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

[Yaarel]

@Mind of tempest, perhaps the problem is that you're having trouble seeing halflings in military uniforms. Which I can understand. Maybe you should think of them as being more like the plucky townsfolk who rally to a cause when necessary. Like minutemen or guerilla fighters, not career soldiers.

After all, they're Brave, so they're not going to bow down from a fight. While they don't get a mechanical bonus this edition, they're historically good with slings and thrown weapons. They're sneaky and have agile fingers, so they're good with traps. Halflings don't need to be in the army to fight; they're effectively a militia ready to fight when needed.

Heh, I notice that almost every Halfling is a Rogue.

Their culture is almost entirely criminals. Good natured criminals are still outlaws.

Halflings dont put on uniforms. They backstab enemies. Stealth operatives. And they are family oriented. Mafia every one of them!

 

[Whizbang Dustyboots]

All that Charisma stuff of the Half-Elf belongs to Elf! Whether charming or pursuasive or diplomatic or artistic, these are Elf traits.

According to elves, all positive traits are the elf traits!

 

[Crimson Longinus]

Heh, I notice that almost every Halfling is a Rogue.

Their culture is almost entirely criminals. Good natured criminals are still outlaws.

Halflings dont put on uniforms. They backstab enemies. Stealth operatives. And they are family oriented. Mafia every one of them!

That sure sounds like a solid theme!

 

[Mercurius]

I think the half-races thing also stands a good chance of being cut, as it represents some very dated thinking. Once upon a time, the United States rigidly measured how much black blood a person had, both to determine legal rights and social standing.

I hear your point, but I don't really agree with this line of thinking, as there are no elves or orcs in the real world (at least that we know of!) and I find this constant referring D&D tropes (especially races) back to the real world as being rather misguided and causing more harm than good.

If we instead focus on "D&D World" and look at its own internal logic, we're faced with deciding whether or not different races can cross-breed. D&D has always held that humans can breed with elves and orcs and, in the case of Dark Sun, dwarves. If they want to change that, fine, although I'm not sure why they would as it has always made sense within the lore. I suppose we might as well have "half-halfings" (three-quarterlings?) but that's one instance where there really isn't a game-related niche.

Very few people are interested in playing Elrond today. Half-elves can be in a supplemental player-facing book, but overall, the notion is not great, nor necessary.

The "I'm good with people" ability could be given to another race instead, maybe, say, halflings.

I don't know if that is true. Half-elves and half-orcs seem relatively popular. But I can see an argument for taking them out of the next PHB and making them either setting specific or in supplementary material.

 

[Neonchameleon]

This shows a misunderstanding of the realities of the situation.

Halflings are a gonzo race. Tieflings and Dragon born are the norm. Literally - the most detailed evidence we has, has the top four as humans, combined elves, tieflings, and dragonborn (I think combined dwarves are the fifth, but it might be half-elves). I think as long as the list of PHB races only grows, it's fine to include halflings, but if they start cutting, halflings need to be one of the first to go.

No they don't need to. If they start cutting halflings are behind gnomes on the chopping block. They are more popular, have a clearer niche of characters where they reinforce the theme, have far more long term consistency, don't have a theme that is undermined by it being the race's theme, and could easily absorb both forest and rock gnomes into their archetypes without breaking a sweat. And aren't almost completely reshuffled from edition to edition because they have more of an identity.

So gnomes should be cut before halflings - and cutting halflings and gnomes at the same time should only be done if cutting small races from the game. So halflings are safer than more popular races. And there are only 9 PHB races anyway (10 if you count the two human variants separately).

The race obvious for cutting is the gnome to bring it back down to 8 if, for whatever reason you consider that as a goal. The race that is obvious for replacement is the half-orc; half elves have the halfbreed thing with fewer unfortunate implications and the big burly race could better be covered by orcs, goliaths, or warforged (which I probably want as well as replacing half orcs because the thematics are so different). The other obvious addition is either Tabaxi or Aaracokra as the pretty animal-like. Possibly also add the genasi, but that's arguably cutting into elf territory.

 

[Whizbang Dustyboots]

I don't know if that is true. Half-elves and half-orcs seem relatively popular. But I can see an argument for taking them out of the next PHB and making them either setting specific or in supplementary material.

Do you think, if both were presented in the PHB, half-orcs would continue to edge out orcs, especially orcs with the "always savage brutes" thing removed from them?

I have a hard time picturing someone wanting to do so.

And, from a roleplaying perspective, there are few stories that can be told with a half-orc PC that can't be told with an orc.

 

[Ruin Explorer]

And yes, I realize that tieflings and dragonborn are more popular than halfings. I think a lot of it has to do with newer generations of D&D players being more influenced by video games than they are fantasy literature, for better or worse.

Absolutely and demonstrably incorrect.

People with demonic heritage and dragon-people are far more common in modern fantasy literature than halflings (albeit largely because of the people with demonic heritage - dragon-people are rare-ish, though dragons who can turn into people are not uncommon). It's true whether we go with after 1995, after 2005, or after 2015.

Halflings or similar are more common in computer games and less common in fantasy literature. So it's the reverse. I can demonstrate this with examples, because I play vast numbers of fantasy video games AND read tons and tons of fantasy lit.

In the way I'm using them, tieflings and dragonborn are more "gonzo" than halflings because they diverge further from realism and traditional fantasy.

That's a extremely silly way to use gonzo imho. D&D is one of the most gonzo RPGs in existence in terms of "going beyond reality". It's extreme - with gods granting spells and walking the world (and you can go visit them for a chat at higher levels), world-changing or reality-changing spells, dozens or hundreds of sapient races, the Underdark, dragons being rife, people walking away from 1000ft falls, people coming back to life at the drop of a hat and so on. If Exalted is a 10 on gonzo scale, D&D is an 8 (Greyhawk certainly is - something like Taladas might only be a 6/7, but Planescape is a 9 and Spelljammer a straight 10). Something like most LotR games is a 4. A lot of other fantasy RPGs, like, say, Blue Rose, are down in the 3-5 range.

There's nothing "realistic" about halflings. They're no more or less "realistic" than the other races. As for "traditional fantasy", you're going to need to define what you mean by that. Do you mean Tolkienian fantasy? That's hardly "traditional fantasy". Or do you mean "computer game fantasy", or "1980s tabletop RPG fantasy"? Those are the only places where halflings were/are more common than tielfing-types or dragonborn-types.

Assuming we get some kind of new PHB in 2024, I highly doubt they'll cut halflings, tieflings, or dragonborn. My guess is that they'll include orcs as a PC race, and adjust the existing ones to include current ideas and preferences.

I agree that this is highly likely.

 

[Ruin Explorer]

No they don't need to. If they start cutting halflings are behind gnomes on the chopping block. They are more popular, have a clearer niche of characters where they reinforce the theme, have far more long term consistency, don't have a theme that is undermined by it being the race's theme, and could easily absorb both forest and rock gnomes into their archetypes without breaking a sweat. And aren't almost completely reshuffled from edition to edition because they have more of an identity.

So gnomes should be cut before halflings - and cutting halflings and gnomes at the same time should only be done if cutting small races from the game. So halflings are safer than more popular races. And there are only 9 PHB races anyway (10 if you count the two human variants separately).

The race obvious for cutting is the gnome to bring it back down to 8 if, for whatever reason you consider that as a goal. The race that is obvious for replacement is the half-orc; half elves have the halfbreed thing with fewer unfortunate implications and the big burly race could better be covered by orcs, goliaths, or warforged (which I probably want as well as replacing half orcs because the thematics are so different). The other obvious addition is either Tabaxi or Aaracokra as the pretty animal-like. Possibly also add the genasi, but that's arguably cutting into elf territory.

This is a lot of words to answer my "one of the first" with "they should be the second or third!", which is surely more or less the same thing? Disagree re: small races and you make no specific case for your position there - you could cut gnomes and halflings from the PHB and have fairies or kobolds. Guarantee fairies would get more play than halflings, though oh god the teeth-gnashing they'd cause for some people.

 

[doctorbadwolf]

Innocence, Authenticity, Tranquility, friendship, just plain being comfortable and in harmony with one's self and surroundings are not things you fight for, nor are they particularly heroic they are the things people who only care about the immediate care about which tend to end up producing a population of "f you, I got mine" not necessarily a population of good people.

Everything about this paragraph is objectively false.

Absolute nonsense.

 

[doctorbadwolf]

Do you think, if both were presented in the PHB, half-orcs would continue to edge out orcs, especially orcs with the "always savage brutes" thing removed from them?

I have a hard time picturing someone wanting to do so.

And, from a roleplaying perspective, there are few stories that can be told with a half-orc PC that can't be told with an orc.

I know a lot of mixed-race players that would vehemently disagree with you.