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

[Faolyn]

Do you seriously think that Critical Role, a quite popular Youtube program that's, what, five, six years old, is on the same level as Forgotten Realms, a setting with literally hundreds of authors, thousands of books, published in multiple languages, that features on best seller lists pretty regularly, has spawned numerous video games, comic books, and who knows what else?

Critical Role is out now. How many tie-in books, video games, and comics have been produced for the Realms this century? Some, yes, but a lot? Any that are truly stand-outs that would attract people who don't game, especially when you consider how much fantasy there is these days?

On Archive Of Our Own, there are 1,661 fanworks tagged Forgotten Realms and 19,600 fanworks tagged Critical Role.

 

[Faolyn]

Where does this numbers come from? I've always been under the impression that homebrew worlds are the most played worlds... Heck, in a lot of languages the FR were barelly published....

Well, nearly all of the published adventures take place or start off in the Realms, so that probably skews the data a bit.

 

[Chaosmancer]

Quite possible. Although Chaosmancer's reply was more like "I don't care about upsetting people who like that story," not "how can they not see the contradiction!?"

I feel it is a good backstory. It sets up a great potential plot of unearthing the true history of the duergar and forcing the other dwarfs into acknowledging it and accepting the truth instead of the lies they've been fed by their elders.

And if you don't use alignment, then surface dwarfs were already not Always Lawful Good, and duergar, no longer Always Evil, become the equivalent of the gith--more people mutated by the mind flayers and who have a strong reason to fight against them. The only difference is that the giths were already divided into good and evil

The issue is that the story doesn't present this like "the dwarven elders did this great evil, but they have lied to their people" it is presented as "the Eeeevil Duergar got their just deserts from the saintly dwarves".

You can like the story in making Dwarves having done a great atrocity, but as presented, that isn't the way the story is meant to be taken.

 

[bedir than]

it has never been about giving them ambitions for wealth or glory, it is about making some halflings interact with the larger world without having to rely on them being a player character. About recognizing that in a world as dangerous as DnD, a race of people who just mooch protection off of humans and laze around in idyllic glades doesn't seem right.

Again, this shows a lack of understanding of modern fiction.

The space halflings operate within open up D&D to stories that are different from those of other races, the whole point to having different races.

If you think the only tales that matter are epics, you will be disappointed in halflings. If you think there is room within D&D for a much wider variety of story you are likely to seek out races like the halfling

 

[Bolares]

Well, nearly all of the published adventures take place or start off in the Realms, so that probably skews the data a bit.

sure, but 50%???

 

[Faolyn]

sure, but 50%???

I doubt it's 50%. But any official numbers are going to be skewed because of the adventures, since nearly all of them take place in the Realms. So even if you buy an adventure and remap it to a different setting or just steal ideas from it, sales numbers might count that as being a Realms game.

 

[doctorbadwolf]

Well, nearly all of the published adventures take place or start off in the Realms, so that probably skews the data a bit.

I doubt it's 50%. But any official numbers are going to be skewed because of the adventures, since nearly all of them take place in the Realms. So even if you buy an adventure and remap it to a different setting or just steal ideas from it, sales numbers might count that as being a Realms game.

Yep, and yet I'd be shocked if it weren't still the case that most games are homebrew. And given the publication of other settings, I doubt FR even has the same level of lead on those settings that it used to have, though it's certainly still in the lead.
But people's ideas of halflings right now? What is on people's minds as they're making halflings today? Far more influenced by Veth Brenato than by any FR story.

Again, this shows a lack of understanding of modern fiction.

The space halflings operate within open up D&D to stories that are different from those of other races, the whole point to having different races.

If you think the only tales that matter are epics, you will be disappointed in halflings. If you think there is room within D&D for a much wider variety of story you are likely to seek out races like the halfling

here, a crystal alien with a projected anthropomorphic form of a type that is essentially the halfling of her alien society instructs a regular human on how to be the knight of her half-alien-prince boyfriend. In DnD, I'd struggle with the human character actually being a human, whereas the story is a perfect fit for a halfling. Maybe the perfect story for a halfling fighter or swashbuckler rogue or something like that. "You've got nothing but the way you feel, your strategy and your sword." is a line that speaks to exactly what makes halfling PCs satisfying.

Also, it's a great song.

Critical Role is out now. How many tie-in books, video games, and comics have been produced for the Realms this century? Some, yes, but a lot? Any that are truly stand-outs that would attract people who don't game, especially when you consider how much fantasy there is these days?

On Archive Of Our Own, there are 1,661 fanworks tagged Forgotten Realms and 19,600 fanworks tagged Critical Role.

Exactly. If CR as big as FR was at it's height? Who knows! But CR is definitely at least in the "same zipcode" as FR today.

 

[Bolares]

Yep, and yet I'd be shocked if it weren't still the case that most games are homebrew.

That's my assumption as well...

 

[doctorbadwolf]

That's my assumption as well...

Yep. My suspicion is that more AP sales don't actually indicate groups playing that AP, as such. They mostly get mined for encounters, monsters, environments, magic items, etc, IME.

 

[Bolares]

Yep. My suspicion is that more AP sales don't actually indicate groups playing that AP, as such. They mostly get mined for encounters, monsters, environments, magic items, etc, IME.

Or getting their fix on D&D products... I'm not addicted, YOU ARE!