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

[Faolyn]

depends on one of the great questions do you have a player who likes halflings? plus given they are in the player had book refusing them can get heated as without some trust removing things gets difficult.

I've found there are two types of players: players who will play any race--because they haven't played it before, because they have a great idea that relies on that race, because they want the class/race synergy, etc.--and players who only play as members of a particular race or group of races. Yes, there are players who, for any of those reasons, play halflings. I've said it before, but I knew a guy who would only play halflings, unless kender were an option, in which case he'd play a kender.

And there's nothing wrong with saying "in this world, these are the only PC races." If you have a player that throws a fit about that without a really good reason for it, then they might not be fit for that game.

 

[Faolyn]

@Faolyn, things would go a lot more smoothly if you would stop making assumptions about other people's games.

Ban halflings? Why would I do that? I have repeatedly stated that no one at my table plays them or, at the very least, it's once in a blue moon that they get played. So, why would you claim that I've banned something? What are you trying to prove?

Your phrasing implied you had. My mistake if I was wrong.

Ok, we get rid of the other races that people don't use. Great. What's the problem?

Except that a lot of people do use them. The fact that you don't doesn't mean that nobody does. About 5% of people have one. That's a lot of people.

I went through the PH, VGM, and MTF (deliberately excluding world-specific races and races from various supplements). There's something like 23 races in them. The fact that 5% of people are playing halflings is pretty impressive. And it's more impressive when you include those extraneous races.

Since so few people are using them, it's not really going to bother a lot of people if they get moved to the monster manual. And, hey look, we can add races in that hopefully gain more traction, like tieflings and dragonborn already have. What's the point of having options in the PHB that are so unused?

Tieflings and dragonborn are already in the PH. You can include other races without excluding one.

Again, it's not about liking or disliking halflings. Or gnomes. Or half orcs. Heck, at some point of time or another, I've played all three. Why would I dislike something that is so unimportant? It's like the old giant table of polearms in 1e. Sure, there are those out there that want an expanded equipment list. But, guess what, they lost that argument. Every edition of the game has truncated the weapon list because so many of these things were just taking up space.

Weapons aren't an entire race of people.

So, why would I want an expanded PHB? So we can cart around the cruft that has accumulated in the game to make some very small minority of gamers happy?

A quick search online shows that the least popular class is the druid. Let's get rid of that, too; only about 6% of people play one!

Don't care. It's not making the grade, so it gets cut. Anything that doesn't make the grade SHOULD get cut. Or, at least moved around a bit so that it can make room for stuff that is making the grade.

And if some race you like "doesn't make the cut"? You'd be fine with it getting tossed?

 

[Faolyn]

Double post. I keep getting server errors that say my post didn't go through, but it did.

 

[Bohandas]

No one's gonna get to upset if halflings are included.

Provided that they're kept out of published adventures and sample characters

 

[Mind of tempest]

I've found there are two types of players: players who will play any race--because they haven't played it before, because they have a great idea that relies on that race, because they want the class/race synergy, etc.--and players who only play as members of a particular race or group of races. Yes, there are players who, for any of those reasons, play halflings. I've said it before, but I knew a guy who would only play halflings, unless kender were an option, in which case he'd play a kender.

And there's nothing wrong with saying "in this world, these are the only PC races." If you have a player that throws a fit about that without a really good reason for it, then they might not be fit for that game.

you mean the people who main a race? correct it helps if you know your players if they main a race then you will likely have to factor that in world design.

 

[Faolyn]

you mean the people who main a race? correct it helps if you know your players if they main a race then you will likely have to factor that in world design.

If there's a table that has a player who hates halflings and a player who loves them, then it's up to them to negotiate the issue when one of the two is in the DM's chair.

 

[Mind of tempest]

If there's a table that has a player who hates halflings and a player who loves them, then it's up to them to negotiate the issue when one of the two is in the DM's chair.

I assume a fight to the death would be too much?

 

[Faolyn]

I assume a fight to the death would be too much?

Arm wrestling. With dice.

 

[Chaosmancer]

With PF everything was in the SRD, so you weren't gated off from material in any rule books. I thought 5e was different? Or is official access to all the rules free and it's just integrating with your DnD Beyond character sheet that isn't?

I think it is that Basic is free, so you get like one subrace from dwarf, elf and halfling, base humans, one subclass from fighter, rogue, wizard and cleric (Champion, Theif, Evoker and Life Domain) and a single feat. I think it was weapon master? No, I think it is Charger. Anyways, it isn't one of the ones people take very often.

They probably also pared down the spell list, but the basic mechanics are all there in the free version.

Edit: Thinking on the subraces, pretty sure it was mountain dwarf, lightfoot halfling, and High Elf.

 

[Neonchameleon]

That's a WotC thing. They make all these extra things in other books (tabaxi, warforged, artificer, goblin, etc), and then forget they ever exist. I love the artificer, but it makes me sad that we will practically never see anything new with them. Because if it doesn't exist in the PHB, it doesn't exist to WotC. It's one of the things I loved about Paizo with Pathfinder. All those other classes introduced post-CRB still got extra things as they released more and more and more and more books.

WotC has been doing the create and forget thing since 3e. It really annoys the crap out of me.

The Artificer has been reprinted in two different books - and its inclusion in Tasha's (complete with a new subclass) means that it's part of the "extended core". It will probably be in the PHB in the next edition. And the tabaxi and the warforged both just might.

WotC aren't doing the "create and forget" thing so much as the "throw it against the wall and see what sticks" thing. And 5e's basically made up of what stuck in 3.X and 4e