Posted: Fri Dec 23, 2016 5:58 pm
Tell that to old Drac turning into vermin, bats and insects . . yes, in addition to a man sized batmonster and a wolf.
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To be fair, that's a relatively new fiction (1890s).Stahlseele wrote:Tell that to old Drac turning into vermin, bats and insects . . yes, in addition to a man sized batmonster and a wolf.
Kitsune. Also, from a casual read of Wikipedia and previous original research, it's the correlation of toothy/harmless to male/female which appears to be relatively new. There are plenty of swan dudes and wolf ladies in myths.Jason wrote:To be fair, that's a relatively new fiction (1890s).Stahlseele wrote:Tell that to old Drac turning into vermin, bats and insects . . yes, in addition to a man sized batmonster and a wolf.
I meant Dracula as a vampire associated with his enourmous array of shapechanging powers is a relatively new fiction. Specifically I was referring to Stahlseele's comment on what Eikre said:Starmaker wrote:Kitsune. Also, from a casual read of Wikipedia and previous original research, it's the correlation of toothy/harmless to male/female which appears to be relatively new. There are plenty of swan dudes and wolf ladies in myths.
The Idea of a Vampire not only turning into a wolf, but also into insects (namley things without teeth) is relatively new and not part of old folklore.Eikre wrote:Basically, turning into something without big teeth is an effeminate quality.
Nobody cares about the "cultural baggage" of halfling. That's why it changes every edition, sometimes it changes during the course of an edition, and it changes in many settings.Voss wrote:But it still isn't about the niche of having a dex bonus. It's about the feel and cultural baggage, which aren't even vaguely related.
Ah. So besides again decreeing universally that 'no one wants this,' you're also stating it's constantly in flux and inconsistent... so can't be equivalent to being catfolk, which was the premise raised.GâtFromKI wrote:Nobody cares about the "cultural baggage" of halfling. That's why it changes every edition, sometimes it changes during the course of an edition, and it changes in many settings.Voss wrote:But it still isn't about the niche of having a dex bonus. It's about the feel and cultural baggage, which aren't even vaguely related.
Saying "my character is a halfling" is saying nothing more than "my character is small and dexterous"; the character may be a fat villager who never travel and eat 7 times per days or a nomad or a sadistic cannibal, all of those archetypes are different flavors of halflings.
Tolkien's hobbit's main cultural characteristic is "not being adventurers". It's a shitty archetype in a game where you're supposed to play an adventurer. People may want to play Merry backstabbing a nazgul, or Sam killing Shelob alone, but they don't want to play some random fat dude who isn't an adventurer at all and who has to wait the very end of the campaign to do something useful. That's why D&D's halflings have a different "cultural baggage" than hobbits. But there's no consensus in "what an interesting halfling culture should be in the context of D&D", so it always changes depending on the authors.
I doesn't work as a Core race. Because most characters are core races. If halfling is one of the ten core races, then ~10% of the characters are halflings, it doesn't feel unusual at all. It feels even less unusual than the drow who rebelled against is kind and joined team Good.Whipstitch wrote:Having common races that don't produce adventurers terribly often isn't stupid at all. It allows lower level PCs to be portrayed as unusual due to their actions or easily underestimated rather than be treated as completely commonplace or unusual only due to the rarity of their race.
What are you even talking about? Halfling culture isn't a big dark secret. I even mentioned it on my first post on this halflings vs catfolk discussion: bucolic, rural folk. And some of them rise to the challenge of adventure.GâtFromKI wrote:Hey stupid, are you able to write anything more interesting than "halflings have a big cultural baggage, which I won't describe because" ?
OK.Voss wrote:What are you even talking about? Halfling culture isn't a big dark secret. I even mentioned it on my first post on this halflings vs catfolk discussion: bucolic, rural folk. And some of them rise to the challenge of adventure.
Tolkien's hobbits are defined by not being travellers or wanderers or itinerant merchants or warrior or anything, and staying their whole life in their shitty village.erik wrote:I was of the impression that the majority of all races weren't adventurers. Don't see why it is a thing for halflings to share in that.
Oh, and culture? Personality?[url=https://timedotcom.files.wordpress.com/2014/12/the_letters_of_j.rrtolkien.pdf wrote:Tolkien, on possibly the most active, adventurous, rogue-y hobbit ever[/url]]
fattish in the stomach, shortish in the leg. A round, jovial face; ears only slightly pointed and 'elvish'; hair short and curling (brown).
Contrast that with, oh, anything Tolkien ever wrote.3.5PHB p19 wrote:Halflings are clever, capable opportunists. [...] Often they are strangers and wanderers, and others react to them with suspicion or curiosity. [...] Regardless, halflings are cunning, resourceful survivors. [...] Halflings prefer trouble to boredom. [...] Halflings clans are nomadic, wandering wherever circumstance and curiosity take them. Halflings enjoy wealth and the pleasure it can bring, and they tend to spend gold as quickly as they acquire it.
The value isn't just in being seen as unusual or underestimated by the other people at the table, it's about getting to be unusual in-setting and all the opportunities and disadvantages that engenders. Because 90% of the time people build their character without any shits to give about their jaded friend who gets all peeved whenever someone plays a virtuous drow. They just have a fucking character concept they want to play and hope to get treated in a setting appropriate manner by the NPCs without the DM or other players pissing on their parade. Because you know what? D&D is 28 years older than "Simpsons Already Did It" jokes. Avoiding cliches is a big fucking ask because people have been purposely playing against type since before I was born and because once you publish a race or class as core material it's no longer going to remain unique to a specific group or player anymore. So go ahead and create whatever kind of race you want, I'm not here to stop you. But I can and will point out that trying to simultaneously play the "it's cliched" and the "it doesn't communicate information" cards at the same time doesn't really parse and that if you have to go that route perhaps you're overstating your case.GâtFromKI wrote: I doesn't work as a Core race. Because most characters are core races. If halfling is one of the ten core races, then ~10% of the characters are halflings, it doesn't feel unusual at all. It feels even less unusual than the drow who rebelled against is kind and joined team Good.
I can be wrong about this, but I think the "underestimated race" concept works better as a non-core race introduced in de MM or the setting books, and then payable in the PHB II or something similar. Therefore at the moment the players can choose this race, they are already thinking "those guys aren't fitted for adventure".Whipstitch wrote:The value isn't just in being seen as unusual or underestimated by the other people at the table, it's about getting to be unusual in-setting and all the opportunities and disadvantages that engenders. Because 90% of the time people build their character without any shits to give about their jaded friend who gets all peeved whenever someone plays a virtuous drow. They just have a fucking character concept they want to play and hope to get treated in a setting appropriate manner by the NPCs without the DM or other players pissing on their parade.
momothefiddler wrote:Contrast that with, oh, anything Tolkien ever wrote.
momothefiddler wrote: Claiming that Halflings are based on Frodo, specifically, seems weird to me. Why not Bilbo? Or, shit, Merry or Pippin if we have to pick a LOTR protag. I admit I haven't read the books (or seen the movies) in a while, but I'm pretty sure Frodo didn't want to go on adventures, didn't do a whole lot on adventures, and, like, his biggest Heroic Quality was that he accepted a burden that Fate shoved in his lap and he was pretty damn perseverant rather than ducking out of it (after a few false starts).
See what Frank said? That's your blind spot. Cherry picking the bits where Tolkien informs the reader of the common in-world perception of hobbits or even how hobbits see themselves is a touch silly given that the rest of the book series proceeds to be about the li'l buggers persevering through many obstacles and repeatedly coming through in the clutch and generally outperforming their reputation. After all, the books call out the Took clan as being a bit odd and adventurous compared to other hobbits but it should also be noted that even Frodo's fat fucking gardener ends up fighting the spawn of Ungoliant to a decision victory.FrankTrollman wrote: Halflings are "small but surprisingly competent."
You are in fact wrong about this, and obviously so. The underestimated character is extremely common, and appeals to new gamers, children, and so on especially. It's absolutely one of the options you want front and center in the first book because it's a power fantasy common to people who are unlikely to have read expansion material when they are making their character.GâtFromKI wrote: I can be wrong about this, but I think the "underestimated race" concept works better as a non-core race introduced in de MM or the setting books, and then payable in the PHB II or something similar. Therefore at the moment the players can choose this race, they are already thinking "those guys aren't fitted for adventure".
Because it was snappier to put one name there instead of five, and it made the most sense to go with the name that had top billing. It's not a deliberate commentary on which hobbit has the wildest wild side, which I couldn't tell you, because I haven't read the books in forever.momo wrote:Claiming that Halflings are based on Frodo, specifically, seems weird to me. Why not Bilbo? Or, shit, Merry or Pippin if we have to pick a LOTR protag.
Cool because that's literally what I said.Whipstitch wrote:So yes, DSM may be ever so slightly off by saying that they're Frodo specifically, but his greater point still makes a fair bit of sense.
Ah, gotcha. Fair enough.DSMatticus wrote:Because it was snappier to put one name there instead of five, and it made the most sense to go with the name that had top billing. It's not a deliberate commentary on which hobbit has the wildest wild side, which I couldn't tell you, because I haven't read the books in forever.momo wrote:Claiming that Halflings are based on Frodo, specifically, seems weird to me. Why not Bilbo? Or, shit, Merry or Pippin if we have to pick a LOTR protag.