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

[Krachek]

The kind of questions being discussed, eg: whether fear effects are magical or not, halflings place in worldbuilding etc are fundamentally unanswerable in 5e.

It's clear that WotC simply does not care about worldbuilding. It's not a priority of 5th edition at all.

What they obviously do care about is whether something is cool or fun in a game.

That may be an issue for those of us who care about worldbuilding, but clearly this is not an accident of design. They may have made the Forgotten Realms the default world, but at no point have they ever, even for a moment, appeared to let that constrain them in what options they put before player characters.

Is Dragonfear a magical effect? You'll have to decide yourself. The game doesn't care.
If Halfling luck an inherent quality of the halfling species or just a thing halfling characters have? You'll have to decide yourself. The game doesn't care.
How do halfling societies interact with their neighbours. You'll have to decide yourself. The game doesn't care.

You can criticise a company for making a hammer, when you would have preferred a screwdriver, but it's a bit silly to be criticisng a hammer for being bad at screwing in a Phillips head screw.

Honestly I think they care about home brew world building.
”A world of your own” is the title of the first chapter in the DM guide.
They encourage many assumption on world building, and wisely they don’t restraint DM with racial tight definition or demographic system. Stating That halfling are all lucky is good for some world building assumption, not for all.

 

[Krachek]

At first we build game rules to play in a Fantasy world.
Today some are now using game rules to explain and control fantasy world.
We are now in a fool state, where our rules and tools restrain us.

 

[Zubatcarteira]

It is pretty weird that undead can still be frightened since Turn Undead seems to go out of its way to frighten without frightening.

 

[Gammadoodler]

Is a major theme of DnD about gathering power, say through something like a leveling system or an expectation to gather powerful artifacts? Fact or Opinion

That is kind of the important part of my post, and you keep evading it. Deleting it, ignoring it, ect.

In my opinion, it is a theme.

Your turn.

Edit: notice how this directly and unambiguously addresses your central question.

1. It is an opinion, and
2. It happens to agree with you

Edit 2: can't believe I missed this..specifically it is a player character-facing theme. PCs gather power and level. There is no racial drive for this in anything I've seen.

This actually makes your argument more confusing though, since you've stated clearly that you have no issue with halfling PCs...and.. there is a good case to be made that Tolkien's halflings did gather powerful artifacts and "level up" along the way.

 

[Yaarel]

At first we build game rules to play in a Fantasy world.
Today some are now using game rules to explain and control fantasy world.
We are now in a fool state, where our rules and tools restrain us.

Each responds to the other.

Flavor and mechanics are a dialectic, like Yang and Yin, respectively. The ideal is the Dao, the third way, that integrates both aspects in a dynamic equilibrium.

 

[Hussar]

It's from the sage advice compendium.

So, not official. Got it. Ok.

 

[carkl3000]

So, not official. Got it. Ok.

Wrong...

Official Rulings
Official rulings on how to interpret rules are made here in the Sage Advice Compendium. A Dungeon Master adjudicates the game and determines whether to use an official ruling in play. The DM always has the final say on rules questions.

 

[Yora]

Official, but not binding.

 

[carkl3000]

Official, but not binding.

Yes.

 

[Zubatcarteira]

Like every other rule.