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

[Whizbang Dustyboots]

Or an individual hero who was born in a storm his parent dies and they almost do too but an elemental takes pity and restores life changing them in the process with a part elemental spirit.

I assume said hero's name is Jumping Jack Flash.

 

[Garthanos]

I assume said hero's name is Jumping Jack Flash.

Well full reveal there were 5 different characters in 5 different locations simultaneously born and the last one was in a really complex storm including tornados/earthquake/forest fire/flood and that one seemed strangely human as the elements fully mixed the others were more strikingly partaking of their birthright. (Do not remember their names )

 

[FrozenNorth]

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 think for half-orc it is broader than that. I think that there are a fair number of players who may be mixed race or feel like a child of two different worlds, and half-orcs are a good representation of that.

I suspect that something similar drives engagement with tieflings, with players wanting characters that reflect their own feelings of being an outsider.

 

[Whizbang Dustyboots]

Well full reveal there were 5 different characters in 5 different locations simultaneously born and the last one was in a really complex storm including tornados/earthquake/forest fire/flood and that one seemed strangely human as the elements fully mixed the others were more strikingly partaking of their birthright. (Do not remember their names )

Was the fifth, strangely human, one always going on and on about how "heart" was an element?

 

[Whizbang Dustyboots]

I think for half-orc it is broader than that. I think that there are a fair number of players who may be mixed race or feel like a child of two different worlds, and half-orcs are a good representation of that.

I suspect that something similar drives engagement with tieflings, with players wanting characters that reflect their own feelings of being an outsider.

As illustrated for 56 pages now, not every race will appeal to every player in the same way. Half-orcs don't speak to me, but I can definitely imagine they will speak to others.

 

[Chaosmancer]

Well, if you've changed existing lore for one race, why do you have a problem doing it with another race?

Let's take a quick litte tanget before I answer you question.

Have you homebrewed or changed ANY class for DnD EVER? Even a little bit like giving Ranger's spells prepared, or giving sorcerers a few more sorcery points?

I'm going to assume yes, that at some point you have changed something written for a base class, or included a UA subclass or something.

Therefore this class should be completely acceptable at your table, right? Chronomancer, 2nd Variant (5e Class) - D&D Wiki Or really, any class at all. Because you changed one right, so why do you have problem changing another?

That is the fundamental flaw you are making with your assertion. You are assuming that because I changed elves or dwarves or gnomes or anything that they were insufficient as a base design. Because that is the claim I am making about halfling lore, that the base halfling lore is insufficient. And your response seems to be, constantly, that I can just change it.

Yes, I can change. Yes, I have changed lore for other races because I thought I had a better idea. HOWEVER, just because I can change something for my own personal use DOES NOT mean that it is not a flawed design before I change it. Trying to get me to stop saying that the baseline halfling is bad, because I can homebrew it, is like trying to say that there is no bad design for classes, becuase you can just homebrew it. Homebrew doesn't excuse bad design.

No it doesn't. It just means it's not necessarily a formal position--because unlike the Duur'Kala, almost every halfling knows the lore.

So almost every halfling knows almost every story about halflings across the entire plane of existence? How. Let's just take a single continent. Are we trying to claim that every single remote halfling village has talked to every other remote halfling village, and every halfling has heard all of the same stories?

And somehow, somehow, all of these stories are about important lore, and none of them ever get forgotten in any way...

You are stretching this far too much. And you are still not addressing my reasons for why halflings having the occassional story that inlcudes details about an ancient empire does not make them lorekeepers.

Which is why the text also says that they're curious and like exploring.

So your claim is that every single nomadic halfling is an adventurer. I find that is stretching the term "adventurer" until it breaks in half and is meaningless, but at least I finally got you to say it after three different times asking.

So this means that Tabaxi merchants are also adventurers and lorekeepers right? They travel from place to place, collecting stories, and they are curious and enjoy exploring. So every Tabaxi merchant is also an adventurer, right?

Many of those above-mentioned traits aren't inherently Good. Brave isn't Good. Villains can be affable and good-natured and then turn around and kill you, so that's not a Good trait. Disliking displays of wealth isn't Good. Being reliable and cooperative is Lawful, not Good.

And each of those words helps to paint a picture of what kind of Good a halfling is.

They're also all different types of good. Elves are good, but they are famously not open, welcoming, generous, and empathic to all, are usually described as capricious rather than reliable, and generally prefer the "pretty" people like artists and scholars to farmers.

You realize that the affable and good-natured villain who turns around and kills someone is done SOLELY because being affable and good-natured is a contradiction with being an evil murderer right?

And, I'm seriously having trouble thinking of a single character who disliked displays of wealth who didn't have that trait as a good and positive character trait. Same with being reliable and cooperative. Same with liking the common folk. Same with being Brave.

An elf who is empathatic, reliable and enjoys the company of a farmer? Yep, I've seen it.

Uh, yes. Very different. One can be brave and also very emotional at the same time. And a person can be open and welcoming, a grump, and a terrible host. "Yeah yeah, come in. Go grab yourself a drink. Get me one too while you're at it. And take off your damn shoes."

So, now it is brave and unemotionally calm? And being "a grump" doesn't make you a terrible host. You are trying make these each distinctive, but what you are really doing is showing that some of them are flavors of the rest. Which... doesn't mean they can stand on their own enough to make a huge list to show how "complex" halflings are.

Yes, lots of things actually. I don't know why it doesn't tell you anything. This is why I think you're not actually bothering to think about the traits, or are allowing your dislike for halflings to blind you to them.

Or I'm just able to think "they are good-natured farm boys" and that covers 85% of your list. You are trying to make it seem like the list is bigger and more important than it is, and then when we examine the traits in aggregate... they don't amount to much.

Every single D&D race is monolithic. Every one of them. Elves are flighty, haughty, fey-like, magical. Dwarfs are stoic, gruff, heavy drinkers, bearded. Goblins are tricksy, cowardly, impulsive, destructive. Humans are innovative, curious, adaptable, ambitious. These are written as universal traits for those races. Why are you complaining about halflings and not these other races?

I specifically asked you what you need to make a race interesting. Did you forget to answer?

No, I didn't forget to answer. I decided not to try and spend an extra five thousand words trying to figure out an answer that was going to not get picked apart in 30 seconds because you are determined to make me out to be the bad guy here.

I like races that are interesting. That have lore that makes them feel more real and connects them to the world.

Like, you mentioned dwarves are bearded... but that doesn't really matter in making dwarves interesting. Sure, all male dwarves have beards, it is a definining visual trait for them, but that is like saying all humans have hair. Having hair doesn't make you interesting. Are all elves really haughty and flighty? I've actually never encountered a flighty elf in my games. OR actually in most media depictions of them. Haughty, I've seen, but not ALL elves. I've seen the story of the wood elf ranger who fell in love with a human hunter, and that elf is never haughty.

And actually, I'd say you've got it wrong on goblins, but I have seen that version of them. In fact, Goblins are a bit fascinating, because they vary A LOT in how they are depicted. From imperial ninjas to mad scientists to shamanistic beast tamers to suicidally insane forces of destructive, all of those are goblins.

So, I'm complaining about halflings because they have far less complexity and lore than the other races. And there are other things I could complain about, but this is also a thread ABOUT halflings. It would be beyond bizarre for me to post in this thread about how I really feel that shifters should envelop Tabaxi, leonin, loxodons and minotaurs and make a beast folk race. And how Goliaths just kind of suck as a race. This isn't a thread to discuss those things. This is a thread to discuss halflings.

So why is that bad? Does every member of every PC have to be edgy or grimdark or super-serious? Can't you have people who are just decent people?

No, not every member of every single PC race has to be edgy.

On the flip side, it is kind of bad to have every member of halflings be Mary Sue and her brother Bary Stu, because they are perfect innocent ultra-good people with no real flaws except that they just care too much. And yes, it is getting that extreme at times, because they aren't just decent people. They are the MOST decent people, they are the MOST pure people. I mean, humans have people who are just decent people, but humans are also ambitious, and greedy and their cities destroy the environment, and shouldn't they really just live simple pastoral lives free from the evils of money and power like halflings? Elves have people who are just decent people, but shouldn't they be less haughty and more just simple, salt of the earth individuals, focusing on simple pleasures and simple living?

Halflings are presented with no real flaws, they are just the best people. And everyone else should be more like them. And that is boring as crap.

No, you have been saying that because you can play those characters without playing a halfling, that means that halflings are pointless and have no use or purpose in a setting. Those are very different things.

I can play a flighty, haughty, fey-like, and magical gnome, or a stoic, gruff, heavy-drinking, bearded orc, or a tricksy, cowardly, impulsive, and destructive tiefling. That doesn't mean elves, dwarfs, or goblins are pointless.

No, I have actually never made that claim. I have said that they lack lore and that makes them boring. I have also said that you can't defend them by saying that they can be played towards certain tropes, which has caused people to constantly put forth that I hate halflings and that I only want edgy grimdark characters.

It would greatly help you to understand what I am actually arguing, instead of just assuming you know what I am arguing. And since I've stated what I am arguing a few times... I wonder how you still keep missing it.

Earth elemental is also a term for any sort of elemental from the Plane of Earth. Which includes dao and a whole bunch of others, many of whom are not mindless.

Then you would be even more wrong. Because the Dao, the most intelligent of the Elementals from the Plane of Earth (a far better way of saying that so that people know that by earth elemental you don't mean earth elementals, the thing with that name) are slavers who constantly have their slaves mining massive mining complexes. Claiming they would be against large scale mines is absurd.

Which leaves... the Xorn who work with dwarves because they basically are driven by their hunger and will be okay with what the dwarves do as long as they can eat, and the Ghaleb Dhur, which is doesn't state one way or the other how they feel about mining, but since it doesn't really mention them having a particular dislike for dwarves, I'd say it is a stretch to say that they do.

So. you are still wrong. Actually, even more wrong now, because now we have shown elementals from the plane of earth who do the exact type of mining you said they would hate, and I'm not really familiar with any opposing forces from that plane who seek to prevent that mining specifically to preserve the rock and stone.

I did. You didn't actually say why elves and dwarfs are important.

One of the things you said are "the point of elves is to have a magical and long lived race." But gnomes and firbolg are also magical and long-lived. Many other races are magical, and many other races are long-lived. And that's ignoring the tons of monsters that live for many hundreds or thousands of years or that are immortal. And that's ignoring that there's a section in the PH description of humans that talks about how humans, "dream of immortality, but (except for those few who seek undeath or divine ascension to escape death's clutches) they achieve it by ensuring that they will be remembered when they are gone" by building institutions. Meaning you can remove elves from a setting and lose nothing, because several other races have the same aspects covered.

Equating humans with elves because humans seek to be remembered is a laugh. They don't cover that base at all.

Gnomes are long-lived and magical, but they tend not to have that same weight of the ages upon them. I think it is because gnomes are often portrayed as being insatiably curious and always moving forward. They don't contemplate the past very much, which is one aspect of the elves. Also, elves are generally presented as more widely magical. Elves make grand spells and grand uses of their magic, gnomes do illusions, but very few times are they presented as completing a grand magical ritual.

I actually agree with you about Firbolgs, they are a great substitute for elves. But they lack the grand quality of elves. You can go and visit the grand empire of the elves, but you can't do that with Firbolg. They lean far more heavily into the idea of being one with nature and living simply in the forests and other wild places, while the elves are much more human in their desire to build cities and make monuments. Firbolgs are also going through a lot of changes right now. There 5e depiction is amazing, but it is practically brand-new, and they are nothing like what they were previously. I think they are going to catch on and be big, but they are in a transitional period and not quite ready to be front and center as an alternative to the most popular fantasy race in existence.

Ditto for dwarfs. You say "But the idea of dwarves is to take that same enormous lifetime and apply it to crafting. Dwarves make the best and most enduring things" but again, there's other races that can do the same thing. Gnomes are amazing crafters. And if you aren't on Krynn, the stuff they make rarely explodes. And several monsters are good crafters as well, like fire giants and azer. If you take dwarfs out, all that happens is that you get stone objects that don't last quite as long... and considering that we nonmagical humans in the real world have made structures that have literally lasted for millennia. And we managed to not release any balrogs while doing so. (Sadly, many humans do suffer from gold fever.)

You know, I was going to skip it, but since you brought it up twice... you do realize that when discussing player character races, there is a reason we aren't talking about Monsters... right? Saying Fire Giants can make cool things doesn't change the fact that players can't play fire giants. And Azer are really just dwarves from the elemental plane of fire, so I'm not sure about counting them at all. (Heck, even Fire Giants are often depicted as the dwarves of giant kind)

And yes, I'm aware that humans have made stone structures that have lasted a long time. But could we carve a mountain into a statue? Maybe now a days, if we really wanted to, but it would be an incredibly difficult task. In Eberron they show the Mror Holds, and one of the mountain's was carved into a dwarven head. Not like Rushmore, where they carved a cliff face, they turned a mountain into a face larger than the mountain next to it. It is on page 120 in my book, if you want to turn and look at the sheer enormity of it.

That is beyond human skill. That's why we have dwarves, to do things like that. And sure, gnomes are "crafters" but they do it in a very different manner. They are much more about clockwork, steamwork, and inventions. Gnomes aren't really shown as the type to carve a statue, or build a city. There is nothing saying they can't, but they cover the more engineering side.

Now look at the list of the traits I wrote about for halflings. If you take out halflings, what do you lose: you lose kind people who can bridge the gaps between other races and help others get along. You lose people who make things that others find comfortable. You lose a steady source of food and ale and household goods. A dwarf can build you a nice stone house, and an elf can make you a magical, ever-changing painting, but the halfling would make the comfortable couch you can stretch out on and relax while eating a nice dinner. You lose a people who bring a sense of wonder to those around them. You lose a people who try to make the world a nicer place.

So then answer this question: why is this bad or uninteresting? Yeah, it's not epic. There's very little blood involved. It's PG-rated. But in general? It's a good, useful, and important role.

And yeah, you can take them out and not lose much, like you wouldn't lose much by taking out any other race. You can probably even take that same role and give it to another race, if you wanted to. But that is not a good enough reason to not include them in the first place.

But halflings don't bridge the gaps between races. They are primed for doing that in a few ways, but they never have actually taken that step in the lore. It would be kind of neat to see halflings as the diplomats of the world, bringing people together, but actually that terminology is only used with Half-Elves. Does everyone love halfings and get along with halfings? Yes. Do halflings do anything with that other than being loved and getting along? No. They don't. Halfling diplomats are pretty much never mentioned or depicted.

And, I've sure never seen elves, humans and dwarves depicted as without food, ale/wine, and household goods if there are no halflings around. Halflings don't feed the world. They simply don't. There is no evidence of that anywhere. You just made it up to justify them being the race depicted as farmers. I mean, looking to FR, Evermeet is an elven only city that allows no outsiders and I believe has no contact with outsiders. Are they all starving, drinking water, and have no comfortable furniture? No, that's ridiculous.

People trying to make the world a nicer place? EVERY RACE has people who try and do that. Why does that need to be the role of an entire race of people? Why do we have to state that no one else is trying to make the world a nicer place? A sense of wonder? Well, that is something Gnomes have in spades. It is a driving force for them, wonder and curiosity. They are also trying to make the world a nicer place.

Actually, since you are always asking me about my homebrew and what I changed and why I changed it, I actually did something in particular with Gnomes. See, they were born from gems and led out of the darkness of somewhere and to the Prime Material world. I went ahead and took their zeal and wonderment at life and that detail and made a shift in Gnomish cosmology. For them, the Prime is Heaven. When the die, they don't go somewhere else in the planes. They join up with a death goddess a friend made for them, that I helped with as part of the Lost Sisters story, and they stay in the world. Because this place is their heaven.

So, yeah. It'd be really cool to see halflings as the Diplomat race. That'd be a great way to rewrite their lore, but the rest of this? You are just making things up to try and justify their status quo.

Human deities

forgottenrealms.fandom.com

Did you actually read through that link, or just put it up and think that disputed my claim?

See, because first of all, this includes a few lists like:

The Azuposi pantheon
The Mulhorandi Pantheon
The Chultan Panetheon
The Celestial Empire (Pantheon for Kara-Tur)
The Maztican Pantheon
The Netherese Pantheon
The Osslandish Pantheon
The Padhrasattvas (Not exactly a pantheon, basically buddhist saints for the Padhran religion)
The Untheric Pantheon
The Zakharan Pantheon

See, these are all different regional pantheons. So, while for example I do believe the Mulhorandi (fantasy egypt) area is fairly human centric, I'm not so sure that the entirety of Kara-Tur is limited to only humans.

Also, things like the Zakharan pantheon and Untheric pantheon include beings like Tiamat, Bahamut, Lolth, and Kossuth who isn't even always thought of as a god and instead is a primal elemental.

Additionally, you have beings like Shar, Selune, Mystra, Bane, Tyr, Auril and other dieties who are worshipped pretty generally. In fact, Auril it seems has a massive following by the Taers, a race of yeti looking people, and she has a lot of Frost Giant followers.

Soo... is Auril a human goddess? Or is she just a goddess who is occassionally worshipped by humans? Oh wait, you are going to just say "yes" she is both. See, but I asked for a pretty specific thing. Human only gods that weren't simply regional gods. And this massive list is full of regional gods and general gods who are worshipped by multiple races. So... link drop failed.

Yes, it's both. Duh.

So, your halfling PCs never run into traps. They also have gold just appear in their path. All halflings, despite not wanting wealth, just find it randomly and without logic or purpose, and nothing bad ever happens to them.

Yeah. Can't imagine why I have trouble showing that in the game world, I just need to shower the halfling player with all good things and prevent all bad things, and that isn't going to cause any problems at the table.

Yeah, so a very common homebrew rule, based on similar rules from earlier editions, is poor. Right...

I never said the rule was poor. I'm saying using a homebrew rule to justify an interpretation of official lore is a poor argument. After all, if you aren't using the homebrew rule... what justification exists for the lore?

Not really.

An example: I like spiders. They have the cutest faces. They have adorable footsies. Or tarsi, whatever. They're awesome and amazing.

That's what halflings are like. Show them something that would frighten or creep other people out and they'll think it's pretty interesting, actually.

So, halflings do not fear the unknown, and they don't fear the known. So if they have an orc coming to kill them they feel nothing resembling fear, because they are basically incapable of fear. And that is represented by having advantage against magical fear (or non-magical fear if you are using a homebrew rule where that exists and decide that halflings get advantage on that too)

And what is weird about that is... I know a few humans who wouldn't be creeped out by a spider and think it is cute. I'd bet gnomes aren't really creeped out a lot. And yet somehow, this is a halfling thing where they... I mean do they even have a concept of what fear is? You are bascially re-writing them to have no conceptual basis for fear, and yet halflings can get scared. Rolling with advantage isn't immunity. So, they just don't scare easily? I could say that about a lot of people.

...

They're nimble. They can squeeze into small spots and through narrow gaps. They're bendy, like cats. Or can really suck in their guts. They can find the narrow gap between the gelatinous cube and the wall. Humans can't. If they try to walk between the legs of a giant, they'd bounce off an ankle or be too busy dodging one foot that they wouldn't notice the other one about to kick them.

Where did that wall come from? I never mentioned a wall. Do they need a wall to use their ability? And it is kind of funny that my level 20 human rogue with a 20 dexterity can't move between the legs of a giant because they aren't fast or nimble enough, and they'd totally be caught off-guard because they can't keep track of more than one leg at a time, but my level 1 halfling wizard with a dexterity of 10 can totally pass through those giant's legs.

Oh, and there is nothing that says they are really bendy like cats. You are adding that part to try and justify it. Maybe that's why I had trouble portraying this trait in my worlds, because I was trying not to add things that would allow them to do far more than the ability says, and you don't really care you will just add things willy-nilly to prove me wrong that this is super easy to depict in the world.

If you don't like that alignment, tell that to the people who wrote the system.

I have been against alignment for years... actually likely decades by this point. I've told people I don't like alignment multiple times. So, thanks for telling me to do a thing I already do.

 

[Chaosmancer]

If you don't like halflings, then don't play one. If you are a DM, u can ban them. No need to try to ban them for everyone else.

Even Hussar who is going way farther than me is only wanting to move them out of the first wave of PHB races for the next edition. He's expicitly said he believes putting them in the monster manual keeps them playable for everyone else.

So, no one I've seen is trying to ban them from the game.

And, to turn this around, why are you against rewriting them with stronger lore and a better place in the game world? What is wrong with improving halflings by say, making them the diplomats of the world who travel on river boats and caravans, faciliating trade and acting as the glue that stitches the civilized world together. And maybe giving their gods some actual lore and giving them an origin beyond "they were found".

What is wrong with that? What makes that a bad thing that will ruin halflings for you>

 

[Alzrius]

And there is no human pantheon. It doesn't really exist.

Well, it's not a pantheon, but humans do have one racial deity in D&D: Zarus, from Races of Destiny (affiliate link).

Zarus is called "the true human god" and is considered the only god who places humans before all others. He cares nothing for the other races, only for humanity, and encourages his followers to prove themselves better than any nonhuman. Unfortunately, he also fosters the belief that humans deserve to rule the world, treating other races as servants. His priests teach that other races are inferior, in need of human guidance -- and human masters.

The clerics of Zarus encourage conquest and slavery. The worst sin a human can commit, according to the Church of Zarus, is to mate with a nonhuman and produce a child. This child is a taint on the race and must be removed.

Sounds legit!

 

[Chaosmancer]

I just find this whole thing pointless. One side doesn't like halflings and therefore anyone who likes them is trying to shove a terrible race down their throat and supports keeping them for stupid reasons*. If we took that same logic, we should probably get rid of sorcerer and druid because those classes are also not popular.

I mean, look at genasi. Mechanically? I can see why people want to play them. They have some nice racial benefits, although I'd be curious to see what percentage are fire genasi. But culture? Lore? Pretty threadbare. Ooh, one of your parents boinked a genie. Hope they got their wish!

None of the races has much in-depth lore that is not setting specific. I actually prefer that because as a DM it give me a starting point and leaves a lot of room to build on.

*Yes, yes I know small novella responses have been written on why they're bad, but it really still comes back to "I don't like them so you're playing wrong".

It is almost like they are considered a sub-race of humans, like Aasimar and Tieflings, and that humans are treated different than other races.

I mean... that's what the various plane-touched races are. Take a race, add planar energy, boom. My only complaint about them really is that it is very hard to make them seem like actually part of the race with 5e's design, but lore wise? Lore wise they serve their purpose excellently.

 

[Garthanos]

Was the fifth, strangely human, one always going on and on about how "heart" was an element

The idea was from 1982... or there about but the fifth was indeed the group leader.