Halflings: An Identity Crisis

[Whizbang Dustyboots]

Likewise, WoW Gnomes have that sort of past history with many players, because of lowbie ganking (high percentage of gnomes involved here) and a tendency to annoy same-faction players via irritating requests and other habits.

Er, I see a TON more of that from night elves, to the point that I have my finger hovering over the ignore menu option whenever I see an unguilded night elf. And that experience seems to be pretty much universal, based on forums around the Web. The gnome thing I think is probably server-specific, at best.

there appears to be an element of "how do we bring in the good elements of LotR halflings, while also making them more likely adventurers ala kender and keeping the more positive aspects of their design?"

The only remaining elements of the hobbits in 4E halflings are their height (although they're tall for hobbits) and the name. Nothing in W&M or R&C suggests anything else hobbity whatsoever.

 

[Eldorian]

I just want to say that Hobbits make lame adventurers. In most of the fights in the Lord of the Rings, it seemed that the humans were trying to save the hobbits from getting their butts kicked because they were almost entirely ineffective at anything adventuring related (be it combat or climbing mountains or whatever). What made them so heroic is that they still TRIED even though they sucked at adventuring, and that sort of thing doesn't translate well to an RPG.

 

[Dannyalcatraz]

Personally, I always liked the take on them from Fineous Fingers...

 

[DarkKestral]

Er, I see a TON more of that from night elves, to the point that I have my finger hovering over the ignore menu option whenever I see an unguilded night elf. And that experience seems to be pretty much universal, based on forums around the Web. The gnome thing I think is probably server-specific, at best.

Oh, I see it a lot with low level night elves. But I've seen a bunch more Gnome griefers as a percentage of their playerbase than I've seen Nelfs, because half the griefers I'd see were gnomes. Given that gnomes make up only about 10% of the alliance playerbase, that shows that at least on some servers, gnomes DO grief more often. When I played alliance, I'd rarely see high-level non-gnome players ask for free **** at max level, but I'd see a 60/70 gnome sit in IF spamming General endlessly asking for free ports, food, and stuff all the time. When it wasn't a Gnome, I will say it was usually a NElf. Given my convos with other ex-Alliance, I'd have to say this is not server-specific, though

If you're on a PvE server of some sort, that may influence things, though, as gnome players seem to be something like UD are for horde: the race you play because it's good in pvp, not necessarily because you like the race. I've also primarily played on older PvP servers, so perhaps the cast has changed a bit. Perhaps newer servers would be different, but the playerbase on the two seemed to be in agreement, at least in what I've seen

 

[sirwmholder]

I'm one of those more radical guys who also wouldn't mind the elimination of dumb half-races like half-elves and half-orcs, and other half-human-hybrids as separate player races..

Yeah, in our 3.x games we axed all half-breeds... along with subraces. Back on point, I would not be against naming halflings as Kender... and if you are looking for a good reasson to keep the Halfling in 4e I would direct your attention to the cover of Dragon #285

http://paizo.com/store/magazines/dragon/issues/2001/285

William Holder

 

[Whizbang Dustyboots]

Oh, I see it a lot with low level night elves. But I've seen a bunch more Gnome griefers as a percentage of their playerbase than I've seen Nelfs, because half the griefers I'd see were gnomes. Given that gnomes make up only about 10% of the alliance playerbase, that shows that at least on some servers, gnomes DO grief more often. When I played alliance, I'd rarely see high-level non-gnome players ask for free **** at max level, but I'd see a 60/70 gnome sit in IF spamming General endlessly asking for free ports, food, and stuff all the time. When it wasn't a Gnome, I will say it was usually a NElf. Given my convos with other ex-Alliance, I'd have to say this is not server-specific, though

If you're on a PvE server of some sort, that may influence things, though, as gnome players seem to be something like UD are for horde: the race you play because it's good in pvp, not necessarily because you like the race.

Ah, there you go. I'm on a starting day RP-PVE server (Silver Hand), and gnomes are no more likely to grief than anyone else not-a-night-elf. While gnome players don't tend to do the over the top high-faluting RP that elf players do ("her hair was liquid starlight and her eyes seem much older than the rest of her flawless face and body ..."), they tend to all roleplay smartasses with a good sense of humor, even the ones who claim they aren't roleplayers, but still have lots of funny macros. Fun to have around on an RP server.

And I do notice that undead seem to be 90 percent of Horde /spitters in battlegrounds, which certainly reinforces your basic thesis about who's playing these two races in PvP.

 

[Ruin Explorer]

Would people prefer a PHB with just humans and several flavors of elf, or would they prefer humans, elves and a number of niche races? Even if I never play most of the niche races, I'd definitely prefer the latter. The question is just which to include.

No, honestly I'd perfer a PHB with several flavours of human, a couple of flavours of elf, a couple of near-humans (Tieflings for example), and a brute of some kind. I don't really know what 4E is doing without a brute race, it seems amazingly silly to me, and a much more important thing to be missing than. Unless Dragonblooded have some amazingly smash-centric abilities, I think a fair number of players will be at a loss.

Must admit, by the way, that I find it very hard to believe you've never seen a Tiefling played, unless you never played Planescape.

 

[Dannyalcatraz]

Must admit, by the way, that I find it very hard to believe you've never seen a Tiefling played

Personally, in 30 years of gaming, I'm almost the only person who has ever played anything besides a PHB race or expansion sub-race in a campaign in which I've participated.

While Planescape wasn't on the list, settings like Spelljammer and Dragonlance were, as well as countless homebrews.

Would people prefer a PHB with just humans and several flavors of elf, or would they prefer humans, elves and a number of niche races? Even if I never play most of the niche races, I'd definitely prefer the latter. The question is just which to include.

I'm with you on this one, W-D, though I did like the way some settings give regional variants to humans. (IMHO, many of those mods should apply to ALL PCs from those regions.)

 

[Ruin Explorer]

So in Dragonlance, no-one played one of those damn shapeshifting Elf-Ogres? Irda or whatever they were called. Or a minotaur? I guess some groups are just very conservative in what they play. Or did the GMs just not allow stuff like that?

 

[Dannyalcatraz]

In the Dragonlance campaigns in which I was a player, I played Irda and Minotaurs.

I was the only one who did.

In many cases, its player conservatism. Many are like Gygax, in that they have always and will always see Humans as the focus of fantasy, and model their PCs in accord with that vision.

However, I've also seen a lot of DMs who are PHB races/classes, etc. only.