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

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I said that something exists in D&D only because of Tolkien, not really to fulfill a narrative niche (they certainly don't fulfill the ones in D&D that Tolkien intended for them in his stories, which are very specific to his stories and don't work in most D&D worlds, which IMO, is a good enough argument against Halflings being a core race of D&D).

And my response is that no, it's not a good enough argument. It's the very approach to revision that produced, for example, the commercial disaster that was the 7th edition of the Joy of Cooking. It's the process, applied to social and economic planning, that produced the disasters documented in the book Seeing Like a State. It is a fundamentally flawed approach to curation of successful systems, because it assumes that the curator knows everything important about the system. Since no human is omniscient, it's a recipe for failure.

So, you're saying that things that are already a part of the game are inherently exempt from criticism/possible revision because they've been successful enough to exist this long?

No, they're perfectly valid subjects of criticism. However, the proper standard for action, for making an actual change, is not "I don't find it engaging", it's "This is actively hurting the system." Which you concede that halfings don't meet:

I'm not saying that Halflings are awful and are actively hurting D&D in general

Anyway . . .

Plenty of neutral/possibly detrimental traits are passed on to later generations through evolution. The bar for evolution (both genetic and cultural) is not actually "survival of the fittest", but is instead "survival of the fit enough"

Yes, this is absolutely true. However, quite often, traits that people examining a system thought were neutral/possibly detrimental turn out to have been important to its success after they've been pushed out. Heck, people get surprised by occasionally discovering that things you thought were clearly and actively detrimental turned out to be net beneficial (a classic example in evolutionary biology being the sickle cell anemia gene, which benefits most of its carriers by being anti-malarial). Given that, changing stuff you just think is "neutral/possibly detrimental" is an easy way to do major damage by accident.

 

[Shiroiken]

Late to the party, and not reading 17+ pages, but want to throw my hat in the ring. The OP's argument can easily be put on ANY race in the PHB except perhaps Dragonborn and Tiefling. Standard settings assume these races exist and don't really go about trying to define them integrally to the setting. The reason that Dragonborn and Tiefling stand out is that they're hard to integrate with older settings like Mystra, Greyhawk, and Dragonlance, forcing them to have a designed integration (such as the merging with Abeir for Dragonborn in FR).

As a side note, I'd like to say that anyone who feels halflings are just "short humans" has no real understanding of halflings and probably not any of the original demi-human races. I'd strongly suggest they check out the Complete Book of <insert race> series from 2E, which really gives good lore and understanding of these races.

 

[Neonchameleon]

And this takes me to halflings. What's their niche? Short-person. Are they the only race in that niche? Only if you don't count gnomes, dwarves, kobolds, and goblins (and Fairies if you count UA, and I'm not even counting the Lineages/Races that can be small or medium, including Verdan). Are they strongly rooted in the identity of most worlds that they're included in? Not really. If you take Halflings out of the Forgotten Realms or Exandria, it doesn't really change anything important/major about the settings.

Honestly you're tilting at the wrong windmill here but you have put your finger on part of the problem. There are two races of relatively PC-aligned little people that make for visually overpowered people, relatively friendly, and unlikely adventurers and there's definitely room for one of them (dwarves certainly aren't small, just short).

The thing is that gnomes have never had a consistent identity. If you ask me what a halfling is I could more or less tell you. But gnomes? Wtf are they? They've literally had a different identity in almost every edition:

• In 1e/2e they were small dwarves. Yes, you read that right. Like dwarfs gnomes were expert miners, magically resistant, lived in hills and mountains, had infravision, and gained bonuses to hit and to avoid being hit by a strongly overlapping list of enemies. They were basically small dwarfs with slightly different stat caps and their biggest difference was that they could be illusionists.
• In 3.0/3.5 they lost the underground stuff and their version of stonecunning. (The 3.5 gnome had a few positive changes, moving to bard as a favoured class, moving their casting from spells off Int and subject to Arcane Spell Failure to Spell-Like Abilities working off Cha). Their biggest standout feature was that all gnomes could play Dr. Doolittle, talking to badgers and moles - and about half could cast dancing lights, ghost sound, and prestidigitation 1/day - and their high stat was Con. Almost no one liked them.
• In 4e they weren't in the PHB. By the PHB2 they'd worked out what to do with them and moved them to the Feywild, letting them turn invisible as a reaction. They also kept some Ghost Sound and their good stats became Int and Cha or Dex
• In 5e their stand out feature is that (unlike dwarves) they are magic-resistant against anything mind affecting, a minor throwback to 1e/2e. They kept the Int bonus from 4e as their primary with sub-races for Dex, Cha, and Con.

I mean seriously WTF is this? It's like the 1e writers didn't know what to do with them, the 3.0 writers didn't know what to do with them and went back to the drawing board, the 4e writers didn't know what to do with them and went back to the drawing board, and the 5e writers created something that was one part 4e gnome, and one part something the dwarves had discarded turned up to 11.

It's not surprising that gnomes are the least popular race in the PHB, significantly behind the halflings. And not only would little of value be lost if gnomes were simply folded into a couple of subgroups of halflings (especially now we're using mutable stats) we'd have something with a clear identity and clear inspiration for PCs. And have rid of the race no one actually knows what to do with.

 

[Yaarel]

Eh. Humans can be supermodels and can handle swords and in a fantasy world they can also be magic.


Basic fantasy elves are pretty meh. Like I get it, I want to play pretty characters too, but elves really don't have much going for them. If they wouldn't exists people could just play humans or whatever who are pretty.

Most interesting thing about elves is their long lifespan, but that's actually just awkward in your normal D&D. Either the starting level one character is super old and it is weird that they're still level one, or they're not and the campaign will not take so much in game time that their long lifespan would matter. It would be an interesting thing to explore in as story, but doesn't really work so well in a game like D&D.

I agree. The D&D Elf (ala Tolkien) tends to be too Human.

That is why, in my setting, the Elf is an immaterial spirit, namely the wondering mind of a specific nature feature. The (Norse) Alfar are actually sunbeams, and the (British) Elves are actually fertile areas of land. These Elves feel Nonhuman.

4e was fine because the lineage feat as a trait vividly distinguished one group from an other. And 5e is tolerable, because it retains the 4e Fey identity in a meaningful way. I am looking forward to Tashas developing further, to better implement mechanically these kinds of flavors.

 

[Whizbang Dustyboots]

It's not surprising that gnomes are the least popular race in the PHB, significantly behind the halflings. And not only would little of value be lost if gnomes were simply folded into a couple of subgroups of halflings (especially now we're using mutable stats) we'd have something with a clear identity and clear inspiration for PCs. And have rid of the race no one actually knows what to do with.

Because this is apparently the Bad Place, where we're condemned to have the same discussions over and over again forever, here's my 2007 Unified Theory of Gnomes post.

People do like them and people do know what to do with them. That's not true of all tables and certainly not true of all designers. But just like with halflings, if you don't like them, the answer is don't use them in your game.

This weird idea that they should be removed from other people's games feels like something haven't thought out all that well. I don't have any sorcerers, elves, half-elves, half-orcs, dragonborn or tiefling PCs in my game. Do I get to take those out of the 6E PHB? What if I get really enthusiastic about it and start a bunch of threads? Does that then lend extra weight to my argument?

 

[Crimson Longinus]

When talking about what to include in PHB (as in basic starting set that is published first and everyone is expected to have) I think it should have a good selection of different archetypes, so that everyone can find something they like. For that reason I wouldn't include several things that are very similar to each other, so that there would be more room for more different things. If I had to alter the current lineup, I would leave out either gnome or halfling (people who like one are probably OKish to play the other) and half-elf (which is very similar to an elf.) Then I'd definitely include warforged, as they're quite unique and strong concept. The other freed slot should probably go to some sort of mammalian animal species, so that people who like 'furries' have something. This is not selection of species I personally like the most, this is a selection I'd believe would give most people something they like.

• Human
• Dwarf
• Elf
• Halfling or gnome
• Half-orc, orc or goliath
• Dragonborn, kobold or lizardfolk
• Tiefling
• Gnoll, tabaxi or leonin
• Warforged

 

[jayoungr]

Put halflings in the MM or whatever.

Didn't work out so well for the gnome.

 

[Whizbang Dustyboots]

Didn't work out so well for the gnome.

They set me up with this gorgeous lair. Do you have a lair? I have a lair!

 

[Mind of tempest]

Late to the party, and not reading 17+ pages, but want to throw my hat in the ring. The OP's argument can easily be put on ANY race in the PHB except perhaps Dragonborn and Tiefling. Standard settings assume these races exist and don't really go about trying to define them integrally to the setting. The reason that Dragonborn and Tiefling stand out is that they're hard to integrate with older settings like Mystra, Greyhawk, and Dragonlance, forcing them to have a designed integration (such as the merging with Abeir for Dragonborn in FR).

As a side note, I'd like to say that anyone who feels halflings are just "short humans" has no real understanding of halflings and probably not any of the original demi-human races. I'd strongly suggest they check out the Complete Book of <insert race> series from 2E, which really gives good lore and understanding of these races.

can you define what a halfling is as a good definition is a good defence in this argument?

When talking about what to include in PHB (as in basic starting set that is published first and everyone is expected to have) I think it should have a good selection of different archetypes, so that everyone can find something they like. For that reason I wouldn't include several things that are very similar to each other, so that there would be more room for more different things. If I had to alter current lineup, I would leave out either gnome or halfling (people who like one are probably OKish to play the other) and half-elf (which is very similar to an elf.) Then I'd definitely include warforged, as they're quite unique and strong concept. The other freed slot should probably go to some sort of mammalian animal species, so that people who like 'furries' have something. This is not selection of species I personally like the most, this is a selection I'd believe would give most people something they like.

• Human
• Dwarf
• Elf
• Halfling or Gnome
• Half-orc, orc or goliath
• Dragonborn, kobold or lizardfolk
• Tiefling
• Gnoll, tabaxi or leonin
• Warforged

warforged it to ebberon specific but I see a desirable system also less of the glut of half races(making being mixed race a superpower is honest to god strange).
what I would put in there I have no idea maybe wait to see what catches on with the new ideas?

 

[Vaalingrade]

now that is just dull not even a draconian or a gith?

The big controversy of the 3e PHB was the halflings were too tall.