But most of them don't need hooks to justify their existence. Tortles don't need any lore justification other than "turtle person". The same applies to most animal-folk (Tabaxi, Leonin, Aarakocra, Owlin, Rabbitfolk, Lizardfolk, Grung, Locathah, Dragonborn, and so on and so on). Warforged have an obvious hook, as do Kalashtar, my world's Felshen, Vezyi, and Golmeng, as do Reborn, Dhampir, and similar races that fill mechanical niches that double as thematic niches (as a construct race, a psionic race, undead-touched race, and a half-vampire race). Plane-touched (Genasi, Tieflings, Hexblood, Aasimar, etc) have an obvious hook, as do almost every other race in the game. Most of them don't need a ton of lore to exist, because the base idea is often enough (or even more than enough) to justify their inclusion in D&D 5e.
Races that are Animal-Folk get to piggyback off of the "lore"/stereotypes about the animals they are based off of. Planetouched get to piggyback off of the lore of the plane/planar-creatures that caused them to exist.
Not all of the races have a ton of lore, but that's mostly because they don't need them. There are races that do need them, especially the Core 4 races in the game. If they're going to be a core race in the game, they need a justification other than "Tolkien!". If they're going to be a race in the game, they need a justification other than "short person!", because "short person" and "tall person" aren't thematic niches, they're minor character traits. IMHO, creating an entire race based around "humans, but short!" is like creating an entire race that is "humans, but everyone is one gender!" or "humans. but everyone has purple skin!". That's not a good reason to include a player race. Short characters should absolutely be a character type that's supported in the base game, but I'm absolutely not convinced that creating a whole race around that is a good way to fulfill that character option.
I don't know. I'm not sure. But I surely didn't expect "you're oppressing my playstyle!" to be amongst the most common responses.
Races are supposed to promote character ideas and stories. They're supposed to help the DM and Players bring them to life, not hinder it. In my experience and from what I've seen, halflings hinder it more than help it. They're just kinda there, not doing anything, and not giving the world anything except filling up space.
If I look at Tortles, Aasimar, Lizardfolk, Goliaths, Dwarves, and almost any other race, I know what their purpose is and what stories they can help tell. If I look at halflings, I draw a blank and for some reason spend more time trying to justify their existence or find a place for them than all of the other races combined, and all to no avail.
If I say "I don't understand the base halflings, and don't think that they support creative play", I expect people to say "here's how you can use them in a unique way", not "you're wrong, you're doing it wrong, and you're ruining D&D" (to be a bit hyperbolic).
Because they aren't. Elves and Dragonborn are completely different in so many ways (physically, culturally, mechanically, etc) that Halflings just aren't in respect to Humans and Gnomes. The main visual difference between Gnomes and Halflings is that Gnomes have pointy ears, and the rest of them is pretty much the same (big-headed small human-looking people), and Halflings and Gnomes are similar culturally in a way that Elves and Dragonborn just flat-out are not.
Gnomes are to Elves as Kobolds are to Dragonborn. Gnomes share similar themes as elves (fey-ish race created by a god) and Kobolds share similar themes with Dragonborn (draconic race), but are undeniably completely different mechanically, culturally, mentally, and physically. I feel the same way about Ogres and Hill Giants; if the only notable difference between the creatures is their size, there's no good reason to keep both of them. If one can fulfill the purpose of the other by letting it be one size smaller/larger, there's no purpose in having both of them.
I didn't expect that. I just more expected "Okay, here are some ways to use them that you might prefer" to be awfully more common of a response than "just shut up and ignore them!"
Some people did offer examples of how they use halflings differently from the core game, and others offered interpretations of the core game's description of halflings that were slightly more compelling to me than the base halfling lore, but those were all very rare responses scattered throughout a sea of "you're wrong and not thinking about them enough" and "you do realize that you're not being forced to use them" posts.
I at least expected people to agree that they were treated differently from most other races in the game. That wasn't even agreed upon.
And it all boiled down to basically "Tolkien", like I said in the OP. That proves my point. They're only in the game because of Tolkien, they're only played because of Tolkien, and they're only ever represented in the books as basically how Tolkien presented Hobbits but with some D&Disms attached (pantheon of race-specific gods, dislike for ogres, and unexplained mechanical differences to justify them being a different race).
You can't please everyone, but that's no excuse for not attempting to, IMHO.
