RPG Evolution: The Trouble with Halflings

Over the decades I've developed my campaign world to match the archetypes my players wanted to play. In all those years, nobody's ever played a halfling.

Picture courtesy of Pixabay.​

So What's the Problem?​

Halflings, derived from hobbits, have been a curious nod to Tolkien's influence on fantasy. While dwarves and elves have deep mythological roots, hobbits are more modern inventions. And their inclusion was very much a response to the adventurous life that the agrarian homebodies considered an aberration. In short, most hobbits didn't want to be adventurers, and Bilbo, Frodo, and the others were forever changed by their experiences, such that it was difficult for them to reintegrate when they returned home. You don't hear much about elves and dwarves having difficulty returning home after being adventurers, and for good reason. Tolkien was making a point about the human condition and the nature of war by using hobbits as proxies.

As a literary construct, hobbits serve a specific purpose. In The Hobbit, they are proxies for children. In The Lord of the Rings, they are proxies for farmers and other folk who were thrust into the industrialized nightmare of mass warfare. In both cases, hobbits were a positioned in contrast to the violent lifestyle of adventurers who live and die by the sword.

Which is at least in part why they're challenging to integrate into a campaign world. And yet, we have strong hobbit archetypes in Dungeons & Dragons, thanks to Dragonlance.

Kender. Kender Are the Problem​

I did know one player who loved to play kender. We never played together in a campaign, at least in part because kender are an integral part of the Dragonlance setting and we weren't playing in Dragonlance. But he would play a kender in every game he played, including in massive multiplayers like Ultima Online. And he was eye-rollingly aggravating, as he loved "borrowing" things from everyone (a trait established by Tasselhoff Burrfoot).

Part of the issue with kender is that they aren't thieves, per se, but have a child-like curiosity that causes them to "borrow" things without understanding that borrowing said things without permission is tantamount to stealing in most cultures. In essence, it results in a character who steals but doesn't admit to stealing, which can be problematic for inter-party harmony. Worse, kender have a very broad idea of what to "borrow" (which is not limited to just valuables) and have always been positioned as being offended by accusations of thievery. It sets up a scenario where either the party is very tolerant of the kender or conflict ensues. This aspect of kender has been significantly minimized in the latest draft for Unearthed Arcana.

Big Heads, Little Bodies​

The latest incarnation of halflings brings them back to the fun-loving roots. Their appearance is decidedly not "little children" or "overweight short people." Rather, they appear more like political cartoons of eras past, where exaggerated features were used as caricatures, adding further to their comical qualities. But this doesn't solve the outstanding problem that, for a game that is often about conflict, the original prototypes for halflings avoided it. They were heroes precisely because they were thrust into difficult situations and had to rise to the challenge. That requires significant work in a campaign to encourage a player to play a halfling character who would rather just stay home.

There's also the simple matter of integrating halflings into societies where they aren't necessarily living apart. Presumably, most human campaigns have farmers; dwarves and elves occupy less civilized niches, where halflings are a working class who lives right alongside the rest of humanity in plain sight. Figuring out how to accommodate them matters a lot. Do humans just treat them like children? Would halflings want to be anywhere near a larger humanoids' dwellings as a result? Or are halflings given mythical status like fey? Or are they more like inveterate pranksters and tricksters, treating them more like gnomes? And if halflings are more like gnomes, then why have gnomes?

There are opportunities to integrate halflings into a world, but they aren't quite so easy to plop down into a setting as dwarves and elves. I still haven't quite figured out how to make them work in my campaign that doesn't feel like a one-off rather than a separate species. But I did finally find a space for gnomes, which I'll discuss in another article.

Your Turn: How have you integrated halflings into your campaign world?

 

[Crimson Longinus]

Because

1. Humans exist if you don't what to be fantastical
2. Playing a PC means you are actively being a big deal.
3. Any race can be a peasant

Halfling being a mundane, redundant, hard mode race is a bad idea as an incusion in the PHB.

If there is only one PHB and it's for creation of the most important displays of PC archtypes, then the halfling if included shouldnt be singled out as a "special case" race in both lore and mechanics.

Right, so, you don't get halflings. That's fine, but the fault doesn't lie with the halflings. They're physical and metaphorical "little people". That's the appeal. Sure, a PC might become a hero like Bilbo or Frodo did, but the basic tone of the species makes it different than for humans.

 

[Minigiant]

Right, so, you don't get halflings. That's fine, but the fault doesn't lie in the halflings. They're physical and metaphorical "little people". That's the appeal. Sure, a PC might become a hero like Bilbo or Frodo did, but the basic tone of the species makes it different than for humans.

No I get Halfling. They aren't little people. Halfling are little humans.


Tolkien created hobbits as a small version of rural humans. D&D shaved off the name and made them a bit more magical and a few fantastical racial traits.

Then 5e cut out half those traits, dilluted the rest, and made Halfling back into "humans but smaller and all peasants"

 

[James Gasik]

Hey, my 5e Halfling had the Noble Background! So he can't be a peasant!

 

[Neonchameleon]

Because

1. Humans exist if you don't what to be fantastical
2. Playing a PC means you are actively being a big deal.
3. Any race can be a peasant

Halfling being a mundane, redundant, hard mode race is a bad idea as an incusion in the PHB.

If there is only one PHB and it's for creation of the most important displays of PC archtypes, then the halfling if included shouldnt be singled out as a "special case" race in both lore and mechanics.

The thing is that the tone of D&D humans is that they are in D&D universes a big deal. A very significant plurality of D&D adventurers are humans to the point that both "classic" human and variant human are more popular than any other PC race. And what was, as of the most recent stats, the second most popular adventuring race behind humans? Half-elves - in other words half-humans. Humans utterly dominate the ranks of adventurers. Human kingdoms are also a significant plurality of kingdoms in most settings and humans are normally a plurality of inhabitants. And going back to the half-elves point, humans are the sexy race of D&D, ready willing and able to breed with almost anyone.

Because of the way humans are set up humans are as a species in D&D are about as boosted as in naughty word Yeah Humanity stories. They are the Obvious Protagonist faction. And anyone of any species in almost any D&D setting who discounts someone because they are human or who thinks that humans will be a pushover is deserving of a Darwin Award.

So of your points

1. D&D humans are fantastical and emphasise how fantastical humans can be. They're the dominant species in most D&D settings and despite all the fantastical around them they are normally both the action stars and the porn stars for all races. So if you want to actively de-emphasise the fantastical you (ironically) need to be other than human. Human is not fit for purpose.
2. A low level PC is not a big deal. And a high level PC being a human is unsurprising to anyone. If you are going to meet a great and powerful wizard and they turn out to be a human that will surprise no one. A halfling? Will be a surprise.
3. Any race can be a peasant - but PCs although they might have been peasants are adventurers. PC humans will almost all be treated as adventurers. The halfling will look like e.g. Ed Sheeran in a collection of other pop stars

D&D is a game about power fantasies and because of it D&D humans are a power fantasy race that are obviously seen as one. Being the race that looks the part of the archetypal hero makes it a poor choice for emphasising that they are unlikely heroes.

 

[Faolyn]

You seem to be confusing the possibility of something happening with it being meaningful. As we've already established, re-rolling a 1 and getting a chance to hit is about a 3% increase in your chance to hit. Re-rolling into a crit is, as Max has helpfully pointed out, a 1/400 chance, or a 0.25% chance.

"We" haven't established anything about 3%. MaxPerson has pointed out that the chances of rolling two 1s in a row is very, very slim. But you're ignoring that because they can reroll the first 1, they have a second chance to succeed.

I'm not going to do the math here, but being able to reroll a crit failure is good. Especially since this reroll can give you the opportunity to spend inspiration.

Also, I went back and checked as as far as I can see, the only person claiming that there's a 3% increase is you. I have no idea where that number came from, other than you making up some nonsense about humans passing a death save 45% of the time and halflings passing it 47%, or something like that. Your numbers don't work, whatever the specific details are. But here's another thing you're ignoring. You make 1 death save a turn, and have to make three successes before you make three failures. Let's say both a human and a halfling have to make them, and both roll 1s. Well, the human has now made two failures, and is at great risk of death: one more failure or an injury spell death. They could very easily die in the next round, unless they immediately get help.

But the halfling gets to reroll and, we'll say they roll a 2. A terrible roll in your book, but guess what? This only counts as a single failure. They get two more chances, which means more chances to be stabilized and more chances to succeed.

You know, it would be hilarious if this didn't happen so often.

Me: The rules don't accurately portray the narrative of halfling luck. This is an example of what halfling luck is like, according to the narratives associated with DnD
You: That doesn't follow the rules of the games at all! That's just a plot contrivance! No serious DnD media follows the rules!

Well, yes. You're showing something that is not a D&D game written by someone who almost certainly didn't turn a real game into a comic and for I know doesn't even play D&D in the first place, and expecting that to mean something about D&D. What did you think was going to happen?

Yes, thank you for identifying the problem accurately. All supernatural luck is a plot contrivance. Now, since we are on the same page, you will probably soon make a sarcastic attack about how a "dues ex machina" ability would be incredibly broken and bad for the game. I agree! This is partially why I've never liked any game that tries to put in a supernaturally lucky group, because you really can't.

Good things halflings aren't supernaturally lucky, then. They're not reality warpers and have never been treated as such in the game. They just get to reroll 1s.

But, now we are in agreement that the rules don't accurately portray luck, so any halfling character sitting at a table that follows the rules isn't actually terribly lucky.

They get to reroll 1s by using a trait called Lucky. You're the only one here who thinks that this should mean something other than what it says.

I'm not confusing anything. I know what I've been talking about, it is everyone else who seems to think I'm talking about something else. I mean, why else would I keep insising that the narration is the part I'm talking about if I wanted to talk about the mechanics.

I have no idea. You seem to think that it's not your job to narrate the game or to come up with moments of luck for your halfling PCs.

Also, really? You know how easy that list is to break apart? Like, for example, if you follow the RAW basic rules, no one can move through anyone else's space. But if you do the variant rule, then everyone can move through the space of a small or larger creature with a check. It then becomes that halflings just auto-succeed the check against medium or bigger creatures.

Yes. They have a rules exception. They don't need to roll to do this thing. You haven't broken the list apart. They can automatically do something that other creatures can't do without effort. Just like creatures with darkvision can easily see in the dark where other creatures can't.

But, you know what? When asked, "moving through larger creature's spaces" wasn't held up as defining the halflings. What was held up was

So? Probably because it didn't have a memorable name.

Halflings are Stealthy
Halflings are Lucky
Halflings are Brave

You can go back and re-read the post I responded to if you don't believe me. It wasn't "halflings are one of the only races in the game that allow you to roll fear checks with advantage." Because they were talking narrative, not mechanics. But as soon as I confronted the narrative... we got dragged into talking about mechanics and how these mechanics are so impactful and shape the narrative. Except... they don't.

Halflings are Lucky and Brave, because they have traits called Lucky and Brave and those words are adjectives. You're the only one insisting that traits = narrative.

Because that's what supernatural luck means and they are the only race in DnD's history to claim they have supernatural luck?

Except they don't claim to have supernatural luck. Go back and read their entry in the PHB or in Mordenkainen's. Nowhere is the idea of supernatural luck presented. Luckiness, sure, but not supernatural luck.

In fact, here's the beginning paragraphs from Mordy's:

Anyone who has spent time around halflings, and particularly halfling adventurers, has likely witnessed the storied "luck of the halflings" in action. When a halfling is in mortal danger, it seems as though an unseen force intervenes. If a halfling falls off a cliff, her britches will snag on a root or a sharp outcrop of rock. If a halfling is forced by pirates to walk the plank, he will catch a piece of flotsam and use it to stay afloat until he is rescued.

Halflings believe in the power of luck, and they abide by a great number of superstitions that they believe bring good or ill fortune. They attribute their unusual gift to the favor of Yondalla, believing that, now and then, the divine will of the goddess tips the balance of fate in their favor (or gives it a hearty shove when the occasion warrants).

So what we see here is a halfling who fell off a cliff and managed to get caught by a root. Maybe the halfling rolled a 1 on their Athletics check, rerolled, and got a success. Or maybe they rolled well to begin with and called it luck, because the rest of the section talk about superstition meaning halflings will attribute supernatural forces to natural events. Where a human might pass off their own ability to climb of a cliff as physical strength, a halfling credits it to luck.

But in either case, there's nothing supernatural about it. And I don't know why you keep insisting that it is.

Will that stop people from claiming that halflings are braver than all the other races in the narrative of DnD? All I have to do is change the names of the traits at my own table.

Halflings have a trait called Brave. This means that they have advantage where others don't. Why do you not understand this?

 

[Faolyn]

Not even really.5e'sPHB base lore says haflings live in small communities and hold no land.

That's the cristicism. Halflings are treated as a major race enough though their lore says they are minor players and do little and their mechanics are weak.

It's like treating Hawkeye as the 4 most important MCU character.

They (and I) are talking about how common they are, not how important they are. The rulers of a nation is more important than the thousands of peasants who work the fields, but there are more peasants than there are rulers.

 

[Minigiant]

They (and I) are talking about how common they are, not how important they are. The rulers of a nation is more important than the thousands of peasants who work the fields, but there are more peasants than there are rulers.

What I am saying is the 5e PHB lore says there aren't many halflings at all. It defaults them into them into living in a few small villages and small enclaves. There could be more human nobles than total halfings in a setting.

The lore goes out its way to make them invisible physically, socially, and economically. That's why this thread exists. It's hard to incorporate what the game purposely hides.

 

[Crimson Longinus]

The lore goes out its way to make them invisible physically, socially, and economically.

Yes, that is intentional.

That's why this thread exists.

It exists because you're missing the point of the halflings?

 

[Yaarel]

When it comes to troubles, I think my main difficulty with the halfling is, its size. To think that a small person is somehow no longer a human, concerns me. There are human ethnicities today who are on threshold between Medium and Small, and individual adults who are Small. All of these sizes are humanity.

If the halfling are truly nonhuman, such as being a magical being who is inherently lucky − then the problem is, this a gnome.

I enjoy the river-nomad culture of the halflings in my setting. This is their indigenous culture, tho many halflings naturalize among other cultures.

I treat these halflings as strictly a human ethnicity, where all the "race" options are cultural ones. Even the luck is a religious value (roughly comparable to a background feat choice), and is part of the indigenous spiritual heritage. I havent seen a player play a halfling. If one did, that would be fine. If one wanted human race features for their halfling character, that would be fine too.

 

[Irlo]

What I am saying is the 5e PHB lore says there aren't many halflings at all. It defaults them into them into living in a few small villages and small enclaves. There could be more human nobles than total halfings in a setting.

Does it say there are not many halflings? Or that their villages and nomadic communities are few in number? By the default lore, they're well-integrated into dwarven, elven, and human communities. It seems to me they're wide-spread and numerous.

From the PHB:

Though some halflings live out their days in remote agricultural communities, others form nomadic bands that travel constantly, lured by the open road and the wide horizon to discover the wonders of new lands and peoples.

Halflings are adept at fitting into a community of humans, dwarves, or elves, making themselves valuable and welcome.

Most halflings live in small, peaceful communities with large farms and well-kept groves. ... Many halflings live among other races, where the halflings’ hard work and loyal outlook offer them abundant rewards and creature comforts. Some halfling communities travel as a way of life, driving wagons or guiding boats from place to place and maintaining no permanent home.