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

[Oofta]

My responses to Faolyn might be incredibly long, but not my owns to anyone else. And, yes, got tired of repeating myself to her, so I started just telling her I had already told her something. Those posts were already long enough, as you indicated.

Oh, also, I find it hilarious that you are telling me (a schoolteacher) that I don't think schoolteachers are important. Glad to know that I chose a job I think isn't important.

And really, you undermine yourself in attacking me. Because, what did I say that I would have liked to see to make halfling lore better? A better origin myth other than "they were found" and maybe leaning into them being the diplomats and negotiators of the world. The peacekeepers who act as a neutral third party. Make them lorekeepers who go around gathering stories and recording them with a purpose.

Such a terrible thing to ask for, full of conquering nations and being fierce warriors and making combat items. Oh... or none of that. Almost as though you don't understand my position at all and are just lashing out at what you think I want.

Yeah, disagreeing with you and not understanding what you want or why anyone else should care is "attacking you".

In any case there's no point so keep tilting at those windmills.

 

[Faolyn]

I love seeing how Doctorbadwolf, Crimson Loginous and Oofta all liked your post. Almost as if all the people who are arguing against me see this as some sort of point for them.

I like firbolgs. I'm playing one now. But they have almost no culture or identity.

Going off the top of my head.

They do have a culture. I remember something about The Code and how they try and do good deeds in secret, because doing good things with an idea of rewards isn't truly good. They live in fully harmony with nature, even getting the ability to naturally speak with plants. They are a large race of mysterious forest dwellers, who try and resolve conflicts through discussion when they can.

That is... mostly incorrect.

Not so much. They do hidden good deeds for their forest homes and the animals within, not for people. They actively avoid people and politics. They only approach people who enter their forests. Then they tell them to leave, even giving them supplies to get them gone faster. If the interlopers seem evil, the firbolgs attack.

They have ties to giant lore that I am planning on expanding and working on, making them, goliaths and giants a single unit, and expanding their lore.

So, you're homebrewing them. Cool, cool.

Are you satisified with my answers or are you going to demand that I now must like halflings because I like Firbolgs? It'd be an interesting change from being told I hate nice races that don't like conflict.

No, but your hypocrisy here is definitely telling.

 

[Whizbang Dustyboots]

You know what would help? If they actually stated anywhere that halflings filled that role. That'd be awesome.

No disagreement.

 

[Faolyn]

So, your defense of your position that I should just "homebrew it" and that excuses any lacks in the writing is that homebrewing lore is different from homebrewing mechanics?

Homebrewing lore can be quite complicated and hard to do, so I really don't think they are different enough for any bad lore to be excusable but bad mechanics aren't.

Bad lore isn't going to possibly break the game, like bad mechanics can.

So, you are taking my literal reading of the lore from the books and from people's descriptions, and using that to assume that I don't understand the mechanics.

Well, congrats, you have assumed completely incorrectly. You are massively off-base, and the fact that yet again you are accusing me of not knowing what the word nimble means, when I heavily demonstrated the problem with the Halfling Nimbleness ability (the gelatinous cube they can move through, even in an open field) and how it does not in fact seem to represent "nimbleness" as you seem to imply.

You didn't demonstrate anything. You said "how do I portray it?" and "why can't a 20th-level, 20 Dex human do the same thing." Neither of those is a demonstration--especially since a human of any level can do it if they can make an Acrobatics check.

Actually, I have said it. You just weren't listening.

IT is bad because halflings are completely disconnected from the world. They may be in every human city, but they fulfill all the roles that humans do within those cities, and if you find a halfling only area... it is a complete tonal shift from the rest of the world.

Except they're not disconnected from the world. They have their roles to play. You just refuse to admit that they have those roles because you find them boring. And those halflings that live in other people's cities have a connection to those people and that city.

If I had unlimited power to rewrite lizardfolk, yes I would remove the lore that venerates stupidity and says that intelligence is a curse upon their race. Look at their creation myth, the story of Kecuala and Semuanya. Seems like it was Greyhawk Lore, but they still mention Semuanya as the diety for the Lizardfolk. Their fall from being a single divine being came about solely because they thought too much, and Semuanya is waiting for them to stop being so intelligent so that they can became their mate again.

All that came from an Ecology article, which I don't think is definitively canon, and I can't find any hint that it's included in 5e lore. It's actually fairly interesting--it's a fall from grace due to the gaining of knowledge. Very biblical.

I phrased that poorly then. I simply meant the desire to create is put in them by Moradin and their devotion to him. My apologies, I was wrong in how I said that.

Alright, fine.

But... they are a very religious race. And religion being important = religious. But storytelling =/= lorekeeping.

When the book literally says halflings gather lore--even if they don't do so actively--that's lorekeeping.

No, my defintion does not assume that the adventure will end in violence.

So, halflings who travel nomadically, looking for excitement, are adventurers then.

But giving money to the poor is a heroic trait. A good trait.

It doesn't make one a hero, though. Especially if one is also murdering people for bad reasons.

And yet that isn't the name of the trope, and that isn't the impression that is being given. There is a difference between not surrendering because you want to kill more people and not surrendering do to your ideals.

Both require courage, though.

And you are wrong, and I'm getting sick of having to defend myself, when I have done so repeatedly. If I can't even fathom anyone liking a nice person, then why do I like gnomes and firbolgs so much?

Then you should have no problem with the fact that halfling lore paints them as nice. Instead, you just mocked them for being so wonderful and pure (even though nobody claims they are).

Might be, but they are also not closely related concepts to many people.

I've never known anyone who wasn't at least aware of the trope, even if they didn't subscribe to it.

My insistence is because just about every single race in the forgotten realms has a story of where they came from. Whether it is from the creator races, or the illithid, or gods, or anything else. Every major race has a point that says "this is how they came to be"

So? It's a myth. Not every group of people have to actually have an origin myth. And again, that's the Realms, so it has no bearing anywhere else.

Why should the Player's Handbook be filled with lore about only one setting when it's supposed to be a generic guide?

I've said this a few times, but Humans are the exception. Because they are also the race of people that are playing this game. And making this game. And so the designers have very firmly refused to state such things for humanity.

The exception, along with halflings, goblins, and the planetouched, who, originally, just had various fiends/celestials/elementals in their history and weren't actually a unified people. A lot of exceptions.

Okay, but as you are listing option after option after option... but that doesn't make the ancient elf not a trope, not a thing that is commonly done, and not a point of their existance as a race. Just because people can speak to the dead doesn't mean speaking to an ancient living being is the exact same.

It means that having elves provides nothing unique that can't be done with any other race. One of your complaints about halflings is exactly that.

I never said it was BAD to homebrew halflings being lorekeepers. I said that it WAS HOMEBREW. As in, it isn't what is written about them right now. Their lore doesn't state it in the book at this moment. Does that mean that it is wrong to homebrew it? NO! So, kindly stop making accusations to try and shame me out of my arguments.

But if you're fine with homebrewing things for other races--like firbolgs--then there's no reason why you're not fine with homebrewing anything for halflings. If anything, their supposed lack of lore gives you more leeway with them. Which is a good thing, because it would be boring if all halflings at all tables were the same.

By referencing the same picture and the same standard I've had this entire time? Wow, I didn't know staying in the same place was moving goalposts.

You: Dwarfs can make amazing stone constructions that humans could never do.

Me: <shows picture of Coral Castle, made by a single person who managed to tow, arrange, and carve over a thousand tons of stone, all by himself.>

You: OK, that's cool, but dwarfs made the face of Lord Mror! No human could do that. You'll never find a picture of humans carving an entire mountain into a face!

Me: <shows a picture of the Crazy Horse monument under construction, done mostly by a single person, and which is currently almost 90 feet tall, as well as a picture of Kailash Temple, which was carved, top down, out of a mountain, is over 100 feet tall, and is one one of over 1,500 similar structures in India.>

You: OK, that's cool, but the face of Lord Mror is so much bigger! No human could do that.

That's the definition of moving goalposts.

(Also, that's Eberron, a world that according to you, is designed to change the standard races and therefore doesn't count. What dwarfs is other settings have done anything similar? Closest I can think of are those asteroids that got carved into Spelljamming ships.

They could, but the point of dwarves is that they are the ones making these awesome things. Sadly, they don't have a gallery of dwarven statues with the sculptors named attached, so I can't show you a dwarf doing that exact same thing or more. I can only tell you that... yeah, it totally sounds like something a dwarf would do.

Only because of lore that started when there were only four PC races and that was never updated when other, equally crafty races started being made.

Or maybe, just maybe, as I keep repeating myself. I'm looking to the generic lore (which matches FR and Greyhawk) and not accounting for the lore that specifically breaks everything on purpose.

Which means that not finding lore you like is your own fault because you are deliberately refusing to use it.

It's like if you were hungry, and I hand a bunch of food you liked and offered it to you, and you refused to accept it because it wasn't already at your table and anyway, it's different than what you're used to.

I mean, I literally say that I was told elves are thieves in darksun, and you post the elf entry for darksun that mentions that they are thieves, then accuse me of not even understanding that races can be different in different settings... like elves being theives in darksun, the literal example I gave myself.

They're more than just thieves.

Or maybe you could have more than one elf culture in your world, and one of those cultures are thieves.

I wonder if giving an example of a race being different in darksun was somehow a completel fluke, since I can't even comprehend the possibilty of a race being different in a setting like darksun.

Maybe I didn't write that well, so here goes: You are unwilling to accept such differences in any world outside of Dark Sun. You can't seem to imagine a more typical D&D world where elves were labeled as thieves. Because such a thing would "break D&D lore."

It isn't. But to break a mold, the mold most first exist. And the thing I have an issue with is the mold. As you keep waving your arms and screaming "but someone broke the mold" you are missing that that isn't the point, since I'm talking about the mold that was there to be broken.

Yes. It's been broken. That means you are not required to use it, especially if it wasn't a mold you liked in the first place.

You seemed to narrow in on it as some sort of point to prove me wrong, and if you want to phrase it that way feel free. But I'm just pointing out that within the context I laid out, you did not prove me wrong. Unless you want to claim that Lolth is a human goddess.

Why not! You seem to think there are no human gods!

And, again, if halflings are supposed to be lucky, and they just... succeed like everyone else. Then they don't seem to be lucky.

And again, they are less likely to fail, because when they roll a 1, they get a chance to reroll. Their luckiness prevents catastrophic failure. It's basically situational advantage. Describe it exactly like you would for anyone else. Only instead of getting the advantage because they were really talented or the circumstances were very good, it's because they were very lucky.

So, I'm just supposed to ignore peoples positions because you don't like them?

It's not a question of "positions." It's not even a question of disagreeing with a house rule they made. People who claimed that halflings never fail or can never be afraid are simply wrong by both RAW and RAI.

So, how am I supposed to show that halflings are the brave race is no one else is acting scared and everyone is brave?

Have brave halfling NPCs?

Most humans, elves, dwarfs, whatever, are not that brave. Or at least, they're not the kind of brave that gets them to go into a dark, monster-filled dungeon in order to kill things and take their stuff. Adventurers, the ones in your party, are that kind of brave; they're exceptions to the rule. Most halflings are that kind of brave, however.

So if your entire party is filled with brave people, that's OK. They're supposed to be that sort of brave.

So... if I'm playing with a halfling, I need to go out of my way to have personal fears for every player. That way that specific player can RP fear when I put that element in. And then the Halfling doesn't have to because they won't be scared? Or will they also RP fear... making them the exact same as everyone else...

So, I am supposed to tell the players to describe it for me. That's how I am supposed show it in the world. Make the players do it instead.

Nothing like succeeding by passing the buck

And this is why I feel you're either being deliberately obtuse or you're being a troll, because these are things you should know. You should know that adventurers are supposed to be unusual in comparison to regular folk. You should know that you, the DM, do not dictate how your players act or react unless they're under some sort of magical compulsion or rules exception that specifically calls for it. You should know it's up to the players to decide if their characters have fears and how they react to those fears. You should know to encourage your players to role play their traits, whether racial or not. You should know how to show traits in NPCs. I have a hard time believing that you don't know these things, unless you're a really bad DM. But I've read enough of your posts in other threads that you've always seemed to be a good one. So what the hell is going on here, that you only have this problem with this one race, to the point that you can't seem to understand their basic functions and declare them an inherently bad race?

 

[Mecheon]

So what the hell is going on here, that you only have this problem with this one race, to the point that you can't seem to understand their basic functions and declare them an inherently bad race?

Y'know, I'm going to drag back one of my earlier points where I said that Halflings have a bit of the 'Later 3.5e race' to how heavy they go into their niche.

Remember how 3.5e had all sorts of races at narrower and narrower niches? Like, let's look at the Expanded Psionics Handbook as this had one of the worst. You've got Dromite (Interesting bug-folk), Half Giants (This is where they became "Goliaths but with psionics" that they'd keep into 4E incidentally) and then, the bad one. The Xeph. What are the Xeph? They're off-brand Gith who exist to be soulknives and/or make Protoss jokes from Starcraft. That's their whole thing. They delve too hard into that. And 3.5E had -tons- of these races. Halflings have that whole "This is a niche that needs filling and, we are filling this niche no matter what" and don't have much room to move out of that niche

Mind my whole thing in this argument is "I want dragonborn and tieflings promoted more and halflings less as reflective of their popularity among the fanbase and also to make people who want Dragonborn and Tieflings removed to have to face that knowledge" soooo my position on this is not the best out there

 

[Chaosmancer]

This???
This???
Is your proof??

Literary criticism??

Applied to D&D settings??

In your book, for simple folks to be appropriate avenues for make believe in a make-believe setting, it must be in contrast to some make-believe overarching corrupting evil?

This is extremely silly. Just...extremely silly. And it's also weirdly elitist and arrogant..
And again..really really silly.

What part is arrogant? Saying the Lord of the Rings was written with different themes than Dungeons and Dragons? I'd call that more self-evident than anything else.

Lord of the Rings has its tropes and themes. They are decent tropes and themes, but the hobbits and their portrayal was meant only for those themes. They weren't meant or designed to be taken into DnD. Call me elitist, arrogant and silly as much as you want, none of those things dispute my argument.

They are, yet again, ad hominem attacks meant to discredit me, and that is poor argumentation.

For example, the only thing you say in response to my point is that "for simple folks to be appropriate avenues for make-believe" and that immediately proves you weren't paying attention. I wasn't talking about simple folk. I was talking about hobbits. Fairly rich and well off, in their shire disconnected from the rest of the world, with their elevensie's breakfast and pipeweed. What was it they said, the seven meals a day? Most "simple folk" only eat three meals a day, sometimes less. And, what exactly was Bilbo's "blue collar" job before he was hired as a burglar? Wasn't he just... independently wealthy and had no job? I certainly don't remember any mention of work he did, or a boss he walked out on. And before people start getting on me, we do know they had a farmer and a miller, so jobs were a thing for hobbits.

But right, I'm against simple folk in make-believe stories because I recognize that Dungeons and Dragons doesn't take place in Middle-Earth. How arrogant and conceited of me.

 

[jayoungr]

How about any impact on the societal fabric of the world at all?

Halflings have a little impact. But I still don't think it's a requirement. I just don't.

 

[Chaosmancer]

Yeah, disagreeing with you and not understanding what you want or why anyone else should care is "attacking you".

In any case there's no point so keep tilting at those windmills.

Not even going to acknowledge you were wrong... yet again, about what my position was. Just "tilting at windmills" huh?

 

[Chaosmancer]

I like firbolgs. I'm playing one now. But they have almost no culture or identity.


That is... mostly incorrect.

Not so much. They do hidden good deeds for their forest homes and the animals within, not for people. They actively avoid people and politics. They only approach people who enter their forests. Then they tell them to leave, even giving them supplies to get them gone faster. If the interlopers seem evil, the firbolgs attack.


So, you're homebrewing them. Cool, cool.


No, but your hypocrisy here is definitely telling.

Seems you might want to look and see if there is more lore for them. Such as following this link and scrolling for their government, society, religion, the code, I mean... seems like they do have a culture and identity, though it is shifting in 5e DnD. As I have acknowledged

Firbolg

Firbolgs (pronounced: /ˈfɪərboʊlg/ FEER-bolg[12] listen) were a reclusive race of giant-kin who preferred to avoid contact with other sentient races.[6][3][13] They were both the most intelligent[14][13] and the most powerful of the giant-kin.[6][4][9] Firbolgs resembled humans,[6][4][9][3] and...

forgottenrealms.fandom.com

 

[Minigiant]

Halflings have a little impact. But I still don't think it's a requirement. I just don't.

It's definitely not a requirement.

It's just weird one of the TOP 4 ICONIC AND COMMON RACES that WOTC pushes has weak lore and no worldbuilding impact.

If D&D were a novel or movie, every critic would rag on halflings for not making sense.
The prominence of Hobbits in the "LOTR story" makes sense as presented.
The prominence of Halflings in the "D&D story" makes no sense as presented.