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

[Yaarel]

I really don't get gnomes = halfling thing. Yes, they're both short. Yes they have a positive attitude. That's ... pretty much where the similarities end for me when I read the descriptions. Most halflings tend to be homebody couch potatoes who occasionally go on vacation to raid dragon lairs, most gnomes are energizer bunnies and pranksters. Halflings are pastoral, gnomes prefer woods and hills. Halflings don't care about material wealth, gnomes covet gems and on and on.

But hey, they're both short so I guess that makes them practically identical.

Both gnomes and halflings derive from the same reallife archetype, a house sprite, aka hob.

There is a reason they are both short − the house sprite is short.

Altho they are both hobs, they can have different cultures.

The reallife term "gnome" (Latin gnomus) means an Earth Elemental (hence gems etcetera), which was used to refer to various land spirits, including the house sprite.

So while they are the same lineage their culture can relate to different planes. Elemental Gnome and Material Halfling.



The way the Halfling is currently in D&D, it is too Human, and to be a short Human is insufficient to define a Non-Human lineage.



The suggestion to link the Halfling with the Gnome accomplishes two things.
• The Halfling becomes more clearly Non-Human.
• Together as Hob, both the Gnome and Halfling bolster their popularity ranking compared to other lineages.

 

[Cadence]

Both gnomes and halflings derive from the same reallife archetype, a house sprite, aka hob.

There is a reason they are both short − the house sprite is short.

Altho they are both hobs, they can have different cultures.

The reallife term "gnome" (Latin gnomus) means an Earth Elemental (hence gems etcetera), which was used to refer to various land spirits, including the house sprite.

So while they are the same lineage their culture can relate to different planes. Elemental Gnome and Material Halfling.



The way the Halfling is currently in D&D, it is too Human, and to be a short Human is insufficient to define a Non-Human lineage.



The suggestion to link the Halfling with the Gnome accomplishes two things.
• The Halfling becomes more clearly Non-Human.
• Together as Hob, both the Gnome and Halfling bolster their popularity ranking compared to other lineages.

Lots of things in D&D derived from the same thing and became something of their own. No matter how often I read it being repeated, I don't see anything about the current halflings and gnomes that ties in to house spirits in a meaningful way.

 

[Minigiant]

Pretty much accurate, IMO.

Well the reason why they knew it wasn't alphabetical was because they ALL know dragonborn wasn't first and knew LOTR was big in D&D.

No one cares about common/uncommon thing; it doesn't mean anything beyond messing up the alphabetical order.

5e does pay favorites with races. Or at least it did. Halflings are forefront races in most of the mentioned and official settings because 5e heavily used older edition setting which didn't have many of the uncommon races as payable options.

The main exception are MTG settings because halflings only exist in Innistrad.

So if a new fan were to worldbuild a new setting, they are very likely t include humans, dwarves, elves, and halflings due to mentions and art focus.

 

[Crimson Longinus]

I really don't get gnomes = halfling thing. Yes, they're both short. Yes they have a positive attitude. That's ... pretty much where the similarities end for me when I read the descriptions. Most halflings tend to be homebody couch potatoes who occasionally go on vacation to raid dragon lairs, most gnomes are energizer bunnies and pranksters. Halflings are pastoral, gnomes prefer woods and hills. Halflings don't care about material wealth, gnomes covet gems and on and on.

But hey, they're both short so I guess that makes them practically identical.

D&D halflings are not just hobbits, they're also curious like the kender, and that seems pretty similar to gnomes. Personally I don't like the species to be super narrow and pigeonholed, for example tinker-gnomes where entire (sub)race is defined by profession seems bizarre to me. So I could easily see gnomes and halflings being various subcultures of one species.

 

[Yaarel]

Lots of things in D&D derived from the same thing and became something of their own. No matter how often I read it being repeated, I don't see anything about the current halflings and gnomes that ties in to house spirits in a meaningful way.

In the case of the Halfling, the Halfling flavor remains too Human.

Thinking about the mythologically accurate Nonhuman inspiration, the house sprite, is a way to resolve the problematic.

 

[Vaalingrade]

Both gnomes and halflings derive from the same reallife archetype, a house sprite, aka hob.

I mean, they've both evolved a long way since then haven't they?

This is like wanting kobolds to be Earth Elementals.

 

[Crimson Longinus]

Lots of things in D&D derived from the same thing and became something of their own.

Yes, and that's one thing that bugs me in D&D, a repetition of tropes with slight variation because there were words in thesaurus. But this hardly is an unique problem with gnomes and halflings.

 

[Don Durito]

Ok so. Halflings are common, and other things are unfairly uncommon.

Do we go back in time to 2014 and change that?* Or go forward in time to 6th Edition? At which point the question seems moot because that very distinction needs to be abolished.

*If we're presuming that we can influence what WotC does, why not make it retroactive while we're at it?

 

[Levistus's_Leviathan]

I really don't get gnomes = halfling thing. Yes, they're both short. Yes they have a positive attitude. That's ... pretty much where the similarities end for me when I read the descriptions. Most halflings tend to be homebody couch potatoes who occasionally go on vacation to raid dragon lairs, most gnomes are energizer bunnies and pranksters. Halflings are pastoral, gnomes prefer woods and hills. Halflings don't care about material wealth, gnomes covet gems and on and on.

But hey, they're both short so I guess that makes them practically identical.

They're both short and practically human in appearance, they both send adventurers out into the world when they're young and curious, they're both positive, they're both sneaky, they're both somehow connected to nature (halflings as farmers, gnomes with Forest Gnomes), they both stereotypically live in burrows, they both are more nefarious on Eberron than other worlds, they both often have small settlements inside of larger human cities (halfling/gnome-town), they come from similar fairy-tale origins (with Brownies/Hobs/Nisse inspiring them), they're both "Forgotten Folk" and overlooked, they're both commonly rogues, bards, and other similar classes, and so on.

Gnomes aren't the same as halflings, as there are fairly large mechanical (gnomes are more magical, fey-touched, and typically have better intelligence pre-Tasha's, while halflings are luckier, braver, and more nimble) and thematic differences (gnomes have higher voices, are more eccentric, are antisocial), but there are obvious similarities, and IMO, there's enough similarities to just combine them into the same race with different subraces.

Also, Stout Halflings are dwarf-halflings, which is pretty much what Gnomes started out as (well, they were more Small dwarf-elves, but my point still stands). And on that note, I don't think Halflings even need subraces if they are to remain their own race, just take out the Stout Halflings and Lotusden Halflings, merge them with Rock Gnomes and Forest Gnomes respectively, and let Eberron be the one that adds variant Dragonmarked Halfling stats like it did for Half-Orcs, Half-Elves, and Humans. The gnome subraces have earned their places more than the halfling subraces have.

 

[Yaarel]

I mean, they've both evolved a long way since then haven't they?

This is like wanting kobolds to be Earth Elementals.

The Gnome evolved somewhat − where D&D 1e seemed to make the Dwarf nonmagical and used the Gnome as a magical Dwarf.

But the Halfling became a short Human. More of a merger than an evolution.