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?

 

[bedir than]

It will be interesting to see if they make any further restrictions because as it sits right now, everybody gets a feat at first level and a human gets an extra one 1st level. Means that a human PC could get a +4 to any ability score at 1st level. But that's a topic for the other forum.

This couldn't happen in game because the ASI Feat isn't available at first level

 

[Chaosmancer]

Their initial point was..this is how humans are described in the PHB, with an accurate summary of the PHB Human write-up

Your response was.. "yeah..but humans are also a lot of other things that are not described in the PHB" (you gave examples of wanting to live lives of good food and comfort..)

They also made the point that halflings are described a certain way in the PHB, and included an accurate summary of the PHB write-up for Halflings.

The extra-PHB characteristics you pulled in and ascribed to D&D Humans coincide with some of those from the PHB Hafling description.

Your conclusion was that by failing to bring in the non-PHB Human stuff that you brought in, they were failing to fully capture D&D Humans, making them "inhuman".

And this was all in service of an upstream conclusion that D&D Halflings are "too human" because they feature some extra-PHB human characteristics.

The fullness of my disagreement with you is that you claimed they were overstating human characteristics from the PHB, when, in fact, they were describing those characteristics accurately. We've since gone on to discuss the value of the PHB description and whether it makes sense for it to exclude the extra characteristics you brought in, and/or the many others that can come from an understanding of real world humanity.

If your ultimate contention is that D&D Humans aren't "human" if they fail to bring in all that extra stuff. And that Halflings are "too human" by having too many of those extra-PHB "human" characteristics, then your position is exactly as I have described.

The other part of this is..

Simultaneously, in other strands of conversation, when someone describes their experience or interpretations of halflings, your response has frequently been "well that's just your thing" accompanied by a dismissive "good for you" followed by a "but halflings need to be fixed in the game, not just your setting".

Thus the hypocrisy.

What you are describing isn't hypocrisy, it is a difference of kinds. One that I would think should not be this contentious, but I guess I need to explain this. Again.

Let us take the Flint Water Crisis from a few years ago. They had a problem with lead in their water. Now, someone could say "I have a fancy filtration apparatus I built into my water line, so I have no lead in my water." And that would be great for them. Wonderful in fact. However, fixing the issue for their home does not fix the issue for the community. We can all agree on this right? Fixing an issue in the context of a single home, does not fix an issue in the context of an entire community? This is very basic. To fix a community issue, you need to fix it at a community level. Which is why, though it is wonderful people have said that they have had no issues with halflings after fixing them for their table, I'm not taking that as a "and therefore halflings are fixed for everyone".

Now, is there an issue with Halflings? That can be discussed, it has been discussed, and opinions can vary. However, that has nothing to do with the current point, and I'm going to move on from that.

Where your issue seems to lie is that you think I'm treating humans with a double standard. You seem to think that since I am "adding" to humans that other people should be allowed to add to halflings. However, this misses a few very key points.

1) No one has any problems with humans as they are depicted. Humans are fine as is.

2) Despite the fact that I am "saying it" in this thread, I'm not the one saying it in the community. WoTC is. TSR was. This is just the truth about humans.

Let us take the Village of Hommlet, just because it is famous enough I can google the NPC list from work.

#1 Prosperous Farm Cottage: Goodwife, Farmer, Two sons, 4 young children. They have nothing of interest to adventurers, though the farmer and sons are part of the local militia if trouble arises. No interest in adventuring.
#3 Cottage: The woodcutter, his wfe and three young children. They have nothing of interest to adventurers and no interest in adventuring.
#4 Well Kept Farm: Widow, 2 sons, their wives, 8 children. They have nothing of interest to adventurers and no interest in adventuring.
#6 Tannery: Tanner, wife, her brother, 3 children. They have no interest in adventuring.

I can go on and on, this is a single module, a single town, but it is true across the decades and across the modules. Despite what the PHB says, humans in the game are often depicted as content with their lives, and have no ambitions to go adventuring to make fortunes or change the world. Yes, humans as a species have that drive, but in actuality many human NPCs, shopkeeps, farmers, millers, ect are not presented in that manner. And this isn't my opinion or my homebrew, this is official content. It isn't 5e content, because I'm away from my books, but I'm positive that if I cracked open Ghosts of Saltmarsh or Rime of the Frostmaiden or Descent to Avernus I'd find plenty of human NPCs who are also depicted as not having grand ambitions or a drive to commit great deeds.


So, there is a major distinction here. One thing you are pointing to is homebrew, something that is not in official content. The other thing IS official content. It is not homebrew. Now, you can argue that these things are outside the description of humans in the PHB, but again, we don't need humanity explained to us. We know what humans are, so as long as it is something that fits into humanity, we don't need it in a description.

The other thing you seem to take umbrage with is the settings. Which, we really need to clarify here.

Darksun does have cannibal halflings. Its halflings are different. However, they are also not the mainstream version of halflings. We have generally been discussing the main version of halflings, not the Dark Sun specific halflings. They are also very difficult to integrate into non-Dark Sun settings.

The Eberron Halflings can be different.... but the Talentas Halflings are not the only version of Eberron halflings. The other sections of halflings are described pretty much indistinguishably from humans, and in fact are called out specifically as having followed and adapted human customs and clothing. So... a subrace of halflings from Eberron, not all halflings from Eberron. And the majority of halfling subraces in Eberron fall into the same problem we've discussed for other halflings.

So, yes, these two things exist, and they are official content. However, they are quickly overshadowed by the mainstream halfling depiction, the one in the main books, the PHB and MTF. I acknowledge that, but there is no hypocrisy in acknowledging that they exist, and that they are also not what I'm talking about. Just like when I'm talking about Elves I'm not discussing Avariel Elves who have wings, or Sea Elves who can breathe underwater. Those are exceptions to the mainstream. It isn't hypocritical to acknowledge they exist, and also acknowledge they are not what is being discussed.




Now, do you have anything to add to the conversation that isn't accusing me of hypocrisy, accusing me of double standards, calling me a liar, or any of the other ad hominem attacks?

 

[Gammadoodler]

What you are describing isn't hypocrisy, it is a difference of kinds. One that I would think should not be this contentious, but I guess I need to explain this. Again.

Let us take the Flint Water Crisis from a few years ago. They had a problem with lead in their water. Now, someone could say "I have a fancy filtration apparatus I built into my water line, so I have no lead in my water." And that would be great for them. Wonderful in fact. However, fixing the issue for their home does not fix the issue for the community. We can all agree on this right? Fixing an issue in the context of a single home, does not fix an issue in the context of an entire community? This is very basic. To fix a community issue, you need to fix it at a community level. Which is why, though it is wonderful people have said that they have had no issues with halflings after fixing them for their table, I'm not taking that as a "and therefore halflings are fixed for everyone".

Now, is there an issue with Halflings? That can be discussed, it has been discussed, and opinions can vary. However, that has nothing to do with the current point, and I'm going to move on from that.

Where your issue seems to lie is that you think I'm treating humans with a double standard. You seem to think that since I am "adding" to humans that other people should be allowed to add to halflings. However, this misses a few very key points.

1) No one has any problems with humans as they are depicted. Humans are fine as is.

2) Despite the fact that I am "saying it" in this thread, I'm not the one saying it in the community. WoTC is. TSR was. This is just the truth about humans.

Let us take the Village of Hommlet, just because it is famous enough I can google the NPC list from work.

#1 Prosperous Farm Cottage: Goodwife, Farmer, Two sons, 4 young children. They have nothing of interest to adventurers, though the farmer and sons are part of the local militia if trouble arises. No interest in adventuring.
#3 Cottage: The woodcutter, his wfe and three young children. They have nothing of interest to adventurers and no interest in adventuring.
#4 Well Kept Farm: Widow, 2 sons, their wives, 8 children. They have nothing of interest to adventurers and no interest in adventuring.
#6 Tannery: Tanner, wife, her brother, 3 children. They have no interest in adventuring.

I can go on and on, this is a single module, a single town, but it is true across the decades and across the modules. Despite what the PHB says, humans in the game are often depicted as content with their lives, and have no ambitions to go adventuring to make fortunes or change the world. Yes, humans as a species have that drive, but in actuality many human NPCs, shopkeeps, farmers, millers, ect are not presented in that manner. And this isn't my opinion or my homebrew, this is official content. It isn't 5e content, because I'm away from my books, but I'm positive that if I cracked open Ghosts of Saltmarsh or Rime of the Frostmaiden or Descent to Avernus I'd find plenty of human NPCs who are also depicted as not having grand ambitions or a drive to commit great deeds.


So, there is a major distinction here. One thing you are pointing to is homebrew, something that is not in official content. The other thing IS official content. It is not homebrew. Now, you can argue that these things are outside the description of humans in the PHB, but again, we don't need humanity explained to us. We know what humans are, so as long as it is something that fits into humanity, we don't need it in a description.

The other thing you seem to take umbrage with is the settings. Which, we really need to clarify here.

Darksun does have cannibal halflings. Its halflings are different. However, they are also not the mainstream version of halflings. We have generally been discussing the main version of halflings, not the Dark Sun specific halflings. They are also very difficult to integrate into non-Dark Sun settings.

The Eberron Halflings can be different.... but the Talentas Halflings are not the only version of Eberron halflings. The other sections of halflings are described pretty much indistinguishably from humans, and in fact are called out specifically as having followed and adapted human customs and clothing. So... a subrace of halflings from Eberron, not all halflings from Eberron. And the majority of halfling subraces in Eberron fall into the same problem we've discussed for other halflings.

So, yes, these two things exist, and they are official content. However, they are quickly overshadowed by the mainstream halfling depiction, the one in the main books, the PHB and MTF. I acknowledge that, but there is no hypocrisy in acknowledging that they exist, and that they are also not what I'm talking about. Just like when I'm talking about Elves I'm not discussing Avariel Elves who have wings, or Sea Elves who can breathe underwater. Those are exceptions to the mainstream. It isn't hypocritical to acknowledge they exist, and also acknowledge they are not what is being discussed.




Now, do you have anything to add to the conversation that isn't accusing me of hypocrisy, accusing me of double standards, calling me a liar, or any of the other ad hominem attacks?

1. It is not an ad hominem attack to describe an argument as hypocritical.
2. It seems your position is that D&D humanity does encompass the PHB description and a bunch of other attributes you've observed from sources outside the PHB..exactly as I've described.
3. You acknowledge that there is official and unofficial content outside of the PHB which could have bearing on what it means to be a halfling, but have chosen to exclude those from discussion, choosing to focus on the "main" (let's call it PHB) halfling.
4. Your position remains that the PHB halfling is too humanlike based on its possession of human attributes you've assimilated from other sources.

So..100% exactly as I'd described previously?

Cool.

 

[Lanefan]

This brings up an interesting point: what do people call Variant Humans, to differentiate? In-universe, so to speak. Is there some fundamental difference between Humans and Variant Humans? Is one a sub-race of the other?

I would assume so, yes.

Are we not supposed to use both in the same game? If a Human woman meets a dashing Variant Human man, and they have a child, would that child be a Half-Variant Human?

It certainly could be. Same idea as a Part-Elf or Part-Orc, it's a Part-Variant. And if it ever goes adventuring its mechanics are an average of Human and Variant. That said, see below...

Ok, I'm slightly joking, but I think it speaks to my point. We already have two different versions of Humans in D&D (pending the D&D ONE update?), and yet we call both Humans.

Well, not quite; you call one Variant Human (which for convenience I'd shorten to just "Variant" in a heartbeat).

In my own game I have two different versions of Human, with the "Variant" usually called Barbarian both in-game and out. For simplicity's sake I've long since had it that if a Barbarian and a Human have a child the child is fully one or the other, mostly dependent on the culture in which it is raised. Same could be true if one didn't want to bother with separate mechanics for Part-Elves - a child of a Human-Elf pairing could be either an Elf or a Human depending which culture it (mostly) grows up in.

 

[Lanefan]

What you are describing isn't hypocrisy, it is a difference of kinds. One that I would think should not be this contentious, but I guess I need to explain this. Again.

Let us take the Flint Water Crisis from a few years ago. They had a problem with lead in their water. Now, someone could say "I have a fancy filtration apparatus I built into my water line, so I have no lead in my water." And that would be great for them. Wonderful in fact. However, fixing the issue for their home does not fix the issue for the community. We can all agree on this right? Fixing an issue in the context of a single home, does not fix an issue in the context of an entire community? This is very basic. To fix a community issue, you need to fix it at a community level. Which is why, though it is wonderful people have said that they have had no issues with halflings after fixing them for their table, I'm not taking that as a "and therefore halflings are fixed for everyone".

If the fix works for the one house's water supply, why not apply that same fix to all houses?

By the same token, a community issue with Halflings can be fixed by taking someone's homebrew solution and applying it either across the board (top-down) or one table at a time as said table's DM becomes aware of it (bottom-up).

And if a bottom-up fix becomes common enough and if history is any guide, sooner or later WotC will adopt that fix as part of the core game.

 

[Chaosmancer]

1. It is not an ad hominem attack to describe an argument as hypocritical.
2. It seems your position is that D&D humanity does encompass the PHB description and a bunch of other attributes you've observed from sources outside the PHB..exactly as I've described.
3. You acknowledge that there is official and unofficial content outside of the PHB which could have bearing on what it means to be a halfling, but have chosen to exclude those from discussion, choosing to focus on the "main" (let's call it PHB) halfling.
4. Your position remains that the PHB halfling is too humanlike based on its possession of human attributes you've assimilated from other sources.

So..100% exactly as I'd described previously?

Cool.

So, DnD sources are now no longer valid, where before your complaint was that I used real world sources. So, I can only use the PHB to discuss how humans are depicted in the game? Why?

Also, would you care to tell me what from the PHB Human description DOESN'T describe humanity from Earth? If they are so different there must be... differences. Right?

I don't know what "unofficial" halfling content you are talking about. I also don't see how trying to keep the conversation to the points being discussed is somehow bad. Yes, my complaints about halflings don't apply to the single setting where they were the secret psychic cannibal masters of the world. It does apply to... every other setting and the generic books. It applies to the PHB. It applies to every 5e adventure printed for the last seven years. Because, notably, the last Dark Sun product was printed twelve years ago. The last DnD product that mentions halflings was released this year I would hope.


And, again, as I keep saying. These "other sources" you refer to are... DnD products. Which DnD products? All of them. Every DnD product that has ever featured humans has included humans that act in the ways I've described. The Light of Xaryxis features humans who are content with their lives and have no grand designs or drive to adventure. This isn't some obscure bit of lore, this isn't some out-there source that has nothing to do with DnD, this is EVERY. SINGLE. PRODUCT. that features humans.


So, in summary, you seem to want to call me a hypocrite (by the way, calling me a hypocrite isn't saying the argument is hypocritical, and you did the first. You made your entire "third option" all about me and my supposed bad faith logic, not the logic itself) because I have seen how humans are portrayed in DnD, and account for that using ALL humans in DnD, but when confronted with Dark Sun halflings I say "yes, those exist and they are different, but we are talking about the 95% of OTHER halflings".

Yes, Darksun existed. It is so niche it hasn't been printed in twelve years, unlike Forgotten Realms which has been published continuously all edition. Maybe we should focus on the thing people actually see, and not the obscure product with the even more obscure race on the borders of the setting that rarely come into play. This isn't a hypocritical argument. I'm applying the exact same level of care to both races. One race which doesn't have a problem, no one has complained about, and has a distinctive quality that warps any and all discussion surrounding it, and the other race which people have said they have a problem with, identitified the problem, and tried to discuss.

 

[Chaosmancer]

If the fix works for the one house's water supply, why not apply that same fix to all houses?

By the same token, a community issue with Halflings can be fixed by taking someone's homebrew solution and applying it either across the board (top-down) or one table at a time as said table's DM becomes aware of it (bottom-up).

And if a bottom-up fix becomes common enough and if history is any guide, sooner or later WotC will adopt that fix as part of the core game.

This would be great, but that isn't what has happened. Instead of "I've changed halflings like this, we could apply this more widely" it is one of the following

1) I changed halflings like this, so there is no problem because I have no problem.

2) I changed halflings, you are either too lazy or too stupid to change them yourself, so you should be better instead of asking to be spoon-fed everything.


Stance #1 is very much a "I don't have this problem, because I did something to fix the problem for me and me alone, therefore the problem doesn't exist". Like we said, fixing something for your home doesn't fix it for the community. If people would present their homebrew as possible fixes and still be willing to discuss, it would be different. But invariably it is "there is no problem because I fixed it for me".

Stance #2 is just insulting the other person. And is stubbornly persistent in these discussions about what kinds of community wide changes could be implemented.

Oh, and we can get the "why do you hate my fun" argument in here as well, because while it isn't about having fixed the issue for them, it is a depiction of things as a zero-sum and therefor efforts to change things are only designed to attack other people's enjoyment because we are tyrants. Mostly an unrelated point, but it does slot in there.

 

[Gammadoodler]

So, DnD sources are now no longer valid, where before your complaint was that I used real world sources. So, I can only use the PHB to discuss how humans are depicted in the game? Why?

Also, would you care to tell me what from the PHB Human description DOESN'T describe humanity from Earth? If they are so different there must be... differences. Right?

I don't know what "unofficial" halfling content you are talking about. I also don't see how trying to keep the conversation to the points being discussed is somehow bad. Yes, my complaints about halflings don't apply to the single setting where they were the secret psychic cannibal masters of the world. It does apply to... every other setting and the generic books. It applies to the PHB. It applies to every 5e adventure printed for the last seven years. Because, notably, the last Dark Sun product was printed twelve years ago. The last DnD product that mentions halflings was released this year I would hope.


And, again, as I keep saying. These "other sources" you refer to are... DnD products. Which DnD products? All of them. Every DnD product that has ever featured humans has included humans that act in the ways I've described. The Light of Xaryxis features humans who are content with their lives and have no grand designs or drive to adventure. This isn't some obscure bit of lore, this isn't some out-there source that has nothing to do with DnD, this is EVERY. SINGLE. PRODUCT. that features humans.


So, in summary, you seem to want to call me a hypocrite (by the way, calling me a hypocrite isn't saying the argument is hypocritical, and you did the first. You made your entire "third option" all about me and my supposed bad faith logic, not the logic itself) because I have seen how humans are portrayed in DnD, and account for that using ALL humans in DnD, but when confronted with Dark Sun halflings I say "yes, those exist and they are different, but we are talking about the 95% of OTHER halflings".

Yes, Darksun existed. It is so niche it hasn't been printed in twelve years, unlike Forgotten Realms which has been published continuously all edition. Maybe we should focus on the thing people actually see, and not the obscure product with the even more obscure race on the borders of the setting that rarely come into play. This isn't a hypocritical argument. I'm applying the exact same level of care to both races. One race which doesn't have a problem, no one has complained about, and has a distinctive quality that warps any and all discussion surrounding it, and the other race which people have said they have a problem with, identitified the problem, and tried to discuss.

The point has been from the very first, that the summaries of the PHB content for Humans and Halflings that were provided were accurate reflections of that content.

That you can draw parallels between the PHB Humans and Earth humanity is irrelevant to the content provided for the PHB Human. And your ability to draw those parallels certainly does not hint at a whole collection of otherwise unexpressed similarities.

Yet you continuously draw in those unexpressed similarities and then paint them as "base state" D&D humanity and then complain about how Halflings too closely resemble the "base state" humanity you have constructed for yourself.

 

[Lanefan]

This would be great, but that isn't what has happened.

And it won't happen, until...

Instead of "I've changed halflings like this, we could apply this more widely" it is one of the following

1) I changed halflings like this, so there is no problem because I have no problem.

...everyone else, or at least a majority of same, follows on with the same change(s) and also has no problem.

The disagreements, of course, arise in discussing just what those changes should be; and that's fair enough. But it's not the least bit helpful to knock anyone's suggested change(s).

2) I changed halflings, you are either too lazy or too stupid to change them yourself, so you should be better instead of asking to be spoon-fed everything.

This follows on from the above, though, in that while it's not perhaps phrased as nicely as it could be, there's a valid point in there which says "If you think Halflings don't work you either gotta fix it yourself or follow someone else's fix, 'cause WotC ain't gonna do it.".

Stance #1 is very much a "I don't have this problem, because I did something to fix the problem for me and me alone, therefore the problem doesn't exist". Like we said, fixing something for your home doesn't fix it for the community.

If the community widely adopts that homebrew fix then yes it does. And in between your quotes there's a couple of words missing; it should read "I don't have this problem any more, because I did something to fix the problem for me and me alone, therefore the problem doesn't exist for me now"; with the strong and obvious implication being that the writer feels that if you made the same fix the problem would also go away for you, lather rinse repeat until the problem is fixed comminuty-wide. Nothing wrong with saying that.

If people would present their homebrew as possible fixes and still be willing to discuss, it would be different. But invariably it is "there is no problem because I fixed it for me".

If memory serves there's been quite a few such fixes presented - though maybe not fully in each case - throughout this thread.

 

[Oofta]

And it won't happen, until...

...everyone else, or at least a majority of same, follows on with the same change(s) and also has no problem.

The disagreements, of course, arise in discussing just what those changes should be; and that's fair enough. But it's not the least bit helpful to knock anyone's suggested change(s).

This follows on from the above, though, in that while it's not perhaps phrased as nicely as it could be, there's a valid point in there which says "If you think Halflings don't work you either gotta fix it yourself or follow someone else's fix, 'cause WotC ain't gonna do it.".

If the community widely adopts that homebrew fix then yes it does. And in between your quotes there's a couple of words missing; it should read "I don't have this problem any more, because I did something to fix the problem for me and me alone, therefore the problem doesn't exist for me now"; with the strong and obvious implication being that the writer feels that if you made the same fix the problem would also go away for you, lather rinse repeat until the problem is fixed comminuty-wide. Nothing wrong with saying that.

If memory serves there's been quite a few such fixes presented - though maybe not fully in each case - throughout this thread.

I think a problem with your logic (not that I disagree with what you're attempting, but good luck) is that it assumes that many or most people find halflings lacking. Personally I think they're fine as they are. I've come up with specific roles and how they fit in to my campaign, but I do that for all races.

But I don't think they're broken, so no fixes are needed. Just being a short race means they will likely never be particularly popular no matter what is changed.