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?

 

[Zubatcarteira]

Lol right!? Like…um, so, the average halfling farmer is just as naturally as resistant to being scared to the point of changed behavior as a holy knight so powerful they can perform miracles and fight things the farmer would be immediately squished by. That’s incredible.

Paladins are flat out immune, to be fair.

 

[Zubatcarteira]

I think Halflings could definitely use a buff, I've been thinking of making them get a 20 whenever they roll a 1, but I'd prefer most races to have more of an impact anyway.

 

[Vaalingrade]

I let my nir halflings affect other people's luck. Once per encounter, they can say 'oh, you thought you rolled this? It's actually this'. They change the number on the die, but don't trigger crits.

 

[Cadence]

Could just make every other race unlucky. Each day have every non-halfling roll a d20. If they get a one then they roll on the percentile table of bad luck and have things ranging from hemorrhoids or food poisoning to being shat on by a bird to tripping and spraining an ankle to being struck by lightning or a meteor.

 

[Oofta]

Could just make every other race unlucky. Each day have every non-halfling roll a d20. If they get a one then they roll on the percentile table of bad luck and have things ranging from hemorrhoids or food poisoning to being shat on by a bird to tripping and spraining an ankle to being struck by lightning or a meteor.

I once cursed a PC with luck. They rerolled 1s, got extra benefits on 20s. Problem is, they were lucky because they were stealing everyone else's luck. So when everyone else rolled a 1, something bad happened while 20s no longer benefitted.

When it started to escalate, the curse got removed quickly.

 

[doctorbadwolf]

The issue of having too many races occupying the same niche? The thing I was talking about?

Read it again. I didn’t just ask what the issue is, that part is rhetorical. I primarily asked whether it’s a general issue that actually needs wotc to do anything at all, or just a thing you personally dislike.

Far as I can tell, it does not matter on any level whether halflings and gnomes fill the same niche.

Okay, good for you? I've been struggling with whether I can get away with having all of them under the same header with the different mechanics, or if I need to blend some of the mechanics between them

I've been struggling with whether to make it solely mammalian, mammalian and avian, or mammalian, avian and reptilian.

I've been struggling with if I want to include Lizardfolk at all, since they don't really add anything to my games that I find valuable enough to keep.

I've been struggling with how to incorporate three completely different concepts of "Cat Person" and how I may try to balance them while still making them seem like they are the same race of people.

Seriously? They’re all felines. They’re like the thunder cats. They are already basically the same as the many kinds of elves.

As for the rest…they’re all beast folk. mechanically, either way that you’ve mentioned would work fine.

I'm glad you can't fathom how this might be difficult, but I'm putting quite a bit of thought into whenever I return to the idea. I don't think I want to just flatten it and remove all the unique lore and mechanics, but I don't want to make it a confused mess either.

I mean this with respect, but it seems like you are choosing difficulty, or just having difficulty choosing. You’ve mentioned at least 2 solid approaches. The first (umbrella, no shared mechanics) is obviously easier, but you could give them all a ribbon related to communicated with beasts related to thier beast type, and a version of keen senses, to give them all some unifying mechanic.

But you aren't even addressing my point, so the rest of your position doesn't apply.

Yes, I did.

You know, I even explained it, again, in the mulitple paragraphs below this statement. Yes, halflings have a trait that make them less likely to be frightened than other races.

Is getting frightened mean that you are not brave? If you are scared, does that mean you cannot possibly be brave? Is bravery only defined by a lack of fear?

No.

No one is claiming any of that. The trait doesn’t claim any of that. It isn’t implied about the world by anything in any D&D book. It’s entirely an idea that you have invented for the purpose of an argument.

Halflings are especially brave because they are described as such. Narrative description is the primary means by which races are clarified and distinguished.
They then have a trait that makes them mechanically have an easier time not being made so afraid that they can’t function properly. It is completely absurd to claim that that doesn’t make them brave.

Right here you say it. Bravery is "fighting through fear". Every adventurer does this. Even the ones that don't have a trait that makes it easier to ignore fear.

Saying a halfling having advantage makes them braver than the other characters doesn't make any narrative sense. That isn't what bravery is.

Yes it is, though! Lol come on!

Halflings have an easier time fighting through fear. Because they’re braver than other races. Bravery isn’t binary, some people are more brave than other people who are also brave.

 

[Maxperson]

Right, so a misunderstanding of what cowering is. Cowering is "crouching down in fear." Covering yourself with your hands, hiding, that sort of thing. Quaking and not being able to step forward isn't cowering.

I also just love the insult of putting brave in quotation marks. Doesn't matter that he is still fighting despite his fear, doesn't matter that he isn't running, because they aren't running away because of the fear, since they can't move forward, they are "not brave enough".

And this is exactly the problem. By defining bravery as beating the frightened condition, you have warped what it means to be brave. And personally, I reject that model of bravery that says a person who is temporarily overcome by fear cannot be brave.

No. When you are brave, you advance and do what needs to be done despite being afraid. A frightened individual in D&D literally cannot do that. I can find no definition of bravery that involves falling victim to fear to such a great degree that you literally cannot move forward towards it at all. So yes, "brave."

No, because once again, I'm talking about the narrative when the halfling isn't taking actions. So, unless RAW has something to say about narrating non-actions, you are missing the point again.

So you're inventing things and ignoring the fact that there is literally nothing that a halfling can re-roll with the luck ability that doesn't involve an action of some sort on the part of the halfling. And before you say, "But actions are only in combat," they aren't. There are actions in D&D like, "I climb the wall" or "I resist the vampire's gaze," and then there are Actions in combat like, "I take the attack action." All of those are actions in D&D that by RAW get narrated in the fiction as luck if the luck re-reroll is successful.

And you are missing the point. Because, as I've said, UNLESS THEY ROLL A ONE there is nothing lucky to narrate. And if they roll a one and fail anyways? There is nothing lucky to narrate.

So what. They don't have to be lucky on more rolls than that in order to be lucky.

So, if the halfling is supposed to feel lucky ALL THE TIME then the DM will have to narrate luck EVEN WHEN THE HALFLING DOESN'T ACT.

They aren't supposed to feel or be lucky "ALL THE TIME." We know that from the lore.

Why? Do halfling PC's not have classes? No wonder people say that they unremarkable.

Why when comparing a lucky race to other races do we compare races and not classes?

In other words, you never understood my position and what I was talking about. Which is why I pushed you on it, yet you still seem to not have gotten what I was talking about

Your position doesn't matter to what I just said, though. You've claimed that halflings are not luckier than other races. I've proven that to be objectively wrong. You've claimed that they aren't braver than other races. I've also proven that to be objectively wrong. You've claimed that halfling luck doesn't appear in the fiction. I've shown that to be untrue unless the DM is acting in bad faith.

1. halflings as a race are objectively luckier than other races as evidenced by their luck re-roll. Your lucky friend who never used it is not a counter example, as one halfling is not the race.
2. RAW requires the DM to narrate successful luck re-rolls as being lucky in the fiction. Failing to do so is a violation of both RAW and the social contract, as the social contract requires the DM not to go out of his way to screw over character concepts. It's an act of bad faith.
3. The brave ability makes halfling PCs braver than non-halflings, because they will fail fewer saves that impose the frightened condition. Other PCs can be brave. Halflings get all of that PLUS more saves. They are objectively braver as a PC race than the other PC races.
4. Class is irrelevant, since whatever class another PC is, halflings can also be that class and get all the same bonuses provided, making race the determiner as to which race is braver.

 

[Maxperson]

Ack! Now you've done it... you dissed race as class. The Basic D&D crowd will descend on this thread with pitchforks and torches!

 

[Gammadoodler]

Could just make every other race unlucky. Each day have every non-halfling roll a d20. If they get a one then they roll on the percentile table of bad luck and have things ranging from hemorrhoids or food poisoning to being shat on by a bird to tripping and spraining an ankle to being struck by lightning or a meteor.

1 in 2000 chance of lighning or meteor strike . That environment would be harsh.

Halflings would either avoid everyone else like the plague to avoid collateral damage, or they'd be worshipped like gods as roving luck totems, preventing calamity by there merest presence.

 

[Chaosmancer]

In reality this might be true, but for game mechanics purposes mechanical 'Fear' effects IMO should make you a coward; either barely able to fight on (translates as big minuses on to-hit rolls and commensurately higher chance of fumbling), frozen in fear and unable to fight on, or (my favourite) fleeing screaming in terror heedless of all other hazards.

Like many other terms, "brave" in gamespeak doesn't necessarily directly map to "brave" in common usage.

I will agree that the way the term is used in the mechanics doesn't translate to the common usage, that is a big part of the problem.

I disagree that mechanical fear effects should make you a coward, and I will go as far as to say that mechanical fear effects cannot make the character a coward. There are far far too many instances of people in real life, who face horrors, who find themselves barely able to function, frozen, or forced to retreat by that horror... who turn around and face it again.

I have never once seen a Player character who was not forced to fall back due to fear, doing so. They always choose to keep fighting. I have never seen a player character, whose character was forced to flee because of a fear effect, not turn around and re-enter the fight after that effect was over.

If we translate those actions from the mechanics to the narrative... we would call those people Brave. Just as we call many, many people in real-life brave for the same thing. And the halflings supposed narrative in this respect constantly forces people to make a decision. To maintain the halfling story of being "especially brave" everyone else needs to stop being brave, which I disagree with.