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

[Chaosmancer]

I've been discussing it. Every time I take a bit of PH lore and expand upon it, you call it homebrewing and irrelevant.

By expanding on it, you mean attachig your own add-ons. Which, incidentally, aren't part of the existing lore. Since my point is that there is a lack of lore, you expanding on the lore with your own personal additions doesn't change anything except telling us that we can homebrew them. Which we knew.

Really? I brought up ideas like, halflings travel the world to record history, or they work in secret to overthrow kingdoms, or they control the entire area's food supply, or they're a dispossessed minority forced into the ghettos of human cities and adopt human customs, losing their own culture in the process... and those are boring or weak?

Traveling the world to record history is a decent hook. I never would have gotten that from them, but I can see it as an extension of their love of storytelling. Of course... that isn't their lore. They don't do that. But it would be a good way to rewrite them.

Secretly controlling kingdoms and shadow puppeting the world is pretty much boring. Not only is that the plot of a half a dozen evil races, but it flies completely in the face of everything people supposedly love about halfings. It is a possible rewrite, but it seems like one with little value.

Controlling all food for the majority of other races is an interesting way to take a symbosis of the races. Everyone operates together in a single alliance of civilized species. It'd be an interesting world, but while it could work as a rewrite, it is not what is currently written about halflings.

Dispossessed minority in the ghettos is also not something that is currently written about them. Nothing in their lore even suggests it, it kind of just comes from the lack of lore and the writers using humans to prop halflings up.

So, I'd say you have at least one potentially good idea for rewriting the race. But again, none of them is what is currently written. Which is the point I keep making.

Why not? Do you need it spelled out with bullet points before its acceptable?

Do you always act so rude and dismissive of people when trying to convince them of something?

Sure, you can rewrite them like that, and I don't need a bullet point list. What I was trying to explain though is that if you were attempting to say that this was their lore, as though it was an obvious fact that didn't even need explaining... no, one does not naturally follow from the other.

You mean, the lore you keep giving only the most cursory of readings to? The one that has hooks you refuse to bite, and ideas you refuse to explore? That lore?

Going outside the lore is where you get cannibals or dino-riders. Staying in the lore is where you find that they like to chronicle history, or that they dislike political institutions, or that they are good farmers. Then you take that bit of lore and expand it. That's not homebrewing. That's using what they gave us.

No, they didn't give us that. They didn't write that halflings are known lorekeepers. They didn't write that their desire to live simple lives away from politics means that they are the secret shadow rulers of all of the nations. Being good farmers wasn't anything at all like controlling the food supply of the world.

By expanding the lore, you are adding to it. Because what was already written was insufficient. That is "homebrewing" because it is for individual tables only, the books don't tell us that they are these things. You are making them those things.

That was an example I gave. Not a hard and fast rule for a world. Try thinking about what you're reading instead of just taking it at face value.

Your problem is you don't like halflings, and therefore are unwilling to give them even a moment of thought of how to make them interesting.

No, the problem is that people say things like "most halflings are adventurers" and then follow it with "most halflings stay home and don't go on adventures" and then tell me that the only reason I point out that that is a problem is because I don't like halflings and I'm unwilling to even give them a moments thought.

Sure, I can think about what I'm reading. And thinking about it is what leads me to thinking "hey they can't be both mostly adventuring and mostly staying home, that's a contradiction"

The PH description: "Though some halflings live out their days in remote agricultural communities, others form nomadic bands that travel constantly, lured by the open road and the wide horizon to discover the wonders of new lands and peoples."

The use of the words "some" and others," rather than "most" and "a few" suggest that the ratio of stay-at-homes and wanderers is closer to 50/50.

Are nomadic bands adventurers or just nomads? Because I didn't read that text as being them being adventurers.

And yes, some halfling communities are nomadic, so why am I talking about them as stay at home farmers? Because the majority if not all of the text on halflings presents them as stay at home farmers, with only very sparse comments on other types of them.

Again, I point out an interesting tidbit and you take it to mean it's Incredibly Important. It's a cool and interesting and different thing. What do they do with bats? Do they eat them? Tame them as pets or as mosquito killers? Kill them for being not as pretty as birds? Mount them on the wall like a trophy bass?

My issue is with the identity of the race as a whole. Sure, you found an interesting tidbit. It doesn't really address the point I've been making about the identity of the race as a whole. I can think of ways to expand it that could lead to expanding their lore and addressing the issue of the race as a whole... but again, that's me homebrewing it, not the design of them presented in the book actually being well done. Which is the thing I keep having to defend. Because it seems people think that if I didn't irrationally hate halflings I'd just fix their lore and there wouldn't be any problem, because who needs it to be well-written and interesting from the get-go? Far better to just have the people playing the game fix it instead.

Then it's also safe to assume that dwarfs are not the best miners, since that's subjective as well.

Also, brownies are the best cobblers.

Brownies aren't in the game, and mining isn't subjective. I have no idea how you can even make that claim.

Which are? What about elves, dwarfs, and tieflings is so important that they can't also be replaced by just humans? Humans can mine, can commune with nature, and can channel hellish powers.

I mean, in general, not just in the Realms. What horrors would befall a world that didn't have elves or dwarfs in it?

Didn't say any horrors would befall that world. I just said there is a point to having elves, dwarves and tieflings.

Sure, humans can channel hellish powers. That's what a human warlock would do. A human warlock isn't born stained with the outward appearance of evil. That is a "point" to having tielflings. They are a race that is looked at as participating in the sins of their fathers. Can you do that with humans? Sure. But Teiflings aren't just appearance, they also have power. They get a boon along with their curse. And, can I do that with humans? Yes, I can... but all of this has a backdrop you might be forgetting as you prepare to point and say "See, there is no reason to have Tielfings!"

Tieflings are generally human. They are kind of explicitly presented as humans corrupted with infernal power. So, can you replace humans with humans? Yes, obviously. That seems like a silly thing to ask.


Ah, but what about elves! After all, humans can commune with nature!

Sure... but that isn't the point of elves. Yes, we generally present elves as communing and being part of nature, but you can actually completely take that entire aspect away and still have elves. The point of elves is to have a magical and long lived race. You can fairly casually find a 500 year old elf. But, if you made that a 500 yr old human, it has a vastly different context. They are somehow unique. Humans don't live that long, so this particular human must have done something special. But a 500 yr old elf didn't. That is their natural lifespan, and they are only middle-aged. It makes a big difference to deal with a community that has existed for as long as elves exist, and then you add in the scholarly, philosphical and magical elements. And it isn't really a story you can tell with normal humans.

And with dwarves, it is all about stone and metal. Crafting. Can humans craft? Of course! And we do an amazing job, we've made wonders. But the idea of dwarves is to take that same enormous lifetime and apply it to crafting. Dwarves make the best and most enduring things. They have elements baked into them to make them capable of digging deeper, making better, and doing it for longer. You might be able to replace them with humans, but you'd lose certain elements that are much harder to replicate with base humans. The idea of immovability and endless endurance, of communion with stone and metal. Sure, you could just give humans magical powers and extended lifespans to make it work, but dwarves simply feel different.

So, again, yes. Dwarves, Elves and Tielflings have a point to existing. And they make for some solid storytelling dials to turn. Elves can be semi-divine angelic beings, or cruel conquerors. Dwarves can be jolly craftsmen, or stoic and distant fortresses. Tielfings turn dials for the human range. Halflings... are not written with a dial that can be turned.

Um, Yondalla, Sheela Peryroyl, Arvoreen, Brandobaris, that death god whose name I can't remember, Yondalla's evil split personality... those are halfling gods. Humans don't worship them. They're listed as being in the halfling pantheon, not the Realms pantheon.

Uh huh.

Now list a human god that isn't worshipped by any halflings. Heck. List a human god from FR, not a Realms god who is worshipped by all the races.

I don't care about the Realms. I have no idea what their view is on society and family. Other than that there was a probably an entire book or series of Dragon magazine articles about it, because there seems to be a lot of info on the Realms.

I can tell you about human views of society and family is in different parts of Ravenloft, though. Would that count? I run human-only RL, though, so I can't tell you too much about halflings there. Or elves, or dwarfs.

Do all humans in Ravenloft share the same culture and views of family? Because that was the point.

You said humans and halflings have different cultures and views of family, but halfling lore for the Realms says they don't have a unique culture. And human culture is splintered over a dozen or more different cultures. So... are they really different? Or are they actually the same.

You don't know what Lucky, Brave, and Nimble mean?

How does Lucky work in the game? If you roll a 1, you re-roll. How does lucky work in the reality? Good things happen to you? Does it mean that halflings should find piles of gold in their turnip patches? Or maybe it means bad things shouldn't happen to them. Do halflings never get hit by traps because the trap always breaks?

How about Brave, what does it do? It gives advantage against fear saves, which are pretty much always a result of magical fear. There is no morale mechanic that represents any sort of losing nerve, it is all magical effects that force people to be unnaturally frightened. So how does that work in the reality? Are they just resistant to unnatural fear? What about being cautious or timid? I've seen the concept of a character who was so scared all the time that they couldn't be paralyzed by fear, because they were always scared so it wasn't a big deal for them. Do halflings work like that?

Halfling nimbleness just lets them move through the spaces of creautres larger than them. Well, baring combat you can always move through a creatures space. So, that just means you can't grab a halfling or block their way? That seems bizarre. I could have a guy with a tower shield who blocks left when the halfling goes left, presenting what amounts to a second door... does the halfling leap over them? Do they juke right so fast that the person cannot possibly respond? Are they quicklings able to move at lightning speeds?

But... it doesn't work on small creatures, so none of that would be the case, because they can be stopped by goblins and gnomes and kobolds. Who aren't that nimble. So... how am I supposed to represent that in the world?

Well, in Barovia, it is said that a mother would let her child be devoured by wolves rather than open the door after nightfall to let that child into the house. Because humans in Barovia are mostly neutral.

I think that would be mostly because Barovia is a gothic horror setting full of monsters that would pretend to be children to get in and kill everyone and the mother can't take that risk, not because letting your child get devoured by wolves to save yourself is neutral.

As a generally lawful good people--not that I use alignment, but if I did, then halflings would be generally lawful good--halflings would risk the wolves to let in the child.

Which in Barovia would be stupid, and get you all eaten by monsters pretending to be children.

And if they ignore their lawful rulers--who are likely human, since obviously all halflings live in human lands--then that means they don't subscribe to human laws. Which says a lot about them, that I'm sure you will ignore.

That lawful good yet again doesn't mean following the laws? Yeah. Like I said, not a rabbit hole we should take this discussion down.

So why is it that I am able to find lore in the PH that can be used, but you can't? Not make up lore, but find it.

Because you seem to see no problem in adding things that aren't there to fit your own interpretation.

I've always admitted that the canonical settings--at least the Realms and Greyhawk--are lacking. That's been one of the points I've made several times. But I've also pointed out that other settings have much more detail on halflings.

Yet you can't seem to let go of telling me that the generic lore isn't lacking, because you can add all these things that aren't written.

 

[Yaarel]

*According to the figures provided by @Yaarel .

I wonder, if the classes were weighted equally, whether halflings wouldn’t fall below gnomes in popularity…

I posted the image of the pie chart for the popularity of the subraces, but not the grid chart for the race-class frequency.

I like gnomes better than halflings because the gnomes are more obviously not humans.

But halflings seem slightly more popular than gnomes. Probably halfings continue to benefit from the popularity of the Lord of the Rings movies, having been part of players handbooks in earlier editions of D&D, and probably benefit from synergizing the Rogue class.

Note, potentially, if the halfling and the gnome combine to become ethnicities (subraces) within the same lineage (race), this combined lineage will have a popularity on par with the dwarf.

 

[Garthanos]

I mean, sure, but that's such a broad "niche" that it can be filled by practically any character class or race. A Human Peasant that gets lost in the woods could be an accidental adventurer. If you want a short accidental adventurer, be a gnome, goblin, or kobold. If you want "I should have stayed home/I really like my home", be a Gnome or Dwarf, or even just an antisocial human/anyone with the Hermit background. A Sorcerer that was born with their powers, a Warlock that accidentally made their pact, a Monk that just wanted to find peace of body and mind, and so on. Anyone and anything can be an "accidental adventurer" in D&D. IMO, good reasons to warrant existing should be fairly specific to that race (like Warforged being the only constructed race, etc).

I just don't find that to be a motivating "niche" to warrant their existence.

For Tolkien the halflings were the epitome of meek easily overlooked and underestimated their lack of desire for power was a serious benefit when the villains of the story were all about tempting you with promises of power. They also had hidden potential and a knack for trusting those worthy of trust (insight and wisdom and strong will). They accomplished many things with luck that others did with potence. I usually recommend Fate as a game for playing the angle where meekness makes you powerful in luck. They had a knack for vanishing even without a magic ring to aid in the process.

 

[Vaalingrade]

The movement in genre fiction away from Tolkien's Dwarves and Elves has mostly been away from having non-human species altogether.

Trying to think of the major fantasy series of the last 20 years or so:

The last 20 years has seen the fantasy genre DC Comics-ing themselves into grimdark and banality though.

They want to prove they're ADULT and SERIOUS with people who NEVER SMILE and lots of TABOO SUBJECTS and elves and dwarves are FOR KIDS but I'm an ADULT and anyway you're not MY REAL DAD and I will NOT GO TO MY ROOM.

They either go for New Weird like China Melville and Lilith Saintcrow and everyone is human or a weird thing or a weird thing that used to be human because magical creatures with tentacles or chitin are more grown up with magical creatures that are tolerable to be around, or they go full human to go a historical fiction as they can while having enough magic to make the trailer look interesting.

 

[Yaarel]

I have to ask why use halflings for that role literally any race fits in about as well so why halflings?

You are not wrong.

The answer is, it is a carry over from 4e. In 4e, each race felt quite different from each other, because the level 1 race had more design space, to do substantially different things. So the 4e Halfling was a distinctive option in that context. In 4e, the river nomad tropes gained traction, striking some archetypal chords that were popular and noticeably not Tolkien.

In 5e, there is less design space, and the 5e Halfling is too much like a short Human. Especially if one plays on the tropes of innocence and simple delights, the Halfling is palpably a young Human, whether a child, tween, or teen.



I notice, an unintended consequence of the sparse design space for a level 1 lineage, 5e seems to be encouraging a new official tradition of an extra free feat at level 1. Typically, the free feat is setting specific to help players connect to the setting tropes. But also it is possible to allow each lineage to choose a lineage feat from Xanathars, or DM and player could work together a new feat to express something that they feel the lineage should be able to do.

 

[Oofta]

That does not change the argument that there is a lack of lore. You can like a lack of lore, that doesn't magically create more.



I do enjoy happy-go-lucky PCs on occasion. As I have said repeatedly when this smokescreen strawman comes up, I don't need to play a halfling to play that sort of character. Which of course will bring forth the repeated counter-claims that just because I can play a happy-go-lucky character with a a different race doesn't mean that halflings are worthless.

Well, congrats. I never said they were worthless. And also it doesn't change the fact that somehow you want to make the argument that not likeing halfings = not liking specific character arguments. Which is false, and a bad argument, and I really wish people would stop trying to shove it down our throats like it was some grand declaration.

You are not the sum total of WOTC's audience. Halflings are reasonably popular despite being small; there's a lot of prejudice against short.

There's not a ton of lore in the PHB for any of the races, I think halflings work well in their intended niche

No "shoving" involved, just acceptance of the reality that you can't please everyone but halflings please a lot of people.

But I'm sure you'll continue tilting at this particular windmill no matter what anyone says so I'll go back to ignoring this thread.

 

[FrozenNorth]

One could make the hypothesis that halflings are more popular with legacy players, and that legacy players are less likely to collect digitally, and therefore this data set isnt representative of 5e in general close enough to draw assumptions from.

Shrug

The snapshot provided by @Don Durito provides the best information that has been published in the thread so far.

I do take issue with your hypotheses, though.

Your second hypothesis is that players that have been playing longer are less likely to use D&D Beyond. I’m sure that D&D Beyond collects information as to when its users started playing, but I don’t have access to it. However, I see no reason to suggest that players that have been playing longer are less likely to use it.

The bigger issue is with your first hypothesis. One thing we do know is that D@D has seen a massive increase in new players since 5e came out. We also know that Enworld skews more to older and legacy players. With that in mind, the more reasonable hypothesis is that D&D Beyond better reflects the current player base than Enworlds.

This suggests that Genasi, Dragonborn and Tieflings are much more popular than Halflings, and that if it weren’t for the popularity of Rogues (for which Halflings are particularly suited ), Halflings would be even more second-tier in popularity than it already is.

 

[Yaarel]

there's a lot of prejudice against short.

I dont have a prejudice against short.

Heh, but I admit to some vague feeling of resentment.

I am looking for Large lineages at the taller edge of the Human spectrum, yet all I see is an abundance of Small lineages, and even Tiny.

 

[Chaosmancer]

I'd like to zero back in on this exchange because I think it might actually be getting at where all these pages of discussion have been going. Because I'm willing to bet that virtually everyone in this discussion is a DM and therefore, on some level, a worldbuilder (or at least an interpreter of published worlds). And that means they may see issues that seem huge to them, but that their players don't notice or don't care about.



I'm sure there are some, but I would need some convincing that it's a serious problem for a large percentage of players. Some players focus more on skills and personality than background; others have no problem saying "My character comes from a peaceful and boring little hamlet and couldn't wait to get out of there as soon as possible." And this thread, which is currently also on the front page, suggests that player interest in settings is highly variable:

D&D General - Do players REALLY care about the game world?

Over the decades of playing and running games and creating what I think of as fascinating worlds, I was informed in a non-insulting "yeah, cool. Nifty. Uh, when can we kick ass?" sort of way that my players don't really care about the world except in the context of having a place to adventure...

www.enworld.org

A completely fair point. However, I'll offer a counterpoint.

Player interest in mechanics is also variable, but that doesn't mean that mechanics are unimportant. Variablity just means that people approach that aspect of the game differently.

 

[Mind of tempest]

The last 20 years has seen the fantasy genre DC Comics-ing themselves into grimdark and banality though.

They want to prove they're ADULT and SERIOUS with people who NEVER SMILE and lots of TABOO SUBJECTS and elves and dwarves are FOR KIDS but I'm an ADULT and anyway you're not MY REAL DAD and I will NOT GO TO MY ROOM.

They either go for New Weird like China Melville and Lilith Saintcrow and everyone is human or a weird thing or a weird thing that used to be human because magical creatures with tentacles or chitin are more grown up with magical creatures that are tolerable to be around, or they go full human to go a historical fiction as they can while having enough magic to make the trailer look interesting.

how does tentacles or chitin make one less tolerable to be around that makes no sense as a premise?

how are halflings more tolerable to be around blandly planet folk are great as neighbours if you never want to do anything interesting?
plus some of them simply just do not desire to work with the Tolkien formula and want to be seen as not just derivative which is not itself a problem or a bad thing.

You are not the sum total of WOTC's audience. Halflings are reasonably popular despite being small; there's a lot of prejudice against short.

There's not a ton of lore in the PHB for any of the races, I think halflings work well in their intended niche

No "shoving" involved, just acceptance of the reality that you can't please everyone but halflings please a lot of people.

But I'm sure you'll continue tilting at this particular windmill no matter what anyone says so I'll go back to ignoring this thread.

It is not the short bit we are complaining about is the utter blandness the lack of presence they are meek in the way a dead sheep is meek.
they seem to be slowly dying as relevant as a lineage and with the changing of mechanics by the next edition they will be less relevant than back legs are to dolphins.