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

[Chaosmancer]

@Chaosmancer I am sorry, I had to put you on ignore in order to exit the earlier interaction without making it worse.

Having taken a break from this discussion, I have a question. Earlier in the thread I posited some simple additions to Halfling lore, and asked if something along those lines would potentially fix the problem for you.

So, would you be interested in a fresh discussion about making Halflings more interesting to you?2

I did answer those questions and said that they were fine additions and would likely work.

 

[Chaosmancer]

NO race should be a major race as default. But getting sulky about a race you don't like being listed first isn't a good reason to genocide them.

And most of us arguing that they need rewritten and improved aren't trying to genocide them. Win-win!

 

[Faolyn]

The two options produce different results obviously, but yeah, getting rid of elves as a common race would make them more interesting. Or perhaps they simply need to be less mundane? Like, make them more like Eladrin? Not sure how mythical you could make them and stay within D&D race paradigms, though.

You can't. As soon as you make them playable, they become mundane options.

 

[Chaosmancer]

1. That isn't in the description for trance in the PHB.
2. Narratively it sounds just as impactful a feature just dreaming, which most every other race can do too.

If you can dream about your reincarnated past lives, which you know for a fact exist because your people reincarnate. Which humans do not do in DnD.

I do agree that should have been in the PHB, it is a cool idea. But it was put in MToF

 

[Crimson Longinus]

And most of us arguing that they need rewritten and improved aren't trying to genocide them. Win-win!

Burt didn't you say you tried to make halflings work for you in your campaign and couldn't? So how could there be a rewrite that would satisfy you if you couldn't do it yourself?

 

[Crimson Longinus]

If you can dream about your reincarnated past lives, which you know for a fact exist because your people reincarnate. Which humans do not do in DnD.

You mean humans don't do it in Forgotten Realms.

 

[Oofta]

that is literally never mentioned in their lore where are you getting it from?

reprenstion has little to do with models and more to do with who much they matter in settings.

It is literally the first sentence in the PHB after the intro paragraph under Small and Practical "The diminutive halflings survive in a world full of larger creatures by avoiding notice or, barring that, avoiding offense."

But still doesn't answer the question. Other than humans and elves (I assume) how many races are broadly represented in the modules? Aren't most of the NPCs "important people"? Because that's kind of the antithesis of the halflings that "... cherish the bonds of family and friendship as well as the comforts of hearth and home, harboring few dreams of gold or glory."

 

[doctorbadwolf]

I did answer those questions and said that they were fine additions and would likely work.

I know you did, that was part of the premise of my post. I am asking if you'd be willing to turn this into a productive discussion, and talk about specifics. I mean, I have favorite halfling gods and strong opinions on the MToF halfling lore (some positive, more negative. I really dislike that book), so I'm pretty sure we can have a productive discussion. It just isn't going to happen as part of the current argument loop in this thread.

 

[Chaosmancer]

Ah yes, lead with the the blatantly false "all lore should be moved" canard that I have never once stated. Then add on the falsehood that I accused you of not saying what you want. I did not say that. I stand by the fact that 99% of what you post is playing the victim and complaining about all of your "opponents", instead of talking about how to make halflings more interesting.

But sure. You said some things you would add about being diplomats and lore keepers. I disagree with and explained why. You just went back on the attack. If you apologized about Tolkien I didn't see it, AFAIK it wasn't in a response to me.

In any case, once again proving it's pointless because all I'm saying is that yes you are entitled to your opinion. The fact that you state or imply that other people's opinions are baseless and without value, that only your exalted opinion matters is what bothers me.

I did ask if that was your opinion. I thought you were advocating for a removal of lore and putting it all in setting books. My apologies for getting you confused with someone else.

Also... I did try talking about making halflings more interesting. I've done it a few times on this thread. I'm generally ignored and then a few dozen posts later people are accusing us of wanting to delete halflings or genocide halflings or something of the sort. As well as asserting that there is no need to fix halflings as they stand.

I don't remember you ever explaining why. Looking through the posts you might be referring to this post?

You: they should be diplomats.
My answer: In my campaign the Renai (nomadic trader halflings) do this to a limited extent by spreading news of he world and delivering letters and messages. But true diplomats are very political and requires a lot of force of personality, something halflings are not known for. Being likeable doesn't really make you a diplomat.

You: they should be lore keepers.
My answer: that's quite out of left field. I don't see them caring about libraries of knowledge, nor is there any connection to their roots or lore.

snipped

So, you didn't really say that they couldn't be rewritten into diplomats and lorekeepers. You said that they aren't diplomats because halflings aren't known for their forces of personality and being likable isn't the same thing. You also said that they have no connection to lore keeping or libraries.

I guess you could twist that into being a disagreement with the rewrite, but it seems more like you were arguing that those aspects do not appear in their current depiction... which is a rather strange argument against a rewrite. It is basically saying "You can't make them like that, that changes them". Yes... that would sort of be the point of a rewrite. To change things.

And my response post here: D&D General - My Problem(s) With Halflings, and How To Create Engaging/Interesting Fantasy Races does not seem to be in any way an attack against you. I did get slightly frustrated over your response to me saying you had accused me of things, but most of that post was responding directly to your points, one by one.

In the end, I don't think you actually gave any reason why my rewrite was bad, except that you felt it changed halflings, and you don't want them officially changed, even though you run a homebrew world where they have been changed. Almost exclusively running that world if memory serves me.

 

[doctorbadwolf]

You can't. As soon as you make them playable, they become mundane options.

I disagree entirely. The alfar in my game are not mundane at all, nor the jinn, the Watchers, the Fallen, nor the Vaettr.

It's harder in dnd, because dnd makes everything so damn numerical and concrete, but it certainly isn't impossible.