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?

 

[Paul Farquhar]

This is a race defined by...

Am I the only person who finds the assertion that "a race can be defined by [insert single factor here]" makes them extremely uncomfortable?

 

[Mind of tempest]

I heard some guy wrote a couple of somewhat popular books with such bland creatures as protagonists. I think they even made some films about them...

Seriously, this "halflings are boring" is just an opinion. People, stop repeating it like it was a fact; it isn't. That you don't get them doesn't mean that there is anything objectively wrong with them.

look just becuse they work in Tolkien's books does not mean they work in all contexts.

Am I the only person who finds the assertion that "a race can be defined by [insert single factor here]" makes them extremely uncomfortable?

it does make my hairs stand on end, but honestly, you can get used to anything.

 

[James Gasik]

If you are a person who thinks Halflings are boring and bland, you're entitled to that opinion. And it's probably folly to think you could be convinced otherwise.

However, I think you're missing an important point when it comes to creating characters in a setting. Where they come from, what their backgrounds are, is not the most interesting thing about them. It's where they are going.

Even the Ur (and outdated) examples of Tolkien point this out. Bilbo was a middle aged rich guy who loved maps, smoking, and eating. He was a confirmed bachelor who lived in a great big house. By Halfling standards, he was extremely well off. He didn't have to work or hold down a job, nor did he have a family to support.

Gandalf conspired to change all that, because he felt Bilbo had more potential than to be a rich idiot with no day job. And through adversity and hardship, he saw more of the world than any other Hobbit ever had, found hidden depths within himself, and was able to retire again, satisfied that he'd lived a live well lived.

Frodo was the adopted ward of said rich idiot (I'm getting a Batman/Robin vibe now, lol), and he was all set to become Bilbo 2.0, had not the One Ring entered his life. The adversity and hardships Bilbo faced were nothing compared to what Frodo had to deal with, and in the end, it left him scarred and broken. He was never a great hero, but he too had become much more than he had started out as (and in some ways, less, too).

Samwise Gamgee was an assistant groundskeeper. He had simple dreams and simple desires, but he was strong and unbelievably loyal to his friends. By the end of his story, he was a hero, he had proven to be the bravest of all his kind, and he went from a simple guy who loved plants to a noted and celebrated historian.

In all three cases, their origins ultimately were a small part of their stories, the trajectory of which brought out their hidden greatness.

And that's what, to me, Halflings represent. Hidden gems. Diamonds in the rough. Untapped potential. You look at them and say "what can a Halfling do?". And then they go out and prove the answer is, literally, anything.

To merely dismiss them as "boring and uninspired" strikes me as lacking in imagination. They are the quintessential Hero from humble beginnings. Luke Skywalker, strongly evoking the literary "Hero's Journey" starts off as what? A farm boy who dreams of adventure, but for a singular chain of events, would probably never amounted more than just another man trying to eke out an existence on a harsh world.

All any character, of any race, needs, is that push, to drive them to become more. And Halflings have all the tools they need to survive adversity. A little bit of luck in dark places, the ability to hold their ground against supernatural terrors where others may falter- these abilities might not seem exciting, but racial abilities don't have to be- your character is not their race, their class, their ability scores, their feats, or their equipment. At some point, they are infused with a spark of life that makes them more than the sum of their parts.

And I still find those traits more interesting than "I can make a club in an hour" or "I can hold my breath good!".

 

[Oofta]

I agree with @James Gasik on this one. Halflings make interesting PCs because everyone expects them to be boring nobodies. Nobody is surprised by a dwarven fighter or an tiefling warlock. They're a dime a dozen. But that little guy that you barely even notice being a hero of the realms? That's a story to be told!

Besides a lot of people identify with the kid that people overlook, that doesn't particularly stand out. No they're not the smart and good looking elf, the brash jock half orc. Nope, they're the quiet ones. Maybe the ones that play Cubicles and Computers on weekends.

 

[Chaosmancer]

This is basically your foundation to the idea that halflings don't belong in the game. But it rests on the idea of somehow calling the original inspirations for the halfling a retcon. Halflings from the very start went out on adventures -- they went there and back again.

Right the single, exceptional odd-ball went there then back again. When forced to by a divine wizard and 12 dwarves.

So, Bilbo went on an adventure, we can even say he counts. Frodo, Sam, Pippen and Merry were chased by great evil and had no choice in the matter, in fact, they basically had this thrust upon them by Bilbo and Gandalf.

And... every other hobbit or halfling in the shire? Farmer Maggot? The lady who wanted to buy Bilbo's house? Sam's Wife? Did literally any of them leave their home in the Shire? The problem with the trope of the exceptional oddball, is that they are exceptional and not the norm. And when you are talking about the norm, you have to consider EVERYONE ELSE. And everyone else didn't go on adventures, they stayed home.

 

[bedir than]

Right the single, exceptional odd-ball went there then back again. When forced to by a divine wizard and 12 dwarves.

So, Bilbo went on an adventure, we can even say he counts. Frodo, Sam, Pippen and Merry were chased by great evil and had no choice in the matter, in fact, they basically had this thrust upon them by Bilbo and Gandalf.

And... every other hobbit or halfling in the shire? Farmer Maggot? The lady who wanted to buy Bilbo's house? Sam's Wife? Did literally any of them leave their home in the Shire? The problem with the trope of the exceptional oddball, is that they are exceptional and not the norm. And when you are talking about the norm, you have to consider EVERYONE ELSE. And everyone else didn't go on adventures, they stayed home.

What about the Tooks, mentioned regularly as wanderers and weirdos?

Also, why does an entire peoples need to adventure?
Insisting that every individual must adventure or it's not a valid race is like insisting that not every horse goes on adventures so they don't belong in D&D. That's horrible world building

 

[Irlo]

And... every other hobbit or halfling in the shire? Farmer Maggot? The lady who wanted to buy Bilbo's house? Sam's Wife? Did literally any of them leave their home in the Shire? The problem with the trope of the exceptional oddball, is that they are exceptional and not the norm. And when you are talking about the norm, you have to consider EVERYONE ELSE. And everyone else didn't go on adventures, they stayed home.

You can say the same for 99% of the population of Waterdeep, regardless of race. It's not as if non-halfling races have "full-time professional adventurer" baked into the lore.

 

[Chaosmancer]

Point 1, you go adventuring for character reasons. Halflings aren't somehow immune from, "goblins killed my grandma" or "I got bored" or a host of other perfectly valid, perfectly halfling(or not) reasons.

I never said they were. But any character can go on an adventure because goblins killed their grandmother.

It is a very dwarvish thing to go out on an adventure to reclaim the hammer used to forge your ancestral clan's magical axe, to repair it and restore your honor.

It is a very elvish thing to go out into the world to expand upon your practice of bladesinging.

Halflings don't really have "halfling" reasons to go on adventures. The closest we get is that they enjoy exoctic spices, but that makes them merchants, not adventurers. They'd be more likely to hire an adventuring party to go into the deep desert to find the spices than they would go themselves.

I'm not saying "haflling adventurers are impossible!" because they clearly aren't, but none of their adventuring hooks seem tied into their essential halflingness, and many of them are IN SPITE of their halflingness.

Point 2, do you really not see how these were intended to point out the some of the more heightened aspects of the 'common' D&D races? And do you really not read the ways in which halflings value friendship more than the other races (in the same way that dwarves value craftsmanship more than other races, or elves value artistry)? Or is this one of those things where it's inconvenient to your argument, so you chose obtuseness instead?

How do they value friendship more than the other races? Dwarves will literally go to war for their friends. Befriend a dwarf and you may well have the aid of their entire clan. How are halflings more than that? What kind of examples do we bring?

Now, follow that up, how does that help us world-build? Halfings make great friends of the people who did the important things doesn't help us do anything with them on the world stage.

As far as the things you can bring your home without leaving it..hmm let's think. Taverns, orphanages, meeting halls, bowling alleys, gardens, playgrounds, festivals, fairs, picnics, galleries, hospitals, choirs, carolers, schools, theatres, bakeries, I could go on... You know, like, a lot of the stuff that can make communities nice places to live.

While the humans are trying to make a buck, the dwarves are sharpening their axes, and the elves are gazing absently into the middle distance, halflings are there to make sure kids get taken care of, the beers are cold, and someone's playing music in the town square.

Really? "Never have I seen this building before, a tah-vern you call it? Fascinating, no one has ever done this before" has said no one in DnD ever.

This is literally the problem. You are either saying that halflings are the only reason things like taverns and bakeries and town halls exist, or you are somehow trying to claim that the fact halflings would appreciate these things makes them somehow viable on the world stage. When I am writing the history of the continent, the fact that the town of hobknob has a town hall is just a fact, because of course they do. The fact that halfling towns are nice doesn't matter, every town that I want to be nice is nice. "Is a nice town" doesn't help me in world-building.

Nothing in your final two paragraphs was relevant or responsive to my post, so I'm ignoring them.

That seems to be because of this blockage we seem to have between the point being made and people's understanding of it. Lawrence Woolweaver was a nice man. That does nothing to tell us anything about the world and his place in it. But that's what you guys keep insisting for the halflings, "they are nice, and they love their community, isn't that enough?" No, it isn't. Because that is the default state of a group of people. That is the baseline we start from, so having that being the endpoint makes them practically invisible, which makes them hard to utilize.

 

[bedir than]

Halflings don't really have "halfling" reasons to go on adventures. The closest we get is that they enjoy exoctic spices, but that makes them merchants, not adventurers. They'd be more likely to hire an adventuring party to go into the deep desert to find the spices than they would go themselves.

Except in a world where the exotic is trying to bite you, claw you, fireball you -- merchants are quite often adventures (also true for the real world merchants who travelled the Silk Road or sailed for 7 months)

 

[Chaosmancer]

I certainly agree that in D&D there are too many races with overlapping concepts and I would for example combine halflings and gnomes. But I also don't think that PLUS MORE is always desired and may undermine other parts of the concept. I don't think goliaths would be better it they had wings and could shoot magic lasers from their eyes, even though that would be PLUS MORE. And I think being a small owl person certainly would focus the attention to being and owl rather than on being small. Halflings being rather similar to humans focuses the attention to most obvious difference, the size.

What do goblins have that is the equivalent of wings and magic lasers they shoot from their eyes?

Yes, if we go hyperbole and EXXXXTRRRRREEEEEMMMEEEE!!!!!!!! Then it gets ridiculous and bad. But here is a counter example. I've made a new race called the digitus. They are medium humanoids that are exactly like humans in every way... except that they have six fingers on each hand. By removing everything else, it really focuses the attention to their obvious difference, the six fingers, right?

Well... no. Sure, that's interesting, but it doesn't really give us anything to hook into, they are just humans with six fingers.

Combining halflings and gnomes would work (really, it benefits the halflings far more than the gnomes) but if talking about the halfling in the context of DnD by themselves, the fact that they are small isn't enough anymore. The other races take being small and do something with it. Halflings are just small.