Halflings: An Identity Crisis

[DandD]

So why have halflings at all?

That's a very good question. Why does D&D still have Halflings, if they're still only a joke-race?

 

[howandwhy99]

That's a very good question. Why does D&D still have Halflings, if they're still only a joke-race?

Legacy. We could get rid of them, but they're pretty traditional to D&D. I'd have no problem with it. Make 'em "The little people" and put them in the MM like gnomes... with the option to play as PC races of course.

But with limited class choice of course.
It's not that a 3' human can't be a PC; it's that they can't be a "brute" class and still be considered within the span of 1st level.

 

[Dragonhelm]

Legacy. We could get rid of them, but they're pretty traditional to D&D.

Okay, so halflings are in the game because they're traditional. Yet halflings aren't allowed to look like the race that started the tradition?

Next we'll be parking in driveways and driving in parkways. Where will the insanity end?

 

[Nahat Anoj]

I absolutely oppose calling them Kender specifically because that would incourage Kleptomania and general stupidness on the part of the folks that played them (well, more kleptomania than is expected from the river-gypsy archetype they're drawing from).

There are few things worse than having someone try to roleplay a dragonlance-themed comic relief character.

I agree. But I was thinking, if most people already tend to play halflings as thieving kleptos, would the name "Kender" really make things any worse?

I've played one halfling in all my years gaming - he was an LG Rogue, but I was consciously playing up a "honest to a fault" angle.

The only other time I've seen a halfling played is also in 3e, as a scheming, manipulating Warlock. He was kind of the "grand vizier" guy - a pretty cool character, actually.

 

[Whizbang Dustyboots]

Legacy. We could get rid of them, but they're pretty traditional to D&D.

Short swamp rat nomads are pretty traditional?

 

[Belorin]

Legacy. We could get rid of them, but they're pretty traditional to D&D. I'd have no problem with it. Make 'em "The little people" and put them in the MM like gnomes... with the option to play as PC races of course.

But with limited class choice of course.
It's not that a 3' human can't be a PC; it's that they can't be a "brute" class and still be considered within the span of 1st level.

Legacy was 1e-2e halflings and it seems no-one liked them all that much, I say dump the kenderized halfling and bring back gnomes as the small race for the non-warrior. Take them back to their folklore roots, craftsmen, pranksters & illusionists. Or have them take over the halflings role in 4E, nomadic merchants, just drop the dredlocks, please.

Bel

 

[Lurks-no-More]

Okay, so halflings are in the game because they're traditional. Yet halflings aren't allowed to look like the race that started the tradition?

The way halflings are generally used and played in D&D - as a race producing lots of adventurous rogues - is traditional, but doesn't match Tolkien's hobbits. Thus, 3e and 4e keep the traditional role - small, sneaky rogues who go on adventures - and adapt halfings to fit this, instead of keeping the traditional hobbity look.

 

[DandD]

But 4th edition doesn't want them to be only rogues. Appearantly, they're also meant to be fighters, wizards, clerics, even warlords and paladins andwhatnot. Yet, the only thing we can think about halflings is that they're rogues.
A silly joke-race, who should have gone to the Monster Manual-dumpster like the gnomes.
Of course, I do admit that 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. If anything at all, they should have put in game mechanics how to create your own freak-hybrid like they did with half-dragons and half-fiends or half-whatever in 3rd edition Monster Manual, just for all race combinations, so that you could get gnome-halflings and ant-humans, whatever suits your campaign-world. But that's for another discussion...

 

[DarkKestral]

Another factor that makes people not want to play halflings is that many have had bad experiences with halfling players; the kender of DL, in particular, rubbed many the wrong way when their players stole from party members. 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. So it develops to a specific hatred of many ON BOTH SIDES that may be causing a confounding effect. This leads many Horde players (or even Alliance players with high level Horde alts) to have a "Kill on Sight" rule for gnomes, in that they'll try to kill a gnome for BEING a gnome, unless that gnome has significant numbers of allies making the chances of success minimal, even if they don't normally tend to kill Alliance on sight.

So I don't favor renaming to kender, because it will likely trigger bad memories in the D&D oldtimers and those who've read a lot of Dragonlance, while it will put off newbies, and probably create a similar effect. However, given that the halflings have been moving to being more kender-esque across editions, the 4th ed. incarnation looks to be somewhat of a compromise; 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?" Nomadic halflings make sense, as the traditional perceptions of many nomadic peoples are that they are somewhat rogueish, (a feature of halflings since 1st ed. and also common of kender) yet rarely steal from friends and family (thus removing the main annoyance behind kender for many players) and are likely to be interested in creature comforts (a feature of old-style hobbit-esque halflings) so the overall design of a nomadic culture is an appropriate adaptation, and it provides a simple reason for why some decide to become adventurers and why few would take significant notice. As far as making them good boatsmen and river traders, rivers have historically been major 'roads' for goods and traders in our world, and housebarges both offer a lot of space for living and for cargo, thus being one of the forms of mobile housing most well suited to providing creature comforts.

 

[Whizbang Dustyboots]

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.

You haven't been reading ENWorld long: That's close to a consensus opinion nowadays.