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?

 

[Maxperson]

I have the numbers. Exactly 69,420 copies were sold.

Trust me. This is true. There is nothing significant about that number.

Where are those numbers from? It seems really unlikely that only 1 out of every 720 D&D players has purchased SCAG.

 

[Faolyn]

Where are those numbers from? It seems really unlikely that only 1 out of every 720 D&D players has purchased SCAG.

It's 69 and 420. It's a joke.

 

[Hussar]

To a large extent, I feel as though this is true for all the races in D&D. Especially humans! But seriously, for the most part, I feel as though most players could swap their fighter's race from human to elf, halfling, or gnome and they'd pretty much all be played the same way.

Well, now this? This I agree with. Race, so often, just doesn't really matter for a lot of players.

Although, that being said, I generally find, and maybe this is just me, that when players move away from the sort of bog standard PHB races, then race matters a lot more. So, when someone plays a kobold, you KNOW they are a kobold. Or an orc. Or a minotaur. Or, in my current campaign, a dream of an aboleth that has come to life.

It's largely the standard PHB races which are almost always interchangeable.

 

[Chaosmancer]

Hmm. I assumed that since this was a 5e discussion that it was a 5e comic book. Are you telling me that this comic that's supposed to upset 5e players because the comic lore doesn't match game lore isn't even from 5e and therefore has about as much relevance as the ant that just walked past my pool outside? 4e halflings are not 5e halflings.

Are you seriously trying to argue that halfling lore is not halfling lore, because it is coming from an older edition? Seriously?

Come on Max. Halflings haven't drastically changed since second edition, their mechanics have changed, but their portrayals have not. The narrative has not. Heck, Mearls interview and the rulebooks I've referenced are 5e material, and you couldn't tell the difference between 4e and 5e material when it came to halfling lore. Because they were the same thing.

Awesome. So we have a crap shoot where some stuff kinda sorta matches up, and some where it's absurdly different. Hell, even your example here isn't a perfect match up. The books didn't specifically say HOW the moons affected wizards. The Dragonlance D&D rules invented that whole cloth.

The Spellfire from the books was a LOT more powerful than the D&D version. So no great match up there, either. I read a lot of the FR novels from back in the day.

What makes the 4e comic book not match up to 5e? Well, different editions for one. Different mediums for two. Vastly different strengths for three. Horrible, horrible match up.

"Is not a perfect match" =/= "has no relevance"

Come on. When Wulgar rages or does something super strong, because he is a barbarian, the fact that a barbarian in the game can't drag a massive boat from the water doesn't mean that Wulfgar is not representing the Barbarian story of raging and being very strong. You are just nitpicking exact details instead of facing the actual argument. And frankly, the only reason I can think of is that you know as well as I do that the story of halflings in DnD is a story about them having supernatural luck. You just aren't happy I see that as a problem.

The racial ability is, though. I can't recall a single other race with Bravery as a racial ability. Can you?

An ability called brave? No. The ability to have advantage on saving throws against magical fear? Yes, there are at least seven. If you just want "is likely to pass saving throws against magical fear" then I can add at least one more. IF you are fine counting spells, then two more on top of that.

Huh, makes them seem even less rare when you have seven other races (10 if you want to be broad) who can do the... well, most of them actually do it better, because they apply to multiple conditions. And all of them also can act brave when there isn't a mechanical contest at play as well.

Cool. I have a friend who has an amazing Middle Earth game that he runs using his own system. There have been times where my Dunedain was by far the tallest one in the group, since Dunedain are known as the "tall men." And then there have been times where I've been in a group of Dunedain and we were all tall. None of that meant that the Dunedain aren't taller than other human cultures.

Another example. The entire group is halflings, so are all very brave! Being a halfling in a group of all halflings doesn't mean that the race isn't braver than other races.

And being a halfling in a group of brave humans doesn't mean you are special for being brave. Being a halfling in a group with a loxodon, a Githzerai and a Kalashatar doesn't even give you the excuse of "but I am better at saves against frightened" that you keep trying to use.

So... again, halflings are not uniquely brave. Not in the narrative (where everyone is brave) and not mechanically.

Heck, you bring up LoTR, this logic is saying that because they are halflings (because halflings were derived from hobbits) Merry and Pippin are braver than Aargorn and Gimli. That doesn't make sense. That doesn't work.

Being in a "crowd" of 3-5 other brave people doesn't mean that the halfling race isn't braver than the other races. It just doesn't work that way.

But if you spend the entire game surrounded by brave people, you being brave doesn't make a difference. Because they are brave too. You can't claim that you are especially brave because of your race when everyone is brave.

 

[Hussar]

@Hussar I find it pretty sus that 5% is deemed "failure that no one plays" yet a bit over 7% is "very popular." This really doesn't seem like an unbiased assessment to me. Elves and humans with their over 20% are "very popular," I'd place both dragonborn with their 7,2% and halflings with their 4,7% to the same tier of "somewhat popular" where they are alongside with most of the PHB races, such as dwarves at 6.6%. Placing the dividing line in middle of this group so that you can declare the one you like to be a smashing success and one you dislike to be an abject failure is very transparent and is not going to convince anyone.

Well, you can find it "sus" all you like, but, I've repeatedly stated that you are wrong. Who says I like dwarves? Have I ever, once, led you to believe I like dwarves? You keep ascribing motives here that just aren't there. It doesn't matter to me one whit what the bottom two (or three or four even) races are. They are at the bottom, and in this case, have ALWAYS been at the bottom. It's not like there was this heyday back some time when halflings were fantastically popular. They have always been at the bottom of the barrel.

So, why not try something new? If it fail? It fails. It very well might fail. But, insisting on keeping material that has failed for fifty years to gain any real traction in the hobby, or, at least, I feel that it has never gained any real traction, isn't going to suddenly succeed next year or the year after that. No. It's just going to sit at the bottom of the list, year after year after year, only appearing because WotC doesn't dare to change it because they'll get absolutely pilloried for it.

 

[Hussar]

If halflings are the bottom of the barrel, then they aren't doing anything but maybe taking up a paragraph's worth of space in a book, which shouldn't have any negative affect on anyone. And if they're removed in favor of a new-to-the-PHB race there, then that other race would likely also maybe get a paragraph's worth of space and would be just as unused by the books as you say halflings are. After all, how much lore and attention do tieflings get in the books? Not all that much, and they're supposedly very popular. All they've gotten is a bunch of subraces.

But if halflings re taking up lots of room (which would affect you and crowd out other races), then that means that they have a lot of lore, are well-supported, and more popular than you think. And in that case, you're wrong that "nobody ever plays them."

(Oh, and the picture you posted of what's-her-name from 3e is not how halflings have looked in 5e. Other than the fact that 5e halflings wear shoes, all the pictures of them look very much like the image you claim that halflings don't look like anymore. Go look at MtF.)

Really, I think it's kinda the same issue as high level play. WotC doesn't really make any high level play options because no one plays high level games. But, no one plays high level games because WotC doesn't really support high level play. So, halfling players get thrown a bone in every single setting and supplement, same as high level play gets thrown a bone. But, no real support.

Sorry, though, what is MtF? Not up on my acronyms.

My point though about the halfling images is that they most certainly DO NOT look like hobbits. Like, at all. And haven't done so in decades. But, people still insist that halflings=hobbits, because that's their head canon.

 

[Faolyn]

Really, I think it's kinda the same issue as high level play. WotC doesn't really make any high level play options because no one plays high level games. But, no one plays high level games because WotC doesn't really support high level play. So, halfling players get thrown a bone in every single setting and supplement, same as high level play gets thrown a bone. But, no real support.

But just like high level games, some people do play halflings. And a lot of people do play both high-level games and halflings. When I go on r/dndnext, I frequently see people talking about how they played a character from level 1 all the way to 20 in addition to all the people who make level 20 characters for 1-shots. And likewise, I see people talking about their halflings. Maybe not gigantically vast numbers, but a lot of people.

But honestly, you can't have it both ways. You can't say that there's no support and nobody plays halflings if they're literally in every single setting and supplement. That in and off itself proves that they're used in the game. And they are: they're about as common as dwarfs.

Sorry, though, what is MtF? Not up on my acronyms.

Shoulda been MToF: Mordenkainen's Tome of Foes.

My point though about the halfling images is that they most certainly DO NOT look like hobbits. Like, at all. And haven't done so in decades. But, people still insist that halflings=hobbits, because that's their head canon.

Well, so what? People can imagine that halflings look anything they want them to look like. It doesn't actually mean anything about the race. I mean, people drew, and continue to draw, elves with very long, nearly-perpendicular anime-style ears instead of the smaller, more Vulcan-like ears that WotC commonly paints them with. That doesn't mean that people are only playing head-cannon elves. D&D isn't an unmoddable video game where you're stuck with the appearance they give you. You can make your character look like anything.

 

[Maxperson]

Are you seriously trying to argue that halfling lore is not halfling lore, because it is coming from an older edition? Seriously?

Yes. Halfling lore for each edition is different.

Come on Max. Halflings haven't drastically changed since second edition, their mechanics have changed, but their portrayals have not. The narrative has not. Heck, Mearls interview and the rulebooks I've referenced are 5e material, and you couldn't tell the difference between 4e and 5e material when it came to halfling lore. Because they were the same thing.

The mechanics ARE lore when it comes to mechanics for in-fiction things, the lore matches the mechanics and vice versa.

"Is not a perfect match" =/= "has no relevance"

Any relevance that comic offers is curiosity only. Halfling luck isn't going to increase, not be expected to increased, based on a minor comic book.

Come on. When Wulgar rages or does something super strong, because he is a barbarian, the fact that a barbarian in the game can't drag a massive boat from the water doesn't mean that Wulfgar is not representing the Barbarian story of raging and being very strong. You are just nitpicking exact details instead of facing the actual argument. And frankly, the only reason I can think of is that you know as well as I do that the story of halflings in DnD is a story about them having supernatural luck. You just aren't happy I see that as a problem.

Sure, but Wulfgar doesn't rage like the mechanics show. He has the power of plot which invalidates the crazy stuff that he does. Same with halfling luck. That it touches on something that the game does doesn't make it something that players can or will expect to show up in the game.

An ability called brave? No. The ability to have advantage on saving throws against magical fear? Yes, there are at least seven. If you just want "is likely to pass saving throws against magical fear" then I can add at least one more. IF you are fine counting spells, then two more on top of that.

Cool. Then no race is as brave as the halflings. The loxodon are peaceful, which while it has similar mechanics to the halfling ability, isn't bravery because the lore is different.

Huh, makes them seem even less rare when you have seven other races (10 if you want to be broad) who can do the... well, most of them actually do it better, because they apply to multiple conditions. And all of them also can act brave when there isn't a mechanical contest at play as well.

Not at all. How many of the seven have the lore "bravery" attached to the mechanic?

So... again, halflings are not uniquely brave. Not in the narrative (where everyone is brave) and not mechanically.

As far as I know, as I haven't gone through all the races, they are still uniquely braver.

Heck, you bring up LoTR, this logic is saying that because they are halflings (because halflings were derived from hobbits) Merry and Pippin are braver than Aargorn and Gimli. That doesn't make sense. That doesn't work.

That wasn't me.

But if you spend the entire game surrounded by brave people, you being brave doesn't make a difference. Because they are brave too. You can't claim that you are especially brave because of your race when everyone is brave.

Look. All I'm claiming is that as a race, halflings are braver than other races. This is fact. I don't give two shakes of a fairy tail what happens in an adventuring group as that has zero bearing on a racial ability.

 

[Chaosmancer]

Not even slightly. There is no conceivable way you could have gotten that from what I wrote. You have to be deliberately misconstruing what I wrote. You have to be. There is no possible way you could truly think that "has same ability to be afraid or not afraid of mundane things as everyone else, plus has bonus to avoid being Frightened" means "being afraid and being Frightened are the same thing."

Well, let's see, how could I have gotten that idea? What did you say two posts ago?

"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."

Hmmm, so in this post, which again was just two posts ago, you said that fear and frightened condition are different. Moving towards fear is what makes someone brave, and that the frightened condition doesn't involve being brave or not being brave. And notably, I agreed with you.

Now, what did you say in your last post?

"Within the world of the game, halflings are considered to be braver than other races because they can face down terrifying things (i.e., things that cause the Frightened condition) far more easily than anyone else can.

Why is this? Because nobody in the game world knows the difference between being afraid and being Frightened, because nobody in the game has read the PHB. And that is why halflings are braver than anyone else. Nobody in the game world has the meta-knowledge that we players have."

Well, wait a minute. In this post, which was your response immediately after the text I posted above, you say that halflings are considered brave because they overcome the frightened condition. But didn't you say "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." So, how are halflings brave for doing a thing that you said isn't about being brave?

I mean, I must be trolling you right? That's the only way you contradticting yourself and me calling you on it can be explained, is if I am a malicious actor. You said things I agreed with, then undercut those things by trying to hide in the narrative where the mechanics that you said don't matter can't be seen. I called you on it. You can't have it both ways. Either we as players are told halflings are brave because of how they interact with the frightened condition, and therefore the frightened condition becomes an arbiter of bravery, or it doesn't and being told they are brave makes no sense, because their ability can't make them brave. You can't have it both ways.

DING DING DING! You have your answer here! Giving player character halflings supernatural luck would disrupt the balance of the game.

My god, you seriously never read a single thing I post, do you?

Here's a refresher course

So, since you can't have plot contrivances as mechanics in a game (at least not in a game designed in the way Dungeons and Dragons is designed) then supernatural luck is out of place. Halflings are repeatedly stated, by players, by DMs, and by the sourcebooks themselves to be supernaturally lucky. In the video I posted before Mearls talks about how a kingdom couldn't invade a halfling village, because the cartographer 20 years ago made a mistake and didn't mark where the village was on a map. This is, from the creative lead of the design of the game, how halfling luck works. It is a plot contrivance. It is literally the ability to alter the narrative to suit them, not actively, but passively.

And so, since this is a tabletop game where the game has rules in order to keep things fair and working in a specific way... halfling luck as we are told it must work by the narratives and lore of the game doesn't fit. It would be a bad rule. It would be a bad game design. I'm not talking about the lucky mechanic which affects the d20, that doesn't matter in this discussion, except that it is trying (and failing) to represent this supernatural luck of plot contrivances. I'm talking about what we have been told is true by the people who make the game.

And so, I have put forth, that since it is bad game design to have a race that has "plot contrivance" as a racial power, that we should move away from it. Because it is doing us no favors, and instead, putting a burden on the DM to include plot contrivances when dealing with halflings, otherwise they are violating the "halfling fantasy".

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.

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.

Honestly, you caught me Faolyn! What a devastating blow to my argument that halfling luck would disrupt the game and be a bad rule to point out that halfling luck would disrupt the game and be a bad rule. How could I not have seen it in the multiple times I said the exact same thing! This changes everything, I mean, if the narrative properly presented would be detrimental to the game then someone might suggest that narrative is problematic and should be changed! Luckily, you were here to point out my exact argument to me. Again!!

So, this is the point where I accuse you of trolling me, right? Of maliciously misconstruing my points? Or maybe you plan on telling me that my arguments don't mean what I think they mean.

Media and D&D alike keep presenting elves as having decades to centuries to perfect their fighting and magic skills. Elf, when it was a class, was a fighter/mage combo. Everything points to elves being fighter/mages and that even a mere century-old elf--the equivalent of an 18-year-old human--should far outstrip humans in their capabilities. And attempts by media and to come up with logical reasons why elves aren't all nigh-godlike in their abilities range from non-answers (elves just... don't bother to reach high levels) to rather poor attempts at psychology (they don't feel the need to rush like humans--which doesn't make sense in a world where monster attacks are a very common threat) to meta-reasons (level limits) to the downright silly (they grow up proportionally slowly, so a 30-year-old elf is still in diapers).

Instead, elves get free weapon proficiencies and most of them get a cantrip or low-level spell(s) to represent that they are built to be fighter/mages. If you're OK with that--if this is truly an "easily understood and accepted disconnect"--then you should also be able to accept that halflings get to reroll 1s to represent that, as a race, they are built to be lucky.

I do accept that they gave them the re-roll 1's ability to represent the narrative of supernatural luck. Because that's bloody obvious. My point is that the trope of supernatural luck is bad for the game, and not in a way that is as easily understood as "why can't my character be 18 levels higher than everyone else's" And it not being allowed isn't as easily accepted as "You can't be 18 levels stronger than everyone else, because it would be bad for the entire party to have that big of a strength disparity." Because it doesn't seem that hard to do at first, it seems like you could just have a character avoid getting splashed with mud, or to find an extra copper on the streets, but when you sit at a table, and know that one person is getting special treatment, it isn't fun.

Here's a non-DnD example, to get my point across. I played in the playtest for Warhammer 40K: Wrath and Glory at a convention. It did it two years in a row. The first year was great, and it felt amazing. The second year was horrific, if it had been my first experience, I might never want to give the system a try again. Part of this was the GM, who gushed over the space marine character. See, Wrath and Glory was different because the rules allowed for everyone to play at the same table, even if their characters were different "tiers". So a lowly guardsmen could get a few extra tiers and cool stories, and be able to fight alongside a space marine. But, after whoevers turn it was before the space marine, the GM would start gushing over how what we had done was fine, but NOW we were going to see something really cool, because the Space Marine was going to go. Yeah, the Comissar had done a good job with her chain sword but NOW the space marine was going to match her with nothing but a dagger.

It didn't affect gameplay. The GM never gave the space marine character anything special. All they did was talk about how amazing the space marine was and how much better they were than us. Because we were cool, but we weren't a SPACE MARINE.

If one player is constantly getting benefits? If the DM is constantly going out of their way to make sure good things happen to one character, while the others are inconvenienced or miss out? People resent that. A lot. But the halfling player may not realize it, because they don't see it as special treatment, they see it as their narrative due, because that's just how halflings are. Everyone knows bringing a level 19 character to play a level 1 game is bad. Not everyone is going to realize giving the halfling player special treatment is equally as bad for the table unless the entire group is on board with it.

 

[Hussar]

But just like high level games, some people do play halflings. And a lot of people do play both high-level games and halflings. When I go on r/dndnext, I frequently see people talking about how they played a character from level 1 all the way to 20 in addition to all the people who make level 20 characters for 1-shots. And likewise, I see people talking about their halflings. Maybe not gigantically vast numbers, but a lot of people.

But honestly, you can't have it both ways. You can't say that there's no support and nobody plays halflings if they're literally in every single setting and supplement. That in and off itself proves that they're used in the game. And they are: they're about as common as dwarfs.


Shoulda been MToF: Mordenkainen's Tome of Foes.


Well, so what? People can imagine that halflings look anything they want them to look like. It doesn't actually mean anything about the race. I mean, people drew, and continue to draw, elves with very long, nearly-perpendicular anime-style ears instead of the smaller, more Vulcan-like ears that WotC commonly paints them with. That doesn't mean that people are only playing head-cannon elves. D&D isn't an unmoddable video game where you're stuck with the appearance they give you. You can make your character look like anything.

And, hey, I frequently see lots of posts on Reddit about playing all sorts of other races. Guess what, confirmation bias works both ways.

But, again, you're not quite reading what I'm writing. I never said that there was no support. Nor did I say that no one plays halflings. both statements are easily disproven. What I DID say was that so few people play halflings that they could be removed and it would make virtually no difference to the broader hobby because the broader hobby doesn't play halflings. But, because halflings are in the Core and especially in the SRD, every single supplement has to include a bone or two for halfling players because those are supposed to be one of the most commonly played races -that's why they are the Core 4 SRD races.

But they aren't.

Which is why I'm saying that it's time (and frankly long past time) that the PHB actually reflects what is being played. Which means opening up the PHB to some new ideas and see if they might gain a bit more traction with players in the same way that Tieflings and Dragonborn have. Which might mean that a couple of iterations down the line, the PHB line up of player races might be entirely different than it is now, or it might be very similar to what it is now, or it might be somewhere in between.

But, staying the course just makes the PHB less and less relevant as time goes on.