Halflings: An Identity Crisis

[Sadrik]

Oh yeah, I forgot about those chaps, they were actually something cool, in an otherwise boring campaign setting, IMO.

What were they actually called, again?

Halflings

 

[Spell]

What is going on here... and why did WoTC feel the need to change them so drastically from their original iteration? Tolkienesque hobbits are COOL... why ruin a good thing? Character's like Salvatore's Regis "Rumblebelly" must be having a serious identity crisis (he began life as a classic "hobbit")

The dwarves and elves remain close to the Tolkien archetype... so why the drastic change in halflings?

i suppose that you have to cater for the vociferous players that always had problems with hobbit-like halflings going to adventures. or finding them "boring" and "uncool".
i had asimpler answer to their whining, when i met one: just don't play a halfling.
but D&D is all about options, these days, and you aren't allowed to say no to players... [/sarcasm off]

 

[Whizbang Dustyboots]

While I think they should be called kender, 4e halflings don't seem like kleptomaniacs to me. It seems like they have wanderlust and curiosity, but don't necessarily want to take anything. YMMV, of course.

R&C says they have a habit of accidentally pocketing things.

 

[Whizbang Dustyboots]

I suspect it's a money issue over anything else. Halflings, having to be differenated from Hobbits due to intellectual property rights, have finally gained their own identity (or borrowed identity from Kender). There is nothing wrong with bringing back your furry footed Hobbit in house rules... that way D&D doesn't have to pay royalties to the Tolkien heirs.

I wonder if Necromancer's APG will have a more hobbitish halfling choice. It would certainly fit in thematically.

 

[Dausuul]

i suppose that you have to cater for the vociferous players that always had problems with hobbit-like halflings going to adventures. or finding them "boring" and "uncool".
i had asimpler answer to their whining, when i met one: just don't play a halfling.
but D&D is all about options, these days, and you aren't allowed to say no to players... [/sarcasm off]

This particular decision is almost certainly about not wasting space in the books on options that see very little use. If hobbit-halflings are overwhelmingly unpopular, there's no point in WotC wasting a lot of effort and printing costs on them... despite the vociferous players who complain when anything is changed from the Way It Was, Back In The Day.

 

[Woas]

Shhhh! You're going to blow it for all of us!

Uh oh! Did I let that one slip? Gno gnomes here...

But joking aside, what I'm really getting at is that basically whether you call 'em halflings or hobbits or stinky-toed marsh-men their lineage is of a literary device conceived by an old croon to tell a story.
Gnomes have real mythical lineage so to speak... which I guess kind of defeats itself because this is 4e after all and there is no room for outdated things.

 

[med stud]

I think Dausuul hit the nail on the head here: Tolkien style- hobbits are short, fat and have big, hairy feet. They don't look like an attractive alter ego in most situations (just look at the art in RPG books; everyone is well trained and most are generally good looking).

So if WotC 1) would be threatened by lawsuit if they didn't change halflings and 2) concluded from market research that hobbit- style halflings weren't popular with the player base then it would make no sense to leave them in.

 

[Zarithar]

I think Dausuul hit the nail on the head here: Tolkien style- hobbits are short, fat and have big, hairy feet. They don't look like an attractive alter ego in most situations (just look at the art in RPG books; everyone is well trained and most are generally good looking).

So if WotC 1) would be threatened by lawsuit if they didn't change halflings and 2) concluded from market research that hobbit- style halflings weren't popular with the player base then it would make no sense to leave them in.

Yep, who wants to be ugly! It shows a kind of superficial shallowness by my way of thinking to always play impossibly beautiful characters who look like models and the like, but then again I'm an oddball I guess. For example, some of my favorite characters have been half orcs in D&D, and I just love my orc rogue and tauren shaman in WoW.

By the way, I'm not arguing with you and I agree that what you (and others) have said is most likely the case.

 

[Dausuul]

Yep, who wants to be ugly! It shows a kind of superficial shallowness by my way of thinking to always play impossibly beautiful characters who look like models and the like, but then again I'm an oddball I guess. For example, some of my favorite characters have been half orcs in D&D, and I just love my orc rogue and tauren shaman in WoW.

By the way, I'm not arguing with you and I agree that what you (and others) have said is most likely the case.

*shrug* When you get right down to it, a lot of most RPGs is about wish fulfillment. Most people aren't interested in pretending to be someone unimportant, unattractive, and powerless. Where's the fun in that? They want to imagine themselves as somebody--somebody important, impressive, powerful, and acknowledged as such by the people around them. There's nothing wrong with that, either.

In the real world, people are widely judged on their looks. So most D&D players are concerned about the looks of their characters. They don't always want to look attractive, although a lot do, but very few want to look... well, hobbity. Appearance-wise, hobbits are the antithesis of impressive and cool. They're short and they're fat and they have hairy feet. It's hard to envision a mighty warrior, or a wizard of terrifying power, or a silent and deadly rogue, or a holy priest wielding the power of the gods, who's short and fat and hairy-footed.

You may call it shallow if you like. I disagree; I think a character's appearance is an integral part of the character concept, and there's nothing particularly shallow about preferring a suitably impressive appearance to go with the concept. The "short fat guy who's actually a great archmage" can be a fun gimmick, but it gets old fast.

 

[Whizbang Dustyboots]

It shows a kind of superficial shallowness by my way of thinking to always play impossibly beautiful characters who look like models and the like, but then again I'm an oddball I guess. For example, some of my favorite characters have been half orcs in D&D, and I just love my orc rogue and tauren shaman in WoW.

My wife started off as a wood elf druid in EQ1 (and briefly a barbarian shaman before that), before she got over the whole "my avatar is beautiful" thing and rerolled as a gnome cleric to match my gnome wizard.

Today, we're a dwarf hunter and priest in WoW.

There are folks out there who don't care about the beauty thing -- there are two different couples in my guild who both play gnomes, for instance -- but they seem to be slightly outnumbered by the people who do.