D&D 5E Halflings are the 7th most popular 5e race

[Zubatcarteira]

I've found the 5e Goliath with Tasha's ability score changing rules to be pretty good for casters, the Stone's Endurance saved my Wizard's life many times during the low levels.

 

[Mistwell]

I don't know why you find it so infuriating. I don't find it the least bit infuriating that some folks want to get rid of all semblance of verisimilitude in favor of bland generic abilities for all species in order to gain a tiny amount of user-friendliness or a quantum of good time. I have different priorities, but I'm not infuriated by those who have different preferences.


For good reason, too. I can't imagine D&D without the ability to play an elf, dwarf, or halfling.

Yeah I have never understood the desire to turn D&D into a more user-friendly version of GURPS. D&D isn't intended as a generic fantasy roleplaying system where everything has flavor filed off and is balanced perfectly and equally. d20 Modern tried to do that and while I enjoyed that game, even with the power of WOTC behind it in that genre other modern fantasy games with built-in setting flavor beat it in sales as a matter of routine.

I am not really liking the "Every race chooses one stat to give +2 and another +1" trend, and that's just the tip of the iceberg when it comes to making races/species more generic. Yes in some ways D&D is a toolbox, but I want that toolbox to come with specific flavor built-in from professional game designers building rules within a well thought out and interesting setting right there in the core rulebooks.

Meanwhile WOTC continues to publish the free Basic rules which do a decent job stripping out the flavor and leaving you with a toolbox to do your own thing. Somehow I never see advocates for generic rules using that. They always seem to want to change the core rules instead.

 

[EzekielRaiden]

I don't know why you find it so infuriating. I don't find it the least bit infuriating that some folks want to get rid of all semblance of verisimilitude in favor of bland generic abilities for all species in order to gain a tiny amount of user-friendliness or a quantum of good time. I have different priorities, but I'm not infuriated by those who have different preferences.

Because I've never met someone who does that, to say nothing of someone who does that and then presents it as so self-evidentlu the only right choice that anything else must be an active effort to sabotage D&D.

I've never, ever met someone who was a crusader for "bland generic abilities" or "user-friendliness." No one. Not once.

There are dozens of people on this very board who would gladly accept a game that was significantly less enjoyable to play solely to forbid a tiny concession on "verisimilitude," such as "abilities that can only be used once per combat." Who have decried basic efforts to make TTRPGs easier to learn because God forbid we tell people something as horrifically offensive as "these are things this class is good at, and here's basic info on how to do them well."

We may have (finally, slowly, painfully) gotten past the days of THAC0 snobbery, but "verisimilitude" remains something that people are utterly unwilling to ever make even the tiniest sacrifices for so anyone else can have a better experience. It's the altar upon which good, solid, testable game design gets routinely sacrificed, for which no compromise, no matter how favorable, may ever be accepted (unless it's something traditional, of course, because "verisimilitude" is not used for reviewing old ideas, only for rejecting ones that appear novel.)

 

[EzekielRaiden]

Yeah I have never understood the desire to turn D&D into a more user-friendly version of GURPS. D&D isn't intended as a generic fantasy roleplaying system where everything has flavor filed off and is balanced perfectly and equally. d20 Modern tried to do that and while I enjoyed that game, even with the power of WOTC behind it in that genre other modern fantasy games with built-in setting flavor beat it in sales as a matter of routine.

I am not really liking the "Every race chooses one stat to give +2 and another +1" trend, and that's just the tip of the iceberg when it comes to making races/species more generic. Yes in some ways D&D is a toolbox, but I want that toolbox to come with specific flavor built-in from professional game designers building rules within a well thought out and interesting setting right there in the core rulebooks.

Meanwhile WOTC continues to publish the free Basic rules which do a decent job stripping out the flavor and leaving you with a toolbox to do your own thing. Somehow I never see advocates for generic rules using that. They always seem to want to change the core rules instead.

I have no interest in "generic rules."

I have a great deal of interest in making D&D easier to learn and teach, because that helps grow the hobby, and the rules we have (even in 5e!) are all too often byzantine and excessive or totally absent and unhelpful, especially for DMs. I have a great deal of interest in producing a D&D where casters do not rule the roost, where it is a teamwork experience and every player, no matter what aesthetic preferences they may bring or interests they may have, can find a character concept that actually equips them with fun, exciting, potent, personal tools to contribute to the group's success, whatever form those tools may take. I have a great deal of interest in giving diverse, flavorful options, such as races/ancestries and feats and weapons and spells, that are sufficiently close quantitatively that the players must instead make qualitative decisions about what they wish to do, because that actually makes for interesting choices, not dull calculations.

And the fact that even a single request for "hey, maybe usability, excitement, or balance could be a consideration that sometimes is just a little bit more important than absolute and unyielding fealty to 'verisimilitude' über alles" gets met with "oh, so you want the gamw to be bland, generic, flavorless mush that means nothing, has no story, and turns everything into samey garbage, well not on MY watch buddy!" is EXACTLY why I find this so infuriating.

You literally cannot even criticize excessive commitment to "verisimilitude" in the smallest degree without being accused of wanting to destroy the game.

 

[Mind of tempest]

That depends. Elwin in Willow. Our small people are different.

There are actual dwarves and halflings in The Rings of Power.

I did not hear a lot about them in the rather unpleasant discourse, maybe it was something else.

I know deep rock galactic did well and that is very dwarven

 

[bedir than]

I did not hear a lot about them in the rather unpleasant discourse, maybe it was something else.

I know deep rock galactic did well and that is very dwarven

Deep Rock Galactic

The peak number of concurrent players was 46,688 players mining and shooting alien bugs at one time.

Rings of Power

The show's premiere did not disappoint, pulling in an impressive 25 million viewers to join the return to Middle Earth breaking records for the streamer along the way.

One of these is popular, even if disappointing many people.

 

[Henadic Theologian]

The chart exists. The data exists.

It's just that hating on halflings has consumed a few people so much that they refuse to recognize data, only emotions.

Halflings beat out the half orc.

They also beat out the free races from the Elemental expansion, which on DnD Beyond are given the same access as the PHB. They aren't hidden or hard to find. You don't need to click an extra button even.

In theory its the same access, but in practice not everyone knows EEPG exists. And it certainly doesn't carry the same prestige and status and advtages of being in PHB.

 

[EzekielRaiden]

I did not hear a lot about them in the rather unpleasant discourse, maybe it was something else.

I know deep rock galactic did well and that is very dwarven

They tend to show up more in video games than in film or TV. Most MMOs and CRPGs have some flavor of "dwarf," though that word can vary rather a lot in what it actually means. E.g.:

• The Warcraft setting, Azeroth, is pretty stereotypical Pseudo-medieval Faux-European Tolkienesque Fantasy Schizotech, so its dwarves are pretty stereotypical as well, only adding in a light touch of industrialization or machinery. Playable, but not very popular AIUI.
• Elder Scrolls "dwarves" are, or rather were, a subspecies of elf, and went effectively extinct after they all collectively disappeared centuries ago. This means they are not playable in any TES game, and wouldn't necessarily be distinct from other elves even if they were playable.
• FFXIV "dwarves" are a parallel world alternate culture for the "main" world's halfling-equivalents, which are called "lalafell" in the main world. This means they're technically playable aesthetically, but not narratively (the PC cannot be "a dwarf" culturally.) Lalafell are middle of the road in terms of popularity.
• Guild Wars 2 dwarves are an ancient race that turned its few survivors into living stone in order to survive an ancient apocalypse. Not playable, but pretty clearly stereotypical other than the whole "actually made of stone now" bit.
• Dragon Age has mostly classic, stereotypical dwarves, albeit with a few twists, who are fully playable. By far the least popular of the DA:O options for players though (Bioware has stated it's something like 80% humans, 15% elves, 5% dwarves. But that might be because of issues other than just race, e.g. you can't be a dwarf mage, and humans can become king or queen of Ferelden.)
• Obviously EverQuest included playable (and very stereotypical) dwarves.
• Divinity: Original Sin 2 has dwarves, but they're of a kind similar to FFXIV but reversed: very non-stereotypical culture, but all the physical parts you'd expect. Many of them are sailors, for example, and they are associated more with trade than with smithing per se.
• Warhammer, at least the fantasy one. I don't know much about Warhammer Fantasy to say more, but what I've seen paints its dwarves as exceptionally stereotypical.

There are probably games I'm overlooking, but that's a solid spread.

And what I'd say is...dwarves are not so much disappearing. They still get used in new games (e.g. Age of Wonders 4 just came out and includes them.) But what is happening is, they aren't considered mandatory anymore. Playable elves, and fairly stereotypical ones at that, are still borderline mandatory for fantasy stuff—and where there are elves there will very likely be half-elves. Dwarves proper are no longer mandatory, but including them in some form is practically guaranteed eventually (but that "in some form" can vary wildly.) Halflings are seen as fully optional but nice for nostalgia points if you can make it work.

And other races have risen in prominence as a result. Orcs or half-orcs are a long-running mainstay, especially because of World of Warcraft. Dragon-people (or more loosely reptilian people) have been a fantasy-fiction thing for ages and a mythic-tale thing for as long as we've had myths, so that isn't a surprise. Tieflings go back to at least Merlin, and probably much further, and fairly drip with narrative hooks (an entire race/ancestry with a built-in "No, I am your father!" reveal.) Gnomes are kind of borderline "D&D only," as the only setting I can think of that has actual gnomes is Azeroth. You also have some other classics reinterpreted, like GW2 sylvari are basically plant elves with no past rather than ancient fading glory (if anything, it's humans that got the stereotypical elf culture, while the closest thing to a stereotypical human culture went to the charr.)

Genasi are the interesting odd man out, in that they don't have any big media supporting them. I suspect if we got some they would get a boost. I wonder if the "character portrait" argument (the claim that races that look cooler when drawn attract more attention) is applicable here. There are also a few that come from outside D&D: lion-people are surprisingly common (sorry tabaxi, you're no ronso/hrothgar, charr, vah shir, nor even khajiit!), "ratkin" and variations thereof are fairly common, and of all things frog-people show up much more often than you would expect, though whether they are playable varies a lot.

As fantasy grows beyond the limits of Tolkien's shadow, this is to be expected. Popular ideas will linger, but often get remixed, downplayed, or post-launch adapted to suit. New ideas will bubble up; some will stick (like orcs and dragonborn), some won't (like GW2 asura and their creepy teeth!) As the space fills with new notions, creators will treat these elements like colors in a palette: some of the time, you just don't need green, no matter how popular green may be, but orange is critical no matter how uncommon it is as a favorite color. (E.g., consider a sunset, or an autumn forest.)

I don't think dwarves are going anywhere, not for at least my generation's lifetime. But beyond that, who knows? Reptilians were very popular in early fantasy and sci-fi but practically disappeared in the wake of Tolkien, only really made a comeback in the past 20-30 years. Gnomes, despite having sincere fans, have never really held the spotlight. Elves have been perennial since Tolkien reinvented them, but might they grow stale in a century? Who knows!

 

[Scribe]

I have a great deal of interest in producing a D&D where casters do not rule the roost, where it is a teamwork experience and every player, no matter what aesthetic preferences they may bring or interests they may have, can find a character concept that actually equips them with fun, exciting, potent, personal tools to contribute to the group's success, whatever form those tools may take. I have a great deal of interest in giving diverse, flavorful options, such as races/ancestries and feats and weapons and spells, that are sufficiently close quantitatively that the players must instead make qualitative decisions about what they wish to do, because that actually makes for interesting choices, not dull calculations.

Have you looked into PF2?

 

[EzekielRaiden]

Have you looked into PF2?

I have, but only casually. It has a few design choices I'm rather iffy about.