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

[Minigiant]

Don't all races represent some aspect of humanity?

Do they?

Or do most fans just downplay the inhumanness of most races to make roleplaying easier?

 

[Dannyalcatraz]

Honestly, knees is a best case scenario. I imagine halflings get their fear resistance as a reaction to near constant crop-dusting.

Kilts are rare where halflings dwell…

 

[Yaarel]

Don't all races represent some aspect of humanity?

Yeah, every lineage is practicably a heightened sense of someway of being a human.

The problem is, the halfling is simply a human. There is no heightening.

 

[Yaarel]

What differentiates them it's what they don't have. They don't build cities, or empires, or complex political structures, or big trading companies, or armies, or mercenary companies.

But most humans dont build cities or empires or complex political structures, or companies, or so on.

Most humans, like most halflings, participate in these institutions that other people built.

They're probably a lot less prone to guile and jealousy, but a lot more prone to complacency and laziness.

Honestly, I think this "dont know, dont care" angle, is a way to "heighten" the behavior of the halfling lineage. But the Players Handbook doesnt go there.

Heh, "dont know, dont care" is a way to explain how a good natured and well meaning culture can be Rogues. But again, the Players Handbook doesnt go there.

 

[Lakesidefantasy]

I like halflings.

Freedom!

 

[Hussar]

/snip

Yes. Critical Role is comparable in popularity to D&D. Like, as a whole. Millions of views per episode, widely credited with helping make 5e as successful as it is. Big enough that Colbert did a game with the DM for charity. Pervasive in D&D circles to the point where people whine about “the Mercer Effect”. I work autoparts in a large hick town, and I regularly see people with CR merch, CR stickers on their truck, and have dozens of times seen someone with a CR tattoo. Their comics are bestsellers. Their D&D book is one of the best selling books in the edition, last I checked.
/snip

You live in a really, really weird place @doctorbadwolf. Not only do people around you completely buck the numbers on halflings played to the point where you apparently see halflings played all the time , but, now you "regularly" see people with CR stickers on their truck? And dozens of CR tattoos? For a web series that gets, according to this chart anyway, a couple of million views per episode?

From this site:
So, for a show that has a couple of million views, it's so popular, so ingrained into pop culture, that you are regularly seeing CR merch?

You don't think, maybe, just maybe, there might be just the teesiest, tiniest bit of confirmation bias going on here? Just maybe?

 

[JiffyPopTart]

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.

A quick perusal online tell me that 2000 and beyond we have had....

22 videogames (not counting expansions or DLC)

183 books (not counting reprints or omnibus editions).

That's not nothing.

 

[Faolyn]

So, for a show that has a couple of million views, it's so popular, so ingrained into pop culture, that you are regularly seeing CR merch?

You don't think, maybe, just maybe, there might be just the teesiest, tiniest bit of confirmation bias going on here? Just maybe?

Didn't you say that you live in a smallish Japanese village? Who do you think is going to see more geek stuff: someone who lives in a small town in a country where the language used in the show isn't the main one spoken in that country, or someone who lives in a larger area in a country that uses that language? I don't know where Doctorbadwolf lives, but I'd bet it's in a much different place than you.

 

[doctorbadwolf]

You live in a really, really weird place @doctorbadwolf. Not only do people around you completely buck the numbers on halflings played to the point where you apparently see halflings played all the time , but, now you "regularly" see people with CR stickers on their truck? And dozens of CR tattoos? For a web series that gets, according to this chart anyway, a couple of million views per episode?

From this site:
So, for a show that has a couple of million views, it's so popular, so ingrained into pop culture, that you are regularly seeing CR merch?

You don't think, maybe, just maybe, there might be just the teesiest, tiniest bit of confirmation bias going on here? Just maybe?

Bro that’s live viewership of a show that is regularly 4 hours long, with VOD, YouTube, and podcast, options.

If there is confirmation bias at work here, it’s not on my end.

And yeah, “a few million views per episode”, even if those charts showed us all consumption, would be plenty to prove my point.

 

[Chaosmancer]

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

No, that is not what I said. I said nothing about Epics. At all. I have no idea what you are reading into my words, but you are entirely off-base.

The halfling as presented doesn't open up any new stories. The story of the farm boy who leaves home? Already covered. And that is about the only story the base halfling really gets until you start breaking them away from the Shires and forcing them into the wider world.

This isn't about "epics" this is about interaction. And as Oofta said, one of the defining parts of the current halfling is that they don't care about the world beyond their Shire. And that is what I am speaking against.