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

[Doug McCrae]

Halflings are not just hobbits. D&D halflings have quite a bit of kender genes, making them adventurous and inquisitive.

Isn't the adventurousness of some D&D halflings consistent with the traits of the Took family in Tolkien?

The Hobbit

It was often said (in other families) that long ago one of the Took ancestors must have taken a fairy wife. That was, of course, absurd, but certainly there was still something not entirely hobbitlike about them, and once in a while members of the Took-clan would go and have adventures. They discreetly disappeared, and the family hushed it up

It is probable that Bilbo... got something a bit queer in his make-up from the Took side

Then something Tookish woke up inside him [Bilbo], and he wished to go and see the great mountains, and hear the pine-trees and the waterfalls, and explore the caves, and wear a sword instead of a walking-stick.

The Fellowship of the Ring

The Took family… was liable to produce in every generation strong characters of peculiar habits and even adventurous temperament.

 

[Aldarc]

Isn't the adventurousness of some D&D halflings consistent with the traits of the Took family in Tolkien?

Considering that four of the five hobbits that have gone on a journey are strongly Took-blooded, yeah.

 

[BrokenTwin]

For me, personally, I'd split the gnome, giving their fae traits to the halflings (but seriously, halfling is a terrible name for a people to call themselves), and their tinker traits to the kobolds, and let the kobolds be the little inventor ancestry and let dragonborn more fully take the "dragon-like" ancestry. Let the kobolds still be obsessed with dragons, but instead of growing wings and breathing magical fire through devotion, they build mechanical wings and brew alchemist fire so they can emulate them in their own way.

In the end though, I'd be fine with merging gnomes and halflings together in any fashion, though I'm still keen to calling them Pech (ala Fantasy Craft).

 

[Faolyn]

race slot is an abstraction, if I have dwarves orc, minotaurs and goliaths they all compete for strong guy role and clutter the setting, realistically you only need one per setting unless you know how to make them all feel super different, hence the term race slot, there are lots of things who are nearly elves in fantasy but are clearly not so elf is design to fit in a slot.

That example role is very narrow and not useful. Those four races have very different narrative roles. And maybe I'm unique, but I've never once looked at a race's ASIs to determine if they belong in a world I make.

I have, I learned the answer is not in me thus I seek it, it might be because no one has thought of it yet in which case minds must be set in motion to generate the answer hence I am in this thread as either I will generate it or one of the other participants will.

You're selling yourself short. You know what you don't like. Once you eliminate that, you can use what's left to determine what you do like.

 

[Mind of tempest]

That example role is very narrow and not useful. Those four races have very different narrative roles. And maybe I'm unique, but I've never once looked at a race's ASIs to determine if they belong in a world I make.


You're selling yourself short. You know what you don't like. Once you eliminate that, you can use what's left to determine what you do like.

your looking from the dm view not the player since at the end of the day a race is what they play use in the process of making a character thus people who want looks or association look for things that get them that, hence they are big buy race know for battle and war.

knowing what you do not like and what you want is the great gulf I will likely ever know, plus making something good is not the exact same as what I like.

 

[Whizbang Dustyboots]

Gnomes are the Magical Little People, and that's a ridiculously longstanding niche from mythology. Halflings are that stuck into their theme that adding gnomes in would not be a good fit at all, but ironically the looseness of the gnome theming would make it easier for them to consume the halfling niches in turn.

Gnomes could absorb the halfling niche and trappings without too much trouble, because when it really gets down to it is "Enjoy living nice life" which can easily be worked into their whole illusion/trickery thing. Halflings could not absorb the Gnome niche because its going to swing either heavy into illusions, or heavy into tinker, the one lasting gnomish niche ever since Mystara and that whole flying gnomish steampunk city they had. Its just too far from what Halflings have always tried to set themselves as.

Halflings have that problem of certain 3.5E races where they're way too narrow on a Very Specific Concept to their detriment, which is ironic given 3E was one of the ones that tried to give them a bit of a revamp

I use both in my games, but gnomes definitely have a lot of halflings' cultural views in place. (In Ptolus, it's actually part of the core setting that they have a lot of overlap, although that may be been a comment on this issue by Monte Cook, who of course had to wrestle with this during the development of 3E.)

 

[Whizbang Dustyboots]

For me, personally, I'd split the gnome, giving their fae traits to the halflings (but seriously, halfling is a terrible name for a people to call themselves), and their tinker traits to the kobolds, and let the kobolds be the little inventor ancestry and let dragonborn more fully take the "dragon-like" ancestry. Let the kobolds still be obsessed with dragons, but instead of growing wings and breathing magical fire through devotion, they build mechanical wings and brew alchemist fire so they can emulate them in their own way.

In the end though, I'd be fine with merging gnomes and halflings together in any fashion, though I'm still keen to calling them Pech (ala Fantasy Craft).

The gnome/kobold cosmology is actually one of the best known and enduring parts of D&D lore, stretching back to 1E.

Can you tell me a myth about Yondalla that anyone might have ever heard of?

If you gave free proficiency in tinkers tools to forest gnomes, you could drop rock gnomes entirely and gnomes would go back to being coherent with previous versions throughout the ages.

And "gnome" is a much better known name that "pech." Older posters will remember there was a whole Gnomes brand for decades, spinning out of a series of quite nice art books about the secret lives of gnomes. And that, in turn, was elaborating on their existing cultural niche. You don't find "garden pech" in the garden store or have kid's movies (made in the 21st century, even!) about them.

 

[Whizbang Dustyboots]

It was often said (in other families) that long ago one of the Took ancestors must have taken a fairy wife.

Old Man Took was into gnome women and who can blame him?

 

[doctorbadwolf]

If the book offers premades, for a common mix, using the multilineage mechanic, that is fine.

Nah. Half-elves and half-Orcs, as such, belong in the game.

 

[Faolyn]

your looking from the dm view not the player since at the end of the day a race is what they play use in the process of making a character thus people who want looks or association look for things that get them that, hence they are big buy race know for battle and war.

I am also looking at it from the player side, because I don't pick my PC race based on ASIs either. Instead, I look for the race's narrative view and their traits. This is doubly important now that WotC is moving away from racial ASIs.

knowing what you do not like and what you want is the great gulf I will likely ever know, plus making something good is not the exact same as what I like.

Keep practicing. It won't do you any good in the long run in life only knowing what you hate.

 

[PsyzhranV2]

Nah. Half-elves and half-Orcs, as such, belong in the game.

Why them specifically? Tradition? Maybe if the default lore for them didn't have exoticism and marginalization baked into the fluff and treated as just another fact of life, and maybe if they found better names for them than "Half-something", I'd be more open to them, but even then, why stop at elf-human and human-orc hybrids? A more freeform system for mixing lineages, coupled with less segregationist lore for these hybrids would work wonders compared to now where the half-elf and half-orc honestly feel redundant given the direction WotC seems to be moving in with regards to how they plan to treat races in the future.

 

[Minigiant]

Why them specifically? Tradition? Maybe if the default lore for them didn't have exoticism and marginalization baked into the fluff and treated as just another fact of life, and maybe if they found better names for them than "Half-something", I'd be more open to them, but even then, why stop at elf-human and human-orc hybrids? A more freeform system for mixing lineages, coupled with less segregationist lore for these hybrids would work wonders compared to now where the half-elf and half-orc honestly feel redundant given the direction WotC seems to be moving in with regards to how they plan to treat races in the future.

when 6e comes around, I'm starting a campaign for muls/half-dwarves inclusion.

 

[doctorbadwolf]

Why them specifically? Tradition? Maybe if the default lore for them didn't have exoticism and marginalization baked into the fluff and treated as just another fact of life, and maybe if they found better names for them than "Half-something", I'd be more open to them, but even then, why stop at elf-human and human-orc hybrids? A more freeform system for mixing lineages, coupled with less segregationist lore for these hybrids would work wonders compared to now where the half-elf and half-orc honestly feel redundant given the direction WotC seems to be moving in with regards to how they plan to treat races in the future.

I didn’t say to stop at them.

 

[King Babar]

Why them specifically? Tradition? Maybe if the default lore for them didn't have exoticism and marginalization baked into the fluff and treated as just another fact of life, and maybe if they found better names for them than "Half-something", I'd be more open to them, but even then, why stop at elf-human and human-orc hybrids? A more freeform system for mixing lineages, coupled with less segregationist lore for these hybrids would work wonders compared to now where the half-elf and half-orc honestly feel redundant given the direction WotC seems to be moving in with regards to how they plan to treat races in the future.

It's Tolkien all the way down. DnD would be better off without hybrid races as core options, as it would help nip certain problematic elements in the bud.

 

[Mind of tempest]

I am also looking at it from the player side, because I don't pick my PC race based on ASIs either. Instead, I look for the race's narrative view and their traits. This is doubly important now that WotC is moving away from racial ASIs.


Keep practicing. It won't do you any good in the long run in life only knowing what you hate.

lots of things appeal to people, asi tended to have something to do with the lore of the thing in question, when you want to be strong and bulky people tend to pick those as even with asi change the lore says they are that way.

hate is literally the last bits of passion I have left everything else that could do that job died years ago, plus it is clear than my parents who never had any inclinations from the begining

 

[Mercurius]

I wouldn't call that modern. Still, I can say "recent" instead. Either way I'm talking about fantasy people under 50 are likely to have read. Dunsany is well outside that, bless his heart. That's something few people even on this board of grogs and fantasy fans have read.

OK, fair enough. My only caveat is that fantasy is like a river or a tree, so the whole thing is interconnected. But "recent" is different than "modern" (meaning, 20th-21st century).

I'm afraid that's demonstrably not true in fantasy writing.

Part-demons are more common than halflings by pretty much infinity until the Hobbit gets published. Then part-demons are just massively, hugely more common. Same for dwarves. Elves or elf-like beings are pretty common though.

I was speaking of them as a group, not halflings in particular. As far as I can tell, halflings barely exist outside of D&D and Tolkien. Elves are super common, and dwarves pretty common. Part-demons are definitely pretty common throughout fantasy literature, but not so much dragon-men. And of course tieflings and dragonborn are specific iterations of those ideas.

Then LotR gets published, and it's still essentially the case.

Then the less-daring kind of Tolkien-derivative authors appear - and some, only some of them - feature halflings or things so close they might as well be (Shannara is the only definite example from that era that I can think of - Jordan replaced halflings with humans in his Tolkien-derivative). Part-demons are definitely still ahead if we're going back to Dunsany and so on.

Did Shannara have halflings? I can't remember. The Dennis McKiernan Tolkien knock-offs did.

The D&D comes out. D&D doesn't influence many writers to include halflings or similar, but those writing specifically about D&D settings like Dragonlance and the Forgotten Realms do (we shall count Kender as halflings). And it is in these D&D-based books, whether it's the original Dragonlance Chronicles, or the Drizzt books or whatever, or even the Alias novels, that we see an explosion of halflings. More than all of fantasy literature before that.

We also get Tad Williams' Dragonbone Crown trilogy, but I think it's questionable as to whether the Trolls like Binabik count as "halflings" (do all short non-evil races count?). Less so some of Williams' other work though, which features at least one trilogy with unarguable halflings.

And you say by 1995 video games were influencing people, and sure, they were - but video games were massively influenced by D&D. Video games typically had the D&D races or something very close to them. Occasionally they had lizardmen or something like them too, but dragonmen and part-demons were exceeding rare in video games in the 1990s and the 2000s, and indeed, they still are in the West. In the East, someone time the early 2000s part-demons started becoming very common in MMOs, but remain rare in single-player video games (dragonmen remain rare in both).

There's just no way part-demons aren't "more traditional" in fantasy than halflings. Halflings are mid-20th-century novelty, that were popularized by D&D and video games, and are now fading, as they failed to establish themselves outside of Tolkien. Half-demons and their ilk go back into mythology. Gnomes and dwarves are pretty trad, but they're totally unlike halflings. I believe there's a Native American legendary being that is very close to a halfling though I forget what (there is even some limited evidence Tolkien was aware of this Native American mythology, but that's another story and I don't have my reference to hand).

OK, fair enough. I do think halflings are very traditional to D&D. I've always grouped them in the "secondary races" along with gnomes, half-elves, and half-orcs, and after the "primary" humans, elves and dwarves. And if we, as you are doing, expand tieflings to all kinds of demonic heritage, I can see your point.

Yes and it's a fair comment! I will try to restrain myself somewhat!

Yes, I am sure, at least for my understanding of "realistic".

Halflings/hobbits aren't homo floriensis and they aren't simply humans who are genetically short. They have chimp-strength in all editions, for starters (yes even the ones where they get a penalty, they're incredibly strong for their size).

But my point is, they are more human-like and thus more realistic. And yes, there are real world varieties of humans that are vaguely "hobbit-like." There are no known real world half-demons.

More to the point I'm not sure realism is "relevant" in a game where in most settings most of the races were created by the gods. I also don't think it really makes them less gonzo but YMMV. I personally think it's extremely in the "gonzo" tradition to include murderous little hobbits with chimp-strength in parties full of fancy elf bards and dragonborn paladins and so on.

My point was simply that certain races--elves, dwarves, halflings, maybe gnomes--feel more organic to D&D tradition as a hole, while what I called "gonzo" races like tieflings and dragonborn (not to mention genasi, shardminds, etc) all came later. I personally see a place for all of them, so am not sure exactly what we're arguing about.

No he didn't. He basically excluded everything except a narrow range of Northern European myth (much of it from outside the UK). He even intentionally excluded Arthurian and Celtic myth, which to me, lead to him totally failing at his goal of making an "English" fantasy mythology - instead he made a narrower Anglo-Saxon one. But I regard myself as Scottish so what do I know? It was still impressive and totally changed the course of fantasy.

Um, yes he most certainly did draw from thousands of years of mythology. Maybe not world mythology, but that's not what I said. Also, as much as I love and respect Tolkien, I do think he included certain elements of Arthurian and especially Celtic myth. His elves are very close to the Tuatha de Danaan and/or Sidhe; I have sometimes wondered if he was equating elves with Sidhe and Dunedain with the Tuatha.

 

[Ruin Explorer]

My point was simply that certain races--elves, dwarves, halflings, maybe gnomes--feel more organic to D&D tradition as a hole, while what I called "gonzo" races like tieflings and dragonborn (not to mention genasi, shardminds, etc) all came later. I personally see a place for all of them, so am not sure exactly what we're arguing about.

We're arguing about precisely this claim. I don't agree that they "feel more organic to D&D tradition". Tieflings have been around since 1994. That's 27 years. That's older than most D&D players based on the latest figures. That's probably longer than D&D had existed when you started playing. It certainly if for me - D&D had only existed for 15 years year when I started play in 1989. So Tieflings have been a PC race for the majority of D&D's existence. They're also extremely popular. They're vastly more important to D&D's future than halflings, gnomes, half-orcs or possibly even dwarves. The running joke online among younger players is that literally everyone plays a Tielfing Bard, because they're so common (so quite a turnaround for Bards, too).

(Other ways to think about - I'd only been playing D&D for 5 years when Tieflings came out, and I was 16 - I'm 43 now.)

(Also I feel a bit vindicated as someone who always played Tieflings and Bards lol, I was clearly merely ahead of my time!)

The concept they come from has been around since the 1980s or 1970s. Genasi are about as old as Tieflings (can't remember if they're core Planescape so 1994 or a later PS book). Shardminds aren't remotely comparable, you're damaging your own point badly by comparing the two. Shardminds only appeared part-way through 3E, and only made a small re-appearance in 4E, and not since. They're also a bizarre concept that doesn't appear in fantasy literature, and relatively rarely appears in sci-fi media.

I do think he included certain elements of Arthurian and especially Celtic myth.

Okay, but he specifically and explicitly claimed he didn't, repeatedly (mostly in his letters), so you're contradicting him and saying he doesn't understand his own work, which is, er, bold.

I have sometimes wondered if he was equating elves with Sidhe and Dunedain with the Tuatha.

Not consciously. He was explicitly opposed to using any elements of Celtic myth. His reasoning was basically "that naughty word is too crazy and nuts yo" (obviously I am brutally paraphrasing here lol).

Did Shannara have halflings? I can't remember. The Dennis McKiernan Tolkien knock-offs did.

I just looked it up and apparently not? Not very memorable either way lol.

 

[FrozenNorth]

Isn't the adventurousness of some D&D halflings consistent with the traits of the Took family in Tolkien?

I think this is part of the issue. The write-up for D&D halflings is part Took-halfling (curious and willing to adventure) and part-non Took halfling (homey homebody who loves food and comfort), and the two halves operate at cross-purposes.

A prerequisite for being an adventure (in most cases) is a willingness to eat rations, sleep in uncomfortable bedrolls, in inclement weather, for long periods of time.

Also, what does it say about Tolkien halflings that they seem to view adventure as something one weird family does?

 

[Mercurius]

We're arguing about precisely this claim. I don't agree that they "feel more organic to D&D tradition". Tieflings have been around since 1994. That's 27 years. That's older than most D&D players based on the latest figures. That's probably longer than D&D had existed when you started playing. It certainly if for me - D&D had only existed for 15 years year when I started play in 1989. So Tieflings have been a PC race for the majority of D&D's existence. They're also extremely popular. They're vastly more important to D&D's future than halflings, gnomes, half-orcs or possibly even dwarves. The running joke online among younger players is that literally everyone plays a Tielfing Bard, because they're so common (so quite a turnaround for Bards, too).

So you disagree with my feeling. Cool. Feelings are subjective, so a statement like "they feel more organic" is a subjective expression. Are you saying that my subjective feeling is wrong?

Anyhow, I think this runs to the heart of this discussion/disagreement: you are engaging in a logical debate, while I'm positing subjective meta-narratives, so we're running at cross purposes.

But in terms of how our views (and feelings) differ on this, a lot of it might have to do with imprinting and exposure. Meaning, it isn't only about what has existed within D&D, but how we--as individuals--weave together a personal "fantasy mythos" (or in this case, D&D mythos).

I started playing in the early 80s and have read fantasy since, although slowed down by the mid-90s and find that when I feel like reading sf or fantasy, I tend to go for older stuff (mostly before 1990ish). I never got into video games, so wasn't influenced by Warcraft et al. I also have played D&D on and off through the years, and my campaigns tend to have a more "old school" vibe: a blend of Hyborian sword and sorcery and Middle-earthian epic mythos, with a bit of a bunch of other things sprinkled in.

Anyhow, for me I have never gotten into tieflings, dragonborn, and similar races. They have always felt like "add-ons" to the core D&D universe. Strangely enough, probably my all-time favorite RPG and setting is Talislanta, which is about as "non-traditional" as it gets, although it doesn't "feel like D&D."

If we want to look at broader trends and the tradition of D&D outside of our personal experience, we can still see how it has unfolded in different waves and phases. The first wave did not include tieflings or dragonborn, while later waves did. It doesn't make anything more or less part of the D&D tradition, but it may influence how different people view them, depending upon when and what they imprinted to.

As for your statement the importance of tieflings to D&D's future, I cannot say; you could be right, although it also depends upon what you mean by "future." Near future (say, next 5-10 years), sure, absolutely. But today's tieflings might be tomorrow's zorgothians (or whatever). Things change.

Humans and elves seem to have the most staying power, and remain popular no matter what era or edition. It is hard imagining that ever changing. Dwarves? They are, like Andy Murray was to tennis for some years, either the "worst of the best, or best of the rest." So yeah, I'd agree that halflings and gnomes, etc, are a big step down, and I also understand that tieflings and dragonborn are more popular--never said otherwise. But this doesn't negate my own feelings about what is and is not organic to (my own) D&D mythos.

(Other ways to think about - I'd only been playing D&D for 5 years when Tieflings came out, and I was 16 - I'm 43 now.)

(Also I feel a bit vindicated as someone who always played Tieflings and Bards lol, I was clearly merely ahead of my time!)

The concept they come from has been around since the 1980s or 1970s. Genasi are about as old as Tieflings (can't remember if they're core Planescape so 1994 or a later PS book). Shardminds aren't remotely comparable, you're damaging your own point badly by comparing the two. Shardminds only appeared part-way through 3E, and only made a small re-appearance in 4E, and not since. They're also a bizarre concept that doesn't appear in fantasy literature, and relatively rarely appears in sci-fi media.

Again, my "point" is about subjective experience, and what D&D is within the bubble of my own mind. How can I damage that? I have never said that I think halflings are more important to D&D now than tieflings, just that they feel more organic. Perhaps I should have specified "to me," although I would have thought that was implied with the word "feel."

Anyhow, I think the sea change with races happened in the first half decade of 2E, the early 90s, perhaps especially with the relatively high concept Dark Sun, Planescape and Spelljammer settings, which opened up the flood-gates for "non-traditional" D&D.

Okay, but he specifically and explicitly claimed he didn't, repeatedly (mostly in his letters), so you're contradicting him and saying he doesn't understand his own work, which is, er, bold.

Not consciously. He was explicitly opposed to using any elements of Celtic myth. His reasoning was basically "that naughty word is too crazy and nuts yo" (obviously I am brutally paraphrasing here lol).

I tend to have a somewhat mystical and quasi-Jungian outlook on the nature of imagination and consciousness, so my take is that he was tapping into the same archetypes as certain Celtic forms, whether he saw it that way or not. I'm not saying that he doesn't understand his work (and I've read his Letters two or three times), just that his elves and the Sidhe are based on the same mythic archetype, just as Tuatha de Danaan, Atlanteans, and Numenoreans/Dunedain are all basically expressions of the same thing or, at least, homologous to their respective mythic traditions.

Meaning, the creative process has both a conscious analytic component--take a bit from here and there, and mix it together--but it is also sub-conscious and intuitive, which is why world mythology has so many parallels and similarities, and why Tolkien's elves have elements of the Sidhe and/or Tuatha, even if he did not consciously incorporate them into his work.

I just looked it up and apparently not? Not very memorable either way lol.

Agreed! I don't think I'll ever revisit Shannara.

 

[doctorbadwolf]

I think this is part of the issue. The write-up for D&D halflings is part Took-halfling (curious and willing to adventure) and part-non Took halfling (homey homebody who loves food and comfort), and the two halves operate at cross-purposes.

No, they don’t. It’s called nuance.

A prerequisite for being an adventure (in most cases) is a willingness to eat rations, sleep in uncomfortable bedrolls, in inclement weather, for long periods of time.

Nothing about halflings precludes this.