Do gnomes or halflings look like children?

[gogogome]

I have a friend who wants his friend to join the group.

Unfortunately his friend is a... lolicon. He wants to play a child character, or at least one that looks like one.

Rather than implementing a child template from another d20 system, or making a house rule about it I was wondering if gnomes or halflings look like children so I can suggest he play one of those instead.

He is a little offensive and says he doesn't want to play midgets.

[Celestia]

No, they don't, at least not in most interpretations. They look like fully grown adults, just smaller. Though, if you're DM, you can always just houserule it.

[Winthur]

Unfortunately his friend is a... lolicon. He wants to play a child character, or at least one that looks like one.

Is it really lolicon, or does he want a protagonist of some sorta young adult novel for the variety?

If not the latter, run.

[Chronikoce]

There is sort of feat for halflings to pass as human children in pathfinder (childlike) . Otherwise you could could easily just fluff it that way. I personally wouldn't choose gnomes but I also played too many years of WoW to imagine them with anything but those proportions.

As for the whole lolicon thing... Well do you have any evidence that supports that rather bold claim? It seems you have a pretty serious and negative opinion formed of this person. Is it justified? If it is justified then it seems unwise to include them in your game. If it's not justified then perhaps you should reconsider your stance on this player and their request.

In general it's difficult to be a fair and objective DM for a player you despise. Probably a situation best avoided.

My games avoid sexual content and as such a child character wouldn't be a problem because they aren't going to end up in "adult scenes" anyway. Just as an example.

[atemu1234]

No. And if the player is actually a lolicon, avoid them. Avoid them like the black plague and run and never look back.

Typically, most interpretations for either has them have either human or dwarfism-like proportions, just on a smaller frame in the case of the former.

[Darth Ultron]

How ''child like''? You could be a 16 year old human in D&D, and 16 year olds look child-like as they are still children. And there are plenty of humans that are 20+ but can sure pass for ''child like''.

And gnomes and halflings might look like children, depending on what you think children look like.

Both races are short, so that is ''child like''.
Both races can have soft, round features (like any other race, wink, wink), that ''look child like''.
Both races can be young and/or look young...while being short....and ''look child like''.

Just run down the list:

Ellen Page, Selena Gomez, Lucy Hale, Sarah Hyland, Dakota Fanning, Thomas Brodie-Sangster (from Game of Thrones), Jason Earles (Hanna Montana's brother), Alexis Bledel (aka Rory Gilmore from Gilmore Girls) and Dreama Walker .

Any of them ''look child like'' enough? They are all adults.

And, well reality is stranger then fiction:


Shirley Henderson is the actress who played Moaning Myrtle in Harry Potter, you know the ghost girl. Did you think she looked like a good ''child like '' ghost girl? She was 37 at the time.

Jim Parsons (Sheldon Cooper) looks young right? He is over 40....

[Grod_The_Giant]

As for the whole lolicon thing... Well do you have any evidence that supports that rather bold claim? It seems you have a pretty serious and negative opinion formed of this person. Is it justified? If it is justified then it seems unwise to include them in your game. If it's not justified then perhaps you should reconsider your stance on this player and their request.

Yeah, I'm inclined towards this view: if you're not going to enjoy playing with the person, don't play with them. And if you're not comfortable with a character concept, you are allowed to say no.

[Prime32]

Rather than implementing a child template from another d20 system

Just... don't be passive-aggressive about it and use this as an opportunity to pile lots of penalties on his character that make him useless. A lot of these templates are intended to make lv1 commoners even weaker, not for PC use. If you don't want him to play it, just say no. If you don't want him to play it because you think he'll make it creepy, then making him useless in combat is just going to make things worse, because it will make him focus on the creepy parts more.

Mechanically, let's assume the player in question wants their character to be 10 years old. These templates tend to be things like "-4 Str and Con" with no upsides.
Except that the average height of a 10-year-old boy is about 4' 7".... the average height of a male dwarf is 4' 2" (equivalent to an 8-year-old), and the average height of a male halfling is 3' 1" (equivalent to a 3-year-old!). Even halflings only get "-2 Str, +2 Dex", despite being much smaller.

Though, I do think that refluffed halflings are the best way of representing kids of exceptional (i.e. Player Character) abilities, with many of their racial traits seeming appropriate. Tolkien himself described the people of Gondor as "boys playing at being men" and the hobbits as "just boys". You can even use strongheart halflings as human kids, tallfellows as elf kids and deep halflings as dwarf kids.


Also: Pathfinder explicitly has some halflings who look like kids... and even some that look like unblinking porcelain dolls.

[Karl Aegis]

It's a cosmetic effect that does not need to be backed up by mechanics.

Pretty much every Warforged out there is old enough to be a child.

[gorfnab]

Pathfinder has two feats for Halflings that let them use Bluff and Disguise to allow them to pass as human children.
Pass For Human
Childlike

[Gildedragon]

My two cp
If you're uncomfortable with it: just say "no, sorry. Minimum age tables"
If you're OK with it: Yeah just let them use a halfling or the young template from PF

[Naez]

I'd say yeah for halflings no for gnomes. From the descriptions of halflings I could easily see one passing as a human child with no effort. there are human adults who still look like children and halflings are often described as just smaller humans.

I've played side by side by a halfling wild sorcerer that passed herself off as a human child and it was hilarious. Especially when she started swearing like a sailor at a ball and when asked where such a sweet little girl learned such language she pointed to the cleric.

This could be an issue but that would come entirely from the player themselves and not the idea. So really it comes down to can you trust the guy to play it without being creepy as hell about it?

[Rebel7284]

In general, no, the smaller races do not look like children. However, as with humans, there is significant variance within a race and it's possible and even likely that a small number of individuals do look that way. As others have mentioned, make sure that everyone at the table is okay with this concept.

[Chronikoce]

I'm curious, is playing a childlike character really that strange of a request? I think I've been part of two different games with characters that were effectively children (one was something like 16 and the other was technically like 200 but was a vampire turned as a 12 year old).

Neither games involved anything weird or uncomfortable as a result of these characters. Is the concept really that uncomfortable for people or is it more this player in particular has made you uncomfortable with their antics in the past?

[Honest Tiefling]

I'm curious, is playing a childlike character really that strange of a request?

Yes. Firstly, imagine how often player characters try to hit up the tavern and score with bar wenches/stable hands. Suddenly the entire tone of the game has to change, and if not everyone is on board the child character is forcing that change. I believe groups should compromise to accommodate everyone, but that does that sometimes, child characters are inappropriate. A 16 year old might be fine for many groups, provided that people keep the philandering to a more tasteful degree and far, far, far, away from the teenager.

Secondly, a lot of stories can have very violent and dark themes. Having a child giggle and cheerfully throw themselves into combat (yes, it has happened) while adult characters look on is really weird. What sort of adult would consider bringing along a child to a battle and NOT try their hardest to put that child into a better environment?

Thirdly, how is this child surviving? So the adult character gets by the skin of their teeth, and...The child can too? Children are kinda fragile from my understanding, so you either have the situation where the child PC has severely stunted physical stats to be realistic, or Superboy just joined the party. Children probably can't contribute as much as the adults to physical and magical combat. It is also annoying to RP a trained mage and have a kid be equally as trained as the adults.

Yeah, DnD does gloss over the horrors of war and death, but there is a certain point at which it can break immersion if no one is affected and for me personally, having children be utterly fine after going through combat is a bit too much for me.

[Deophaun]

It's a cosmetic effect that does not need to be backed up by mechanics.

^^ Exactly this.

If he wants his character to be a gnome that resembles a human child, just let his character be a gnome that resembles a human child. Fluff is mutable.

Secondly, a lot of stories can have very violent and dark themes. Having a child giggle and cheerfully throw themselves into combat (yes, it has happened) while adult characters look on is really weird. What sort of adult would consider bringing along a child to a battle and NOT try their hardest to put that child into a better environment?

Childhood is a relatively recent modern invention. If you're hung up on sixteen year-olds fighting, well, Spartans started training for war at seven; at 12 they were kept intentionally malnourished, encouraged to steal for their food, and severely punished when caught. At some point before 18, the real up and comers stalked and murdered a helot.

I find D&D's age limits to actually be too high. Historically, if you were old enough to walk, you were old enough to work.

[Keral]

Uh, i'd just like to point out that 16 is considered adult in dnd. If human at least. I agree that having an 8 year old would be definitely weird. But I don't think 16 would.
Even if the tone is mildly or less than mildly sexual. But maybe it's because where I live the age of consent is 14 and/or it doesn't bother me much.

[Honest Tiefling]

Childhood is a relatively recent modern invention. If you're hung up on sixteen year-olds fighting, well, Spartans started training for war at seven; at 12 they were kept intentionally malnourished, encouraged to steal for their food, and severely punished when caught. At some point before 18, the real up and comers stalked and murdered a helot.

I did say that teenagers at 16 were more of a grey area, but I assume that the issue was dealing with a much younger person, hence child. And yeah, historically, children did all sorts of things, but history is really ****ing creepy. There are many things that should not be dredged out of history, especially in a more lighthearted game.

Somehow the idea of forced marriage and children being left to die doesn't really match my idea of a fun, humorous game focused on an upbeat story. If you want to be utterly dark, I guess you could be historically accurate, but it would be very dark.

[Chronikoce]

Yes. Firstly, imagine how often player characters try to hit up the tavern and score with bar wenches/stable hands. Suddenly the entire tone of the game has to change, and if not everyone is on board the child character is forcing that change.

Not every game does include this sort of behavior (though I have of course been part of my fair share that did). So I think this is something easily covered during character creation to decide if the tone of the campaign is going to be appropriate for a child coming along. I'll avoid a debate on age of consent entirely and just say I agree characters of this sort don't fit every game.

Secondly, a lot of stories can have very violent and dark themes. Having a child giggle and cheerfully throw themselves into combat (yes, it has happened) while adult characters look on is really weird. What sort of adult would consider bringing along a child to a battle and NOT try their hardest to put that child into a better environment?

Sociopath/psychopaths exist and those sorts of people exhibit characteristics at a young age. In a fantasy game with a world as dangerous as d&d it seems like adventuring would be an excellent outlet for those dark tendencies. I would expect the adults to be uncomfortable around a sociopath regardless of the age of the character (though those tendencies in a younger aged person are certainly frightening).

Thirdly, how is this child surviving? So the adult character gets by the skin of their teeth, and...The child can too? Children are kinda fragile from my understanding, so you either have the situation where the child PC has severely stunted physical stats to be realistic, or Superboy just joined the party. Children probably can't contribute as much as the adults to physical and magical combat. It is also annoying to RP a trained mage and have a kid be equally as trained as the adults.

In my games the child like characters I've seen have always been innate ability casters. I believe one was a sorcerer and the other a favored soul. The manifestation of their power had nothing to do with physical strength and age played no bearing on their power level. I've never seen a 12 year old barbarian in play and I do think that it would break immersion justifying such strength and rage at a young age.

Somehow the idea of forced marriage and children being left to die doesn't really match my idea of a fun, humorous game focused on an upbeat story. If you want to be utterly dark, I guess you could be historically accurate, but it would be very dark.

To each their own. I enjoy a good light hearted game from time to time but the campaigns I've found the most engaging involved tough decisions, intrigue, and often no "good" or "right" solutions. Life is messy and unpredictable and often decisions are forced without perfect information. A darker themed save the world game can reflect this (if everyone is on board of course).

In one of my darker sessions I was the DM for (on Halloween night) the party ended up dealing with a town where they thought the children were being abused and mistreated by the parents. In actuality the parents were terrified of their own children. They didn't realize it but most of the children were replaced by fiends pretending to be children and were torturing their parents for the sheer love of the evilness of it. Many people would find this scenario unpalatable but since my group expected something dark for Halloween they were not mad or put out by it. One player did say he would prefer to avoid that sort of topic in the future and I've honored his wishes.

As adults I believe talking to each other regarding expectations of the sort of game and sessions that are desired is the best solution.

For me this all comes down to the type of game players expect to participate in. A lust driven tavern romp doesn't seem to have a place for a child but a campaign about saving the world where a young sorceress has turned to adventuring to gain vengeance upon those terrible evils that slaughtered her whole family does. Fantasy stories are full of young characters who are subjected to terrible tragedies at a young age that leads to their heroic life style.

[Honest Tiefling]

In my games the child like characters I've seen have always been innate ability casters. I believe one was a sorcerer and the other a favored soul. The manifestation of their power had nothing to do with physical strength and age played no bearing on their power level. I've never seen a 12 year old barbarian in play and I do think that it would break immersion justifying such strength and rage at a young age.

Sorcerers do not manifest their powers until puberty by core rules and most settings...And most sorcerers train, hence why they don't always start at level 20. So the idea that a sorcerer is equally as competent as adult sorcerers training all of their lives is a bit of a stretch.

Also, if a god picked a CHILD to be a favored soul, that's either one dumb god, or one evil god.

For me this all comes down to the type of game players expect to participate in. A luster driven tavern romp doesn't seem to have a place for a child but a campaign about saving the world where a young sorceress has turned to adventuring to gain vengeance upon those terrible evils that slaughtered her whole family does. Fantasy stories are full of young characters who are subjected to terrible tragedies at a young age that leads to their heroic life style.

...Presumably in a campaign where you are saving the world, you are neutral to good alignment. What sort of neutral to good aligned person would have utterly NO qualms about a young child (not teenager, child) coming along to not just great peril, but exhausting travel, excruciating physical tests, and mental stress? Is the CHILD really the best this team could do to save the ENTIRE WORLD? If the fate of the world rests upon adults that are equally as competent as a child, the world is probably boned to begin with and might as well either leave or join up with the BBEG.

Also, most of those stories are aimed at...Well, children. Even Avatar the Last Airbender had to get around certain issues, and had the protagonist at age 12 and helped A LOT by adults and older teenagers. Aang was also quite clearly a child and made mistakes common to a child and was very immature. I'm not saying it's a bad series, but I think that it is also a different tone then many DnD stories which do involve actual death. One probably could try to make a more lighthearted game, but I think it would need some reworking of basic premises and work.

[Deophaun]

I did say that teenagers at 16 were more of a grey area, but I assume that the issue was dealing with a much younger person, hence child.

Which is probably what David was when he slew Goliath. The question was asked "What sort of adult would consider bringing along a child to a battle and NOT try their hardest to put that child into a better environment?" I answered: most adults throughout history. The only reason to shield a child from battle was that they aren't physically capable and are inexperienced. As soon as the child demonstrates those limits do not apply, he becomes a warrior and will have songs written about him.

[Chronikoce]

I think we just have very different expectations for the tone and style of our d&d games (which is perfectly fine of course).

A child prodigy could easily be an asset to a nation or adventuring group and thus be thrust in situations that an average child would belong (but if they were average they wouldn't be a PC after all).

There are children who possess massive intelligence and have attained multiple college degrees before they are through puberty and such a child could easily be a savant wizard in D&D terms. Children touched by god and granted divine powers is another trope in stories so they could be favored souls or even cloistered clerics who far surpass their adult peers (likely drawing their ire and possible leading to unsafe assignments by jealous superiors that put the child into harm's way).

Circumstances of the adventure could thrust a child into adventuring. Though you've stated your opinion that any party allowing the child to adventure might as well be the bad guys, I personally disagree. That gets into a moral debate regarding the greater good and all that though so I don't think we should delve into this other than to state that we have different opinions on the matter.

[Honest Tiefling]

Circumstances of the adventure could thrust a child into adventuring. Though you've stated your opinion that any party allowing the child to adventure might as well be the bad guys, I personally disagree. That gets into a moral debate regarding the greater good and all that though so I don't think we should delve into this other than to state that we have different opinions on the matter.

Actually, a situation where the only choices are 'take child along' or 'leave child to die' is probably one of the few cases that a child PC could work in my opinion because there is no option to leave the child in a safe place. If someone wanted to play a child PC, I think this is probably the only scenario it makes sense. Even if a god wanted to grant a child divine power, it still makes more sense that it would happen in this situation, since they only have 20 or so people to choose from in the first place so the pickings are mighty slim.

Far better then granting a child divine power to simply get them get hurt by the machinations of jealous priests...Which is an interesting plot, but I feel that everyone here can agree it is definitely on the darker side of things. It makes the god seem less incompetent, unless there are particular reasons that the child HAS to be picked, such as a particular bloodline or belief. The god could be VERY removed from the mortal world and unable or unwilling to interfere more directly.

[gogogome]

He and his friend both openly admitted that he was a lolicon. They don't think it's a big deal.

I read somewhere, I think it was 3.5 material, one of them was often mistaken as children or something. I dunno.

Game we're running is pg-13 and I don't think he'll play his character weird. His words were "I rather play a cute adorable girl rather than a hairy big man".

When we were talking about the child template, he was going on about fire emblem fates, and there's a gifted dark sorcerer who accidentally made herself permanently young by using dark magic, and he wants to play something like that, and wanted only the physical penalties of the template, not the mental ones.

[Honest Tiefling]

Game we're running is pg-13 and I don't think he'll play his character weird. His words were "I rather play a cute adorable girl rather than a hairy big man".

There is a vast gulf of difference between wanting to bang your adorable PC and just wanting a cute character. Please tell us that the player has never described himself as a lolicon or liking it or however you young people use that word.

[gogogome]

There is a vast gulf of difference between wanting to bang your adorable PC and just wanting a cute character. Please tell us that the player has never described himself as a lolicon or liking it or however you young people use that word.

He described himself as a lolicon.

[Honest Tiefling]

He described himself as a lolicon.

Why are you allowing this? Why are you associating with this person? JUST WHY

[Guizonde]

I'm curious, is playing a childlike character really that strange of a request? I think I've been part of two different games with characters that were effectively children (one was something like 16 and the other was technically like 200 but was a vampire turned as a 12 year old).

Neither games involved anything weird or uncomfortable as a result of these characters. Is the concept really that uncomfortable for people or is it more this player in particular has made you uncomfortable with their antics in the past?

it came up during my last campaign in a post-apocalyptic world. three players wanted to play over-the-hill and retired men (one a merc, another a doctor, the last an organ trafficker). the fourth player came up with a spanner: playing a rich, sheltered, snooty and clueless 13 year old girl. the idea was so jarring we had to do it. turns out that the girl was safer with us (i was the doctor) as we were the unwilling patsies for a conspiracy and the girl was the lynchpin of said conspiracy. she was at first a non-combattant, being a hacker most of the time. eventually, she learned field medicine from me, weapons handling from the beatstick, and the art of fast-talking from the merchant, becoming a very physically frail all-rounder (it did help that in our world, 13 years old is considered an adult, so we played the "welcome to the world" angle).

our three old guys were grumps with semi-tragic backstories, we went for an "expendables" flavor to them. the grew really attached to the little girl, who in turn got hit by adolescence midway through the campaign. we rp'd it as how a caring uncle would explain puberty to a family member. they gained a heart, and taught her to survive, keeping her mostly out of danger. when she did get hit, though, it wasn't pretty at all. in about 6 months in-game, that girl saw more combat than most front-line troops in irak. she matured really quickly. great roleplay was done by all.

we'd never have done it with some random guy coming in one day. this player was sure he could pull it off, and we'd all been gaming on at least a monthly basis for the last 3 years at that point. was it creepy? nope. could it have been? hell yes. we enjoyed the age-gap and the coming-of-age angle that was offered, it made for a great tale, including highlights of the beatstick jumping in front of the girl and taking a blow meant for her, the doc teaching her how to snipe efficiently, and the merchant making her into the perfect little smooth-talker and stinger to his showmanship routine.

now imagine some random who's into it for the creep factor, and not for the "fish out of water" flavor. creepiness incoming. hell, just reading the other comments creeped me out a bit.

[Chronikoce]

He described himself as a lolicon.

I wonder if either of them realize the connotation involved with the term or if they just think it means he likes cute little characters. It is entirely possible they have foolishly not looked the word up and don't realize the sexual implication involved in the term. At least I hope this is the case.

[gogogome]

Why are you allowing this? Why are you associating with this person? JUST WHY

I wonder if either of them realize the connotation involved with the term or if they just think it means he likes cute little characters. It is entirely possible they have foolishly not looked the word up and don't realize the sexual implication involved in the term. At least I hope this is the case.

I didn't realize this was such a serious topic. The only exposure I have to lolicons is via anime, and it seemed harmless, considering how many animes are out there that make light of the topic. (Oreimo I think it's called?)

I looked up that fire emblem character, her name was nyx, apparently she is an old woman cursed to have a body of a child, and if such a skimpy looking underage looking character was fully featured in the american release... I dunno.

I don't want to offend anyone by becoming a full interrogator. I'm associating with him because he's a friend of a friend.

I'll just pull a template off pathfinder or modern, and just remove the mental penalties if there are any, or let him take that child-like feat.

Or I'll just give him a disease that makes him look really young. There is one in real life, shortens your life span by half because it causes some serious brain problems later, but for like the first 40 years you look like a 6th grader or something.

I'll give him 2 strikes before he's out. First a warning then he's out if he tries to do something creepy in our pg 13 game.

Anyways thanks for your inputs.