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

[Bolares]

I am totally ok with making the Halfling a happy part of humanity.

Remove the Halfling from the lineages, and at the concept in the list of Human ethnicities.

Halflings are the corgi of PHB races... WHY ARE YOU TRYING TO KILL CORGIS?

 

[Dannyalcatraz]

Besides, people today often critique Tolkiens works to have racist elements, so there is also a need to be cautious about what Tolkien assumed to be ethical.

[Kanye]”Tolkein…did not care…about short people!”[/Kanye]

 

[Gammadoodler]

Your post mischaracterizes my post, as if I thought his opinion was wrong. Quite the opposite.

I wanted to know what @Mistwell loved about the Halfling because, while I view the Halfling as problematic, I dont want a "solution" that ruins what he loves about the Halfling.



His point that Tolkien himself considered the Halfling (Hobbit) to be a Human is significant.

For any other race, the Halfling would simply be called a "subrace", and there would not be much concern about it.

However, for the Human race to call an other Human something other than a normal Human, is actual, reallife, racism.

So there are only two alternatives. Either make the Halfling a fully-Human "Ethnicity" who is part of normal Human diversity, or else make the Halfling more obviously nonhuman.

Either way, the Halfling is way too Human. The concept must officially be a Human or disambiguously not a Human.

This is a fun new argument. Say halflings "are" Humans despite the differences in traits physiology and mindset, and then call it racism..

Gross.

 

[Yaarel]

Tree farms are still farms.

I dont call the Elf "gathering" tree foods, to be the same as if "farming".

With various magics, including druidry, the Elf shapes the trees magically to produce various fruits all year round, with minimal magical maintenance.

It conceptually resembles a magical hunter-gatherer. Not a herder-gardener. Tho it is somewhere in between, for the non-nomadic Elves who live in and cultivate a settlement.

 

[Yaarel]

[Kanye]”Tolkein…did not care…about short people!”[/Kanye]

Tolkien obviously loved his Hobbits, and apparently self-identified with them as British folk.

But making the British "people" endearing and innocent, while the other peoples of Humanity are somewhat more Evil, to various degrees, is still kinda racist.

 

[Dannyalcatraz]

Tolkien obviously loved his Hobbits, and apparently self-identified with them as British folk.

But making the British "people" endearing and innocent, while the other peoples of Humanity are somewhat more Evil, to various degrees, is still kinda racist.

The idealized, pastoral Brits, not the ones who are responsible for more “Independence Day” celebrations around the world than any other country.

 

[Yaarel]

This is a fun new argument. Say halflings "are" Humans despite the differences in traits physiology and mindset, and then call it racism..

Gross.

Trying to create Human "subraces" is gross in reallife. There is a reason why WotC avoids doing it.

 

[Gammadoodler]

Trying to create Human "subraces" is gross in reallife. There is a reason why WotC avoids doing it.

And it is a practice you are now insisting is already true despite evidence to the contrary.

It is controversy you are introducing apropos of nothing.

 

[Yaarel]

And it is a practice you are now insisting is already true despite evidence to the contrary.

It is controversy you are introducing apropos of nothing.

Apropos of Tolkien himself viewing the Hobbit as a Human subrace.

Gross.

 

[Faolyn]

As for elves and agriculture... wild farming is a thing. Elves would totally engage in that. Humans and others might not even realize they're in an elven farm.