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

[Chaosmancer]

Who's saying the lore is bad?

What's ACTUALLY being said is the lore is non-existent.

There's a difference here.

To be perfectly fair, I think that there is some bad lore in the little bit that exists.

 

[Faolyn]

What hypocrisy? @Chaosmancer has always said that he is OK with halflings being niche race, like firbolgs.

The hypocrisy is that they said that halflings should have the lore baked in and that homebrewing their lore is somehow bad because they should already have the lore, and that using lore from other editions doesn't really count somehow because it hasn't been written about in 5e--while at the same time homebrewing lore for a race that they like and using lore from an earlier edition, even though firbolgs were completely different back then.

 

[Gammadoodler]

Wow, I shouldn't laugh, but really? You want to call me arrogant, but here you are dismissing thousands of peoples jobs, because "make believe" means anything goes.

I mean, that is why absolutely no one disliked the endings to Rise of Skywalker or Game of Thrones, right? Because they are make believe and anything goes, and things like consistent tone or thematic elements are just elitist nonsense words. The writers who spend literal years crafting their worlds and making them coherent are just wasting their time right? Because you can smash any two things together in make-believe and that works just fine.

Yeah, I know that DnD, hobbits, halflings, LoTR ect ect ect, aren't real stories of the real world. I know it is all pretend. But acting like being pretend means they can be shoddily made and that's somehow not something I can criticize or point out is frankly bizarre. There are entire industries, worth billions of dollars, that work to make sure make-believe stories are well-written, consistent, and have the proper tone and elements. Does my home DnD game raise to that level? No. Does Dungeons and Dragons, the most important Tabletop Role-Playing Game in the western world (maybe the world) and an IP probably worth at least a billion dollars rise to that level? Yeah, I think it does.

And, despite what you may want to believe, baseline DnD has a specific flavor, a specific genre of Fantasy. And that genre doesn't play nice with the themes and elements important to making hobbits work. CAN you play a game using DnD rules set in Middle-Earth? Sure. You could. But they don't mesh well.

You have made and continue to make claims presented as objective facts...

that....are...not...objective facts.

If you truly believe them to be objective facts and that you are the one who can identify them, then you are staking some kind of bizarre claim to the throne of thematic appropriateness... which, yeah is kinda arrogant..and deeply silly.

Edit: let's put it another way. You like literary criticism. Is there correct and incorrect criticism? If someone said there was objectively true criticism, would you take them seriously?

Edit 2: As an example, there are people who liked Rise of Skywalker. There are people who liked Game of Thrones. Hell, RoS has a 51% critic score (and 86% audience score) on Rotten Tomatoes. Those people aren't wrong for doing so, they just disagree with you.

Edit 3 (the last one I think): Didn't address this earlier and wanted to clarify..
Yes..because it is make believe, anything does go. Thematic elements, and their compatibility is entirely at the discretion and to the taste of the author and their intended audience. This should not be controversial.

 

[Faolyn]

Not @Chaosmancer, but, I think I can field this.

Because Firbolgs ACTUALLY have a hook. And, Firbolgs aren't eating up several pages in the PHB when virtually no one is playing them. And they haven't eaten up the PHB for 50 years with virtually no one playing them and never actually mattering.

As has already been established many times, lots of people play halflings--about 4-5% of people, going by D&D Beyond stats. Not bad considering there's over a hundred races. One site I went to said, in 2019, there were an estimated 13.7 million active D&D players worldwide. Let's assume that's accurate. Now assume that worldwide, only 1% of people play halflings. That's still 137,000 halfling players. Even if you assume only 0.5% of people play them, that's still a lot.

That's not "virtually no on playing them."

Halflings have numerous hooks. You just don't like those hooks because you don't find them exciting enough.

 

[Faolyn]

I may have to rethink never permanently ignoring a poster. Anyone who doesn't appreciate pineapple on pizza at least occasionally is dead to me.

I just can't tolerate hot pineapple. I'd probably like it cold on a desert pizza, though.

 

[Gammadoodler]

I just can't tolerate hot pineapple. I'd probably like it cold on a desert pizza, though.

Ok. This I might be willing to entertain.

 

[Mind of tempest]

The poster likes firbolgs for some reason and not halflings. One of their big complaints about halflings was that magic causes people to not find their remote settlements, which is also part of the lore of firbolgs. Just odd that it's a big issue for one race but not another.

Whether the base PHB including some concepts of Tolkien is good or bad Tolkien is still one of the most widely known settings that has been copied by many authors. I don't think it's good or bad.

not magic as that at least in setting makes sense no it is the fact that the luck of the universe bends to protecting halflings, it is insulting.

Just because it says that most halflings have peaceful lives, it doesn't follow that the only possible halfling character concept is "Bilbo/Frodo clone."

The PHB offers three different common societal options for halflings: (1) coming from a small farming community; (2) living among other races, as in a city; (3) traveling as nomads, either in wagons or on boats. It also offers three sample motivations for halflings to become adventurers: to defend their homes, support their friends, or explore the world. By mixing and matching these concepts, you can make plenty of characters that are not clones of Bilbo/Frodo--and that's without even touching on the idea of inventing your own stuff, which is allowed and even encouraged in D&D.

okay, so can we have some lore on what that is like other than something out of a cartoon for 5-year-olds.

As has already been established many times, lots of people play halflings--about 4-5% of people, going by D&D Beyond stats. Not bad considering there's over a hundred races. One site I went to said, in 2019, there were an estimated 13.7 million active D&D players worldwide. Let's assume that's accurate. Now assume that worldwide, only 1% of people play halflings. That's still 137,000 halfling players. Even if you assume only 0.5% of people play them, that's still a lot.

That's not "virtually no on playing them."

Halflings have numerous hooks. You just don't like those hooks because you don't find them exciting enough.

can you list those hooks again?

 

[jayoungr]

okay, so can we have some lore on what that is like other than something out of a cartoon for 5-year-olds.

I'm not even sure what you mean by that. How is any of that inherently cartoonish?

Also, you're moving the goalposts; I was responding to your claim that there is only one possible character concept for halfling PCs.

 

[Paul Farquhar]

Then since the lore is irrelevant you won't care if it is changed.

So long as it's not changed in such a way that makes halflings aggressive imperialists interested in world politics.

The real problem isn't halflings, it's humans. In 5e D&D humans are adventurous, outgoing and versatile. THAT IS NOT ME. 5e does a very poor job in accurately representing humans.

 

[Faolyn]

I'm not even sure what you mean by that. How is any of that inherently cartoonish?

They're prefer to find peaceful solutions. Clearly that's only something that can be found in happy-happy kids' shows.