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

[Don Durito]

I was strictly thinking of them as monsters, where they don't feel like recognizable vampires. The defining elements of Dracula aren't him draining energy from Jonathan Harker by slapping him around. This is better in 5E, but their vampireness isn't really front and center.

And yeah, they're especially tough to make as D&D PCs, to the extent that I would say that people who want to play a vampire should play a game built around that instead.

Someone should write such a game. It would probably do well.

 

[FrozenNorth]

Here's what I can recall was established about tieflings in 4E in the default setting off the top of my head:

• Tieflings originated in a predominantly human nation that fought against the dragonborn empire of Arkhosia before the nobility swore pacts to the Nine Hells, creating the empire of Bael Turath and the first tieflings.
• Kruthiks were created and used by Bael Turath during the war against Arkhosia.
• A number of tiefling noble families still persist to the present today, though many are marked with unusual properties such as vampirism or elemental powers. One lineage in particular is cursed to uncontrollably bleed unless they wear red at all times.
• Some believe that the creation of the tiefling race included a condition that Asmodeus would one day be able to claim the souls of all tieflings alive at the time of invocation.
• An order of tiefling paladin/warlocks called the Crimson Legion served Asmodeus long ago, but now dedicate themselves to opposing the devil god.
• One city of Bael Turath became a Domain of Dread known as Sunderheart.

One bit of fluff that originated in 4e and that I have continued to use throughout 5e:

- Tieflings breed true. The offspring of a tiefling (male or female) is always a tiefling. This is a consequence of the pact of the original tieflings.

Also, “virtue” names. This has been a draw for most of the tiefling players I have seen.

 

[FrozenNorth]

I can only assume that you have never heard of Kender. It's a bar that has a number of times not been cleared.

Kender, and gully dwarves, I guess. So, out of maybe 200 races and subraces, by my estimation, it is a bar that has not been cleared twice. Though, to be fair, two IS a number.

 

[Hussar]

So all they really have to separate themselves from humans are their physical differences, personality/cultural differences, and differing distinct mechanical attributes?

Yes, if you all you do is dismiss those few minor things, it does get hard to distinguish them from humans.

It's a completely different ballgame when we consider the dwarves without their mechanical, physical, and personality differences.

Strip away all that and you still have..Umm..You still have..uhh.. tradition?

Not really.

You have the fact that dwarves appear more often and sometimes far, far more often in every single WotC module produced to date. IOW, if I play a dwarf character in a WotC adventure, I'm pretty much guaranteed that there will be something in that module that relates directly to my character. And, often a lot of somethings. Whereas if I play a halfling (or a dragonborn for that matter), I might as well not exist as far as anything in the module is concerned. It's very likely that in the entire year long campaign that it takes to complete one of those big WotC modules, that, unless the DM adds it in, nothing in that module will relate directly to my character race choice.

One would hope that future WotC modules will actually start to build on the less used races that have become rather popular, like tieflings and dragonborn, so that the same thing will happen for those players.

 

[Whizbang Dustyboots]

Certainly it wouldn't be hard for the next time a rampaging army has to rampage in a D&D mega-adventure for it to rampage through halfling lands. And having a dragonborn or tiefling army replace hobgoblins, or whatever, is an easy swap that's likely to generate more opportunities. Even for groups that don't want to do a lot of roleplay interactions, letting a dragonborn be able to infiltrate behind enemy lines for the first time ever would likely be a treat for those players.

 

[Hussar]

Certainly it wouldn't be hard for the next time a rampaging army has to rampage in a D&D mega-adventure for it to rampage through halfling lands. And having a dragonborn or tiefling army replace hobgoblins, or whatever, is an easy swap that's likely to generate more opportunities. Even for groups that don't want to do a lot of roleplay interactions, letting a dragonborn be able to infiltrate behind enemy lines for the first time ever would likely be a treat for those players.

I could definitely get behind something like that. If we're going to have halflings as one of the "main races" then that should be reflected in at least one adventure path. Isn't the next one really Feywild based? I seem to recall hearing something to that effect. Play up the connection between feywild and halflings and you could be doing something.

 

[Chaosmancer]

I can only assume that you have never heard of Kender. It's a bar that has a number of times not been cleared.

You would assume incorrectly.

Not only that a Kender makes a perfectly Good PC. The person playing the Kender has a great deal of fun I'm sure.

No I'm not. I reject the necessity of narrative roles. There should be some narrative roles involved in any given campaign - and plenty of things that have basically nothing to do with the central narratives because they are just trying to get on in the world.

There is a difference between a "central narrative" and "any narrative". They don't have to have central narratives to have strong B-plots connected to the world. And you explicitly called me out for discussing any narrative roles at all. So, you are fine with narrative roles, you just don't think halflings need to have one because they can simply exist different than other major races in the world...

Almost like they are disconnected from the world and not treated like other races... Wonder where I have heard that before.

[Citation needed] that it's explicitly magical. Can you show me anywhere it says that halflings lose their luck when they step into an anti-magic field?

Lucky isn't the same as magical.

And this is why I'm not rebutting you fully. You've said that if I don't think that everything needs to have a narrative role I reject the idea of narrative roles - which is a massive leap that amounts to the fallacy of the excluded middle. You've then managed to, out of nowhere, pull an idea that luck must be magic - especially when the halfling's luck is in practice the avoidance of bad luck. And that's so far in this post.

These are both assumptions you've made - and are IME far from the default. To fully engage with you would take figuring out every single unexamined assumption you are making because you seem unable to understand that people might have different views to you.

I am aware that people can have different views. Kind of hard to get those views when all I get to my posts is "how dare you think you are the only one with opinions, and your opinions are wrong". Well, thank you for that, but since that doesn't rebuff my points, then I really can't do anything about that.

On the narrative role thing, just quickly, I said that when comparing a class to a race, you need to consider narrative roles. And that halflings don't seem to have one, and that fighters do. You then responded with basically "That isn't the narrative role of halflings" and then when I asked what that role was, you shifted into "not everything needs a narrative role, why are you even still talking about that" So, forgive my confusion, but if you think they don't need one, then why did you tell me that I was wrong in what their role was, when I said that they don't appear to have one? Now you are agreeing with my point, which earlier you attacked.


Moving on to Luck. Yes, I am going forward with the idea that Luck, granted by a divine being to an entire race of people, which is powerful enough to deflect armies and protect their entire race, while also leading to it being noticed by multiple scholars and studied, is probably magical. Does it go away in an anti-magic field? Not per RAW, but neither does Ki, Paladin Auras, or certain Barbarian rages like the Totem or the Ancestral Guardian. All of which I would say are likely magical effects but are not turned off by Anti-magic. Warforged also do not shut down, Demons, Devils, Celestials and Fey that came through portals are not banished. And it is arguable that a cleric's channel divinity still works. Their divine strikes certainly do, even though I'm sure having your weapon explode with divine light, fire, lightning or ice is generally fairly magical.

In short, Anti-Magic sort of sucks in terms of being able to tell if something is magical or not. Because it is a poorly thought out spell that interacts in bizarre ways with the world. Heck, magical artifacts still retain their magic and effects created by dieties (like luck gifted to an entire race of people) are not canceled either.

Other than saying "its just luck" do you have any evidence to claim that halfling luck is non-magical?

They are small, easily overlooked, and forgotten. By Dark Sun standards they are meek.

Easily overlooked as long as they aren't spearing you in the face to take to their cook fires. They are "forgotten" mostly because they live waaaay on the other side of the map and anyone who interacts with them is likely killed. None of that is "meek"

Once more you seem to assume that the way you see things is the only way to see things. I would be completely stunned if that was literally the first time anyone had referenced that idea. It's just the first time they've referenced it to you.

Or to any person I've ever discussed Dark Sun with. Or when I was looking into Dark Sun during 4e when I was in a two year campaign.

Yes, obviously possible it is entirely possible that there is an entire massive community that talks about Dark Sun in the context of the Bible. But, you know, maybe instead of attacking me for assuming that my way is the only way, you could do the common courtesy of assuming I know that I mean "that I've ever seen". And maybe, just maybe, you can consider the idea that your interpretation is in a small, localized region, and not something that sees a lot of common usage at large.

sigh

If I'd meant tool proficiencies I'd have said it. I have no idea where this started.

When I said a big failing of DnD 5e was in their usage of tools, and that is why you might still see the Rock Gnomes getting Tinker tools as bad comedy referring to usage of them largely forgotten from over 30 years ago.

You then reitierated that Tinker Gnomes are bad comedy, and I asked what that had to do with the tool profiencies I was talking about, and you asked what tools.

Now I've explained again about tool proficiencies, trying to phrase it better, and you are saying that if you meant tool proficiencies you would have said so and you have no idea how this conversation started.

So, I've made the same point three times now,and you've asked what the point is twice. Maybe it could help you to go back and read my orignal post instead of asking me what we are talking about again.

I was willing to discuss things with you at the start of this thread and did so. And one of my personality flaws is that I keep talking long after I should have given up - I've found it about as productive with you as beating my head against a wall.

This isn't the first post in which you've made a blatant strawman of someone's position and then been extremely persistent about it despite people trying to engage with you. It's also not the first one in which you said you found things incomprehensible when I found them obvious. The last one I remember was when you somehow came to the conclusion that a race emphasising certain traits was the only way to experience those traits and reiterated it for multiple posts back here (and you'll note that my summary was liked by both the people whose position you were strawmanning). Multiple attempts to point out to you that you were making a strawman and those words didn't mean what you claimed failed.

This is why I'm finding engagement with your arguments to be a waste of time - I have no idea what either you are going to heavily misinterpret or assume to be the only possibility when it isn't. I'm still reading because some of what you write is interesting. You have a very clear worldview and you are neither insulting nor posting things that I've seen a hundred times over, which makes for interesting reading. But I find some of it interesting reading precisely because it is unusual. Unfortunately you have a track record of assuming that it is the only way and no other way makes sense even when multiple people are trying to correct you on fundamental issues, and at this point there's no point in my engaging with you. I'm posting this in the hope that you can take a step back and try to examine your own assumptions and engagement. You've enough to say I'd really rather not add you to my ignore list.

You know what makes for actualy engaging conversation? Going beyond "no, your wrong."

It also helps when someone doesn't keep insisting that you are arrogant, elitist "assuming your view is the only view" or any of the dozen of things that people accuse me of all the time.

I am constantly stepping back from this site and wondering if I should just give up. I've been here for six years, but it seems in the past two that if I end up in anyways trying to have a discussion that isn't just nodding along with other people, I get a torrent of personal attacks. Attacks I basically never reciprocate.

If you want to just read my posts and never have a discussion, that's fine. Then you don't need to make posts attacking me or telling me my viewpoint is wrong. I don't mind people telling me that they disagree with me, but I'd like them to back it up with something more than simply a void where their personal opinions and biases rest. I'd like to post somewhere in this forum without the constant ad hominem attacks.

And the most hilarious thing? I've probably been one of the most centralized people in the debate. I never argued for halflings to be removed. I was the only one to offer a general rewrite of them that kept the vast majority of their appeal for older gamers, while making them more palatable and fit better into the world. My requests for changes have been... relatively minor. Despite the fact that most of them were met with "why change this, no one cares, some of us like halflings unlike haters like you."

If you want my opinion on something or for me to clarify something? Ask. You don't need to declare me wrong to get me to elaborate on an idea.

 

[Chaosmancer]

So all they really have to separate themselves from humans are their physical differences, personality/cultural differences, and differing distinct mechanical attributes?

Yes, if you all you do is dismiss those few minor things, it does get hard to distinguish them from humans.

It's a completely different ballgame when we consider the dwarves without their mechanical, physical, and personality differences.

Strip away all that and you still have..Umm..You still have..uhh.. tradition?

Cultural differences that most settings explicitly tell us doesn't exist. And in the settings they do exist in, they are completely unlike the generic lore

Personality traits which aren't universal, and also any race can have. So, they shouldn't be relying on every single halfling being friendly and kind. Those are individual traits.

Being short is not exactly something that can't be accomplished by human biology. And if you just have a short human, they are still a human.

And while they are mechanically distinct "brave and lucky" is really hard to make work as being something super distinctive, since bravery is another individual character trait and lucky is... generally also a trait, though one that is harder to define. But still, it isn't like lucky humans, elves, dwarves, gnomes, ect don't exist.


So, yeah. If the biggest difference between the kind and friendly human who is brave and lucky and the halfling is a foot and a half of height... then it seems like they have some pretty minor differences.

 

[Chaosmancer]

EDIT: I’m gonna leave my post up, because I think it articulates a particular perspective reasonably well, but on reflection it’s not a very good response to the post to which I am replying. I apologize if I’ve misrepresented your position at all.

——-

You’ve got plenty of examples of people who like halflings as-is for a variety of reasons, many of which are at odds with your contention that they’re nothing but “short humans”. You just repeatedly saying it’s so doesn’t make it the objective truth. Clearly, that’s how you perceive them and you don’t care for them, and that’s fine. It seems halflings cater to gamers who aren’t you; perhaps you should just accept that. Why don’t you let others have their badwrongfun and just not play halflings (or remove them from your world if you’re the DM)?

Or is it because you desperately want to like halflings and feel let down? If that’s the case, why not write some lore that appeals to you then and inject it into the next character/world you create? Plenty of people have done it, including published settings (e.g. Eberron).

Enough people like halflings to put the lie to the idea there’s something fundamentally wrong with them. I’m glad they’re not more “interesting”. I’m glad they cater to LOTR nostalgia. I like that they’re similar to humans in many respects, but just different enough for my tastes. I like halflings a lot. They’re my second favourite PC race, after humans. And yes, my reasons for this preference are entirely thematic and have nothing to do with min/maxing, as I’ve outlined in a prior post.

These ideas about establishing particular “standards” for what constitutes a “good” PC race honestly just strike me as somewhat arbitrary gate keeping.

Thank you for the apology.

I think the biggest thing is that it seems the majority of people's presentations of halflings... aren't very different. For example, many people have said they like them because "they are just folk". Well.... that doesn't make them different from humans in any way.

Another one I've seen a lot is "they are small, non-magical, overlooked and therefore no expects them to be strong" which, again, other than the small bit could fit a human farmer. And, they aren't explicitly non-magical in terms of not having clerics and wizards. They just don't have innate magic. So it seems like it is artificially limiting halflings to be just... the farmboy who is ready to go on the an adventure.

So, I really haven't seen any common depictions that step out of that shadow.


Also, I want to say that I am in no way gatekeeping. I have never once said someone is bad or wrong for liking halflings. I've said their arguments aren't sufficient, but nothing more than that. In fact, I'm fine with them being in the books, and I am wanting them to continue being in DnD. I just want them to grow beyond where they are. It is fine that people like them because they are hobbits. But some people don't like them... because they are nothing but hobbits. Let them expand a bit, let hobbit halflings be a subrace, or an option, but give us something that isn't that for the rest of the people.

 

[doctorbadwolf]

Someone should write such a game. It would probably do well.

Man I really want a hack of 5e where all characters have Vitality or soemthing that correlates mechanically to spell points, and then you could make a vampire that has low Vit but regains it somewhat easily, and it would play really interestingly.

As it is, I could see a Monk subclass on a Drow PC working really well.