Race Size Guidelines?

[SeasideDruid]

Ive been ruminating on the races of D&D for quite a bit now and comparing them to their real world mythology counterparts. And now its got me thinkin'...

I kinda want to know what WotC's guidelines are when deciding a races size. Especially the smaller ones. Like in folklore, Gnomes and Kobolds usually never taller than 2 feet, sometimes even a few inches. Firbolgs were just a people that battled the Children of the Dannu, its never explicitly stated they are giants. You see what i mean?

I love the smaller races, especially goblins, gnomes, and dwarves, but its bugging me thinking "that's not their real size and you know it".

Anybody have insight??

[Dork_Forge]

Ive been ruminating on the races of D&D for quite a bit now and comparing them to their real world mythology counterparts. And now its got me thinkin'...

I kinda want to know what WotC's guidelines are when deciding a races size. Especially the smaller ones. Like in folklore, Gnomes and Kobolds usually never taller than 2 feet, sometimes even a few inches. Firbolgs were just a people that battled the Children of the Dannu, its never explicitly stated they are giants. You see what i mean?

I love the smaller races, especially goblins, gnomes, and dwarves, but its bugging me thinking "that's not their real size and you know it".

Anybody have insight??

Striking a balance between representing the lore (that they're small creatures) and keeping them big enough to actually be an adventurer, remember the races are inspired by the lore, not the exact same creatues.

In terms of size guidelines, I think anything under 4 feet tall falls intot the small category and anything above into medium, large might be 8 or 9 feet?

[Magicspook]

Size is rather arbitrarily tied to actual height in DnD. Halflins and gnomes are almost the same size, but dwarfs are medium (probably because the devs wanted them to be able to use heavy weapons). On the other hand, for bolg and goliath are pretty big, but they are kept medium to avoid balance issues.

[HappyDaze]

"that's not their real size and you know it"

This is a really odd stance to take in a game that has created it's own fantasy culture references. Today I'd argue that the D&D takes on fantasy races are more widely accepted than any mythological takes that they were once based upon (if any, some D&D races only have a basis in D&D).