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?

 

[Oofta]

I don't know why I'm doing this, but...

@Chaosmancer, please understand that fear and the Frightened condition are different things.

A character who is afraid of something can move towards the source of their fear. This is being brave.

A character who is subjected to the Frightened condition can't move towards the source of their fear. This isn't being brave or being not brave or being cowardly; it's being under the effects of a game condition that has its own rules that supersede player agency.

If Bob the human fighter comes across an otherwise completely normal mouse that for whatever reason has the ability to cause people to make a Wisdom save or be Frightened, it doesn't mean that Bob isn't brave if he fails his roll. It means that in this instance, Bob can't approach that mouse and will have disadvantage on ability checks and attack rolls while he can see the mouse. Bob can't choose to be brave and approach anyway, because the rules of the game say he can't. If he breaks those rules, then he's cheating.

If Bob happens to be musophobic and sees a normal mouse, he's afraid. However, because he's afraid and not Frightened, he can choose to be brave and approach the mouse, and this doesn't break the rules. He will suffer no penalties while fighting even if the mouse is right there in front of him, watching his every move with its beady little eyes, no matter how terrified he is, because he's afraid, not Frightened.

(This is an example. Please do not try to bring up anything as to why this mouse can or cannot inflict the Frightened condition.)

And also, please understand that there is a difference between a game, which has specific rules as to how things must work, and any other form of media, which does not. It doesn't matter how halflings are shown to be lucky in a comic. The game has rules in order to keep things fair and working in a specific way, while media mostly has to concern itself with telling a good story.

The comic you posted from would not be good if all the main characters got horribly eaten a dragon in the first book, because the point of that comic was to follow these heroes around while they go around doing hero stuff and making quips. And that combat also had a page count limit, which means that didn't have space show a combat that is as involved and that takes as long as real D&D combat can, unless that combat was the main point of the issue--which it was not. The point of that issue was to get the characters together. Combat was secondary. The writer brought in a dragon to show how dangerous the world can be and to establish some character traits, and then killed it off so they could move on the next plot point.

Likewise, a book or movie can show a character being as brave or as cowardly as the writer wants because that's what's needed for the script that they are writing, because the writer has full control over the characters they create. And a game book can set up basic expectations for the races. But the DM doesn't write the PC's actions and can't force the players to adhere to any particular tropes or to act in any particular way (except when the PCs are under the effects of a condition, but even then, the forced actions have to conform to the rules).

While I'm staying out of this for the most part (it's the same arguments we've heard many, many times), I do have a question.

Is Bob a loxodon? If so, would they have disadvantage on the fear caused by a mouse?

 

[Maxperson]

I made the name as a bit of a pun, "unshakeable" because they do not shake when frightened.

That...............................went right over my head.

Personally, I think the idea of X times per day is leaning into it being a magical ability, so I don't like that.

It's not magical so much as it's meta. The X per day is player knowledge, not PC knowlege. The halfling doesn't make a conscious effort to use it, nor is it aware of how many uses are left. All the halfling knows is that he gets scared less often. It could be both I suppose, if the lore were something like, "The halfling gods blessed halflings to be less capable of being scared." or something, but it doesn't have to be.

You could give them straight immunity, but the problem I have with that is that roleplaying a truly "fearless" individual is not only an incredible challenge as a player, but it encourages behavior which would be massively detrimental to the group as a whole. You could see that in some of the references to Kender, where being without fear made them charge into danger, which caused problems for the other party members.

Yeah, but I think that's just one way to play them and with the right lore, folks wouldn't be so prone to that. Being fearless just means that you don't fear things, not that you don't understand dangers and treat danger with respect. Lore about halflings understand and respecting dangers, even if they aren't afraid will encourage people to play that way.

Personally, if you must absolutely be able to move forward, I'd say ignore the disadvantage and treat moving toward the source of the frightened condition as difficult terrain. But while I know some people see the "not being able to advance" as the "best" part of fear, that is usually in response to spells which casters use to protect themselves, it doesn't matter as much for melee, the disadvantage is the toothier part of the ability in general.

That's actually a really good idea. I like it. Not quite immune, but still affected and acting in a brave manner. I'm okay with casters having a hard time against one race when it comes to fear effects. Nothing should be perfect and D&D is very much an exceptions based system.

So, depictions of halfling luck written by people for a DnD setting, shouldn't inform how we think about halfling luck in a DnD setting? Because I'm not saying one medium is the same as the other, and while people are obsessing over dragons being immune to falling spikes, they are ignoring the part that actually matters.

The depictions in the comics are not written for a D&D setting or even for D&D. They are written for comic book consumers. Only D&D game books are written for D&D.

Let's say the dragon had 50 hp left. That's enough that a critical from a thrown boulder can kill it. Then people can be happy that a rock killed a dragon.

Now, what happened?

The halfling finds a gemstone while circling the fight. The halfling ignores the fight, and goes for the gemstone. The halfling pries free the gemstone, only to fall off the statue and hit an stalactite. This stalactite then falls and kills the dragon, that the halfling was unaware of, right before it killed the human fighter.

This is not uncommon in the trope of the small, lucky person. Knocking out or defeating a powerful enemy that they were not aware of by accident is a very common outcome. The monster is about to stab the helpless main character, the lucky sidekick opens a door and smashes the monster in the face, being completely unaware of what is happening, allowing everyone to escape. This happens again and again and again. This is the trope halfling luck is pulling on in the narrative. This is not something that happens in the game at the table, and it isn't something we would WANT to happen at the table. No mechanical ability that allowed the halfling to immediately interrupt and/or defeat an enemy with 50 or less hp by accident would be acceptable to anyone.

This isn't about how comics and books are different than the game, this is about how the tropes and narratives are presented and how they are integrated into the game.

It's a comic book/movie/TV show trope, though, not a D&D trope. D&D isn't played that way and isn't, nor should it be, played that way. It's fine for the comic book halfling to accidentally kill a very, VERY hurt dragon like that. It's not okay for it to happen in D&D unless the group has agreed to play that way and enjoys it. Typical play is for an attack to hurt the dragon, even if that attack is directed at a stalactite to try and drop it on the dragon to kill it. There will be deliberation in the act and the possibility of failure.

Nobody is obligated to describe halfling luck in that manner, nor is a player entitled to expect that it will happen that way in game play.

If I was talking about adding those numbers together, you would be correct. But I wasn't. So you aren't correct, you are misunderstanding my post.

Yes, the average player will get 21 more often than note. But, statistically, someone has rolled 2/3/4/1/5/6 on 6d6. This means that, statistically, someone has rolled 1/1/1/1/1/1 on 6d6. Expand this out, over the course of someone's life, they will roll a distinct and unique set of numbers on all dice. That set of numbers is 100% unique to them, and statistically, someone's set of numbers will have more low numbers than other peoples.

Trying to dismiss someone's set of numbers because "luck isn't real" ignores that someone, somewhere, at some time, has to be the person who is at the bottom end of the bell curve. Otherwise it wouldn't be a bell curve, it would be a straight line.

Sure, but few enough people are at those extremes that it doesn't really matter. You don't design or play a game like D&D around extremes.

But again, if you are playing a race whose supposed to be uniquely tall, and everyone else is tall, then you aren't uniquely tall. No one is going to comment on your character being tall, because everyone in the party is tall. You won't need special treatment for being tall, because everyone will need that treatment for being tall.

Of course they are uniquely tall. No other race is 7 feet on average. Other races being tall at 6 feet doesn't prevent 7 feet from being unique to that race.

Halflings as a race could possibly be braver in an objective sense, but once they are in a party full of people who are incredibly brave... then it is kind of not worth mentioning, because they aren't braver than everyone else in a way that makes them notable.

I don't see how you can even say something like that.

Human fighter cannot advance towards the enemy and is attacking at disadvantage due to be scared out of his mind.

Halfling fighter waltzes right up to the enemy and attacks without disadvantage due to his increased bravery over the human.

That seems to me to be both worth mentioning and a notable difference.

 

[bedir than]

Would you say there are some differences between a woman from France and a Woman from Vietnam?

Sure, the individual matters for the immediate story, but the context that individual comes from informs what that story is. I have a player currently playing a Kobold who went and demanded of his Dragon Mistress that he be given command of half the tribe and be recognized as her equal, because he's that awesome. He fled for his life (Yes, obviously he should have died but "my character died in my backstory" doesn't work for 99% of backstory concepts) and is set on revenge against her. This story doesn't work nearly as well without the context that Kobolds are seen as disposable minions and servants by dragons.

So, "where do goliaths come from and what do they believe" helps inform what that family is doing and if they are traditional or not. It helps inform whether or not that Coffee trader is bizarrely out of place, or perfectly normal. If Goliaths don't believe in money, then a Goliath who is a trader may not accept coin, or maybe they do and that is strange and leads to questions.

The same thing could happen if you run into an elf with a massive, full beard. Most people are going to pause and go "wait... what?" because elves are almost always clean-shaven. It is a very easy way to signal "something is strange here" by knowing that the individual is going against the common path.

There is lore about where goliaths come from and what they believe. The complaint was that they don't have a creation myth, pantheon and cosmology

 

[Hussar]

Absent context, if someone put that picture in front of me and asked me what it is, I'd say "Elf" without a second thought.

Then on second look I'd notice the ears, while pointed, resemble neither the sails nor antennae that Elven ears have these days become, and so I'd modify my statement to "Half-Elf" and stop there.

There is nothing at all in that picture that says either "Hobbit" or "Halfling".

True.

But this is what halflings look like in DnD and have done so for more than twenty years.

The fact that most people don’t seem to realize this to me is telling of how little people actually care about halflings in the game.

If we modified elves to the point where you couldn’t tell them from dwarves, people would lose their poop. But halflings being indistinguishable from elves or humans is perfectly fine.

 

[Hussar]

@Neonchameleon. I would argue that halflings have not worked. That either the niche they fill just isn’t compelling or they are not compelling in selling that niche. I’m not sure which.

But it is pretty clear to me that they are just not compelling enough to be played. To me, that’s the bottom line. They are and always have scraping the bottom of the barrel. No amount of “fixing” will change that. They just are not very popular.

So replace them with something to get some fresh air into the game.

But yup it’s absolutely true that my choice of two is purely arbitrary. Of course it is. Not even sure why that’s an issue.

My point has always been - make the phb reflect what is actually being played rather than what we want others to play.

 

[Oofta]

True.

But this is what halflings look like in DnD and have done so for more than twenty years.

The fact that most people don’t seem to realize this to me is telling of how little people actually care about halflings in the game.

If we modified elves to the point where you couldn’t tell them from dwarves, people would lose their poop. But halflings being indistinguishable from elves or humans is perfectly fine.

Or they just accept that other than size they don't really have a unique look.

It's odd that you equate nitpicking artwork with people "not caring". I don't care for the artwork they have for them in 5E, it has nothing to do with how much I like halflings.

 

[Gammadoodler]

While I'm staying out of this for the most part (it's the same arguments we've heard many, many times), I do have a question.

Is Bob a loxodon? If so, would they have disadvantage on the fear caused by a mouse?

View attachment 254127

<pushes up glasses>

I'm sure you know this, but Loxodons have:

Loxodon Serenity.
You have advantage on saving throws against being charmed or frightened.

So...no...they would not.

 

[Crimson Longinus]

My point has always been - make the phb reflect what is actually being played rather than what we want others to play.

AFAIK, that's already the case with the halflings. Races that are more popular them but not already in PHB do not exist in my knowledge. Granted, the genasi marginally beat the gnomes.

 

[Oofta]

<pushes up glasses>

I'm sure you know this, but Loxodons have:

Loxodon Serenity.
You have advantage on saving throws against being charmed or frightened.

So...no...they would not.

You have to read between the lines. If you read it all the correct way it's quite obvious.

 

[Gammadoodler]

You have to read between the lines. If you read it all the correct way it's quite obvious.

Yeah yeah. Just rules lawyerin'.