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AlexanderD comments on LW Women- Minimizing the Inferential Distance - Less Wrong
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Plow one of their fields, and you might feed some of them for some time (if they can get some more farming done in between attacks). Kill their dark elves, and they can feed themselves just fine.
I'd call that reasoning the epitome of shortsightedness; but the DM should've been more flexible and let you plow their field and later contrive a way for your party to learn that the crop failed anyway and everyone was killed or enslaved or starved to death.
The plan was to sow one field and then kill the dark elves, as far as I can tell. I agree that it would not have been a good idea to just plow their field, since obviously that was what had already not been working, but it also seems to me like a very perceptive insight to realize that even if the elves were killed, the already-emaciated farmers might still die without help on the farm. It's also an insight that appears, within the story, to have derived from the presence of an alternative viewpoint.
Why would plowing one field make a difference to their survival or death? Especially when plowing one field is taking up time to the detriment of going after the dark elves. Indeed, if they cared about the farmers, wouldn't a cash transfer make infinitely more sense? No, this looks like the usual signaling about caring: "but they care so much, they even went and plowed a field to help them out!" (As opposed to working on the real problem, or giving them a gold coin which is probably worth several fields of food given the medieval setting and also doesn't have the minor problem of it likely failing anyway since it's going to be plowed by complete amateurs with broken equipment at the wrong time...)
I can't testify as to the actual value of the planting or whether or not this was necessarily the best plan. There are probably many more plans that would be better, including giving them a gold coin. Or perhaps the farmers in the magical world of dark elves who make armed sorties against impoverished serfs could have been better served by a political upheaval and the installation of democracy. Or maybe because the farmers plant only the magical dubbleboo bean, they would have been able to reap a harvest only if they planted before the next evening's full moon.
There are all kinds of factors or problems that might have complicated the additional idea of plowing the field, and we shouldn't forget that this is a bunch of teenagers, so it's probably not whether this idea was really the optimal emaciated-farmer-assistance program. But instead of exploring these and determining what was the best option, the entire avenue of helping the farmers in a domestic sense was blocked off. It was a set of ideas that was unknown and unwelcome, even though it might actually have been interesting to solve that problem, as well.
Yes, these eleventh-graders might not have been practicing an ideal form of aid, and if they had read some literature on rationality and gone to an agricultural program they might not have thought that plowing one field was the best decision. The point, though, is that the narrowness of focus in the adventure precluded exploration of a large set of options. It's not the perfect parable of how value can be found in diverse opinions, because that perfect parable would have the eleventh-grade girl whip out a well-researched proposal on farm aid. But I do think it helps illuminate the problem.
This does seem to start falling pretty heavily into something very close to the MST3K mantra with the note that this was a highschool game.
And given my above suggestion, I'm going to refrain from ranting about how little sense D&D economics make other than to note that adventuring parties seem to be one of the strongest argument in favor of fiat currency ever.
If someone wants to say 'this is a great insight which demonstrates the value of diverse viewpoints!', it'd better be a great insight, and not one that fails multiple ways.
Well, how much would killing the dark elves have helped either? In the context we have two proposed solutions, neither of which really actually does much. One of the solutions is arguably obvious to the traditional male gamer, and the other (which makes about as much or as little sense) does seem to show some degree of diverse viewpoint arguably (although as I commented above, I don't think this one is really gendered related as much as it is to bad DMing).
It is specified the dark elves are the entire problem. The crops are now not being planted or tended because the dark elves are raiding and there weren't raids before. I uh can't see how killing them would not help.
If the farmers already are emaciated they aren't going to be able to survive that long even if they do plow and plant (it takes a long time). Moreover, plowing takes a lot of effort. The most likely result if they do kill the dark elves in a marginally realistic situation is that the farmers will still starve. The whole situation is poorly thought out (and becomes even more poorly thought out as the DM claims that the farmers don't even have functioning farm equipment and thus that the dark elves aren't the only problem).
It seems obvious to me that even if many had died in the famine, not all would have. Once the famine was over there still wouldn't be any dark elves causing them problems. Also a good way to help them is to share some of the stuff you looted from the dark elves.
And delicious dark elves.
Ironically as far as signaling goes, unless the DM is at least fair-to-middlin', the time spend plowing is a rather cost-less signal, since it can be handwaved away, unlike real life.