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

[Vaalingrade]

so anything that does not have a shelf life of over a week? aside from them being blazed out of their little minds do they do anything that lasts?

anything more permanent?

Sweet Earthship type houses centuries before anyone realizes the value?

 

[Mind of tempest]

Depends on what you mean by permanent. There are, for example, pubs in England that claim to have been operating continuously in the same spot for close to a millennium.

8 Oldest Pubs in England - Oldest.org

Discover the 8 Oldest Pubs in England here. Prepare to be transported into a rich & fascinating history on the oldest pubs in england that exist.

www.oldest.org

I hate pubs, the town is full of them, half of them burned down and we still have over 20.

Sweet Earthship type houses centuries before anyone realizes the value?

earthship?

 

[Whizbang Dustyboots]

Halflings have bad lore because TSR and WotC only ever hired humans. So Elves are fine because humans think they're hot, Dwarves are fine because they show off all their craftsmanship during the interviews with the writers, etc... The halflings that are home don't return the calls from the human PhB and campaign writers because it would disrupt their routine and spoil everything (and the ones who would answer are out travelling around).

Halflings need to start sending baked goods to the offices in Renton!

 

[Gammadoodler]

so anything that does not have a shelf life of over a week? aside from them being blazed out of their little minds do they do anything that lasts?

anything more permanent?

Memories?

 

[Micah Sweet]

Nah the ent lord just used the rings to take all the ent wives for themselves, the halfling ones made the shire so peaceful and merry that they forgot that the rest of the lands matter.

not even a wall of history?

you do know how difficult it is to make metal tools and books right?

I actually do. What's your point? Are we talking past each other? You wondered what halflings make, and I told you.

 

[Vaalingrade]

earthship?

A house built into or covered in earth, providing natural insulation.

 

[Whizbang Dustyboots]

Unless it's a very specialized campaign, yes. Which is why I don't think it's a problem for most players if halflings as a group don't do much on the global stage.

For the record, I've run a short (!) all-halfling campaign and it was some of my favorite dungeon mastering. We had a Scooby Doo style adventure set at the shire fair, to discover who was killing prize-contending geese before the judging took place (it was to cover up the murder of one of the farmers on an unrelated matter) and, later, an adventure where a harmless book turned out to be a dangerous magical artifact containing a dungeon intended to hold a dangerous figure from the shire's past prisoner forever.

I suspect a lot of skeptics, if they sat down to plot out a few adventures of an all-halfing campaign could quickly figure out ways to make it work without major fundamental changes to D&D halflings.

 

[Gammadoodler]

I hate pubs, the town is full of them, half of them burned down and we still have over 20.

earthship?

Like them or not, long-lived public meeting places of this sort become the institutions where people go to make connections and get things done. There is value in this.

 

[Whizbang Dustyboots]

What's your point? Are we talking past each other?

The motto for this thread.

 

[Mind of tempest]

I actually do. What's your point? Are we talking past each other? You wondered what halflings make, and I told you.

then where are their mines and smiths or their trade for metal?

A house built into or covered in earth, providing natural insulation.

okay, I can see the wisdom of that.

Like them or not, long-lived public meeting places of this sort become the institutions where people go to make connections and get things done. There is value in this.

I believe golf courses do that now, pubs are just for drinking and football.