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

[Greg K]

Yes, there really is, you just refuse to accept it.

None of the other main PHB races can be lifted out of the main settings - Forgotten Realms being the prime example, without massively rewriting the setting.

To each their own. I can lift Dragonborn and Tiefling out of Forgotten Realms and not massively rewrite the setting. To me, beginning with 2e, elements of the Forgotten Realms have been like bad fan fic- and it just got much worse under WOTC (again, imo)

 

[Crimson Longinus]

Orcs don't build cities.

They don't? If you say they do, they do.

Humans don't build cities underground.

Again. If you say they do, then they do.

An ancient aasimar empire would be considerably different from elves - aasimar have no ties to nature, aren't virtually immortal, and are directly tied to divine powers instead of nature.

Only wood elves are naturey. Other ones aren't. And D&D elves aren't 'virtually immortal', only long lived. Many fantasy races are. And all this is completely made up anyway.

And, remember, I didn't say replace. I said REMOVE. You can pull halflings out of most settings and nothing in that setting would change. Not a whit. No one would even notice. None of the history of the setting would change one iota.

Sure it would change, It wouldn't have halflings any more. But if you mean they're not movers of shakers and have huge empires, yeah. And that's kinda part of their theme and complaining about that is absurd.

Perhaps the most damning of all is that, unless the artist includes something for perspective in the image, halflings are indistinguishable from humans in the art. And, attempts to make them distinguishable get met with very open hostility. It's basically a small core of REALLY devoted fans that are clamped onto this bizarre notion that halflings MUST be in the PHB as a core race when, again, after 50 years, no one else really cares.

Drawing a creature that looks small but not cartoony is challenging. I know. It also can be done. 5e art was not great though.

But removing them runs into the gnome effect, so, WotC has no choice but to waste page count on crap that has never, ever made any difference to the game.

To you. Didn't make difference to you. A lot of people have played a lot of halfling characters and loved them.

 

[Whizbang Dustyboots]

They’re part of the world. They just don’t impact history much.

In our world, this applies to, say, Switzerland. That nation's impact hasn't been military, it's been economic, and even then, staying the hell out of everyone else's drama and living their lives is kind of their thing.

I used Switzerland as a model for a gnomish nation in my campaign, but it applies equally well to halflings. You don't have to be a winged elf or something even more exotic to come from a difficult to reach place that most people have never visited or perhaps even have heard of.

 

[AdmundfortGeographer]

This is pretty low, bud. I’m happy to not know someone who thinks this sort of thing is appropriate.

it’s an entirely too common of a thing for sea lions to proclaim themselves virtues of reason without any guilt.

 

[doctorbadwolf]

World Building is important. Many people find it much harder to make player characters if they don't understand where those player characters live.

That is why we developed settings in the first place

And setting specific lore is…on the DM. The published settings have places for halflings. In FR and Greyhawk, they’re pretty basic. In other setttings, not so much.

 

[Mind of tempest]

Can you restate this with some grammar? I’m not talking formal speech, but please, I am very tired. Don’t ask me to parse that.

and you know which race has the endless number of nameless faces is literally all of them, as all player race are social group sapients as opposed to creatures who are hyper solitary or hive or even one mind may bodies creatures so that is about as relevant a player race niche as wallpaper is to an ant, no race has a society of all kings or all sanitation workers.
does this work better?

 

[doctorbadwolf]

I might be misremembering... but wasn't it more the dvergar (spelling?) from norse mythology in specific that you guys were talking about, and not the dwarves in general?

It seemed to me that they were saying those specific creatures you were mentioning had that trait, not that all dwarves did.

That’s a fair point, but what I was more challenging is the particular ideas of animism that they tend to speak of as if it’s a well established fact, rather than a thing not all experts on Norse beliefs and culture agree on.

In our world, this applies to, say, Switzerland. That nation's impact hasn't been military, it's been economic, and even then, staying the hell out of everyone else's drama and living their lives is kind of their thing.

I used Switzerland as a model for a gnomish nation in my campaign, but it applies equally well to halflings. You don't have to be a winged elf or something even more exotic to come from a difficult to reach place that most people have never visited or perhaps even have heard of.

Hell yeah. I tend to use halflings in ways where they have only gone to war for defense of thier homes or thier allies’ homes, and fight very well and fiercely when they have to, but would rather avoid a fight. The one thing I use from MToF for them is that their games are also training systems. Every halfling in my games also is proficient with slings, and halfling commoners are proficient with stealth and either athletics or acrobatics, and know how to coordinate to a greater degree than I assume for humans, because they grow up training to defend thier homes.

it’s an entirely too common of a thing for sea lions to proclaim themselves virtues of reason without any guilt.

Yeeeaah. “Debate me or you’re a bad person”.

and you know which race has the endless number of nameless faces is literally all of them, as all player race are social group sapients as opposed to creatures who are hyper solitary or hive or even one mind may bodies creatures so that is about as relevant a player race niche as wallpaper is to an ant, no race has a society of all kings or all sanitation workers.
does this work better?

I don’t know what point you’re trying to make, sorry.

 

[Alzrius]

it’s an entirely too common of a thing for sea lions to proclaim themselves virtues of reason without any guilt.

Kudos to you for citing your sources rather than just making a claim without backing it up.

 

[Faolyn]

If you have to completely rewrite the race every time you try to use it in a setting, to the point where, other than physical proportions, nothing remains of the core depiction of that race, then that race wasn't very interesting to begin with.

I don't think saying "in this world, halflings control the rivers" or "in this world, halflings are the best farmers, to the point that many other races rely on them to grow their food" is changing them beyond recognition. And while there aren't any canonical settings that have halflings like that, those are easy ways to make halflings important in a world without changing their lore that much.

 

[Alzrius]

I don't think saying "in this world, halflings control the rivers" or "in this world, halflings are the best farmers, to the point that many other races rely on them to grow their food" is changing them beyond recognition. And while there aren't any canonical settings that have halflings like that, those are easy ways to make halflings important in a world without changing their lore that much.

Don't forget that halflings in the Birthright setting are "a race that is native to the Shadow World, but fled to Cerilia when a force of evil corrupted their homeland. They still bear the taint of their origins in the Shadow World and are able to cross over into that plane of existence more easily than any other race of Cerilia."