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

[Yaarel]

I think Thorin would be pretty pissed if people started referring to him as just a "short human".

Does "Small Human" sound better?

 

[Don Durito]

Does "Small Human" sound better?

Ehh I think "Squashed Human" would be more accurate.

 

[Oofta]

Oh, I find Tabaxi boring, too, but I fully support them getting good lore in D&D and being included (largely for cat-people, I imagine. I'm a dog person, but don't want dog-people, but that's mostly because I'm disturbed by the concept of a dog-human hybrid).

I'm completely uninspired by Tabaxi, Rabbitfolk, Fairies, Kobolds, Tritons, Sea-Elves, and plenty of other races/subraces in the game, but I don't want them removed from the game if they fulfill a purpose. However, I do think that Sea-Elves and Tritons are largely redundant (especially with Merfolk existing) and that 5e should pick one and drop the other (I personally prefer Tritons over Sea-Elves). I'm perfectly fine with the concept of "fishy water-person" existing in the game, but I don't think we need 2-3 races to fulfill the one concept. I feel the exact same way about Halflings and Humans. That's my point.

Halflings fill just as much or more of a niche as other races for me. So you don't care for Tabaxi either. But genasi do nothing for me. I've played a wide variety of races over the years, but I'll never play a tiefling. The fact that we have these options is not a bad thing.

We're just going to have to agree to disagree.

 

[Dannyalcatraz]

I realize that it was done for copyright reasons, but problem #1 for Halflings is their D&D name. No other species name is so clearly referential to another species, “Half” of what? Humans, clearly.

I think you’d be hard pressed to find a RW culture that named itself reverentially to another peoples. I mean, even looking at tribal names, a lot of them translate to something like “The People”, because everyone else isn’t.

Which is why JRRT gave them a name that at least sounds like they came up with it themselves.

If you must rewrite halfling lore, start with the name.

 

[Levistus's_Leviathan]

You don't really need a button.

It would be helpful, though. If there were a digital tool where I as a DM could just mark races that said "this race is gone and not allowed in the campaign", that would save a hassle for me and plenty of other DMs that choose to exclude races from their campaigns. It's not needed, but it would be convenient.

I recommended earlier that people can just tear out those pages from the PHB if they want.

I would never vandalize my book (or any book, for that matter) like that! I hate the Order of the Scribes Wizard many more times than I dislike halflings, but I would never do that to my copy of Tasha's Cauldron of Everything.

That's sort of a big feature of the game. No one is going to go to you table and demand those pages to be reinserted. Or demand that every 20th character be a halflings.

But when I say "halflings don't exist in my world", players will question "why?!?! I want to be a halfling!!!", even if they have never had any inclination to play them before (for some reason, there is a strange phenomenon at my games where if I say that I'm banning something, it makes my players want to play them way more than they did before, sometimes wanting to play them when they never wanted to before. I don't know why this is or how to deal with it, but I've learned that it's best to only ban things that I can justify with mechanical excuses, like the Yuan-Ti Pureblood, Order of the Scribes, and Kenku).

It's especially difficult for me to justify excluding halflings from my setting when it is just a future version of Toril, which does have halflings (and every race in the game, and their mothers, too). I know that this is an extremely niche problem, but it still has caused me no small amount of distress at trying to find a cool way to include/spin halflings or trying to find a good reason to justify excluding them.

The length of this thread is because we have a very hard time saying "agree to disagree".

Also, some here have tried to make it a point to "objectively" prove that halflings are "bad".
Someone else has pushed for them to be removed from the PHB. It's when people try to convince others that their opinion and enjoyment is "wrong", it crosses into the "badwrongfun" territory. I hope they do add more lore for halflings and other races. I just don't think anything needs to forced upon anyone.

I know that I haven't, and very quickly emphasized that the OP was subjective (due to comparing halflings to other races being inherently subjective). I know @Hussar wanted them removed from the PHB, but I didn't say or support that opinion (and most of the other people on my side of the argument acted similarly), and they have since left the thread.

I'm not advocating for saying that people who enjoy halflings are having "badwrongfun", as I'm quite vocal in my opinion that badwrongfun is only possible if it's hurting someone else, but I am of the opinion that it would not hurt people's fun if halflings were just a part of the Human race (and not a subrace, just a choice of "Small or Medium" when making a human character). If you still want to be a lucky halfling, take the Lucky Feat as a Small-sized Variant Human. Same theme, similar mechanics, just relegated to another race to avoid redundancy.

Is that "crossing into badwrongfun territory"? Is it wrong for me to say that I've found halflings harmful to my games and world and that I would prefer if they were treated in such a manner that shifted them to be less important while still supporting the character ideas and stories of people that want to play halflings? I don't think it is.

 

[Yaarel]

Halflings are more than just their size.

Really? Halflings are more than just their size?

What else is there? Even their pluckiness and hiding ability are aspects of their size.

I think their pastoralism is interesting and worthwhile flavor, but even this is strictly normal reallife human.

As a character concept, the Halfling is something like just their size.

 

[lingual]

In the case of Halflings ... their all too Human flavor ... does make it easier to handwaive them as a Human ethnicity, whenever coming across them in official material. Even the name "Halfling" is a pejorative term for a short Human, but one which the Halfling community made their own.



Nevertheless, as a separate "race" (species) that isnt a Human "ethnicity", the official identity needs to be more distinctive.

Well Butterbur only serves them half pints at his tavern. Maybe that's where "halflings" comes from.

 

[lingual]

It would be helpful, though. If there were a digital tool where I as a DM could just mark races that said "this race is gone and not allowed in the campaign", that would save a hassle for me and plenty of other DMs that choose to exclude races from their campaigns. It's not needed, but it would be convenient.

I would never vandalize my book (or any book, for that matter) like that! I hate the Order of the Scribes Wizard many more times than I dislike halflings, but I would never do that to my copy of Tasha's Cauldron of Everything.

But when I say "halflings don't exist in my world", players will question "why?!?! I want to be a halfling!!!", even if they have never had any inclination to play them before (for some reason, there is a strange phenomenon at my games where if I say that I'm banning something, it makes my players want to play them way more than they did before, sometimes wanting to play them when they never wanted to before. I don't know why this is or how to deal with it, but I've learned that it's best to only ban things that I can justify with mechanical excuses, like the Yuan-Ti Pureblood, Order of the Scribes, and Kenku).

It's especially difficult for me to justify excluding halflings from my setting when it is just a future version of Toril, which does have halflings (and every race in the game, and their mothers, too). I know that this is an extremely niche problem, but it still has caused me no small amount of distress at trying to find a cool way to include/spin halflings or trying to find a good reason to justify excluding them.

I know that I haven't, and very quickly emphasized that the OP was subjective (due to comparing halflings to other races being inherently subjective). I know @Hussar wanted them removed from the PHB, but I didn't say or support that opinion (and most of the other people on my side of the argument acted similarly), and they have since left the thread.

I'm not advocating for saying that people who enjoy halflings are having "badwrongfun", as I'm quite vocal in my opinion that badwrongfun is only possible if it's hurting someone else, but I am of the opinion that it would not hurt people's fun if halflings were just a part of the Human race (and not a subrace, just a choice of "Small or Medium" when making a human character). If you still want to be a lucky halfling, take the Lucky Feat as a Small-sized Variant Human. Same theme, similar mechanics, just relegated to another race to avoid redundancy.

Is that "crossing into badwrongfun territory"? Is it wrong for me to say that I've found halflings harmful to my games and world and that I would prefer if they were treated in such a manner that shifted them to be less important while still supporting the character ideas and stories of people that want to play halflings? I don't think it is.

That would be a nice little feature in DnDBeyond. I stand corrected! Like an anti-home brew.

 

[Levistus's_Leviathan]

I realize that it was done for copyright reasons, but problem #1 for Halflings is their D&D name. No other species name is so clearly referential to another species, “Half” of what? Humans, clearly.

Exactly this! Even their name refers to their relationship as just being a Small Human. Either make them less like humans (which would involve giving them a name-change and cultural change to differentiate them from humans), or make them straight up be humans of the Small size.

 

[Yaarel]

Well Butterbur only serves them half pints at his tavern. Maybe that's where "halflings" comes from.

Yeah. I was surprised how Tolkien himself though of the "Halfling" as a Human subrace, a separate "branch" of Human, which for todays sensibilities feels like a racist way of thinking.



There are reallife examples, like Homo Floresiensis. But while the human sciences debate "how human" these branches are, it is probably wiser for the D&D game to stat them as part of the normal Human diversity.