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?

 

[Chaosmancer]

No, but it's easy enough when describing the creature to your players to say "It kinda looks like this picture here, only with a couple of big ol' railguns mounted on its shoulders and pointing forward along each side of its head."

The picture, in other words, is in this case merely an aid to description rather than a replacement for it. I look at the buzzsaw-lion art the same way - "Here's a vague representation you can look at and I'm about to tell you how what your characters see varies from that picture."

I don't see it that way. If the only way I can use the art is to alter it, because it is only a vague representation, then it has failed in its purpose.

Think for a moment of all the other creatures whose artwork we have. Is Displacer beast art a "vague representation"? No. It isn't, it depicts everything about the creature's physicality that can be depicted. Same for Unicorns. Same for Bullettes. Same for froghemoths. I cannot think of a single modern piece of Monster Manual art that we use that needs us to correct it for our players, because it is only a "vague representation".

 

[Cadence]

How does one tell something lacks a way to fly from a picture? Even in the real world it seems tricky.

 

[Gammadoodler]

How does one tell something lacks a way to fly? Even in the real world it seems tricky...

View attachment 265632

Simple..you just say so with great confidence.

 

[Chaosmancer]

And if you say that Fortnight is better than Overwatch, and someone else tells them that you're wrong because of X, Y, and Z... then that person is being objective here. That person is saying that their opinion is the correct one and yours is incorrect.

That is what you were doing. You were saying "this monster is badly designed" and literally fighting anyone who tried to say otherwise.

No, they wouldn't be objective. Because objective opinions do not exist. They are giving reasons, and that is WONDERFUL. By all the gods above and below I WISH I was dealing with someone who could give solid, backed-up reasons X, Y, and Z.

Because, again, you know why I have been "fighting" people who say the monster isn't badly designed? Because those people have claimed, in no particular order:

It isn't badly designed because I changed the design.
It isn't badly designed because it is a fantasy creature, and you can't have a badly designed fantasy creature, because they don't follow logical rules.
It isn't badly designed because art can't tell you much about a creature.
It isn't badly designed because the source material isn't reliable.

None of those reasons address anything I said. It would be like saying Overwatch is a better designed game because it was made by Blizzard. That has nothing to do with the design of the game, that is just who designed it. If people had reasons, I could discuss those reasons, and in fact I HAVE discussed reasons with people. See my discussion with Dannyalcatraz where I discussed how an action pose would have been a better choice if the creature was meant to be amorphous, and gave examples.

You however and Gammadoodler have not done that. You have attacked me, not my arguments, or made bizarre claims like how dictionary art cannot inform someone.

Ever hear of the Argument From Fallacy?

Ever hear of the Fallacy Fallacy, oh wait, same one. Weird how that one can cut both ways,

But here you go--you are claiming that because people may choose to alter it (while ignoring that I wasn't altering its stats or biology at all, just using it as a domesticated or controlled beast instead of a wild one), it's a badly designed monster. You are fighting me because I disagreed with your opinion.

How in the world is giving it shapeshifting legs not altering its biology?

Also, did I ever say word one in my discussion on why it was a bad design about its stats? Its stats don't matter. They could have any stats at all, and it wouldn't change how bad the design was, because a better designed monster with the same stats would be better.

Also, who cares about it being domesticated? I never said anything about domestication at any point in time. It has nothing to do with my point at all. It seems bizzare to bring up, and frankly, I don't even know what you are talking about. Is it the bizzarre "but they could be wheels" argument? You realize I never responded to that because reducing a monster to the role of an inanimate object... really just speaks to how poorly designed the monster was to begin with. At that point you could just make it an animated chariot, which is a superior design because it no longer has to do anything except be a wheel, which is what the creature was designed to look like.

So it's up to you: keep proving that you are trying to say that your opinion is the objectively correct one and that it's not good, or just shrug and admit that other people's opinions about the monster's design are as valid as yours.

I am not trying to say my opinion is objectively correct, because objectively correct opinions do not exist.
I am not trying to say my opinion is objectively correct, because objectively correct opinions do not exist.
I am not trying to say my opinion is objectively correct, because objectively correct opinions do not exist.
I am not trying to say my opinion is objectively correct, because objectively correct opinions do not exist.
I am not trying to say my opinion is objectively correct, because objectively correct opinions do not exist.
I am not trying to say my opinion is objectively correct, because objectively correct opinions do not exist.


How many times do I have to repeat myself before you stop putting words in my mouth?

 

[Chaosmancer]

Human, Dwarf, Elf, Gnome, Hobbit, Part-Elf, Part-Orc, Barbarian, and other; with "other" being a huge mish-mash of possibilities gated behind long-odds die rolling.

In terms of what players roll up, Hobbits aren't chosen any more than most other species: they're about on par with Part-Elf, Part-Orc, and Barbarian, with Dwarf just a shade higher. All are well below Elf in popularity and Elf is in turn way below Human. Gnome is by far the lowest, but that's somewhat intentional on my part - they're rare in the setting and thus playing one is gated behind die rolls.

Hobbits just tend to last longer. In part this is due to sheer luck, and in part is due to their usually-high Con's tending to make them tough little buggers....yet for some reason this doesn't seem to help Dwarves very much, whose Con's trend even higher.

This is... really telling when combined with your other post.

To get back to Hobbits (Halflings) for a sec:

I keep pretty detailed stats on my campaign, including how many sessions each individual character has appeared in. There's been a few hundred player-characters come and go over the 14+ years this thing has been running, of which about 6% (13 of 213) were/are Hobbits.

Of the top 14 longest-serving characters in terms of sessions played, 5 of them are - wait for it - Hobbits! The other nine are 4 Elves, 3 Humans, 1 Dwarf, and one mess who spent 2/3 of her career as an Elf then got reincarnated into a Hobbit and kept going.

For reference, the rough % played overall is about Human 40%, Elf 20%, Dwarf 10%, then various others each at less than 10%.

Conclusion: no trouble with Halflings (Hobbits) here!

You essentially have 8 races (and I am hesitant to ask what is meant by "barbarian" as a race)

If evenly distributed, each race would have 12.5% of the options chosen, or 26 - 27 played races.

Instead, you have about 85 humans (40%), and if you add in Elf and Dwarf that accounts for 70% or 149 of the played characters. Hobbits make up the largest section of the 4th, but they are still half as popular as dwarves.


Now, as for myself, the smallest set of races I have ever had was when I just had the player's handbook, which was 9 races. But at this point I have about 30 active races, as I umbrella certain groups. And while I haven't been keeping track like you have, the only reason I MIGHT have more than 25% of the players playing human is because I ran an all human campaign with a large group. But we have far far more diversity in our racial choices, and nowhere near 70% of them were dwarves, humans or elves. In fact, other than humans having a majority at a potential 25%, I'd argue most of the other races (elf, dwarf, half-elf, genasi, teifling, changeling, shifter, warforged, orc, half-orc) are seen about equally.

It would seem obvious you don't often have any issues with hobbits, because the majority of your players are either elf or human, with the occasional half-elf or the odd dwarf. This is not how many tables I have seen or heard about go.

 

[Faolyn]

No, they wouldn't be objective. Because objective opinions do not exist. They are giving reasons, and that is WONDERFUL. By all the gods above and below I WISH I was dealing with someone who could give solid, backed-up reasons X, Y, and Z.

Because, again, you know why I have been "fighting" people who say the monster isn't badly designed? Because those people have claimed, in no particular order:

It isn't badly designed because I changed the design.
It isn't badly designed because it is a fantasy creature, and you can't have a badly designed fantasy creature, because they don't follow logical rules.
It isn't badly designed because art can't tell you much about a creature.
It isn't badly designed because the source material isn't reliable.

First off, you are misrepresenting what people have actually said.

Secondly, people only said anything akin to this once you said "this monster is bad design" and chastised anyone who said it wasn't.

How in the world is giving it shapeshifting legs not altering its biology?

I never gave it shapeshifting legs.

Also, did I ever say word one in my discussion on why it was a bad design about its stats? Its stats don't matter.

Then why complain that people altered them to make the monster cooler?

They could have any stats at all, and it wouldn't change how bad the design was, because a better designed monster with the same stats would be better.

Also, who cares about it being domesticated? I never said anything about domestication at any point in time. It has nothing to do with my point at all. It seems bizzare to bring up, and frankly, I don't even know what you are talking about.

That much is clear. I pointed out that I made no changes to its presumed biology or stats, and the only thing I changed was whether or not it was a wild creature or not.

Is it the bizzarre "but they could be wheels" argument? You realize I never responded to that because reducing a monster to the role of an inanimate object... really just speaks to how poorly designed the monster was to begin with.

First, here you go again--saying your opinion is the objective truth and anyone who has a different idea is wrong.

Secondly, it "reducing it to an inanimate object" is not what I said at all, and, in the right hands, is cool as all get out:

Dark Crystal, Skesis carriage, wheel made of giant pillbug.

Kill 6 Billion Demons, Juggernaut's cycle, wheel made of the shades of dead sinners.

At that point you could just make it an animated chariot, which is a superior design because it no longer has to do anything except be a wheel, which is what the creature was designed to look like.

But to me, that's less cool.

I am not trying to say my opinion is objectively correct, because objectively correct opinions do not exist.
I am not trying to say my opinion is objectively correct, because objectively correct opinions do not exist.
I am not trying to say my opinion is objectively correct, because objectively correct opinions do not exist.
I am not trying to say my opinion is objectively correct, because objectively correct opinions do not exist.
I am not trying to say my opinion is objectively correct, because objectively correct opinions do not exist.
I am not trying to say my opinion is objectively correct, because objectively correct opinions do not exist.

Then stop saying other people are wrong when they say the monster is perfectly well-designed to them. (times 6)

You stated your opinion. If you admit your opinion is not objectively true, then that's it. You don't need to repeat it whenever anyone else has a different opinion. You don't need to tell people that their ideas of how to to use the monster are bad or only work if they change the monster. Because if objectively correct opinions do not exist, then everyone else's opinions are just as valid as yours.

If you continue to attack other people's ideas by saying things like "You realize I never responded to that because reducing a monster to the role of an inanimate object... really just speaks to how poorly designed the monster was to begin with," then that is proof that you think your opinion is more valid than mine.

 

[Gammadoodler]

Can't believe I'm doing this..here we go..

How big is it?

You cannot tell that from this art alone, because there is nothing in there for scale.

Note: I never commented on how big or not a Roving Mauler was.

And there is art where scale references are present that kind of art provides more information than art which does not. Do you think scale might be important information to have for a fantasy creature?

If I say it's a teacup tiger or teacup roving mauler, does that change anything about how you assess the capabilities of the creature?

What does it eat?

Meat, you can see the fangs and the other carnivorous features quite clearly. Also, since it is clearly a feline it would have the same dietary habits as most wild felines.

Maybe you could in the original. At max zoom, I see a line for a mouth and a lot of pixellation. Even so, based on the art, how do you even know whether it is a wild or domestic creature?

How fast is it?

You cannot tell exact speed from a stationary image without perspective lines that would distort the image. However, as a quadrupedal mammal I can assume it is capable of reaching 10's of miles per hour. Even bears, which are far bulkier than the picture of the tiger, can reach 30 or more miles per hour. Additionally, with the triple "elbow" (I forget the term for this leg design) I can again draw parrallels to other creatures with that design, which are quite fast.

Sloths are quadrupedal mammals, so are porcupines, squirrels, corgis, guinea pigs, skunks, beavers, badgers, etc. Wide range of speeds in that group. But, who says the creature picture even runs on 4 legs?

What kinds of enviroments does it prefer?

I could not tell you the exact environment, but I can say that with the thinner coat (note how sleek it looks) that the creature would not prefer cold climates. Most mammals that live in cold climates are depicted with much more fur. Additionally, it lacks any of the traditional markers of a creature that lives in desert environments. So, while I can not detail exactly the environment it lives in, I can narrow the band significantly.

Sure you can..

When is it awake?

Impossible to tell from the picture alone. It is a feline, but felines can have multiple cycles.

Note: I have never made a comment on when the Roving Mauler is awake.

So there is art which could indicate a certain cycle for the creatures it depicts. That art provides more information than this art.

How flexible is it?

It is a feline, so as flexible as a feline. The shoulder joints on the front legs means they can't reach behind it, but they can sit and scratch their back with their hind legs. They have spinal column, so they have that flexibility, and you can see a great deal of their range of motion from the curl of the tail, the back legs being folded and the different positions of the front legs.

I don't exactly know what scale of "flexible" we are dealing with, but they are less flexible than a contortionist or a snake, but more flexible than an elephant or a beetle.

No shoulder joints are pictured. No spinal column is pictured. There is no indication of the range of postures the legs or tail could adopt.

How high can it jump?

Considering the design of the back legs which allow for springs and it being a feline, quite high. At least a body length. However, with the low slung body it is better at distance jumping than high jumping.

Wait, I don't see any musculature in this art..surely you don't mean to suggest that a tiger can jump without muscles?

How well does it climb, fly, swim, and/or burrow?

It cannot fly, it lacks any wings or other ways to fly.
It is bad at burrowing, the padded feet are not conducive to digging and the body shape is wrong for them to be able to burrow well.
Swimming it difficult to tell from the picture alone, however, felines can swim so it is capable of it, as it is a feline.
By the same logic, as a feline it is an excellent climber. Zooming in you can see the toes and as a feline you know the claws, so you know it would have a great grip. Also, the shape of the shoulders allows for "hugging" with the front limbs and "kicking" with the back limbs to climb.

But a unicorn can fly without wings... foot structure is not pictured, shoulder joints are not pictured.

Is it smart?
Is it aggressive?
Can it talk?
Does it live alone or in groups?

You cannot tell any of these from a picture.

Yeah..no way at all..for art to indicate any of these things..

Is it dangerous to people.

If you were able to figure out the size, then the answer is obvious. It is a feline, and even small cats can do serious harm. Also, as a carnivore, it is a meat-eater, making it dangerous.

But you can't figure out the size..so..the answer isn't obvious. Got it.

Looks back up at the list

Well, sure it isn't good for the scale and it can't tell things that art cannot depict, like intelligence or whether it is diurnal or nocturnal, but I don't remember ever claiming that the art could tell me every possible detail of the creature. A picture is only worth a thousand words, not ten million.

But you seriously discount how much "cat-shaped" alone can tell a person. Because cat-shaped creatures all tend to have similar features, since the "cat-shape" is the reason for those features.

The only thing from "large carnivorous feline" I couldn't get from the art alone is "large"

Also, tigers are no fiercer, crueler or bloodthirsty than cats. Now, they can appear malicious, because felines play with their food, but again, I could have told you that was likely from it being a feline.


Now, if your point is "more information can tell you more things" well, congrats, you have made a completely obvious point. However, you seem to think the picture tells us nothing at all, and you are wrong. The picture tells a lot. All you have to do is... look at it, and understand what it is telling you.

Ok let's recap.. of your responses, how many did not rely on prior knowledge of the capabilities of other felines? Almost none.

And the definition indicates that a tiger is a large carnivorous feline. So what incremental information does the dictionary art provide?

Or..let's put it another way, how many of your answers change if you don't have the art at all.

If the answer is "not many" or "not any", then maybe it's fair to say that the art carries "little weight".

Additionally, if you replaced the dictionary art with one of the other tiger images in this post, would you be able to provide any more or better answers to the questions.. If the answer is "yes", then you might say that the dictionary art carries "less weight" than other styles of illustration.

 

[Dannyalcatraz]

Mod Note:

@Chaosmancer @Faolyn

The two of you seem to be locked in a pretty intense disagreement. Perhaps it’s time for both of you to voluntarily retreat to neutral territory and cool down.

EDIT: when I first posted this moderation note, I mistakenly tagged @Gammadoodler, who had nothing to do with the reported posts.

 

[Lanefan]

I don't see it that way. If the only way I can use the art is to alter it, because it is only a vague representation, then it has failed in its purpose.

Has it, though?

If it gives me more to work with than I had before, I don't see that as a failure but rather as a net positive.

It's WAY easier to describe a new creature by holding up a picture and saying "It looks much like this except for [elements A, B, and C]" than it is to try describing the creature all the way from A to Z with words only.

Think for a moment of all the other creatures whose artwork we have. Is Displacer beast art a "vague representation"?

While it may well have improved since, the D-Beast art I'm familiar with is pretty vague, as is most of the art in the 1e monster books. And that's kind of the benchmark I'm using here: art that gives a vague idea but leaves some room for malleability and alteration if one wants to describe the creature a bit differently.

The main place this comes up with the 1e art is colour. Black and white art doesn't show the creature's colouring, so if for example I want Displacer Beasts to have orange skin then that's what they have, with nothing to gainsay my word.

 

[Lanefan]

This is... really telling when combined with your other post.

You essentially have 8 races (and I am hesitant to ask what is meant by "barbarian" as a race)

If evenly distributed, each race would have 12.5% of the options chosen, or 26 - 27 played races.

Played characters, I think you mean.

Instead, you have about 85 humans (40%), and if you add in Elf and Dwarf that accounts for 70% or 149 of the played characters. Hobbits make up the largest section of the 4th, but they are still half as popular as dwarves.

Actually, not quite. Here's the actual numbers:

84 Human
41 Elf
21 Dwarf
17 Part-Orc
14 Part-Elf
13 Hobbit
11 Barbarian
4 Gnome
8 other, including four reincarnated characters who changed species
=======
213 total

Barbarian is a sub-species of Human, distinct enough to have its own mechanics. I've had them forever but they may or may not survive as a concept if-when I ever start another campaign.

Now, as for myself, the smallest set of races I have ever had was when I just had the player's handbook, which was 9 races. But at this point I have about 30 active races, as I umbrella certain groups. And while I haven't been keeping track like you have, the only reason I MIGHT have more than 25% of the players playing human is because I ran an all human campaign with a large group. But we have far far more diversity in our racial choices, and nowhere near 70% of them were dwarves, humans or elves. In fact, other than humans having a majority at a potential 25%, I'd argue most of the other races (elf, dwarf, half-elf, genasi, teifling, changeling, shifter, warforged, orc, half-orc) are seen about equally.

For this and other reasons, I really do recommend erring on the side of keeping too many stats on one's games over the long run rather than too few.

It would seem obvious you don't often have any issues with hobbits, because the majority of your players are either elf or human, with the occasional half-elf or the odd dwarf.

Humans are a constant, and I'm a bit Gygaxian in that I do prefer a Human-centric game. After that, I've found the other species tend to rise and fall in popularity over the years. My other two big campaigns, for example, produced 225 PCs between them (and amazingly evenly split: 112 in one and 113 in the other) and of those only 7 were Part-Orc; but now they're more popular - mostly, I think, due to the stupendous success of one Part-Orc in the game I play in. Elves, by contrast, were big in the middle campaign, even outnumbering Humans.

This is not how many tables I have seen or heard about go.

Those tables are not this table.