What's the point of having both gnomes and halflings in the same fantasy setting...

What's the point of having both gnomes and halflings in the same fantasy setting? They seem to fill pretty much the same niche. People have broadly characterized halflings as being like Tolkein Shire hobbits and Gnomes as mechanics/lawn gnomes but I don't know if there's enough meaningful differences that couldn't be captured by one species with a few different cultures. It all adds up to "small, fast, comic relief thief/expert PC class" anyway.

Has anyone done anything interesting with the two races to justify the distinction?

Yes.

Could you elaborate?

This is why we need the kender

Exactly.

Remove one(gnome) and put kobolds in their place.

Only because you got quads.

Gnomes are innately magical. Halflings aren't.

I always thought of halflings in the tolkeinesque sense and gnomes as progressive dwarves. Where a halfling generally wants to blend in with the scenery at the back of the pub, the gnome wants to show off his party trick and dupe someone out of a beer.
Where a dwarf mines for wealth or martial power, a gnome mines to get materials for a daft alchemical experiment.

IIRC, Eberron made halflings into cannibalistic dinosaur ranchers and gnomes into background characters I didn't care about.

That said, all my character art related to either is just labeled "shortling" so I wouldn't mind combining them into a single race as long as there is a racial variant that gets +2 constitution again.

Why have elves and humans? I think that the difference between them and halflings and gnomes is that the wee folk don't see as much play and tend to be more peripheral and thus less clearly defined. As somebody who has played more old school than new school D&D, I haven't seen many people play gnomes, in no small part because they are more obscure than halflings (they are latecomers compared to halflings and don't exist at all in a number of editions).

In terms of my own world design, however, I tend to divide halflings and gnomes primarily according to magic use. Halflings aren't magically inclined (they can't cast spells), but are cunning jacks of all trades (including but not limited to thieving). You put a challenge in front of a halfling, and they'll usually be able to wing it to good effect. This tends to make them a bit foolhardy at times, and combined with a natural curiosity (or boredom at what is routine) often turns their lives into one big adventure. (Halfling societies tend to be rather fleeting as a result, and they're likely to fit the stereotype of gypsy travelers.)

In comparison, gnomes have their heads in the clouds. Magic is practically innate to them, and while they are as curious as halflings, they tend to be introverts rather than extroverts. They are more likely to be fascinated with magical experiments or scientific research than blazing a trail through the world like halflings do. For this reason, they are less likely to be adventurers than halflings are. Gnomes tend to be almost accidentally reclusive. They really have nothing against the other races, and are perfectly friendly, but they're just too caught up in their studies and conjectures to focus much on interacting.

>That said, all my character art related to either is just labeled "shortling" so I wouldn't mind combining them into a single race as long as there is a racial variant that gets +2 constitution again.
Yeah, this is the thing - halflings and gnomes are just a little bit interchangeable physically, from a genre perspective. Any fantasy artwork of a short character that doesn't have the broad physique of a dwarf can usually pass as either a gnome or a halfling, and efforts to distinguish the two usually fall on cultural lines. A halfling can be an arcane mechanic and a gnome can be a rural farmhand, I don't know if there's enough rhetorical space there for two species.

Honestly at least Kobolds could fill a "short Dragonborn" role, where if you want to play the big strong fighter lizard you play one and the short sneaky stealy lizard you play the other.

Do you mean Dwarves, Gnomes, and Halflings? Or do you mean Dwarves (aka Gnomes) and Halflings?
The prior makes either gnomes, or halflings redundant. The latter is OK if dwarves (=gnomes) are depicted as a race of hoarders, warriors, and mechanics. Their roles in the five major races are different. Dwarves are brawny folks to have cool warriors, halflings are cute folks to have adorable allies.

Gnomes have drifted too far from their routes. They're one of the four classical elementals, along with Sylphs, Undines and Salamanders. That's how you give them a distinct niche.

*roots

Fucking autocorrect

>le comic little man meme
whenever this thread gets made for the nth time, we all get the pleasure of witnessing OP's lack of imagination and gross ignorance of basic fantasy races

>Why have elves and humans?
Now see that's a good example for comparison. Humans as a D&D PC race are the standard by which other fantasy races get compared, because of course we're humans so our understanding starts there. Elves fulfill the idea of "like us, but lighter, faster, more graceful." That also dovetails with ethereal beauty, sophistication, even a sort of femininity. The counterpoint to elves are dwarves, fulfilling "like us, but tougher, broader, hardier", which also conveniently dovetails with being gruffer, more hard-nosed, generally contrasting with the elves.

Halflings and gnomes both sort of fulfill the "like us, but smaller, sneakier, more clever" niche, which is counteracted by the Half-Orc (and now Dragonborn) niche of "bigger, bolder, brasher". The halfling flavor leans hard on the sneaky and the gnome flavor leans hard on the clever but if you were thinking of playing a "little" character you'd probably consider both possibilities together before picking which way to lean, which is something I'd attribute more to a subrace than distinct races.

If you were designing a lineup of races/species/backgrounds for any sort of setting, there's usually a few archetypes you're trying to fill with humans in the middle. If you're looking for conceptual brevity, having both flavors of little people feels like overkill.

When they added Eladrin were you the one guy who was like "Finally, double-elves, just what I was waiting for"?

>double elves
>two races with completely different origins and lore
here's your (you)

Halflings are just midget elves. Gnomes are just dwarves with anemia.

I really like PFs take on the two races, really cementing them as different from each other and occupying different roles.

Halflings are basically short humans with incredible luck and large feet. Humanish proportions, hair and eye colors, and tanned to brown skin. They have no place in history, but that's because it's easy to overlook the contributions of the small folk. They also tend to be slaves in regions which do such things. They are humanity's shadow, always there but often overlooked.

Gnomes are fey slowly adapting to the mortal realm, trapped here either by exile or mistake. Uncanny features such as large eyes, wide grins, unnatural coloration of eyes and hair, and off proportions to body. Needing a constant stream of new experiences or they go through a horrific malady called the Bleaching, where the color of their bodies leaches out and they go mad or die from accepting the banality of reality. This need for new experiences makes them excellent tinkers, inventors, mages, and many other unusual hobbies or professions. Their fey nature also gives them some magical power, retaining the ability to speak to animals and having a predilection for illusion magics. Pic related, your average gnome wizard.

Eladrin were a pretty good idea for dealing with the serious thematic split elves have without just calling them 'X Elf'

There are just as many differences between gnomes and halflingd as between elves and humans. Or dwarfs and humans. Or halflings and humams. Orcs and humans.

I always run gnomes as faces that move across rocks like in Return to Oz.

Originally, they were very distinct. Gnome are insane, magical people, who do things just because their bored, and come from fey lore. Halflings are small, nimble not-mans, that are a reference to Tolkien's Hobbits.

Fifth Edition is the worst in terms of making them distinct from one another.

>Originally
>Gnome are insane, magical people
No.

Anyone who likes gnomes should be wiped from the face of the Earth.

...

Elves are just humans who can't grow body/facial hair and have silly ears. Why have both?

I guess you could try, like, slap my ankle or something, but who cares? Your tiny, weak hands won't have any effect.

I know this is facetious, but you really do have a point.

Playable elves are so far removed from their original inspiration in Germanic and Norse mythology that they may as well be humans with rubber Spock ears.

Yeah. They should be humans who glow instead.

I've struggled with this as well, and the best thing I can come up with?

Halflings are Urban/Rural/Live among other races in houses and shit

Gnomes live in their own isolated communities or in the wilderness.

They're subracial groups of the same species.

Lightfoot Halflings are Urban
Strongheart Halflings (or 'Hobbits') are rural
Gnomes are wilderness.

Moon elf vs Sun Elf vs Wood Elf

You should especially consider that a lot of settings have elves that lack immortality and natural magic abilities greater than mortals. They're literally humans who live a little longer and have a lot of stereotypes associated with them.

Gnomes have fey origin. But where Elves got smugness, Gnomes got curiosity. Problems arise when "is willing to open up anything to see how it works" and "latent magical powers" meet up. In that way they're almost like more magical humans (but with fewer/different prejudices)

I'll be honest; I once toyed with the idea that halflings are basically what happens when humans bonk either gnomes, dwarves or both. Halflings do feel kind of superfluous unless you give them a really, really unique and often "weird" niche to fill - Dark Sun's "Halflings as cannibalistic savages", Eberron's "Halflings as dinosaur-taming barbarian tribes", etc.

The basic idea that D&D has traditionally used, and that 5e has fallen back on is, that:

1: Halflings are the "Cute" race; they're small, childlike, everyman characters supposed to be appealing to younger and/or female players. They're the plucky little sidekick race.

2: Gnomes are the "Smart Guy" race. Yes, elves are equally magic, but they're associated with being smug, arrogant bastards. Yes, dwarves are equally tech, but they're stubborn, hide-bound traditionalists. Gnomes are the guys who actually think about the world around them and try to put what they've thought about into practice. They're mad scientists and visionary inventors, eccentric wizards and crazy philosophers.

Or at least gnomes are your non-Nordic European dwarves. They're basically hearty, good-natured peasant folk who just happen to have some helpful magic tricks that they use to help their neighbors and punish those who're bad to them.

...Personally, I prefer either PF's interpretation (), or 4e's, where Halflings are intrepid traders, entertainers, smugglers and thieves who live in the riverways and swamps, and Gnomes are former fairy slaves who have escaped the mastery of brutal, insane, evil fae-giant overlords and are determined to never EVER be slaves again.

Gnomes are tiny elves
Halfings are tiny humans

In my setting Halflings are just magic repressed gnomes. Their innate magic manifests as luck. Both variants have high charisma but the halfling variants have adjusted to a more physical way of living so they're stronger and more dexterous.