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

[Crimson Longinus]

then where are their mines and smiths or their trade for metal?

They trade those scones for metal.

 

[jayoungr]

I hate pubs, the town is full of them, half of them burned down and we still have over 20.

Pubs are just an example. There are also farmhouses that have been continuously inhabited for hundreds of years as well.

 

[Micah Sweet]

then where are their mines and smiths or their trade for metal?

okay, I can see the wisdom of that.

I believe golf courses do that now, pubs are just for drinking and football.

Near their mining communities? Are dwarves the only people who get to mine? Where do you think the halflings get all the pots and pans they need for second breakfast? Also they can trade for them, like literally everyone else if they have a mind to. This line of questioning confuses me.

 

[Gammadoodler]

then where are their mines and smiths or their trade for metal?

okay, I can see the wisdom of that.

I believe golf courses do that now, pubs are just for drinking and football.

I mean, I believe there's a good argument that golf courses are just for drinking as well.

Edit: oh..and golf I guess..in that order

 

[Faolyn]

Why? Oh sorry, is it because you think halflings are perfectly fine as written and this is all only my warped opinion? Because I've shown a lot of why I find halflings limiting, and you've responded repeatedly with the idea that that isn't a problem because I can just homebrew them and fix them. So, why is that unbalanced class a problem, you can just homebrew it and fix it?

Your issue with halflings is a lore issue. My issue issue with chronomancers is a mechanics issue, in that I don't trust D&DWiki to produce something that is balanced. I mean, I've read unbalanced backgrounds from that site. Do you think lore and mechanics are the same thing? Do you think they can be rewritten in the same manner?

And even if we are to assume that is decently balanced and thus only focus on lore, there's a big difference between the lore of a race of everyman people and introducing time-travel into a fantasy game.

You are assuming that I didn't TRY to find something to do with halflings, that after eight years of attempting, and my coming up blank and reasoning that it is likely because the lore is so empty for them, all of that stems from my unwillingness to even attempt to understand them.

Yes, I am assuming that. You don't even know what the halflings' actual abilities are: you seem to think they are immune to fear and never lose a die roll because they're so lucky. You can't figure out what Nimble means. That definitely seems to me like you've never actually tried to do anything with them.

Maybe you can expand the page count. Of course, if you expand the page count but still say "the four core races of DnD are human, dwarf, elf and halfling" then you are still setting up the expectation that halflings should be a major force in the world. Which they aren't.

The chapter in the PH divides races into "Common" and "Uncommon." Not "Sociopolitically Important" and "Non-Contributive."

There are lots of halflings. They just don't necessarily have a major part the Grand Scheme of things.

And you haven't said why that's a bad thing. Only that you find that boring, which is completely subjective.

And you are right, Orcs, Goblinoids, Kobolds and Yuan-Ti all of those would need a pretty major rewrite. I don't think Lizardfolk lore is weak, nor would they really need a major rewrite (I find their "lack of emotion" lore bad, as well as their "it is holy to be stupid" lore, but those are details that are fairly easily shaved off).

Oh, so to make them palatable to you, you would change an important part of their lore and biology that makes them distinct from other races. And not only that, you would make everyone else play with your preferred lore (I like their lack of emotions, and I'm not seeing anything saying "it's holy to be stupid"), instead of just rewriting them for your games. That's not rewriting them to be not-evil, like what's actually needed for orcs and goblins. That's just making them to your tastes.

And sure, that isn't too many... except I'm talking about replacing one race at its spot in the top... and I've just listed Six options. I'll make it seven by saying Dragonborn could be a strong contender as well, though their lore suffers from being very setting specific which weakens it overall, even if the individual lore is pretty good.

So add races more to the Common Races section. Nobody is saying you can't (well, WotC might be saying that). I doubt there's any rule saying that you can only have four Common Races in a world. As far as I know, this is the only edition where they even did that sort of division in the PH.

They have some pretty fancy looking stuff in their homes. Just from the artwork I've seen. Not like gaudy, but it is embellished.

And in comparison to a dwarf hall?

And, actually, we have an example of a halfling tale written in the book. A true story about how the fishskippers got their name. See, in the water where the first of the fishskippers was fishing, there arose a troll that was named Snobble Sweed. And that troll was sharpening his knives by the water, and while it was there, the halfling caught a bream and he threw it across the stream, skipping it ten times across the water. It hit with a clap of thunder and tore the troll asunder.

Now... how likely is it that a troll was truly torn at least in half by a fish thrown by a halfling? Or do you think, maybe, the tale is just a small bit embellished?

"It hit with a clap of thunder." I wonder if there was a spell involved there.

But sure. One story written for a player book and designed to give players inspiration for telling their own stories means the entire race are bad lorekeepers. Sure.

Adventuring =/= storytelling. But nice attempt. Again, I've never said that no halfling ever goes on an adventure. Only that those who do go on adventures, as shown by the text, are a minority of the population.

Which the text doesn't support. It indicates a more 50/50 ratio of adventurers to stay-at-homes.

Secondly, I never said that dwarves make good things because they were programmed to make good things.

Yes you did. You said their god made them good crafters ("But it is baked into them by their creator deity to create exceptional things."). They didn't develop those skills on their own. They had them preprogrammed in by Moradin.

I'm going to stop this one right here because you've touched upon a nerve of mine when it comes to my feelings on real world religion.

I have never even claimed that stories aren't important to them. My only claim on this line has been that stories being important to halflings does not make them a lorekeeper race. That's it. Of course stories are important to them, it says so right in the text. But that alone does not make them lorekeepers. IT makes them storytellers, and those are different things.

That's like saying that because religion is important to dwarfs it doesn't make them a religious race.

Some combination of a mercenary and a hero. Adventurers are the ones getting hired to go to dangerous places and confront dangerous forces. They are the ones people turn to when they are in danger to rescue them from that danger. Traveling around doesn't even play into it I think, because I can see an adventurer group that stays in a single location, or a very small region.

That's a very narrow definition of adventurer that assumes all adventures must end in violence. The actual dictionary definition of adventurer says "one who seeks danger or exciting experiences." Halflings definitely do the latter.

But kobolds aren't reliable. In the lore they are generally referred to as cowards who only become brave when in a larger group. They rely on the strength of the group, that does not make them reliable. They are different words.

Used for the same thing. They are reliable to their group. It doesn't matter if they run in the face of danger.

Did you actually read my response? I'm guessing no, since I specifically highlighted and bolded the words "heroic criminal"

Someone who goes around killing others while also giving some money to the poor isn't heroic.

Who cares who I rooted for? The point was that bravery is a trope associated with being good and heroic.

Or with being evil and not giving up and surrendering to greater forces. We're just more likely to call that bloodthirsty than brave.

Maybe because a race should be more than a collection of good character traits. Like I've said.

People keep trying to counter my point that the lore for halflings is weak and pretty empty by saying "but they are good, and brave, and heroic, and plucky and like food and farm and are friendly and kind" and that's all a meaningless answer to my actual concern. And when I put forth the idea that character traits alone don't make a race... I get told that I irrationally hate halflings and nothing would convince me to like them.... even as I put forth things to say, "well, if they were taken in this direction, it would at least be better"

CLEARLY I am lying. I hate them so much I could never have posted that multiple times in this thread.

CLEARLY you think that interesting = dark or edgy or violent. CLEARLY you can't fathom that anyone could like a people who are nice.

Yes, people have made it important, but that doesn't mean it is as defining as you want to make it out for. It is just like talking about how a style of clothing is important in a culture. Does wearing those clothes define you as part of that culture? Obviously not, it is a detail, and it matters to them, but it isn't a defining element that makes or breaks the culture.

In the real world, wearing some types of clothing or hairstyles may be considered cultural misappropriation, depending on who's wearing what.

In D&D world, very often different cultures have distinct clothing styles, to the point it's unusual to see anyone outside of that culture wearing those clothes. For instance, you don't see many non-drow wearing spider silk.

Yes, culture and clothing are very often intertwined.

"Gently chaotic" sounds like nonsense. Like saying they are "lightly random" that doesn't mean anything.

You're kidding, right? It means they're whimsical, not lolrandom.

And I am not only looking at DnD, to remind you, so even if an older edition made it so that elves randomly break out into songs of figgleworps, it wouldn't really change that that is not how they are commonly thought of or depicted.

Pretty sure "elves" and "capricious" are closely-knit concepts to many, many people.

Did you read 4e? It had a ton of really great setting lore. Sure, the specific location of Nentir Vale was left vague, but the setting was FAR from without lore.

It didn't have much lore, which is what I said. One of the reasons I and I know a lot of other people don't like the Realms is it has too much lore.

Being told I hate entire character archetypes and the idea of happiness is good because it tells me that halflings aren't boring? No. Sorry, you are hearing the wrong message. The fact that people can't defend halflings without making it so that being against halflings is being against anything pure, good, and innocent tells me that... that is all halflings are.

No one has countered my point about the halfling origin myth by providing an origin myth.

The story of Yondalla begins at the dawn of the world, when halflings were timid wanderers, scraping out a meager existence. The goddess Yondalla took note of them and decided to adopt the halflings as her people. She was a strong leader with a vision for her people, and she dedicated her life to gathering them together and protecting them. Over time, she elevated to godhood those halflings who were the most adept at the skills halflings needed to survive. Those legendary halflings comprise the rest of the pantheon.

Yondalla created the first halfling villages and showed the people how to build, plant, and harvest. She knew that the bounty of a halfling village would be tempting plunder for any brigand or monster, so she used her powers to conceal their homes from easy discovery, blending them into the landscape so that most travelers would pass by without a second glance. (MTF)

Adopted children are as real and important as bio-children. And found family can be as close as, or closer than, bio-families. Right?

But your insistence on having some story where a particular god makes them for presumably an important reason is the main reason why having all that oh-so-important lore isn't actually a good thing when it's made generic instead of setting-specific. What's the lore for dwarfs or elves if you decide to play in a world that doesn't have Moradin in it? It keeps people from wanting to make their own unique worlds with unique religions and beliefs and unique cultures. No, you have to have the racial gods and racial enemies.

Which is the nice thing about halflings. You may call them lore-light, but the amount of lore they have is perfect for setting them wherever you like with as few or many changes as you want them to have.

In my opinion, the PH should have no lore on the races. Nothing about their history. No racial enemies. It should describe what their life is like and what their general mindset is like. Everything else should be setting-specific. Or if it's included in the PH, it should be written as "In the Realms, elves are X. In Eberron, elves are Y. In Dark Sun, elves are Z."

(Also: what's the human origin myth?)

In fact, my points about the lack of halfling lore and culture have mostly gone ignored.

Because they all boil down to you not liking them because they don't give you lists of things you like. Your subjective opinions do not equate to objective reality.

Who says the DM was against it? Maybe the player and the DM built the world together, and this was their solution to the player knowing a lot, and then they didn't have worry about shoehorning in plot expositions.

Then you can do that with anything, if you like. A old member of an different ancient race. Someone who was awoken from magical slumber or raised from the dead after centuries had passed. Someone who was possessed by the god of meta-knowledge. Someone who time-traveled, perhaps using that homebrew chronomancer class. Someone who is a member of a shorter-lived race who simply stopped aging one day for reasons known or unknown (I mean, if you want to play a thousand-year-old elf who's still only 3rd level, then you can play a thousand-year-old human who's still only 3rd level as well). A necromancer with a collection of skulls and ready access to the speak with dead spell. An ancient dragon that's been true polymorphed into a halfling and is desperate to get back to their original self, but so far all attempts have failed (I have something similar for an upcoming character, but not so glamorous).

If the world was fairly low-magic or rare-magic, then being an ancient elf might be truly unique. In typical D&D, there's a ton of options to accomplish the exact same thing.

I know I often try and make sure that my characters are in positions to be highly informed about the world, because I am a DM and I am highly informed about the game.

I just try to keep my meta-knowledge to myself. As do the others at my table. It led to an amusing time when we were playing Icewind Dale and we were all saying variants of "Who is this "Drizzt" of which you speak? I have not heard of this individual," while giggling like loons.

Their description also doesn't say it is horrible, or even all that bad. So... I'd say it is up to the players and the DM about how good the memory of the character is. I know in my homebrew I did a weird thing with elven memory based off of a sign I saw while driving, but in general, it is up to be determined.

So this is OK to homebrew, but it's not OK to homebrew being lorekeepers or great chefs.

Perhaps a little bit, but the melancholy comes from the weight of ages, that's the point.

As someone who's been dealing chronic depression for most of my life, I strongly disagree.

The melancholy up above? I mean... that was supposed to be obvious. Weight is a burden. The weight of ages often refers to the burden of things like out-living your peers.

You, the DM need to describe it so I, the player, get that impression.

I've had quite a lot of people who wanted to be incredibly good crafters. Not usually stone-smithing, because most groups travel and stone is heavy, but... I think I can say at least one character in the last five groups? Feels about right.

And I've had tons of halflings in my games. Three out of five in one of my current games. I knew a guy in college who only played halflings when playing D&D, unless he could play a kender instead.

It just goes to show that what one person finds incomprehensibly boring, another finds fun and exciting.

Again, yeah, humans in the real world are impressive. I get that. Really, I do. It is one of the reasons I despise Ancient Alien theories, because they belittle human achievement by saying it was all done by aliens.

But... 90 ft? Sure, the Mror Hold probably took more time and more people, but that doesn't change the fact that if I have my scaling even close to correct, the eyeball on that carving is 90 ft. They are on vastly different scales Yes, the man who is carving that face over four years is very impressive for a human being, and I have mad respect for what he is doing. That city carved into a mountain is incredibly impressive...

But you need to keep pushing those goalposts even further. I get it.

But part of what makes them impressive is that we have a hard time putting that much time and effort into something. Four years when you only live til 80 or so is a big investment of time. Dwarves could live up to 800,

Dwarfs have a lifespan of about 350 years, not 800. Even elves don't normally live 800 years. Also, that Crazy Horse monument has taken decades, most of which was by a single individual. You show me a dwarf statue of that size made by a single dwarf and I'll be impressed.

And yes, dwarfs make awesome things. That doesn't mean that the world would be vastly different if you didn't include them. Other races would make equally awesome things instead.

four years on a project is much more normal for them. We have a single city carved out of a mountain?

No, there are lots. And other amazing wonders.

I know nothing about Birthright. I didn't even know it was a DnD setting.

Eberron and Darksun are specifically written to break all the conventions and lore. Would you accept that all Elves are petty thieves?

They get a bonus to Dexterity and wood elves are really good at hiding. They would make good rogues. In fact, even though people think of elves as being good spellcasters, they're really specced for roguing. Or maybe rangering.

Because that is the lore I was told for Darksun.

Elf

On Athas, elves are a nomadic race of herders, raiders, peddlers, and thieves. The dunes and steppes of Athas are home to thousands of tribes of nomadic elves. While each tribe is very different culturally, the elves within them remain a race of long-limbed sprinters given to theft, raiding, and...

darksun.fandom.com

But again, you're proving my point: you're so caught up in Realms/Greyhawk lore that you can't even seem to understand that the races could be different.

Do people accept that all gnomes are part of a massive spy organization?

Depends on what conspiracies you believe in. (Note: this is a joke.)

Because they are in Eberron. Yes, there is halfling lore in those two settings that is interesting. Dinosaur riding ancestor worshippers is a very different take on halflings... so different that basically nothing of the PHB halfling remains. The cannibals of Dark Sun... that's all I know about them. They are savage, tribal cannibals.... and cannibal is even a misnomer, because they don't eat halflings, they eat everyone else. So, they are basically... any tribal monster race in the game, which again removes all of the PHB lore.

Yes, and? Why is it a bad thing to not have cookie-cutter races?

Generic regional gods that would also be worshiped by any halflings in the area, because we are explicitly told that in FR halflings do not have a unique culture?

And yet they have unique gods. The only human god that halflings ever seem to care about is Tymora.

Yes. I 'd say that those people who try to claim that there is unifying human pantheon written into FR or Greyhawk in the same manner that there is a unifying halfling or dwarven pantheon are wrong. This is major reason that I wrote my own setting, because of the lack of human gods who are not regionally locked.

So you are right and everyone else has been wrong for decades now.

Is there a point to talking to you about this?

So how do you portray that in the setting? How does all the bad things that happens to a halfling PC not make them the most unlucky halfling in the world? "Lucky" as a character or racial trait is horrendous. You need to bend over backwards to make it not warp every single thing in the entire setting.

How do you portray any other person succeeding on a save, ability check, or attack roll? If a PC has an ability to affect the roll of the die from any other means--such as by adding bardic inspiration, or using a diviner's die--how do you portray that?

Then do the exact same thing with the halfling.

And yet, when people describe halflings as being brave... they describe them as immune to fear. As laughing in the face of dragons and cheerfully entering the tomb of horrors with not a care in the world. They describe their luck as being omnipresent and overwhelmingly good. In the previous thread there was a massive discussion about this idea that halfling luck prevents their villages from every being attacked by any major force. Nothing actually that bad can happen to them because they are lucky. They can trip down a hill and faceplant in a dragon's hoard and it is fine for them to take it because the dragon died of indigestion days ago.

I guess those people haven't actually read the text, then.

And yet... in the game, in actual play, that can't happen. In fact, if a halfling never rolls a 1, they are no more lucky than the elf, dwarf, human or tiefling who didn't roll a 1. Them being this super lucky race never matters.

Gasp! People misinterpreted the rules! Or made a joke that got turned into a meme! Oh noes! This is a thing that has never happened before in D&D!

And the other characters also have good reason to not RP fear. They can also be brave individuals, bold individuals, and so in the game, in actual play, until magical fear comes up... the halfling is no braver than anyone else.

Yes, and that's up to them, if they want to.

That's the issue. That's what makes it hard to portray in the game. Not that I don't understand what bravery is, but that... everyone wants to be brave and so the halfling is no braver than anyone else, unless I use mechanics to take away player agency and tell the raging barbarian "Sorry, you failed a moral check, Kregor Skullcrusher who loves fighting more than living is overwhelmed from fear at the battle going against them. These monsters are just that scary. Guess you should have played a halfling. They are brave."

It's not even remotely difficult to play or portray.

Step One: Get players to think about things that might frighten their PCs. "I'm scared of bugs" is an example.

Step Two: Ask players to portray that fear. If necessary, assure them that portraying that fear is for RP purposes and won't cause them a mechanical penalty.

Step Three: Profit. By having a more RP-intensive game.

Great, mechanical rules. Awesome.

What does that mean in the actual reality of the game world? How do I show that? Because I can regurgitate mechanics just fine, but that doesn't solve the problem I'm presenting.



I see. Just have the players solve the problem for me. And if they don't or can't.... then what? Just assume it doesn't matter?

Players are supposed to play their characters and describe what and how their characters are doing. If they choose to not describe how they get past something, that's up to them. If you want to have your game be more than just "I hit and do 8 damage" then it's up to you to encourage them to describe how they do things.

And "they can bend like cats" is very different from "they have nose hair". I can also assume that halflings breath through their skin. The text doesn't say, but we can make assumptions.

Don't be obtuse here.

 

[Faolyn]

Don't forget that winged elves (called "avariel") appeared in the oft-maligned PHBR8 The Complete Book of Elves (affiliate link).

They were in a UA as well, along with grugrach elves, but (fortunately) the avarial weren't actually included in MTF.

 

[Faolyn]

I will say that half-lineages can be tough to do right. PF2 has half-elves and half-orcs as an add-on to your main race, and the only difference between a half-orc and a human is that the half-orc has darkvision.

Hopefully a 6e would make them more interesting. Personally, I like the idea of half-whatevers that aren't also half-human.

 

[Whizbang Dustyboots]

Not ancestor worship in the real-life sociological sense

Probably not the term to use, then.

 

[rmcoen]

Just as a mental image - and one that informs my homebrew worlds:

• Elves: bowyers/archers, forest dwellers. Arts and longevity; sometimes philosophy. Airy.
• Dwarves: smiths (weapon, armor, precious metals), warriors (but "defender", not "conqueror"). Drinkers, and concerned about honor. Earthy.
• Gnomes: artificers and alchemists, tinkerers and fey jokesters. Scientists, but also most likely to breach the Far Realm. Abssent-minded professor.
• Goblins: evil vicious "rats". anywhere there are towns, there are goblins nearby or underneath. Chaotic Selfish personified, with a healthy (?) helping of Sadism. Com[ete for space with "good" races. In my current world, the "dominant" civilization!
• Kobolds: dragon-worshipping mining minions. In one world, also powerful shamen.
• Warforged: These are placeholders for each world's idea of sentient constructs. In one, the PC warforged was unique; in another, the PC warforged was unusual, but no more so than any other thing in a magical world.
• Tielflings: Only exist if there's a backstory in the world for the ancestral "deal with the devil" homeland. Somtimes, they are unique like a warforged, not a "Race" as much as a "cast out hybrid".
• Aasimar: See "Tiefling".
• Dragonborn: sometimes slaves of the dragons, sometimes magical creations, sometimes "unique cast-out hybrid".
• Human: What everyone else thinks are "neutral, vicious rats" -- the standard by which everything else is measured, spread everywhere, get underfoot, need to be weeded out every few centuries, mostly concerned only with the happiness of their own lives, but with the potential for exemplars that exceed any other race. I.e. default PC race.
• Orcs: Usually the go-to evil version of Humans. [In my current campaign, by design choice, they don't - and never did - exist.]
• Halfbreeds: Half-Elfs, Half-Orcs, Dwelves, Elcs, whatever... hybrids always caught between their parent societies (I see you over there, Tanis!); sometimes accepted, sometimes not, depends on the society. My own PC right now had a happy home life with elf mom and human dad (until dad died and mom lost interest), and was a respected shopkeeper in his hometown until Story..

What's missing from that list? Oh, right... Halflings. [Okay, also a whole host of edge-case creatures like aarakocra, kenku, rabbitfolk, etc.]

In my mental picture of a (mostly) bipedal humanoid world, there just isn't a default picture of where halflings fit in. Gnomes are from the Fey; eladrin are "Fey-er" elves. But "short lucky humans" isn't a biological/societal niche that makes sense to me. Though I might be virtually stoned for saying it, Kender make sense more than any other "halfling" concept! I can see a Loki/Trickster type god throwing in a lithe careless/carefree thieving race "just to spice things up"; I don't ever see any god (including Evolution) saying "let me make a sedentary race of half-height farmers that are likely to get stoned/fat/drunk". Unless, I guess, I specifically created such a diety (like the OP said), who then specifically created the halflings... but then... I see them all getting wiped out (enslaved?) by any of the above races.

Maybe, with some tinkering, they become strongly water-based - like some lore tried to do - and they become master sailors (merchants and traders), finding a niche on the water than no other race fills. I would need to lean heavily into that, though, and throw away any other "common" concepts; halflings would become the "watery" match to the gut-instinct "earthy" and "airy" dwarves and elves. (Maybe Gnomes are the "fiery"?). But then... why do they need to be halflings at all?

 

[Faolyn]

then what do they make?

I dunno. They're not so egotistical as to demand that everyone knows that they made the thing.

In seriousness, though, halflings weren't even allowed to be spellcasters other than clerics until 3rd edition so they couldn't make any items until then. Most magic items are legacy items, with relatively few that are new to this edition.

With dwarfs, who had the same problem, they only have a tiny number of rare, very rare, or artifact-level items. Nothing more everyday.