culturally rooted that people can cope with it. Tolkein's halflings are familiar, but remain fairly LotR-rooted, and they haven't been picked up and riffed off to the same extent. Even in LotR it's never entirely clear what purpose the hobbits serve that sufficiently well-done humans couldn't. Which isn't to diss Tolkein, and I enjoyed his hobbits, but they're conceptually not much more than small humans (indeed, small rural Merrie Englishmen) who like their food a bit too much.

Then, given that conceptually accommodating halflings is already a bit of a challenge for many people, adding gnomes on top, whose role in fantasy fiction is even less archetypal and even less well-defined, is just asking for trouble. I feel the same way about eladrin in D&D4, as it happens - I'm not sure what niche they're supposed to fill that elves already couldn't.

Given the breadth of Human experience in dealing with other Humans vs the paucity of Human experience in dealing with other sentient Races, and given the wide range of behaviors Humans display as a whole, I would think one would be hard pressed to create a Race of sentient beings in the game that could not be described as merely portraying some aspect of humanity or Human experience, if only metaphorically. This is especially true given that - to the best of my knowledge - we have no examples of fiction on which to draw that do not have a Human author, who will put a Human perspective on the tale, no matter how disguised that perspective may appear at first blush. Naturally, this is a role that the Humans themselves would be perfectly suited to portray. If the objection is that Gnomes/Elves/Hobbits/Ghouls/etc are serving no purpose that well-done humans couldn't, then we might as well throw out the entire genre of fantasy, not to mention science-fiction and supernatural horror, and that's just to start.

I, for one, am not willing to make that leap.

Coidzor
2014-05-18, 10:14 PM
I don't recall there being halflings in Dragonlance.

That's because they wanted a setting without halflings but then had to invent Kender to please one of their manchild players, and since they didn't really care about the race they let the manchild set the foundation for them and then it lead to a relatively popular series of stories cementing things so that now everyone else is stuck with them, IIRC.

Seward
2014-05-18, 10:15 PM
They did not for a long, long time.

Halflings, aka Hobbits, have been in D&D from the start. 0E, 1E, 2E and D&D all had halflings as Player Character races. But not gnomes. Gnomes were a race from the Monster Manual. Eventually gnomes were added as an optional race, but they never made it into the Players Handbook.


Gnomes are in the Advanced Dungeons and Dragons Players Handbook, 1st edition. They were pretty much only used as illusionist/thieves because that was the only unique thing they could do that couldn't be done better by some other race.

In basic D&D, Hobbits & Elves were more of a a profession, than a race. (and yes, Hobbits. Gygax & co were sloppy about copyright, just as 1st version of Deities and Demigods included several fictional panthions that they didn't get rights for and were removed in later printings). The elves could fight and do magic..I don't remember hobbits being anything but crappy fighters, but I didn't play much basic.

Later settings filed off the serial numbers on the halflings and made them a lot less like the Tolkien variety. Gnomes originally were kind of like dwarves, except they lived in hills instead of mountains, and used a bit of magic, instead of being magic resistant. Something like a Dwarf/Elf hybrid. They also started out lawful, of all things. Hard to imagine given all the gnomes I've seen played over the years, but there it is. The gnomes in the Packsenarrion https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Paksenarrion setting are most like D&D gnomes, which isn't surprising, as that setting reads a hell of a lot like somebody's solo D&D campaign, featuring a mercenary who isn't one of the "zero level" type who gets a level of fighter or two and then dual-classes to Paladin. The nonhumans in that setting are very much of the 1st edition monster manual/PHB variety. Although it's decently written, unlike most such attempts.

JusticeZero
2014-05-18, 10:37 PM
I have never seen any reason to have both gnomes and halflings, let alone to have them as PC races. Honestly, neither of them get used much.
Then again, I am not especially happy with elves and dwarves being in every game, either. Mix it up, folks..

Prince Raven
2014-05-18, 11:56 PM
Nope. Kender are like little children in that they're very optimistic and rather innocent. The perceived kleptomania is because they have hyper ooh shiny! and don't remember to put things back where they found them.

So, in other words, they're halflings?

Coidzor
2014-05-19, 12:56 AM
So, in other words, they're halflings?

Worse. Look at the 1d4chan entry on Kender. They're to Halflings what the Dwarves from Oglaf(Search at your own risk, some of the comics are safe but most aren't, IIRC) are to actual Dorfs.

Prince Raven
2014-05-19, 09:37 AM
I'm familiar with Oglaf.
So someone took a bunch of racial stereotypes of halflings and *poof* Kender?

erikun
2014-05-19, 12:07 PM
Halflings are Tolkien Hobbits, to go with the Tolkien Elves, Tolkien Dwarves, Tolkien Humans and Tolkien Orcs.

Gnomes are the inherently magic-using race. Tolkien Elves don't work as this, because while they have a culture of magic, that is not the same as having a quality of magic. An elf taken out of an elf society does not naturally have the ability to use magic in the same sense that a gnome, who actually is magic, would. An elf who is a ranger and carries around a spellbook for magical study would feel like a multiclassing character, because both are skills the elf learns during their life. A gnome who is a ranger and has illusionary abilities still feels like a single classed character, because illusions is what the gnome is.

Coidzor
2014-05-19, 03:42 PM
I'm familiar with Oglaf.
So someone took a bunch of racial stereotypes of halflings and *poof* Kender?

I think this was still early enough that Hobbits were the dominant racial stereotype of halflings. Back in the days of yore and all. They first published Dragonlance materials in November of 1984, meaning the campaign it was based on probably began sometime in 1982-83 at the latest.

So I believe it was basically racial stereotypes made up of wholecloth by one of the players in that game.

FabulousFizban
2014-05-19, 04:23 PM
Can't say, I am more Pathfinder cult member player :smalltongue:

well then, halflings get a cha bonus and gnomes get a con bonus. there is your difference. your welcome

LibraryOgre
2014-05-19, 04:25 PM
I think this was still early enough that Hobbits were the dominant racial stereotype of halflings. Back in the days of yore and all. They first published Dragonlance materials in November of 1984, meaning the campaign it was based on probably began sometime in 1982-83 at the latest.

So I believe it was basically racial stereotypes made up of wholecloth by one of the players in that game.

Commentary from Weis and Hickman says that they wanted a race to replace and fill the niche of halflings, but Tracy objected to them being actual thieves.

veti
2014-05-19, 04:47 PM
Halflings are Tolkien Hobbits, to go with the Tolkien Elves, Tolkien Dwarves, Tolkien Humans and Tolkien Orcs.

If D&D humans were Tolkien humans, they would have subraces. Haradrim != Numenorean != Rohirrim != Dunlending != Beorning != Easterling.

As I understand it, the reason this didn't happen in D&D is because the creators were afraid of charges of racism, which they thought they could get away from by defining the different races as different species. And surprisingly enough, that worked pretty well for the first 20-30 years. But now the Internet is full of people (like Rich Burlew, f'rinstance) saying things like "Hey, goblins are just people who happen to be small and green, how do we get away with treating them as subhuman?" Which means the reason for keeping humans monolithic has, definitely, outworn its usefulness.

Elder Scrolls has human subraces, they don't seem to particularly offend anyone. MERP introduced them to tabletop gaming 30 years ago. Surely D&D will catch up soon.

LibraryOgre
2014-05-19, 05:07 PM
Elder Scrolls has human subraces, they don't seem to particularly offend anyone. MERP introduced them to tabletop gaming 30 years ago. Surely D&D will catch up soon.

Birthright had explicit human subraces, with racial adjustments, 20 years ago; Greyhawk had them in a later book, and mentioned earlier, but they didn't have much mechanical effect.

Jay R
2014-05-19, 07:08 PM
In basic D&D, Hobbits & Elves were more of a a profession, than a race.

While that's true, somewhat, let's go back earlier than Basic D&D to original D&D.

With the original whitebox edition, elves could be fighters and magic-users, but had to be one or the other for a single adventure. They could earn xps for each, but both paths were capped. Hobbits could only be fighters, and only to level four.

When the first supplement appeared (Greyhawk), Thieves were introduced as a character class, and both elves and hobbits could be thieves, with no cap.

They were clearly races, not professions, until Basic D&D came out, pretending to be the same game.

russdm
2014-05-20, 02:23 PM
Elder Scrolls has human subraces, they don't seem to particularly offend anyone. MERP introduced them to tabletop gaming 30 years ago. Surely D&D will catch up soon.

It may be because the Elder Scrolls treated them all equally with having both allies (good npcs) and Enemies (Evil npcs) drawn from them, without one subrace having more enemies or allies than another. In D&D, some races were nearly completely allies (good npcs) and some were nearly completely enemies (evil npcs). Elder scrolls was more fifty-fifty on chances on whether you encountered an ally or enemy, where as in D&D, the race more often determined whether you encountered mainly allies or enemies. Elves and dwarves were always allies no matter what with goblins and orcs being always enemies no matter what.

There is the also the fact the biggest enemies or threats were Daedra rather than some race like orcs, as well.

Another fact is that the Elder Scrolls didn't commit to treating their races as having all the same hats, but had differences among the subraces that fit them.

Aedilred
2014-05-20, 05:13 PM
what is this talk of niches and "filling"? a world is a world. it does not have one of everything. it does not go out of its way to have a reason for everything it does or make each thing distinct and so on and so forth. what is, merely is. there is no design space to "waste" or archetypes to have one of. the creation of a world is far more than just that, it is the workings of existence and civilization.
Yes and no, I think. In the natural world, obviously that's how it works. But I think, from a creative perspective, you want to avoid repetition and duplication unless it's for a specific purpose. Perhaps you want to highlight the differences between two things that are very similar, or maybe you want to show how two apparently different things are actually the same under the surface. But if you're writing any kind of fiction, if you end up with two things that are so similar the reader isn't going to care about the differences - whether that's two towns, or two species, or two characters - and it's not for a specific purpose that's picked up and used then that's a flaw.

I've never been a fan of the "throw-it-in" school of fantasy, as much as anything because with each extra race, subspecies, whatever, is just more detail for the players/readers to fail to remember. I also find it makes it harder to construct believable worlds the more different sentient (and often non-interbreeding) species you're trying to cram into it.



Given the breadth of Human experience in dealing with other Humans vs the paucity of Human experience in dealing with other sentient Races, and given the wide range of behaviors Humans display as a whole, I would think one would be hard pressed to create a Race of sentient beings in the game that could not be described as merely portraying some aspect of humanity or Human experience, if only metaphorically. This is especially true given that - to the best of my knowledge - we have no examples of fiction on which to draw that do not have a Human author, who will put a Human perspective on the tale, no matter how disguised that perspective may appear at first blush. Naturally, this is a role that the Humans themselves would be perfectly suited to portray. If the objection is that Gnomes/Elves/Hobbits/Ghouls/etc are serving no purpose that well-done humans couldn't, then we might as well throw out the entire genre of fantasy, not to mention science-fiction and supernatural horror, and that's just to start.
Again, I both agree and disagree. I think the trick is to create your bonus sentient races such that well-done humans couldn't fill the same role. Really, that's one of the core measures of the quality of a given fantasy world. Or perhaps you can use other sentient species as a way of commenting on real-life humanity. I think it would be hard to replace, say, the elves in either Tolkein or Pratchett with humans and retain their place and role in the story and world. It could probably be done, but the elves serve a purpose there that works because of their inhumanity, even if the author is necessarily human.

But certainly, there are times when I see elves or dwarves or other fantasy archetypes who are just re-skinned humans and think "well what was the point in that?" The difference between elves and dwarves, etc. and halfings and gnomes is that I struggle to think of any occasions I haven't read halflings or gnomes and thought they were basically just re-skinned humans, or at best, re-skinned versions of each other/other fantasy species. So, given my feelings about unnecessary duplication as I indicated above, I'd just use other things to play those roles in the world or narrative without really giving them a second thought.

Essentially, I've never been entirely sure what gnomes, and to a lesser extent, halflings, are for.

Amphetryon
2014-05-20, 06:42 PM
Again, I both agree and disagree. I think the trick is to create your bonus sentient races such that well-done humans couldn't fill the same role. Really, that's one of the core measures of the quality of a given fantasy world. Or perhaps you can use other sentient species as a way of commenting on real-life humanity. I think it would be hard to replace, say, the elves in either Tolkein or Pratchett with humans and retain their place and role in the story and world. It could probably be done, but the elves serve a purpose there that works because of their inhumanity, even if the author is necessarily human.

But certainly, there are times when I see elves or dwarves or other fantasy archetypes who are just re-skinned humans and think "well what was the point in that?" The difference between elves and dwarves, etc. and halfings and gnomes is that I struggle to think of any occasions I haven't read halflings or gnomes and thought they were basically just re-skinned humans, or at best, re-skinned versions of each other/other fantasy species. So, given my feelings about unnecessary duplication as I indicated above, I'd just use other things to play those roles in the world or narrative without really giving them a second thought.

Essentially, I've never been entirely sure what gnomes, and to a lesser extent, halflings, are for.

I'd love to hear your take how, exactly, one would create a sentient Race that has nothing in common with Humanity in terms of behaviors or thought pattern, or even cultural reference points; failing that, the metric of 'well-done Humans couldn't fill the same role' is impossible as I understand the term 'couldn't.'

I will say that I have never once seen a single example from fantasy literature or RPGs that met that particular metric.

Elderand
2014-05-20, 06:51 PM
I'd love to hear your take how, exactly, one would create a sentient Race that has nothing in common with Humanity in terms of behaviors or thought pattern, or even cultural reference points; failing that, the metric of 'well-done Humans couldn't fill the same role' is impossible as I understand the term 'couldn't.'

I will say that I have never once seen a single example from fantasy literature or RPGs that met that particular metric.

That's because every single writer we know is human. Therefore every single race in every single books comes from a human mind, meaning it has reference points with us.

The only way to do something like that is to not describe anything and ask the reader to really, pretty please with a cherry on top, trust that the race/creature/thing from beyond is actually acting in a way peoples wouldn't understand.

Amphetryon
2014-05-20, 06:59 PM
That's because every single writer we know is human. Therefore every single race in every single books comes from a human mind, meaning it has reference points with us.

The only way to do something like that is to not describe anything and ask the reader to really, pretty please with a cherry on top, trust that the race/creature/thing from beyond is actually acting in a way peoples wouldn't understand.

Which was a point I made previously; the point was either disagreed with by Aedilred (in which case I'd like to see the specific examples which led to that disagreement; the Elves and Dwarves of Tolkien and Pratchett are pretty clearly based on specific Human archetypes and behaviors, as I understand them), or understand why that particular point was ignored for purposes of rebutting the overall commentary.

Aedilred
2014-05-20, 07:22 PM
I'd love to hear your take how, exactly, one would create a sentient Race that has nothing in common with Humanity in terms of behaviors or thought pattern, or even cultural reference points; failing that, the metric of 'well-done Humans couldn't fill the same role' is impossible as I understand the term 'couldn't.'
Oh, spare me the sarcasm, and the straw men, for that matter. I'm not sure why this discussion has led to the rhetorical knives coming out: are there gnomes and halflings somewhere I've gravely offended or something?

I'm not saying that they should have Nothing In Common With Humanity. I mean, the physiology alone is going to lead to some sort of familiar behaviour and cultural reference points. Just that their inhumanity is important. Starting with a vaguely human-shaped creature and then going off in directions a human couldn't, or wouldn't en masse, and constructing societies based around that principle. As the obvious example, Tolkein's elves live for thousands of years, which humans don't - that gives the elves a perspective and distance that humans can never attain.

But I'm not going to sit here and list examples, because I can't be bothered and nothing I brought up would be treated as a valid example anyway (as the two I've already mentioned have already been dismissed). So fine, I surrender, for the sake of argument I have never seen elves or dwarves done in the manner I describe above, and if by my standards that means elves and dwarves have never been done well in all the fantasy literature ever published, then I'd be happy to junk the lot and replace them with humans.

But that in turn means I have seen halflings and gnomes done so even less often than "never", and to my eyes they look even more pointless than they did before.

Felhammer
2014-05-20, 10:57 PM
But I'm not going to sit here and list examples, because I can't be bothered and nothing I brought up would be treated as a valid example anyway (as the two I've already mentioned have already been dismissed). So fine, I surrender, for the sake of argument I have never seen elves or dwarves done in the manner I describe above, and if by my standards that means elves and dwarves have never been done well in all the fantasy literature ever published, then I'd be happy to junk the lot and replace them with humans.

But that in turn means I have seen halflings and gnomes done so even less often than "never", and to my eyes they look even more pointless than they did before.


Race is just another way of saying ethnicity. Other races are just different human ethnicities given different shaped bodies. Dwarf, Elf, Halfling, Gnomes, Orc, Goblin, these are all just shorthand for a ball of cultural and ethnic expectations.

If I say a Cerean is coming towards you, you (like 99.99999% of the population) would most likely not know what I mean. To a fan of Star Wars, that term would mean a very specific species with its own culture, physiology and history. However, for a mass market game that intends to be (generally speaking) setting neutral(-ish), then Cerean is not a good race. We must dig into the consciousness of pop culture and pluck out races/species that would be easily understood by the masses. Dwarves live under mountains and mine ore. Elves live in forests and are enigmatic. Orcs are evil barbarians. I merely have to utter the word Dwarf, and an image is conjured in your head without me having to add a description. Good writers will make you fall in love with a Cerean but it takes time and energy, both of which might be better spent on the story.

Townopolis
2014-05-20, 11:32 PM
I would just like to take a moment to point out that Aedilred does actually have a valid point, at least with Tolkien's elves. Those elves, at least, have physiological and other essential characteristics that make them distinct from humans in a much, much more significant way than "living in the forest and being aloof/enigmatic." It isn't even just that the elves of Middle-Earth never grow old, because yeah, the same could be said of the Numenorians. There are other, non-cultural, characteristics of elves (mostly related to what happens when they die) that differentiate them from humans.

Now, you could apply all those inhuman characteristics to a nominally "human" race and get the same effects, as the cultural and cognitive differences between humans and M-E elves are largely based on extrapolating the effects those characteristics would have on a basically human mindset, but notice the part where I say that species would be only nominally human. Giving a group of people attributes that divorce them from human experience to the degree that Tolkien's elves are divorced from human experience, and then calling them humans, is just the mirror of saying "oh, these humans live in the forest and are naturally agile, so we'll call them elves."

Sartharina
2014-05-21, 02:47 AM
Commentary from Weis and Hickman says that they wanted a race to replace and fill the niche of halflings, but Tracy objected to them being actual thieves.So we ended up with something WORSE than actual thieves.

But the point I was trying to make when I asked about them was that Halflings and Kender do not exist in the same universe side-by-side, as a response to "Why have Halflings and Kender?", which is on par with asking "Why have Nords, Vikings, Highlanders, Dwarves, and Norn?" - Each one is a different setting's take on the concept.

Amphetryon
2014-05-21, 05:16 AM
Oh, spare me the sarcasm, and the straw men, for that matter. I'm not sure why this discussion has led to the rhetorical knives coming out: are there gnomes and halflings somewhere I've gravely offended or something?

I'm not saying that they should have Nothing In Common With Humanity. I mean, the physiology alone is going to lead to some sort of familiar behaviour and cultural reference points. Just that their inhumanity is important. Starting with a vaguely human-shaped creature and then going off in directions a human couldn't, or wouldn't en masse, and constructing societies based around that principle. As the obvious example, Tolkein's elves live for thousands of years, which humans don't - that gives the elves a perspective and distance that humans can never attain.

But I'm not going to sit here and list examples, because I can't be bothered and nothing I brought up would be treated as a valid example anyway (as the two I've already mentioned have already been dismissed). So fine, I surrender, for the sake of argument I have never seen elves or dwarves done in the manner I describe above, and if by my standards that means elves and dwarves have never been done well in all the fantasy literature ever published, then I'd be happy to junk the lot and replace them with humans.

But that in turn means I have seen halflings and gnomes done so even less often than "never", and to my eyes they look even more pointless than they did before.

I was not being sarcastic. I was asking for a legitimate example that met your stated metrics. Humans don't live thousands of years, but the cultures of humans do. The perspective of thousands of years was portrayed by a human author, and clearly shows the human scope of vision in understanding events and how they influence - and are influenced by - time. I would list the societies to which Tolkien clearly tipped his cap in constructing his Races - or do the same for Pratchett - were it not against the 'real world politics/religion' proscription on this forum; that said, those analogies are freely available on the internet via a simple search, if you're unfamiliar.

toapat
2014-05-21, 08:52 AM
"Why have Nords, Vikings, Highlanders, Dwarves, and Norn?" - Each one is a different setting's take on the concept.

That would be an interesting region for a setting. My question is who becomes the "ruling" race

Jay R
2014-05-21, 09:32 AM
That would be an interesting region for a setting. My question is who becomes the "ruling" race

Obviously, that's what the campaign's about.

erikun
2014-05-21, 10:24 AM
Interesting, because I generally consider that gnomes (out of the standard D&D races) are really the only ones distinct enough from humans to warrant being a different race. They are capable of talking with animals - and getting a response - and everyone in the society has the ability to use natural magic. Those are some pretty big differences from the standard humanity, enough that a society of gnomes would clearly have differences from a society of humans.

This isn't to say that I could not change the elves, dwarves, or orcs into something that is distinct from humans. That isn't the default, though. It also runs into problems that players will be playing characters of these races, and might be bringing assumptions contradictory to those ideas to the table. Pretty much everyone playing D&D are familiar with gnomes and are familiar with their ability to use natural magic. Very few would be familiar with my take of carnivore orcs and might not even think about it when running a character.

Sartharina
2014-05-21, 12:52 PM
Humans have an amazing ability to extrapolate based on observation, allowing us to portray races that are inhuman in ways we can almost relate to.

Knaight
2014-05-22, 07:18 PM
Race is just another way of saying ethnicity. Other races are just different human ethnicities given different shaped bodies. Dwarf, Elf, Halfling, Gnomes, Orc, Goblin, these are all just shorthand for a ball of cultural and ethnic expectations.

In the context of fantasy "race" is frequently a misnomer used because "species" sounds too scientific. Elves frequently live for thousands of years - that right there is a physiological difference significantly bigger than those between humans and other great apes, let alone differences between races (which are rather small, to the point of not actually being significant without cultural backing pushing for them to be).

Lord Raziere
2014-05-22, 07:51 PM
Humans have an amazing ability to extrapolate based on observation, allowing us to portray races that are inhuman in ways we can almost relate to.

I haven't yet seen a single portrayal of races that are actually alien and not just sociopathic, emotionless or evil.

really, I don't see the point of trying to go for alien, or needlessly make races evil, nor do I want humans to be the only race that matters.

I just want lots of races that I can play however I want. I don't care if I'm too human or inhuman, I just want to play a character, and I want that character to not be a human in their physical body, but going for alien mindsets that I can't comprehend or relate to and thus don't want to play? not my cuppa.

like for example, I want to play a lightning elemental, I don't care how inhuman or human said elemental is as long as I like playing him, which probably means said elemental is human in some ways that some people wouldn't like. I don't care. when I want to play a character, I play that character and like it.

Sartharina
2014-05-23, 10:17 AM
People declare things that don't conform to their view of how society and people should interact as "Evil" - and most of those other terms you listed are just synonyms for "inhuman".

Life lives at the expense of other life. We use all sorts of arbitrary distinctions to decide whether the expense is okay or not (Fine to completely destroy 99.9% of bacteria in a large area. Not okay to destroy 10% of Humans-You-Don't-Like). The expense of life needed to maintain life varies across species and individual organisms. We generally tend to view fantasy races that have a lower 'unacceptable' expense of life as Idealized (Such as Elves that have no need to eat or reproduce, or make others work for them), while those that have a high 'unacceptable' expense of life to live themselves (Such as Gnolls, which will hunt and eat anything including humans and each other to feed their metabolisms, reproduce rapidly to offset short lifespans, and rely heavily on slave labor to perform the manual tasks required for their packs) as Evil.

Lord Raziere
2014-05-23, 10:33 AM
People declare things that don't conform to their view of how society and people should interact as "Evil" - and most of those other terms you listed are just synonyms for "inhuman".


..........and?

evil is completely human, it couldn't happen if a human could not do it, and therefore its only inhuman if a human can't do it. and you assume that just because people can mistakenly declare something that doesn't fit their view as evil, that means the label is meaningless just because they misuse it. someone declaring that something is evil when it isn't, is just being mistaken and misguided, not actually changing what evil is.

while the only examples of inhumanity we have are other animals, and they simplistic and easily understandable compared to our own minds. I don't consider evil to be something inhuman, as its something that we made, therefore evil as a thing can only exist as something human.

while its perfectly possible for someone to be sociopathic- its why its a certain psychological condition- and if lack of emotion wasn't a thing, we wouldn't have a word for it. therefore all these "inhuman" things are actually very human, just human parts we don't like, and therefore want to deny them being apart of the human experience in response.

an alien mindset wouldn't even comprehend emotionlessness or sociopathy or evil. they would be confused as to why we designate these certain states of being as not belonging to the rest of humanities psychology, when it would see minor examples of such things everywhere.

Sartharina
2014-05-23, 10:57 AM
But it doesn't require a human to do it. Humans are just capable of finding ways to do all sorts of horrific stuff to do to each other (And be horrified at things people do to each other). Even when it comes to things humans can't individually do, like rot someone to death from the inside out, they can find a way to make it happen (Such as by hunting down a microbe that CAN cause people to rot from the inside out, then inflicting it on someone else). By your definition, EVERYTHING is human, because there's nothing humans can't do, get done, or imagine doing if they put their minds to it. The only thing 'human' is perspective on the action, not the action itself.

And the "Evil" things humans do aren't restricted to humans, either, such as tearing someone to pieces and watching them squirm in pain for its own amusement, or inflicting horrific burns on 90% of someone's body, inside and out, or murdering and devouring someone.

If your definition of 'human' is "something humans can do", then every celestial body, every meteorological phenomenon, every living organism, every non-living organism, every mineral, every geothermal shift, every geological structure, and every electromagnetic signal is human.

erikun
2014-05-23, 11:41 AM
I haven't yet seen a single portrayal of races that are actually alien and not just sociopathic, emotionless or evil.

really, I don't see the point of trying to go for alien, or needlessly make races evil, nor do I want humans to be the only race that matters.
The biggest problem, I think, is getting everyone to understand and agree on what "alien" actually means. After all, assuming that the players will be playing characters of these alien species, they need to have some context and some sort of mindset that agrees with everyone else. Otherwise, it doesn't matter that you've created intelligent immortal golems who have no concept of life and death in their society - the players will still run them like humans with funny hats.

Felhammer
2014-05-23, 10:22 PM
the players will still run them like humans with funny hats.

Which, at the end of the day, is pretty much all fantasy races truly are - just dudes with funny hates.

In a world where there are one set of gods and they make all life, it makes sense that disparate groups of humanoids would have similar-ish cultural attitudes and societal structures.

Lord Raziere
2014-05-23, 10:45 PM
The biggest problem, I think, is getting everyone to understand and agree on what "alien" actually means. After all, assuming that the players will be playing characters of these alien species, they need to have some context and some sort of mindset that agrees with everyone else. Otherwise, it doesn't matter that you've created intelligent immortal golems who have no concept of life and death in their society - the players will still run them like humans with funny hats.

I think you missed the part where I don't consider trying to reach for "alien" mindsets desirable at all, because even then that will just end up with humans with funny hats, just a weirder more different hat.

so I don't even bother, if these are all humans in funny hats, then I'm a funny hat lover. humans themselves don't have any funny hats and therefore I don't want to play them because cool I get a funny hat! and now I can explore and expand on that hat, as well as explore why this minority takes off the funny hat and hates it and so on and so forth, there is just so many ways I can play with this funny hat, you just have no idea, the possibilities in this funny hat.

toapat
2014-05-24, 12:17 AM
I think you missed the part where I don't consider trying to reach for "alien" mindsets desirable at all, because even then that will just end up with humans with funny hats, just a weirder more different hat.

so I don't even bother, if these are all humans in funny hats, then I'm a funny hat lover. humans themselves don't have any funny hats and therefore I don't want to play them because cool I get a funny hat! and now I can explore and expand on that hat, as well as explore why this minority takes off the funny hat and hates it and so on and so forth, there is just so many ways I can play with this funny hat, you just have no idea, the possibilities in this funny hat.

Alien is not the word you are looking for.

To put it simply, an Illithid should be a being which is alien to play. What little we should understand should not be more then instinct.

An elf should be Aberrant to play. you should want to play one because you want to go through the effort of playing a character who has a very poor idea of "The Now", the same sort of situation should be with every race in the game.

At least in my oppinion, DnD does alot of disservice to itself through its usage of creature types.

Sartharina
2014-05-24, 02:42 AM
I've disagreed with almost all of Toapet's opinions on the issue of races.

Part of the lack of ability to get 'alien mindset' is because humans are capable of imagining almost any sort of existence to the extent of our awareness of the world allows. Most fantasy races have that same level of awareness. It's possible for a person to convincingly play an intelligent asteroid or raincloud, figuring out how it would think based on its unique life experiences and sensory ranges, and acting accordingly. "Funny Hats" implies it acts in a certain way "just because".

Of course, part of the issue with trying to make creatures different from humans is the number of aspects of life that aren't socially acceptable to be change from human perspective in anything more than the most shallow and superficial ways, such as approach to violence, sexuality, interpersonal relationships, logic, emotional expression, and perception.

Lord Raziere
2014-05-24, 03:05 AM
oh really?

put your money where your mouth is and show us an intelligent asteroid or rain cloud then. write it up, or its not possible.

Amphetryon
2014-05-24, 10:00 AM
oh really?

put your money where your mouth is and show us an intelligent asteroid or rain cloud then. write it up, or its not possible.

Non sequitor: Sartharina's ability or inability to write up an intelligent asteroid or rain cloud does not demonstrate the possibility that another person can or cannot achieve the same thing. The argument is akin to "Lord Raziere, go break Usain Bolt's record in the 100m sprint, or it cannot be done."

Lord Raziere
2014-05-24, 10:28 AM
well then show me anything, any proof. pics or didn't happen, metaphorically speaking.

erikun
2014-05-24, 10:35 AM
We have a rather large sample on non-human creatures which a number of GMs run in a wide variety of situations: mundane animals. Most people are able to decide how a wolf, horse, or lion would act in a particular situation and have it come off as distinctly non-human. Even new RPers (especially new RPers, in my experience) can run a character with a companion wolf or bear and have it act as most people would expect a wolf or bear to act, as opposed to a human.

As an example of an intelligent non-human species off the top of my head, Eclipse Phase has the Factors. The book Jonathan Strange & Mr Norrell also displays fey as very fey-like, and certainly not human in sensibilities or desires. I'm sure there are many other distinctly alien mindsets out there.

Lord Raziere
2014-05-24, 10:42 AM
We have a rather large sample on non-human creatures which a number of GMs run in a wide variety of situations: mundane animals. Most people are able to decide how a wolf, horse, or lion would act in a particular situation and have it come off as distinctly non-human. Even new RPers (especially new RPers, in my experience) can run a character with a companion wolf or bear and have it act as most people would expect a wolf or bear to act, as opposed to a human.

As an example of an intelligent non-human species off the top of my head, Eclipse Phase has the Factors. The book Jonathan Strange & Mr Norrell also displays fey as very fey-like, and certainly not human in sensibilities or desires. I'm sure there are many other distinctly alien mindsets out there.

I'm talking about sapient life forms playable solely as a PC. companion bears/wolves don't really count since they have to interact with a human/humanlike PC, and Factors are most decidedly NPC's, and therefore not really played but ran for whatever makes the plot go forward with "alienness" being an excuse for their actions, and therefore are basically plot devices.

Sartharina
2014-05-24, 12:34 PM
Well, an intelligent raincloud can come in many forms. Perhaps as a Lawful Neutral sentinel and soldier for Talos/Zeus/Thor, standing by and observing the land below to serve as its lord's eyes and ears (So to speak - it has the senses, or a comparable facsimile because magic), to provide rain as a boon, or a torrential storm of vengeance. THe life is short-lived.

Or, maybe I should go with a more neutral one - a cloud that awakened as it formed, innocent and alive in between the skies above and earth below. It enjoys the breeze when it takes it to new wonderous sights, such as other cloud-friends, vistas of the land below, and constellations in the stars above, but fears it when going into the unknown. Due to the lack of anatomy, though, the only thing it really fears are humidity changes, which determine its life (Though, being sapient and magical, it has more control over its form than others). Of course, the changes in humidity are both terrifying and wonderous - low humidity risks tearing the cloud to pieces and destroying it through dissolution, but also lightens the cloud, allowing it to move faster and see more, High humidity builds the cloud up, giving it more power and agency to affect the world below, but the larger the cloud grows, the heavier and more unbearable its burden becomes. Eventually it has to unleash storms, but without control, it may find itself expending itself.

Like anything else sapient, it will question its place in life. Maybe it will see and respect the other lives around it, develop a martyr complex, and seek out the places most suffering from a lack of water and rain to alleviate the suffering of others at the expense of itself. It might turn to faith in the God of Storms, fully surrendering its existence to its god. Maybe it will become arrogant in its nigh-invulnerability, and sadistic toward the lives below, trying to amass as much volume as possible and unleashing destructive storms on the world below just to watch the puny mortals try to escape and survive its wrath (As a kid with a magnifying glass watches ants scurry and try to survive the burning beam). Maybe it becomes someone bitter at the perversity and unfairness of its life, and rebels in a self-destructive storm trying to take as much of the world as it can with it. Or, maybe it becomes a free spirit, going where it can, doing its best to avoid being dispersed or overexerting itself to live as long as possible, wanting to see as much of the world as it can, and alternating between being a beneficial cloud, shade, or shower when it feels like it, or a destructive tempest.

Maybe I'll play one in a freeform or near-freeform campaign.

I might write up asteroid later.

Mouseguard and Bunnies & Burrows also go about playing nonhuman creatures with advanced intelligence yet still creating a distinctly nonhuman culture because of their position in life, though I suspect the former tries to rehumanise its rodents due to the restrictions on what is socially acceptable to change from human perspective on culture.

Lord Raziere
2014-05-24, 12:49 PM
Sounds human to me. has range of sense of superiority/sense of compassion towards lesser beings, concept of risk vs. safety, and a range of whether it is all worth it or not. it has ranges of faith, rebellion, resentment, and therefore anger, happiness, sadness, and so on.

I do not see how this is an alien mindset. people in different positions have different thoughts upon the world all the time. unless you consider any different perspective as "alien".

Sartharina
2014-05-24, 01:14 PM
Sounds human to me. has range of sense of superiority/sense of compassion towards lesser beings, concept of risk vs. safety, and a range of whether it is all worth it or not. it has ranges of faith, rebellion, resentment, and therefore anger, happiness, sadness, and so on.

I do not see how this is an alien mindset. people in different positions have different thoughts upon the world all the time. unless you consider any different perspective as "alien".

Part of the issue is that 'sapience' is practically defined as "has humanlike thoughtprocesses". The thing is - that cloud has abilities and perspective that no human can have, really. It doesn't express its faith/rebellion/resentment/etc in the same way a human does, and while it has needs, they aren't the same as a human's.

Lord Raziere
2014-05-24, 04:04 PM
Part of the issue is that 'sapience' is practically defined as "has humanlike thoughtprocesses". The thing is - that cloud has abilities and perspective that no human can have, really. It doesn't express its faith/rebellion/resentment/etc in the same way a human does, and while it has needs, they aren't the same as a human's.

I dunno. lashing out at the world? being careful and trying to enjoy things as much as they can? arrogance and sadism towards things distant and meaningless to it? that seems like pretty humanlike ways of expressing oneself.

and the needs seem pretty similar- humidity is just another environment, and humans always seek out ideal environments for certain things. avoidance of non-ideal environments allows one to live longer, while seeking them out allows one to face greater challenges.....

so I don't see how they are all that different, aside from obvious physical stuff, but the similarities are there.

Erik Vale
2014-05-24, 06:04 PM
I dunno. lashing out at the world? being careful and trying to enjoy things as much as they can? arrogance and sadism towards things distant and meaningless to it? that seems like pretty humanlike ways of expressing oneself.

and the needs seem pretty similar- humidity is just another environment, and humans always seek out ideal environments for certain things. avoidance of non-ideal environments allows one to live longer, while seeking them out allows one to face greater challenges.....

so I don't see how they are all that different, aside from obvious physical stuff, but the similarities are there.

Just about every form of life in the worlds going to be the same as such, if a life form doesn't try to protect itself from environmental extremes, it dies and never achieves/maintains sentience, there are some things you must have in common. Non-Human factors are in how it observes/interacts with the world and features of it's anatomy.

Lord Raziere
2014-05-24, 06:45 PM
Just about every form of life in the worlds going to be the same as such, if a life form doesn't try to protect itself from environmental extremes, it dies and never achieves/maintains sentience, there are some things you must have in common. Non-Human factors are in how it observes/interacts with the world and features of it's anatomy.

so only alien in its physical features?

:\

that doesn't really seem alien to me, that just means you have different perceptions and ways of doing the same things humans do. to compare, someone can in Eclipse Phase can be in a nanobot swarm morph and they'd still be human, just in a bunch of robotic little things flying around.

toapat
2014-05-24, 07:42 PM
so only alien in its physical features?

I do think Midflayer vs Elf is the best example of what is really different.

Elves evolved from something that lives extremely long and is highly observant. Sentience came to them through just greater and greater adaptation to analysis of the environment. Paraphrasing something that was said elsewhere on this forum. Elves evolved by hiding from the tiger in the bush.

To compare, Mindflayers evolved from something that hunts Apex Predators. As their prey got more intelligent, so did they. Where as Humans ran from tigers, Elves hid from tigers, and Orcs jumped at things that might be tigers, The things that mindflayers evolved from hunted those tigers, It hunted the elves and the humans. It would lure tigers into hunting orcs for it.

We can understand Elves and Orcs because their ideas are similar to ours but with a different, non-parallel perspective

We cant really understand the ideas of a Mindflayer because we are below them in terms of evolution. We can imagine them but to truly understand them? The relationship of dogs to us seems like the relationship of us to them. Just because it can be imagined and given perspective doesnt mean it stops being alien

Lord Raziere
2014-05-24, 09:57 PM
:smallconfused:

.....but all organic races can hunt tigers, thats why we invented stuff, thats our evolutionary adaption for killing tigers, its really effective. mindflayers, aren't more evolved than us, because we make stuff that can kill them too, its also really effective. I'd like to see the mindflayers "higher state of evolution" handle a barrage of crossbow bolts to the face.

and all thoughts that humanity comes up with to understand things around- those are human. if we understand something, its only because we understand in terms humans can understand at all. if the other species is truly alien, then any of our understanding would only be approximate at best, and but far more likely to be completely inaccurate. meaning any "understanding" of alien mindsets at all, is not real understanding, but what a human thinks they understand of alien mindsets, while any alien mindset they create is just human in disguise no matter how much you try to think about it.

the very concepts we think of as universal- might not even be that. if we understand it, its human. because human terms is all that we can think of, and therefore all that can be explained in human terms, is inherently human. only things we cannot explain using the concepts we know of are truly alien. and so far the only concepts I know of that can't be truly explained by humanity- or at least can't be explained yet- is things like black holes and quantum physics, and therefore are the only alien things in this universe I know of.

toapat
2014-05-24, 11:06 PM
:smallconfused:

.....but all organic races can hunt tigers, thats why we invented stuff, thats our evolutionary adaption for killing tigers, its really effective. mindflayers, aren't more evolved than us, because we make stuff that can kill them too, its also really effective. I'd like to see the mindflayers "higher state of evolution" handle a barrage of crossbow bolts to the face.


You are looking at it from the perspective of We already have tools. The metaphor i saw concerning Orcs, humans, Dwarves, and elves was pre-tools. Before they had spears, Humans would run, Elves would hide, Orcs attacked, Dwarves analyzed.

You also are looking at mindflayers a little too simply. Mindflayers, relatively, evolved to hunt and outsmart intelligent predators. Their thought process would naturally be more complex then ours.

Now, the problem with presenting them as alien is that it is incredibly easy to describe a mindflayer's mentality. They are predators who evolved to hunt incredibly intelligent and perceptive prey. To claim you understand the mindset of a mindflayer is to lie to yourself, Or admit to being a serial killer. You can comprehend the ideas of the mindset, you cant actually comprehend the mindset.

That is what you are missing. you are trying to use the entire definition of Alien at once, and not just "Incomprehensible"

Lord Raziere
2014-05-24, 11:27 PM
the presence of tools does not exempt us from evolution, but rather they are proof that we are the highest on the evolutionary chain. we outsmarted the tiger by building a weapon to more effectively kill the tiger. nature cares not whether we have tools or not. we have killed the tiger, and therefore we have evolved beyond it.

if we can kill mindflayers, we have evolved beyond them. we are at least equal in evolution with the mindflayers as we have outwitted the tiger. by your logic, I don't see why we cannot understand mindflayer thought processes. their chief difference from us is their perception of brains as food. which I do not see as all that different from humanity.

furthermore, if it possible to communicate with mindflayers, I doubt they are all that alien. if they were truly alien, no communication would be possible, or at least would be incredibly difficult to get across the differing concepts.

why would't I use the entire definition of alien? if its not the entire definition, then it might as well not be called "alien", as it does not fulfill the criteria, and should be named something clearer. and how is comprehending the ideas of a mindset not comprehending the mindset? from these ideas you can extrapolate and logically deduce the mindset itself, and therefore its not truly alien because the mindset came from a human mind.

as for evolving to hunt incredibly intelligent and perceptive prey, that is what we HAVE done, through optimizing our use of tools until we can kill such prey near instantly in many different ways and forms, so much so that some do it as leisure. just because tool-making is the gamebreaking part of the evolutionary system, doesn't make it stop being a part of the system.

Erik Vale
2014-05-25, 01:34 AM
so only alien in its physical features?

:\

that doesn't really seem alien to me, that just means you have different perceptions and ways of doing the same things humans do. to compare, someone can in Eclipse Phase can be in a nanobot swarm morph and they'd still be human, just in a bunch of robotic little things flying around.

No, It's just that some traits extend to just everything, such as avoiding pain. Exceptions to things like that are generally hive creatures where they insert hive where we would insert self, they protect the hive because the hive is life, we protect ourselves because ourselves is life [watch me butcher the English language].

Take the Thek, a silocon based life of Anne McAffry [Name maybe wrong].
The Thek version of 'dying' of old age is settling down as a mountain range, and maybe speaking once a millennia to a younger Thek now much much older, and getting out a few words. They settle on thermo-vents to provide themselves with food, their mind-set is so slow that ones of humanoid size/shape [for interaction purposes] speak a few sentences a day. They are so beyond harm that about the only thing that registers to them is hunger, and with a ludicrously slow metabolism that means they 'remember' to 'eat' every week or so. They keep younger races around because they're interesting to watch. They keep the peace because unless things go reaaally slowly they simply cannot comprehend it and would get lost in confusion. If you can annoy a Thek, you've done the near impossible because they shrug just about everything off as something that just happens, they are beyond detached because that's all they have time for. So, they watch and keep the peace, because that way they can keep up, and effectively have television. They're incomprehensible because they do things after so much slow thought that they'll reach conclusions you'd need a high power computer to reach but at that point the computer would already be 50 or so tasks down the line.

Are they un-alien in thought because they have the human trait of hunger? No. They are alien because of the amount of how sedentary [no pun intended] they are.

Coidzor
2014-05-25, 01:48 AM
You are looking at it from the perspective of We already have tools. The metaphor i saw concerning Orcs, humans, Dwarves, and elves was pre-tools. Before they had spears, Humans would run, Elves would hide, Orcs attacked, Dwarves analyzed.

You also are looking at mindflayers a little too simply. Mindflayers, relatively, evolved to hunt and outsmart intelligent predators. Their thought process would naturally be more complex then ours.

Now, the problem with presenting them as alien is that it is incredibly easy to describe a mindflayer's mentality. They are predators who evolved to hunt incredibly intelligent and perceptive prey. To claim you understand the mindset of a mindflayer is to lie to yourself, Or admit to being a serial killer. You can comprehend the ideas of the mindset, you cant actually comprehend the mindset.

That is what you are missing. you are trying to use the entire definition of Alien at once, and not just "Incomprehensible"

If they evolved. That's a pretty big IF, IIRC.

Sartharina
2014-05-25, 02:52 AM
"evolutionary levels" are nonsense.

The issue, LR, is that while it's all the same tools, it's the application of those tools. A cloud has no reference for the sapience/awareness of humans, and humans likewise cannot tell that the cloud is aware of them - they cannot communicate effectively (Which is the REAL point we draw morality at - can we communicate with them, not 'are they self-aware'. We have no idea if something is sapient or not unless it can tell us so, and even then we're not likely to believe it.). While a cloud can be violent, its violence doesn't manifest in the same way as a human's. Intelligent Clouds also don't have human instincts, sex drive, sensory range (It might have a different one, though), and other things people generally take for granted going about their lives

You need to take physiology into consideration of how it acts and reacts to the world. A cat-person might think more 3-dimensional approach to moving around, since climbing is second-nature to it. They'd have buildings that humans would never build or see as plausible because of differences in navigation and locomotion.

Lord Raziere
2014-05-25, 03:10 AM
"evolutionary levels" are nonsense.

The issue, LR, is that while it's all the same tools, it's the application of those tools. A cloud has no reference for the sapience/awareness of humans, and humans likewise cannot tell that the cloud is aware of them - they cannot communicate effectively (Which is the REAL point we draw morality at - can we communicate with them, not 'are they self-aware'. We have no idea if something is sapient or not unless it can tell us so, and even then we're not likely to believe it.). While a cloud can be violent, its violence doesn't manifest in the same way as a human's. Intelligent Clouds also don't have human instincts, sex drive, sensory range (It might have a different one, though), and other things people generally take for granted going about their lives

You need to take physiology into consideration of how it acts and reacts to the world. A cat-person might think more 3-dimensional approach to moving around, since climbing is second-nature to it. They'd have buildings that humans would never build or see as plausible because of differences in navigation and locomotion.

so what? physical differences are superficial. modify a human body into a cyborg with the same ability to climb and they will eventually be able to think along the same lines. if alienness is just physical differences in body and environment, then it doesn't mean anything at all, as its still fundamentally a mind we can comprehend, just one that is used to abilities that we do not possess, that we ourselves could eventually become use to, and thus "alienness" is nothing but something you haven't learned yet, and thus not incomprehensible at all. thus there is no difference between a human mind and a so-called "alien" one other than what they learned from the tools that is available to them. the whole search for this alien rpg species ideal is pointless then, because even the people you claim to be alien are in fact human like, but with different tools available to them and thus adapted differently that we could adapt to as well, a difference that can be bridged by education and building the proper tools to apply such education.

Erik Vale
2014-05-25, 04:01 AM
Given how different languages and cultures can warp human thought to the point of making different cultures seem incomprehensible you do have some point. But how do you keep match of the thought processes of something that has evolved around a set of tools you have never used or can ever use?

Amphetryon
2014-05-25, 05:28 AM
Given how different languages and cultures can warp human thought to the point of making different cultures seem incomprehensible you do have some point. But how do you keep match of the thought processes of something that has evolved around a set of tools you have never used or can ever use?
Or, as Coidzor appears to point out above, demonstrably never evolved within their Fantasy setting at all, instead having been made in their form by a given deity exactly as they appear in the story/RPG.

Thinker
2014-05-25, 01:32 PM
so what? physical differences are superficial. modify a human body into a cyborg with the same ability to climb and they will eventually be able to think along the same lines. if alienness is just physical differences in body and environment, then it doesn't mean anything at all, as its still fundamentally a mind we can comprehend, just one that is used to abilities that we do not possess, that we ourselves could eventually become use to, and thus "alienness" is nothing but something you haven't learned yet, and thus not incomprehensible at all. thus there is no difference between a human mind and a so-called "alien" one other than what they learned from the tools that is available to them. the whole search for this alien rpg species ideal is pointless then, because even the people you claim to be alien are in fact human like, but with different tools available to them and thus adapted differently that we could adapt to as well, a difference that can be bridged by education and building the proper tools to apply such education.

I've only been skimming for the past few pages, but is your point that there's no such thing as an alien if it has any concepts, needs, or physiology that can possibly be described by a human?

Lord Raziere
2014-05-25, 01:45 PM
Given how different languages and cultures can warp human thought to the point of making different cultures seem incomprehensible you do have some point. But how do you keep match of the thought processes of something that has evolved around a set of tools you have never used or can ever use?

By using the tools, or modifying yourself so you can then start using them, and then using them. practice makes perfect. humans encounter tools they have never used before all the time. they learn, and we do just fine.


I've only been skimming for the past few pages, but is your point that there's no such thing as an alien if it has any concepts, needs, or physiology that can possibly be described by a human?

Yes. Because all thoughts described by a human, is a human thought, therefore if you can successfully describe any alien in human terms, the alien is human.

toapat
2014-05-25, 03:16 PM
Yes. Because all thoughts described by a human, is a human thought, therefore if you can successfully describe any alien in human terms, the alien is human.

You are presuming that just because we can define it is no longer Strange in relation to our perspective as Apex Predators who hunt lesser intelligent beings. A Mindflayer quite litterally exists completely outside of the human experience that is not being eaten.

again, you are trying to apply the whole definition of the word alien to the idea of mindsets, even though what is meant is something Foreign and outside of the broad experience of human beings

Sartharina
2014-05-25, 03:25 PM
[quote]Yes. Because all thoughts described by a human, is a human thought, therefore if you can successfully describe any alien in human terms, the alien is human.So to you, all cats, ants, bees, dogs, spiders, cattle, camels, horses, dragonflies, and the like are also all human?

An Alien's end values, perception, and behaviors would be different from a human's, but the underlying principals for anything sentient (Doesn't even have to be sapient, though I'm not even sure that actually doesn't exist, and every creature with a nervous system is sentient) are the same.

Thinker
2014-05-25, 04:33 PM
Yes. Because all thoughts described by a human, is a human thought, therefore if you can successfully describe any alien in human terms, the alien is human.
Then why are you even bothering to argue this? You say, "Describe something that is alien" and then respond to every response with, "My definition of alien doesn't allow you to describe it." That's not a debate. That's you setting up an impossible goal and then calling everyone out on not reaching it. Obviously, beyond any human comprehension isn't the only definition of alien that people use and that definition is not conducive to furthering the discussion.


[QUOTE=Lord Raziere;17522242]So to you, all cats, ants, bees, dogs, spiders, cattle, camels, horses, dragonflies, and the like are also all human?

An Alien's end values, perception, and behaviors would be different from a human's, but the underlying principals for anything sentient (Doesn't even have to be sapient, though I'm not even sure that actually doesn't exist, and every creature with a nervous system is sentient) are the same.
Don't be silly. Lord Raziere is obviously talking about the concept of aliens being anything other than humans in a funny hat. He's arguing that it is not useful to try to make fantasy or sci fi races into anything other than humans in funny hats because there is no state where that is true because you can always find something human in them that people can relate to and empathize with (LR, feel free to correct me if this is wrong; I don't want to put words into your mouth).

In a sense, he is correct. There is no value in bothering with anything beyond human comprehension because that would make for an awful story except as a plot device (e.g., a MacGuffin or a looming threat that never is never interacted with). On the other hand, there is value in creating races and cultures that are vastly different from our own that by many definitions would be considered alien. Star Trek used this to great effect with Vulcans.

In response to your argument about animals being humans, that's not a huge stretch. Humans already think of pets as a part of the family and ascribe human emotions and motivations to them. In fact, my friends with both kids and pets joke about small children being almost as clever as cats and dogs.

Lord Raziere
2014-05-25, 04:56 PM
1. I do not "own" any definitions. that is impossible to do. definitions are outside human ownership, as they are abstract things. to imply that I am being selfish by trying to be logical about this, is baffling. what I see is everyone else being confusing about the definition of "alien" for the sake of some ideal about rpg races I don't see as desirable or even achievable, and therefore questioning why are you even trying to get to said ideal when it clearly cannot be achieved and therefore only causes stress for trying to achieve it, when you could accept that it will never be achieved and just be happy with what you can achieve and have fun with.

2. @ toapat: and again, I don't see how that is a thing that is wrong. to me, what your doing seems to be more wrong, as its NOT applying the whole definition and therefore being confusing about what you mean, when all this time, you could have said foreign and saved a lot of trouble but not applying one word to mean a different thing.

3: @ the other things Thinker said: yes. that is what I'm arguing.

veti
2014-05-25, 05:03 PM
You need to take physiology into consideration of how it acts and reacts to the world. A cat-person might think more 3-dimensional approach to moving around, since climbing is second-nature to it. They'd have buildings that humans would never build or see as plausible because of differences in navigation and locomotion.

In Morrowind, the Telvanni live in organically-grown towers that you can't even enter without flying. (Or teleporting.) And once inside, you have to keep using magic to get around between separate 'wings' (which are effectively vertical) of the building.

Allegedly, this is because they take magic for granted. But that seems like an example of a race that is pretty much human-with-pointy-ears-and-red-eyes, building structures that humans would see as implausible.


Yes. Because all thoughts described by a human, is a human thought, therefore if you can successfully describe any alien in human terms, the alien is human.

So, anything that appears in a book written by a human, is human? Well, that's conveniently circular and makes your argument logically impossible to contest. Unless you're willing to reconsider your definition of "human", there's no point continuing this discussion, as you've just pre-emptively said that any example generated by human culture can't possibly counter you.

Lord Raziere
2014-05-25, 05:27 PM
@ veti: share with us then, the examples of real complex life-form aliens from other worlds with no relation to our ecology and how they think. tell us the perspective of all the real non-terrestrial sentient lifeforms you know so that we may compare how different human thought is to these aliens thoughts. show us the culture of aliens that we have as alternative to our own to provide contrast to how human culture thinks of them.

I'll wait.

but seriously, we will never find out what it truly means to be alien until we meet real aliens. even the basic laws of how we think life works might be biased towards Earth's ecology for all we know. therefore until we meet real aliens and start getting whatever passes for their media, we won't be able to understand any alien thought processes whatsoever, so any fictional alien is just a humanistic approximation of what we think is alien, and therefore not really alien until we have a real alien to compare them to.

Thinker
2014-05-25, 06:53 PM
1. I do not "own" any definitions. that is impossible to do. definitions are outside human ownership, as they are abstract things. to imply that I am being selfish by trying to be logical about this, is baffling. what I see is everyone else being confusing about the definition of "alien" for the sake of some ideal about rpg races I don't see as desirable or even achievable, and therefore questioning why are you even trying to get to said ideal when it clearly cannot be achieved and therefore only causes stress for trying to achieve it, when you could accept that it will never be achieved and just be happy with what you can achieve and have fun with.

You're using a very specific definition of alien that is not conducive to discussion. What's the point of a conversation if it starts out with, "You cannot have aliens. Now tell me about your aliens so I can tell you why they're bad." There are plenty of other definitions of "alien" that are much better suited for this conversation:


Extraterrestrial life - life that originates from outside of earth. As in, "Man, those aliens from Planet X sure don't like to eat their vegetables. Instead, they only eat human flesh!" This sort of definition allows for human-like aliens that would still likely cause many misunderstandings. The changes in their physiology, difference in needs, and their differences in society would create drama when these conflict with other people. An alien that required exposure to a silicon mist every week would have to change priorities that humans would otherwise never consider.
A foreign citizen - someone who is a legal citizen of another country besides the one s/he is currently residing in. As in, "Aliens from Canada walk among us, undetected. They infiltrate our movies, music, and culture. They must be stamped out before they convert us all to their heathen ways!" This definition would be good for discussing the differences in culture. An alien from the elf kingdom of Moonlake Forest would have a lot to learn about fitting in with the humans. This sort of alien is much closer to the humans in funny hats. It will often even just refer to regular humans, but can just as easily refer to anything from refugees from another plane to the exchange student from Cthulu-land.
An introduced species - a species of life that was introduced to an ecosystem by a third party. As in, "Who thought it was a good idea to introduce man-eating sharkolions from SPAAAACE just to deal with our gerbil infestation? The sharkolions aren't even going for the gerbils so now we have both gerbils and sharkolions!" In this case, it matters fairly little about the perspective of the alien and the story would be built around the interactions of the alien with the new environment.
A literary device - a creature that represents marginalized or repressed elements of society. As in, "I hate mutants because they're different from me and are plotting to take over the world! I don't care that at their core they are just like us!" These devices are great for games because they work very well with the mentality of players being members of the other. Shadowrun takes full advantage of this to describe both the role of the runners and how metahumans survive in society.

veti
2014-05-25, 06:57 PM
@ veti: share with us then, the examples of real complex life-form aliens from other worlds with no relation to our ecology and how they think. tell us the perspective of all the real non-terrestrial sentient lifeforms you know so that we may compare how different human thought is to these aliens thoughts. show us the culture of aliens that we have as alternative to our own to provide contrast to how human culture thinks of them.

I'll wait.

but seriously, we will never find out what it truly means to be alien until we meet real aliens. even the basic laws of how we think life works might be biased towards Earth's ecology for all we know. therefore until we meet real aliens and start getting whatever passes for their media, we won't be able to understand any alien thought processes whatsoever, so any fictional alien is just a humanistic approximation of what we think is alien, and therefore not really alien until we have a real alien to compare them to.

"Alien" just means "different". If you're, say, American, then to you a Japanese person is alien. You're the one who's setting the bar for "alien" at a level that, as you've already told us, is logically impossible to clear. Even if we did encounter some extraterrestrial beings, if we could converse with and understand them on any significant level, it seems to me you'd still be arguing they're not True Aliens (http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/No_true_Scotsman).

Lord Raziere
2014-05-25, 08:46 PM
@veti: well yeah, if alien means different, then they're not truly different from us if we can communicate, because communication is all about having commonalities that can be exchanged through mediums, so therefore they must have similarities to us for communication to be possible at all.

Japanese are not alien to me, they just grew up in another culture. besides if I started thinking other people as alien, that only opens up the possibility to mistreat them as alien. I cannot take that risk.

@ Thinker: I do not see how I'm saying they're bad, I'm merely saying that they're not aliens. Why must you always needlessly associate saying that something does not possess certain qualities with having negative qualities?

as for the other definitions: so humans with "eats humans" as a hat, foreigner, foreign animal, and outcast then? why insist on using this confusing definition, when I just gave four much clearer ones?

erikun
2014-05-25, 09:09 PM
When I am discussing situations with other species and the "humans in funny hats" issue, it is not a concern about if the other species is capable of thoughts within the realm or human understanding. It is a concern that other species have assumptions and considerations that are not the same as a standard human. And more specifically, it is the concern that most players (or even most designers!) just treat these other species as having the default human assumptions. This is where the "humans in funny hats" phrase comes from - the idea that, despite significantly different appearance and society, the other species still acts like a human.

I have never had someone running a elf PC state that, for example, a rival is no concern because they will be dead within the next 200 years. Such a statement would be rather obvious for something that is currently 150+ years old and expects to live past 1000. As long as such a rivalry is not dangerous, there is little concern from a single individual lasting only 50 years (and probably less). And yet, every PC treats it like they would if the character was human. People will run sentient golem like standard adventurers, including packing rations and fire starters. People will run pony characters, and try holding both a sword and a shield!

The big problem, though, is when the setting material treats different species as the same as humans. D&D tends to be particularly bad at this, with the elves and dwarves and orcs all behaving exactly like humans in a lot of settings. Many times, you could simply swap them out with humans and see little change. Heck, you could swap them out with humans and actually see an improvement in a lot of situations: a nearby society of humans, living in the forest and having learned to live off of it, attacking nearby villages that are cutting down the trees is actually a more compelling motivation (and can bring up more interesting questions) than elves attacking villages cutting down trees, because they're elves and that's what they do.

Sartharina
2014-05-25, 10:31 PM
The problem I have with reducing other races to 'humans in funny hats' is that it confines them twice - first, to all human expectations of behavior, then to all expectations of their hat they wear. A hat is something that can be taken off. I've seen it put this way somewhere before: In a foreign society where everyone wears the funny hats that named the trope, they don't consider the funny hats they wear to be a cultural quirk of theirs - they find the lack of that hat on the foreigner as something weird (And possibly obscene).

Lord Raziere
2014-05-25, 11:25 PM
"confining" fantasy races to humans with funny hats is not possible, because there is nothing outside of them. that is all they are, despite how much you will try to insist otherwise. the best you can do is make the hat as elaborate and well-fleshed out as possible until the culture is so complex and well designed that people will not notice it is a hat- and make sure that each person within that race has a different viewpoint and personality about things. while all races wear a hat, none of the individuals of said race wear it perfectly. all cultures have ideals and no one ever lives up to them. each individual adds a slightly different decoration to the standard hat, until its hard to tell what is the standard hat.

its not as if humans have it any better in such a regard- they get hatted as much as the fantasy races do, so I don't see why you feel the need to take the interesting features of the fantasy races to replace them with the boring forms of humans. sure you can replace an elf with an arrogant human, but replacing all fantasy races with humans is something I strongly oppose just as much as much as needlessly making them alien.

Thinker
2014-05-25, 11:32 PM
@ Thinker: I do not see how I'm saying they're bad, I'm merely saying that they're not aliens. Why must you always needlessly associate saying that something does not possess certain qualities with having negative qualities?
I didn't say it was bad. I said it is not useful for conversation. A discussion which starts with a condition that cannot be met is not a going to create any new insights.

QUOTE=Lord Raziere;17523799]as for the other definitions: so humans with "eats humans" as a hat, foreigner, foreign animal, and outcast then? why insist on using this confusing definition, when I just gave four much clearer ones?[/QUOTE]
You can write much more freely about nonhumans than about humans. X-Men wouldn't have been published if it was about black kids instead of mutants. Frankenstein was would never have been written if it was about a normal man. Starman wouldn't have been so interesting if it was a human who had lost his way.

Besides, those are all definitions for the same word. That's how English works. Why say mug instead of cup? Why say car instead of automobile? Light instead of lamp? Besides, there is no definition that I saw on dictionary.com or wiktionary.org that describes alien as meaning completely incomprehensible to humans.

daryen
2014-05-25, 11:35 PM
Changing topic back to the original question, to me the real question is: Why bother with Gnomes?

I have read stories. I have read fantasy. I have read other books. When I see D&D refer to humans, elves, dwarves, orcs, goblins, and halflings, I can visualize what they intend. Maybe I like to view them differently (whether slightly or greatly), maybe not. Maybe I like the presentation, maybe not. But I can see where they are coming from and I can visualize what is intended with the creature. With Gnomes, I have no idea what they are going for, where they are coming from, or even what the things are even supposed to *look* like.

The only gnomes I have ever seen are short, squat, wear blue shirts with red cone hats, and have long white beards. That is obviously *not* what D&D is intending. So, what *is* the intention? I have no idea. I have no frame of reference. As an example, in various D&D inspired web comics, gnomes are all over the map. Some have yellow skin (why yellow?). Some have tails (why?). Some are just "short people" who you can't even tell are gnomes until so identified. For the other races, I know where they have come from so that, even if presented differently, I can trace and follow that path. But, where did gnomes even come from?

I see here that some people despise the Pathfinder treatment of Gnomes. Well, like it or not, I at least give Pathfinder credit for at least *trying* to give them some kind of character and at least showing me what they are supposed to look like. With the Patherfinder gnomes, I can see where they are coming from, I can see their origins (outside the game), and I can see what they are supposed to look like (at least from the Pathfinder perspective). Whether this is a good presentation or not, I still have to at least give them some credit for finally giving a presentation at all.

(Of course, the unfortunate part of Pathfinder's presentation is that their gnomes are just a particular type of elves. They are old-fashioned faerie/elves as opposed to Tolkien elves.)

LibraryOgre
2014-05-26, 01:38 AM
Elves evolved from something that lives extremely long and is highly observant. Sentience came to them through just greater and greater adaptation to analysis of the environment. Paraphrasing something that was said elsewhere on this forum. Elves evolved by hiding from the tiger in the bush.

Elves didn't evolve from anything. Elves were created directly... either from the blood of Corellon Larethian or by the gods, in most settings. Evolutionary explanations start to fall apart when you have special creation and direct intervention as verifiable parts of the the setting.



We cant really understand the ideas of a Mindflayer because we are below them in terms of evolution. We can imagine them but to truly understand them? The relationship of dogs to us seems like the relationship of us to them. Just because it can be imagined and given perspective doesnt mean it stops being alien

Below is a pointless referent in evolution; species are at the points they are at because of what niche they're currently adapted to. Humans may be below mind flayers on the food chain, but it does not that we are incapable of understanding them... they may have different priorities and reactions, but that doesn't absolve them from being comprehensible.

By way of example, I am a cat person. I get my cat pretty well, though we have frequent language problems; i.e. she tries to communicate things and I don't understand, so I go through a series of things she might be telling me; likewise, she has trouble understanding "If you keep waking me up I will turn you into mittens and a potholder."

Now, I recently started watching my girlfriend's rabbit. I have a lot more trouble understanding the rabbit. One is a lack of familiarity; the cat and I have been together for a while. But there's also a big difference in the way we think. She's a prey animal, while I'm an omnivore used to carnivores. Things I find "play" she finds "horrible preludes to being eaten." This does not mean we're incapable of understanding each other... we're reaching a degree of dente. She knows that I open her cage twice a day and my hand will have food in it. I know that her tantrums are usually linked to her thinking she needs something... attention, food, water, litter change, etc.

Now, rabbits are below both cats and people on the food chain. She's evolved to be the Princess of a Thousand Enemies, where if we catch her, we will kill her. We're evolved to catch her and kill her, whether by being a sneaky and fast hunter or by using tools that will let us do so. But that doesn't mean she's less evolved than Joy and me, just that she's adapted to different circumstances.

Coidzor
2014-05-26, 01:43 AM
daryen: That current of Tolkien Elves vs. Oldschool Elves(or Oldschool Elves as viewed through the lens of of Santa's Elves) has actually come up a few times over the course of D&D's lifespan, IIRC. When they statted up Santa Claus for D&D 3.5, they made Santa's Elves be Gnomes.


Elves didn't evolve from anything. Elves were created directly... either from the blood of Corellon Larethian or by the gods, in most settings. Evolutionary explanations start to fall apart when you have special creation and direct intervention as verifiable parts of the the setting.

Ye Olde They Actually Were Humans But Got Tinkered With By Something explanation can also strike again. Thus the boinking and breeding true of offspring that is nigh-uibquitous if not actually ubiquitous.

erikun
2014-05-26, 10:21 AM
Re: Evolution

One point that should be clear is that everything still alive has been evolving for the same amount of time as everything else still alive, with few exceptions. There are no creatures which are "less evolved" than others outside strange time travel situations, and even then it's not clear. As Mark Hall points out, it is evolution for a specific niche rather than towards some sort of master competition.

And even with time travel, it's not necessarily true that the species is properly adapted towards the niche that they may find themselves currently in.

Knaight
2014-05-26, 11:34 AM
One point that should be clear is that everything still alive has been evolving for the same amount of time as everything else still alive, with few exceptions. There are no creatures which are "less evolved" than others outside strange time travel situations, and even then it's not clear. As Mark Hall points out, it is evolution for a specific niche rather than towards some sort of master competition.

While "less evolved" is nonsense, it is worth noting that despite the same amount of time, there are big generational differences between organisms, along with variable mutation rates. Anything RNA based generally mutates faster, and bacteria and such with short generational times do as well. It's very much niche based, and thinking of evolution as some sort of chain that leads upwards to something is absurd, but there definitely are organisms which develop faster and are thus better suited to their current niche as opposed to what it was however many generations ago.

I would note that this could be (poorly) summed up as bacteria and RNA based organisms being "more evolved" than megafauna, including humans.

Wardog
2014-05-26, 01:55 PM
Dwarves have a tendency towards Grand... vaults, huge complexes with lots of space.



They're not better craftsmen than dwarves... they're better at details. A dwarf will make a beautiful ring; it will be a solid chunk of gold with a big-ass ruby in the middle. A gnome will make a delicate piece, with a ruby half the size but beautifully carved.

.

Personally I think that is a poor reason to make them separate races, as those differences are well within cultual variability. (At least they are for humans, and I don't see why non-humans should be monocultural).

If humans can produce cultures that love grand architectural showmanship (like the Ancient Egyptians, or Romans, or Chinese) and hunter-gatherer societies, and everything in between, I don't see why you can't have dwarven cultures that like vast cavernous halls and magma-spewing megaprojects and also have dwarven cultures than like small, homely burrows, or living simple lives in the woods. You can even have dwarves that can do magic, especially given that the dwarves of myth and legend did, and Tolkien mentions dwarves using magic.


My view on what makes a good design for a "race" in a game or story setting is that:
1) They should have something that is significantly different from humans (and the other races in the setting).
2) Their culture (and/or crunch) should reflect these differences.
3) Less importantly, (1) and (2) should feel natural and plausible rather than arbitrary.

I think it is on (3) that D&D gnomes typically fall down on. Part of the problem is I think that halflings and dwarves have been too narrowly defined as Hobbits Gypsies and Gimli, respectively. With gnomes then getting anything and everything that could reasonably have been (and sometimes in their mythic inspirations were) given to halflings and dwarves, plus a few other things of no clear origin.

The end result is two races that are very narrowly defined, and one that doesn't have any clear theme to it.


A suggestion for improving the diversity of halflings and dwarves, and/or improving gnomes could be:

A: Forget about gnomes. Most of their traits could easily be shared out between dwarves and halflings without making them fundamentally not dwarves and halflings. Craftsmanship, love of jewels, and (if appropriate for the setting) invention are all dwarfy (at least for certain dwarven subcultures). Magic too, unless you are stuck in the early-D&D trope of "but dwarves are anti-magical!". Love of jokes and pranks, being close to the earth (and possibly having an affinity to animals) are plausible halfling traits. Magic and illusion too, if you are going for the "Gypsy" rather than "Hobbit" inspiration.

Alternatively:
B: Make gnomes more focused and distinct. Perhaps go back to Paracelsus: make them into some sort of elemental (or elementally-linked) being. Dwarves are skilled miners, who are naturally adept at tunneling, and good at working out where ores and gems will be because that is how they are trained. Gnomes can magically pass through rock as an inate ability, and know where ores and gems are because they can hear them singing. Or, alternatively, some other inspiration, e.g. David the Gnome, the Nomes of Terry Pratchett's Bromeliad Trilogy, etc. (Although making such small people a core race may be problematic - but it does follow my earlier point of making them fundamentally different in some way to justify significant cultural and/or gameplay differences).

LibraryOgre
2014-05-26, 04:01 PM
The more I think on it, the more I tend to agree that gnomes as presented aren't terribly different from the rest of the short folk... midway between dwarves and halflings, with only a few cultural markers. I do like them for all that, though. Their cultural markers are fun, and I like the idea of little brown-skinned, white-haired people chuckling at all the big idiots wandering around.

toapat
2014-05-26, 04:07 PM
The more I think on it, the more I tend to agree that gnomes as presented aren't terribly different from the rest of the short folk... midway between dwarves and halflings, with only a few cultural markers. I do like them for all that, though. Their cultural markers are fun, and I like the idea of little brown-skinned, white-haired people chuckling at all the big idiots wandering around.

do you think that it would be better if they simply had more complex races then?

LibraryOgre
2014-05-27, 09:06 AM
do you think that it would be better if they simply had more complex races then?

Not sure. I think there's been a lot of signal bleed over the years, with gnomes, dwarves and halflings having enough overlapping features that they never really made them clearly separate.