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

[Gammadoodler]

So Humans and goblins are highly similiar in more than just the way of "I think" and "I have a head and two arms and two legs"

I mean, I think they are actually quite different. As are ogres which think, have a head, two arms and two legs, and forward facing eyes. Also, they are giants, not humanoid. Oh and mindflayers which think, have a head, two arms, two legs, forward facing eyes, and are corporeal. They are also not humanoid, they are abberations.

So, again, the way you went about "proving" that everything humanoid is "basically human" addresses none of the points I have ever brought up, and is very much like Plato's definition of a man. If it can also be a plucked chicken, it isn't a terribly great definition.

Yes, if you reduce things enough, lots of things look the same. The degree which you have to reduce them is why we can say that some races aren't "basically human" and some are.



Then you can show me an official depiction of dragonborn with lips? I don't need you to try and prove that massively changing the facial structure of a person alters their voice, that one is incredibly self-evident.

I'm often astounded at how many people try to act like "fantasy" means "there is no consensus, everything is made up and meaningless"




Are you trying to say something like they would use Balsa wood instead of pine? Most building materials are wood, stone and clay, and while you can make all of those thinner, they aren't "lighter materials"

Or were you thinking of materials more like the size and thickness of the shingles and boards and not in the actual quality of the materials themselves? This isn't some sort of gotcha, I'm just honestly confused by what you are trying to convey

I also mentioned "communicates using oral and written language". Could have also listed a shared propensity to make and use tools.. I mean you can pick whatever set of traits you like that is sufficiently descriptive to represent "humanoid". The final destination is the same. And the point was that you are choosing to follow this reductionist path with halflings as if it is only applicable for them, and I feel that is a waste of energy.

As far as I know there have been no direct observations of Dragonborn facial tissue, bone structure, vocal apparati, etc. (Not even considering how magic might come into play). Artist's depictions of fantasy creatures are, unfortunately, not proof of their biology. I don't really disagree with you that your conclusion may be a reasonable one. But, while it could be a reasonable conclusion, it is not the only possible reasonable conclusion, and it certainly isn't a "factual" conclusion.

Fantasy is literally "made up". Worse than that as it relates to D&D, it's made up and has magic. It is 100% subjective and unmoored from the constraints of reality. There is no meaningful consensus. Hell, you posted a bunch of art for halflings and gnome with wildly different characteristics as imagined by different artists. No one is going to be proven wrong for imagining something differently than another person does. Do you really believe otherwise??

As it relates to building materials, would expect a combination of both differing materials and different usage. Stone, wood, and clay are the materials harvested for building because they are the materials that work to address normal building engineering requirements. You change those requirements, you change the population of harvestable materials. Balsa might be an extreme example, but sure, that might be one. The other piece would be things like board thicknesses as you surmised. Wooden trusses used to support a bridge are larger/thicker/heavier than the ones used to support your roof. It's the same principle, if you don't have to do as much with it, you don't have to use as much of it.

 

[Gammadoodler]

Sure, "In my past life I spent 300 years with my lover, building a house together, and I visit that memory of our time together as I hope to meet her again in this life" is totally 100% the same as "I dreamed about my true love, I wonder if she is real or just a dream?"

I see what you are getting at. Could have clarified better.

During a trance, "reliving of a past life" event that the player is unaware of

=

While asleep, having a dream about an event that the player is unaware of

 

[Don Durito]

Rules question: If you play a campaign where elves are recycling souls from past lives then what happens when someone raises dead on one of their previous dead bodies?

And what do the elven gods do in an afterlife with no souls piling up?

Doesn't work?

That's actually probably a good outcome generally. Raise Dead is really to keep PCs in the game who have died recently. It's good to have a built in reason why you can't just raise Alexander the Great (or equivalent) from the dead and ask him to lead your army for you.

 

[HomegrownHydra]

I've positioned myself as having an opinion, yes. I think my opinion is right, because I support it with evidence. And whenever someone decides I am wrong... they just say I am wrong and don't really support their points with anything at all.

Supernatural luck is a differentiating factor (note that "supernatural lucky" is different from "lucky") however it is incredibly hard to actually play supernatural luck in a game like DnD. Sure, I can narrate any misses as "luck" or I can narrate their successes as "luck" but that is just a thin coat of paint over the game.

Courage? Tenacity? Love of Creature Comforts? Open-Mindedness? Welcoming? "various other traits"? Those are all personality traits. And, man, out of a list of about 11 traits, that is 6 of them. So half of what you listed is purely personality. Do I no longer have a halfling if they prefer sleeping in the dirt and don't like strangers? I would certainly hope not. I would hope that I could play a dwarf who likes his creature comforts, is welcoming to all people, and has courage and tenacity. That's why I find these traits weak for the race, if there was more like there are for some of the other races, then it would work better. Or if it worked deeply into their culture and/or mechanics. But other than resistance to magical fear, none of these traits actually come up in halfling mechanics, and with them being pastoral farmers who want to avoid trouble by avoiding notice, then their courage and tenacity rarely shows up.

Then we come to nimbleness, stealthiness, and a tendecy to blend into the background (also known as stealthiness). You know, I got to thinking about this, and this is only a sort of? Yeah, they get +2 dex and this makes them more nimble and more stealthy and better at picking pockets, but that's something that is easy to replicate in dozens of ways. So true, but is there more than just +2 dex? Well... not as much as I think people think. Halflings baseline can just move through an enemies space. That's it. No special bonuses to being stealthy. The only stealthy ability comes from lightfoots, who can hide behind creatures. Which, is a cool thing, and I'd take it... except that it completely cuts Stout Halflings out of the equation. Why are we ignoring them when describing halflings? Poison resistance has actually not come up once as something people attribute to halflings, but it is half of all halflings. It reminds me of when people were going on about how everyone forgets about Forest Gnomes when talking about gnomes.

And then "physical differences". Which is almost all "they are short" but you added a weird one in there. Pointed ears.

To my understanding, halflings had rounded ears, so I started looking it up and you were right... but it led to something interesting. Can anyone tell the gnome from the halfling?

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And it is especially amusing because I avoided the images that I saw showing up in both image searches

Your argument is that because no one has justified their opinion to your satisfaction that means you're right. This is not only an unreasonable standard for others to abide by (because if you insist on being the sole arbiter of right and wrong then you can always declare yourself right regardless of the facts) but it's elevating your subjective opinion to the level of objective truth when there can be no "right" opinion in this matter.

Some people think having different flavors of humans is all a fantasy world needs, while others think that elves and dwarves are hopelessly dull and wildly fantastic races are necessary. Neither position is "right", nor are any others. Same goes for opinions on halflings in D&D, there is no right one. Claiming that you are supporting your position with facts while those who disagree with you don't provide support for their views is not only false, it's irrelevant.

 

[Paul Farquhar]

1) Goliaths and Firbolgs are tied into Giant lore traditionally. They are after all giantkin and part of Giant Lore.

2) The Rune Knight PC class and the idea of Runic magic is tied into Giants, which can be combined with point #1 to make giant lore and backgrounds very important for a PC

And so what? The effect it has one the game is exactly zero. Nothing happens any differently if one of the player characters happens to be a goliath rune knight.

3) Reborn are specifically written to be a unique member of another race.

And that is how it will go with lineages. Lineage it's separated from biology. A High Elf lineage character could be biologically an elf, or a half elf, or a halfling raised by elves. So the elven history of your campaign setting is completely separate from character creation.

 

[Mind of tempest]

And that is how it will go with lineages. Lineage it's separated from biology. A High Elf lineage character could be biologically an elf, or a half elf, or a halfling raised by elves. So the elven history of your campaign setting is completely separate from character creation.

you assume that they will not replace the base elf with a new system as ua Dragonborn are going that way

 

[Hussar]

5.9% of dndbeyond’s active characters is significant.

You mean “according to no one, ever.” right? Because no one has claimed that. Every time you hyperbolize someone’s argument, it makes your entire post look like flailing nonsense.

Several people in this thread have talked about how halflings are commonly found in human lands. How is it hyperbole to think that in an adventure with multiple human towns, we'd see more than 4 halflings? Saltmarsh is another good example, Population of a couple of thousand and not a halfling to be found.

So, if halflings are commonly found in human settlements, where are they? Note, "up to our ankles" was meant as a bit of a joke right? Sorry it wasn't quite clear.

 

[Hussar]

No one has a giantish background. Giants aren't playable, for very obvious reasons. Giants are present in the world. They are in the monster manual. But THEY DO NOT MAKE GOOD PCs.

Halflings deliberately avoid being a significant presence in the world. They like to keep to themselves. But they make good PCs.

The role of a people in the world and the role of a lineage for player characters are completely different.

Consider the Reborn from VGR. There is no lore or kingdom of the reborn. Indeed they don't even all have the same origin. Some are stuffed with straw. Some are stitched together from mismatched body parts, others are reanimating spirits or cyborgs with clockwork hearts. But they make perfectly fine PCs, even outside Ravenloft, because all PCs are unique individuals, not X% of the population.

You've never heard of goliaths?

I have no idea what a "Reborn" or a "VGR" is.

 

[Hussar]

Actually, you did. It was something about getting your numbers from chicken entrails.


That just means they aren't used a lot in commercial adventures, not that they're not popular as PCs.

The problem is, there are two conversations there and I'm trying to have both at the same time.

One conversation talks about the lack of haflling lore in the game and how halflings have pretty much zero presence or background. This is not particularly good considering that the other three "Most Common Races" all have dozens, if not hundreds, of entries across modules and settings books for 5e, in addition to presence in the DMG. So, as it pertains to the title of hte thread- that halflings are particularly lacking in background and lore - I was attempting to show that no, halflings really don't have any presence in the game. Or, at least, very, very little.

Now, the OTHER conversation, which is related, but, not the same, is the lack of halfling PC's. For one of the Big 4 races, halflings fall behind both dragonborn and tieflings and are barely more played than gnomes. Now, that one is a bit more "chicken entrails" since we lack so much information. The best information we have pegs halflings at around 5% of PC's. Which is pretty sad for a race that has been in the game so long.

The reason, I think, that halflings don't see a lot of air time, is because they have so little presence in the game. There's just so little there to work with. And, frankly, if they weren't the "Dex" race, which ties them into rogues so heavily, they probably wouldn't be played at all.

 

[Hussar]

I decided to go through some of the published adventures online, using naughty means to do so (hey, I didn't download them, just searched through them). Excluding the surprisingly high number of dead halflings in these adventures, and history or rumors involving halflings:

Spoiler: Spoilered for size and also because they're from adventures

Lost Mines of Phendalver: A halfling and her son.

Out of the Abyss: Several imprisoned or enslaved halflings that can be rescued. A noble half-elf with halfling guards. Cultists whose ranks include halflings.

Rise of Tiamat: A halfling innkeeper.

Horde of the Dragon Queen: Two halflings in the Dramatis Personae.

Princes of the Apocalypse: A sneaky and unpleasant halfling carpenter. Mention that many of the homesteaders are halflings. A halfling innkeeper. A halfling assistant/thug. An entire clan of halflings, some of which are cultists, who fuel a whole subplot. A halfling rancher/Emerald Enclave member.

Storm King's Thunder: A halfling musician listed under Dramatis Personae. The adventure itself contains a paragraph on the various races in the area and mentions there are lots of small halfling hamlets hidden away, out of sight of bandits and monsters.

Tales from the Yawning Patrol: Oakhurst, a town of mostly humans, with a "sizable minority of halflings and other races."

Tomb of Annihilation: A halfling guide.

Waterdeep: Dragon Heist: An orchard/meadery (is that a real word?) run by halflings. More halfling brewers elsewhere. Halfling wererats (since wererats have the creature type "humanoid (human, shapechanger)" this is actually quite a departure from the norm). A hostel that deals mostly with halflings (note: not Small humanoids; specifically halflings--there would have to be a lot of halflings for them to be that specific). A halfling representative of the Fellowship of Innkeepers. An evil halfling necromancer. Halfling actors. A reluctant halfling pit fighter. A halfling spy. An overwhelmed halfling chef. A happy halfling chef. Halfling Zhentarim agents.

Ghosts of Saltmarsh: Notes that halflings are common in the area and that there are several halfling villages (25% chance that any village or manor found by the party is a halfling village or manor). A halfling bandit. A halfling druid. A halfling merchant. A halfling councilmember. a halfling veteran who's the agent of the town's bailiff.

Essential's Kit: A halfling cleric. A halfling traveler who plays the harmonica. A halfling spellcasting gambler. A halfling warrior "who likes to punch people in the groin."

Balder's Gate: Descent Into Avernus: A halfling spy. A halfling druid. A halfling chef. A halfling patron of a tavern. A halfling baker. A halfling cleric and his two adult children. A halfling who owns a cafe that sells food that has risqué names. Mention of a large halfling community.

The Adventure in the Eberron Book: An imprisoned halfling spy to be rescued.

Candlekeep Adventures: A halfling scribe that can be hired as a guide. A halfling sage. A halfling cleric. A pair of halfling scouts. A halfling cultist.

(As a note, when I say things like "a halfling warrior," this is nearly always a named NPC.)

So I don't know where you get the idea that "virtually none of them are halflings", because here are literally dozens of halflings in a wide variety of roles with a wide variety of alignments, uses in the adventures, and personal goals.

You do realize you're saying the same thing I did. Ghosts of Saltmarsh does not have a SINGLE halfling NPC. If they are common in the area, WHERE ARE THEY?

IOW, you have maybe half a dozen mentions of halflings in a 2-300 PAGE module . Whoo, be still my beating heart.