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?

 

[Irlo]

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.

This points to the difference between us, I think. I don't need everyone to be "viable on the world stage" (if I understand what you mean by that) or big players in the history of the continent to easily incorporate them into a setting. The real world is full of supposedly inconsequential communities full of inconsequential people, but those people have real stories and real lives and more impact on history that is writ large in the books. The wide sweep of history, in my games, is not generally relevant to my players.

Why ignore the bits of halfling lore that indicate they love discovery of new things (not just exotice spices), that they are welcomed and valued by others, that some travel as a way of life? Why insist that enjoying the comforts of home means they literally never leave that home?

 

[Chaosmancer]

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!".

But anyone can go out and do literally anything. Anyone can start from humble beginnings. Luke Skywalker wasn't a halfling. Pug of Crydee wasn't a halfling, he was a kitchen boy. And heck, both of them were far more humble than a rich bachelor who never had to work a day in his life because he inherited his wealth and could spend his days on maps as a hobby.

This is why we keep saying "they are just humans" because... that's all they are here. Humans are the one DnD race that isn't defined, they don't have anything particular going for them except some unspecified drive as a racial trait. But the individual human, the character can be anything. And many of them do come from humble backgrounds.

Heck, I wrote a half-elf who came from a humble background. He was left with his father, as his mother was a flighty elf who didn't really want to raise her son. He lived in Neverwinter, grew up during the calamity, joined the town guard, he was just a normal every day person who happened to be a 40 year old man who grew up in Neverwinter during hard times.

What special abilities did he have from his heritage? A bit more skill than normal, which led to him being a successful detective. That's it. Half-elves don't get special powers either. His mother never even came into the story, DM didn't end up doing anything with it. What did come up was him loving his home city and his wife, a half-orc.


Look, I get it. "Everyone underestimates halflings" seems appealing. But Giants underestimate everyone shorter than 10 ft tall. Dragons underestimate everyone period. Demons underestimate all mortals. We aren't playing a game where the greatest threats tend to be the mob boss who kicks around the little kid thinking nothing will come of it. Every mortal is underestimated by the immortal evils of the world. And that means that "short and underestimated" isn't enough. They make for great characters in stories, I get that. But when you lay out the tapestry of the world... they don't offer anything.

 

[Chaosmancer]

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

Do we ever encounter a single Took in the story? Seriously, I think the Tooks had a reputation, sure, but the only Took I can think of was Merry or Pippin, so... they were forced on an adventure, just like the Baggins and the Gamgees.

And I'm not saying "every single person must be an adventurer!!" That is obviously stupid. But that is also the entire point. There is an elven seamstress who has never left her home, loves her family and good food, and works to make her community better. She has all the traits of a halfling, but she's an elf. Because the entire thing is "halflings are ordinary people" but by pure logic, every race has ordinary people. For every dwarf that goes on an adventure and expands their horizons, there are a hundred that don't. So, what makes halflings special in having ordinary people? Well, the answer is that they are all ordinary, so then... you need exceptions to make adventurers... just like you have with every other race. And you end up just circling in on yourself.

But, to be more specific, there are races in DnD that never go out and adventure. Berbalangs come to mind, they never go out on adventures... they also aren't an option to pick to build an adventurer, because they never go out on adventures.

 

[Chaosmancer]

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.

Exactly my point

 

[Irlo]

Heck, I wrote a half-elf who came from a humble background. He was left with his father, as his mother was a flighty elf who didn't really want to raise her son. He lived in Neverwinter, grew up during the calamity, joined the town guard, he was just a normal every day person who happened to be a 40 year old man who grew up in Neverwinter during hard times.

What special abilities did he have from his heritage? A bit more skill than normal, which led to him being a successful detective. That's it. Half-elves don't get special powers either. His mother never even came into the story, DM didn't end up doing anything with it. What did come up was him loving his home city and his wife, a half-orc.

Sounds like a fun character. But if half-elves were erased from your world, you could make this character literally any other race. How the half-elves are represented in the broad tapestry of world history isn't as important as how this character is in the world. (IMO).

 

[Chaosmancer]

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)

They can be, but they are also quest givers. Or do you have the majority of your merchants strap on armor and follow the party? And halflings aren't known for mercantilism. That could be something to hang off of, if halflings were the race known to be merchants. But they aren't. To the point that I once had people arguing with me that Halflings wouldn't even use coins.

So, do we want to lean into Halflings being the race of merchants and dealers?

 

[Irlo]

Exactly my point

I thought your point was that halflings aren't a viable PC race because they don't go on adventures.

 

[Irlo]

They can be, but they are also quest givers. Or do you have the majority of your merchants strap on armor and follow the party? And halflings aren't known for mercantilism. That could be something to hang off of, if halflings were the race known to be merchants. But they aren't. To the point that I once had people arguing with me that Halflings wouldn't even use coins.

So, do we want to lean into Halflings being the race of merchants and dealers?

Why would there be a RACE of merchants?

 

[Mind of tempest]

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!".

one can not make a whole race of the hero's journey it does not work in dnd as fundamentally is build differently from lord of the rings it does not work here.

besides they would just get killed at world spawn as what little background they have they do not have a powerful god watching out for them.

This points to the difference between us, I think. I don't need everyone to be "viable on the world stage" (if I understand what you mean by that) or big players in the history of the continent to easily incorporate them into a setting. The real world is full of supposedly inconsequential communities full of inconsequential people, but those people have real stories and real lives and more impact on history that is writ large in the books. The wide sweep of history, in my games, is not generally relevant to my players.

Why ignore the bits of halfling lore that indicate they love discovery of new things (not just exotice spices), that they are welcomed and valued by others, that some travel as a way of life? Why insist that enjoying the comforts of home means they literally never leave that home?

okay if they are fundamentally irrelevant why are they always in the phb when they would more fittingly be placeable in a supplement like the other inconsequential races as to be in the phb is to be the star of the show?

 

[Mind of tempest]

Why would there be a RACE of merchants?

who knows but it is crazy common Proud Merchant Race - TV Tropes