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

[Whizbang Dustyboots]

So, sunglasses?

That's what all the fan art says it is.

 

[Chaosmancer]

No. I declared that the narrative role of races in the PHB is to make good PCs. Which halflings do. There is nothing more needed than that for a race in the PHB. Most things in the real world do not have "a narrative role" - and the more you try and force literally everything to have a narrative role at all times the more artificial and less organic things are.

I then declared that if setting designers and DMs can't use them that's on them. Which it is. I also gave examples of numerous settings that use them well.

Okay but... every race makes good PCs. That is such a low bar to clear I didn't realize it wasn't just the floor.

And basically what you are telling me is that you reject the entirety of the idea of narrative roles (and I would argue having a bunch of random things with no connection is more artificial than organic) and that you will accept literally anything as long as it "makes a good PC". Which means that their is no race, no class, no anything that you wouldn't accept, because "makes a good PC" is so vague that it could literally mean anything.

And I went through some of those settings, and disagreed with you on them being used "well". Though it is funny. The closer a halfling is to how they are presented in the players handbook the more likely that people will say that they aren't being used well. The more different than the player's handbook, the more likely people will say they are being used well.... But there is nothing wrong with how they are depicted in the Player's Handbook? Really?

To repeat myself. Halflings make a good PC race. There is nothing else needed. I've also repeatedly pointed out that halflings are the race that you expect not to be powerful. They are small and not particularly magical. This gives them a unique and distinct narrative role from every other race whose schtick is about how they are great. Just because you seem unable to use this doesn't mean it hasn't been given to you earlier this thread.

I then gave examples of settings that use them well.

Being small and not magical in no way makes you weak. I guess I don't see this "unique and distinct" narrative because I just don't see short and nonmagical as any sort of real hindrance to a person being "powerful". Seeing a halfling kick someone's ass because they are a better fighter or have better equipment is in no way surprising to me.

Also, I have to disagree with halflings somehow being especially non-magical. They have magical luck. They are explicitly magical in the most powerful way possible (in the lore), so none of what you are saying makes sense to me. And even if it did... a race that is supposed to be inherently weaker than all of the other races is just not something palatable to me.

It reinforces the thematics of the entire setting however. Halflings are, as they normally are, a stand in for the meek - and the Sorcerer Kings were right onboard with everything until they discovered that the planned endgame was that the meek would inherit the earth. So they burned the place down instead. Something doesn't have to be essential to a setting to reinforce it.

Darksun halflings are anything except "meek". They literally ruled the planet before the other races even existed. It could also be said that when the Sorcerer-Kings discovered endgame was that they wouldn't inherit the Earth, they did it anyways. I mean, they are magical despots, it doesn't matter who was going to inherit the point is it wasn't them.

I'm not saying your interpretation is necessarily wrong, just that it is literally the first time anyone has referenced that biblical idea in regards to Dark Sun.

The "lack of tools?"

"the lack of tools as a defining characteristic"

Basically, Tool Proficiencies don't matter. In most games you could give the players every tool proficiency in the game and they woudn't even notice. It is a major and glaring weak point of the game, especially since many classes and backgrounds give out those proficiencies.

The only exception in the base game is Thieve's tools, solely for picking locks and disabling traps. This massive problem plagues Rock Gnomes, because getting Tinker's tools should be defining, but it often isn't. Xanathar's made this slightly better, but it still doesn't go far enough to make it a truly defining characteristic and for people to understand what they do. Lots of 3pp and homebrew trying to fix this single issue, but it certainly explains the Rock Gnome having a weaker identity than they otherwise should.

No. I'm simply disagreeing with you and moving on because it's not worth responding. I've learned earlier in this thread that you are unlikely to take onboard other peoples' perspectives or you wouldn't still be asking about narrative roles. This means engagement isn't worth it but your perspective is occasionally interesting.

It is funny you talk about me listening about other people's perspectives, when it seems you are so ready to dismiss mine. I have no idea why you would find my evidence uncompelling, and I can't change my opinions or see any issues with my logic if no one is willing to discuss them.

So, I am still baffled by how you can possibly believe that Halflings are some how better than Forest Gnomes at surviving and hiding in a forest when there is literally no way that can be true. Or why Forest Gnomes can't be artificers. Or why you completely ignored the element of their primary stat being the weakest stat in the game, yet they are still nearly tied with Halflings, whose primary stat is referred to as "the god stat" because of how overwhelmingly important it is.

You just decided I was wrong, none of it was worth discussing and you should move on... which makes me wonder what the point even was in making your claims in the first place.

1: That is literally a garden gnome. It is a gnome. If it could be a halfling then literally all gnomes could be halflings and any argument that gnomes are more common than halflings flies out of the window.
2: It couldn't be a halfling anyway. At about a foot tall it would be a "fifthling" at best - and that if going by height rather than mass. Halfling has the word half in it. There's more to being a "halfling" than being a small person.

I know it is a garden gnome. But... what would a small person without magic look like? A little old guy dressed in medieval clothes?

You say my argument flies out the window, but you are reading it backwards. Every single halfling could be a gnome. It would change basically nothing about them. Gnomes are recognized and discussed world-wide, but halflings are just Hobbits, and hobbits aren't nearly as deeply ingrained (note the lack of garden hobbits being sold to people)

As for point 2, I couldn't tell how big that statue was supposed to be, most depictions of gnomes are the same height as halflings though, so it doesn't really matter.

Ask in a garden center and you'll get garden gnomes - which is very confusing if you were intending early mythology and earth spirits. Talk about fairies and you'll get Tinkerbell in most places - but it may be different at a Dresden Files convention. If one person is talking about garden gnomes and another is talking about WoW gnomes things are going to lead to trouble. "Gnome" is a wider term than "primate" in terms of what it covers which is why it is so confused. Two gnomes can be more different from each other than a human is from a loris.

It meanwhile takes people about 30 seconds to learn what a halfling is. They're a relatively mundane mix of the Little People and Hobbits. It's not an utterly confused mess. People are not confused about what halflings are because the concept is easy and the name is evocative. And "halfling" doesn't have dozens of different meanings.

Right, it has one meaning. Hobbit. JRR Tolkien Hobbits. A gris-gris has only one meaning too, because it is only one thing. It isn't that the concept is so easy and the name is so evocative, it is that it is so small there is nothing else there.

Yeah, if I go to a garden center I'm going to get a garden gnome. But that isn't confusing, that's just the connection between gnomes and lawn ornaments. I would also get a statue of a dragon, which probably won't be a chinese dragon. I would also get a plastic flamingo, even though the bird itself is not made of plastic.

But what are you doing here is penalizing gnomes unfairly because they are so old and so popular that they have multiple iterations. Heck, take Vampire. If you are at a twilight convention you are getting glittering emo boys, if you are at a dresden files convention they are going to ask you white, black, red or green court, you go to most people you are talking Dracula. Go to China or Japan and you have about three different versions including a head with their digestive system intact that steals bodies and a hopping undead Jiangshi.

Are vampires super confusing and not a powerful and popular mythological figure? I mean, they must be just the same as gnomes, because they range from Count Chocula to depictions of body horror. Heck, it is possible to conflate zombies and vampires. The ideas are that close to being the same in some depictions.

 

[FrozenNorth]

You need several things for a good PC race:

• Thematically strong and inspiring enough to draw some people in
• Mechanically decent without being overwhelmingly strong.
• Distinctive enough to not appear redundant.
• Not being excessively obnoxious to put people off

Half orcs are the obvious failures here in part due to obnoxious theme. I fully advocate replacing them with orcs or, failing that, goliaths.

While you believe that half-orcs do not meet your 4th category (which is a bit surprising, since it seems to me that the problematic aspect of half-orcs has been removed since at least 4th ed), Hussar and several others (myself included) think halflings fail to meet point 1 (with a couple of people feeling that they don’t meet point 3).

As for point 2 (and the issue of mechanics), it seems to me that halflings are not very popular despite getting an extremely favourable treatment from a mechanical perspective. I have already pointed out that they are very synergistic with rogues, the 2nd most popular class. In addition, +2 Dex, +1 Cha is an excellent array for Rogues, Bards, Warlocks, Sorcerers and Dex paladins.

In terms of having favourable stat bonuses (limiting myself to PHB), I would say that Halflings are 3rd, following Elves and Half-elves. Dwarves, Half-orcs, Tieflings, Dragonborn, Gnomes have stat bonuses that are interesting to much fewer classes.

 

[Chaosmancer]

Me, I'm still waiting to see all this great information about halflings that exists. Because, well, it certainly doesn't exist in the adventures. Maybe halflings get a lot more love in the non-adventure books? I'm not really a book buyer, so, I don't pay too much attention. But, since we're being repeatedly told how halflings are this incredibly popular race just chock a block with flavor that makes them so enticing to play, I'm certainly interested in seeing it.

Can someone point it out to me?

Well, if everyone who has responded to me is to be believed, the appeal of halflings is that they are just short people with no defining characteristics. Except they are super lucky, very brave, and don't go and do anything because they like the comforts of home, except when their insatiable curiousity has many of them leave home to go on adventures and make friends, because they are super friendly and everyone loves them. Oh and they cook and farm, and they defintely don't have magic, which makes them weak and makes for really compelling characters because if you are strong when you should be weak then that feels really good. Oh, and they are super stealthy.

At least, that's what everyone keeps telling me. Good thing that isn't a very specific character archetype.

 

[Chaosmancer]

Would just a collection of mechanics inspire any significant number of people to play them? Rather than just min-maxers.

You need several things for a good PC race:

• Thematically strong and inspiring enough to draw some people in
• Mechanically decent without being overwhelmingly strong.
• Distinctive enough to not appear redundant.
• Not being excessively obnoxious to put people off

Half orcs are the obvious failures here in part due to obnoxious theme. I fully advocate replacing them with orcs or, failing that, goliaths.

So... halflings have one of these of traits. Maybe two depending on which lore you read.

 

[Whizbang Dustyboots]

I am looking forward to the 101-page thread on how much D&D vampires suck, because boy howdy, do they, even in 5E.

 

[Chaosmancer]

So, sunglasses?

I'm not aware of anyone having invented sunglasses in DnD no. And I'm not sure if they would be strong enough to cancel the penalty.

Why are you so focused on this detail?

 

[Vaalingrade]

And basically what you are telling me is that you reject the entirety of the idea of narrative roles (and I would argue having a bunch of random things with no connection is more artificial than organic) and that you will accept literally anything as long as it "makes a good PC".

One billion times yes! I am playing a PC, not the entire race!

 

[Hexmage-EN]

It suddenly occurred to me that the problem people seem to have with halflings is that they aren't sufficiently "Otherized". Other races have traits that make them stand out from humans (very long lifespans for elves, poison resistance for dwarves, being some kind of humanoid animal for a number of other races, etc).

Halflings are pretty much just small humans in comparison.

 

[Cadence]

It suddenly occurred to me that the problem people seem to have with halflings is that they aren't sufficiently "Otherized". Other races have traits that make them stand out from humans (very long lifespans for elves, poison resistance for dwarves, being some kind of humanoid animal for a number of other races, etc).

Halflings are pretty much just small humans in comparison.

I wonder if in Tolkien if the elves view of human competence is much like the human view of halfling competence. (And perhaps that individual humans who view halflings as more worth notice are found more noteworthy by the elves).