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

[Crimson Longinus]

So... why didn't you? It was kind of an invitation for you to do something.

I can make halflings that are interesting to me. I probably can't make halflings that are interesting to you.

Instead you just keep saying that clearly I think my preferences are universal (when I've said I don't) and that if I just stopped thinking about myself I'd realize other people like other things and they can be just as interesting.

I know other people can like other things. I've said that a few times. But you seem to not be hearing me.

Then what are we discussing here? You don't care for halflings, we know. So what?

 

[JiffyPopTart]

okay you know people who like halflings, right? do they ever note how halflings have no real connections to big stuff like history and cosmology do they ever complain about their lack of connection?

In my campaign world all the different humanoids have just as much history and cosmology as required by the players actions. I didn't have to invent any more history and backstory than I needed to set up the current events in the land. This applies blanketly to all the humanoids.

As far as prepwork, I have humanoid areas the players never even visited (giantlands and lizardfolk) and have other areas the players gravitated to where I developed way more backstory that WotC would ever think of (bulkywugs).

Maybe this is why I don't see halflings as lesser than any other of the PHB choices, because I just take the simple into description from the PHB and then build on it for my own campaign.

 

[PsyzhranV2]

Maybe this is why I don't see halflings as lesser than any other of the PHB choices, because I just take the simple into description from the PHB and then build on it for my own campaign.

How they're presented in the PHB and other official books is 100% the issue. Yes, you can do whatever you want with them once you're at your own table; that's true, but irrelevant. The point being disputed is whether the starting point we're given in official material is compelling enough.

 

[Crimson Longinus]

How they're presented in the PHB and other official books is 100% the issue. Yes, you can do whatever you want with them once you're at your own table; that's true, but irrelevant. The point being disputed is whether the starting ooint we're given in official material is compelling enough.

I mean it is not particularly compelling. But neither are any of the others. They're all pretty damn bland.

 

[doctorbadwolf]

The problem with Tolkien Halflings is, they lack ambition, so they are unlike to build an empire.

No, that is a good thing about them.

 

[doctorbadwolf]

@Yaarel dude I’m not going to play this game with you. I’ve literally never seen you not insist on anything remotely related to Norse myth only being the way you see it in your very idiosyncratic view that isn’t shared by any Norse scholar I’ve ever met, regardless of what anyone else says.

The point remains for anyone who wants to know. There are many stories about dwarves, and they range from holding up the sky to making jewelry for Freja to being confused with alfar to all kinds of other stuff.

It isn’t accurate at all to say that “the mind of a feature of Stone” is more accurate than a physical creature walking around. It’s just your interpretation of animist interpretations of folk lore.

 

[Yaarel]

@Yaarel dude I’m not going to play this game with you. I’ve literally never seen you not insist on anything remotely related to Norse myth only being the way you see it in your very idiosyncratic view that isn’t shared by any Norse scholar I’ve ever met, regardless of what anyone else says.

The point remains for anyone who wants to know. There are many stories about dwarves, and they range from holding up the sky to making jewelry for Freja to being confused with alfar to all kinds of other stuff.

It isn’t accurate at all to say that “the mind of a feature of Stone” is more accurate than a physical creature walking around. It’s just your interpretation of animist interpretations of folk lore.

Exactly how many Norse archeologists from Scandinavia have you met?

 

[jayoungr]

You know, it occurs to me that halflings may have the Champion Fighter "problem". There has been lots of discussion here about how the Champion Fighter is terrible design because it's so simple. People come up with all sorts of fixes to stop it from being terminally boring. When others point out that some players like the Champion Fighter because of (rather than despite) its simplicity, this does not convince the detractors.

An unrelated thought: if Dragonborn and Tieflings are so popular, that's actually a reason not to make either of them one of the "big four." The purpose of the free rules is to whet people's appetites and make them want to buy the full PHB, so holding back on some of the more popular options is a sound strategy.

 

[Coroc]

I know there have been discussions similar to this in the recent past on these forums, but I felt the need to explain things freshly from my point of view. Keep in mind, I'm not saying that halflings shouldn't be a part of D&D, or that people who play/like halflings are having badwrongfun, I'm merely explaining why I have always been turned off from halflings and tend to prefer other small races (gnomes, goblins, kobolds, even dwarves).

I should probably start out by giving some of my background in the hobby. As a few of you are probably aware, I am fairly new to the hobby, and younger than most of the active posters on this site (from my experience, anyway), being 19 years old (turning 20 in September). I have been playing D&D since just after my 15th birthday, so about 4.5 years now. D&D 5e was the first edition of D&D that I've ever played, and is still the only TTRPG that I have ever played/GMed for (although I know a bit about Pathfinder, Call of Cthulhu, Warhammer 40k, and Star Wars: Edge of the Empire). I have also researched a bit of how previous editions of D&D were different mechanically and lore-wise from 5e in order to understand its background, and consider myself fairly well versed in the lore of the Forgotten Realms, Eberron, Exandria, and decently knowledgeable on the lore of Dark Sun, Theros, Ravnica, Ravenloft Dragonlance, Greyhawk, and a few other settings. I also own every official D&D 5e book except Candlekeep Mysteries, and have read all of the books that I do own. I am a huge fan of the hobby (even though I am relatively new to the game), believe that D&D 5e is a great game, and cannot foresee myself ever stop playing D&D in any part of the near or distant future. I am heavily invested in the game and its future, and want to see the hobby that I love improve as much as it possibly can.

As I've shown above, I know quite a bit about D&D. I have dozens of playable races available in my homebrew world, and learn as much as I can about the lore of different worlds in order to improve my world by inspiration brought by that lore. I have created a ton of lore for tons of playable races for my world, and I find most of the lore that I've created for these to be fairly engaging and drawing concepts (and I do not mean to brag by this. I am a strong believer in "I just write the thing" mentality that some writers have, and find myself incredibly lucky and thoroughly surprised whenever my limited human brain comes up with something I find cool). I've created an intricate society of Vecna-worshipping death-touched, called the Vezyi. Their whole society revolves around the idea that life is a fleeting gift and that they must do whatever they can to preserve the lives of their people, having their culture being based off of worshipping the god of undeath in order to get "free" resurrections from clerics of Vecna (the price of these resurrections is having your body becoming a nameless member of Vecna's undead army, and quite possibly having your soul being devoured by Vecna's Mega-Phylactery). I've also created the Felshen, which are a psionic race of people descended from a flesh-golem race created by artificers and fleshmancers that had the goal of creating a fully-reproducing and sentient race of people, just to see if they could. They've had a centuries-long conflict with the magic-worshipping Yikkan Goblinoids, as the Yikkan Goblinoids view them as unnatural aberrations that's mere existence is actively hurting the universe, and the Felshen have an understandably negative opinion of a society of people that have systematically oppressed them for as long as their race has existed. Again, not to toot my own horn, but I think that both of these examples that I have given are good, compelling, and interesting races. They have a clear niche and purpose (the Felshen for being a psionic race, the Vezyi for being death-touched), are given in-depth and sensical lore-based reasons to exist, and are strongly rooted in the identity of the world. I feel the same way about Kalashtar and Warforged for Eberron, Thri-Kreen for Dark Sun, the Kryn Dynasty's races for Exandria/Wildemount, and so on. There are tons of examples, but these are the ones that come to mind at the moment.

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. If you remove them from Dark Sun you don't have cannibal halflings, which are a cool tidbit about the setting, but certainly not essential to its identity, IMO. Eberron probably changes the most noticeably of any of these listed settings, as it has Talenta Plains, Dragonmarked, and House Boromar Halflings, but even then, you could just as easily replace all halflings with Gnomes (or possibly even Goblins) and get practically the same outcome. What is their lore-based reason to exist in most D&D world's? There's rarely actually ever one of these, and even if there is, the explanation is lacking (cause this god I just came up with to create halflings created halflings), and/or could just be summed up by "Halflings are in this world because they exist in D&D". And why do Halflings exist in D&D as a whole? Because Tolkien's works (a huge part of the inspiration of D&D) included Hobbits.

And that's where the issue (for me) comes down to. Their existence is circular. They exist for no real narrative or plot-driving purposes, but because Lord of the Rings and the Hobbit had small-folk as a race for some of its most prominent characters. And that's not a "bad" reason to warrant their existence in a fantasy game where quite literally anything can exist, but it's just not a "good" one, either (and by "a good reason to warrant existing", I meant it as in a reason that empowers creative thought, drives/inspires plot points, and motivates players to think a bit more about the identity of their characters). Warforged exist for a good reason (to provoke discussion and tropes of "what measure is a non-human") and give a lot of inspiration for both character backstory and plot points. Felshen exist in my D&D world to create plot points about the Felyik Conflict (shorthand for Felshen-Yikkan Conflict/Wars), to give players ideas on how their character(s) feel about major parts of the world (the magical goblinoid and psionic humanoid societies), and to drive discussion on who the "good" and the "bad" in the conflict are (it's neither, all shades of gray, but some individuals and mindsets are more wrong or right than others). The Kryn Dynasty exists in Exandria to drive discussion on essentially the same issue as Paarthurnax's famous question of "What is better - to be born good, or to overcome your evil nature through great effort?" The Warforged, the Felshen, the Kryn Dynasty, (and endless further examples), all exist for what I define as "good" reasons. They exist for story-driving reasons, while Halflings just exist to be "short people that are humans . . . but short".

I guess this is one of the rare cases where I find "Humans in silly hats" to be a valid complaint about a player race. Warforged can't be replaced with humans, as their story is unique and specific to their physical nature and history. The Kryn Dynasty's story would be far less compelling if they weren't gnolls, orcs, and goblinoids and were just cursed humans. My world's stories for Felshen and Vezyi are highly dependent on how they came into existence and their inherent genetic and magical nature, even if they are roleplayed very similar to humans (because, you know, we humans are the ones that will be roleplaying these races). However, if Halfling villages were just replaced with bog-standard human peasant villages, the story wouldn't change at all. If the dinosaur riders of the Talenta Planes were just primitive gnomes, goblins, or even humans that ride just slightly larger dinos, would anyone really notice or care? If the Halfling cannibals of Dark Sun were just human or elven cannibals, would that really change anything important about the world? If the Kender were just Thanos-snapped out of existence, would the cries in response to this be more made in protest against removing the endlessly-annoying kleptomaniacs, or would they be in celebration of their ultimate demise?

tl;dr - Halflings don't fill any important narrative purposes in the game (and even the ones that they do fill heavily overlap with more story-driving races). They exist just to exist, mostly because people like Bilbo/Frodo Baggins, and just aren't an inspiring character race. They're just "short people", and even the settings that try to make them matter fail to do so in a way that couldn't be at least as easy to emulate with one of the other similar races in the game that actually have story connected to their existence (gnomes connected to fey, humans being humans, etc).

Thoughts? Who agrees with me? Who disagrees with me? If you agree with me, are your reasons for agreeing the same as mine, or are they different. If you disagree with me, why?

whew that's a difficult one.
halflings aka hobbits are from lotr and there they are the guys who do not want to go on adventures at all. That's for a start. And if they are forced to, then they are the ones who often have to be protected by the bigger folks. Otoh they are far kess likely to get corrupted, far more pure and simple than other races. To play them as miniature versions of the equivalent human is what gives me problems. I only allow them if there is a purpose in the game world

 

[Mind of tempest]

No, that is a good thing about them.

so then what do they do that matter on the large scale aside from the heroics of the baggins?