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

[Chaosmancer]

That doesn't make any sense. How are they favoured instead of gnomes instead if they are both in the PHB and don't get any attention?

You could argue that halflings are favoured because they are in the beginners' box I guess, but since I seem to have been the first person to even mention that I can't see that as being an issue in this thread. Clearly people don't seem to care much about what goes in the beginners box.

Either they're just there and are largely ignored, of they're unfairly pushed to the fore in a way unwarranted by their popularity, but I really struggle to see how both are supposed to be true at the same time.

You may have been the first person to say "beginners box" but we were talking about "The Core Four" and "Common Races" which are all the exact same thing for a while

 

[Chaosmancer]

Well then, that rather suggests that NPC halflings do the same thing but don't plaster the halfling brand name all over them. Elves and dwarfs have to draw attention to how cool they are with their elven chain mail and belts of dwarven kind, while halflings are over there making useful stuff for non-adventuring purposes. There could be absolutely enormous and very prosperous cities out there, bastions of civilizations, and nobody except the scholars realize they were founded by halflings, because those halflings were doing it because it was something that needed to be done, not for glory.

You know, that'd be some great lore. Something really interesting.

Too bad it would change halflings and make them kind of important to the world and therefore we aren't allowed to ever do that officially in DnD. I mean, a table could homebrew it, but then we'd get the books and it would be exactly none of that.

 

[Chaosmancer]

Getting hung up on the concept of what's "core" seems like tilting at windmills because the only people that even notice it are people who know to ignore it of they wish.

Does that include the people who get the Free Basic rules where the core is the only thing they are given?

 

[Faolyn]

so they lack any plot points, you cant have them be the focus without it breaking down as they have nothing to work with.

What are the plot points of elves, dwarfs, humans, orcs, dragonborn, and tieflings? Mostly I think of racial hatreds, racial religions that aren't particularly interesting to me, the dreadful way they rewrote the tieflings' origins, and... that's it?

And how are you prevented from coming up with a plot and making it happen to halflings instead of humans?

 

[Chaosmancer]

Im glad something productive resulted from this mess! And also now I know I'm playing Spirit Island at boardgame night tonight.

One of my favorite boardgames of all time.

 

[Faolyn]

40 years ago none around these parts had ever heard of the little buggers. Then they arrived by ship and bought out the local lord. Gave him a big pile of money to give up his ancestral lands and move to the big city. Me Grandaddy use to labour on those lands, but after that he had to go off and fight in the wars to earn a crust an' it cost him an arm and 'is right eye. Them little half-folk don't hire labourers, they do their own work, fancy that huh? Rich little buggers they is, but they go digging around in the dirt like you or I. No one dares try and rob em though. Word is their new god is the vengeful sort.

Love this! I actually do want to know about their new god. Vengeful because its protective of the halflings? Vengeful because halflings are worshiping an evil god (on purpose or through misunderstanding)? Vengeful because halfling vigilantes will dress up as spirits or demons and take revenge against those who wrong them? So many interesting options!

 

[Faolyn]

1. If you had to guess a percentage....what number of DnD players are aware the choices as presented in the PHB are two different tiers of commonality instead of just 7-8 different options.

Plus, what percentage are aware and just don't care, or use the commonality of the world they're playing in instead of what the PH says.

 

[Chaosmancer]

How does the level of similarity between gnomes and halflings compare to the level of similarity between humans and half-elves, or do genasi and tieflings? (Especially in a post Tasha world?).

Genasi and Tielfings are basically just humans anyways. I have actively tried to make Genasi of other descents, but 99% of the time, they are descended from humans. And I basically have never seen a tielfling (in the modern game) who's the child of an elf or a dwarf.

So, Genasi and Tielfing are FAR more similiar to humans than any of those other options. Humans and half-elves... also are incredibly similar. I can't really pinpoint a specifically "half-elven" trait though, so that is part of it.

As for Gnomes vis Halflings

Small stature
Either living in the wilds or in cities
Happy and joyful, finding mirth in the world
plucky and curious, fascinated by the world
Not overly concerned with wealth or status

The big difference I see is that gnomes are a bit obsessive about seeking new things in terms of study, while halflings are more content to stay home and let new experiences come to them. Halflings as non-magical non-SCIENCE! gnomes... kind of works.

 

[Faolyn]

Now, can you show me two examples like that from WotC books?

Why should I bother to go through all the books when you have shown through your repeated actions on this thread that you will just dismiss it?

And more to the point, there's no need to. People can make stuff up or use the Tolkien standard however they wish.

See, sure, I agree that you can be creative. That's fantastic. But, again, you keep making presumptions. You presume that I can't do it because I asked the question.

I presume that since you keep saying there's nothing in the books to tell you how to play a halfling, then that means you can't figure out how to play something unless there's at least two written, canonical standards. Like below...

It's not that I can't do it, it's that I don't bother because, well, since halflings are almost never played at my table, and are almost never making any sort of appearance in the adventures I'm running, why would I bother.

Same with my campaign and elves and dwarfs. Nobody's played them. I still spent some time figuring out what elf and dwarf towns and lives were like. I included some of that info in the player handout I gave people, which consisted of 2-3 paragraphs per PC race.

Maybe nobody at your table plays halflings because the DM, whoever that is, doesn't even try to bring them into their setting. Next time you start a new game, try writing up bit on halflings and how they interact with the world around them. Maybe you'll get someone interested in trying them out.

I don't make beholder cities either, but, that's because I never really bother using beholders. But, thank you for the implied insults that I'm just not creative enough to use halflings. It's comments like that that just make this thread such a joy.

Then prove your creativity, instead of just demanding canonical examples that are really only canonical in one specific campaign setting.

A beholder city could be fun! Imagine a beholder that has somehow managed to suppress its species' natural xenophobia. It created or captured several weaker beholders and has magically put them into a deep sleep (extra-strong sleep-eye ray? magic item? drugs? we'll figure that out later). It then whispers to them, shaping its dreams so they slowly, but continually produce new beholders, which the main beholder then controls. Here's where I'd start converting beholder-kin from 2e because clearly these newly-created beholders are going to be weird-looking.

Aaand I might just expand this into a particularly weird and alien Ravenloft domain.

But, again, halfling druids? What halfling druids? Where do I find any information about these halfling druids?

Ask me, the worldbuilding DM.

Other than Ravenloft (and possibly Planescape, one of these days), I never run in pre-gen worlds. I strip-mine other settings for interesting bits and use them in my own world.

Since when do halflings have a significant druidic tradition? Can you point me to where it talks about that? I thought halflings were pastoral farmers. Doesn7t sound very druidic to me. I'm drawing something of a blank on the connection between halflings and nature priests. Elves? Sure, totally see that connection. Whole "stewards of nature" thing just screams druid. But halflings? Where did that come from?

This is what I mean. The PH doesn't draw an neon arrow connecting halflings with druids or nature priests and you can't seem to imagine it could be anything different.

The correct answer is, halflings have as much of a druidic or nature priest connection as you, the DM, want them to have.

Which really shows why having too much lore (in the PH, at least) is actually a bad thing. It constrains you into being unable to think outside of its little lore box.

(Also, you're drawing a blank on why a people who work in the agriculture field would want to have spellcasters that specialize in plant and animal magic?)

 

[JiffyPopTart]

Data from my informal straw poll at work asking about the PHB using their memory.

All 5 questioned said there were 6-8 race choices in the PHB.

0 of 5 questioned could name the order the races were presented in. All knew Humans were first and two guessed elves were 2nd or 3rd.

0 of 5 knew why the races were presented in the order they were.

0 of 5 were aware of the concept of a "core" race.