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

[bedir than]

Humans can live in beautiful places. Elves live in magical places of "ethereal" beauty and "faerie light".

Jasper, Moorea, Niagara, etc - all described as ethereal beauty by real humans. Additionally, humans within D&D can live in fantastic lands, everyone can. That's the power of fantasy. Put an orc in a land of ethereal beauty and they don't become an elf.

 

[Hussar]

Let's try an experiment. Let's substitute human for elf in your paragraph. And then human for halfling.

"Humans are a magical people of otherworldly grace, living in the world but not entirely part of it. They live in places of ethereal beauty, in the midst of ancient forests or in silvery spires glittering with faerie light, where soft music drifts through the air and gentle fragrances waft on the breeze. Humans love nature and magic, art and artistry, music and poetry, and the good things of the world."

How many references to non-human do you need? What humans could be substituted for that description?

Let's see what happens if we substitute human for halfling:

"The comforts of home are the goals of most human's lives: a place to settle in peace and quiet, far from marauding monsters and clashing armies; a blazing fire and a generous meal; fine drink and fine conversation. Though some humans live out their days in remote agricultural communities, others form nomadic bands that travel constantly, lured by the open road and the wide horizon to discover the wonders of new lands and peoples. But even these wanderers love peace, food, hearth, and home, though home might be a wagon jostling along a dirt road or a raft floating downriver."

Huh. Look at that. Fits perfectly well. There are all sorts of humans that fit that description. I'd go so far as to say that the overwhelming majority of humans throughout much of real world history would fit that description.

 

[Hussar]

Jasper, Moorea, Niagara, etc - all described as ethereal beauty by real humans. Additionally, humans within D&D can live in fantastic lands, everyone can. That's the power of fantasy. Put an orc in a land of ethereal beauty and they don't become an elf.

I grew up about an hour from Niagara. I've seen a LOT of descriptions of Niagara Falls. Ethereal is not one of them. How in the world would you possibly describe Niagara as ethereal? Honking massive waterfall, loud as all get out, powerful and majestic. Ethereal? Seriously?

 

[Yaarel]

Jasper, Moorea, Niagara, etc - all described as ethereal beauty by real humans. Additionally, humans within D&D can live in fantastic lands, everyone can. That's the power of fantasy. Put an orc in a land of ethereal beauty and they don't become an elf.

But humans dont come from there.

Actually I agree.

I want D&D elves to be less Tolkien elves and more nature beings, earthy being of vegetation or skyey being of sunlight.

At least even Tolkien had some kind of nod toward a nonhuman magical origin and heritage.

 

[Gammadoodler]

Let's see...

Human
Gnome (I literally did play a gnome farmboy who left home)
Dragonborn
Elf
Genasi
Tielfing
Aasimar
Half-Elf
Half-Orc
Loxodon
Shifter
Dwarf

Those are the easier ones at least.



No, I do not "desire to destroy them" I said if I want to do anything else with halflings I first have break them away from the Shire and into the wider world. If you interpret that as "forcing the character to leave the shire" Congrats! That's the farmboy leaving home story. I'm talking about needing to put halflings somewhere else, and rewrite them to make different lore, just to get some other type of story out of them.

There are no elven farmboys. That would require an elf to:

A. Work
B. Get dirty

And do that for decades..at a minimum..

No F-ing way.

 

[Dannyalcatraz]

I grew up about an hour from Niagara. I've seen a LOT of descriptions of Niagara Falls. Ethereal is not one of them. How in the world would you possibly describe Niagara as ethereal? Honking massive waterfall, loud as all get out, powerful and majestic. Ethereal? Seriously?

That IS kinda like calling a møøse “dainty”.

 

[bedir than]

A dancer on the beaches of Tahiti, or a aerial trick skier on the uncombed snows above Park City.

How many references to non-human do you need? What humans could be substituted for that description?

Language and story are powerful and flexible tools.

The kind of shoehorning that the anti-halfling group want to force into fantasy storytelling is baffling.

 

[Don Durito]

People just weirdly overthink things.

People play halflings because they want to play short plucky heroes.

Anything beyond that is pretty limited to probably less than 1% of D&D players.

 

[Gammadoodler]

No, Japanese translations. Remember, Salvatore hits the NYT best seller list pretty regularly.

Fair enough. Don't know enough about the broader Japanese book market to comment in that case.

 

[bedir than]

Ethereal? Seriously?

Yeah, standing on the boat, looking at the sky through the mists. The sun turning into a multitude of suns because of air so full of water.
Yes, very yes.