Halflings -- should they die?

[R-Hero]

Stanuuch the First look upon his creation and knew it was perfect.

Hobbits, Kender, Pygmies, Nelwyns...they would be called by many names but every other god would fall short in their creation.
They could not improve on his creation.
They could only enlarge, widen, fatten, gangly, taller..they would never acheive the greatness of Stanuuch.

I am running a campain with all halflings. The leader is a cleric of Stanuuch, the Hammer Pastor. Racist, sexist, a chip on his sholder and armed with a greathammer. He is out to teach the world that his is the first race and all others are an embarrasing copy. (He would'nt spit on a worshiper of Yondalla if their head was on fire.)

Put me down as a "no" vote on killing off the halflings.
I always thought that gnomes were the despised race in terms of role playing.
(Besides, gnomes are halflings with bad P.R. anyway.)

 

[reanjr]

That's because she's the first one that looks good in leather.

The reasons are not important.

 

[scipio]

You know, in none of my recent campaigns has a single halfling shown its face. Not even a cameo, and no one seems to have noticed. Plenty of gnomes - the group is sick of them, so IMC, gnomes are pirates - the bards sing sea chanties to inspire ill-advised boarding operations:

"Oh we're the gnomes of the western sea
we'll slit your necks and sink your boats
Take your gold and silver for weeee
are the gnomes of the western sea

We're the gnomes with the great big ships
split the casks and crack the whips
some will be slaves and some set freeeee
down into the briny sea!

We're the gnomes with mighty picks
Gnomish pirates get all the chicks..." and so on in whiny nasal voices.

That put the fear of God into the PCs. Oh yeah, and no "half" races - it doesn't make sense that orcs can successfully breed with humans (different species and all). Magical creatures (dragons, demons) are a different story...

 

[Kae'Yoss]

I just had a mental flash of Frodo and Sam in Dom/Sub gear and I blame you.

I think I had that, too, a couple of times. But I blame Tolkien.

 

[Kae'Yoss]

I always thought that gnomes were the despised race in terms of role playing.

I haven't noticed that until recently, though I don't know whether that's a recent development or just didn't see it sooner. I always thought the big fight's between elf-lovers and dwarf-lovers.

 

[VirgilCaine]

I like the 3e image of halflings as immigrant nomad capitalists. I hate kender and using hobbits wholesale was a bad idea, IMO.

 

[Maldur]

After reading Mary Gentle's GRUNTS, you will not look at halflings the same way

 

[Peterson]

How I got rid of Halflings for my game....

Halflings – a race long forgotten by all but those from Borack

Halfling. The word conjures to mind small, bloodthirsty demons that enjoy feasting on the flesh of children – though that is now considered an old wives’ tale, once told to their children in an effort to maintain discipline. What is know believed, though rarely told in comparison to the tales of flesh-eating demons, is that Halflings did in fact exist and were perhaps a sub-race of the mysterious Elves. Traces of their homesteads – small, child-sized homes clustered into groups of ten to twenty, dot the grassy hills between the warring kingdoms of Borack and Brystol. Skeletal remains – some halflings, others not – suggest that creatures from Borack hunted the Halfling race to extinction, valued as slaves and as a food source. Experts on the kingdom of Borack point to the canines commonly referred to as Halfling Hounds as proof, for the Halfling Hounds are feared for their tracking ability and their savage fighting skills. A few of the more eccentric of experts even go so far as to claim that goblins, smallest and least respected of the Borack races, are evolved Halfling slaves, forced to fight or become food for those who will.

There ya go. It's worked fairly well for my game, which also has no Elves and very little Gnomes (maybe 1 out of every 8,000 NPCs).

For more information on my game - called Castle Lionguard, please visit my thread here: http://boards1.wizards.com/showthread.php?t=149635&page=1&pp=30

Thanks,

Peterson

 

[Algolei]

Lidda is by far the coolest halfling D&D has ever had.

Vile slander!!

Jeff Dee drew excellent halflings. Have you never seen his art of Blodgett from the A series?

And what about Willingham's image of Qesnef!!

The 3E pics of Lidda make me shudder, blech....

 

[Akrasia]

Of course it all boils down to personal preferences. ...

Don't be absurd.

It is a self-evident fact that both the pseudo-kender halflings and the minstrel-trickster gnomes need to be destroyed in a most horrific and nefarious manner as soon as possible.

To assert the contrary is to assert madness.