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

[Mind of tempest]

Umm, all intelligent creatures in your world are cannibals? Why would they need to be worried about being eaten by, say humans? Or are you assuming that every campaign world is monster world where every surviving race is in a daily struggle for survival? If so ... how do commoners grow food?

In a world with up to a hundred or so races, not all of them can have kingdoms. Many races don't have kingdoms. Aarokocra form colonies made of one large open roofed nest, Firbolgs live in isolated tribes, Goliaths are reclusive mountain dwellers, Tabaxi live in a distant homeland in small tribes just to name a few.

As far as their lore being "bare bones", again they have just as much or more lore as every other race. You just don't like it.

ogres, trolls, hags, gnolls cultist lots of stuff in baseline dnd would eat people, you like orc being really evil would not yours work that way?

depends on the world halflings are noted to have a large population if they lack them now they like did have them once.
I can go back through all of dnd editions and still gain very little to work from not even their gods have much flavour other than good and nice which does not let you build much.
I do not dislike it merely because it is bland but because it other very little for building a character around and their base concept is built around a single character archetype.

MTF goes into detail about how they defend themselves against monsters.


So do something with it. Do the books need to spell out every little detail for you?


And again, the books do go into detail about their storytelling. And since halflings are commonly thought of as rogues, you can easily see them as bad guys to one degree or another.


Well, yes. For starters, three of my players are playing halflings. It was important to them that this guy was corrupting their people.

Halflings, in my world, are also one of the more civilized people--humans, orcs, and elves only have tiny tribal-style villages at most, often built around ruins, whereas halflings have towns (the setting is a world-forest, centered around a giant river, that actively fights against anything larger than a town). Only dwarfs and gnomes (who basically are one people) have larger civilizations. The only changes to halflings are that they control a lot of the boat traffic and mint coins (unlike other surface races, which engage in barter or use hacksilver or weigh the metal; dwarfs also mint coins).

This also meant that if the cultist had an uninterrupted hold on the town--which he almost did; he was a charismatic preacher promising eternal life to supplicants and was performing various miracles for them--he'd be in a decent position to spread out to other halfling towns and take them over as well.

I should reiterate that the halflings are, for the most part, the same as you get out of the PH: we were introducing a new player to D&D and as the only official settings I know well enough to run well are Ravenloft and Planescape (neither of which are new-player friendly) and I love world-building, I whipped up a super-simple world based on some ideas I had floating around in my head. I didn't want to make any radical changes to confuse the new person. Then the rest of the players (sadly, the new person had to leave for non-gaming reasons) liked the world and their characters enough to continue playing in the setting.


They most likely have a militia of sorts. They have a god of defense (Arvoreen), after all. Also, they're villages are notoriously well-hidden, so dumb ogres might not be able to find them.

Also, people keep pointing out that halflings tend to live among humans or near human cities, so they probably are protected by human or multi-racial patrols designed to keep such threats away from civilized lands.

look I am not a skilled monster hunter but the strategies included were borderline insulting they at best would work against a predatory cat such as a leopard but not so much against iron armoured foes with metal and fire.

you can't use your homebrew to argue in favour of the halflings as the official law is what bugs use.

one can't hide farmland very well as other than a forest or mountains not much will make flat open land not obvious and them all getting back up from humans does not serve to make them distinct from humans which is part of the problem they seem to literally just be small humans and that seems like a waste of pages.

 

[Oofta]

ogres, trolls, hags, gnolls cultist lots of stuff in baseline dnd would eat people, you like orc being really evil would not yours work that way?

depends on the world halflings are noted to have a large population if they lack them now they like did have them once.
I can go back through all of dnd editions and still gain very little to work from not even their gods have much flavour other than good and nice which does not let you build much.
I do not dislike it merely because it is bland but because it other very little for building a character around and their base concept is built around a single character archetype.

First, just because they don't have their own nations, it does not mean that they are defenseless. Second, while dozens of races all living together doesn't make a lot of sense to me it is a standard fantasy trope. They let other races (humans, elves, dwarves and so on) do the governing stuff they don't care about if they live in civilized lands. If they live in wilderness areas they do the best they can to avoid notice. It's not like they crave gold or material wealth so they likely have little of monetary value.

Maybe in your world everyone has to retreat behind fortress walls in order to survive, but that's not the case in most campaigns. Even if everyone does have to hide, why wouldn't halflings also hide? Halflings are no more or less capable of defending themselves than basically any other race.

If you don't like them, don't play them. I don't like the lore behind drow so they are not allowed in my campaign and I would never play them. So?

 

[Gammadoodler]

ogres, trolls, hags, gnolls cultist lots of stuff in baseline dnd would eat people, you like orc being really evil would not yours work that way?

depends on the world halflings are noted to have a large population if they lack them now they like did have them once.
I can go back through all of dnd editions and still gain very little to work from not even their gods have much flavour other than good and nice which does not let you build much.
I do not dislike it merely because it is bland but because it other very little for building a character around and their base concept is built around a single character archetype.


look I am not a skilled monster hunter but the strategies included were borderline insulting they at best would work against a predatory cat such as a leopard but not so much against iron armoured foes with metal and fire.

you can't use your homebrew to argue in favour of the halflings as the official law is what bugs use.

one can't hide farmland very well as other than a forest or mountains not much will make flat open land not obvious and them all getting back up from humans does not serve to make them distinct from humans which is part of the problem they seem to literally just be small humans and that seems like a waste of pages.

Ohhhh. I can't believe it's taken 74 pages for me to realize you are the OP for the last big halfling debate thread.

Good news though, we're starting to get into some well traveled territory such that we can all start posting links to our responses from the last thread rather than retyping them. Or we can just go through and summarize the future of a line of debate on the front end.

For example:
You: They can't hide their villages
Me: The text says they can and a lot of them are naturally stealthy and all of them are lucky
You: that's not realistic.
Me: Who cares? D&D is a fantasy game. Realism kind of isn't the point. Also other races aren't realistic either.
You: Sure but this specific thing doesn't make sense but I can rationalize other nonsensical things.
Me: Well that sounds like a You problem.
You: Nuh-uh
Me: Yes-huh
...... and loop until one or both of us run out of energy to reply

See..so much easier.

 

[Faolyn]

look I am not a skilled monster hunter but the strategies included were borderline insulting they at best would work against a predatory cat such as a leopard but not so much against iron armoured foes with metal and fire.

How would you know?

you can't use your homebrew to argue in favour of the halflings as the official law is what bugs use.

I didn't I used information that is directly in the books. Go read their chapter in MTF.

one can't hide farmland very well as other than a forest or mountains not much will make flat open land not obvious and them all getting back up from humans does not serve to make them distinct from humans which is part of the problem they seem to literally just be small humans and that seems like a waste of pages.

One can hide homes very well, especially if they're small. Halflings would survive even if their crops got trampled.

The fact that you can't bother to read their information doesn't mean that they're a waste of space.

 

[Chaosmancer]

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.

I never once said you can't use older lore. The only thing I said didn't count was lore from settings that specifically set out to break the general lore, because I was discussing the general lore.

If you have lore from an older edition of DnD that is relevant, why didn't you bring it up?

 

[Chaosmancer]

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.

No, everything does not go, as many creators have discovered many times when they attempt something that simply does not work. 51% critical review shows that there were serious issues with that movie, is half of all critics who reviewed it found issues.

And, actually, how dare they criticize a movie right? After all, they are saying things about the movie as if they were true, but you have said that you can't possibly do that.

Yes, there is criticism that is subjective, but there is also criticism that is basically objective. And, again and again and again you haven't tried to show that my criticism and analysis that DnD and LoTR are two different thematic takes on fantasy is wrong, you have just called me arrogant and elitist for even daring to state it as a fact. If I'm so wrong, and it is all just subjective... then you could attack my position, you could argue that in fact they do share major thematic elements and combining the two is a seamless exercise. You haven't though. You just repeatedly tell me I am wrong for even daring to take a position.

 

[Chaosmancer]

I never said that you dismissed halflings because they aren't violent. I didn't attribute my general impression to any poster. However, the issue people seem to have is that halflings have no kingdoms and would rather just live a peaceful life while enjoying the comforts of home and somehow this is a bad thing. They may be a couch potato race, but to me that just makes the %0.1 percent that go adventuring more interesting.

I have no idea what your issue with halflings is. Other than the false "they have no lore" and for some reason you think lucky should mean they never fail and brave means ... I don't know. Obviously rerolling the first 1 and advantage on saves isn't enough. They have as much or more written lore as most other races. They don't have magical items associated with combat, but apparently that's not an issue for you.

The vast majority of your posts are playing victim (like this one) or saying you've already proven why they're bad by stating that they are. Me? I like playing them. I have 2 in my current campaign.

So, these two posts aren't yours?

Or maybe, just maybe, like the last time this came up a lot of people like halflings the way they are.

The core races all represent at their base an aspect of humanity. Elves are back to nature types, dwarves are no-no sense hard workers. Halflings? Happy pastoral types, the literal "little people" that are happy being farmers or shopkeepers. Sometimes they go on walkabout before settling down.

I enjoy playing that happy-go-lucky PC. A lot of people do. Just because that's not what you want doesn't mean it's a problem for the majority of people.

Well, many of your responses are several thousand words long and many of your responses are "I've already told you they're bad". Yet I'm with @Faolyn on this one, I don't know what you want. You say you like firbolg lore but change a phrase or two here and there and to me the base entries for firbolgs and halflings could practically be swapped. You say halflings aren't important, but what would make them "important"? Conquering nations? Being fierce warriors? Creating items in the DMG, practically all of which are directly related to adventuring and making combatants more effective?

All of the races are just the bare outlines of an entire culture waiting to be given life by a campaign setting if the DM and players care. All races basically represent some extreme example of humanity. Halflings are the people that are for the most part perfectly okay with being unexceptional and just enjoying their life. Like most of humanity. Saying they're unimportant is kind of like saying that people that don't go into politics, aren't famous, don't strive to be the best possible at their profession to the detriment of all else are unimportant. Yes, Elon Musk is important. That doesn't mean that Joe the janitor that is happy cleaning the office and going home to spend time with his wife and kids is unimportant. Especially when Joe is extremely brave and will risk life and limb to protect his family, neighbor or friend from danger.

Maybe the janitors (and school teachers and factory line workers and that guy that sells you that slushy, etc.) of the world aren't important to you. But that means they don't count. Just because you don't like halflings doesn't mean there's anything wrong with them.

I took the liberty of bolding and coloring some key lines. Did you state the exact words "you dismissed halflings because they aren't violent." No, of course not. You are always very careful never to say you didn't say something in those exact words.

Instead you "asked" if being an interesting race required conquering nations and being fierce warriors. You pointedly said that "maybe the janitors, school teachers and factory line workers of the world aren't important to you" So that you could turn it around and paint it like I don't "count" common people, that I dismiss them in favor of the super rich like Elon Musk. You made the claim that I don't like playing the "happy-go-lucky" PC.

And, every time I point out that, no, your accusations are wrong. That I do enjoy PCs who are innocent and happy, that I don't think being a conquering nation of warriors is what is needed to be an interesting race... you ignore it and accuse me of requiring halflings to be violent warriors to be important, and that I should just accept that people like playing a common, plucky hero who isn't some important king or scholar or mage.

So, you basically accuse me of things, ignore when I show that is not the case, then accuse me of the same things again, then just state "in general" about how "some posters" have these beliefs... and when I confront you about it, you accuse me of trolling or being unreasonable and how you don't have time for this conversation and you are going to bow out of the thread and stop responding...

Until a day later or so when you go back to accusing me of the same things.

So, I'd like an acknowledgement from you that your accusations were wrong. That I don't think that a race has to be fierce warriors or conquerors to be interesting. That I don't dismiss characters or concepts like "happy-go-lucky" PCs or commoners who represent schoolteachers and factory workers. I doubt I'll get it. No amount of me posting and pursuing this has ever gotten you to address when you are wrong about me, you always deflect and attack me from a different angle. But that doesn't mean I should stop trying.

 

[lingual]

So those who like halflings (or pineapples)...are they objectively "wrong"? Is this basically what this convo is about?

Another thing. DnD is made to appeal to a general audience. We are not the general audience. They don't critically disect the lore or do white room DPR analysis and raise a fuss if the Champion fighter ticks in at 2.74371 percent lower DPR. They've seen LOTR and wanna play an unassuming halfling who comes from a simple, rustic upbringing. I don't find that upsetting.

 

[Gammadoodler]

Heavens..I was trying avoid detailed quotations.. here we go I guess.

No, everything does not go, as many creators have discovered many times when they attempt something that simply does not work.

What is your "objective" measure for "simply not working"?

51% critical review shows that there were serious issues with that movie, is half of all critics who reviewed it found issues.

Strange that it doesn't just default to the rating of a single critic as a singular source of objective fact..wonder why that is?

And, actually, how dare they criticize a movie right? After all, they are saying things about the movie as if they were true, but you have said that you can't possibly do that

I have no issue with criticism presented as criticism. I have an issue with criticism presented as fact.

Moreover..even if it were true, which of us is committing the greater crime? Me for suggesting that critics should not dare to opine on a creative works thematic elements..or you for suggesting that creators ought not dare to combine thematic elements which some critics may dislike?

Yes, there is criticism that is subjective, but there is also criticism that is basically objective.

"Basically" in this context is a pretty big red flag. In either case though, I notice that you did not bother to detail the difference between the two or how your version fits into the "basically objective" bucket. Curious..

And, again and again and again you haven't tried to show that my criticism and analysis that DnD and LoTR are two different thematic takes on fantasy is wrong, you have just called me arrogant and elitist for even daring to state it as a fact.

Correct. I have not, because there is no right or wrong here. In the same way that there are no facts here.

If I'm so wrong, and it is all just subjective... then you could attack my position, you could argue that in fact they do share major thematic elements and combining the two is a seamless exercise.

And were I to do that, I would not be proving anything. I'd just be providing a contrary opinion to yours.

For the sake of argument though, we could say that halflings have a thematic tradition of value for kinship, kind of like what you might have in a party of adventurers. See.. seamless..in my opinion.

You haven't though. You just repeatedly tell me I am wrong for even daring to take a position.

Nope, not what I've said.

I've repeatedly told you that you seem to be claiming that your position is the only position.. which I find to be arrogant and silly.

You actually haven't disputed this interpretation of your position yet.

 

[The-Magic-Sword]

I for one, like Halflings and find them interesting as is-- whether that's Lord of the Rings Hobbits or Dragonlance's Kender, or my own seafaring, linnorm dealing, people of the Shamati Isles who take some cues from Polynesian culture and mythology.