Are halflings hobbits in your game?

[(Psi)SeveredHead]

Halflings have always been gypsy stereotypes and Oceania has always been at war with Eurasia!

IMC, the halflings haven't shown up yet, because I hate the 3e versions with a firey passion (I previously ran an all-halfling campaign in the 5 Shires of Mystara) but if they actually do show up, they'll be hobbits. But mostly, I'm just planning on using gnomes instead.

No really, where does it say that? Show me in the PH where is says they're all (or mostly) nomadic.

 

[mhacdebhandia]

I would never include halflings in my campaign setting unless a player had her heart set on playing one, and even then I would need to negotiate with them to establish a reason why they have no homeland of their own. I would never write a halfling nation in off my own bat.

Under that rare circumstance where I had to include them for the sake of a player's happiness, they sure wouldn't be hobbits. I don't like Tolkien.

The exception to the no-halflings rule inb my games is Eberron, where halflings are interesting; I don't like stealing outright from published settings, though, so I wouldn't want to transplant the same cultures to a homebrew.

 

[Mycanid]

I'm afraid I'm in the other camp. I prefer the Tolkien presentation of the Hobbits.

I am not against halflings as presented in 3e and on per se as an EXCEPTION to the norm (either as npc's a party may come across or a pc wanting to play one that way), but in my campaigns I keep Tolkien's presentation of them as the standard.

'Sides, I got tired of Tasslehoff real quick midway through the first Dragonlance novel....

 

[Olgar Shiverstone]

I prefer hobbit-like halflings to 3E's (repackaged) kender.

 

[Viktyr Gehrig]

I have absolutely no use for Halflings. Seems to me that everything that's "different" about Halflings would be better served in a Human culture. I'm kinda fond of how they're presented in either Eberron or Dark Sun, but I wouldn't use either in my own setting.

Besides, there's just too damned many humanoid races in D&D, and the cuts have to come from somewhere.

 

[Chimera]

Hobbits.

But;

Where every humanoid race is enslaved to the greater race (the Calaseans), the Hobbits are the ultimate "Specialty Organic Vegetable Farmer" slaves.

They also make great pets for vile little Calasean children: durable, yet disposable at will.

 

[Philotomy Jurament]

Hobbits, of course. Not that the little runts are common as adventurers. I like hobbits in Lord of the Rings, but don't like them so much in my campaign. I hate 3E halfings, kender, gully dwarves, and tinker gnomes with a burning, inexplicable passion.

 

[(Psi)SeveredHead]

I'm afraid I'm in the other camp. I prefer the Tolkien presentation of the Hobbits.

I am not against halflings as presented in 3e and on per se as an EXCEPTION to the norm (either as npc's a party may come across or a pc wanting to play one that way), but in my campaigns I keep Tolkien's presentation of them as the standard.

'Sides, I got tired of Tasslehoff real quick midway through the first Dragonlance novel....

I'm in pretty much the same boat. I like how you used the word "presentation" there, too

However, I have to wonder why people keep mentioning kender. Most halflings can't be rogues - few members of any race have PC classes. (I didn't like Tasslehoff, but I don't see what he has to do with hobbits.)

 

[Hairfoot]

Here we go again...

The hobbit community Tolkien portrayed had been peaceful and unthreatened for generations. Like any race, comfort makes Shire hobbits complacent and insular.

This has been picked up as representing the attitude of hobbits under any circumstance. But if you put those same halflings in a borderland or warzone, they'd be as dynamic as a human population.

I can understand the aesthetic appeal of demi-rodents...I mean demi-kender, but the "lazy hobbits would never be adventurers" theory is just silly.

 

[Shadowslayer]

Count me solidly in the Tolkien camp. Halflings are Hobbits. They have furry feet, are always hungry, and have names like Corky Thistlebottom.