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

[Hussar]

No one's gonna get to upset if halflings are included.

Lots of people upset if they're excluded. 5% of millions of players.

That's precisely my point though. That 5%, even though they are getting serviced by having halflings (with playable stats and whatnot same as other races in the Monster Manual) shuffled to the Monster Manual to make room for stuff that has a chance of gaining more traction, is holding the game hostage because they are unwilling to accept that no, their option isn't all that popular.

So, the game gets held back, as I said before, shackeled to the bloated, fetid carcass of dead authors for yet another iteration.

We're not allowed to make changes because of 5% of the fanbase. A 5% that's shrinking daily, I might add since the last information we got bumped them down even lower. I wonder how low the percentage has to get before we're allowed to make changes?

 

[Zardnaar]

That's precisely my point though. That 5%, even though they are getting serviced by having halflings (with playable stats and whatnot same as other races in the Monster Manual) shuffled to the Monster Manual to make room for stuff that has a chance of gaining more traction, is holding the game hostage because they are unwilling to accept that no, their option isn't all that popular.

So, the game gets held back, as I said before, shackeled to the bloated, fetid carcass of dead authors for yet another iteration.

We're not allowed to make changes because of 5% of the fanbase. A 5% that's shrinking daily, I might add since the last information we got bumped them down even lower. I wonder how low the percentage has to get before we're allowed to make changes?

You forgot IMHO.

They're not going to dump the core 4 races in a handbook anytime soon. Hell I suspect Gnomes will be grandfathered in from now to eternity.

Races require very few pages you could easily cut an appendix instead.

 

[Hussar]

You forgot IMHO.

They're not going to dump the core 4 races in a handbook anytime soon. Hell I suspect Gnomes will be grandfathered in from now to eternity.

Races require very few pages you could easily cut an appendix instead.

You keep saying that. The Halfling write up takes up 3 pages in my PHB. Feats only take up 6. I'd say that's significant.

 

[Zardnaar]

You keep saying that. The Halfling write up takes up 3 pages in my PHB. Feats only take up 6. I'd say that's significant.

Well go complain to WotC I'm sure they will care.

"Tradition bad wrong fun"

"Biggest selling D&D of all time"

Hmmmnn.

 

[pemerton]

The issue of whether Halflings will be in future PHBs or not is purely commercial. There are many cultural products, produced by commercial houses, that sacrifice quality for popularity and sales!

 

[Minigiant]

For all the "because LOTR" D&D uses to keep Halfings a major race in the game, I'm surprised there is no "Ring of Halflings" magic item that buffs halflings and curses all other races.

 

[Don Durito]

Doctor Who would like to have a word.

As would James Bond.

As would a number of daytime soap operas.

Never minding the plethora of remakes and reinvisionings.

How many Transformers cartoons are there? How long has Batman been in print? or Superman? or Spiderman? We've had a different Superman prime time TV show on in some form or other for most of my entire life. And have you seen that thing they call Star Trek? Yeah, that's been around a couple of years.

There are actually quite a few properties that have reinvisioned themselves and reinvented themselves and kept right on trucking.

Well yes, but most of those things more undead than alive, and more a sign of creative moribundance than vitality.

That's sort of my point. It would be more healthy for creative energy to be invested in new things. James Bond may modernise but can't really escape that it's rather dated and mysoginistic at it's root and the more it tries to depart from that the more it's isn't really anything at all. Doctor Who may have progressive casting but it can't think of anything to actually do with itself these days except pastiches of the sorts of things that Doctor Who has done before.

And these things just take up space that could be devoted to things that are actually new, and actually creative, and actually engaged with the world in which we live.

It just feels more honest to let D&D be what it is. For every attempt to modernise D&D, we drag 12 tired and flawed constructs with us into the future. We may get rid of Halflings but we're still stuck with Elves and Dwarves and a mechanical structure that would have been seen as conservative in 90s.

D&D did radically innovate, and there was a massive backlash - and yet still 4e was held back by sacred cows in many ways. So radical change isn't going to happen. You seem to think that getting rid of Halflings is a worthwhile improvement. I can think of a dozen things that are more important. At some point 1 or 2 may actually happen. Big deal.

When I get sick of the things that are tiresome about D&D I play a different game.

 

[Crimson Longinus]

Complaining about the species being present is pretty pointless anyway. They're completely ignorable. It's totally different than having an issue with some fundamental game mechanic or structure.

 

[Zardnaar]

D&D is D&D. If it was radically different it's not D&D.

Can't please everyone.

 

[Mind of tempest]

Complaining about the species being present is pretty pointless anyway. They're completely ignorable. It's totally different than having an issue with some fundamental game mechanic or structure.

if they are so irrelevant why keep them in at all?