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

[Levistus's_Leviathan]

It's Dex bonus is redundant with elves and the other small races have better score speads.

STR: Orc
DEX: Elf
CON: Dwarf
INT: Gnome
WIS: ???
CHA: Dragonborn/HalfElf/Tiefling

So mechanically you'd be looking for a Wis race or going Dragonborn/Tiefling before you hit Halflings.

So Halflings would be your 7th race if your were going pure mechanics and Size was you 1st or 2nd criteria. Now if Weirdness or Gonzo or Options was your 1st or 2nd criteria, it's worse for Halflings because D&D has tons of freaky player races.

Well, that "one per Ability Score"-array is assuming that the 6e PHB will contain racial ability score bonuses, which seems highly unlikely to me with the direction D&D is going post-Tasha's. Based on that reason, I personally wouldn't base the core races in 6e off of which race aligns with which ability score, and instead go with the most popular races from 5e.

 

[doctorbadwolf]

It is largely subjective, but I hold my stance that there is a part of it that is subjective. I couldn't care less about 90% of Elven, Dwarven, Gnomish, Halfling, Orcish, Goblinoid, and other racial deities (which is why I support settings that have less deities, like Theros and my homebrew world, and also like Exandria's use of a slightly expanded Dawn War Pantheon), and I can say for a fact that the average D&D player cannot tell you the name of the Halfling god of agriculture or who the god of air from the Forgotten Realms is. Those all fit into the "filler lore" category, because they don't add anything to the game besides just more lore-baggage that the FR has to carry around with it.

If halflings have to be a core race in D&D, they should earn their place with having as good lore as the other races. Elven reincarnation is lore that inspires character concepts, as does the Duergar-Dwarf conflict, as do many other parts of the lore for those races that without, they'd be on about the same ground as halflings. Frankly, even the Gith have more inspiring lore than Halflings, and I don't want them to become a main D&D race because they're fairly niche and are supposed to be (both by appearance, mechanics (psionics), and where they live; Limbo and the Astral Plane).

Halflings should have something drawing for players and DMs to be inspired from. If a player can read the Dwarf-Duergar Conflict lore and say, "Ooh! That would be cool to create a PC around!" there should be something similar for Halflings' cultural lore. I gave examples in my previous post for possible halfling cultures that could do this (by them being enforcers of happiness, or a culture of people that forces their practices of happiness on others), and I gave other examples earlier in the thread, too (with halflings that are gluttons and pleasure-addicts). It doesn't even have to be any of those specific examples, it just has to be a drawing culture concept that inspires character ideas. The current "pastoral farmers that do nothing but farm and occasionally send nobodies to become heroes" is obviously fine, but it's not comparable in this quality to the lore of Dwarves, Elves, and lots of other official races/cultures in D&D.

There is. It’s their nature as the small folk alongside all the folk who keep blowing up the world and/or stopping it from being blown up. That’s the hook.

You aren’t inspired by their hook, that’s fine. I’m not remotely inspired by D&D dwarves, or most elves, and tend to think that there are other races who do whatever a given elf does in a more engaging way.

But my opinion on elves and dwarves only matters to me, and whoever I’m having a purely academic discussion about elves and dwarves with.

 

[Hussar]

The problem here is that what constitutes ‘good lore’ is highly subjective. I’ve long since come to the conclusion that most of what constitutes elf and dwarf lore is just dead weight holding the game down and if held to limiting the creativity of what groups and designers can do.

I’d point at the OSR as an example here. Is it hamstrung by not having access to Moradin or Sehanine Moonbow? No it’s creatively strengthened. Half of the D&D worlds rewrite all the lore anyway.

But, there's another point here. Good or bad, lore serves as an inspiration for further development. Even bad lore can be reacted to and serve to inspire new ideas. A lack of lore is just a blank canvas. Which is great to a point, but, it puts all the onus on the painter to create something interesting. There's nothing to build on.

 

[Hussar]

No. Obviously. What contradiction are you seeing!?


Bilbo’s ostracization Is pretty well retconned in LOTR, when multiple family lines are described as being prone to adventure.

Sorry, but it has been a long time. All I remember are the Tooks. And, funnily enough, none of the Hobbits in Hobbiton are "prone to adventure" except our 4 heroes who act nothing like their neighbors.

It is also shown that Hobbits are sturdy, quite capable of enduring great hardship and bouncing back from it, and able to be quite fierce when needed. Not Merry and Pippin, Hobbits in general. The Shirefolk scour the Shire, not just the 4 protagonist Hobbits.

Yet, those sturdy halflings (jeez does my autocorrect absolutely HATE the word halfling) do nothing to help themselves before the group that act absolutely nothing like halflings gets them to fight back. Remember, the Shire is Scoured BEFORE the heroes return. It takes the halflings that act nothing like halflings to fix the problem. The halflings that act like halflings sit around and do nothing to help themselves.

Like I said, the description of halflings in the PHB is pretty much the blueprint for what not to do if you're a halfling.

 

[doctorbadwolf]

Leave it to impassioned nerds to waste dozens of hours debating something trivial, amirite?

The subheading was how I was trying to make/prove my point; Halflings aren't an engaging/interesting fantasy race in comparison to the other fantasy races that I gave as examples. Obviously it has not accomplished the goal that I was attempting (convincing nerds with strong opinions to change their minds), but that proves that people care. You wouldn't be in this thread if you didn't care or if you didn't care about other people caring about this topic. None of us would (excluding the moderators, of course).

I want to like halflings, but I don't. If they stay as is, I want them to move into the background and one of the more popular races to fill their place as a core race (Dragonborn, Tieflings, Gnomes, or Orcs/Half-Orcs). If they do change, I want them to change in one of the ways I recommended in this thread (i.e. by making their culture engaging and inspiring). I'd be fine with the former, but happier with the latter. I suspect that most people here would be fine with either of those outcomes, too.

I’m not sure I buy the notion that orcs, half-orcs, or gnomes, are more popular than Halflings. Dragonborn and Tieflings, I suspect, would be the most played races if there not so many DMs that ban, restrict, or punish, their use as PCs.

I also don’t think that especially matters, of course.

I also think the next PHB (and I genuinely don’t think we will see a 6e until so much time has passed that all these discussions will have completely moved on) should have about 12 or so races, plus the basic rules for making your own. I’d happily add Goliath, Tabaxi, Orc, and an oddball like Warforged, Changeling, or Firbolg.

But taking out or even demoting an element of the game that is a significant part of its identity, to the point where every group of noobs I’ve ever introduced to D&D has at least one halfling? Nah.

 

[Yaarel]

Well like I said,with over 100 pages it's obviously not that trivial to many.

Anyway... on a purely mechanical design approach halflings could not make the begginers box.

It's Dex bonus is redundant with elves and the other small races have better score speads.

STR: Orc
DEX: Elf
CON: Dwarf
INT: Gnome
WIS: ???
CHA: Dragonborn/HalfElf/Tiefling

So mechanically you'd be looking for a Wis race or going Dragonborn/Tiefling before you hit Halflings.

So Halflings would be your 7th race if your were going pure mechanics and Size was you 1st or 2nd criteria. Now if Weirdness or Gonzo or Options was your 1st or 2nd criteria, it's worse for Halflings because D&D has tons of freaky player races.

Str: Dragonborn
Dex: Halfling
Con: Dwarf
Int: Tiefling
Wis: Orc
Cha: Elf

 

[Don Durito]

Str: Dragonborn
Dex: Halfling
Con: Dwarf
Int: Tiefling
Wis: Orc
Cha: Elf

Isn't this whole design approach supposedly redundant now anyway?

 

[Yaarel]

Isn't this whole design approach supposedly redundant now anyway?

Of course, but traditions about abilities and classes continue to shape the flavor of the culture.

 

[carkl3000]

Again, do you force your players to be friendly to NPC's if they make a good persuasion check?

Note, if I use a Charm spell, then no one really complains because that's overt mind control. But, again, I'm really curious here if you force your players to be nice to your NPC's when the NPC makes a good persuasion check. After all, a good Persuasion check changes attitudes to friendly. So, if PC's can be granted the Frightened condition through Intimidate, then why can't they be Charmed by Persuasion?

I might do either (charmed or frightened) for a brief moment, for the sake of storytelling and humor. But not for anything that would effect the storyline significantly, and only if the players involved are in on the joke.

For example: Maybe during a fact-finding trip to a farm in the area, a bull breaks through the fence and charges at the farmer's child. The half-orc fighter wants to help, but their instinct for self preservation kicks in instead and they dive out of the way... into a pile of manure. (or they pass the DC against being frightened and... I don't know... take a swing at it or whatever) The halfling, though, isn't phased. (or they are and they end up in the manure pile, too.) They leap at just the right moment, grab the bull by the horns, land squarely on it's neck and steer it away in the nick of time. (Or they fail their dex check and get head-butted into next week and take d10 damage)

Or maybe the party is in an inn and a particularly attractive dancer is on stage. The gruff and grumpy dwarf fails their roll against being charmed and instead of overhearing an interesting tidbit of gossip from an adjacent table, they are distracted, blush, feel kind of warm and tingly inside, and giggle a little bit.

But I wouldn't do anything like that to be overbearing or a jerk. I wouldn't single out one player repeatedly and it would only be with agreement from the table that light hearted play is all in good fun.

Right now I'm DM'ing a game for a couple ten-year-olds. They love the slapstick, but I acknowledge it's not what everyone wants.

 

[carkl3000]

That is the crux.

That if elves get one,then halflings should have one.
Or if halflings don'thave one then the elven one should be removed.

The whole crux is "Should halflings be different because Tolkien?"

The answer is "No, halflings should be different because choices."