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

[jayoungr]

I mean, I've rewritten them a little bit, because I know there are people who might play my games and be interested in their mechanics (no one has yet) but if they weren't one of the Big Four and people expected them to be there... I wouldn't really bother to rewrite them.

So if I understand you right, you wish they were not one of the four races included in the free rules (i.e. the "big four") because then you'd feel liberated from the obligation to put them in your world?

 

[Chaosmancer]

Why just Halflings? Or why specifically halfings?

I guess this confuses me. There have been a few threads like this recently.

Why isn't the same true of Dwarves? Is there anything more cliched and dull than a D&D dwarf? What about elves? They are not Tolkien's immortal beings full of grace, or strange fell fey creatures from the lands of faerie, they're just humans with pointy ears who live a long time and spend that long time hanging out in forests and practising archery.

It's not that I can't see why people might find Halflnigs boring. I just don't see why there is a problem here exclusive to them.

Okay, so let us start with the really basic stuff.

Dwarves live in the Mountains. That immediately makes a difference, as stupid as it sounds, because Dwarves live "over there". And it immediately starts raising questions. How do they handle this problem in the mountains, how do they handle that problem. It also raises the question of how they interact with other races. Because they live in the mountains, it opens that door and gives us an option. Are they friendly with their neighbors, or not? And beyond just living in the Mountains, they tend to live underground in the mountains. This opens up even more potential.

So, as a world-builder, just this single simple meaningless fact gives me a lot of options already. I have to start thinking about how they live underground, how they get food, how they interact with their neighbors. It seems like it should be a fact that doesn't even matter, but it starts shaping a lot of how you can present the race. Making them stoic warriors in grey and icy fortresses far up in the mountains who isolate themselves from their neighbors is an option, as well as merry craftsmen who send trade delegations from their mining homes constantly to their good neighbors.

The craftsmen part is also important. Dwarves forge, and traditionally they are one of the best. This gives us angles to work with. Some lore has them enlsaved for their crafting ability and recently freed. Some lore has them having the best troops, because they have the best equipment. Some lore has their skill translate into vast wealth for their nations. And you can turn this dial a few different ways. For example, I once had a set piece location that was a dwarven super forge that used lava and the heat of the core of the planet to forge things like adamantium. We start asking, how do they make that. Why do they make that.

But, one of the biggest things I've seen with Dwarves that gets played with more than anything else, are the clans. Out of every race in the game, the only other one that gets close to this I've seen are orcish tribes. A dwarven clan gives us a unit to manipulate. If your clan is the clan most known for the warriors who guard the borders, that clan is very different than the clan most known for making beautiful jewelry, or for caring for the dead.

The clan allows us to take the dwarven society and chunk it up. Every dwarf is like this, but Clan Gem-Eye is also that. And by making these divisions, you can start piecing together a more complicated relationship. You can have rivalries, wars, different factions with different goals. And, it also allows the character to work with a new unit. Maybe your character is not in a good relationship with their clan, but they are with their family. It allows you to play with this extra layer.


Now, to turn this back around to halflings for a second... they live with humans. Basically all of the things we discussed in the Mountain part of dwarves for halflings is just "copy the humans". What do halflings do? They are simple farming folk. Maybe tavern owners or shopkeeps. In the worldbuilding sense... they are a pallet swap. You'll never go to a halfling city. The best you can do is a small halfling farming village... which is just a farming village. But a dwarven city is very different from an elven city is quite different from a human city.

Where in the world building sense I can see dwarves having multiple dials I can spin... halfling dials are all set. They don't move. And that is why I think things like dwarves and elves end up more interesting, because we can adjust them more, where as halflings... don't really change.

 

[Chaosmancer]

You could just….not do any of that. I’ve got a world with no humans. If a player really wanted to play one, I’d work with them to figure out where humans could find a place in this world, and it wouldn’t be thier normal place as the demographically dominant people.

I’d ask what appeals to the player about a human, what they want from the character, if there is a particular culture they want to come from, etc.

If someone wants to play another race I don’t have a place for yet, and I can see room for them, I’ll ask them what they want from it, and work it out with them.

But unless a player asks to play a human, they just don’t exist in this world.

I thought about doing that, but the thing is halflings are a core race. Just ignoring them felt like I was going to have an issue down the line.

Now, by this point, the fact that I've never had a halfling player or anyone interested in playing them, maybe I feel more confident in just excluding them from my rewrite. But if they can just be casually excluded and not impact anything... that is an issue I think.

Because unlike your example of removing humans, which is VERY noticeable in the world. Removing halflings.... isn't. I don't even think my most recent group has realized there are no halflings in my current world. And actually thinking about a game a friend of mine has been runninng... I don't think there are any halflings in his world either. But I didn't even think to look for any until just now. And that has been a three or four year long campaign.

It feels odd that they can disappear and no one even thinks about it. I know where the elves, dwarves, gnolls, goblins, orcs and humans are. We;ve encountered hags, giants, dragons, fey, mindflayers, grimlocks and a beholder... but not even a peep is halflings exist. We actually did encounter a gnome artificer too, but we never followed up on where he came from.

 

[Chaosmancer]

Yes. Super tl;dr. Learn to summarise.

I already get accused of misrepresenting people's arguments. Summarizing more seems like I'd just get accused of more bad faith posting and arguing.

 

[Chaosmancer]

So if I understand you right, you wish they were not one of the four races included in the free rules (i.e. the "big four") because then you'd feel liberated from the obligation to put them in your world?

That isn't why I'm advocating that they need something done, but it would be nice.

They could also rewrite them to make them more engaging and interesting. That would work too, but people seem to think that changing them in anyway is bad, which leaves me in an odd position. I don't think the status quo is good, but every change to the status quo is met with fierce opposition.

If people don't want halflings to change, then it seems the simplest solution is to make them less prominent, and that would lessen the tension I feel between how they are talked about as a major part of DnD and how they are presented as... not a major part of DnD.

 

[Crimson Longinus]

I've never had a halfling player

Yes, most players tend to be humans.

Because unlike your example of removing humans, which is VERY noticeable in the world. Removing halflings.... isn't. I don't even think my most recent group has realized there are no halflings in my current world. And actually thinking about a game a friend of mine has been runninng... I don't think there are any halflings in his world either. But I didn't even think to look for any until just now. And that has been a three or four year long campaign.

Yes, but besides humans the same can be said for any race. Humans of course are the expected baseline in any setting, and not including them is exceptional (but potentially interesting.) But anything beyond humans is an optional extra that don't really need to exist; there are a ton of human-only fantasy setting. This singling out halflings is just frankly bizarre.

 

[Mind of tempest]

Okay, so let us start with the really basic stuff.

Dwarves live in the Mountains. That immediately makes a difference, as stupid as it sounds, because Dwarves live "over there". And it immediately starts raising questions. How do they handle this problem in the mountains, how do they handle that problem. It also raises the question of how they interact with other races. Because they live in the mountains, it opens that door and gives us an option. Are they friendly with their neighbors, or not? And beyond just living in the Mountains, they tend to live underground in the mountains. This opens up even more potential.

So, as a world-builder, just this single simple meaningless fact gives me a lot of options already. I have to start thinking about how they live underground, how they get food, how they interact with their neighbors. It seems like it should be a fact that doesn't even matter, but it starts shaping a lot of how you can present the race. Making them stoic warriors in grey and icy fortresses far up in the mountains who isolate themselves from their neighbors is an option, as well as merry craftsmen who send trade delegations from their mining homes constantly to their good neighbors.

The craftsmen part is also important. Dwarves forge, and traditionally they are one of the best. This gives us angles to work with. Some lore has them enlsaved for their crafting ability and recently freed. Some lore has them having the best troops, because they have the best equipment. Some lore has their skill translate into vast wealth for their nations. And you can turn this dial a few different ways. For example, I once had a set piece location that was a dwarven super forge that used lava and the heat of the core of the planet to forge things like adamantium. We start asking, how do they make that. Why do they make that.

But, one of the biggest things I've seen with Dwarves that gets played with more than anything else, are the clans. Out of every race in the game, the only other one that gets close to this I've seen are orcish tribes. A dwarven clan gives us a unit to manipulate. If your clan is the clan most known for the warriors who guard the borders, that clan is very different than the clan most known for making beautiful jewelry, or for caring for the dead.

The clan allows us to take the dwarven society and chunk it up. Every dwarf is like this, but Clan Gem-Eye is also that. And by making these divisions, you can start piecing together a more complicated relationship. You can have rivalries, wars, different factions with different goals. And, it also allows the character to work with a new unit. Maybe your character is not in a good relationship with their clan, but they are with their family. It allows you to play with this extra layer.


Now, to turn this back around to halflings for a second... they live with humans. Basically all of the things we discussed in the Mountain part of dwarves for halflings is just "copy the humans". What do halflings do? They are simple farming folk. Maybe tavern owners or shopkeeps. In the worldbuilding sense... they are a pallet swap. You'll never go to a halfling city. The best you can do is a small halfling farming village... which is just a farming village. But a dwarven city is very different from an elven city is quite different from a human city.

Where in the world building sense I can see dwarves having multiple dials I can spin... halfling dials are all set. They don't move. And that is why I think things like dwarves and elves end up more interesting, because we can adjust them more, where as halflings... don't really change.

you have components to dwarves, halflings have a lack at that.

That isn't why I'm advocating that they need something done, but it would be nice.

They could also rewrite them to make them more engaging and interesting. That would work too, but people seem to think that changing them in anyway is bad, which leaves me in an odd position. I don't think the status quo is good, but every change to the status quo is met with fierce opposition.

If people don't want halflings to change, then it seems the simplest solution is to make them less prominent, and that would lessen the tension I feel between how they are talked about as a major part of DnD and how they are presented as... not a major part of DnD.

removing them from prominence would less the problem.

Yes, most players tend to be humans.


Yes, but besides humans the same can be said for any race. Humans of course are the expected baseline in any setting, and not including them is exceptional (but potentially interesting.) But anything beyond humans is an optional extra that don't really need to exist; there are a ton of human-only fantasy setting. This singling out halflings is just frankly bizarre.

people like none human in their fantasy, but halflings lack anything to inspire different takes, think of each race as a movie genre, dwarves are western they are all similar but you have room to view it differently and change the interpretation, but halflings are copy-paste every time.
I have seen things in a similar niche as halflings but they diverged massively to the point you would not call them halflings or could even make halflings fill that lore spot.

 

[Faolyn]

Now, by this point, the fact that I've never had a halfling player or anyone interested in playing them, maybe I feel more confident in just excluding them from my rewrite. But if they can just be casually excluded and not impact anything... that is an issue I think.

Butting in... I disagree. You can exclude any race and not really have an impact. Even humans. As you said, there are over a hundred races, plus homebrew is super-simple. Get rid of any one race and there are two or three more to take its place.

Unless, for some reason, you decide to do a thing like say "there are no mines or good smiths anywhere on this world because there are no dwarfs." Which is silly. If there are no dwarfs, then humans, goblins, kobolds, gnomes, drow, etc., would take their place and the only players who would care are those who desperately want to play dwarfs for a reason. If there are no elves, you have humans, gnomes, firbolg, and that new faery race to take the place of "woodland dwellers who are in tune with nature and the fey and makes beautiful, natural goods and is probably a bit of a snot." If you get rid of tieflings, you have drow and shadar-kai to take their place in the edgy loner club. If you got rid of dragonborn, well, there's nothing else that has a breath weapon, but you still have lizardfolk and playable yuan-ti.

D&D is a crowded system and there are probably relatively few people who would be truly horrified if your world didn't have one or more of the Core Four.

 

[uzirath]

In my old AD&D World of Greyhawk campaign, I always assumed that all of the races had different cultures in different areas of the world. I expanded the setting west and south of the Sea of Dust, and had a halfling civilization of warlike desert raiders living in an area of desert badlands. This was intentionally done to play against expectations. The players loved it and the culture played a significant role in the campaign.

I’ve always seen the core element of halflings to be just their size. They’re small and thus often overlooked and underestimated. That’s always been enough for me to work with.

I also enjoy the GURPS DF take on halflings:

While most are rosy-cheeked and good- natured, there are plenty of sallow, evil-tempered halflings. Given their natural predilections, they gravitate toward organized crime. Mobster half like little better than whacking rival gangsters, grabbing the dough, and enjoying a spaghetti dinner afterward.

On a mechanical front, in addition to other traits, they have the “Honest Face” perk which gives them bonuses to reaction rolls.

 

[Chaosmancer]

Yes, most players tend to be humans.

Haha.

Yes, but besides humans the same can be said for any race. Humans of course are the expected baseline in any setting, and not including them is exceptional (but potentially interesting.) But anything beyond humans is an optional extra that don't really need to exist; there are a ton of human-only fantasy setting. This singling out halflings is just frankly bizarre.

I'd disagree. If I sat down at a table and the DM described the world and the various factions, and they didn't mention elves or dwarves, I'd be asking them where they are.

But halflings are supposedly on the same tier and if they aren't mentioned... I don't notice.