D&D General My Problem(s) With Halflings, and How To Create Engaging/Interesting Fantasy Races

[clearstream]

And this takes me to halflings. What's their niche? Short-person. Are they the only race in that niche? Only if you don't count gnomes, dwarves, kobolds, and goblins (and Fairies if you count UA, and I'm not even counting the Lineages/Races that can be small or medium, including Verdan). Are they strongly rooted in the identity of most worlds that they're included in? Not really. If you take Halflings out of the Forgotten Realms or Exandria, it doesn't really change anything important/major about the settings. If you remove them from Dark Sun you don't have cannibal halflings, which are a cool tidbit about the setting, but certainly not essential to its identity, IMO. Eberron probably changes the most noticeably of any of these listed settings, as it has Talenta Plains, Dragonmarked, and House Boromar Halflings, but even then, you could just as easily replace all halflings with Gnomes (or possibly even Goblins) and get practically the same outcome. What is their lore-based reason to exist in most D&D world's? There's rarely actually ever one of these, and even if there is, the explanation is lacking (cause this god I just came up with to create halflings created halflings), and/or could just be summed up by "Halflings are in this world because they exist in D&D". And why do Halflings exist in D&D as a whole? Because Tolkien's works (a huge part of the inspiration of D&D) included Hobbits.

And that's where the issue (for me) comes down to. Their existence is circular. They exist for no real narrative or plot-driving purposes, but because Lord of the Rings and the Hobbit had small-folk as a race for some of its most prominent characters. And that's not a "bad" reason to warrant their existence in a fantasy game where quite literally anything can exist, but it's just not a "good" one, either (and by "a good reason to warrant existing", I meant it as in a reason that empowers creative thought, drives/inspires plot points, and motivates players to think a bit more about the identity of their characters). Warforged exist for a good reason (to provoke discussion and tropes of "what measure is a non-human") and give a lot of inspiration for both character backstory and plot points. Felshen exist in my D&D world to create plot points about the Felyik Conflict (shorthand for Felshen-Yikkan Conflict/Wars), to give players ideas on how their character(s) feel about major parts of the world (the magical goblinoid and psionic humanoid societies), and to drive discussion on who the "good" and the "bad" in the conflict are (it's neither, all shades of gray, but some individuals and mindsets are more wrong or right than others). The Kryn Dynasty exists in Exandria to drive discussion on essentially the same issue as Paarthurnax's famous question of "What is better - to be born good, or to overcome your evil nature through great effort?" The Warforged, the Felshen, the Kryn Dynasty, (and endless further examples), all exist for what I define as "good" reasons. They exist for story-driving reasons, while Halflings just exist to be "short people that are humans . . . but short".

Possibly D&D has smudged out their original purpose. Halflings are the crofters of old England. Whereas elves capture the arts-and-crafts movement. Tolkien's faith in the deep roots and good hearts of those people, and fears about industrialization, made them the perfect foils in his epic. The corruption of the Shire more than anything else showed the worst of what might happen. In particular, the corruption of individual halflings who went along with it. Possibly Tom Bombadil represents a kind of arch-halfling, so grounded as to be unmovable by the artifices of industrialists. The elves on the other hand were tricked when industry crafted things that looked like art.

So if you want a grounded people, who are hearty and at heart kind and honest, then you have halflings. They care for crafted things, but not so much art (which they respect, but it is above them). Well made, useful things. Their purpose in a campaign is as what is to be protected. They are the good children of the home counties. There is much wrong already with this whole picture (!), of course. But anyway, their sense for good and fair is so deep that at a pinch you know they will always do the right thing. Even if they don't know the way.

This is a coherent purpose, although its value will depend on the game world in question, and what is going on there.

 

[Ruin Explorer]

And that's where the issue (for me) comes down to. Their existence is circular.

This is what it comes down to with halflings.

They were created because hobbits were a thing, and some (probably small) minority of players wanted to play them in D&D, back in the 1970s and perhaps 1980s. Then they got put in D&D settings, and then they had to keep providing rules for them, because even though no-one plays them, and every "niche" they could be said to fit is much better covered by other small races, but as you say, their existence is circular - they existed in the past so must exist in the future. I don't think it's rational - I think it would be fine to remove them from the PHB and add them in a later supplement.

The sad thing is I don't even dislike them. I quite like hobbits. But they've got no real place in D&D. They fit into Tolkein's world for very specific reasons that just don't apply to most of D&D.

Because they don't fit well and indeed because WotC has intentionally moved them away from the Tolkien-esque concepts, they basically just become "mini-humans", and various settings have desperately sort out niches for them, which can be fun but seem a bit "trying to make it happen", like with Eberron's dinosaur-riding halflings (why not buy a leather jacket and a low-end sports car if you're going to have a mid-life crisis lol?). It's notable that the vast majority of more recent D&D-inspired games just don't have them, and have other short races instead.

Honestly, I'd say to WotC - stop trying to make halflings happen, stop desperately trying to find a niche for them, and don't put them in the PHB or expend a ton of effort integrating them into settings. If you want a short race, you probably can't go with goblin because it screams Pathfinder, but kobolds are very popular (and just got new mechanics, IIRC), as are fairies (note that Earthdawn switched out halflings for fairies, so even back in the early 1990s they knew this was an issue).

TLDR: Halflings only exist because of failures of imagination in the 1970s, leading to them existing for the sake of existing. WotC (and others) need to stop trying desperately to "make them happen", and replace them. Gnomes are coming up on a similar place, as the last attempt to give them an actual identity was rejected by angry grogs, and now they're nearly identity-free and must seem pretty bizarre to people new to RPGs. Still, they have more identity and more of a place in D&D than halflings, because they're not just mini-mes. Whereas kobolds, goblins and fairies make actual sense, provide something not already covered, and have more immediate appeal, especially to people newer to RPGs.

 

[QuentinGeorge]

Halflings are fine, the endless amount of "the problem with halflings" threads on the other hand...

 

[Paul Farquhar]

They were created because hobbits were a thing, and some (probably small) minority of players wanted to play them in D&D, back in the 1970s and perhaps 1980s. Then they got put in D&D settings, and then they had to keep providing rules for them, because even though no-one plays them,

This is certainly not true. Whatever the merits of halflings, they are extremely popular with my players, actually the most played race (after human). Here is a breakdown of races played in my campaigns over the last couple of years:

Human: 4
Halfling: 3
Genasi: 2
Half elf: 2
Bugbear: 2
Half orc: 1
Custom Lineage fey changling: 1
Eberron Changling: 1
goblin: 1
gnome: 1
dwarf: 1
goliath: 1

 

[Ruin Explorer]

Possibly Tom Bombadil represents a kind of arch-halfling, so grounded as to be unmovable by the artifices of industrialists.

Not to derail, but I don't think that's quite right, because his views and way of life only partially line up with those of the hobbits, and he doesn't have every trait of theirs in an extreme form - or even many. Tom is basically, a straight-up return-to-nature utopian anarchist. He thus represents something more extreme than the hobbits, and which doesn't match up with the frequent small-minded-ness, xenophobia (not so much in the Fellowship hobbits, but certainly hobbits as a whole), and so on. He's lived free since the dawn of time, and he wants to continue to live free. Tolkien himself expressed strong anarchist sympathies (much as that may shock people). In letter 52 to his son, he specifically calls himself an Anarchist and also offers support for what would today be regarded as luddite terrorism (workers dynamiting factories etc.).

This is certainly not true. Whatever the merits of halflings, they are extremely popular with my players, actually the most played race.

Well, let's be clear, when I say "no-one", I mean "a tiny percentage of players", not literally no-one. Apologies if that was confusing.

But your players are freakishly unusual, if that's true. Because every single time we've seen figures on this kind of thing, the number of players playing them is laughably small. Discounting one I made recently basically to be difficult (he's actually turned into a cool character lol), I've seen 2 halflings played in 30 years of D&D, and whilst that's more extreme than the figures we've seen, it's not much more.

EDIT - Wait you're saying 3 out of 19 is "extremely popular"? That's a lot higher than their popularity has ever been shown to be generally, but I still wouldn't call that "extremely popular". OTOH it's as many as I've seen played in D&D in my entire gaming life so there's that.

Halflings are fine, the endless amount of "the problem with halflings" threads on the other hand...

This is a perfect illustration of an unfortunately common attitude towards like virtually anything which is a problem in human society lol - "The thing people are complaining about isn't a problem, the complaining is!" without the slightest intellectual effort to consider what is being complained about. It's unhelpful at best.

 

[Paul Farquhar]

Well, let's be clear, when I say "no-one", I mean "a tiny percentage of players", not literally no-one. Apologies if that was confusing.

Without evidence, it's not confusing, it's wrong. You, anecdotally, find few players play halflings. I, anecdotally, find lots of players play halflings. Neither of us are qualified to speak for the thousands of other games that exist.

 

[Cadence]

This is a perfect illustration of an unfortunately common attitude towards like virtually anything which is a problem in human society lol - "The thing people are complaining about isn't a problem, the complaining is!" without the slightest intellectual effort to consider what is being complained about. It's unhelpful at best.

I've actually had a few DMs express their loathing for gnomes before, so I'm kind of surprised to hear that at other places it's hobbits who get the ire.

Well, let's be clear, when I say "no-one", I mean "a tiny percentage of players", not literally no-one. Apologies if that was confusing.

But your players are freakishly unusual, if that's true. Because every single time we've seen figures on this kind of thing, the number of players playing them is laughably small. Discounting one I made recently basically to be difficult (he's actually turned into a cool character lol), I've seen 2 halflings played in 30 years of D&D, and whilst that's more extreme than the figures we've seen, it's not much more.

 

[Ruin Explorer]

Without evidence, it's not confusing, it's wrong. You, anecdotally, find few players play halflings. I, anecdotally, find lots of players play halflings. Neither of us are qualified to speak for the thousands of other games that exist.

I can't speak for you, but I'm not just going on anecdotes.

Every single survey and DNDBeyond data dump and so on has shown halflings as pretty unpopular, especially when you consider they're a well-established race and in the PHB and Basic set rules. I'd love to see an "actually played" data dump from Beyond with the current halfling figures. I would predict that it would not look great for them, based on previous trends. Even when they were one of very few 5E races available, they got beaten by Genasi (of all things - who aren't even mechanically good in 5E, unlike halflings!) back in 2017.

Is Your D&D Character Rare?

We got a peek at what kind of characters everyone is building, and a lot of players are sticking close to reality.

fivethirtyeight.com

More popular than half-orcs but there's literally no possibility half-orcs will make it into the next PHB (they'll be replaced by orcs most likely).

 

[Paul Farquhar]

I've actually had a few DMs express their loathing for gnomes before, so I'm kind of surprised to hear that at other places it's hobbits who get the ire.

I, personally, dislike gnomes and elves, and loath kenku, but I don't stop my players playing them (apart from kenku).

 

[Ruin Explorer]

I personally ,dislike gnomes and elves, and loath kenku, but I don't stop my players playing them )apart from kenku).

To be fair I think the number of people who loathe elves (which is significant) is matched and exceeded only by the number of people who love them. I remember people complaining about the inevitable elves in every setting in every fantasy-ish RPG back in the mid-'90s even, and I have a lot of sympathy for that. Especially given the excessive numbers of subraces. But they are very popular, and they fill conceptual and mechanical niches, and unlike a lot of D&D races, they appear in a huge amount of fanatasy literature - if a setting is going to have any non-human intelligent species, the odds that they will be either elves or direct elf-equivalents are extremely good. You could find probably fifty or even a hundred fantasy-novel settings with elves or elf-equivalents for each one with dwarves or dwarf-equivalents, let alone hobbits/halflings (I can only even think two, off-hand, both from heavily Tolkien-derived authors who started writing in the 1970s or early 1980s).