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

[doctorbadwolf]

Which is weird, isn't it?

No, not particularly.

You said the PHB gave us two cultures. One of those cultures was Nomadic halflings.

Yes, as is plainly proven by...reading the PHB.

And now you are claiming that the PHB isn't meant to cover nomadic halfings? That we are just supposed to extrapolate "general halfling" + "nomad"?

This is why people get irritated with you, throughout this thread. Stop trying to play rhetorical tricks and just engage in an honest discussion.

So... they didn't give us a new culture.

Well, no, but only because nomadic halflings aren't a new idea, having started in...maybe 3.5, at the latest?

They just said "and some are nomads" and you decided to run with it. Because, I'm pretty sure as nomads they can't do a lot of the things that the PHB claims halflings do.

This is another example. Charitably, I'd say this comes across as if you didn't read the relevant text.

So, I'm going to quote the PHB, leaving out anything that I genuinely could see a strong argument for "can't do a lot of things that the phb claims halflings do", and present to you a nomadic halflings, using only the PHB.

"Though some halflings live out their days in remote agricultural communities, others form nomadic bands that travel constantly, lured by the open road and the wide horizon to discover the wonders of new lands and peoples. But even these wanderers love peace, food, hearth, and home, though home might be a wagon jostling along an dirt road or a raft floating downriver.

Small and Practical​

The diminutive halflings survive in a world full of larger creatures by avoiding notice or, barring that, avoiding offense. Standing about 3 feet tall, they appear relatively harmless and so have managed to survive for centuries in the shadow of empires and on the edges of wars and political strife. They are inclined to be stout, weighing between 40 and 45 pounds.

Halflings’ skin ranges from tan to pale with a ruddy cast, and their hair is usually brown or sandy brown and wavy. They have brown or hazel eyes. Halfling men often sport long sideburns, but beards are rare among them and mustaches even more so. They like to wear simple, comfortable, and practical clothes, favoring bright colors.

Halfling practicality extends beyond their clothing. They’re concerned with basic needs and simple pleasures and have little use for ostentation. Even the wealthiest of halflings keep their treasures locked in a cellar rather than on display for all to see. They have a knack for finding the most straightforward solution to a problem, and have little patience for dithering.

Kind and Curious​

Halflings are an affable and cheerful people. They cherish the bonds of family and friendship as well as the comforts of hearth and home, harboring few dreams of gold or glory. Even adventurers among them usually venture into the world for reasons of community, friendship, wanderlust, or curiosity. They love discovering new things, even simple things, such as an exotic food or an unfamiliar style of clothing.

Halflings are easily moved to pity and hate to see any living thing suffer. They are generous, happily sharing what they have even in lean times.

Blend into the Crowd​

Halflings are adept at fitting into a community of humans, dwarves, or elves, making themselves valuable and welcome. The combination of their inherent stealth and their unassuming nature helps halflings to avoid unwanted attention.

Halflings work readily with others, and they are loyal to their friends, whether halfling or otherwise. They can display remarkable ferocity when their friends, families, or communities are threatened.

Pastoral Pleasantries​

(image included because it's delightful. The halfling rogue definitely knows how to darn socks and repair other everyday goods. This isn't a canon thing, don't fricken nitpick me, it's a vibe.)

They rarely build kingdoms of their own or even hold much land beyond their quiet shires. They typically don’t recognize any sort of halfling nobility or royalty, instead looking to family elders to guide them. Families preserve their traditional ways despite the rise and fall of empires.

Some halfling communities travel as a way of life, driving wagons or guiding boats from place to place and maintaining no permanent home.

Exploring Opportunities​

Halflings usually set out on the adventurer’s path to defend their communities, support their friends, or explore a wide and wonder-filled world. For them, adventuring is less a career than an opportunity or sometimes a necessity.

Alignment. Most halflings are lawful good. As a rule, they are good-hearted and kind, hate to see others in pain, and have no tolerance for oppression. They are also very orderly and traditional, leaning heavily on the support of their community and the comfort of their old ways. (lol alignment. yeah, this does not read "lawful" to me, but okay dnd)

Languages. You can speak, read, and write Common and Halfling. The Halfling language isn’t secret, but halflings are loath to share it with others. They write very little, so they don’t have a rich body of literature. Their oral tradition, however, is very strong. Almost all halflings speak Common to converse with the people in whose lands they dwell or through which they are traveling.

Lightfoot​

As a lightfoot halfling, you can easily hide from notice, even using other people as cover. You’re inclined to be affable and get along well with others. In the Forgotten Realms, lightfoot halflings have spread the farthest and thus are the most common variety.

Lightfoots are more prone to wanderlust than other halflings, and often dwell alongside other races or take up a nomadic life. In the world of Greyhawk, these halflings are called hairfeet or tallfellows.

Stout​

As a stout halfling, you’re hardier than average and have some resistance to poison. Some say that stouts have dwarven blood. In the Forgotten Realms, these halflings are called stronghearts, and they’re most common in the south.


Well, damn, how about that. Not counting the mechanics, and the "what do they think about other races" part that I didn't bother with, I deleted maybe...a small paragraph worth of text. Literally the entire writeup works for nomadic halflings, except for the explicit mentions of farms and stationary communities. I even cut out a couple statements about city halflings, just to be fair.

Do you get it, now, or is this even more fruitless than I feared? Several mentions of nomadic life, travel, wanderlust, etc, not one statement that conflicts with that life. Is it clear now what I meant by when I said that most folks don't have any issue extrapolating nomadic halflings from the PHB? Hell, rereading the writeup, "extrapolate" is hyperbolic!

What, do they needs to devote paragraphs to each race's material culture, music, summarise their most iconic and beloved stories? Do we need each race to get 6 pages in the PHB and a full "races of XYZ" chapter in a later book?

Nope. Unless you are referring to the people who claim that they are short (not a reason that makes any sense) and lack magic (false) and are just common people (true of 80% of the rest of the races as well, and false because halfling adventurers exist)

I didn't think people were seriously considering those reasons. Especially since two of them are just out right wrong.

You've gotta be kidding.

The decision of whether or not my character has ‎Daemonophobia is my own. Also, "the wasp flies away" doesn't indicate to me that she is suddenly less scared like a lightswitch went off when it gets a certain distance away, but rather that it leaving the area makes her feel more at ease. She would never, I assume, decide to go charging a wasp's nest with the desire to enact vengeance upon them. Her fear is real, even if she isn't near a wasp. But a PC who is affected by a Pit Fiend's aura... doesn't have that fear at any other point. Unless the player decides they do.

Do you think walking in DnD 5e is magical? How about thrown weapon ranges? Climbing, jumping, swimming? Vision in low light? If not, then why are you nitpicking the distance of this one thing that happens to challenge your position?

yup, I'll go with 6% to make the pedants here happy - because that 1% is ALL IMPORTANT

It's not pedantry. Firstly, as @Oofta already said, it's obnoxious to constantly round 5.9 down to 5, not to mention the constant "less than 5%", etc. It makes it seem more like you feel a need to bolster your position with misleading statements, than like you have a solid position, as well, but I'm fine with people undermining their own bad arguments. It's just annoying, especially because you kept refusing to even acknowledge that you were making misleading statements.

Second, you've again completely ignored correction on your misleading statements in general, and ignored all challenges to the validity of "word search: halfling" as the basis for an argument on this topic. You just keep stating it, as if we should all just take it at face value. I mean, I don't even really trust that the numbers are wholly correct, or that you didn't include "dwarven" and other variants while excluding "halflings", because you've already habitually misrepresented statistics in this thread. I'm willing to accept the numbers anyway as "close enough", because they aren't actually evidence of anything. If there were, I'd be doing my own research to double check you, including how often named halflings vs dwarves are name-dropped, how often nicknames like "small-folk/small folk" are used, etc. But it doesn't matter, because it's a nonsensical basis for an argument.

Yes, the race that is designed to be less at the center of big events will....be mentioned less...in stories of those events. Okay, we agree, although again multiple statements you've made surrounding that notion have been shown to be false, and you either ignore or nitpick commentary on other aspects when it doesn't suit your argument. So what? Halflings are mentioned less. Okay? That has literally no bearing whatsoever on how popular they are, how much a part of DnD's identity they are, etc.

 

[Vaalingrade]

I mean, having people who act like people instead of action heroes or emo sadboys is actually pretty good worldbuilding.

 

[Gammadoodler]

But, the thing that you seemingly were baffled by was my telling Sabathius that I never said that halflings make poor PCs. PCs are individuals by definition.

I'm trying to figure out what your exact position actually is. I believe that I spelled that out specifically in my response.

To which you responded that I had misunderstood and then appeared to explain that your position was as I'd described and then brought up something I hadn't mentioned.

"It looks like you're saying the sky is blue"

"You misunderstand, what I'm actually saying is that the sky is blue...also l never said clouds weren't water vapor"

It's bizarre.

The thing is, you appear to be trying to summarize this conversation as if all accusations pointed your direction are unfounded. But again, the core issue you are seeing relentless pushback on is your stated position that:

As written, halflings are narratively/thematically objectively unsuitable for D&D as a game.

And specifically, the pushback is that your opinion/critical review/whatever does not represent some singular objective truth.

Are you disputing this understanding of your position?

 

[Zubatcarteira]

So, you force your players to befriend NPC's who succeed at persuasion checks? You force their attitudes to be "Friendly"? Do PC's have attitudes? I know that NPC's do, but, I was unaware of the rules for PC's. Can you quote the page please? Show me the rule?

I don't know any rule that stops anyone from using those on players, although I personally wouldn't do it unless they were fine with it. There are non-magical frightening effects that explicitly work though, I don't see why those would be treated differently from magical ones.

That was most a dig on how putting "magical" on a feature instantly makes an ability more acceptable compared to non-magical ones.

 

[Cadence]

Well, there is significant evidence here.

It doesn't make for good world building because, well, WotC isn't using it in any of it's considerable world building. Nor did TSR. Nor did practically anyone else who produced products professionally.
If it was so fantastic for world building, where are these worlds?

Didn't @Faolyn make a big post showing all of the Halflings in the published products?

I know all of my worlds that have had elves and dwarves have also had halflings.

Or am I missing what kind of world you're talking about?

 

[Hussar]

I don't think it's as grey as you think it is.

Again, show me the rule where it says that it's non-magical. You have assumed that anything that isn't specifically called out as magical is automatically non-magical. So, in your game I can kill undead with Dispel Magic? That Specter can walk through walls. Totally non-magical. After all, it doesn't say that it's magical. That draconic lightning breath is 100% natural. No magic there. Can I kill golems and other constructs too with Dispel Magic? That's one hell of a powerful spell isn't it? Hrmm... Ghouls paralyze by touch - totally non-magical, no poison, nothing. Just 100% non-magical paralysis by touching you. Could you let me know the chemical composition of the non-magical Gorgon breath that turns living tissue into stone? That would be one hell of a chemical. Same for a Medusa's Gaze too. Wow, that's one interesting totally non-magical effect. It can turn people to stone just by looking at them without so much as a drop of magic.

Do I really need to go on?

 

[Hussar]

Didn't @Faolyn make a big post showing all of the Halflings in the published products?

I know all of my worlds that have had elves and dwarves have also had halflings.

Or am I missing what kind of world you're talking about?

Did you publish your setting? And, again I'M THE ONE WHO POSTED ALL OF HALFLINGS IN THE PUBLISHED PRODUCTS. Yes, I am 100% aware of EXACTLY how much halflings appear in published products. It really isn't very much. At most, it's about 18 mentions in a 250+ page adventure. That's the MOST halflings have EVER appeared in 5e. Granted, if you think a single halfling family in a 300 page module counts as significant world building, well, we're going to have to agree to disagree.

I said, specifically, that if halflings were so great for world building, where is it?

Seems a fairly straightforward question. If halflings are so wonderful and great for world building, can someone point me to the books where they appear? Or, do people still want to insist that a half a dozen NPC's in a module with hundreds of NPC's is "significant"? A single family in the Ten Towns? That's the "significant" world buildling that halflings are so great for? Wow. Be still my beating heart.

I've got a Dungeon of the Mad Mage where dwarves appear more times than every halfling mention in 14 modules combined. So, to me, that indicates that dwarves are pretty good for world building. there's a very large chunk of an entire module devoted to dwarves. That is what I consider to be significant. A throwaway line of "25% of villages that we cannot be bothered to give any details about or even place on the map, are halfling" isn't really significant IMO.

But, hey, apparently halflings appear all over the place. There are huge troves of halfling lore and background and halflings are being fantastically utilized in official products. Oh, wait. Did I say halfling? Sorry, I mean elf, or dwarf or human. Halflings? Yeah, they're barely there. But, again, that's because the material for halflings is so fantastic and so inspirational that they don't actually need to write it down.

Wait. I've got it. Halflings are small and overlooked right? Maybe all the information on halflings and their lives and whatnot, is on those invisible pages that only halflings and halfling fans can find. They're hidden just like their settlements. Totally in keeping with the race description.

 

[Cadence]

You do realize that you've pointed out a grey area in the rules and that ruling either way is just as supported - as in not supported at all by the rules. Fitting with the whole "Rulings not rules" schtick. But, your ruling is no more or less "official" than mine so any claim to a universal rule here is right out the window. At best you can says is, "At my table ..."

Does it say anywhere in the rules that persuasion checks and intimidate checks aren't magical? Are the high level Bard and Barbarians abilities in them? Maybe it's a grey area since it doesn't say.

 

[Faolyn]

You're absolutely right. You did. And, yes, I misspoke. I said that there no halflings in those adventures and that is wrong. There are halflings. Granted, most of them play absolutely no role, and are quite likely completely unrelated to the adventure, but, yup, there are named halflings in some of the WotC adventures.

Keep pushing those goalposts. I can still see them.

I mean, what do you consider "playing a role" in adventure? They are people to interact with, buy from, rescue, stop from committing nefarious deeds, hear about in tales... Seems like they play as much of a role as any NPC.

Of course, your post here is a little misleading since you are listing hafsllings from various modules, not just Storm King's Thunder - I believe you are listing three modules in the above quote - Storm King's Thunder, Rime and Ghosts of Saltmarsh?

No, I haven't gone through Rime, and I won't because I'm playing in that game right now.

But next you're going to claim that unless halflings are the focal point of the next three adventures, they don't do anything notable.

But, maybe, just maybe, you could actually address the point instead of insisting on pedantic nit-picking? There are modules, like Dungeon of the Mad Mage, where dwarves are mentioned more times than every mention of halflings combined. So, it's not like dwarves need more presence. And, outside of a couple of modules, dwarves are mentioned considerably more than halflings.

And? I didn't list the number of times halflings were mentioned in SKT, because otherwise I'd be referencing an "idol in the shape of an elf or halfling" and that's silly.

Hey, let's go back to Ghosts of Saltmarsh for a second. 25% of villages outside of Saltmarsh are halfling villages. What does that look like? What does a halfling village look like? I mean, if I tell you there's an elven village, there's a bajillion images, books, movies, whatnot, that I could draw upon as inspiration for what that village looks like.

Congrats. You have consumed a lot of media. I guess I'm a bad GM because I watch very few TV shows or movies and thus can't draw inspiration from them.

So, pretend I don't know Tolkien for a moment. I'm a new gamer. What does a halfling village look like? Can you describe it to me without referencing Tolkien? So, no round door hobbit holes. That's Tolkien, not D&D. And folks here are pretty emphatic that halflings aren't just from Tolkien but have a real, clear place in D&D. So, what do those villages look like? Heck, better yet, you can only describe that halfling village using D&D 5e books. I KNOW that I can do that with dwarves and elves and humans. No problem at all. So, only referencing published 5e material, what does a halfling village look like?

Sure. First, I can use the info in MTF as a guide on how to describe it to you, since it has a section on what they look like. I can then expand upon that by--gasp!--using my imagination. Plus knowing what little villages look like.

Also, why would I include round doors? They seem like an architectural nightmare to me, and you can't tell me that halflings wouldn't prefer Dutch doors. The halfling town my players went to a little while ago didn't have a single round door in the entire place.

And so... You see a halfling village before you. You can hear the sound of conversation, the braying of donkeys and clucking of hens, and the tinkling of windchimes. Small houses dot the area, loosely connected by a cobbled road. Some of the houses are made of closely piled stones and are covered by heavy sod roofs from which grass grows; others, perhaps more modern additions to the village, are made of brick and fretworked wood. Each house has one or more chimneys, and smoke puffs cheerfully from them, bringing with them the scent of baking bread and bubbling stews, which mixes with the scent of the flowering vines that cover many of the houses. You can see adult halflings sweeping their yards, talking with neighbors over the fences, hanging up laundry, and going about their business; a few halfling children play or squabble in the roads.

Let me guess. You're going to complain this is too human-like.

 

[Cadence]

Did you publish your setting? And, again I'M THE ONE WHO POSTED ALL OF HALFLINGS IN THE PUBLISHED PRODUCTS. Yes, I am 100% aware of EXACTLY how much halflings appear in published products. It really isn't very much. At most, it's about 18 mentions in a 250+ page adventure.

Is that where you said there wasn't a single one in Ghosts of Saltmarsh and Faolyn found 4 named ones?

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

You do realize you're saying the same thing I did. Ghosts of Saltmarsh does not have a SINGLE halfling NPC. If they are common in the area, WHERE ARE THEY? Being not involved. Keeping their heads down. Trying not to be noticed. There are thousands of people in the Saltmarsh area, and maybe a...

www.enworld.org

And then you replied to missing four halflings by noting that they had missed 1 Tiefling and told them to check all of the other adventures for halflings... which they already had done at:

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

Is there any official DnD setting where all Humans reincarnate? I don't know. But considering that is super common religious belief in real life, it would be weird if there wasn't. In any case, it is not particularly 'alien' as it is based on real human belief about humans. However, I think a...

www.enworld.org