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

[Umbran]

Mod Note:
Folks,

Can we not turn this into yet another thread on drow? We've had several in recent memory. They end badly.

 

[Dannyalcatraz]

1. Seriously.

2. I feel Gygax is genuinely a creative artist, who tapped into and revealed emerging cultural archetypes. He did the job of an artist. It is a kind of dream conflation that reveals where the culture was at in his day.

Black people becoming important. Woman gaining leadership roles. And so on. D&D is a safe play space to "play" around with such new themes.

Yeah, there was the Evil problem, and the "curse" of being black. But perhaps that too enhance the popularity of players wanting to be Drow.

So, we today have to see if the Drow archetype is interesting to us. WotC is rethinking them. We will see how it goes.

Gamer since 1977. Black since 1967.

Yes. Seriously. As stated numerous times over the past few years on ENWorld (and elsewhere), there’s definitely some stuff in the old games that made it tougher to participate in the hobby back then.

…and there’s still some of that going on today. Just less if it. And less acceptable in general.

 

[Faolyn]

how many do you have?

My table rotates DMs; we play one game until we reach a natural stopping point, then go to the next game. We currently have five D&D games (two of which I'm running) and one CoC game. So, I have three characters in three different games: kalashtar fighter (psi knight), tiefling rogue/fighter (swashbuckler 6/fighter 1), and firbolg warlock (dao-pact).

 

[Faolyn]

Talk to small woodland creatures!

Train you own sidekick party of small squirrels.

Maybe I'll finally play that swarmkeeper ranger I've been interested in...

 

[Dannyalcatraz]

You mean this?

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You know how I, a creole combatted squirrels that were destroying my bonsai? Cayenne pepper. A periodic liberal dusting of my plants convinced them to look elsewhere.

 

[Hussar]

More people disagree that they get relegated to the MM.

And that's perfectly fine. Disagree with me. State your reasons and that's great. That's conversation.

But accusations that I "hate" halflings, ban them at my table, am making a huge "fuss"? Yeah, that's all ad hominem garbage.

 

[Hussar]

More interesting to whom? Also, IIRC, there are no stats for PC species in the MM.

You are 100% right here. Where did I see that list of stat modification for races then? I KNOW I've seen it, but, my brain is failing where.

Which is it? Are they constantly mentioned, or are they barely in anything?

I just posted how often they were mentioned in a number of books. As in barely in anything. When you are mentioned six times in a 300 page book, you're not really in that book are you? Sorry, apparently I wasn't being clear enough. I went through half a dozen 5e books, and the most times halflings were talked about in any book was 18, compared to the over a hundred mentions of dwarves in Dungeon of the Mad Mage.

Which speaks pretty clearly to @Chaosmancer's point that you could easily remove halflings from products (they don't even appear in Candlekeep - so much for their "lore keeper" role) and no one would notice. Do you really think that if you pulled out the six mentions of a halfling from Ghosts of Saltmarsh it would dramatically affect the module?

 

[Levistus's_Leviathan]

You are 100% right here. Where did I see that list of stat modification for races then? I KNOW I've seen it, but, my brain is failing where.

The DMG, in the NPC Stat Blocks section.

 

[Cadence]

I just posted how often they were mentioned in a number of books. As in barely in anything. When you are mentioned six times in a 300 page book, you're not really in that book are you? Sorry, apparently I wasn't being clear enough. I went through half a dozen 5e books, and the most times halflings were talked about in any book was 18, compared to the over a hundred mentions of dwarves in Dungeon of the Mad Mage.

Did Dwarves have a lot more mentions in the other books too, or is it that there is one book with a lot of dwarves out of all of them and none focusing on Halflings yet? Having not looked at any yet, I have no idea. If a lot more adventures happen underground than in the prairie then I would probably expect a lot more dwarves.

 

[Chaosmancer]

But that's not the narrative role of halfling PCs. The game has four or five players to every DM. And as a PC race halflings have synergistic thematic roles. If DMs and setting designers are too lazy to think of anything interesting to do them that reflects badly on the setting designers and DMs - but is almost entirely irrelevant to the PHB.

So what is the anrrative role of halflings? You kind of just started saying that there is no blaming the PHB because people don't use halflings, but the PHB is just a book, it can't hold blame anyways. The people who wrote it though, who are in charge of those settings and the adventures that DMs use, they can be held responsible.

So, what are these "syngergistic thematic roles" that you are talking about? Being forgotten and overlooked? You can say that is their point, but it brings me right back to what I was saying. If their point is to be forgotten and overlooked, then by removing them... you have changed nothing. Meanwhile, removing the Fighter or pretty much any of the classes has a pretty massive effect on the world and the possible stories in it.

"Two very powerful and deeply rooted themes". That are almost literal opposites. There's the tree hugging Dr Doolittle playing Forest Gnomes and the technocratic underground dwelling Rock Gnomes. And these two themes are strongly in conflict with each other without the conflict playing out in the race dynamic at all. Such an unresolved dichotomy just makes them more of a mess than if you were to wipe one or other tradition off the map or separate them into entirely distinct races.

I was going to go with "small magical person" and "Magical Scientist" but sure, you can use your terms too.

But, I would say that the dichotomy isn't unresolved, and isn't actually that big of a conflict. Now, I know I'm going to get slammed for suggesting something that isn't explicitly stated in the books, but I have never said that the books were well-written.

Two things drive all gnomes more than anything else. Joy and curiosity. And their joy is tied to their curiosity, discovering and learning new things brings them immense joy. And this gets to the point, in many stories, of being a near obsession. A Gnome could easily lose themselves amongst their interests, to the point of neglecting their health. This is actually seen quite often amongst Tinker style gnomes.

However, Tinker Style gnomes are very much city gnomes. If they aren't in an urban area it is because they moved from an urban area to a place where they won't accidentally hurt someone or they can keep their work secret. So, what happens if you take that same curiousity and obsessive personality, and put them in the wilderness? Out in the country? Then they are going to obsess and study nature.

And this is where the forest gnome exists. They are the gnome who have turned their insatiable quest for knowledge to the infinite arrays of nature and the natural world. They are doing the same thing, just with a different focus.

Also, you seem to think their should be some big conflict over this, and I could see... a small conflict. But certainly not a big one. Gnomes are expressly presented as loving debate and alternate opinions in the books. They would like never get to something beyond a rigorous scholarly debate over any conflicts they have. So, it should mention that this debate is likely ongoing, but it is also likely no bigger than the debate between gnomes of over the virtues of alchemy over magic, clockwork over steam, or jungle biomes over tundra biomes.

Meanwhile, ironically, both would be thematically stronger as subsets of halflings. No one plays forest gnomes because halflings make the better woodsmen, being stealthy and dextrous. And halflings have a natural affinity for stealth and forests. They are what happens when bigger folk push halflings right to the edge where they have to scrabble for survival (except halflings are better at it than gnomes). Almost no one likes forest gnomes because they are lightfoot halfling wannabes whose big thing is playing Dr. Doolittle when the lightfoot halflings are actively stealthy and nimble - which is precisely what you'd want for forest tricksters. And if most of their personality traits are identical to halflings that makes them even more redundant.

I'd argue the opposite. Halflings are barely more dexterous than Forest Gnomes (+2 vs +1) and in terms of stealthy in a forest environment, Minor Illusion's ability to create cover and create distractions is likely about equal if not superior to being able to utilize any cover they find like halflings do (lightfoot's 'naturally stealthy' doesn't apply to the environments, only to creatures. Leaving only their small size to give them hiding places, something gnomes share)

Meanwhile, while you seem to dismissive of this "playing Dr. Doolittle" motif, that is hundreds of times more powerful in terms of forest survival and stealth and anything halflings or even elves can bring to the table. The birds of the forest are a Forest Gnomes eyes, the squirrels and rabbits are their ears. Heck, they can talk to the ants or the bees. While a halfling needs to rely on their own perceptiveness to know when trouble approaches, to truly sneak up on a Forest Gnome community in their own home, you would need to hide from every bird, beast and insect in the entire forest.

And it is especially amusing because one of the main "signs" of something dangerous in the forest is something like the birds going silent. That is because birds keep a careful eye for any intruders, and they will call out once to warn all the nearby birds to fall silent. There is basically no one better at surviving in a forest than a Forest Gnome who has been living and befriending the local fauna.

Meanwhile rock gnomes are at least something. They are almost opposites to forest gnomes in some ways, but they'd also make a great halfling subrace if we want subraces. Thematically they fit - the race that is interested in comfort is also interested in making things to save themselves effort and to make themselves more comfortable. +1 Int (which they'd get as their subrace bonus) is 90% as good as +2 for a class in my experience (if using the Standard Array then +1 will get you to 16) - and +2 dex is also obviously thematically good for a nimble fingered artificer (while +1 Con is not). But having a race where everyone is a tinker is mostly useful for bad comedy (and I forget who said that the worst thing about Spelljammer is that it let Tinker Gnomes off Krynn). The thing is that gnomes offer no other baseline because the rock gnomes are so distinct from the halfling wannabes. Meanwhile if rock gnomes were a subrace of halflings they'd have 100% of the PC potential of rock gnomes. But at the same time they wouldn't be an extremely silly race taken as a whole (which is a win) and would encourage DMs to make more use of halflings and make them a bit more nuanced (which is a second win)

I do agree that Rock Gnomes should be more than Tinkers. I'd actually give them a choice between alchemy, tinker's tools, and maybe either jeweler's tools or carpenter's tools. They are more than just clockwork.

But, I also think your vision of them as "bad comedy" really points to one of the greatest failures of DnD 5e. Tools don't matter, and they really should. Even if I just add Xanathar's tool rules (which should have been core) we immediately start seeing something really interesting. Rock Gnomes can fix anything. In fact Tinker's tools give advantage on determining damage to any, the age and origin of any object, as well as letting you repair up to 10 hp per hour on any object made of basically any material. You just need a heat source for metal.

And I think this is something that people forget in the memories of the days of whizbangers and hair-stylor-inators. Tinker's are people who fix things. It is possible to play gnomes with their boundless energy and love for the new as these goofy inventors, but it is also possible to play them as a more serious character. The one who takes a thing, takes it apart to see how it works, then puts it back together, and is endlessly fascinated by the process of making things and fixing things. It is easy to go silly with them, and it is often done, but it isn't required even by the text of the game. The Tinker Gnome is the guy who built a minature water wheel because he wanted to see how they work, and is busy glueing back together a pot to make it look like new.

You're only talking about rock gnomes there. Even you seem to have forgotten that forest gnomes exist. Halflings are more popular as rangers ffs - and that should be the forest gnome's thematic favoured class. But it isn't because halflings make better forest gnomes than forest gnomes.

If even you seem to forget forest gnomes at all in your defence I think we can consider forest gnomes a failure.

What about forest gnomes doesn't fit the artificer? The alchemist is a terrible subclass, but a forest gnome who is an alchemist using plants and herbs from nature isn't against their theme at all. Artillerists get wood-carving tools, and in Eberron they canonically make wands and staves, not guns. That isn't against forest gnome design either, unless you think that a forest gnome casting magic is out of flavor. Battlesmith? That one needs a refluff, but I see zero problem in making a "Wood Defender" and giving them wood carvers tools instead of smith's tools.

Also, it is funny you say Halflings make better rangers. Why might that be? Because Ranger's don't need intelligence. The Primary stat of Forest Gnomes. In fact, Forest Gnomes make bonker's good sense as Druids... but that was hard because they didn't get Wisdom.

Enter Tasha's. Now, Forest Gnomes aren't held back by their intelligence boost. They can begin taking these classes that fit their themes, but didn't get taken because they didn't fit get wisdom boosts.

So, as you can see, it all still ties back to points 1 and 2. Intelligence was poorly handled in 5e, and it caused the Gnomes to suffer because they had a much harder time filling their roles. I never forgot Forest Gnomes, you just seem to have super highly specific views of Artificers needing to work with metal and clockwork and also seem to think that anyone who values nature must also reject civilization.

Things called gnomes appear a lot in fantasy literature. Taking two of the most popular fantasy series of all time, the Harry Potter gnomes are about a foot tall and garden pests used only for comedy while the Discworld gnomes are about six inches tall, ride birds, and can get very violent. What do these have to do with D&D gnomes other than the name. The word "gnome" is thematically incoherent both in D&D and outside it.

On the other hand the word "halfling" is not a name any race would give itself - but at least it tells you something about what it actually refers to. Which is another reason I think that gnomes would do better folded into halflings; "halfling" tells you which of the 58 different versions of gnomes they are while "gnome" could easily be something a race would call itself.

IF I didn't know DnD, halfling would sound like they are literally half of a thing. That doesn't tell you squat except that they are small.

And I will grant you, gnomes vary widely outside of DnD. Just like Fairies. Just like Goblins.

I mean, just look at Fairies. You have the disney tinker bell fairy. You have the Dresden Files super scary Faerie. You have the Harry Potter semi-feral monster sprite fairies. Are the Fey and faerie and Fairy thematically incoherent? No.

Look at Goblins. In DnD they are cowardly, cave dwelling weak and petty monsters. Pathfinder made them suicidally insane weak monsters. Dresden Files made them the SWAT of the Fey realms. The Princess and Goblin and other classic stories flips between making them dangerously strong, stronger than a man, and evil magical tricksters. Lots of lore makes them preiminent beast tamers, others make them mad-cap engineers to mirror the inventor gnomes. But, would we really say the Goblins are incoherent? No. Again, I don't think so.

The thing is simply that these ideas are OLD. Super Old. And so they have splintered. Just like you have Great Danes and Teacup Terriers, but "dog" is a pretty coherent concept.