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?

 

[Chaosmancer]

You should video the one player every time they roll. Now that it's been called it in advance we can see if they truly do have remarkable powers of unluck or not - or at least statistically implausible ones.

He's self-concious about it, so I won't be making it worse by videoing him (plus we tend to play at his house, where he has small kids)

But we were once playing a game with a much heavier re-roll mechanic. He spent Five re-rolls.... and all of them were 1's. Rolling 1 six times in a row? And that was just the worse time, his luck is normally very bad, it is... very noticeable.

For better or worse, it feels like the authors of the PhB use it more sparingly. The Heroism Spell make one brave or the Bard exhot his companions to bravery and heroism. The fighter sample fighter is described as courageous while the rogue, cleric, and wizard are skulking, fervent, and flamboyant respectively. It is the dwarfs courage (along with endurance) that makes them a match for larger folk. Similarly it is the barbarians courage in the face of danger that makes them perfectly suited for adventuring. etc... Do any of those usages have a point if all adventurers are equally brave?

I would say the dwarves don't, because they run into the same issue as the halflings, but I find the fighter and barbarian very much less because it isn't required, or I guess, it isn't their defining trait. Courage isn't the first thing I think of when I think of barbarians, rage is. And even their rage is often reflavored into mystic trances or a hyper-bullet time. Some fighters are courageous, some are cynical, there is no weight to that description.

I also don't mind the heroism spell, because it is the name of a spell. Someone named it that, in-universe, and that makes perfect sense. It doesn't carry any expectation for role-playing, just like you could cast Barkskin and cover yourself in scales, or plates of force magic, or a bunch of other things without really altering anything.

 

[Crimson Longinus]

And that was just the worse time, his luck is normally very bad, it is... very noticeable.

This is not a thing. "Bad luck" is not a quality that people in the real world can have, in a sense that they would actually have different random odds than others. Your friend has the exact same likelihood of dice roll results in the future than everyone else.

 

[lingual]

I don't like Broccoli. I don't need people to tell me how I can use broccoli to make it more palatable to me. I'm fine with not having broccoli, and the people who like broccoli having broccoli.

Should broccoli be in the produce section? Standing shoulder to shoulder with carrots and celery? Do halflings eat broccoli?

 

[jmartkdr2]

I don't like Broccoli. I don't need people to tell me how I can use broccoli to make it more palatable to me. I'm fine with not having broccoli, and the people who like broccoli having broccoli.

Resisting urge to tell you to cover the broccoli in cheese, as if that somehow makes broccoli good rather than just masking the fact you're eating broccoli...

 

[Chaosmancer]

It isn't the same kind of fear that you get in the game, because you can choose to ignore it. 5e fear is impossible to ignore unless you make your save.

That's what mind control spells do. Your character didn't get to choose to be frightened. His mind was controlled in some manner and it was forced on him.

So, you can quote me some rule that says you can't ignore your fear and attack anyways? Sure, you'll have disadvantage because of the physiological signs of fear, but no real-life person can ignore those either. You can't just be startled by something and decide "Nah, I'm not going to have a fight or flight response to this, brain, no adrenaline please." So, I don't see a meaningful difference.

Here's an interesting question as well, let's say something like a Banshee floats through the wall parallel to the parties path, with their horrifying visage, and floats out of sight into the wall on the others side. Like a spooky ghost cat crossing their path. The character is frightened. Do they have disadvantage on anything? No, because the Banshee isn't in line of sight. Can the character move deeper into the structure? I'd say yes, because while they cannot move closer to the source of their fear, their fear is off to the left, and the path goes forward. They aren't moving closer to the creature, so they can continue just fine. At this point, they are frightened... but ignoring it and moving on.

So, I think you seem to be confused. Because Phobias, extreme fears that are the most prominent exampe similar to the frightened condition, can't just be ignored. A person cannot just decide to ignore their phobia. Just go watch a Dr. Phil episode where he terrorizes some poor person with a phobia under the guise of "helping" them. These sort of physiological responses can't be ignored. But, if the source of the fear isn't in sight, then the player can also just ignore the effects of the condition. Therefore... this seems to map pretty well to real-life situations that I am using.

See, now THIS is constructive. Halflings are objectively braver than other races as it stands, but the current mechanic may not be the best way to represent it. Personally I prefer the Kender immunity to fear, but maybe give them 3 points a day and they can expend one to automatically make any save against a fear type ability if immunity is too much.

This is something we could have discussed ages ago if I didn't have to keep repeating my argument til people understood it.

Personally, I'd remove this idea of it being bravery, because like I've said, this harms the narrative of the game. Instead I'd call it something like "unshakeable" and say they cannot have disadvantage on attacks or skills due to the frightened condition. It isn't full immunity, because the movement restriction is still in place, but it removes the biggest teeth from the frightened condition.

And now it is all about how they respond to fear, and that can be used for interesting world-building.

It doesn't matter what is pulled from where. Novels and comics just aren't going to be the game and vice versa. Or can you show me where in 5e the mechanics of a rock falling on a big ole healthy dragon will kill it, rather than just irritating it a little bit.

Where do warlocks come from? Why is it Paladin's can heal with a touch of their hand? Why does a Medusa's gaze turn you to stone? Why can Minotaurs always navigate a labyrinth? Why do hydra's grow new heads unless they are burned by fire? Why do Genie's offer wishes? Why does bardic magic work by playing an instrument?

I find it so disingenuous to continually get told that stories from literature don't matter in DnD, that the only thing that matters are the mechanics. You don't really believe that. You can't believe that and be able to truthfully answer the above questions. Heck, halflings only exist because of a novel.

So, no, I think it does matter to pull up DnD literature, and point to what it says halfling luck is like, then point to the game and say "this is nothing like that" and discuss how this is a potential problem. Because the narrative does matter. That's why you will never find a demon immune to radiant damage, because it would break the narrative of what those things mean, even though mechanically, radiant damage is no different from lightning damage.

I don't think we should continue defining halflings by being lucky, because I think if we actually made the narrative match the game, they wouldn't be, and if we made the game match the narrative, it would be detrimental for the game. It can still be a trope for them, if people want to keep the lore, but if we change the ability and remove luck from their abilities, I think it would make for a better way forward for the game. Because without mechanical weight, it becomes a question of "are they really?", while right now, there is no question.

That seems................................short sighted. If I rolled that badly that consistently, halfling with the lucky feat would be my go to.

He doesn't care for the stories halflings can tell. He prefers changelings and elves and he even played an old human paladin once. Calling him short-sighted because he is preferencing the stories he wants over the mechanics seems a bit rude to me.

 

[Faolyn]

it need not always be relevant to the party but I hate to be a lone candle as those are so easy to snuff out, background stuff is needed always.

if killing is evil by the laws of flesh all life is guilty of the gravest crimes.

There's a difference between killing someone who is doing something evil and killing someone who who hasn't done anything wrong because you're being proactive about being Good.

 

[bedir than]

Do halflings eat broccoli?

Yes, but only from elevensies until sundown

 

[Chaosmancer]

Sure it does. When Fear is a mechanical condition the game can impose, having a species less likely to be affected by that condition is an advantage to the party. Same goes for Poison or Sleep or Charm, all of which have in the past have had (and still have?) specific species that were less likely to be affected.

It also, I suppose, depends how badly the Fear condition affects characters when it hits. If they can mostly keep going as normal it's not a big deal. If it means they drop everything and flee in blind terror it's a very big deal indeed, as fleeing in blind terror can send you over a cliff or into other hazards and can also very easily get you lost - you eventually snap out of the fear but have no idea where you've run to or how you got there.

My style tends more toward the blind-terror side, which means any item that grants Fearless is highly sought after. (that said, nobody ever wants to play Cavaliers who come with Fearless as a built-in class ability right from 1st level)

Sure, but I know you specifically don't play 5e, so your homebrew rules for fear (because that isn't how 5e handles frightened) don't really change anything.

Additionally, I still stand by my original point on this, saving against the frightened condition =/= bravery. And so having a race that is "the brave one" is sort of like looking at a line-up of guys who are all 6'2" to 6"5' and looking for "the tall one". Even if you find one who is a little taller than the rest.... they are all tall It is a pointless description.

 

[Chaosmancer]

They did remove Gnomes, but they were quick to bring them back because there was a lot of hubbub about it. Gnomes. Just let that sink in. The 4e developers straight up explained that the Gnome's lore and niche was weak and poorly defined, which is why they were not in the PHB.

And a lot of people got upset about it. I don't think they will ever remove a race from a PHB again, in fact, that's why they made the fact that every race that was ever in a PHB would be in the 5e PHB a selling point for 5e. Most D&D fans don't like losing their sacred cows, even if they don't ever use them!

You know, this is one of the reasons I kind of wish Hussar just didn't post. Because... he's the only one talking about kicking halflings out of the PHB. Everyone else is talking about rewriting them.

But everyone else is sitting around nodding to themselves that writing halflings out of PHB is bad and they will never do it.

I really think it would help this conversation if people recognized that there is a single poster talking about removing them, and everyone else is talking about re-writing them, which is something that WoTC has done multiple times. Heck, one of the earlier posts pointed out that some of these halfling traits weren't even a thing until 3rd edition. So, clearly WoTC has no qualms about doing a rewrite.

 

[Chaosmancer]

On reflection, most of these objections and problems cited in the article (and in the responses to the article) just don't resonate with me. It's take a lot more effort and contrivances to integrate goblin and kobold PCs into a game sensibly than halflings. I really don't have any difficulties with halflings or ghomes, and they've both been well-represented in my games over the last 30 years. Halfings might be derived from Tolkien, but they're not hobbits any more and most of that baggage is gone.

I do admit to having an aversion to the traditional "monsters" as PCs. I'll work with players who want to use them, but I don't like them much.

I can say that your aversion makes sense to me, because I've never had an issue integrating these monster races. Heck, I actually have a world I built for a long-form story (don't want to call it a novel since it is a web-format) where the only races are Humans, Gnolls and Goblins, and it works incredibly well.

Kobolds I have had a harder time with, but I've finally found a way to integrate them with drakes, dragonborn and dragons, so that works for me.