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?

 

[Minigiant]

Immediately..and I mean immediately after it says they don't have kings or nobles, it says..

"..instead looking to family elders to guide them."

Who do you think the crime bosses are in a crime family?

Like I keep saying.

Based on the lore, halflimgs would definitely be likely to create crime families.

But based on the lore, halflings would not run major crime organizations.

 

[Minigiant]

You're the DM at your table. You're not married to the lore in the books as written.

If Hobbits in your setting have kings and nobles, then so be it. No harm done; carry on.

My Halflings at my table aren't 5e style Halflings, Lender, or Hobbits.

All I am saying is base lore 5e Halflings would be Paulie, Chris, or Vito. Not Tony. Maybe not even Silvio.

 

[bedir than]

I'm going to interrupt this broadcast to point out that for a race with "little to no lore" there a tens of thousands of words explaining Halfling lore in this thread

 

[Gammadoodler]

Like I keep saying.

Based on the lore, halflimgs would definitely be likely to create crime families.

But based on the lore, halflings would not run major crime organizations.

So..

1. They have crime families, which are run by members of the family, but they cannot be 'major' because halflings are not governed by nobles or kings
2. This organization would be successful enough that a "major" organization wants to work with them, but not successful enough to be 'major' themselves.
3. They will integrate into some other races' "major" organization (reasons unknown) which, I guess are led by nobles and kings, since that seems to a primary qualifications to reach "majority"
4. Once integrated, the community-minded, practical, noble-eschewing halfling crime family will abandon any and all of their racial advantages and family leadership which made them successful in the first place in order to work "better" with the new noble-led partner organization.

Wu-wu-wu-wu--wut?

This is is logical to you??

 

[doctorbadwolf]

Like I keep saying.

Based on the lore, halflimgs would definitely be likely to create crime families.

But based on the lore, halflings would not run major crime organizations.

Yes. They. Would.

The Mafia is a crime family, and a major crime organization.

 

[Minigiant]

So..

1. They have crime families, which are run by members of the family, but they cannot be 'major' because halflings are not governed by nobles or kings
2. This organization would be successful enough that a "major" organization wants to work with them, but not successful enough to be 'major' themselves.
3. They will integrate into some other races' "major" organization (reasons unknown) which, I guess are led by nobles and kings, since that seems to a primary qualifications to reach "majority"
4. Once integrated, they will abandon any and all of their racial advantages and family leadership which made them successful in the first place in order to work "better" with the new noble-led partner organization.

Wu-wu-wu-wu--wut?

This is is logical to you??

Most halflings live in small, peaceful communities with large farms and well-kept groves. They rarely build kingdoms of their own or even hold much land beyond their quiet shires. They typically don’t recognize any sort of halfling nobility or royalty, instead looking to family elders to guide them. Families preserve their traditional ways despite the rise and fall of empires

I read that lore and apply it to the legal world and the underworld.

"They rarely build criminal kingdoms of their own or even hold much land beyond their quiet shires silent hideout They typically don’t recognize any sort of halfling crimelords and kingpins instead looking to crime family elders to guide them."

You might say "No, that only applies to good halflimgs". But to me, it pretty much says a halfling crime family won't run more than one neighborhood.

 

[doctorbadwolf]

I read that lore and apply it to the legal world and the underworld.

"They rarely build criminal kingdoms of their own or even hold much land beyond their quiet shires silent hideout They typically don’t recognize any sort of halfling crimelords and kingpins instead looking to crime family elders to guide them."

You might say "No, that only applies to good halflimgs". But to me, it pretty much says a halfling crime family won't run more than one neighborhood.

That is an incredible leap.

It certainly doesn’t have any bearing on a broader discussion of the halfling in D&D .

 

[Gammadoodler]

I read that lore and apply it to the legal world and the underworld.

"They rarely build criminal kingdoms of their own or even hold much land beyond their quiet shires silent hideout They typically don’t recognize any sort of halfling crimelords and kingpins instead looking to crime family elders to guide them."

You might say "No, that only applies to good halflimgs". But to me, it pretty much says a halfling crime family won't run more than one neighborhood.

Let's say this is a valid way to apply the lore. The hobbyist crime family is a curious one to me, but let's go with it.

So you have these single-family home-sized crime families..with little ambition to grow.

They somehow catch the attention of some serious criminal organizations, dwarves and stuff..despite the limited criminal scope or ambition these halflings display.

The big organization's criminal kingpin makes the hobbyist halflings an offer.

Our halfling hobbyists jump at the chance to work for this kingpin, despite having no previous ambitions and racial resistance to kingpin rulership.

Either with or without directions from the kingpin, they abandon all practical precautions they'd utilized before this criminal merger.

They conduct operations without using any of their halfling racial features..

And therefore, halflings make bad enemies.

So all I really disagree with here is your assumptions, logic, and conclusion, but otherwise..yeah, seems legit.

 

[Faolyn]

I read that lore and apply it to the legal world and the underworld.

"They rarely build criminal kingdoms of their own or even hold much land beyond their quiet shires silent hideout They typically don’t recognize any sort of halfling crimelords and kingpins instead looking to crime family elders to guide them."

You might say "No, that only applies to good halflimgs". But to me, it pretty much says a halfling crime family won't run more than one neighborhood.

Why do you keep thinking that racial tendencies is the same as racial absolutes?

Edit: A halfling shire doesn't need an absolute ruler like a king because halflings generally don't lead the kind of lives that require any one halfling to decide that they could rule everyone better than halflings could rule themselves. They get along well with each other and, within the borders of a halfling town, rarely get up to the kind of crimes or face the kind of dangers that require an absolute ruler to dictate what to do. And don't forget that even though halflings may not have royalty, their towns would likely have mayors or magistrates, probably even democratically elected ones.

A halfling crime family or other criminal organization--which would likely be formed outside of a halfling town--isn't like a normal halfling organization. Such an organization does need a leader or oligarchy. And there's is nothing in established D&D lore that suggests that halflings couldn't have a absolute ruler in those circumstances.

And actually, halflings may have actual, original-meaning dictators--someone who is elected to a position of absolute power for the duration of a crisis and then steps down when that crisis is over. Halflings are, for the most part, well-intentioned enough that few would abuse this temporary power. And fewer would continue to obey the dictator when the crisis has passed.

 

[Minigiant]

Why do you keep thinking that racial tendencies is the same as racial absolutes?

Where am I saying absolutes?

Note: My quote is literally the PHB description of haflings with the legal titles replaced with underworld titles.

If you don't like it. Congratulations! You agree with me that the 5e Halfling lore is trash.