I find the D&D Gnome can easily replace three core Tolkienesque races Halflings, Elves and Dwarves. They live underground, check for Halflings and Dwarves. They are short, check for Halflings and Dwarves. They're nature fans and have an affinity for animals, check for Elves and at least a half-check for Halflings. They're inherently magical, again, check for Elves. So you get three races for the price of one by substituting in Gnomes for all of the above.
For D&D, I'm down for goblins or even bullywugs in place of hobbits.
I'm planning to include some of the fey as playable races in a project I'm working on. Goblinoids too.
They're called Kender, I believe...
Bottom line, this, for both halflings and dwarves (and gnomes and smaller-statured orks for that matter). Willow's folks are fine. Most of the others are annoying...but that makes them so much better than elves, I'm willing to overlook some deficiencies, sometimes
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Most of the others are annoying...but that makes them so much better than elves, I'm willing to overlook some deficiencies, sometimes
Why do they need to be a separate defined race in the game, then, and not just be... short humans?
Honestly that shit is more likely to make halflings appealing to me.
I think people have too light hearted view of elves. You should read Tolkien's 4th Age stuff where Elrond returns and goes off the rails.
We all have our I like that shit buttons. I think it's Midgard from Kobold press that has nomadic Halflings riding dinosaurs? That's awesome. How that's materially different that the Paladin on a dog example is purely my taste. YMMV.
D&D Gnomes offer far more than D&D Dwarves in my book. Keep the Gnomes, lose the Dwarves and the Halflings.
It is funny to me how you don't see SF setting designers just shoving in Klingons or Wookies as is (though you sometimes get species that are the same thing with the serial numbers filed off), though they will do it for fantasy races without hesitation.
In SF they look different but “honorable warrior race” and “advanced, logical race” etc show up in a lot of different settings.
Yeah, that sounds right. The point is halflings on dinosaurs! That's pulpy goodness. Halflings on armoured war dogs is just goofy.
), which I think should always be relegated to specific settings, rather than being offered to players right in the core bools.
I know a few Norse experts say Elf was just a word for Dwarf chosen for rhyming reasons, often to alliterate with Aesir. Dwarves of course were usually human sized.
So what you're saying is that Drizzt Do'Urden is a Duregar ranger? I like the cut of your jib, sir.
Hmm, considering we still have Alf as a name in Swedish but nothing like Dvärg as a name (other than a term for little people) I'm not sure about that. Generally, we don't know but Alfar and Dvergar seem to mean different things a lot of the time. But they're referring to mythical entities, so there's nothing concrete there so to speak. The words may have meant different things to different people at different times. Most of what we know about Norse mythology comes from works published after it was already dead as a religion.
