Good job no one is making you play one then. Personally the most snooze-festy race I can think of are D&D dwarves. I've never played one and am never likely to play one. But that doesn't mean I want to piss all over a significant number of people's fun by removing them from the game.
Note that I never said I want to "piss over" peoples fun. I also never claimed that someone was holding a gun to my head and threatening to kill me if I didn't play a halfling. So... I have no idea why either of those points were things you felt compelled to bring up.
What I did say in that part that you quoted is that "I'm small" is a poor character trait. If that is the only thing that defines halflings, then we have a dozen other races that are "I'm small" and also have something else going for them. The other things that halflings seem to have going for them is "I'm human"
And again, you are free to love that with all of your heart and play them every single day for the rest of your life. I don't care.
But, I do feel like it is fair of me to offer valid criticisms and ask "can we do better?" And personally, I've been wondering about the idea of focusing a bit more on Gnomes as Dungeons and Dragons continues. They are more than "I'm a small human" They are also curious, adventurous, community driven, and can both live in harmony with their natural surroundings and leaning into technology.
The unlikely hero from humble origins is a classic trope for a good reason and halflings take it and turn it up to 11. Do you not recognise it? Do you think the trope is a bad one? Or do you not see how halflings turn it up to 11?
In a setting where every race is special and awesome one not being is distinct.
Is something wrong with every race having something more than being human? I mean, I like humans, I think they are neat, but "I'm a small human" isn't exactly the most compelling pitch I've ever heard.
And, I do see the trope. I do enjoy the trope. Seen it played a lot. I've seen unlikely elven heroes. Unlikely Dwarven Heroes. Unlikely Human Heroes. Unlikely Gnome heroes. Unlikely Minotaur heroes.
I don't see a need for a race to "turn it up to 11" on the face of "we are unlikely to be heroes". That just seems... like saying we want the blandest most safe race possible, because then we can subvert that expectation. That is kind of backwards thinking isn't it? You don't make a race of "non-heroes" for the purpose of making them the best "unlikely hero" in a game. That is designing solely for the trope, and it makes them quite pointless to people who are fine with the trope only going up to 10.
There are different types of fighting. And different types of bravery. If you think that it doesn't take bravery to welcome the Dark Lord and his rotting undead horde warmly with a cheerful party you've not imagined it.
Feel free to keep taking cheap shots at my imagination. It really doesn't endear me to want to continue this discussion in anyway.
I didn't say anything about it not taking bravery. However, when on one hand you are told that they are fiercely loyal and will fight like mad to defend their homes, and on the other hand you are told that when their homes are being threatened they will throw a welcome party with cake for the agressors... I find it understandable to say that those two images are highly contradictory.
Neither does breathing or eating. Let's declare all races that use bathrooms redundant!
Halflings start with little power then turn human traits up to 11.
Hyperbole isn't amusing in this instance. And, I'm not seeing how halflings turn all human traits up to 11. They only seem to turn up the bucolic, pastoral lifestyle. And I don't think they even bring that up to 11.
They don't turn up the industriousness of humanity. The cleverness. The adaptability.
Are explicitly out matched. And why not? Some people find it fun and something they want to play up. Others want to be small rogues. Both are good.
Why are you trying to police the fun of others?
I'm not policing anything, you seem to be the one who is outcrying and upset that I don't fall over myself to love halflings.
You want to be outmatched? Sure, that can be fun. How come you can't be outmatched as a human or a Goblin? Small rogues? Again, what is wrong with gnomes and goblins and kobolds? All of them can be small rogues.
Again, I'm not saying that you can't like halflings. But, it seems like your argument against them being fairly redundant is that they do the thing that other races can do. And no, I'm not saying every race has to be 100% unique with no overlap whatsoever. But Halflings really seem to have nothing. I looked for lore, and found nothing in the most popular setting in the game. It literally stated they have no unique culture. They have no history that has any importance as far as I can tell. Their most defining trait that everyone seems to point to is that they are commoners... which is something that is true for everyone who isn't an adventurer or a noble, isn't it?
Weird. Dwarves are normally fairly unwelcoming IME and elves often sneer a little and can be painfully polite.
A lot of dwarves I've encountered have been treated like Appalachian miners. They don't trust you at first because you are an outsider, but once they invite you to drink and eat together they are partying all over themselves and perfectly fine to have a lark together.
Few elf villages I've been to have been presented like hippy communes. Everyone is friendly and doing art and just going about life and going with the flow.
In world building but not PC actions at the table. But long term world building is often silly anyway.
This entire discussion is about world building. Long term world building isn't a term I'm familiar with, but calling it silly seems like an overstatement.
We don't really care about PC actions at the table nearly as much as we do worldbuilding. Because PCs are going to do whatever they want.