Is there any point to Halflings?

[Lord Liaden]

5 minutes ago, sentry0 said:

I just popped into say there's a surpising amount of dark meat on a halfling.

 

So, the short long pig?

[Duke Bushido]

6 hours ago, Ninja-Bear said:

 Some people seem to not be able to fathom that in universe seeing a Force User would he rather rare

 

 

The,same with elves.

 

The problem is that in twenty-nine out of thirty gane groups, you are going to have half the party or more be Force Users (or budding users), or mandalorians, or elves.

 

From that perspective, they are more common than commoners.

 

 

[Scott Ruggels]

3 minutes ago, Duke Bushido said:

 

 

The,same with elves.

 

The problem is that in twenty-nine out of thirty gane groups, you are going to have half the party or more be Force Users (or budding users), or mandalorians, or elves.

 

From that perspective, they are more common than commoners.

 

 

 

And thus we see the Tyranny of the "Rule of Cool".

[Ninja-Bear]

7 hours ago, Duke Bushido said:

 

 

The,same with elves.

 

The problem is that in twenty-nine out of thirty gane groups, you are going to have half the party or more be Force Users (or budding users), or mandalorians, or elves.

 

From that perspective, they are more common than commoners.

 

 

I’m going (surprise) disagree. Look at super heroes, the rarity of people having powers yet you can have a team and no one bats an eye. The world still treats them as being rare. Which now if I ever get the boys to play again, I think that’s what I’ll do. 

[Christopher R Taylor]

There's nothing innate about elves that should make them rare.  They might be the dominant species on a planet, with a few oppressed humans (my fantasy campaign's history).  After all if you live 2000 years, chances are you're gonna have a lot of offspring unless something biological or external prevents it.  There shouldn't be very many of a species who by definition are hidden, secret, unknown, and rare (like a hobbit) but elves?  Eh, its up to the campaign really, and how people define elves.

I mean, elves might even be the secret fae peoples of the world, little critters like 4 feet tall who hide in trees. Or they might be super common and control everything.

[Duke Bushido]

On 1/21/2023 at 11:28 PM, Ninja-Bear said:

I’m going (surprise) disagree. Look at super heroes, the rarity of people having powers 

 

 

 

They cant be that rare.  Stan Lee has like nine hundred of them,in New York City alone!     probably closer to ninety thiusand if you counr every villain that has ever been set there.

 

That all,comes,down to how you populate your world, really.   Some level of power- mostly less,than,useful, but not,always- ocxurs in roughly one percent od the people in my universe.  This makes it more rare than blue eyes, but more common than albinism.  However, it is the only way I can justify super powers at all.

 

Of those who _do_ have "useful" powers, most do not become costumed crimefighters.  They find jobs where there abikities give them an edge, and make nice lives for themselves.

 

[Ninja-Bear]

Speaking of Star Wars and rare. Many fans believe that SW Rebels pulled this off pretty good good between Jarius and Ezra. And its even set 5 years before OT.

[Hugh Neilson]

12 hours ago, Duke Bushido said:

They cant be that rare.  Stan Lee has like nine hundred of them,in New York City alone!     probably closer to ninety thiusand if you counr every villain that has ever been set there.

 

That all,comes,down to how you populate your world, really.   Some level of power- mostly less,than,useful, but not,always- ocxurs in roughly one percent od the people in my universe.  This makes it more rare than blue eyes, but more common than albinism.  However, it is the only way I can justify super powers at all.

 

Of those who _do_ have "useful" powers, most do not become costumed crimefighters.  They find jobs where there abikities give them an edge, and make nice lives for themselves.

 

 

nine hundred out of almost 8.5 million (2021); or pushing 19 million for metro NYC.

[Duke Bushido]

Each character throughout his histort has a dozen or more recurring badguys unique to him, and _oodles_ of one-shot bad guys.  I don't know enough about comics to know id this is a conservative enough estimate, but assuming each individual super hero is oart of a 500-superpowers people microcosm (fabulous frontman, anybody?), and you get something like 450,000, or roughly one in 19 people.  Cut that number in half (250 unique characters) and you still get over 2 percent of the population doing double-duty as some sort of spandex commqndo one one side or the other.

 

 

[Christopher R Taylor]

Its concentration too, not just numbers.  NYC has tons of superheroes, who rarely interact with each other or help out when major disasters take place.  Other places, like Canada have like 8 superheroes and 4 villains, and places like South America appear to have almost nothing going on.

[Hugh Neilson]

Well, if you were SuperPowered, would you stay on the farm outside a small town, or move to the Big City?  NYC likely has more than its pro rata share of celebrities of all kinds.

 

I doubt we would hit hundreds of thousands adding up the Marvel Universe, though (even once we bring Mutants from all over the world to live in a school in the outskirts, but there's that concentration thing again).

[bluesguy]

In my campaign world, Nyonia, I call them Wangai.  In my game I have modified their stats so they are more nimble but can't run as fast and they are not as strong as humans.  I also gave them an ability like that of a chameleon, where if they stand still for a moment (phase) and their opponent takes their eyes off of the Wangai, the Wangai basically disappears.  If they move they lose their camouflage.  The adventurous types tend to fall into a few categories: thieves, spies, scouts, and a specific kind of priest (Peoni).  They are good with slings, hatchets (melee or thrown), and small hand to hand weapons.  There have been Wangai PCs in my campaigns.

 

Plus if you have a Wangai in your party you are almost surely going to gain weight, if they do the cooking, and they can always sniff out a great party.

 

Oh and in my campaign world NO ELVES!  I hate elves - haughty, arrogant, cold-hearted creatures.  Blech!

[Khymeria]

In my campaign world, the elves are tribal more than mystical. Living in specific environments and adapted off a base elf template. All are known for vehicles/mounts specific to their environment. I would say the elves are more wild beings living in the environment than magic glowing pixies. 

[Scott Ruggels]

In the old campaign, The Elves we’re very alien, with a malign environmentalist attitude, but fortunately we’re militarily weak, and mostly confined to their large forest.  
 

In the current campaign I would prefer furries to elves. 

[Old Man]

Sounds to me like you want furry elves.  You need furry elves.

[Scott Ruggels]

38 minutes ago, Old Man said:

Sounds to me like you want furry elves.  You need furry elves.

 

<__<  [Appropriate Yosemite Sam quote]

[steriaca]

I noticed that some midevil fantasy anime don't stick to the standard fantasy races. Beast Tamer for example has a cat girl, a Dragonkin, twin faeries, and a young fox spirit "demigod" in the main character's party. In "I've Been Killing Slimes For 300 Years..." we have a layed back immortal human witch, two humanoid slime spirits, an elve who brews energy drinks, a red and blue dragon (well, one red dragon and one blue one), for starts.

 

Sometimes you actually do miss halflings. By the way, one of the people who visit the "Restaurant From Another World" is a halfling couple (another fantasy light novel turned anime). It should be noted that the 'other world' reference by the title is our world.

[Opal]

On 1/23/2023 at 10:36 AM, Christopher R Taylor said:

places, like Canada have like 8 superheroes and 4 villains, and places like South America appear to have almost nothing going on.

Obviously they all emigrated to NY

[Lord Liaden]

On 1/23/2023 at 1:36 PM, Christopher R Taylor said:

Its concentration too, not just numbers.  NYC has tons of superheroes, who rarely interact with each other or help out when major disasters take place.  Other places, like Canada have like 8 superheroes and 4 villains, and places like South America appear to have almost nothing going on.

 

3 hours ago, Opal said:

Obviously they all emigrated to NY

 

One of the things I really appreciate about the current official Champions Universe, is that there's a much larger and wider international distribution of identified superhumans than in the mainstream comic-book worlds. America is still disproportionately represented, though, for several logical reasons. It also has a few hot spots for super activity, particularly New York City and Millennium City.

[GDShore]

Regarding "Halflings" early in my gaming career as a game master I did away with them as using Halfling/Hobbits would be a copyright infringement. I kept elves and dwarves because they were legendary (many cultures have the elf, dwarf or an analogue) . So I built a series of small folk before settling on two. As for what is the point of them, I give you the pygmy (and eliminating them would be a genocide), as for why Elves - Dwarves are rare (ish) I have flirted with the following possible reasons:

     1 - an incredibly large infant/child mortality rates some north of 19 out of 20. 

     2 - an exceptionally low fecundity and based on the inordinate number of half elves most likely male sided.

     3 - elves make lousy mothers and thus put off having children till late in life and often do not try until too late and they have entered menopause. 

     4 - elves have a prolonged pre-puberty and a short  period of fecundity.  ect. ect. ect. 

I and my gaming group once spent an entire session once discussing this and came up with 25 - 26 reasons with defence for why elves were not the majority population.

[Lord Liaden]

For a race that's extremely long lived or who don't die at all naturally, children are far less of a necessity for replacement labor, caring for the elderly, etc. so their birth rate can be expected to be much lower than for humans.

[Hugh Neilson]

If elvish pregnancies have a duration increased similar to their lifespans, that might provide some explanations as well...

[Lord Liaden]

1 hour ago, Hugh Neilson said:

If elvish pregnancies have a duration increased similar to their lifespans, that might provide some explanations as well...

 

Oh, I can hear the groans of every woman in the community who reads your comment...

[GDShore]

That was reason #18, #19 was that elven females could store fertilized eggs in some sort of stasis until needed, wanted or the conditions were most favorable. (aka. kangaroos)

[Old Man]

12 minutes ago, GDShore said:

That was reason #18, #19 was that elven females could store fertilized eggs in some sort of stasis until needed, wanted or the conditions were most favorable. (aka. kangaroos)

 

Tell me more about these marsupial elves.