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

[Neonchameleon]

Not my definition: the PHB’s definition. There are 4 core races: humans, elves, dwarves and halflings.

Can I have a page reference for that please? I can see a reference to 4 common races on both page 11 and page 17 - but I can't see a reference to them being "core" races. And all the references I can find by googling refer to there being nine core races (all the ones in the PHB). I have literally never heard anyone refer in real life to the core races and mean anything other than "the races in the PHB".

And others have argued that no changes should be made to halflings because they have a niche and they personally like them.

This doesn't mean no changes should be made at all. It means that they think halflings are fine.

 

[JiffyPopTart]

And no one else has proposed any changes at all. They all want them to be kept in the status quo.

Oh, plenty of people have put forth "this is what I do in my campaign" and a lot of them are great ideas. But no one is taking that the step further and saying "maybe we should do this with all halflings"

Have you stopped to wonder why we say "this is what I did" and not "this is what WotC should do"? Take a guess as to our motivation ... I think it's a pretty universal one.

 

[Yaarel]

Can I have a page reference for that please? I can see a reference to 4 common races on both page 11 and page 17 - but I can't see a reference to them being "core" races. And all the references I can find by googling refer to there being nine core races (all the ones in the PHB). I have literally never heard anyone refer in real life to the core races and mean anything other than "the races in the PHB".

This doesn't mean no changes should be made at all. It means that they think halflings are fine.

I think I am the one who introduced the nickname "core four", to refer to the four lineages that the Players Handbook features as "common". Heh, mainly I like the rhyme, "core four".

I similarly refer to the Wizard, Fighter, Rogue, and Cleric as the "core four" classes.

Both foursomes relate to old school D&D. They are the "traditional" four and retain their high status and priority.

Possibly, we are witnessing the first time that their popularity is slipping, relative to other lineages and classes.



When I say "core four", I mean the traditional four that are in core. (I dont mean, that core only has four.)

 

[Oofta]

Have you stopped to wonder why we say "this is what I did" and not "this is what WotC should do"? Take a guess as to our motivation ... I think it's a pretty universal one.

I did try to show how I use them in my home campaign only to be told that it was not relevant.

Heaven forbid I happen to like halfling lore and simply flesh them out a little bit without changing their core.

 

[carkl3000]

Why would I say that? I never claimed that elves working in an orchard weren't doing difficult back-breaking work. You said that they weren't tilling and clearing the land. Which is what I was talking about.

I apologize if I misunderstood the thrust of your argument. The following is the thread I was responding to.

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.

Elves caring for a fruit orchard makes perfect sense. Elves raising herds of horses or other swift animals also make sense. Actually, since elves are famous for Elven wine, I imagine elven grape and berry farmers are quite common.

If your only conception of a farm involves potato farming, I can see how you could be confused.

Here, I understood you to be saying that tending an orchard or vinyard or raising horses were not vocations that would involve hard, sweaty work.

"their skill and magic allow them to support themselves without the need for clearing and plowing land."

Classic farmboys.

A tongue-in-cheek statement that admits that magic can take the place of hard sweaty work to accomplish farming, but it also doesn't really make them your typical farmer.

Go to an orchard farm, tell them you want to plow the land for them. See how well that goes.

And yes, the orchard would need to be cleared at some point, but they don't need magic to do that. In fact, no where in "orchards or raising horses" did I once mention magic at all. So, I'm not sure where you got magic from, but it is completely unnecessary. to the process.

But then here you seem to be taking magic back out of the equation, so forgive me if I assumed that you were again implying that those types of agriculture are not hard work.

I see by your most recent posts that you're ok with magic-assisted farming. That's fine. I think it's a cool background for an elf. But it doesn't make elves a stand-in for common farmers. Right?

 

[Gammadoodler]

Except that there is not a single reason to believe that Halflings don't care about money.

No, it literally, as in literally literally, talks about how they don't value possessions based on their monetary value.

"As do many other races, halflings enjoy accumulating personal possessions. But unlike with most other races, a halfling’s idea of value has little if anything to do with monetary concerns. A typical halfling’s most prized possessions are those that have the most interesting stories attached to them."

To break this down.

Halflings enjoy accumulating possessions "BUT" (by using But, a conjuction [an uninflected linguistic form that joins together sentences, clauses, phrases, or words] they are explicitly tying this new sentence to the old sentence)

Unlike other races (who accumulate personal possessions) a halflings idea of value (for their possessions) has little to do with money. Now, this is where you stop, and say " AHA! They don't like money, they wouldn't take payment for work in Money! Because they don't value it!" However, this is still EXPLICITLY tied to the idea of possessions. And the following sentence clarifies, by telling us that the POSSESSIONS a halfling values have the most interesting story.

This is explicit and literally referring back to the idea of monetary value in that sentence. Not because halflings don't use money and don't want to be paid in money, a thing that is mentioned nowhere in these three sentences. It is all tied into their possessions. They aren't going to value an expensive dress just because it is expensive. They aren't going to value expensive dishes because they are expensive. Their most valuable possessions are valuable because of sentiment.

But, if you try and pay a halfling through "the expeirence of working for me" I'm sure they are going to insulted, just like most people would be. Because they do use money. And they still believe money has value. They just don't like possessions for their monetary value.

Or they might not. There is positive evidence that they don't value money.

There isn't positive evidence that they do, except for your personal certainty of course.

 

[Yaarel]

I can see the Halfling culture preferring a barter economy. Probably, their preferred currency is food as a commodity. Such as an amount of grain, if farmers.

When they receive money, they calculate its value into its equivalent food value.

Food is something the Halflings care about, and they care that it keeps their own family and others alive. Food has a reasonably consistent value.

Thinking about the ancient Egyptian barter economy. They measured precisely the value of any item. The "buyer" would "pay" for the item with a "loan". The buyer would pay off this loan over time, by giving the "seller" items of various values that the seller wanted, until the value of the loan was payed off. (Everything was valued according to its weight in gold. But this was an abstract value, because gold was too sacred, and most of the population never touched it. If I remember correctly, it was taboo for anyone but the priests and the family of pharaoh to actually handle gold.) Note also, that Egyptians used food, a standardized amount of bread, as a currency of convenience for many every-day items. This barter economy was so successful that most Egyptians never used money until well into the Roman Period.

For D&D, I can see the Halfling of using food as their currency of convenience, perhaps standardized amounts of stored grain. For more costly items, the Halflings prefer interest-free loans, and trust each other to honor these loans, with an equal amount of goods and services.

What this means is. The Halflings can and do use money when doing commerce with Non-Halflings that are outsides. But among themselves in their own communities, money is actually never seen.

 

[Neonchameleon]

Or they might not. There is positive evidence that they don't value money.

There isn't positive evidence that they do, except for your personal certainty of course.

It also depends what you mean by "value money". In my experience almost everyone values money up to the point where they have a roof over their head, food reliably on the table, and a nest egg to deal with emergencies. After that point some people want to become millionaires - and others don't care because they have enough and money's keeping score in a game they simply aren't interested in.

 

[Yaarel]

Why would I say that? I never claimed that elves working in an orchard weren't doing difficult back-breaking work. You said that they weren't tilling and clearing the land. Which is what I was talking about.

Maybe spellcasting and performing magic rituals is tiring. But the Elves are definitely not doing anything "backbreaking" while wildfarming. Nor anything dirty.

The only kind of physical exercise I can imagine Elves doing, is Eldritch Knight combat training. This would be physically strenuous. I envision their fighting style as gymnastic and elegant.

Heh, but even then, never dirty! They would be using the Prestidigitation cantrip and other magics to keep looking good and bright, even during the most exertive stunts in the muckiest places. It might even be embarassing to an Elf if anyone sees them sweat.

 

[Dannyalcatraz]

And no one else has proposed any changes at all. They all want them to be kept in the status quo.

Oh, plenty of people have put forth "this is what I do in my campaign" and a lot of them are great ideas. But no one is taking that the step further and saying "maybe we should do this with all halflings"

In my case, several of my ideas- halflings as Fremen analogues who take “spice(s)” and become bulettes/wurms; “second breakfast is made of people”; halflings engaging in Wicker Man-esque burnt offerings- while cool, stray far from Tolkien and/or probably would only work for certain halfling communities, not the species as a whole.