D&D 5E Dragon's Eye View: Halflings, Part 2

[Gaming Tonic]

The reality of this is once you have mechanics down you can have the halflings look like whatever you want in your game. I personally don't like the way these halflings look, they look like they are retaining water. They don't look like Tolkien hobbits or like the kender which was much more of the look in the later editions. Whatever you decide that halflings look like in your game there is a visual representation somewhere you just need to do a google image search and then go with that. This is one of those tiny things that people will allow there angst over to really get out of hand that is easily adjusted to taste with minimal effort.

 

[Klaus]

The problem we now have to work our way through is that in my opinion, elves shouldn't be shaped just like humans. I think they need to be even thinner than they've been appearing. If you have elves that are just as meaty as humans but have pointy ears and a long face... then where do our half-elves go? That's what I noticed in Claudio's concept art in the other thread... the elves looked way too bulky to me.

And therein lies Jon's difficulties. If even the shape of elves are still up for debate about what looks right or wrong... then the halflings and gnomes are going to be even more disparate in opinion.

Half-Elves would have the possibility of fuller figures, bigger muscles and (for males) beards.

WotC tried the skinny, quasi-alien elves in 3e, and we all saw how Mialee turned out. I prefer to look at these races from a prism of "if I were to make a movie, how would they look?". For elves, I settled on an exotic, albeit within human possibility, look (with the addition of cat-like pupils). So I went for a race of people who look like Olivia Wilde, John Rhys-Davies, Diane Kruger. Kristin Kreuk, Celine Brink or Ian Somerhalder.

 

[(Psi)SeveredHead]

The elves of Deverry Cycle have cat-like pupils (and I think huge eyes). Were you influenced by that? (In that setting, half-elves look just like humans, except they live longer and react badly to dwarven silver.)

 

[Klaus]

The elves of Deverry Cycle have cat-like pupils (and I think huge eyes). Were you influenced by that? (In that setting, half-elves look just like humans, except they live longer and react badly to dwarven silver.)

Never heard of it. I've used cat-like eyes for elves for almost two decades (to emphasize their infravision/low-light vision). In the dark, their pupils would be huge black orbs.

 

[Bedrockgames]

I think this is better than where things went starting with 3E (where they stopped being the classic hobbit based halfling and became more like kender or just small humans). In 3E and beyond halflings just sort of lost any identity i could latch onto.

 

[Klaus]

I think this is better than where things went starting with 3E (where they stopped being the classic hobbit based halfling and became more like kender or just small humans). In 3E and beyond halflings just sort of lost any identity i could latch onto.

See, for me the 4e halflings were the first ones with an identity I could relate to (river gipsies, basically, akin to Greyhawk's Rhenee).

 

[KidSnide]

I think the new concept art is a step in the right direction. These proportions are closer to real-life little people, which gives the halflings more of a "Willow" look (for obvious reasons). I'm not sold on this approach, but it doesn't bother me in the same way that the previous concept art did.

At the same time, it looks like the art is trying to do a little too much with the body proportions. Yes, they are an indication of size, but showing other objects for scale is also hugely effective. Lidda didn't look wrong because she was generally depicted in context that made her size evidence. Yeah sure, depending on showing scale by comparison limits the range of possible art, but is it really that limiting? Shouldn't most D&D art have some scale-providing context anyway?

I would try to create a list of objects that halflings tend to carry that help show their scale, mostly objects that are either found in nature or would be traded from a human-sized communities. Fruit (like apples), feathers, animals or animal skins (a squirrel skin cap or waterskin? a dog or goat pack animal? just about any familiar?), human/dwarf-scale buttons, buckles, knives, vehicles or weapons -- any of these can help show scale. Objects can also be repurposed -- a human ring can be a halfling broach; a human cane can be a halfling staff; a human teacup can be a halfling tankard; a human shirt can be a halfling cloak; an elven vest can be a halfling robe; a dwarven hatchet can be a halfling battleaxe.

These objects are important not just because they show scale, but also because they show how halflings interact with the gameworld. That kind of detail kickstarts player imaginations, and isn't that the real purpose of D&D art anyway?

(For what it's worth, I thought the first set of concept art did a pretty good job at using scaling objects in interesting ways. This second round isn't as successful in that regard.)

-KS

 

[Animal]

The problem we now have to work our way through is that in my opinion, elves shouldn't be shaped just like humans. I think they need to be even thinner than they've been appearing. If you have elves that are just as meaty as humans but have pointy ears and a long face... then where do our half-elves go? That's what I noticed in Claudio's concept art in the other thread... the elves looked way too bulky to me.

And therein lies Jon's difficulties. If even the shape of elves are still up for debate about what looks right or wrong... then the halflings and gnomes are going to be even more disparate in opinion.

In my opinion, the problem lies also in our perception.
Elves are supposed to be beautiful by human standards. If you distort their forms too much, make them too thin to be identifiable as something human-like, they will no more look attractive. They'll just look like some weird aliens. That's how our minds work.

That's why the team (probably) goes for human proportions in halflings too. I mean toddlers/midgets are still easily identifiable human, right? Even if looking deformed comparing to fully grown specimen.
But i'm not sold on this approach, because toddler proportions don't exactly suggest dexterity. I mean, look at that lightfoot halfling concept art. Does he look like he has light feet? Heck, he probably waddles instead of slinking, judging by those proportions.

I really think halfling appearance overhaul is a step in the right direction, but there's still much work to do.

 

[DEFCON 1]

In my opinion, the problem lies also in our perception.
Elves are supposed to be beautiful by human standards. If you distort their forms too much, make them too thin to be identifiable as something human-like, they will no more look attractive. They'll just look like some weird aliens. That's how our minds work.

True enough. But the problem we have with elves specifically is the half-elf problem. Having that race in the game means that there has to be a greater difference between humans and elves in how they look, because otherwise, half-elves have no visual identity that lies between them.

So yes, if we want to go with the idea that elves are beautiful by human standards... and that they maintain a more or less human shape... then we need to therefore make all humans relatively ugly. Because that way... you actually have a middle ground wherein you can place half-elves in the visual spectrum that makes us all go "okay, that's a half-elf". Humans are all unattractive, elves are exceedingly attractive (plus thin, pointy eared, catseyed), and half-elves can have fuller figures, be normal looking, and maybe slightly pointed ears.

Now granted, if we just remove half-elves from the game as their own specific race... you could have humans and elves come closer together on the looks scale (with only a few distinctive features that separate them). But as soon as you put that middle race in there... you're stuck taking humans and elves further out to the edges.

 

[Bedrockgames]

With elves I always felt their appearance, aside from being perhaps a bit more petite and pointy eared than humans, wasnt ever what really defined them. Their longevity and connection to magic/nature has always been much more important than how they look; their culture too. And for half elves the point for me was never that they had to look in between human and elf (i always figured they could kind of pass for either) but that they are culturally inbetween, they live a bit longer than humans do and they still have some traces of innate elvenness.