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

[pemerton]

To put it more succinctly, while halflings use money just like other races, the monet value of thing aren’t what carries cachet in the shire.

The rogue’s brand new masterwork Mithril blade might be cool & all, but the rusty old, broken-bladed shiv Uncle Wine-Briars used to win the plot of land his family farms might be something worth fighting to the death for.

Halflings . . . they're almost human in their sentimentality!

 

[Yaarel]

Halflings pay off bullies with food and buy protection from those who don't take the payoff with food.

It explicitly states why halflings have little to no military or craftsmen.

Heh, if all else fail, I view Halflings as backstabbing bullies while the bully isnt looking.

There is no military, because the Halfling are mainly Rogues, doing covert ops and assassinations. At least if someone harms their family.

Halfling have crafters. Cooking is a craft. They probably build houses, so woodwork or masonry tools. Likely, they make their own clothing, so weavers, tailors, leatherworkers. Someone has to make that nice cozy Small furniture. Stuff like that.

 

[Hussar]

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.)

I'm really not sure that it's "the first time". I honestly believe, that for halflings anyway, it's pretty much always been thus. We just never had it presented so clearly before. Halfling popularity, and the popularity of the Core 4, outside humans, seems to be falling year on year. To me, it speaks volumes that the huge increase in the number of potentially playable races, hasn't put a dent in the other PHB races. You'd think if adding new races to the game reduced PHB race popularity, it would do so reasonably evenly. But, apparently, what's going on is that new races, drawn from new sources, are pulling form the traditional tolkien races only.

Funny that.

 

[carkl3000]

Hang on.

Earlier in the thread, you folks flat out refused to entertain the idea that halfling luck was magical in nature or that it came from the gods. I was told that it MUST be 100% natural and inherent to a halfling. After all, it doesn't stop working in an anti-magic field, right. It is, by the rules, non-magical in nature. That was the argument made by @carkl3000, repeatedly.

Are you now saying that @carkl3000 is wrong?

I have changed my point of view. Halfling luck (and fear that can't be resisted by magic resistance) might be magical, but it might not be either. Maybe in D&D physics there's a luck particle that resides deep in the halfling's hypothalamus.

 

[Hussar]

No it isn't. As I mentioned a few pages back, if the normal halfling archetype is "happy and content" the normal PC archetype is "X was happy and content until..." This doesn't miraculously mean that they stop being halflings.

All it means is that no race is entirely made of clones and that nature isn't 100% of what makes someone.

You're missing my point.

EVERY halfling PC character is "X was happy and content until" It's a very limited archetype that no other PHB race has. You have basically one choice when it comes to halflings, unless you reject the halfling description. My Scarred Lands halflings as downtrodden slave race (which is how Scarred Lands treats halflings) is most emphatically NOT drawn from PHB halflings. And that's the point. According to the PHB, there is only one halfling archetype - the happy being who was happy until X happened.

Sure, nature doesn't make 100% clones. Of course not. But, it gets a bit strange when every single PC from a given race has the same background. And those PC halflings basically have to act completely unlike halflings most of the time - once X is resolved, why aren't they going home? - every single time.

 

[pemerton]

I have changed my point of view. Halfling luck (and fear that can't be resisted by magic resistance) might be magical, but it might not be either. Maybe in D&D physics there's a luck particle that resides deep in the halfling's hypothalamus.

As long as it doesn't get in the way of the midichlorians.

 

[Gammadoodler]

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.

Money is only useful if everyone more or less agrees on what it's worth. That worth is expressed in what goods or services you can obtain with it. The costs of those goods and services in human culture typically has little to do with story.

And it sounds like halflings assess value differently.

I'm not suggesting that halflings would willingly starve or go homeless. I'm positing that their basis for negotiating trade of goods and services could be untethered from the Human cash value of those goods and services. In a halfling community, there's likely no need to even have a money economy.

 

[Hussar]

No one is cramming anything down your throat. Stop being so melodramatic. Your dissatisfaction with the influence of Tolkien on fantasy doesn't excuse your gross comments.

The idea that any of this is an appeal to tradition is laughable nonsense.

I support halflings in the game for precisely the same reason I support dragonborn in the game. They help a lot of players tell a different kind of story than would be easy to tell with humans or elves or whatever, and they're fun to play, and they're popular. Yes, popular. ANything in the top 20, much less top 10, out of over a hundred options, is popular.

I'm going to disagree here. Shock.

This is 100% an appeal to tradition and nothing else. Heck, even look at the lists of why people like halflings - Tolkien appears right there at the top of the list, as well as pointing to Moldvay Basic (the BEST version of D&D mind you), an edition that hasn't been in print for thirty years. And, no, they don't help players tell a different sort of story. They help players tell ONE story. The same story over and over and over again that was first told almost a hundred years ago now that they probably read in elementary school when they first got into the genre.

Now, I know there is zero chance of finding this one out, but, I wonder if there is an overlap between age and liking halflings. If there is any connection between when someone got into the hobby and their preference for maintaining halflings in the PHB. I know, that's just idle speculation.

 

[Neonchameleon]

You're missing my point.

EVERY halfling PC character is "X was happy and content until" It's a very limited archetype that no other PHB race has. You have basically one choice when it comes to halflings, unless you reject the halfling description.

Good job it's just the most common and not the only archetype then. Just an archetype that no other PHB race has so clearly. I mean the description of halflings talks about halflings being "lured by the open road and the wide horizon to discover the wonders of new lands and peoples" and motivations "for reasons of community, friendship, wanderlust, or curiosity."

My Scarred Lands halflings as downtrodden slave race (which is how Scarred Lands treats halflings) is most emphatically NOT drawn from PHB halflings. And that's the point. According to the PHB, there is only one halfling archetype - the happy being who was happy until X happened.

If you're going to claim that the PHB says something then please make sure the PHB actually says it. Because the PHB in no way claims there is only one halfling archetype.

Oh, and I had no idea that Tolkien made significant use of gnomes.

 

[carkl3000]

Okay. Can you give me something that a dragonborn commoner can't do or embody that being an "ideal commoner" does?

A dragonborn commoner can't not have scales and talons and can't not come from a culture for which:

"A continual drive for self-improvement reflects the
self-sufficiency of the race as a whole. Dragonborn value
skill and excellence in all endeavors. They hate to fail,
and they push themselves to extreme efforts before they
give up on something."

And one that values honor and adherence to one's role in a hierarchical clan.

And lots of other things that are pretty un-halfling-like.