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

[Paul Farquhar]

Really? Wow. Now, do you feel that this is normal among game tables or an outlier?

Pretty sure it's an outlier, but still, it exists.

It's reasonable to suppose that a group of friends tends to be of a similar mind.

 

[Hussar]

Huh. My PHB has about as much lore as the other races. My MToF has a section on them which includes wording similar to your sainted firbolgs about people simply not finding their settlements that you ranted about the last time.

Maybe a troll ate those pages?

"Sainted" firbolgs? "ranted"? Good grief. I make a couple of posts every ten pages or so, and I'm ranting?

There's trolling going on, that's certainly true.

Yeah, it's time for me to bow out. I catch up, see the same non-arguments being put forward again and again and then the ad-hominems start in. Not worth it. I mean, I KNOW how this is going to play out anyway. When 6e finally comes along, they'll include halflings, same as every other edition, because the good folks like the ones in this thread, would lose their freaking minds if we tried even a little bit to unchain ourselves from the rotting corpse of Tolkien and D&D Tradition. It's just never, ever going to happen. So, we are stuck with the same, tired, boring old crap, edition after edition, becoming less and less relevant to genre fans as time goes on and gamers will just continue to ignore the PHB in order to play stuff that's actually interesting and the same tired old DM's will bitch and moan about the "Star Wars Cantina"ization of D&D.

And so it goes for another ten years...

 

[Paul Farquhar]

Since setting specific cultures and history overrides the PHB anyway, there's little point in doing that.

True, although I think my players are largely influenced by outside ideas (especially Critical Role, Terry Pratchett and anime) rather than the lore I info-dump on them!

 

[Oofta]

"Sainted" firbolgs? Good grief.
...

The poster likes firbolgs for some reason and not halflings. One of their big complaints about halflings was that magic causes people to not find their remote settlements, which is also part of the lore of firbolgs. Just odd that it's a big issue for one race but not another.

Whether the base PHB including some concepts of Tolkien is good or bad Tolkien is still one of the most widely known settings that has been copied by many authors. I don't think it's good or bad.

 

[Crimson Longinus]

True, although I think my players are largely influenced by outside ideas (especially Critical Role, Terry Pratchett and anime) rather than the lore I info-dump on them!

This is also very true. For example I was never interested in the firbolg until I saw them in Critical Role. But that definitely is not their standard version, Mercer changed them quite a bit and put his own spin on them. And that's what a good GM does.

 

[Yora]

True, although I think my players are largely influenced by outside ideas (especially Critical Role, Terry Pratchett and anime) rather than the lore I info-dump on them!

That of course too. Which makes them not bringing PHB assumptions into the campaign as well actually a good thing.

The whole thing is the reason I ended up populating my setting entirely with new peoples with their own appearances and names. (That I used character stats for goliaths, tritons, and high elves for some of them when I ran a 5th edition game doesn't need any attention drawn to it.)

 

[Don Durito]

This is also very true. For example I was never interested in the firbolg until I saw them in Critical Role. But that definitely is not their standard version, Mercer changed them quite a bit and put his own spin on them. And that's what a good GM does.

Firbolgs were the most popular race in my recent game. I had two of them! Of course that was after I reskinned them, slightly tweaked their racial abilities and moved their Wisdom bonus to Charisma and said they were Ogre Magi - with a back story borrowed from the OSR setting Yoon Suin.

I will definitely be putting Ogre Magi on the table again.

 

[Yora]

And here I sit, not even knowing what in all the planes a firbolg might be.

 

[Paul Farquhar]

And here I sit, not even knowing what in all the planes a firbolg might be.

It's like a giant halfling with floppy ears.

 

[Vaalingrade]

So, sod houses that people in paleolithic times built?

That is a purposefully inaccurate characterization.