D&D 4E 4E Halflings unrecognizable from Tolkien hobbits

[Klaus]

FWIW, IMNSHO, YMMV, IANAAWFWU (I Am Not An Artist Working For WotC, Unfortunately):

The so-called "dreadlocked" halflings (judging by the halfling cleric linked above... haven't seen Races & Classes yet) reminds me more of Middle-Eastern -- Mesopotamian/Babylonian/Summerian -- hair and facial features. And the "barge" culture could easily be seen drifting up and down the Tigris, Euphrates and Nile.

 

[Asmor]

Haven't seen R&C, but I'm all for a redesign. I think that Halflings (and elves, for that matter) are incredibly boring, and I like what I've heard about both of them in 4th edition.

 

[Mustrum_Ridcully]

My taste in halfling appearance leans much more towards Lidda and the illustration from PHB2 that Zamkaizer posted. As a Monte Cook fan, I tend to go with the idea presented in Ptolus that halfings are just a subrace of elves anyway, the saelas faen (which he latter spun out into the faen races of Arcana Evolved).

Of all the halfling changes, I think the one that I like the least is that halflings are riverfolk while humans are associated with the plains. Sure, humans have gotten a lot of use out of horses, but most of our cities are on rivers or sea shores where we can use boats for trade, fishing, and dumping our waste. The Nile, the Thames, the Ganges, the Yangtze, and the Hudson are all rivers which have fed some of the world's most influential real-world cities, and I can't imagine fantasy humans not doing the same. Halflings might very well thrive trading with humans down the river, but I think they would be much better suited to living in wild places, using their size to sneak about and living in small burrows or hollow trees with entrances that can be easily defended from mundane predators. Whether you live in a castle or treehouse, burrow or dwarven hold, if a dragon wants to tear open your house and eat you, it will, but most of these will keep you safe from wolves.

Robert "Gotta Go" Ranting

Well, I guess the problem is - the real world doesn't have Elves, Orcs, Dwarves and Halflings that compete for food or shelter. That's why humans are everywhere. But once you add fantasy races (and they don't destroy each other), you end up with each finding an ecological niche they prefer and handle better then the rest.
There is one alternative, admittedly - Each species takes a different part of the land mass they live on and builds its kingdoms there, and they effectively are all some kind of human, just with different ears and size.
But this leaves little room for wandering bands of adventures of different races. And imagine running adventures in halfling lands with a group of Humans, Elves and Dwarves - all buildings are too small for them. (10 ft wide corridors become even more reasonable).

 

[Silverblade The Ench]

Zamkaizer,
hm actually that bit of art is good
I was PO'd at the way the "fluff" and races of the game are getting pushed in 4th, but that's a great illustration.

I preffer and will keep hallfings as pastoral and town folk in my own setting though.

 

[Clavis]

I can't understand why the game should have Halflings at all, if they aren't anything at all like Tolkien's hobbits?

The new Halflings don't resemble anything from legend, myth, or fantasy literature. That seems to be a trend with WOTC lately, I guess so they can claim to have created new Intellectual Property that they can own without dispute.

The advantage of classes and races based on previous models is that it makes character creation and roleplaying easier. If as a DM I can tell a new player that "Halflings are pretty much Hobbits" and "Rangers are like Aragorn", everybody gets to start actually playing the game sooner. We have a shared culture to draw on.

Whether game designers like it or not, most players I know don't actually enjoy reading rulebooks. They just want to sit down at a table, and pretend to be elves killing monsters. The easier it is for them to do that, the more they want to play the game.

I'm not even a particular fan of Tolkien's writings (I'd rather have Howard or Lovecraft any day). My own Halflings are a parody of Tolkien's. I would still prefer something close to the common conception of Hobbits to be D&D's baseline for Halflings, however. Otherwise, there is simply no reason for them to exist.

 

[Piratecat]

KidCthulhu, how I marvel at your perspicacity!

No, she uses deodorant. She's not perspicacious at all.

 

[mhacdebhandia]

I can't understand why the game should have Halflings at all, if they aren't anything at all like Tolkien's hobbits?

Because there have been more words published about the halflings of Dungeons & Dragons over the last thirty-four years than everything Tolkien ever said about hobbits? Because there's room for a diminutive PC race in the game?

People act like Tolkien's hobbits have been the be-all and end-all of D&D's halflings all the way through, but not only is that certainly not the case in Third Edition, it's even particularly relevant. If it's better for the game to completely abandon the hobbit idea - and I agree with the designers that it is - then that's what they should do.

If as a DM I can tell a new player that "Halflings are pretty much Hobbits" and "Rangers are like Aragorn", everybody gets to start actually playing the game sooner. We have a shared culture to draw on.

Also, this is outright nonsense. Why would you want to start a new player by clinging to the oldest and most limited tropes available? Rangers haven't been just "like Aragorn" for thirty years. The same is true of halflings. It has to be, in fact, because no D&D world is truly anything like Middle-Earth, and hobbits make terrible D&D adventurers.

 

[Panamon Creel]

Nice picture Zamkaizer. Where did you find that? If it is a recent WOTC 4E promo pic, I haven't seen it. It is far better than any of the halfling pictures in R&C. Obviously, not Tolkien and closer to 3E halflings who look like short elves, but still it is a great improvement (at least in terms of artwork).

 

[Azgulor]

As for crappy adventurers, well surely the great percentage of hobbits would be. But wasn't the idea that the Tooks and the Baggins, and any PC halfling rises above the norm to greatness? And the way that people played halflings, when the innocent halfling thief stabbed you in the back and picked your pocket, made it even more fun.

Unfortunately, the idea of the underdog/common man rising to greatness (and no it's not the same as the greatness was always there, just hidden) is apparently "unfun" and has been dropped in favor of "1st-level bad as$" in 4e. I wasn't surprised in the least to hear that the traditional halfling had been left behind in 4e.

 

[Clavis]

Because there have been more words published about the halflings of Dungeons & Dragons over the last thirty-four years than everything Tolkien ever said about hobbits? Because there's room for a diminutive PC race in the game?

People act like Tolkien's hobbits have been the be-all and end-all of D&D's halflings all the way through, but not only is that certainly not the case in Third Edition, it's even particularly relevant. If it's better for the game to completely abandon the hobbit idea - and I agree with the designers that it is - then that's what they should do.

Far more people have read LOTR or watched the movies than have played D&D or read the D&D tie-in novels. The word-count of D&D related products has nothing to do with it. Hobbits are an undisputed part of our literary culture. 3rd edition halflings are... well, even WOTC is forgetting about them.

Also, this is outright nonsense. Why would you want to start a new player by clinging to the oldest and most limited tropes available?

Because the players already know what those tropes are, without having to study a boring rulebook? Some people actually want to roleplay classic archetypal characters and situations. All the great stories are essentially the same few stories re-told. Star Wars worked, not because Lucas came up with some innovative idea, but because he ripped off the plot of an old Western and populated it with stock characters out of mythology and Japanese samurai films.

Some of of think that Gygaxian fantasy, a rich and meaty stew of great fantasy authors spiced with classical mythology and medieval legend, just tastes better than WOTC's homogeneous corperate gruel.