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

[Neonchameleon]

Do you think, if both were presented in the PHB, half-orcs would continue to edge out orcs, especially orcs with the "always savage brutes" thing removed from them?

I have a hard time picturing someone wanting to do so.

And, from a roleplaying perspective, there are few stories that can be told with a half-orc PC that can't be told with an orc.

I for one don't. I also can think of quite a few stories that can be told with a half-orc PC but aren't reinforced by an orc PC - but those are the ones where half-elf also exists.

 

[Yaarel]

I'd prefer the half races and multilineage be subraces of the full races and lineages.

D&D loses too much taking out the Diplomat Half Elf and the Professor Fury Half Orc.

Post-Tashas, Charisma is no longer a Half-Elf thing. Every Elf who needs extra high Charisma has it.

Diplomatic High Elf. Done.

Plus, it was super-annoying when earlier the Elf had the Charisma flavor (innate magic, enchantment, charm, persuasion, song, poetry, artistic esthetic, etcetera) but lacked the necessary Charisma mechanics to actualize this flavor.

Likewise it felt conflictive and dissonant when a Half Elf had Charisma as a trait when neither parentage had it.

Thank goodness for Tashas going forward.

 

[Ruin Explorer]

Modern fantasy literature goes back much farther than that - at least to the turn of the last century with the early works of Lord Dunsany.

I wouldn't call that modern. Still, I can say "recent" instead. Either way I'm talking about fantasy people under 50 are likely to have read. Dunsany is well outside that, bless his heart. That's something few people even on this board of grogs and fantasy fans have read.

This is not to say that demonic heritage (although less so dragon people) weren't part of fantasy literature before then, but they were more rare and exotic than elves, dwarves, and halflings.

I'm afraid that's demonstrably not true in fantasy writing.

Part-demons are more common than halflings by pretty much infinity until the Hobbit gets published. Then part-demons are just massively, hugely more common. Same for dwarves. Elves or elf-like beings are pretty common though.

Then LotR gets published, and it's still essentially the case.

Then the less-daring kind of Tolkien-derivative authors appear - and some, only some of them - feature halflings or things so close they might as well be (Shannara is the only definite example from that era that I can think of - Jordan replaced halflings with humans in his Tolkien-derivative). Part-demons are definitely still ahead if we're going back to Dunsany and so on.

The D&D comes out. D&D doesn't influence many writers to include halflings or similar, but those writing specifically about D&D settings like Dragonlance and the Forgotten Realms do (we shall count Kender as halflings). And it is in these D&D-based books, whether it's the original Dragonlance Chronicles, or the Drizzt books or whatever, or even the Alias novels, that we see an explosion of halflings. More than all of fantasy literature before that.

We also get Tad Williams' Dragonbone Crown trilogy, but I think it's questionable as to whether the Trolls like Binabik count as "halflings" (do all short non-evil races count?). Less so some of Williams' other work though, which features at least one trilogy with unarguable halflings.

And you say by 1995 video games were influencing people, and sure, they were - but video games were massively influenced by D&D. Video games typically had the D&D races or something very close to them. Occasionally they had lizardmen or something like them too, but dragonmen and part-demons were exceeding rare in video games in the 1990s and the 2000s, and indeed, they still are in the West. In the East, someone time the early 2000s part-demons started becoming very common in MMOs, but remain rare in single-player video games (dragonmen remain rare in both).

There's just no way part-demons aren't "more traditional" in fantasy than halflings. Halflings are mid-20th-century novelty, that were popularized by D&D and video games, and are now fading, as they failed to establish themselves outside of Tolkien. Half-demons and their ilk go back into mythology. Gnomes and dwarves are pretty trad, but they're totally unlike halflings. I believe there's a Native American legendary being that is very close to a halfling though I forget what (there is even some limited evidence Tolkien was aware of this Native American mythology, but that's another story and I don't have my reference to hand).

Anyone ever told you that you have quite the bedside manner?

Yes and it's a fair comment! I will try to restrain myself somewhat!

Ever heard of homo floresiensis? Or pygmies? Are you sure halflings aren't more realistic than tieflings and dragonborn?

Yes, I am sure, at least for my understanding of "realistic".

Halflings/hobbits aren't homo floriensis and they aren't simply humans who are genetically short. They have chimp-strength in all editions, for starters (yes even the ones where they get a penalty, they're incredibly strong for their size).

More to the point I'm not sure realism is "relevant" in a game where in most settings most of the races were created by the gods. I also don't think it really makes them less gonzo but YMMV. I personally think it's extremely in the "gonzo" tradition to include murderous little hobbits with chimp-strength in parties full of fancy elf bards and dragonborn paladins and so on.

Tolkien, who in turn based his ideas on thousands of years of mythology.

No he didn't. He basically excluded everything except a narrow range of Northern European myth (much of it from outside the UK). He even intentionally excluded Arthurian and Celtic myth, which to me, lead to him totally failing at his goal of making an "English" fantasy mythology - instead he made a narrower Anglo-Saxon one. But I regard myself as Scottish so what do I know? It was still impressive and totally changed the course of fantasy.

 

[Neonchameleon]

This is a lot of words to answer my "one of the first" with "they should be the second or third!", which is surely more or less the same thing? Disagree re: small races and you make no specific case for your position there - you could cut gnomes and halflings from the PHB and have fairies or kobolds. Guarantee fairies would get more play than halflings, though oh god the teeth-gnashing they'd cause for some people.

The thing is I don't think that if the gnomes are removed the halflings will appear such an obvious contender for removal. I think that a big part of the problem the halflings appear to have is that you have two races jammed into the space of one so each is roughly half the popularity of a "normal" race but currently split into two separate major lineages. And I don't think there's much you can do with gnomes you can't with halflings while gnomes are too magical to work as halflings and putting gnomes under the halfling banner would enhance the thematics all round.

And no, kobolds and fairies don't work as halflings. They might see more play - but they'd see different play. Fairies could cover for gnomes but not for halflings. No on in their senses doesn't take a species as overwhelmingly magical as fairies seriously.

 

[Minigiant]

Post-Tashas, Charisma is no longer a Half-Elf thing. Every Elf who needs extra high Charisma has it.

Diplomatic High Elf. Done.

Plus, it was super-annoying when earlier the Elf had the Charisma flavor (innate magic, enchantment, charm, persuasion, song, poetry, artistic esthetic, etcetera) but lacked the necessary Charisma mechanics to actualize this flavor.

Likewise it felt conflictive and dissonant when a High Elf had Charisma as a trait when neither parentage had it.

Thank goodness for Tashas going forward.

+2 in charismatic didn't make the Half elf Diplomat.
+2 skills and 3 languages and +1 bonus to an ability score did.

It meant a Half Elf can always bump up their classes' primary and secondary ability scores and Charisma AND take a Social skill or 2.

Also D&D elves weren't charismatic. They were too haughty and snobby. That's why they charmed you with magic. Because elves are jerks and talk like jerks.

Half elves know this 1st hand and as a whole resent this and embrace diplomacy or reject conversation.

 

[Yaarel]

+2 in charismatic didn't make the Half elf Diplomat.
+2 skills and 3 languages and +1 bonus to an ability score did.

It meant a Half Elf can always bump up their classes' primary and secondary ability scores and Charisma AND take a Social skill or 2.

Also D&D elves weren't charismatic. They were too haughty and snobby. That's why they charmed you with magic. Because elves are jerks and talk like jerks.

Half elves know this 1st hand and as a whole resent this and embrace diplomacy or reject conversation.

In my eyes, +2 Cha precisely made the diplomat. Roll the skill check.

The only essential skill is Persuasion.

Knowledgable lore skills, like History, can help if working as an actual diplomat.

D&D Elves are pure Charisma flavor, especially Bard flavor.

Also note the 4e Cha-Int Eladrin Elf.

 

[Mind of tempest]

Maybe I just haven't read the right stuff, but... what are the equivalent stories for humans, elves, and dwarfs? I honestly can't remember, beyond maybe that elves, when faced with such tragedy, withdraw from the world.

dwarf sucked more, but other authors and setting bulked them up you can know why they do what they do and they get history.

Your continual disregard for the statements of others, reworking them into some kind of poorly phrased question, seems to indicate that you have no regard for the writing of others on the topic. It is hard to believe that you actually feel these things because as people answer your questions you just ask the same question in the response.

Take the position where you claim that people don't join the service to protect their homeland. This is quite literally the tale of Frodo and his halfling friends; it is the fiction of Captain America and so many supers; it is the tale of Rand al-Thor at the start of Wheel of Time.

Duty and obligation to protect those values and people you love is quite literally why I joined the service voluntarily. Your hand-wavey dismissals seem to be a 'work' (an effort to gain online clout) because it is quite bizarre for you to quote people who have clearly laid out there position with what amounts to "nah uh."

I ask questions because I do not see your reasoning I do not understand how you see how you do and wish to know is that not obovius?

what on earth is Rand al-Thor and why does he sound like the name a crazy guy at college would pick?
we do not disagree with you on duty but I get the feeling you and I see it rather differently.
I as you put "nah uh." everything as to be honest you sound like you believe in fantasy not play in fantasy plus I what and answer that works so I keep going till I get it, last time this dance was played I could by the end see the point that small cute races can have a place at all, but I have yet to see one up to snuff.

It kind of feels like it is. There's a really popular cartoon telling kids it's magic and has the main characters fighting for it all the time. (And now I'm seeing the request for Pony characters).



Feels like you're conflating greed with those positive things. But taking your line, maybe the power halflings have is wanting those things and not producing greedy kids.

I am somehow familiar with such a show and it is an idealistic vision for children, friendship lives like an adult mayfly.
where did you get greed from? I see it as a mix of "thoughts and prayers" and a one-dimensional copy of something which is honestly terrible.

For me,

The High Elf is mainly (Tolkien movie-esque) treehouse towns (with East Asian and Euro Art Nouveau aesthetic), each with its own military that all adults participate in, mainly an Eldritch Knight force and a Bladesinger force, depending on individual preference. When not on duty, the High Elf can adventure as part of experiencing life and discovering oneself before becoming an "adult" at 100. The elven adventures themselves are often quests to discover and understand magic.

Wood Elves are wilderness nomads, and mainly keep to themselves unless provoked.

Eldarin adventures are entirely of mages, for mages, and by mages.

Udadrow adventures are often defined by their relationship to Lolth-center culture.

I say you should go full solar punk for the high elves as it would really fit them.

Well, as simplistically as I can…

Birthright halflings are all refugees from a cold and eternally twilight parallel reality that has been taken over by the Shadow Lord. Now, living in enclaves throughout whatever human settlements have welcomed them. They possess an innate shadow sense that allows them to see in or out of the shadow realm they are hunted in, and are able to travel into and out of the parallel world at will where otherwise it would require powerful magic for anyone else.

so 4e gnomes are a rip off of these guys who would have known.

@Mind of tempest, perhaps the problem is that you're having trouble seeing halflings in military uniforms. Which I can understand. Maybe you should think of them as being more like the plucky townsfolk who rally to a cause when necessary. Like minutemen or guerilla fighters, not career soldiers.

After all, they're Brave, so they're not going to bow down from a fight. While they don't get a mechanical bonus this edition, they're historically good with slings and thrown weapons. They're sneaky and have agile fingers, so they're good with traps. Halflings don't need to be in the army to fight; they're effectively a militia ready to fight when needed.

no, it is not that it is how much they never do things they feel copy-pasted, dnd elves are different from other settings elves but halflings are copy-pasted and have one story, I have seen small humble folk of similar size do it but they did it not with luck and being purely peaceful and comfort-loving they did it with dedication and hard work they were wholesome but had variety and not all were good.

No they don't need to. If they start cutting halflings are behind gnomes on the chopping block. They are more popular, have a clearer niche of characters where they reinforce the theme, have far more long term consistency, don't have a theme that is undermined by it being the race's theme, and could easily absorb both forest and rock gnomes into their archetypes without breaking a sweat. And aren't almost completely reshuffled from edition to edition because they have more of an identity.

So gnomes should be cut before halflings - and cutting halflings and gnomes at the same time should only be done if cutting small races from the game. So halflings are safer than more popular races. And there are only 9 PHB races anyway (10 if you count the two human variants separately).

The race obvious for cutting is the gnome to bring it back down to 8 if, for whatever reason you consider that as a goal. The race that is obvious for replacement is the half-orc; half elves have the halfbreed thing with fewer unfortunate implications and the big burly race could better be covered by orcs, goliaths, or warforged (which I probably want as well as replacing half orcs because the thematics are so different). The other obvious addition is either Tabaxi or Aaracokra as the pretty animal-like. Possibly also add the genasi, but that's arguably cutting into elf territory.

then why not cut both and have something better put in their place?

The thing is I don't think that if the gnomes are removed the halflings will appear such an obvious contender for removal. I think that a big part of the problem the halflings appear to have is that you have two races jammed into the space of one so each is roughly half the popularity of a "normal" race but currently split into two separate major lineages. And I don't think there's much you can do with gnomes you can't with halflings while gnomes are too magical to work as halflings and putting gnomes under the halfling banner would enhance the thematics all round.

And no, kobolds and fairies don't work as halflings. They might see more play - but they'd see different play. Fairies could cover for gnomes but not for halflings. No on in their senses doesn't take a species as overwhelmingly magical as fairies seriously.

the halfling is not the name of the slot you would be putting them into it is a small, cute and fun race that does need some bulking up for it to have a proper race rather than this cute thing that has to be defended.

I wouldn't call that modern. Still, I can say "recent" instead. Either way I'm talking about fantasy people under 50 are likely to have read. Dunsany is well outside that, bless his heart. That's something few people even on this board of grogs and fantasy fans have read.

I'm afraid that's demonstrably not true in fantasy writing.

Part-demons are more common than halflings by pretty much infinity until the Hobbit gets published. Then part-demons are just massively, hugely more common. Same for dwarves. Elves or elf-like beings are pretty common though.

Then LotR gets published, and it's still essentially the case.

Then the less-daring kind of Tolkien-derivative authors appear - and some, only some of them - feature halflings or things so close they might as well be (Shannara is the only definite example from that era that I can think of - Jordan replaced halflings with humans in his Tolkien-derivative). Part-demons are definitely still ahead if we're going back to Dunsany and so on.

The D&D comes out. D&D doesn't influence many writers to include halflings or similar, but those writing specifically about D&D settings like Dragonlance and the Forgotten Realms do (we shall count Kender as halflings). And it is in these D&D-based books, whether it's the original Dragonlance Chronicles, or the Drizzt books or whatever, or even the Alias novels, that we see an explosion of halflings. More than all of fantasy literature before that.

We also get Tad Williams' Dragonbone Crown trilogy, but I think it's questionable as to whether the Trolls like Binabik count as "halflings" (do all short non-evil races count?). Less so some of Williams' other work though, which features at least one trilogy with unarguable halflings.

And you say by 1995 video games were influencing people, and sure, they were - but video games were massively influenced by D&D. Video games typically had the D&D races or something very close to them. Occasionally they had lizardmen or something like them too, but dragonmen and part-demons were exceeding rare in video games in the 1990s and the 2000s, and indeed, they still are in the West. In the East, someone time the early 2000s part-demons started becoming very common in MMOs, but remain rare in single-player video games (dragonmen remain rare in both).

There's just no way part-demons aren't "more traditional" in fantasy than halflings. Halflings are mid-20th-century novelty, that were popularized by D&D and video games, and are now fading, as they failed to establish themselves outside of Tolkien. Half-demons and their ilk go back into mythology. Gnomes and dwarves are pretty trad, but they're totally unlike halflings. I believe there's a Native American legendary being that is very close to a halfling though I forget what (there is even some limited evidence Tolkien was aware of this Native American mythology, but that's another story and I don't have my reference to hand).

Yes and it's a fair comment! I will try to restrain myself somewhat!

Yes, I am sure, at least for my understanding of "realistic".

Halflings/hobbits aren't homo floriensis and they aren't simply humans who are genetically short. They have chimp-strength in all editions, for starters (yes even the ones where they get a penalty, they're incredibly strong for their size).

More to the point I'm not sure realism is "relevant" in a game where in most settings most of the races were created by the gods. I also don't think it really makes them less gonzo but YMMV. I personally think it's extremely in the "gonzo" tradition to include murderous little hobbits with chimp-strength in parties full of fancy elf bards and dragonborn paladins and so on.

No he didn't. He basically excluded everything except a narrow range of Northern European myth (much of it from outside the UK). He even intentionally excluded Arthurian and Celtic myth, which to me, lead to him totally failing at his goal of making an "English" fantasy mythology - instead he made a narrower Anglo-Saxon one. But I regard myself as Scottish so what do I know? It was still impressive and totally changed the course of fantasy.

I have noted in some video game lore where the lizardmen have started to almost merging with the concept of dragon men divinity does that so it is possible we will see lizard men merge with dragon men it to one and the same later down the line.

 

[Minigiant]

In my eyes, +2 Cha precisely made the diplomat. Roll the skill check.

The only essential skill is Persuasion.

Knowledgable lore skills, like History, can help if working as an actual diplomat.

D&D Elves are pure Charisma flavor, especially Bard flavor.

Also note the 4e Cha-Int Eladrin Elf.

+2 Cha is just +1 to the roll.
Proficiency goes from+2 to +6.

D&D Elves talk diplomacy but they aren't good at it. Half Elves are.

That's part of the problem with halflings.

1. The fluff of halflings is "I am a short human."
2. The crunch of halflings is "I am a short human."
3. The filling of halflings is "I am a short human."
4. The icing of halflings is "I am a short human."
5. Humans already exist in D&D.
6. Halflings look like variant humans

 

[Crimson Longinus]

What are dwarves, except short (though not even that short) humans who like beer, axes and mining? What are elves except pretty and haughty humans? What are goliaths except tall humans who live on mountains? What are orcs except ugly and savage humans?

Like I get it, I want fantasy species to be more unique than that too, so I homebrew my own, but I feel that the standards here are not applied fairly!

 

[Neonchameleon]

Part-demons are more common than halflings by pretty much infinity until the Hobbit gets published. Then part-demons are just massively, hugely more common. Same for dwarves. Elves or elf-like beings are pretty common though.

I'm going to partially agree with you, but only partially. In some versions of Arthurian myth Merlin would fit into the broader heading of tiefling.

But the little people? I absolutely would not blink at finding smallfolk pushed to the fringes in pre-Tolkien fantasy. Hobbits are very definitely a Tolkien thing, but the main difference with Tolkien's is that he made them settled.

We also get Tad Williams' Dragonbone Crown trilogy, but I think it's questionable as to whether the Trolls like Binabik count as "halflings" (do all short non-evil races count?). Less so some of Williams' other work though, which features at least one trilogy with unarguable halflings.

Do all short non-evil races count? No. Do small explicitly human-like races with no universal expectation of magical power count? Definitely. (And I'd point out that they are far closer to D&D halflings than D&D trolls).

No he didn't. He basically excluded everything except a narrow range of Northern European myth (much of it from outside the UK). He even intentionally excluded Arthurian and Celtic myth, which to me, lead to him totally failing at his goal of making an "English" fantasy mythology - instead he made a narrower Anglo-Saxon one. But I regard myself as Scottish so what do I know? It was still impressive and totally changed the course of fantasy.

As someone who regards himself as English, other than a tiny period starting with Alfred the Great becoming King of Wessex and Mercia and ending with his grandson uniting England Anglo-Saxon is relatively ahistorical. Where I grew up it was Angles to the East, Saxons to the South

The way Anglo-Saxon is used in modern day Britain was invented by an Elizabethan antiquarian in IIRC the 1580s to refer to pre-Norman Conquest England. And should almost by definition include Arthur even if he was trying to fight the Saxons. The way it's used in the rest of the world to refer to those of English (and possibly Scottish) extraction and many Germans while excluding the Irish and Southern Europeans ... should definitely include Arthurian myth to be Anglo-Saxon.