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

[lingual]

As far as I’ve seen, the only people suggesting to errata halflings out of the PHB were halfling fans doing so sarcastically.

If that isn’t the case, link the post.

I'm not going back and doing that. Plenty of people said they should be in the Monster Manual instead of Players Handbook. If that's not good enough. Then I'm a liar and report me.

 

[Chaosmancer]

But that isn’t the same thing.

Sure it does.

Only if it’s magical fear, and they also roll against charm. This is a you thing, man. Not a system thing.

There isn't such a thing as non-magical fear in the base game. Supposedly it is in Ravenloft, but I haven't read the book yet. So gnomes would then be considered exceptionally brave until a few months ago?

I guess I just don't understand how something that potentially has zero impact on the game and never comes up (I mean, what do you do if you have a campaign where the player doesn't roll a 1 and never encounters magical fear?) is supposedly such an obvious and easy thing to make the core features of a race. And I'm just the only one who struggles with this.

 

[Mistwell]

Heh. Thanks, I guess? You're not the first person to say that, and I'm still not sure what an appropriate response to this would be.

I blame it on my being autistic. ASD is a major reason why I'm so into D&D and know as much about it as I do, as when I start to like something I tend to fixate on that and learn as much about it as I can and do that thing as much as I can. It makes it easy to be a passionate nerd.

At least one of the guys I've played with for most of the past 30 years has ASD, and he too is a font of knowledge about the game (and a very good role player.)

 

[Levistus's_Leviathan]

I'm not going back and doing that. Plenty of people said they should be in the Monster Manual instead of Players Handbook. If that's not good enough. Then I'm a liar and report me.

I know that I've just recommended considering moving them to not be one of the core races in the game, or possibly making Humans be able to be Small or Medium (like Ravenloft Lineages and UA Rabbitfolk and Owlfolk) and just say "Small Humans are sometimes called 'halflings', etc, etc". I know some people have recommended moving them to the Monster Manual, which I kind of assumed meant a future Volo's/Mordenkainen's-type book, which I would be fine with if that's what they meant.

 

[Chaosmancer]

The one that was like directly before mine and addressed the exact same thing.

This? "Except it feels like in the beginning it was "Halflings are close to Humans, and Gnomes are close to Dwarves". The only thing it feels like Halflings and Gnomes have is size."

I don't see what this has to do with the fact that you were claiming halflings make all the food for all the races? Though, that one was rather close, maybe a different one? Was it the one about halflings shouldn't be a sub-race of humans? Again, that doesn't seem to connect.

I'm sorry, I don't know which post you mean.

First off, if you have any player, regardless of what race they're playing, never roll a 1, I'd check their dice. So this point is moot.

No it isn't. I'm sorry but I've seen this a few times. I've seen this with people rolling digital dice. Sometimes the only 1 they roll is when they have advantage and it doesn't count anyways.

I mean, I guess if you are playing with the same person in the same campaign for years on end, and you somehow keep track of every single roll they ever make... it might show some sort of pattern, but 1's are actually decently rare. Not that surprising that sometimes someone doesn't roll one for a campaign.

Or, maybe it only happens once. Is that enough for the halfling to feel particularly lucky?

Then stop acting like you have no clue how to DM. And stop ignoring the answers people give you. We are giving you good answers. It's exceedingly clear that the only reason you don't like them is because then you wouldn't be able to complain about halflings.

You: But how do I show this?

Me: <gives description containing one or more ways to show that.>

You: But how do I show this?

Seriously. You are probably going to ignore this in favor of saying "but you are all claiming that I say this because I hate halflings and that's not true!" (like you've done every other time) but the reality is, your actions are showing the truth here. Simply put, I don't believe that you are willing to accept anything that might make halflings not-horrible in your eyes.

Your good answers have included "just say they were lucky when they succeed" and "have the players do it". I don't know where you get the idea that I'm acting like I don't know how to DM. I'm actually acting like I should be able to make scenarios or imagine scenes where a player's race can matter... but running into the problem of it only mattering less than 5% of the time, or not feeling particularly special in the way it is supposed to.

The following is a prime example of this:


Do you tell PCs who are playing dwarfs that they have to be gruff? Or PCs who are playing orcs that they have to be belligerent? If no, then don't tell a PCs who are playing halflings that they have to be superstitious. If yes, then you should stop telling your PCs how to roleplay their characters.

They're described as superstitious in MTF. If the player wants to follow that description, that's up to them.

So your "good answer" that I am acting like a person who doesn't know how to DM because I didn't agree with... relies on the player roleplaying their character as superstitious. And that way, the player, who knows that they are acting and their luck isn't tied to the halfling ability, will feel like their halfling is extra lucky?

Yeah, that is some great advice there. Real DM 301 stuff. Just hope the player does the work for you.

Well, oh wonderful DM who is so much better than me. What if the player doesn't decide that their halfling is supertitious... and doesn't feel like their character is lucky. What then? just ignore them?

At first, it looked like they failed. But they didn't, due to a stroke of good luck. I already explained this. It's up to you to describe how they didn't fail. That's what DMs do.

Yeah, I get that part. But do two times of mentioning a player getting lucky in say... three months of gaming really make the player feel like their character is supernaturally lucky? That's the problem point. Not that I don't understand the concept of describing a lucky break.

Yes, that's enough. Halflings will almost never, ever suffer from a critical failure. And to head you off: I don't mean, and never meant, "you the DM will almost never, ever have to roll on a nonexistent crit failure table."

And if you wanted to, you could have their luck come up in situations where there's no PC roll involved. Halfling's walking down a street, looks down, and there's a shiny gold piece at his feet. Lucky! Halfling's walking through the forest, her passive Per isn't high enough to notice the hiding bandit, you rolled for the bandit's to-hit but they failed, so you can say that the halfling paused to adjust her backpack just as an arrow strikes the tree right where her head would have been if she hadn't paused. Lucky!

This sort of narration is entirely up to you. Or you could just ignore it until it comes up in play, the way probably most DMs do with racial traits.

See, the one time we had a halfling in a different game... no, it wasn't enough for them to feel super lucky. In fact, I never once (and I was a player) felt like their character was extra lucky.

And you just did something that I asked about earlier. You gave the halfling player an extra gold piece, because they are lucky. I asked about doing that sort of thing. See, I worry that doing that feels like favoritism. After all, they just go an extra resource the other players didn't get. Is that really the right way to go with it? Giving them free things?

And yes, I can narrate people failing to hit the halfling as lucky. That is a consideration. But, also, doesn't that only really work in an ambush scenario? I mean, if the majority of the time the halfling player gets attacked, it is some lucky break, then it seems really weird, especially if I have to have control the character to manipulate them into position to describe them luckily being missed.

And sure, I could ignore it... but since you seemed so appalled at the idea that I find this ability difficult to balance in the narrative, then clearly most DMs must also need to go back to DM 101 and look up what the word lucky means in the dictionary.

You can still describe the near-catastrophic failure anyway. I already gave the suggestion of falling in a pit and narrowing missing the giant spike that would have skewered the halfling.

So... we don't use crit-fails, but I should describe an avoided crit-fail anyways? Then when a different player rolls a 1, what then? For the halfling it was almost this devastating thing, but for the next player it isn't?

That's inconsistent.

Then they suffer the same consequences as a normal failure, but you describe it in a way that makes it seem particularly unlucky. The halfling catastrophically failed a save against dragonfire. The flames burned off all his hair: head hair, eyebrows, foot hair, the works. He's going to look like a doof until it grows back. Unlucky!

You could do this exact same thing to someone who isn't a halfling and has advantage or disadvantage and both dice roll 1.

Yeah, no. I'm not going to alter a character just to try and make the halfling who is supposed to be super lucky, appear for a moment to be super unlucky, because their signature ability didn't activate properly.

That comes across as just petty and mean. Maybe it would work at a specific table, but not at mine.

So I'm to take from this that you never describe how well or badly a PC did on a task, depending on their die roll. Do you just say "you succeed" or "you fail" and that's it? How... boring.

If you take margins of success into consideration when you narrate the results of a role--and I don't mean mechanics, I mean pure narration--then you can darn well narrate a halfling having a stroke of luck.

I do describe degrees of success and failure. For everyone. I narrate results probably too much at times, but I have a lot of players who don't. But you missed the entire thing I was saying. Half your "great answers" seemed to depend on a mechanic I don't use. Because it is a homebrew rule we specifically dislike.

If this is the extent of your "superior GMing" then maybe you need to stop insulting my own skills, because at least I don't assume you use optional rules.

I would be happy if I had an ability that allowed me to reroll 1s. Are you saying you wouldn't be? Also, do you actually have players who say "I have this racial ability, but I don't like how the DM (fails to) describes it, so this race sucks"? Or are you just making stuff up to be contrary?

Of course I would like that ability. Seems like a good ability. Does it seem like enough to be a supernaturally lucky person whose entire race is known for being supernaturally lucky?

No. It really doesn't. It just seems like a nice meta, safety net.

Yes, you should tell your players to roleplay their own characters. That's what players are supposed to do. Why is this hard for you to understand?

If it all relied on the players RPing, then how was my struggle with it bad GMing? Heck, you should have been asking what I was even talking about because the GM plays no part in these abilities, because the players do all the work.

There's no question about when a halfling's Luck comes into play: when a 1 is rolled.

There's no question about when a halflings Brave comes into play: when another creature uses an ability on the halfling that causes the Frightened condition.


No, they don't. All creatures that are frightened react exactly the same:

• A frightened creature has disadvantage on ability checks and attack rolls while the source of its fear is within line of sight.
• The creature can't willingly move closer to the source of its fear.

Halflings have advantage on saves against this.

Since you already said that you have homebrewed alcoholic drinks that you require some drinkers to save vs. poison, then you are in a prime position to homebrew some events--such as seeing an entire army of gnolls, to use a previous example of yours--that you require some people who see the army to save vs. being frightened because of it.

And you know what? You can treat this exactly like you would treat an elf's resistance to charm. You don't narrate them being able to resist attempts to befriend them through nonmagical means, right? So why would you need to claim that halflings are braver than others in the face of nonmagical sources of fright? If you don't roleplay elves as being inherently resistant to nonmagical attempts to befriend them, then you don't have to roleplay halflings any differently.

(Unless that's why elves are so snotty and haughty. Their resistance to magical charms make them resistant to nonmagical attempts at friendship as well.)

Because while homebrewing that alcohol is a poison doesn't change anything. Homebrewing to make it so that a character is REQUIRED to be scared when seeing an army is taking away the player's control of their characters emotional reaction.

You understand that right? That's obvious?

And, why might I possibly need to showcase halflings as being unusually brave in non-magical situations? Oh... I don't know, it might be because everyone is constantly saying how halflings are unusually brave in non-magical situations. As though it was a defining part of their race.

Actually looking through the books, I'm surprised I don't see it there. So I guess my issue was that they aren't actually particularly brave, and are just inured against unnatural fear. So all those times people talked about halflings being halflings and doing things like happily walking into the Tomb of Horrors just to see what is there, they are wrong. Halflings aren't unusually brave. Just resistant to magical fear.

So let me introduce you to the fun nature of emotions. They're biological in nature. They can become stronger or flatter depending on things like certain mental illnesses (for instance, depression, anxiety, or bipolar disorder) or if you are on medication or taking drugs or alcohol. This is why I and many others take medication to control anxiety (a fear response).

Halflings have a biology that flattens the fear response. If you like, you can claim that they naturally produce higher quantities of gamma aminobutyric acid than other races do. But you know what happens when you do things like that:

So, wait. Which is it? Are halflings unusually brave? Or do they just resist magical fear? You were just asking me why I needed to even show that feature, and now you are trying to "introduce me to emotions" to show that they absolutely need to portray that feature.

Which is it? Is it not important, or is it important

(funnily, none of this actually addresses the actual concerns I put forth either)

That's because gnomes aren't unusually brave. They would as likely to run from a dragon as a human would be (unless the DM has decided dragonfear is magical. I miss the (Ex) and (Su) tags from 3x). What gnomes are is magic resistant. Magical attempts to frighten them don't work as well.

I would rule Dragon fear as magical. That's why the brave orcish barbarian who wants to die in glorious battle is running away from the dragon instead of fighting.

So, then gnomes would be unusually brave. Except they aren't. Which brings me right back to where I was and you avoiding answering anything I asked previously

No. And nobody has said you're a terrible person. It's because you keep talking about how they suck now and are bad now. You aren't saying "I don't like this about halflings, so what are some cool ways to get around that problem."

I'm not saying you are a terrible DM. I'm saying that if you can't use your imagination to figure out how to describe a thing that won't actually come up because you claim nobody plays halflings at your table, then you need to work on your skills.

And in telling me what skills to develop I've got a whole lot of you not understanding the questions I put forth and telling me to just have the players do it. After all, the players are in charge of their characters. Which is the problem with the whole "unusually brave" angle, that you just completely ignored in favor of asking if I even need to show it and telling me to homebrew it.

And I did offer ways to improve halflings, but no one cares about that, and so I'm caught constantly defending myself, not my arguments, myself, and then getting told that I should just put forth more solutions for people who seemingly don't care about that and want to just tell me how wrong I am for wanting to change anything and that everything should be completely the same and never change.

 

[Chaosmancer]

Who? Which is my point ... there are other authors. Other authors had and will continue to have influence on D&D. D&D is not Adventures in Middle Earth but Tolkien was the author of many of the founding concepts. Along with several other authors. Oh, and cheap plastic minis from Taiwan.

See, it is stuff like this that makes me agree with @Hussar , even if I feel like they are far too blunt.

You are putting Tolkien on a pedestal as the single most important fantasy writer of all time... and ignoring so much.

First of all, you are ignoring that Tolkien was writing in the aftermath of World War 1. Want to know why Martin seems to have a lesser cultural impact with his books than Tolkien? Let me introduce you to Television, Video Games and Facebook. That shattering of the consumer base and explosion of content plays a massive role in that point.

Heck, even if you tried you couldn't read every single fantasy book that is published over the past ten years and catch up.

But, back then? You could. Tolkien was popular for decades because there was so much less.

Additionally, I know it was edited in, but Bohandas had a really solid point in bringing up Journey to the West. Maybe you haven't heard about it, but anyone who dips into anime and Eastern Culture at all can't help but run into. It inspired characters from Goku in Dragonball, Naruto, One Piece, RWBY and dozens of other things you have never even heard of. And it was written hundreds of years before Tolkien.

And let us look at things like Avatar the Last Airbender. Massively popular and had a big impact on fantasy. But, fantasy itself is bigger now, and it is hard to make the kind of waves Tolkien did back when the pond was smaller.


Look, Tolkien was great. He left a big imprint. But dismissing literally everything that isn't Tolkien as lesser works is just... mind boggling. It completely ignores everything. There are entire genres of fantasy that have basically nothing to do with Tolkien. And they are producing quite fine works.

 

[Chaosmancer]

I'm not going back and doing that. Plenty of people said they should be in the Monster Manual instead of Players Handbook. If that's not good enough. Then I'm a liar and report me.

Plenty of people being... just Hussar. Maybe Mind of Tempest.

 

[Cadence]

See, it is stuff like this that makes me agree with @Hussar , even if I feel like they are far too blunt.

You are putting Tolkien on a pedestal as the single most important fantasy writer of all time... and ignoring so much.

First of all, you are ignoring that Tolkien was writing in the aftermath of World War 1. Want to know why Martin seems to have a lesser cultural impact with his books than Tolkien? Let me introduce you to Television, Video Games and Facebook. That shattering of the consumer base and explosion of content plays a massive role in that point.

Heck, even if you tried you couldn't read every single fantasy book that is published over the past ten years and catch up.

But, back then? You could. Tolkien was popular for decades because there was so much less.

Additionally, I know it was edited in, but Bohandas had a really solid point in bringing up Journey to the West. Maybe you haven't heard about it, but anyone who dips into anime and Eastern Culture at all can't help but run into. It inspired characters from Goku in Dragonball, Naruto, One Piece, RWBY and dozens of other things you have never even heard of. And it was written hundreds of years before Tolkien.

And let us look at things like Avatar the Last Airbender. Massively popular and had a big impact on fantasy. But, fantasy itself is bigger now, and it is hard to make the kind of waves Tolkien did back when the pond was smaller.


Look, Tolkien was great. He left a big imprint. But dismissing literally everything that isn't Tolkien as lesser works is just... mind boggling. It completely ignores everything. There are entire genres of fantasy that have basically nothing to do with Tolkien. And they are producing quite fine works.

From the mid-70s to late-80s D&D jelled into a thing with its own mythos. The elves, dwarves, dragons, gods, spellcasting, orcs, goblins, clerics, paladins, druids, barbarians etc...have become their own D&D thing. The DNA of that was in Appendix N of the 1e DMG (there's a thread from last year on a reduced Appendix N that highlights the most obvious ones D&D General - A shorter Appendix N). Those were the ones that most clearly pressed their finger prints into it before the clay started setting. And anything after them might be great fantasy, but it has a higher bar to jump to impact it. Doesn't mean it's not great stuff, but it means it's hard for Harry Potter, or Minecraft, or Percy Jackson, or whatnot to grab a major place in the game. (Edit: And same for older things he hadn't read or borrowed inspiration from).

 

[pemerton]

From the mid-70s to late-80s D&D jelled into a thing with its own mythos. The elves, dwarves, dragons, gods, spellcasting, orcs, goblins, clerics, paladins, druids, barbarians etc...have become their own D&D thing. The DNA of that was in Appendix N of the 1e DMG (there's a thread from last year on a reduced Appendix N that highlights the most obvious ones D&D General - A shorter Appendix N). Those were the ones that most clearly pressed their finger prints into it before the clay started setting. And anything after them might be great fantasy, but it has a higher bar to jump to impact it. Doesn't mean it's not great stuff, but it means it's hard for Harry Potter, or Minecraft, or Percy Jackson, or whatnot to grab a major place in the game. (Edit: And same for older things he hadn't read or borrowed inspiration from).

Even as far as Appendix N is concerned, there are some clear failures. For instance, it's very hard for an episode of D&D to resemble a typical REH Conan story.

The reasons why are probably too numerous to list in this thread - but two are (i) the lack of a mechanism in D&D for chance/helpful encounters of the sort that so often help Conan (eg in Tower of the Elephant; in The Scarlet Citadel; in The Hour of the Dragon); and (ii) the complete absence of incentives to give up the treasure in order to do the right thing (in classic D&D this leads to losing XP, not winning the game).

OGL Conan had a half-baked Fate Point mechanic to try and handle (i). As best I recall it did not have anything much to deal with (ii) - maybe a rule that prevents accumulation of character wealth?

 

[Mind of tempest]

I gather that you're English/British or live in England?

In any case, I have tried to be clear in my posts that JRRT is presenting his stereotyped ideal of rural English life. I think if LotR had been written by George Orwell the Shire would look rather different!

it is alright it was a jest as I have met his ideal or at least people who are descended from the people he might have interacted with as jrrt loved Warwickshire I however find it lacking.

From the mid-70s to late-80s D&D jelled into a thing with its own mythos. The elves, dwarves, dragons, gods, spellcasting, orcs, goblins, clerics, paladins, druids, barbarians etc...have become their own D&D thing. The DNA of that was in Appendix N of the 1e DMG (there's a thread from last year on a reduced Appendix N that highlights the most obvious ones D&D General - A shorter Appendix N). Those were the ones that most clearly pressed their finger prints into it before the clay started setting. And anything after them might be great fantasy, but it has a higher bar to jump to impact it. Doesn't mean it's not great stuff, but it means it's hard for Harry Potter, or Minecraft, or Percy Jackson, or whatnot to grab a major place in the game. (Edit: And same for older things he hadn't read or borrowed inspiration from).

true but the mythology never seemed to make the non-evil small races fit, it never properly integrated them into the setting.

Even as far as Appendix N is concerned, there are some clear failures. For instance, it's very hard for an episode of D&D to resemble a typical REH Conan story.

The reasons why are probably too numerous to list in this thread - but two are (i) the lack of a mechanism in D&D for chance/helpful encounters of the sort that so often help Conan (eg in Tower of the Elephant; in The Scarlet Citadel; in The Hour of the Dragon); and (ii) the complete absence of incentives to give up the treasure in order to do the right thing (in classic D&D this leads to losing XP, not winning the game).

OGL Conan had a half-baked Fate Point mechanic to try and handle (i). As best I recall it did not have anything much to deal with (ii) - maybe a rule that prevents accumulation of character wealth?

helpful encounters now there is an idea