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

[doctorbadwolf]

Because frankly you could give them laser beams for eyes and no one would care.

You wouldn’t care.

Or rather, you’d say you don’t care, but interject in literally every conversation on the site that intersects with them in any way about it.

And one eighth the brain mass, so by the same argument they should have about -4 INT. Fortunately D&D isn't based on science.

Because people who play halflings want to emulate Bilbo Baggins, a character who was too fat to squeeze through a doorway without losing his buttons.

For players who would rather emulate Bugs Bunny, we have the Harengon.

IME they much more want to play Merry and Pippin, rather than Bilbo.

 

[Mind of tempest]

I've always seen Hobbits (Halflings) as more West Country myself.

given he grew up in west midlands villages near Birmingham I feel it fitting

 

[Hussar]

You wouldn’t care.

Or rather, you’d say you don’t care, but interject in literally every conversation on the site that intersects with them in any way about it.

IME they much more want to play Merry and Pippin, rather than Bilbo.

Because having this blob of useless cruft in the game for decades that no one ever does anything with is better?

Yes. It’s true. I would not care if halflings fell out of the game. Yuppers you got me. Oh noes I’ve been found out.

 

[Parmandur]

Because having this blob of useless cruft in the game for decades that no one ever does anything with is better?

Yes. It’s true. I would not care if halflings fell out of the game. Yuppers you got me. Oh noes I’ve been found out.

How is one of the most popular options "useless cruft"...?

 

[doctorbadwolf]

Because having this blob of useless cruft in the game for decades that no one ever does anything with is better?

Yes. It’s true. I would not care if halflings fell out of the game. Yuppers you got me. Oh noes I’ve been found out.

Every thread. It gets old. We get it. You “don’t care”.

How is one of the most popular options "useless cruft"...?

Lol exactly.

 

[CleverNickName]

Okay, I went back through my gaming groups' history...I don't have all of my notes for all of my different gaming groups, but here's what I could gather from various Trapper Keepers, thumb drives, Roll20, and my own foggy memory. It's a snapshot of what the characters looked like at my game table over the years.

Note: this is only counting permanent, long-play characters...the ones that were rolled up and played for long-term campaigns. (The reason they stick out in my memory is because they were played for months and months...sometimes years.) This tally doesn't include temporary characters, one-shot games, or campaigns that ended abruptly because of a TPK.

Which happened a lot under the BECM rules.

Total number of characters: 78
Humans: 26 (33.3%)
Elves: 24 (30.8%)
Halflings: 13 (16.7%)
Dwarves: 8 (10.3%)
Dragonborn: 2 (2.6%)
Firbolg: 1 (1.3%)
Goliath: 1 (1.3%)
Half-Elf: 1 (1.3%)
Half-Orc: 1 (1.3%)
Tabaxi: 1 (1.3%)

Humans are our most-popular choice: one out of every three characters that my friends have rolled up since the mid-1980s has been human. Elves are a close second, and Halflings are third.

Which makes sense. Before 3E came along, I played BECM exclusively and it skews heavily towards Human. And now under 5E rules, Human has historically been the only way to start the game with a feat.

 

[Lanefan]

Okay, I went back through my gaming groups' history...I don't have all of my notes for all of my different gaming groups, but here's what I could gather from various Trapper Keepers, thumb drives, Roll20, and my own foggy memory. It's a snapshot of what the characters looked like at my game table over the years.

Note: this is only counting permanent, long-play characters...the ones that were rolled up and played for long-term campaigns. (The reason they stick out in my memory is because they were played for months and months...sometimes years.) This tally doesn't include temporary characters, one-shot games, or campaigns that ended abruptly because of a TPK.

Which happened a lot under the BECM rules.

Total number of characters: 78
Humans: 26 (33.3%)
Elves: 24 (30.8%)
Halflings: 13 (16.7%)
Dwarves: 8 (10.3%)
Dragonborn: 2 (2.6%)
Firbolg: 1 (1.3%)
Goliath: 1 (1.3%)
Half-Elf: 1 (1.3%)
Half-Orc: 1 (1.3%)
Tabaxi: 1 (1.3%)

Humans are our most-popular choice: one out of every three characters that my friends have rolled up since the mid-1980s has been human. Elves are a close second, and Halflings are third.

Which makes sense. Before 3E came along, I played BECM exclusively and it skews heavily towards Human. And now under 5E rules, Human has historically been the only way to start the game with a feat.

I'm surprised at there being only one Half-Elf out of 78 characters; and no Gnomes.

When you say "played long-term", what's your cutoff?

 

[CleverNickName]

I'm surprised at there being only one Half-Elf out of 78 characters; and no Gnomes.

When you say "played long-term", what's your cutoff?

I had originally typed out the timeliness and different groups, but it got messed up and then I deleted it. But there is not a fixed number or cutoff point. I counted any character that made it at least to 10th level, and was played for at least six months.

Typically, I start all characters at 1st level, and a campaign usually runs 1-3 years.

 

[Paul Farquhar]

I'm surprised at there being only one Half-Elf out of 78 characters; and no Gnomes.

When you say "played long-term", what's your cutoff?

Lack of half elves doesn't surprise me, 1 is more than I have seen. They are mechanically strong but thematically bland (humans with slightly pointed ears). So it depends on if your players like to optimise their characters or not.

 

[Lanefan]

Counting everything rolled up and run by a player (thus ignoring adventuring NPCs etc.), over my 39 years of DMing here's what's appeared as PCs in my three big campaigns. This includes everything: one-hit wonders, ten-year hall-of-famers, all of 'em - if they were in one session or 300, they count.

177 - Human
94 - Elf
49 - Dwarf
33 - Part Elf
24 - Hobbit
24 - Part Orc
18 - Gnome
10 - mixed (strange genetic combinations of various species including but not limited to those listed above)
5 - other (completely a species not listed above e.g. Drow, Leprechaun, Centaur)
3 - two (characters who permanently changed species during their career, usually due to reincarnation, and were played in each form)

One reason for the low number of Gnomes might be their resilience: for some reason their overall death-per-session-played rate is about half that of anyone else, reducing their turnover. Hobbits are also quite resilient.