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<blockquote data-quote="Nathan P. Mahney" data-source="post: 3967625" data-attributes="member: 29748">I thought 3e hit the perfect mix as far as halflings go.&nbsp; They *need* to be recognisably Tolkien, or there's no point to having them as player races at all, I feel.&nbsp; The problem with Tolkien hobbits is that they are naturally sedentary and just not natural adventurers - all of their flavour would be about how much they love food and the comforts of home, which isn't exactly a great motivation for carving your way through the Caves of Chaos.3e halflings lost these traits while still presenting something vaguely recognisable to Tolkien familiarists.&nbsp; Changing them again to river folk is a bit weird - hobbits were mostly depicted as hating boats and such, except for those crazy fools out in Buckland.&nbsp; Changing the visual depictions is another step away, and there's only so far you can step away from an archetype before it just doesn't evoke that archetype anymore.&nbsp; The 4e designers might want to leave the Hobbit archetype behind, but I think that would be a bad thing for the game.In my campaign I'll probably just use all three types - sedentary hobbits, the wandering kender-halflings of 3e, and the river folk of 4e.&nbsp; A bit of cultural diversity never hurt any game!</blockquote>

[QUOTE="Nathan P. Mahney, post: 3967625, member: 29748"] I thought 3e hit the perfect mix as far as halflings go. They *need* to be recognisably Tolkien, or there's no point to having them as player races at all, I feel. The problem with Tolkien hobbits is that they are naturally sedentary and just not natural adventurers - all of their flavour would be about how much they love food and the comforts of home, which isn't exactly a great motivation for carving your way through the Caves of Chaos. 3e halflings lost these traits while still presenting something vaguely recognisable to Tolkien familiarists. Changing them again to river folk is a bit weird - hobbits were mostly depicted as hating boats and such, except for those crazy fools out in Buckland. Changing the visual depictions is another step away, and there's only so far you can step away from an archetype before it just doesn't evoke that archetype anymore. The 4e designers might want to leave the Hobbit archetype behind, but I think that would be a bad thing for the game. In my campaign I'll probably just use all three types - sedentary hobbits, the wandering kender-halflings of 3e, and the river folk of 4e. A bit of cultural diversity never hurt any game! [/QUOTE]

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