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

[Mind of tempest]

What are dwarves, except short (though not even that short) humans who like beer, axes and mining? What are elves except pretty and haughty humans? What are goliaths except tall humans who live on mountains? What are orcs except ugly and savage humans?

Like I get it, I want fantasy species to be more unique than that too, so I homebrew my own, but I feel that the standards here are not applied fairly!

honestly, I agree with you but people honestly have tried more with them plus they have cool cave cities which is like five points in my book.

The fluff of most D&D races is "I am prosthetic forehead human with certain human traits turned up to 11". I fail to see how this is a specific problem with halflings.

they are the least divergent of all thus first to the block, for the glorious better fantasy species revolution.

I feel that one of these things is trying to be cool a bit too hard.

then what makes something cool without trying too hard, other than whatever it is which now means we a condemned to have a million types of elf?

For the Alfar Elves in my setting, they are solar. Albeit, they are more the sunrays, sunbeams, silverlining of clouds, thus are the gentler life-giving aspects of the sun. The blazing fiery aspects are lessso. For example, they swap out Darkvision for a luminous cantrip called "Elf Shine", that is both an aura of illumination and while on is an advantage to Persuasion checks if in line-of-sight.

I meant the setting and build aesthetic, but yours is also cool as well, maybe add a bit more harshness as light can be made into beams that can melt armies.

 

[Minigiant]

I feel that one of these things is trying to be cool a bit too hard.

Maybe.

But it's what a dragon-man would be.
It's a fantasy game, right?

 

[Crimson Longinus]

Maybe.

But it's what a dragon-man would be.
It's a fantasy game, right?

Sure, and I can't really blame anyone. Like in my current setting I combined elves and halflings into one species of small elf-like creatures who have horns and tails, and that definitely will come across as 'trying too hard' to some.

Spoiler

But then again I feel it a bit weird if such cosmetic things are needed for the species to be worth including. I don't think that having horns or scales in itself makes anything particularly interesting.

And ultimately D&D is D&D. I can make such drastic redesigns for my own setting, but a big part of D&D's mass market appeal is having recognisable tropes. Halflings are a well known fantasy trope, so people expect to have them in D&D, it's simple as that.

 

[Faolyn]

no, it is not that it is how much they never do things they feel copy-pasted, dnd elves are different from other settings elves but halflings are copy-pasted and have one story, I have seen small humble folk of similar size do it but they did it not with luck and being purely peaceful and comfort-loving they did it with dedication and hard work they were wholesome but had variety and not all were good.

First, punctuation is your friend.

So, take what those small humble folk do that you like and apply it to halflings. You don't need a brand new race for that.

Also, I dare say that the "copy-paste" problem you have with halflings applies mostly to people taking the Forgotten Realms/Greyhawk halflings and making them universal. But that's not the case outside of those systems. Eberron has dino-riding halflings, hospitality-industry halflings, and mafia halflings. Dark Sun has cannibal raider halflings (Edit: and psionics-using biogengineering halflings). Birthright has those shadow-dwelling halflings. Ravenloft has (at least in earlier editions) halfling vampires that drain the physical and mental stamina out of their victims and remove their will to live. Dragonlance has kender.

All that halflings need is a worldbuilding DM who isn't so lazy as to look at their stats and say "huh, they're boring."

 

[Levistus's_Leviathan]

What are dwarves, except short (though not even that short) humans who like beer, axes and mining?

A race created to be great at mining, though darkvision, their stoutness, resistance to poison, and ability to move while wearing heavy armor without a penalty for it.

What are elves except pretty and haughty humans?

A race created by the blood of gods/fey that have an otherworldly nature that makes it so they don't have to sleep, recall the memories of past lives/ages while in trances, and given a heightened awareness of their surroundings through Darkvision and proficiency in Perception.

What are goliaths except tall humans who live on mountains?

Spartan-style Giant-descended clans of resilient warriors naturally adapted to live on mountains, carry a ton of weight, and withstand unusually cold temperatures. Sure, if you just theme them as a "proud warrior race", they're fairly boring, but if you theme them more towards their giantish origins, it makes them more interesting.

What are orcs except ugly and savage humans?

A race of powerful, strong, and emotionally driven, primal warriors that follow the "old ways", whether that be the traditions of Gruumsh (FR and natural Exandria Orcs) or druidic customs taught to them by ancient dragons (Eberron Orcs).

I get it, humans can fulfill a lot of these niches, but these races were hand-crafted by the Gods of the worlds and the game designers to embody their niches. This is why lots of people like playing "My species doth protest to much" characters, because the race having a niche is what makes it interesting to subvert the typical race's tropes.

Halflings don't really have that. They're short people that are lucky, for some reason, and brave, for another unexplained reason (even though their race is the embodiment of "hide from our enemies, and we'll be okay". If they don't have much core identity in the base of the game other than "short people with a smattering of traits to make them worth taking and mechanically different from humans", that makes it even harder to subvert the race's tropes.

Like I get it, I want fantasy species to be more unique than that too, so I homebrew my own, but I feel that the standards here are not applied fairly!

I can understand how it would look unfair to say "this race is too much like humans" when a ton of races have lots of similarities to humans, but I disagree with that argument for a few key reasons:

1. All of us players are humans, and it's hard to roleplay something that isn't human in some way. This is why races having core identities is so important, because then it gives some roleplay advice for playing them (to both DMs and PCs) to differentiate them from "just humans in silly hats".
2. The core identity of halflings is "short people, like the ones from the Hobbit", while the core identity of other races are more in-depth and thought out (IMO, of course).
3. If races can't be more unique unless you use homebrew, what the hell are Warforged, Changelings, Shifters, Kalashtar, Lizardfolk, Dragonborn, Tieflings, Aasimar, Genasi, and so on? There are tons of official races that are unique and interesting, so to say "just homebrew better races" is besides the point. I gave examples of races that I thought were cool and were official, and also examples of races that I created to be unique, to give examples of how to create compelling races and how halflings don't fit that. A lot of other races do pass my "is this race compelling" test, and that means that by my standards, Halflings are subpar to what they could be.

 

[JiffyPopTart]

Rubbish. 4E didn't "drop" the half-orcs and gnomes. WotC included them in PHB 2, which was also where they published the Barbarian, Bard, Druid, and Sorcerer classes (among others).* PHB 2 and 3 were regarded just as core as PHB 1 in 4E. The idea that WotC dropped the gnome and half-orc is flat-out wrong.

* It's noticeable, for example, that people don't talk of WotC "dropping" these classes despite also being published in PHB 2.

 

[Whizbang Dustyboots]

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.

It's aggressively difficult to read him nowadays. I've gone looking for the Queen of Elfland's Daughter multiple times, but I either have to get a tattered used book sent to me from halfway around the country or a dodgy PDF. (I know too much about cybersecurity to be enthusiastic about downloading random PDFs uploaded to well-trafficked websites.)

 

[Yaarel]

then what makes something cool without trying too hard, other than whatever it is which now means we a condemned to have a million types of elf?

In my view, Tashas solves the problematic of too many elves. The main thing is to have the correct ability improvements. After that, a few trait swaps go a long way. Just four or five different kinds of Elf to start off with as a basis to tweak is more than enough.

Also, enormous flavor actualizes by making sure certain spells known are available to the spellcasting classes. Spells that have elven flavors are great. And balancewise are no problem. Even a lineage minor trait or a background can grant spells known. For the Elf that personifies magic, the lineage members normally are spellcasters.

Helpfully, an Elf character doesnt need every Elf trait. If the community as a whole conveys the appropriate flavors, that is more than enough.

I meant the setting and build aesthetic, but yours is also cool as well, maybe add a bit more harshness as light can be made into beams that can melt armies.

For the far-north, the sun feels gentle. But really, laser beams are close enough to flavor.

 

[Whizbang Dustyboots]

I feel that one of these things is trying to be cool a bit too hard.

You should see how the dragonborn overcompensates with the car he drives.

 

[Ruin Explorer]

But the little people? I absolutely would not blink at finding smallfolk pushed to the fringes in pre-Tolkien fantasy. Hobbits are very definitely a Tolkien thing, but the main difference with Tolkien's is that he made them settled.

The little people are universally magical until Tolkien. That's the big thing he changes. How exactly they're magical varies but it often involves building/fixing things and/or vanishing into thin air (hobbits can kind of do the latter, but it's non-magical).

Re: Anglo-Saxon, yeah Tolkien picked myths which were explicitly Anglo-Saxon in the more correct/historical sense. I always felt it was weird because to me King Arthur seems infinitely more "English" than Beowulf. But obvs. Tolkien knew much of the big stuff was French (and or distantly derived from Celtic myth, and he felt Celtic stuff wasn't "English" which was part of the popular ignorance of the time - and still goes on a bit), so felt it was insufficiently "English" by his definition. Man was a crank god bless 'im. You'd probably have to be to come up with LotR.

It's aggressively difficult to read him nowadays. I've gone looking for the Queen of Elfland's Daughter multiple times, but I either have to get a tattered used book sent to me from halfway around the country or a dodgy PDF. (I know too much about cybersecurity to be enthusiastic about downloading random PDFs uploaded to well-trafficked websites.)

Yeah I can imagine. I had a hell of time getting hold of Tanith Lee even, let alone Dunsany.