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?

 

[Gammadoodler]

I truly am stunned that the fact that humans are real, and that I understand what a human is, should somehow mean that when something is referred to as human, and described, that I must assume it is non-human.

No, just because they made up some ethnicities and didn't treat humans any differently than they treated the other races, that doesn't mean that humans in DnD are inhuman beings. This is the most bizarro argument I've ever heard. Humans are... human. That's the point.



Because, and I know this seems to be a difficult point to get across. Humans are real. Right now, I can walk about 10 ft, and there is a whole room with them in it. I've been talking to humans all day.

Just like how I can basically put in a squirrel into DnD without it really being homebrew, because squirrels exist, and they kind of can just be rats with climb speeds, because... I can reference what a squirrel is without any need for fantasy definitions. Because squirrels are real. They exist. I can go out and get one if I really really wanted to.

Halflings, just because it seems to be needed to state this, are not real. They don't actually exist in the real world. So, unlike humans which are real and hopefully everyone at your table understands that and knows what a human is, we need halflings to be defined. Because they aren't real.

And, therefore, since they need to be defined, if you have changed that definition to include things that are not part of their official definition, you have changed them. And this needs to be addressed, because while I want to change them, saying they don't need to be changed officially because you changed them is unhelpful. However, I can say that humans have three eyes and six arms and fly with the power of flatulence, and everyone knows immediately that that isn't true. That isn't what a human is. Because humans are real. It doesn't matter if you changed them to be that, because you can't change the definition of what a human is.



And, the greater part of this, is that even if you want to solely focus on DnD and nothing else, ignore eveyrthing in the real world and just look solely at the depictions of humans in DnD... you are still wrong. Because we have plenty of humans who are commoners. Who lack ambitions. Who prefer spending time with their family. Because we didn't need to include that in the Human entry, because humans are real, we know them, and we have been telling stories about humans and what they want for tens of thousands of years. So saying that these depictions are impossible, or are actually the realm of halflings, is ridiculous. This has been a human thing, and it is a human thing in DnD, and you need to stop insisting it isn't a human thing.

I truly am stunned that someone would have difficuly parsing that differences may exist between..

..D&D humans..
..who are not real and whom we do not know

..and real humans
..who are real

If we confine ourselves to D&D, since this is the scope our fantasy races exist within which is distinctly different from the world that we live in, we find that the authors have helpfully provided summaries of what we might expect from those races, what they value, how they behave etc.

Perhaps we should evaluate these descriptions as they are and symmetrically. By doing this, one might even think we were engaging in a good faith effort to compare and contrast equivalent texts.

 

[Chaosmancer]

It might be. It depends on the setting. Or do you think that we're required by law or something to use every bit of D&D lore, even if it doesn't make sense in context?

I've triple checked my copy of the book. Still can't find where it says it is only true in a single setting and nowhere else. So, since it seems to be generic lore, I think that... yeah, you kind of have to accept it is generic lore.

Can it be changed? Who cares! The point isn't "can we rewrite elves and make them different" the point is that elves aren't humans in rubber masks. They have traits that are non-human. IF a setting decides to change that, that's that settings problem, not mine.

I can 100% see both of those being possible, even probable.

And they still wouldn't mean that vampires and shifters are just humans. I don't care if it is possible, my entire point was that it is possible, but that it doesn't change what it means to be human that you can be altered to be non-human.

Shockingly enough, I never claimed that humans and dwarfs and tabaxi were identical. Nor did I say that I want to force you down that path. This is you misrepresenting what I said. Again.

What I said is that even if you refuse to accept it, is that halflings don't need to have fantastical powers to be unique and special. It doesn't matter if elves are the only people in the world who can reincarnate. That doesn't make halflings any less interesting to someone who bothers to spend more than a minute thinking about htem.

So, you now are fleeing your position that all races are just humans in rubber masks, and demanding to know what non-human traits that they have. Because (and since you want precise research so often) that was exactly what you demanded. Since you have forgotten, let's just repost that

Like what? Because I literally can't think of a thing these races have done that humans haven't done.

Humans, in real-life, can build amazing contraptions like gnomes (look at any clockwork or Rube Goldburg device), can carve mountains into amazing sculptures and cities like dwarfs (check out any number of huge monuments, or the City of Petra, or the Pyramids), bend living trees into amazing sculptures like elves (living sculptures, tree shaping, bonzai), and... go to war and act like bandits like goblins and orcs. Assuming you're going for traditional, monstrous goblins and orcs, of course. Literally the only things that elves, dwarfs, gnomes, goblins, and orcs have done that humans haven't are things that involve magic or setting-specific supernatural beings.

If you can't find the fantastical among the halflings, it's because you're not looking in the right places. Halfling fantastical-ness lies in their general peacefulness (or at least lack of waging wars), their hominess, their cooking, their cheeriness, even in the face of disaster, their ability to get along with others, things like that.

So, now the argument has shifted. It is no longer about "what have these other races done" it is NOW "That halflings don't need to have fantastical powers to be unique and special."

So, completely different argument, and you want to claim that if I spent MORE THAN A MINUTE thinking about them, that I would be able to see how wonderful and unique and special they are. Funny how after, what? Probably in total a month of time arguing over multiple threads that have spanned a year and a half at least, that you somehow think I haven't given them more than a minute's thought.

Do you understand how insulting that is? Just flat out, how insulting it is to be told that after hours and hours and hours of work, after trying to rework them time and time and time again, after discussing and being dragged through the mud time and time and time again, that I must not have thought about the subject for five minutes?

How about, instead of insulting me, trying to dodge the point, and these ad hominem attacks you actually discuss what is so wonderful about halflings, without just taking it as "They are the nicest, kindest, friendliest people" Because I discussed how horrific and poorly thought out that argument is before. Spent "more than a minute" thinking about the implications of that for world building and decided that I prefer a better world than the one where that would be true.

So, can you do it? Can you actually discuss halflings without insulting me and give me more than "they are super nice" that can define them? Or is it just more insults I have coming my way?

It's amazing how easy other people have it at having unique gnomes and halflings when they don't rely on TSR/WotC spoon-feeding them the lore and make up their own.

You know, at the end of this rant of yours, you say that you wasted a "few hours" of time, presumably in this response to me. Maybe you should have spent those few hours coming up with interesting cultures instead.

Wow, didn't even need to wait to post. Insults away.

Tell me, what cultures have I made? Do you even know? What have I written about Yotun cooking habits? The societies of the Kith? The metaphyiscal nature of the Goblins and their relationship to the Primal Mother? How about the connection between the gnomes and the Slaad and the gnomish heaven? Do you have any idea what Mahendrapvarta is? The Arboreans? The Aspians? How are Kobolds and Dragonborn made? Why do elves worship spiders?

Or do you assume because I advocate for changes to WoTC's lore that... well, why even ask, you think I'm spoon-fed lore and incapable of making up my own. Honestly, I'm tempted to break forum rules just to tell you what I think of that. I've spent years as a writer, I am fully capable of making my own lore. I also recognize that if I want to change Dungeons and Dragons, then me just making up things to keep to myself doesn't cut it. You'd think a community about creativity would understand that sharing ideas and discussion are valuable. But, no. Guess trying to discuss things and get a consensus that we need to change things going forward just shows that I can't possibly be creative enough to develop my own lore.

So when you think of "elf," do you think of

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or do you think of

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or do you think of

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or do you think of

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or do you think of

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?

Because they're all elves. And they're all different, too. Literally the only thing they have in common are pointy ears.

The fact that there is a more universally accepted image of gnome is only because (a) that book by Rien Poorvliet and Wil Huygen from 1976 and (b) they haven't been used in a ton of other things, probably because they're not as sexy as elves are.

Do you know that Faerie and Fairy are pretty different? In fact, Fairy is probably more accurate as Pixie. Because a lot of these concepts came from a time when cultures were much less integrated, and they had a lot of different things that were kind of the same. Sort of like Daemon and Demon.

Rowling might have called Dobbi a House Elf, but they are more like a goblin or more specifically a traditional hobgoblin. Elves aren't house spirits. But they were Faeries, just like Brownies and Hobgoblins and Tomte and even Kobolds!

So, yeah, surprise surprise, the term Elf was closely associate with Fairy, which would be Faerie, which like Daemon was used to describe a large, large grouping of disparate things. Often with conflicting names, lore, or purposes. However, if I google "Fantasy Elf" I get a pretty consistent view of what that means. And it isn't Keebler, and it isn't Santa. Now, sure, just "Elf" gets me a lot of pictures of Will Farrell, but that was the name of his movie after all.

Now, you can use this as a "gotcha"! HAHA! There is no such thing as consistency because Keebler called their little gnomes elves and Santa exists! But, you know that there is a reason why we tend to use adjectives, right? I don't need to explain it to you? And, shockingly, even with your example there IS something beyond pointy ears they all share in common, in fact, I'd almost be able to bet on two things.

Magic
Longevity

It isn't much, but we are dealing with a word that has been tied into dozens of meanings and was a synonym for Fairy and Daemon, so, you know, not bad to still have three points of similarity.

Yup. Because you do, in fact, misrepresent and misunderstand people, blow everyone's responses out of proportion, and make straw man after straw man, over and over again. So I honestly do not believe you when you claim that multiple people have said that if you change anything about halflings they stop being halflings.

Then why do you insist on these discussions? I was ignoring you, as we were told to do, and you had to jump back in and start attacking me. And you do nothing but insult me and accuse me misdeeds.

Is the entire point just to drive me off the platform? Will you be satisfied if I disappear for another six months because I'm sick of this? You think I'm a liar and troll and refuse to believe anything I say. Fine. THEN STOP RESPONDING TO ME! Nothing I ever post will be good enough for you, so just go away.

You are free to block me or simply stop answering my posts.

I'm not blocking you because I am sick of having to log off of the site to even follow a thread's discussion because half of it is blocked posts.

I'm responding to you because I consider it rude to ignore people. You spent time to respond to me, so I feel obligated to give that response a degree of respect and response back. But trust me, I'm getting sick and tired of this.

Let's say you find some people who did in fact say that you can't change halflings without making them not-halflings.

Why do you care what these people say? Why do you think I should care what they say?

I care because I was trying to have a discussion, and they shut down that discussion with this insistence.

You should care because you accuse me of misdeeds, where all I was doing was pointing out the definition I was given that shut down the previous discussion.

Neither of us need to care, if you want to change halflings, let's get to it. But you seemed to think my letting you know what I was told somehow means that I'm bound by other people's rules, and you seem to think their rules are my rules and that now I ust defend why other people refused to discuss changes with me because of their views.

I have mentioned many ways to improve halflings. You have dismissed them all.

Remember me talking about how to RP luck and bravery in the game? You refused, you would never use those ideas because it somehow wasn't the right type of mechanics for you. Because for some reason you insisted that the only way a halfling can be lucky or brave is for everyone to be unlucky and cowardly. That starts at around page 16-17 of this thread.

So why don't you tell us some things that would make halflings better for you?

Right, you gave ideas I found to be bad. I explained why I found them bad. How utterly monstrous of me. I should never discuss the merits of an idea. Why then, we might just... I don't know why that's bad actually.

And I proposed a few things over the past year. Folding them into Gnomes works very well. Making them a mercantile races works very well. Saw someone who made them a race that partially existed on the ethereal plane, that was cool. Those are just the first three ideas that don't change them visually.

I have said on multiple occasions that halflings can be easily altered without getting rid of them. I don't think they need magical powers, though--I would prefer there be fewer magical races, not more.

In Level Up, one of the halfling gifts is "tuft feet," wherein their soles are so thick that they can even walk across an area affected by spike growth and not be harmed. Another gift is "burrowing claws," which is just that. One of the halfling-oriented cultures gives the ability to cook food so well that you gain temp hp when you eat it. I made a halfling gift that gave them gods-given bonuses to their slings and thrown weapons.

The food thing doesn't work when you already have a system for magical food. We have the chef feat after all.

Tuft feet is... okay? That is such a minor benefit, unless there are a lot of hazards that hurt people's feet through boots? The majority of things don't, and just being able to ignore damage from a single spell doesn't seem like much. Is there more to it than that?

The claws is... I mean, I guess you can make mole people, but that just feels like mole people to me. Is there more to it than that?

Why should we give them bonuses to slings and thrown weapons? It feels like it would be a mechanical buff, but it doesn't seem to fulfill a lore purpose. I mean, elves and bows, dwarves and axes/hammers get by just fine without mechanical bonuses. I don't mind slings being a thing for halflings. Just need a why.

And again, citation needed. Because nobody, to my knowledge, claimed that the feral psionic cannibal halflings of Athas or the dino-riding mafia healer halflings of Eberron are not halflings. And that shows you can change halflings radically and people will still accept them as halflings.

You realize you are mixing the various Eberron halflings together, right? That the talentas halflings are not the same as the mafia halflings are not the same as the healing halflings are not the same as the hospitality halflings. You are presenting them like one single thing, and they aren't.

As for the rest, I have no reason to do research you will dismiss as lies anyways. Most people talking about halflings have been ignoring those two versions, focusing on the pastoral tolkien halflings of forgotten realms and greyhawk. Don't believe me? Do your own digging.

I'm going to repeat what I said above. Instead of spending one or more hours writing a response to me, spend that time actually thinking about the halflings. Because it's clear you don't, if that's all you got out of them.

So, it wasn't an accidental insult the first time. You are just intentionally insulting me.

Yeah, this is likely going to be the last time I respond to you, unless you drastically cut back on the insults and ad hominems.

Nope.

To which one? You quoted two questions.

Except that it's not an accepted fact that halflings only or mostly live in human lands and go to war when humans do.

It seems to be for the people who wrote the books, and everyone who disucssed it until you that they reside in large quantities in human lands.

And, the second part is just logic. If they reside in human lands, they go to war when humans do. That's just how geopolitics works.

That's what happens when you don't make a generic world and decide to shake things up a bit by not using D&D stereotypes.

I will admit that it's only this face of the world, since my world is a cube. But one side is only ocean with a few islands, one side is the arctic wastes, one side is burning desert, and a fourth side is the divine realm. There's really only two sides that manage to have actual cities on them. But nobody knows that yet, so it might as well be the entire world.

Man, you really can't go more than a few paragraphs without being insulting and derisive.

I'd ask you why you decided on halflings, but frankly, your attitude makes me really not care about anything you've designed.

The smallest army in the real world is the Swiss Guard, with about 135 members. I see no reason to not to assume that D&D armies don't need to have thousands upon thousands of people when they can have spellcasters and bound extraplanar creatures and allied dragons.

Uh huh. So, you think the Swiss Guard can go and conquer.... anything? Also, while it is the smallest army in the world, note that it isn't called "The Swiss Army", but "The Swiss Guard" because they defend the Vatican City.

Also, really curious where these villages are getting bound extraplanar creatures and alliances with dragons from. You'd think you'd need something to like, pay a dragon with. OR powerful spellcasters. Not things you typically find in a small farming community. It is almost like, and this is a stretch, you'd need the resources of a city.

Why should I? I don't care how many halfling cities with zero humans in them there are. Because the answer is "as many as I need there to be in my world."

So, what is the point of buying books? You don't care if WoTC makes subpar products, because you can just fix it, right?

Ever heard of the Oberoni Fallacy? Might benefit you to look it up.

Well, then that's a trope that can be ignored as being boring now.

Ah yes, we change things by ignoring them. That's ALWAYS worked out for the best. Different plan, change it, instead of ignoring it. Not just at your table, but at the product level.

I can't recall the last time I've seen actual feudalism in any D&D setting.

Might want to brush up on your DnD settings then, because it is ridiculously common.

So answer them, then. You don't need the books to spell that out. Make up your own stuff.

Oberoni Fallacy again.

I've already told you the answers. They're generally peaceful and congenial. They don't usually wage wars.

And that's it? The nice and peaceful people who have mafias, dinosaur riding warriors, psychic cannibal world conquerors. The nice and peaceful people who you then go around, murdering things and taking their stuff.

Do you not see how this immediately falls apart? Not to mention how horrifically the rest of the world has to be to have a single group be "the nice people". It would be like defining dwarves by being "the drunk loud people".

Then I guess dragonborn are playable but not good because everyone at my table hates them.

Okay. I'd offer to discuss dragonborn with you and how you might want to improve them. However, you don't seem to think I'm capable of creating anything and that I'm a liar, so why should I bother?

I'm sorry, where's the rule that says that any of these books are 100% true now and forever?

True in a 3.X book. True in a 5e book. Now we have to have them 100% true now and forever? Is that what it would take for you to just admit you were wrong?

I'll make it simple for you: don't waste your time by replying to me.

Yeah, would have been more convenient to open with that, since I respond as I read. Esepcially on massive multi-break posts like that.

BTW, hour and a half on this one.

 

[Chaosmancer]

Since this is a weird point of contention with you, I used the search function to find what I actually said:


I've also pointed out that the only race where every subspecies has magic is Tieflings. High elves can cast cantrips, but wood elves don't have anything other than a better chance of hiding in natural environments. To me it's not particularly defining in any case. High elves learn cantrips when they're growing up just like most people are assumed to learn the basics of reading, writing and arithmetic. Wood elves are better at hiding in the woods because that's what their culture deems important.

As far as "proving me wrong", good grief. I phrased my response in a way to be as non confrontational as I could. You should try it sometime.

Did you just search this thread? Because I distinctly remember you arguing that the thing that makes halflings special is their underdog status that makes everyone underestimate them combined with their lack of magical abilities. That's why they can't be combined with gnomes, as you stated, because gnomes are magical and you want halflings to remain non-magical, because their lack of specialness makes them special, or something to that effect.

Or are you know saying you don't agree with any of that and magical halflings are fine?

 

[Chaosmancer]

I truly am stunned that someone would have difficuly parsing that differences may exist between..

..D&D humans..
..who are not real and whom we do not know

..and real humans
..who are real

If we confine ourselves to D&D, since this is the scope our fantasy races exist within which is distinctly different from the world that we live in, we find that the authors have helpfully provided summaries of what we might expect from those races, what they value, how they behave etc.

Perhaps we should evaluate these descriptions as they are and symmetrically. By doing this, one might even think we were engaging in a good faith effort to compare and contrast equivalent texts.

And under what possible reasoning should we assume that DnD humans are not humans? Have they been given a single trait that you cannot find in humanity?

How then might we contend with the lore of the Forgotten Realms and Greyhawk, both of which have humans from Earth showing up in them and being... just like the other humans? I mean, the humans of ancient egypt were kidnapped and taken to the Forgotten Realms, have they somehow been depicted as different than the other humans of the Realms? The entire reason that Oerth is called Oerth is that it is a multiversal reflection of Earth, and the two have been traveled between repeatedly. HAve those travels ever discussed how humans in one are fundamentally incompatible with humans of the other?

As far as I've seen? Humans are humans. Humans are not non-humans.

 

[Umbran]

Then why do you insist on these discussions? I was ignoring you, as we were told to do, and you had to jump back in and start attacking me. And you do nothing but insult me and accuse me misdeeds.

Is the entire point just to drive me off the platform? Will you be satisfied if I disappear for another six months because I'm sick of this? You think I'm a liar and troll and refuse to believe anything I say. Fine. THEN STOP RESPONDING TO ME! Nothing I ever post will be good enough for you, so just go away.

Mod Note:
If this is an issue with the particular person, then it is time for you to use the Ignore feature.

If this is an issue with the discussion as a whole, it is time for you to take a break.

Any time you are so engaged that you cannot let a dissenting post slide without comment, that's time you need to change your approach to the discussion in some way. Because this here is not healthy.

 

[Oofta]

Did you just search this thread? Because I distinctly remember you arguing that the thing that makes halflings special is their underdog status that makes everyone underestimate them combined with their lack of magical abilities. That's why they can't be combined with gnomes, as you stated, because gnomes are magical and you want halflings to remain non-magical, because their lack of specialness makes them special, or something to that effect.

Or are you know saying you don't agree with any of that and magical halflings are fine?

I think halflings are fine as they are, they don't need anything overtly supernatural. For that matter rock gnomes don't have anything overtly supernatural either. Not all gnomes have magical talent. I have never stated that gnomes and halflings shouldn't be combined with gnomes for that reason. I don't see a need or reason to combine halflings and gnomes any more than we need to combine any other race. They have about as much in common as elves and dwarves do.

Yes, part of why I play halflings is because they're the underappreciated underdog. You seem to remember a lot of things that have never been said while also trying to make a contradiction out of two things that are pretty unrelated to each other.

 

[Gammadoodler]

And under what possible reasoning should we assume that DnD humans are not humans? Have they been given a single trait that you cannot find in humanity?

I have provided the reasoning why D&D humans are not the same as real Earth humans at least twice now. But hear is the rundown of a few reasons.

• They exist in a setting where magic is possible..
• They can perform magic (at least some if them can)
• They share the magical setting with a wide variety of fantasy races and creatures with a correspondingly wide variety of fantasy capabilities
• Active tangible, provable deities
• Death and the afterlife are much better understood (and death need not be permanent!)
• Earth history is not a precondition baked into their existence as such
  • No War of the Roses
  • No African slave trade
  • No French revolution
  • No Great Schism
  • No Rennaissance
  • No Dark Ages
  • No Enlightenment
  • No Industrial revolution
  • No Information Age
  • No Civil Right movement
  • No Boxer Rebellion
  • No Evolution
  • Entirely different creation myths
  • Etc.
  • Etc.
  • Etc.

Your willingness to shrug all this stuff off and go "Nah, same as Earth humans in every possible way" is astounding to me.

BTW, if you feel compelled to address this post bullet by bullet, bringing in random scraps of Forgotten Realms or Dark Sun or whatever other setting lore across five editions, just don't.

I will not read it, and it should not be necessary to address the broader point of how setting differences may impact racial characteristics, and then further how we can move forward discussing the racial characteristics included in the PHB on an even footing.

 

[Lanefan]

I have provided the reasoning why D&D humans are not the same as real Earth humans at least twice now. But hear is the rundown of a few reasons.

• They exist in a setting where magic is possible..
• They can perform magic (at least some if them can)
• They share the magical setting with a wide variety of fantasy races and creatures with a correspondingly wide variety of fantasy capabilities
• Active tangible, provable deities
• Death and the afterlife are much better understood (and death need not be permanent!)
• Earth history is not a precondition baked into their existence as such
  • No War of the Roses
  • No African slave trade
  • No French revolution
  • No Great Schism
  • No Rennaissance
  • No Dark Ages
  • No Enlightenment
  • No Industrial revolution
  • No Information Age
  • No Civil Right movement
  • No Boxer Rebellion
  • No Evolution
  • Entirely different creation myths
  • Etc.
  • Etc.
  • Etc.

Your willingness to shrug all this stuff off and go "Nah, same as Earth humans in every possible way" is astounding to me.

Not to me; and I'll admit this is the one (and I think only!) part of @Chaosmancer 's argument with which I somewhat agree.

Where Humans are the same as us is (assumed to be) in their physical selves. The average in-setting Human is generally assumed to roughly fit within the same bell-curves of heights, weights, body types, physical capabilities, etc. as seen here on Earth and to (usually) have two arms, two legs, and one head. Put another way, were any of us dropped into a D&D setting world we would in theory - ignoring external things such as clothing, gear, etc. - be able to blend into a crowd of other Humans and nobody bat an eyelid. Flip side: a D&D-setting Human dressed in 21-century Earth fashion walking down a local street should in theory be neither less nor more noticeable than anyone else you pass by.

All of your bullet points speak to how those Humans relate to differences between the setting environment and real-Earth but none speak to what Humans in fact are; which is to say, the same as Earth Humans.

 

[James Gasik]

I have provided the reasoning why D&D humans are not the same as real Earth humans at least twice now. But hear is the rundown of a few reasons.

• They exist in a setting where magic is possible..
• They can perform magic (at least some if them can)
• They share the magical setting with a wide variety of fantasy races and creatures with a correspondingly wide variety of fantasy capabilities
• Active tangible, provable deities
• Death and the afterlife are much better understood (and death need not be permanent!)
• Earth history is not a precondition baked into their existence as such
  • No War of the Roses
  • No African slave trade
  • No French revolution
  • No Great Schism
  • No Rennaissance
  • No Dark Ages
  • No Enlightenment
  • No Industrial revolution
  • No Information Age
  • No Civil Right movement
  • No Boxer Rebellion
  • No Evolution
  • Entirely different creation myths
  • Etc.
  • Etc.
  • Etc.

Your willingness to shrug all this stuff off and go "Nah, same as Earth humans in every possible way" is astounding to me.

BTW, if you feel compelled to address this post bullet by bullet, bringing in random scraps of Forgotten Realms or Dark Sun or whatever other setting lore across five editions, just don't.

I will not read it, and it should not be necessary to address the broader point of how setting differences may impact racial characteristics, and then further how we can move forward discussing the racial characteristics included in the PHB on an even footing.

I was just talking with some friends about a late 90's JRPG, Xenogears. Basically, a gigantic spaceship, the Eldridge, crash lands on an unknown planet, and ten thousand years later, the protagonists are trying to deal with an ancient conspiracy and an even more ancient superweapon. It is revealed later in the game that all of the "humans" in the game were actually created by a computer, and are not actually descended from survivors of the crash at all; they are part of a millennia-long project to rebuild the aforementioned superweapon, which is (in part) the explanation for why they have unusual abilities, including what passes for "magic" in the game. Further, even the game's "save points" are in-universe constructs that record the memories of humans, so that the puppet masters (well, some of them) can keep tabs on the great experiment.

If you were to create a Xenogears 5e game, the players would be humans...but at the same time, they also wouldn't. This extends to D&D as well; not all Elves, Dwarves, Gnomes, Halfings, Humans, etc. across the various campaign settings have the same origins. What we call an "Elf" on Eberron might be mechanically similar to one from Greyhawk, or Krynn, but may not be related in the slightest.

Certainly, Corellon Larethian and the other members of the Seldarine are not worshipped on Krynn, so it seems very likely that the Elves of Krynn are not, in fact, the same race (who were created by Corellon, mind. Or, for another example, Eberron doesn't even necessarily have Gods in the same way other settings do, and certainly has no Araushnee/Lolth, but definitely has Drow!). This extends to Humans as well; there is no reason to suppose that a D&D Human is actually a member of homo sapiens sapiens, and they might be so genetically different that they cannot interbreed (assuming D&D has DNA at all)! Now that's a plot twist I'd like to see in an isekai story!

TLDR: what's in a name? That which we call Humans might not be people like us at all!

-Though in all fairness, in the Forgotten Realms, at least, Humans are heavily implied to be from our Earth (or maybe the other way around!), due to ancient contact between Toril and our planet.

 

[whizz]

I play halflings a lot - mechanically in the old AD&D 1st edition they were the best thieves so it made sense. I now play halflings a lot, usually a rogue or a bard, and play them as innocent (ish) individuals who fall into adventure rather than seek it out. Gnomes who can be similar I play as tricksters and curious beings who seek adventure (excitement). and OK so I could play a human like that but the 2 races in my game have a culture that they are brought up in - and its what they do.