D&D General My Problem(s) With Halflings, and How To Create Engaging/Interesting Fantasy Races

[Crimson Longinus]

what if sea elves are just water genasi for elves?

They could be, but personally I'd avoid such thematic duplications. In that sense I get not liking having both gnomes and halflings as they're very similar, but then again, you don't need to put them in the same setting.

 

[Micah Sweet]

The best thing about genasi, IMO, is you can reskin them as janni and use them in an Arabian Nights setting easily. Otherwise, it's hard to see what their place is in most D&D worlds.

Maybe you could have water genasi among sea elves and the like, but I don't know where the societies of people who interbred with genies would be, otherwise. They're originally from the Forgotten Realms, I think, so maybe there's a big society there I haven't heard about.

I used them in my home game as four lineages with common cultural elements, in a blatant Avatar rip-off. Worked pretty well.

 

[Cadence]

That's like the reason to play a tiefling. If your devil-person is just a normal part of a society and no one bats an eye, what's even the point?

Though one thing I find hilarious that the tiefling and the drow, two races the PHB especially says are generally hated and mistrusted in many places get a bonus to their charisma, actually making them better than average getting along with people!

Right. I think I totally get the story elements. It just feels odd after the past few years to have a race designed to suffer discrimination and micro-aggressions every new place they go. I guess I need to think over why how much of half-orcs being treated badly is bad just because their orc half was labeled as an evil race instead of having free will. It also has me reconsidering if the the interracial strife in Glen Cook's Tun Faire books wouldn't be a deal breaker for a setting (since they treat each other badly like you'd expect in the real world, but none of them are innately worse in a good-evil sense).

 

[Crimson Longinus]

Right. I think I totally get the story elements. It just feels odd after the past few years to have a race designed to suffer discrimination and micro-aggressions every new place they go. I guess I need to think over why how much of half-orcs being treated badly is bad just because their orc half was labeled as an evil race instead of having free will. It also has me reconsidering if the the interracial strife in Glen Cook's Tun Faire books wouldn't be a deal breaker for a setting (since they treat each other badly like you'd expect in the real world, but none of them are innately worse in a good-evil sense).

I don't think bigotry existing in the setting really is an issue, it's a story element. Now if there is an alignment system that says that the bigots are actually objectively correct, then we have a problem!

 

[Faolyn]

Yes, I have had halfling characters at my table. Sure. Last group had one. Fair enough. But, while @Faolyn talks about how his current group has three, I highly, highly suspect that that's an outlier. That if people were honest, and actually tracked back the last several years of gaming, polled the character made at your table, I suspect you might have 1 in 10 characters be halflings. At the outside. Probably less.

She, actually.

And considering there's over a hundred races and subraces, 1 in 10 being halflings isn't a bad ratio for something "nobody" plays.

 

[Vaalingrade]

Bigotry existing in the setting is really just a good reason for towns to be burned to the ground because they're dumb enough to be bigots to people who can ignite you if you hurt them as a reflex.

 

[Faolyn]

Maybe it was the crowd I ran with back before the pandemic, but I've never seen a Dex fighter in play that wasn't primarily an archer (which halflings are also at a disadvantage at because they can't use longbows well). Sword and board fighters were also really rare, that was more of a paladin thing in my experience. All the fighters I've seen were going for one of the meta feats, or at least using the meta weapons (longbow, hand crossbow, halberd, or greatsword).

First 5e character I made was a two-shortsword-wielding Dexadin.

 

[Chaosmancer]

I have no idea what this means.

Racial traits are stereotypes for the character traits members allegedly have. The argument that appears (APPEARS) to be being put forward is that the stereotype of halflings isn't a good one for adventurers and therefore... what? I actually don't get what the point of the argument is beyond that because every adventurer is an exceptional individual and species's stereotype doesn't actually matter.

There's also something about history, but every time people bring up history in non-Eberron settings, I black out and wake up refreshed eight hours (and 1/10th of that history's recounting) later.

Except... very few of us are arguing that halfling stereotypes aren't good for adventurers. We are talking about how empty the lore is. And, when we push back and say that "hey, just being an innocent soul isn't enough for a race" we get slammed for talking about character traits, because then any race can be anything. But, the posts we are responding to are saying "we play halflings because they are innocent souls" and use that character trait to defend the race.

So... it is fine to use character traits to defend halflings, but if you mention how they are character traits and not really something you should apply blanketly to a whole race, we are the bad guys for mixing character traits into the discussion? It doesn't make any sense.

And, sure, you can ignore everything that isn't Eberron if you like. I enjoy Eberron a lot, it is an incredibly cool setting. But when talking about how the Game of Dungeons and Dragons has treated a race of characters, going beyond the single current setting that intentionally breaks with the tropes of the game is a necessity.

No one is saying this. This is combining two parts of the discussion:

1) those are the traits they like about halflings and don't want them removed.
2) People who don't like halflings keep pointing to the fact that they don't have a concept conducive to self-justifying ISO standard mercenary adventurers.

Finally, 'extrapolating' is not a fancy word for 'adding'.

Steeldragon
Bedir than
Oofta

All three of them said it. I responded and quoted directly all three of them saying it. Unless you are saying they are nobody, then you are wrong.

And, for added confusion, your point #1 is nonsensical. Removing halflings from the game (which is not something I have ever advocated for in this thread) would not remove honest, naive characters from the game. Or any other combination of character traits that they are saying they like. The concern that removing halflings from the game removes something like "caring for the simple pleasures in life" from the game is bizarre and flat out WRONG.

And I don't care how many times I have to repeat it, but every single time I see that argument I will dispute it. Being against halflings isn't being against good honest folk, or simple brave people, or whatever other nonsense people want to do to try and limit the character concepts I play and make it seem like halflings are the only route to doing something other than edgy grimdark overpowered characters.

 

[Garthanos]

That's like the reason to play a tiefling. If your devil-person is just a normal part of a society and no one bats an eye, what's even the point?

Though one thing I find hilarious that the tiefling and the drow, two races the PHB especially says are generally hated and mistrusted in many places get a bonus to their charisma, actually making them better than average getting along with people!

And better at intimidating... usually.

 

[Whizbang Dustyboots]

I apparently never really read the material on Tieflings or forgot it if I did.

"People tend to be suspicious of tieflings, assuming that their infernal heritage has left its mark on their personality and morality, not just their appearance. Shopkeepers keep a close eye on their goods when tieflings enter their stores, the town watch might follow a tiefling around for a while, and demagogues blame tieflings for strange happenings."

While genre obvious, this feels especially awkward to roleplay and I'm kind of surprised I don't remember it coming up (at least for comparison) on any of the threads about half-orcs.

Is it uncommon? It's pretty standard in my games historically, going all the way back to 1E with half-orcs. (Politics got into my D&D and didn't destroy it, even as a middle schooler!)

I'm sure there are plenty of games when it doesn't come up, though, especially with younger players who grew up seeing all sorts of more exotic fantasy characters incorporated in anime and movies and videogames without anyone freaking out. (World of Warcaft, for instance, has a popular race of exiles from the primary race of demons and they're some of the most iconic paladins and cleric-equivalents in the setting.)

Barbara Eden hooking up with Larry Hagman seems a lot happier than some horrible pact with Asmodeus...

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"So, Jeannie: My first wish is going to be about birth control."