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

[Crimson Longinus]

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

Play one to find out!

 

[Mind of tempest]

Play one to find out!

there are few games in my area that are taking on new players and they lack anything inspiring about them, plus I can never find a campaign that I like.

 

[doctorbadwolf]

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

Why do you think that matters?

It is a good thing that there is a core race that has not had a big impact on history. They. Are. Just. Folks.

 

[bedir than]

I have to chuckle. There is now this bizarre concept that a race that supposedly never goes to war, and is the only one, is worthless. Not even worthless, but completely unworthy. The idea is that this supposed people is so pathetic that they don't deserve to exist -- again, the affront is that they are the only race that believes in peace, tranquility, joy, happiness.

Holding this position is unfathomable, because believing both of these thoughts means that you feel that stories of peace and happiness cannot and must not exist. Holding this position is hypocritical, as you claim there is no story -- and yet you constantly repeat the story.

Heroes come from all walks of life. And if your table only has room for those who are constantly full of tragedy and violence I'm glad I don't play at it.

 

[jayoungr]

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

They don't have to "matter on a large scale" as a group. Having some extraordinary individuals is enough.

 

[Cadence]

They don't have to "matter on a large scale" as a group. Having some extraordinary individuals is enough.

Are there even large groups of plane-touched at all, let alone ones that matter, for example?

 

[Faolyn]

I agree with Eberron and Athas, but I will also note those are two settings that went out of their way to alter races and make them different than normal. And in "general" DnD lore, the halflings are still just homebodies. So our "generic" lore is the same as Greyhawk and the Realms as well.

OK, and? It shows that races can be changed and still remain those races. Of course the basic game has to be generic. It's up to specific worlds to make them different and interesting.

And yet each time you take a race out of the area, you put a similar race in. You took out dwarves and put in another underground race, like kobolds, goblins, or gnomes. When someone mentioned taking out the elves, they offered gnomes or firbolgs.

Because you kept saying that there "had" to be a race that fit that area. And so examples were given.

And you can replace halflings with other races as well, either as the Small race or as the pastoral race. While they're not a typical race, loxodon are described as "oases as calm" who "believe in the value of community and life."

I'm not making up these gaps. Sure, you can not fill them, but almost every world DOES fill them. Sure, maybe it is dwarves living in the jungles. But SOMEONE lives in the jungles and forests. Maybe it is fey monsters, maybe it is elves, maybe it is dwarves, but there is someone there. But Halflings are...living in the human cities and the human farmlands. They don't fill a natural gap, they are just attached to humans.

Halflings only live in human cities in the Realms and Greyhawk. Which are both very old settings. As I pointed out, they don't in Dark Sun or Eberron. Why? Because, as you said, those two settings went out of their way to actually do something with the races instead of having them be boringly generic. Any setting where the writers spend a few minutes actually thinking about what to do with the races rather than just taking them, unchanged, from the PH can have interesting halflings.

Basically, your argument is:

You: Haflings are boring. They just live with humans and have no role.

Others: Here are examples from other settings where the halflings are very distinct people who aren't boring and don't live with humans.

You: Those don't count, because those halflings aren't boring.

Others: So what are you complaining about?

You: That halfings are boring and live with humans.

(Also, a hook: halflings live with humans. Why? Were there lands taken away from them, and now they're forced into Little Hobbiton ghettos? Are they happy about this?)

I didn't see some of this the first time, so let me look again.

1) Anarchists is a really bold claim. They don't do anything, they just ignore claims of kings and sovereigns. And, weirdly, the kings and sovereigns... don't do anything about it. No body seems to care that the halflings are ignoring them, so what is the point of having them ignore them?

Well, that's a hook in and of itself, now isn't it? Halflings could do a lot to affect the way a nation works and nobody pays them any mind.

2) I'm guessing you are pulling lorekeepers from the part about halflings having stories and this point that they sometimes inadvertently have lore about ancient things. But that isn't their role in the setting. There are actually organizations that are lorekeepers, like Candlekeep and the like. Sure, more than one group can do the same thing, but the Halflings keeping lore almost seems accidental to a degree.

That isn't their role in the Realms because it's an old setting that didn't think about how to make halflings interesting. You can take that bit of info about them and actually make them important.

3) And so is everyone else. Seriously, this is a non-point. Every PC race is an adventurer.

No. Every PC is an adventurer. Most are outliers. Most elves and dwarfs don't go seeking out trouble. Most humans don't, either. But most halflings do.

4) You are going from a single line of text. It literally only states "Halfling children were known to fish for bats using a light, durable twine string, and bait of live moths." and seems to be from the novel Azure Bonds. Are being bat fishers an interesting detail? Sure. Is it something that is ever utilized or mentioned anywhere else? Nope.

So? That's the fault of the writers for not exploring this interesting concept.

5) Being chefs and brewers are... again not much of a thing for their entire race. Dwarves and Elves are known brewers too. Humans are brewers and chefs. The article doesn't even say anything more than that they cook food and make alcohol. They aren't even well known for it in the world, or making delicacies that other races like.

So, being a miner is a big thing for a race, but being a chef isn't?

6) Maybe this is pulled from the fact that it says they are dominated by other races and don't live in their own communities. Otherwise... they are extra friendly. That is fine, but "we like outsiders" isn't something I can build off of. They don't have anything of their own to actually make them different.

It isn't? That immediately brings to mind the idea that halflings are diplomats and peace-keepers, capable of bridging the gap between any two races, no matter how different they are. That is a really important role, especially in a setting as violent as D&D.

So, we are seeing a lot of very reaching things.

Yes. You seem determined to give a line of description a once-over, shrug, and toss it, without spending even a moment thinking about the implications of it.

I mean, you want to include a single line about bats and the fact that they go on adventures as part of defining the race. And yes, it is perhaps the fault of the writers for not doing anythign with them. But... that is our point. Nobody seems to ever do anything with them. We are told again and again that they are subsumed by the other races.

Only in the Realms and Greyhawk. Not in every setting.

And let's say that was universal. That every single setting D&D has ever produced has halflings who do nothing. What are they then? A small, easily overlooked race with incredibly luck who has managed to infiltrate other humanoid races. Dude, forget the lizard people--here are the true global masters!

No, you aren't understanding what I am saying.

Let us say that you make a world with elves in the forest. Then let us say that you make a world with Firbolgs in the forest. Those two worlds are markedly different. There is a big difference between using Elves and using Firbolgs. It makes a noticeable change to make that swap. Yes, you can make two different worlds, but they are obviously not interchangeable.

If that was the only real difference between the worlds? No, they wouldn't be that much different. Because neither wood elves nor firbolgs have the kind of society that makes big changes in the world around them.

But anyway, so what? You can replace halflings with loxodon, farming goblins, or humans and say the exact same thing. It's similar but not exact.

But Halflings... don't have a role like that. They are just "we are short humans that live with humans". And if you swap halflings and humans... there isn't a super noticeable difference.

If halflings have no role or ambition, does that mean humans have no role or ambition either?

That's great for him, but doesn't answer any of my questions. At all.

No, because you are determined that halflings are boring and refuse to even think about anything other than that conclusion. Heck, you haven't even said how you would officially change halflings to make them more interesting.

I'm familiar with that comic. I get the joke. Because it is a comic that doesn't take these things terribly seriously.

Because, let me ask you this. Your first answer was that farmers need to live in the human farmlands. Doesn't that mean... humans?

So let me ask you this: humans are, in D&D-land, most commonly found in cities and towns and their suburbs. But they still need to eat. Halflings make for good farmers and seem to enjoy it, and don't have any particular desire to live in the Big City. Why on earth would humans not simply employ--or exploit, or enslave--halflings to do the farming while they, the humans, enjoy the big city life?

So the race that lives in human lands is... humans. And for some reason halflings. Who else would you have live in the human lands and be basically humans with human culture, other than halflings? That seems to be their role.... but why does it exist? Why do we need two human races in the same lands sharing the same cultures?

That's... a bit like saying that if one group of humans was forced to adopt the customs and lifestyle of another group of more dominant humans, then you don't need that first group of humans.

It is wonderful that you homebrewed them like that. Truly.

So what you're saying is, you won't accept halflings that are officially non-boring (Eberron, Dark Sun), and you won't accept extrapolations from their official FR/GH lore that makes them non-boring (infiltrators, loremasters, peace-keepers, master chefs, exploited workforce), and you won't bother to come up with your own lore for them. Because... you need the PH to tell you what they're like? Do you play all of your races exactly the way the PH says?

So I think you should just up and admit that it's not that halflings are bad, it's that you don't know what to do with them.

But that does nothing for official materials. Nowhere in any official material does it say that humans only live in villages and halflings live in towns. Or that halflings are the only ones who mint coins or that I'm assuming dwarves.

And yes, that matters because we are talking about the official halflings of the official game.

The "official game" is PH only, which has minimal lore on all of the standard races.

I could make a world where all halflings can walk into the land of the dead and are the spirit guides for all souls. But that doesn't make that what halflings are in the larger game, because that is just my own made up lore.

All D&D, including that of the actual settings, is made up lore.

Which is fine for my own personal game. But I'm not the type of person to get on a soapbox and start demanding that people change everything to match my personal homebrew ideas, and since my ideas don't like this thing then no one can do anything with them.

Uh, you kind of are by dismissing the idea that halflings can be anything interesting and shouldn't be a main PC race.

But, again, you would notice it. You would have that thought.

Yes, because I would be establishing what was canon in that particular game and what wasn't. If you say "in this world, X lives here and Y lives there," that doesn't exclude all the other races. If you say "these are the only PC races in this world," that does.

I literally did not have that thought with the missing halflings in the game I mentioned. I literally noticed today that a 4 year campaign didn't include any halflings. That is what I am talking about. Not some sort of worrying about them every session or whatever people are responding with. The very concept of "there are no halflings?" didn't even cross my mind.

That's a you issue, not a halfling issue.

 

[Faolyn]

Y'know, thinking on how to do stuff with halflings... Just keep going with the underground theme. Give 'em claws. Just make them all live underground. Squint in the sunlight.

Just, make 'em molemen.

One of the halfling gifts in Level Up does exactly that. Well, not the sunlight thing, but the claws and digging.

 

[Alzrius]

You’re on the Internet.

When someone asserts something that isn't self-evident, without providing anything to back it up, they're the ones who've run afoul of Hitchens's razor. The onus lies on them to prove their assertions, not the ones calling them out for their lack of evidence.

 

[doctorbadwolf]

When someone asserts something that isn't self-evident, without providing anything to back it up, they're the ones who've run afoul of Hitchens's razor. The onus lies on them to prove their assertions, not the ones calling them out for their lack of evidence.

I’m not trying to win internet points.