D&D 5E Halflings are the 7th most popular 5e race

[EzekielRaiden]

anecdotally, dwarves are one of the most popular choices in face-to-face groups I'm in (as are half-elves).

Sure, but as I'm sure you know, the plural of "anecdote" is not "data."

More importantly, several factors can be at play there:
1. Older players tend to be more in favor of "traditional" options.
2. Dwarves (and half-elves!) do have some powerful mechanical bonuses, so if your group is optimizer-heavy, that could explain both neatly. Meanwhile, dragonborn are the weakest PHB race by a country mile.
3. Sample size is likely to bamboozle probability estimates.
4. In general, characters tend to linger for a while, but the DDB data is constantly evolving as new characters get made. A person playing a dwarf in your experience means there's a constant proportion of dwarf in their party. That doesn't hold for the DDB data, which will fluctuate.

 

[Vaalingrade]

Nobody's going to say they're going to bat for bland generic abilities, but when you lobby to get rid of species modified ability scores that's exactly what you're doing. It means there is less to differentiate between an elf, human, goliath, and halfing which means species are more generic.

There is 100% nothing more bland than a +X to anything instead of an actual thing you can do.

That's why I'd like to get rid of +X magic items too.

Also AISs as a replacement for a feat.

 

[doctorbadwolf]

I mean, I don't want that either. And I certainly hope I'm not "constantly reminding everyone" about the actual thing I said, because I talk about it a heck of a lot less than other things I talk about!

Besides, it's not like my actual idea has no precedent, even with D&D stuff. You have plenty of folks stridently saying how they'd remove (at least) half the classes in 5e and just make them subclasses of something or other. Likewise, I've seen plenty of calls for things like getting rid of half-orcs long before "One D&D" proposed it (half-elves are a different story), and some folks have found the aasimar/tiefling divide silly for decades at this point (they're all planetouched, just with different planes.) Or the proposals I've seen, some on this very forum, to fold dragonborn into lizardfolk because they're both scaly humanoids, even though that's basically the only thing they have in common.

First, I want to note that the below is said with no ill will.

My post that you’re quoting has only related to you to the extant that I was replying to a post that was replying to you.

I was replying to hussar because they were trying to act put upon because people get tired of the way they advocate for their strange idea of removing halflings and gnomes from the phb and claiming that halflings aren’t popular (even when it’s shown mathematically that they are).

Lastly, I frankly don’t give a hoot what wild notions other people advocate in other threads.
If you posit a wild notion, no one who tells you it’s a wild notion is doing wrong just because they do so. If they’re actually insulting about it, sure, and you should report it, but otherwise .

If someone advocates for removing or wildly reimagining a thing I like as it is, a thing that is one of my favorite things in the game, I’m going to tell them no, and why.

 

[CleverNickName]

Besides, it's not like my actual idea has no precedent, even with D&D stuff. You have plenty of folks stridently saying how they'd remove (at least) half the classes in 5e and just make them subclasses of something or other.

In my defense, I only mention that whenever someone else brings up the topic of adding even more classes. And I'm content to leave it at that, until someone asks me to elaborate.

I know it's an unpopular opinion, and there's a paladin's chance in hell of it happening, but I'm still gonna be that quiet voice in the room.

 

[Mistwell]

Halflings have one of the strongest racial powers - Halfling Luck. When it happens, it's so awesome. And that feat that lets others near them get that power too? Pure gold.

 

[Hussar]

Well no, some posters' posts are sometimes characterized that way. Sometimes unfairly, sometimes not.

Constantly reminding everyone that you think halflings should be in the MM or DMG or whatever gets old. It's never going to happen, and that's a good thing.

Fair enough. I DID try to take a different tack and looked at the data in a different way - which actually makes a fairly solid argument for how good halflings are- the fact that they aren't just one trick pony races, pigeonholed into a single class or single group of classes.

Half orcs suffer the same fate as goliaths - fighters/barbarians make up about 60% of all the characters. And, while it's fairly evenly spread among the remainder, it does make half-orcs something of a one trick race.

Look, I totally get that I'm not going to get what I want. Fair enough. The hold of Tolkien and tradition is just far too strong. I just think it's a shame because the one time we actually managed to get races that aren't Tolkien races- both of them proved to be really, really popular. I've been banging this drum since 3e came out to be honest. Not necessarily haltings. I don't actually care that much if halflings get cut or not. I think they're a waste of space, but, whatever. What I actually want is more variety of races in the PHB because whatever races are in the PHB are the ones that we're going to see in supplements and in modules. How many Aarocockra NPC's have you seen in a WotC module? There's a couple, I'm sure, but, not a heck of a lot. Same with Genasi or Tabaxi or anything else that isn't in the PHB. How many Plasmoid NPC's would you guess appear in the Keys from the Golden Vault? Are we likely to see a Hadozee or a Tabaxi or a Gensai in the new Phandelver book?

At least since Tieflings made it into the PHB, we got TIefling NPC's. But if it's not in the PHB, it might as well not exist for the most part.

 

[Paul Farquhar]

Elves have been perennial since Tolkien reinvented them, but might they grow stale in a century? Who knows!

I think Tolkien-elves are difficult to disentangle from the space-elves trope. The idea that there is an older, wiser, more-irritating race probably has an existence outside of Tolkien's influence.

Gnomes are basically pre-Tolkien elves. Small, crafty, with an affinity for toys and shoes. We have seen an increased interest in going back to pre-Tolkien ideas of "the fair folk" since around the middle of 3rd edition, but currently it's goblins getting all the fairy love.

 

[Argyle King]

Sure, but as I'm sure you know, the plural of "anecdote" is not "data."

More importantly, several factors can be at play there:
1. Older players tend to be more in favor of "traditional" options.
2. Dwarves (and half-elves!) do have some powerful mechanical bonuses, so if your group is optimizer-heavy, that could explain both neatly. Meanwhile, dragonborn are the weakest PHB race by a country mile.
3. Sample size is likely to bamboozle probability estimates.
4. In general, characters tend to linger for a while, but the DDB data is constantly evolving as new characters get made. A person playing a dwarf in your experience means there's a constant proportion of dwarf in their party. That doesn't hold for the DDB data, which will fluctuate.

I think dwarves have an easy-to-understand archetype which is understood across a variety of cultures and age groups. Being able to quickly comprehend how an option is defined is helpful.

I also believe that dwarves have managed to maintain a strong fantasy identity without becoming somewhat of an eyeroll-cliche, despite Dwarf (as an option) often being somewhat cliche itself.

FWIW, I don't use DDB. I'm not sure that I personally know anyone who does. I'm aware that many people do, but you're right that "anecdotal" is just that. Anecdotally, most of the people with whom I play face-to-face games prefer to do so in person.

 

[Paul Farquhar]

I think dwarves have an easy-to-understand archetype which is understood across a variety of cultures and age groups.

Really? Because I've recently re-read the Hobbit, and the dwarves in that are more like gnomes, making magical toys, and casting spells to conceal treasure.

And as often or not, they are defined by their accents, be it Scottish, Irish, Welsh or Russian (more recently).

 

[Lanefan]

Sure, but as I'm sure you know, the plural of "anecdote" is not "data."

Disagree. Put enough anecdotes together and you'll get a pretty good handle on what's going on, even if not up to scientific standards. "Enough", however, might be quite a lot; as in more than ost people would have easy access to.

4. In general, characters tend to linger for a while, but the DDB data is constantly evolving as new characters get made. A person playing a dwarf in your experience means there's a constant proportion of dwarf in their party. That doesn't hold for the DDB data, which will fluctuate.

Character "career length" is a completely different - but still interesting - question. It would be interesting, if the data exists, to find out how many sessions each species-class combo gets played on average, to see if there's any overall trends toward higher or lower resilience between different options.