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

[Whizbang Dustyboots]

I don't think D&D magic has ever looked like A Wizard of Earthsea.

No, that's just me saying it's what I would have liked, if it didn't look like Jack Vance, who was hardly the current reading even in 1974.

 

[Whizbang Dustyboots]

Really? did not imagine that Warlocks were that recent in DnD guess 17 years age of WoW ... sheesh when 17 years starts feeling recent

Whoops, I'm wrong. The Complete Arcane came out the same month (November 2004) that WoW left beta and entered commercial release. So they're realistically about the same age, just a very different take on the idea. WoW's early design especially was heavily inspired by EverQuest and there's a direct line between EQ's necromancer and WoW's warlocks, especially in those early days.

 

[Chaosmancer]

It most definitely isn't. There may be more things in them that resonate with you.

Nope. There is more. Objectively true.

Just off the top of my head... DMG includes magic items that tie into Dwarven and Elven lore. Halflings have no such items. Baseline dwarf and elf lore includes schisms within them, halfling lore includes no such things. Elf and Dwarf lore includes common conflicts that the races face, and thoughts about how they compete and struggle against other races, such as giants, orcs, ect. Halfling lore has no such thing. Elf and Dwarf lore includes an origin story, halfling lore does not.

Iffy on it being "baseline" lore, but Elven and Dwarven lore also ties into specific subclasses, The Bladesinger and the Battlerager. Halflings have no such thing.

I'm not saying whether the lore is good or bad or if it resonates with someone, I'm saying it exists. And none of that exists for halflings.

Wrong. Both dwarfs and halflings have three pages in PHB, same as most other races, including humans. That's more than what half-elves, half-orcs or tieflings have, they got only two pages. Elves have four, as they have more subraces than any other race.

And page count doesn't tell you everything. Especially since humans being the special case have the least lore out of just about anything in DnD. Especially if you cut out anything setting specific, they are the blandest and least written about group in the game. But, they are humans, and that makes them a special case when it comes to lore.

 

[Crimson Longinus]

Nope. There is more. Objectively true.

Just off the top of my head... DMG includes magic items that tie into Dwarven and Elven lore. Halflings have no such items. Baseline dwarf and elf lore includes schisms within them, halfling lore includes no such things. Elf and Dwarf lore includes common conflicts that the races face, and thoughts about how they compete and struggle against other races, such as giants, orcs, ect. Halfling lore has no such thing. Elf and Dwarf lore includes an origin story, halfling lore does not.

Iffy on it being "baseline" lore, but Elven and Dwarven lore also ties into specific subclasses, The Bladesinger and the Battlerager. Halflings have no such thing.

I'm not saying whether the lore is good or bad or if it resonates with someone, I'm saying it exists. And none of that exists for halflings.



And page count doesn't tell you everything. Especially since humans being the special case have the least lore out of just about anything in DnD. Especially if you cut out anything setting specific, they are the blandest and least written about group in the game. But, they are humans, and that makes them a special case when it comes to lore.

Yes we know that elf and dwarf lore contains more things you personally find more interesting. You’ve already said it many times. It is not relevant, you can stop repeating it. That you find strife and enemies more interesting than love of simple things or curiosity doesn’t objectively make it so.

 

[Chaosmancer]

I've made an archetype and made wizard familiars more intelligent. That's it.


Well, first, that's not a canonical class. At this point, I haven't allowed any completely homebrew classes or archetypes. Of course, nobody at my table has asked for one. I don't think anyone has even asked for any classes or archetypes from a published 3pp, even the ones I've said are available.

Secondly, that's D&D Wiki, well known for including unbalanced crap. Why would I take a class from that site? You'd've been better off using an example that's been well-received, like say, KibblesTasty psion. At which point I would have said "if one of my players had asked for it, I'd have read it through and made a decision then."

Third, why are you comparing taking a likely not-properly-playtested or unbalanced class adapted from a poorly thought-out 2e supplement (yes, I owned it) to keeping a race that's been around since D&D started? That's not apples and oranges; it's apples and carburetors.


Your point above has nothing to do with this conclusion.


Insufficient for whom? You? Because it's clearly not insufficient for me, considering the amount of material I've shown you from it. Not even my extrapolations like the puppet ruler stuff; just the stuff that's directly written in their PH and MTF descriptions.

So again: just because you don't like halflings doesn't mean they're bad or insufficient. And your opinion alone is not enough to chuck them as a race.

Could they use more lore? In the Realms and Greyhawk, they could benefit from it. They have a lot of important lore in other official settings. The problem is with the Realms and Greyhawk, and for the writers for basing their PH halflings off of those settings instead of off Eberron or Dark Sun or Birthright.

The point you seem to be missing is I'm saying "halflings have insufficient lore" and your response keeps being "well you homebrewed other races right? Why not homebrew halflings?" With an implied "what's wrong with you that you won't consider that option"

That is why I specifically chose something from the D&D wiki and specifically something that was unbalanced crap. Because... you can just homebrew it right? There is no reason to say that it should be fixed or better made, because you can just homebrew it. You've homebrewed other classes and class features after all.

It doesn't matter that one of the things is a race from the beginings of the game and the other is a new class written by some rando, the same standards should apply. If you have homebrewed something, then you can just fix it by homebrewing and there is no reason to say anything about it being bad or needing fixed. Or... if you feel like that is not how things work, if there is some reason that "you can just fix it yourself" isn't a good reason... maybe you should stop saying it to me about halflings. Maybe "you can just homebrew them" is an insufficient argument against me.

Especially since, AGAIN, you have accused me of a position I do not hold. I never said to "chuck" halflings as a race. I have only said that their lore is poor and they should be rewritten. Additionally, I have pointed out that pushing them out of their position as one of the Core Four, and expanding that to cover additional races has seemingly obvious benefits of allowing races with better lore to be included.

The same way that every elf speaks Elven and every orc speaks Orcish (and they nearly always hate each other), and the wizards on Toril and Krynn can cast Bigby's hand, and there's an eye and hand of Vecna and a rod of seven parts on every world.

The real answer is: it's D&D.

If you want a more in-game answer, halflings are adventuring travelers who tell stories to every other halfling they meet, who then tell those same stories to every halfling they meet, etc. And they have a good memory for stories and not much need for confabulation (as extrapolated by their lack of need for ornamentation, which suggests they might not feel the need to invent things for their stories) so that it doesn't devolve into a game of sending stones (they haven't invented telephones yet).

Or, more realistically, no, not every halfling knows all the stories. But they know a lot of stories. If one halfling doesn't know a particular story, then they can likely point you in the direction of one who does.

So, they unwittingly (by accident) gather these stories with important lore. Tell them to every halfling they meet, and if a halfling doesn't know a particular story with important lore, that no one else is aware is in these stories by the way, they can point you to a halfling that does know it...

Because halflings are adventuring travelers who gather stories... and despite the lore telling us they do embellish their stories a little bit... you want to claim that they do no such thing... because they lack a need for ornamentation? Which is just flat out wrong as shown in the PHB artwork alone.

Yeah, you keep trying to make this a thing, but it isn't a thing.

Let's take a single continent. Are we trying to claim that every single remote dwarf fortress is an filled with expert crafters who uses their enormous lifetime to make the best and most enduring things? That all dwarfs are like this? No clan churns out crappy stuff, or turned to the dark side and came up with the idea of planned obsolescence in order to get more human buyers, or said "screw rock and metal!" and become expert ranchers, or just decided to go into ranching or pillaging and raiding?

Why is it you're willing to say that dwarfs are so important because they're all great miners and crafters, even though its illogical that all of them would be--or that even a majority of them would be--but not accept anything similar about halflings? Every trait you've been shown has been dismissed by you saying "well, it doesn't say all halflings" or "other races do that too."

If you can say that all dwarfs, or a majority of dwarfs, are all expert crafters then why can't you say that halflings are all expert storytellers and lorekeepers? It's part of their actual racial description, after all.

Why are you unwilling to take the exact same logic you've applied to elves and dwarfs and who knows what else and not apply it to halflings?

Well, quite simply because of religion. All dwarves worship Moradin, and as part of their worship of Moradin they worship him as a forger and crafter. Do some dwarves put out shoddy material? Maybe. But it is baked into them by their creator deity to create exceptional things.

Now, you might attempt to turn this around on me. The halflings have gods after all... but, none of the halfling gods or goddesses are about telling stories. They tell stories about the gods and goddesses, but every race does that. It's called having a religion. None of the deities though have "storytelling" as part of their portfolio. Moradin is a God of Crafting. Dwarves craft because they were made by a God of Craft, and they venerate him through craft. That is why I can say with some certainty that all Dwarves make a big deal out of crafting, while I can question if all halflings really gather stories full of ancient and forgotten lore.

Since I made this claim right away when I said that the books support halflings being adventurers by saying that they're curious and nomadic, I think this is just proving that you're unwilling to think much about what you're reading.

I was countering your dichtomous claim that most haflings are adventurers while also most halflings are homebodies. You then brought up that not all halflings are farmers, some are nomads. I was simply trying to figure out if you somehow thought all nomads are adventurers.

It seems for you an adventurer is simply someone who travels and is curious. That is an incredibly low bar I doubt I'd see reflected anywhere else.

Hmm, may be blessed by a god with an insatiable need to seek out stories, treasure, new locations, etc. Sounds about right. Sure, why not?

Because not every traveling merchant is an adventurer.

Affably Evil - TV Tropes

Traditional villains are evil in thought, word, and deed. They Kick the Dog every day, just because they think it's funny, they can't sympathize with the pain of others, and/or they think no suffering is too great when it serves their cause.

tvtropes.org

Thank you for the link that proves my point. I mean, I don't even need to click on it, the text that shows up lays out my exact point. "Usually, villains have a personality or manner that underscores how evil they are." That is proving my point. The reason "affably evil" exists is that it is a subversion of expectations.

Ebenezer Scrooge - Wikipedia

en.wikipedia.org

Fair enough. Misers who hoard their wealth and spend as little as possible are an example I did not think about. Of course... we have a term called "misers" for a reason. Because "doesn't enjoy displays of wealth" is far more generic, and is usually a good trait. But, hey, you reminded me of an extreme version of that that isn't a good trait, because it is a subset of a bad trait.

Alignment. Kobolds are fundamentally selfish, making them evil, but their reliance on the strength of their group makes them trend toward law.

Reliance on the strength of the group =/= Reliable. Those are different versions of the same word.

Neighbourhood-Friendly Gangsters - TV Tropes

It's not enough for it to just feel good to be a gangster, you should also win the sympathy of the audience and community. Since racketeering, trafficking women, random murders and selling drugs don't really fly with the general public, heroic …

tvtropes.org

Do you happen to read these before you just throw them down thinking they will dispute my claims? Because, the end of the first sentence reads "heroic criminals in fiction are usually Neighbourhood Friendly Gangsters"

So, you gave me a trope for a type of hero, to prove that liking the common folk is a negative trait for villains? I think it is a bit self-evident why that doesn't work and instead just proves my point.

Villainous Valour - TV Tropes

This is one method for avoiding doldrums from having an Invincible Hero. Scenes of Villainous Valor show the antagonists to be outmatched, forcing them to rely on daring, cunning, skill, and determination to hold their own against the heroes, or …

tvtropes.org

Second paragraph "but the mark of Villainous Valor is that it sees the "bad guys" using tropes that you wouldn't expect from them. In fact, if you were just tuning in, you might even be confused about who you're expected to root for."

So, your trope proves, once again, that I was correct. Bravery from villains is seen as a positive quality to make them more like heroes. Maybe you should double check these to make sure they don't support my arguments... or heck, you could just save me the effort of making arguments by making them for me. These massive multi-page long posts are kind of exhausting.

Ah, but we're talking about racial traits, not individual traits.

Supposedly, but everyone wants to defend halflings with individual traits, then say I must hate those traits because I don't like halflings. The fact that supposedly no halfling breaks from these molds, but I can casually break elven and dwarven molds also speaks to the strength of those two races compared to the halfling.

So... you don't actually have anything, then.

You should have kept reading. I went into it, briefly I'll admit, but I did.

Right. Dwarfs have even fewer interesting traits than halflings. Or am I just to think "they are gruff craftsdwarfs" and that covers 85% of it?

Why is one big trait for elves and dwarfs better than one big trait and/or lots of little traits for halflings?

I'm saying that "bearded" isn't a trait. It is a visual style. Trying to say that dwarves as a race have "beards" as a thing that defines them is... dumb. Yes, it is a fact about them, but it doesn't rise to the level of actually being a defining racial trait in my view.

And I don't know where you got that question from, it doesn't follow from what I said.

Haughty and Gracious. Although they can be haughty, elves are generally gracious - even to those who fall short of their high expectations - which is most non-elves. Still, they can find good in just about anyone.

Alignment. Elves love freedom, variety, and self-expression, so they lean strongly toward the gentler aspects of chaos. They value and protect others' freedom as well as their own, and they are more often good than not.

I've read it. Don't understand why you think that counters anything I said. Heck, the word "flighty" doesn't even show up, so I guess thank you for again proving my point. Elves aren't flighty as far as this text is concerned.

You still haven't said why this is a bad thing. Obviously, people don't need to follow the lore to play a member of a race at all, or all the elves you've adventured with would be haughty, a bit racist, and chaotic. A purist may go so far as to say that any player you know who didn't play an elf as haughty, bit racist, and chaotic playing them "wrong." Which just says that having all that lore you demand is not only necessary but possibly even counterproductive to a fun game.

Because a lack of lore means there is a lack of things to do with them. A lack of things tieing them to the setting, and to make for good hooks. That is why it is bad, though I would really hope that that was a bit self-evident. I mean, if a world builder presented you with a world that lacked lore, it wouldn't be considered a very good world.

Which halflings aren't like and nobody has claimed they are. Not all halflings are ultragood, and not even individuals are pure good.

Actually, yes people have made that claim. Again, I will point out that Bedir than specifically said that halflings were (and I directly quote) "the only race that believes in peace, tranquility, joy, happiness.". For me that was post #854 if you want to look it up yourself.

Oh, and when I challenged them on that... other posters came in to tell me how not every race needs to be grimdark and I should look past my own biases because some people like stories about humble heroes who enjoy happiness.

There's a section in MTF called "Bad Apples" and says that many of them "find a way to turn idleness into an art form." People in this thread have talked about how halflings, for all their welcoming ways, may not give a crap about anything that occurs outside of their homes--that it's very possible to see them as defining FYIGM.

And anyway, nobody has claimed that they're perfect. Just that they're nice people, and that it's perfectly OK for there to be a race of just nice people in a D&D setting. You may find nice people to be boring, but that doesn't mean they're bad.

I have never stated that I find nice people boring,. I like nice people. I find a race defined by being "nice" boring.

But, I do love that when we stretch as far as we can we get the most evil of halflings... who don't care about what happens outside their homes. And that line you quoted isn't even from the "bad apples" section. It is from the "life of leisure" section on the previous page, and is presented as one of their good qualities. That they know how to relax and have a good time doing things like dreaming of chasing butterflies.

The base of providing information from a thousand years ago? Yes, they do. Because you can't play a thousand-year-old elf and act as the infodumper in most games ("You're a thousand years old? And you're only third level? Also, this is DM info only; your character wouldn't know it"). You can go to your NPC millennial elf to get info told to you, or you can go to a library and have the info read to you by an NPC human sage. They're both going to be unreliable in some way that benefits the plot. Functionally, a really old elf and a human scholar are the same.

No they are not. And you totally can play a thousand-year old elf and act as an info dumper. The Hermit background in particular is great for it.

Also, um... why does it matter that they are an NPC? The point is that they are a race of people who could have been physically present. Reading about a story in a book is completely narratively different than speaking to someone who was physically there. For example, a book can't answer questions unless it is a magical book, and even then, it makes no sense for it to answer questions about things not inside the book.

Says who? If anything, they'd have more weight of the ages because they generally look older. Who seems more knowledgeable to you: A 500-year-old who looks like a wise granpa, or a 500-year-old who looks like they're 20? This isn't a movie where you can have the type of lighting and FX that made Galadriel so impressive. This is a RPG. You're limited by how good the DM is at conveying atmosphere.

Who cares about what they look like? This is an RPG, you can't actually see them. Who seems more wise and weighed down by the ages, the 500 year old running around their lab and asking if you saw that latest lightning storm because it was just so cool, or the 500 year old sitting in their study sadly reminiscing about the decline of the world and how all their friends have passed away and left them behind.

I mean seriously, appearance? That is the least important reason you could have possibly used.

And I've always read them in exactly the opposite.

How? Every single entry for them stresses their curiosity and zest for life and fun. I mean... seriously I don't get how you could possibly have a different view of them, unless you are stuck reading them from like 2e or something.

And I've usually seen elves as having a wide array of lesser magics, but very rarely having to cast anything big because those spells were cast 10,000 years ago and they've never had a need to cast them again.

... so they did cast them 10,000 years ago. Which is the point I was making. I wasn't trying to say they cast massive magic every weekend.

Unless all the PCs are crafters or Artificers, does it matter that you can't play fire giant? And in that case, you're playing a very odd version of D&D. Makers & Marketplaces, maybe.

Huh? You aren't following. The point is to play the race that aligns with what you want. If you want to be the best stonesmith, blacksmith, ect, you play a dwarf. You want that flavor. You can't get that flavor from Fire Giants, because you can't play them. You can't associate with them and say "and these are my people with this special place in the world" because... they aren't your people.

And, no, it doesn't require every single player to play the same class. That is nonsensical.

I mean, I guess, sure, it works if you need great works done, to have them done by the giants and you are just finding them. I can see that sort of world working, but giants don't replace dwarves, because you can't play them. You can't participate in that lore.

Yes, I know that image. It's a great one. I like it. But if there hadn't been any dwarfs there to do that, the world wouldn't be bereft.

The point was to show that comparing human architecture to what we expect from dwarves doesn't work.

Coral Castle - Wikipedia

en.wikipedia.org

There is very little that is beyond human skill, says the human writing on a computer.

Then show me an image of humans carving a mountain into a face, not a face in a mountain, a mountain into a face.

Yes, humans are incredible. But dwarves occupy a different niche.

Because the PH lore is based on the Realms and Greyhawk. So again, the problem is with those settings. Not with halflings.

So... you want to claim that the generic lore for halflings is a setting problem, not a problem with the generic lore for halflings?

I guess if you take the position that the PHB is set in Faerun I can see that, but... that is a disputed point.

I've barely seen elves and dwarfs as being depicted with food, other than the aforementioned elven wine, lembas wafers, and dwarven ale. And plump helmets. But that's a different franchise.

I've seen plenty of feasts for both. It isn't the most common thing, and those are definitely tropes, but that doesn't follow that without halflings they would all starve because halflings are the only ones who do basic farming.

Yes. Those are regional human gods. The fact that some nonhumans worship them, and that some humans worship nonhuman gods, does not change the fact that there are numerous human gods. Not "occasionally worshiped" by humans. Primarily worshiped by them.

The Realms isn't Eberron or Dragonlance, where there's a set of god worshiped by everyone. It, and Greyhawk, have human gods (which vary by location) and nonhuman gods (which don't).

So, again, there is no general human pantheon. There are regional pantheons that might include gods worshipped by primarily humans, but that also includes gods that are primarily the gods of other races.


So, my point still stands. Either like Eberron and Dragonlance everyone worships the same gods. Or like FR and Greyhawk the non-humans all worship the same dieties, and then there are generic trope deities and regional dieites that humans worship. But there is no human, racial pantheon worshipped by all humans and only humans in any setting we've talked about so far.

Maybe you just didn't understand my point the first time, but that was my point. A point which you have not disproven.

No, but if they roll a 1 when making a save against a trap or when rolling to search for treasure, they can reroll. It's a lucky, last-minute effect: it looks like certain doom, but they manage to dodge out the way just in the nick of time; they can't find anything through diligent searching, but then the torchlight glints off a piece of gold they didn't previously notice.

So... no. You don't have that happen. It only happens if they would roll a 1, and then they reroll.

So, if a trap has a DC 15 and a halfling rolls a 2, getting a total of 4 they still get hit by the trap and their luck is meaningless. So, how do you show they are lucky? I mean, we are immediately back to where we started when you just said yes that all those things I listed are true, but in practice none of them are true.

I guess you don't have players who like to roleplay being afraid without mechanical incentive to do so.

No I certainly do. This also has nothing to do with the point being discussed. Fear without a mechanical incentive can be RPd all day long, and the halflings brave ability would never trigger. In fact, if the halfling player was the one RPing the fear... they wouldn't be acting brave.

Their hands don't tremble with fright and they aren't so terrified they can't look upon the source of their fear. Meaning they can willfully approach the source of terror and their don't suffer disad on attack rolls against it. If they fail their save, which is less likely because of the advantage and the Luckiness.

Which only applies to magical fear and homebrewed rules that add in fear where it didn't exist before. The warlock who was Roleplaying being terrified of their former teacher can attack without disadvantage, even if they say their hands are trembling.

So... again... I'm not seeing a good way to portray the trait without basically turning to my players and saying "you all have to take mechanical penalties to RP fear, and halfling player, you aren't allowed to RP fear, halflings don't get scared"

Which immediately gets the dwarf fighter asking why they can't take their position of a veteran soldier who has seen to much and also not be afraid. And then I'd have to tell them that being Brave is a halfling feature. Which all seems like a mess to me.

No, I am not rewriting them. You simply don't understand what it means to have advantage on saving throws against being frightened.

Hell, the fact that they have advantage rather than immunity tells you that they feel deep, paralyzing fear at times--just not as often as other races do. Did you just not read the entry?

Maybe it's simply biology that prevents them from having a strong emotional reaction to fear. Maybe it's that halfling pipeweed that keeps them calm. Maybe it's something else. Who cares? Do you care why elves can't be put to sleep magically because of being fey, but most fey--including the actual fairies from the recent UA--have no such immunity?

I did read the entry. I pointed out that I have troubles finding a way to adequately portray it in the game, and you started berating me for how I must not understand what the word brave means.

I also agree with you that other fey should be immune to sleep. That is an error in the game.

OK, it's a free range gelatinous cube found in the open plains and meadows instead of in a dungeon.

Then how do you explain the halfling being allowed to move through its space but the human isn't?

Tumble. A creature can try to tumble through a hostile creature's space, ducking and weaving past the opponent. As an action or a bonus action, the tumbler makes a Dexterity (Acrobatics) check contested by the hostile creature's Dexterity (Acrobatics) check. If the tumbler wins the contest, it can move through the hostile creature's space once this turn. (DMG page 272.)

Yes, this should be in the PH. The books are not well laid-out.

I am aware of this optional rule. I agree it should be in the PHB. We both agree that it isn't in the PHB.

So... how does this work into me having trouble showcasing what Halfling Nimbleness means in the fiction, since they always succeed on this without a check?

Yes, that is what one does with traits. Otherwise, you have to assume that all dwarfs are born knowing all about stonework. After all, the PH doesn't say that they take stonework classes. How do you justify that knowledge?

Humans and everyone else have to make a check to tumble through a larger creature's space. Halflings and other Nimble races, if there are any, do not. You can assume that they're bendy, or you can assume it's just an auto-success on Acrobatics, or you can make up another reason. Your choice.

There are no other races with this ability.

And sure, I can hopefully make up something that makes sense if it comes up, but the point you are ignoring is that it isn't easy to make up something for this. In fact, it is a bit difficult to justify a lot of the time. For example, one thing you could do with that Gelatinous Cube is leap over it... but while a 5 ft 8 in human leaping over a 10 ft cube is... okay, a 4 ft 2 in halfling making the same leap is a lot harder to justify. You'd need to give them a dozen different traits that they don't have to justify everything this ability technically allows you to do. And that isn't easy despite your dismissive "don't you know what nimble means" comment from before.

 

[Chaosmancer]

I have no problems with that.

If it wasn't clear before, I have zero interest in "tradition". Changing things does not bother me in the slightest, usually. And certainly refusing to change things simply because that's the way it was done before is the bane of existence.

I would point out though that @Chaosmancer has claimed that I "went further". Not really. My point has always been that the PHB should reflect what people are actually playing, not what a handful of grognards think it should be. The fact that the newer races, like tiefling and dragonborn immediately shot to the top of the list is evidence, I believe, that people are not all that interested in the "Tolkien" races anymore. Folks are ready for D&D to embrace ALL fantasy, not just fantasy written the better part of a hundred years ago or more.

Yes, I accept that Tolkien and Howard and the greats of the genre are all owed a great debt of gratitude. I get that. Totally agree. We wouldn't be where we are today without them. But, that gratitude shouldn't mean that we must never change the game and must remain tied to the choices Gygax and Co made fifty years ago for what to include in the "standard races". The genre and the hobby has changed in the intervening 50 years. We cut our teeth on Tolkien and Howard. Todays gamer cut their teeth on Rawlings and Martin.

To be fair, I'm okay with keeping halflings in the PHB if they get a rewrite to make them more interesting and deserving of that spot. So your more blunt approach of just kicking them out of the PHB is further than my position.

I'm not saying I'd be against your way either. I agree with a lot of what you are saying, but I'm just closer to zero on the number line than you are.

It was neccesary for me to point out, since I've been pointing out other people as agreeing or disagreeing with their fellows, and I wanted to delinate that I recognize you have stated pushing this further than I have.

 

[Chaosmancer]

Does anyone who wants halflings to have more/better lore have concrete examples of that? I know everyone has grievances with each other, but that doesn't really address the base issue and what the OP was theoretically originally about.

What would you do to make halflings worth adding to your campaign/playing? (If it's "nothing, they're good," that's fine -- we don't need to revisit how the people who think otherwise are terrible people with bad haircuts.)

We've discussed them being the diplomats of the world. That could be an interesting position for them, if every trade deal and negotiation as a halfling arbiter to act as a third party and help keep things civil. I think there is potential in that route.

Putting them associated with traveling, being on caravans and riverways ties into that. Playing into this idea of moving between people.


I would want more lore regarding their dieties, maybe try and give them some of the magic items or connections to classes or something in the game. Them being rogues has never fit them well in my opinion.

More than likely I'd just fold them into gnomes. Gnomes cover so many of the tropes of halflings that I actually enjoy, and fit in really well with how gnomes are portrayed. Plus I enjoy gnomes a lot.

 

[pemerton]

Yes we know that elf and dwarf lore contains more things you personally find more interesting. You’ve already said it many times. It is not relevant, you can stop repeating it. That you find strife and enemies more interesting than love of simple things or curiosity doesn’t objectively make it so.

While there's an element of "eye of the beholder", I also think there's an argument that, in a game that takes as its premise heroic adventurers motivated to confront the adventures and challenge the GM frames them into, lore about strife and enemies does more heavy lifting than lore about the love of simple things. We can see this in both The Hobbit and LotR. The love of simple things matters to the inner lives of the Hobbit protagonists, but - by default - that sort of inner life doesn't feature prominently in D&D play, does it?

 

[Chaosmancer]

Yes we know that elf and dwarf lore contains more things you personally find more interesting. You’ve already said it many times. It is not relevant, you can stop repeating it. That you find strife and enemies more interesting than love of simple things or curiosity doesn’t objectively make it so.

So, you decide to completely ignore the fact that I said, explicitly, "I'm not saying whether the lore is good or bad or if it resonates with someone, I'm saying it exists"


I mean, you are accusing me of saying that I find enemies more interesting, when I specifically said that all I was saying is that the lore exists. It is present. If elves have lore for friends and lore for enemies that is two units of lore. It is bigger than just having lore for friends, which is one unit of lore. If elves have lore for internal strife, then that is one unit of lore, and if halflings have no internal stife that is zero units of lore.

So, from those two things, elves have three units, and halflings have one unit. 3 > 1. Objectively bigger. Objectively more.

Objectively, as I stated, Elves and Dwarves have more lore. Elven and dwarven lore is objectively larger and more complex than halfling lore. I am making no claims about elf or dwarf lore being more interesting right now, that is subjective. But in terms of size, that is objective.

So, please do not accuse me of claiming my subjective opinion on intererst is objective. I am not saying that. I recognize it isn't. But, objectively, Elves and dwarves have more lore. That I will claim to be objective.

 

[doctorbadwolf]

Except... very few of us are arguing that halfling stereotypes aren't good for adventurers. We are talking about how empty the lore is. And, when we push back and say that "hey, just being an innocent soul isn't enough for a race" we get slammed for talking about character traits, because then any race can be anything. But, the posts we are responding to are saying "we play halflings because they are innocent souls" and use that character trait to defend the race.

So... it is fine to use character traits to defend halflings, but if you mention how they are character traits and not really something you should apply blanketly to a whole race, we are the bad guys for mixing character traits into the discussion? It doesn't make any sense.

And, sure, you can ignore everything that isn't Eberron if you like. I enjoy Eberron a lot, it is an incredibly cool setting. But when talking about how the Game of Dungeons and Dragons has treated a race of characters, going beyond the single current setting that intentionally breaks with the tropes of the game is a necessity.



Steeldragon
Bedir than
Oofta

All three of them said it. I responded and quoted directly all three of them saying it. Unless you are saying they are nobody, then you are wrong.

And, for added confusion, your point #1 is nonsensical. Removing halflings from the game (which is not something I have ever advocated for in this thread) would not remove honest, naive characters from the game. Or any other combination of character traits that they are saying they like. The concern that removing halflings from the game removes something like "caring for the simple pleasures in life" from the game is bizarre and flat out WRONG.

And I don't care how many times I have to repeat it, but every single time I see that argument I will dispute it. Being against halflings isn't being against good honest folk, or simple brave people, or whatever other nonsense people want to do to try and limit the character concepts I play and make it seem like halflings are the only route to doing something other than edgy grimdark overpowered characters.

Query: Would you agree or disagree that the following two characters have a meaningful difference between them?

1) A fast talking swashbuckling Dwarf with a big hat and an irreverent attitude.

2) A fast talking swashbuckling Half-elf with a big hat and an irreverent attitude.