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

[Mind of tempest]

I don't have a particular dog in this fight, but perhaps a definition of "large number of people" would clarify your expectations vs. actual performance.

given it is the fourth true race in phb's for years(not counting the half-humans) you would expect lots of players for them maybe not as many as humans or elves but popular in the top 5 edition after edition with people making endless rip-offs in other media.

we rarely see them in-game outside of the hobbits in the default settings and the fact they were always forced in tsr settings out some core phb necessary and in other media they tend to spawn few rip-offs or replicas.
in the odder settings, they tend to not have anything in which I could not immediately slot in another race for the same effect

should that not be seen as a broad failure to reach their full potential?

They may have failed for you. I've had at least one halfling in the majority of home campaigns so they haven't failed for my players.

oofta from your posts I take it you and your group are traditionalists correct? so you would use them in the old way without change as you are destined to do, but this is on the level on the entire dnd community so can you consider that you and your tabes is solidly in the minority in this case? and that few people advocate for them other than out of seemingly blind tradition.

if you love them so much sell me on them.

 

[Oofta]

given it is the fourth true race in phb's for years(not counting the half-humans) you would expect lots of players for them maybe not as many as humans or elves but popular in the top 5 edition after edition with people making endless rip-offs in other media.

we rarely see them in-game outside of the hobbits in the default settings and the fact they were always forced in tsr settings out some core phb necessary and in other media they tend to spawn few rip-offs or replicas.
in the odder settings, they tend to not have anything in which I could not immediately slot in another race for the same effect

should that not be seen as a broad failure to reach their full potential?

oofta from your posts I take it you and your group are traditionalists correct? so you would use them in the old way without change as you are destined to do, but this is on the level on the entire dnd community so can you consider that you and your tabes is solidly in the minority in this case? and that few people advocate for them other than out of seemingly blind tradition.

if you love them so much sell me on them.

I see them fairly frequently in public games as well.

But no, I'm not going to sell you on them any more than I would ask you to sell me on tiefling. I'll never play a tiefling because they don't do anything for me. I don't begrudge other people finding them interesting even though I do not.

 

[Don Durito]

Just to illustrate scale:

Say there's one million D&D players and each of them only plays one character and one character ever, and 5.9% of all characters are halflings.

That's 59000 halflings. (59000 failures?).

Also there are nine PHB races, so each of them, were they to be played an equal amount, and nothing beyond the PHB available, would be only 11% of all characters.

 

[Paul Farquhar]

There are around 33 races/lineages listed on D&D beyond, so anything above 3% is above averagely popular.

As for the PHB, I find the majority of players (who don't also DM) don't own one, so the order things are listed in it is irrelevant. Although personally I would much prefer alphabetical.

 

[Gammadoodler]

given it is the fourth true race in phb's for years(not counting the half-humans) you would expect lots of players for them maybe not as many as humans or elves but popular in the top 5 edition after edition with people making endless rip-offs in other media.

we rarely see them in-game outside of the hobbits in the default settings and the fact they were always forced in tsr settings out some core phb necessary and in other media they tend to spawn few rip-offs or replicas.
in the odder settings, they tend to not have anything in which I could not immediately slot in another race for the same effect

should that not be seen as a broad failure to reach their full potential?

oofta from your posts I take it you and your group are traditionalists correct? so you would use them in the old way without change as you are destined to do, but this is on the level on the entire dnd community so can you consider that you and your tabes is solidly in the minority in this case? and that few people advocate for them other than out of seemingly blind tradition.

if you love them so much sell me on them.

"Lots" and "a large number" are equally precise. If you have a target number, percentage, or ratio you'd be satisfied with, why not name it?

 

[Mind of tempest]

"Lots" and "a large number" are equally precise. If you have a target number, percentage, or ratio you'd be satisfied with, why not name it?

I do not know the number of players, I also have to factor in pure minmaxers and build lovers to whom stats are all that matter as they would not care about the halfling being absent as long as they have a dex race or lucky feat as an option.

 

[Paul Farquhar]

There is no reason why a pure minmaxer would select a halfling ahead of an elf.

 

[Gammadoodler]

I do not know the number of players, I also have to factor in pure minmaxers and build lovers to whom stats are all that matter as they would not care about the halfling being absent as long as they have a dex race or lucky feat as an option.

All I mean is that you are unsatisfied with the current number. I'd expect there to be a number you would be satisfied with whatever the underlying motivation.

If there isn't a number you'd be satisfied with, then this particular course of argument is pointless.

 

[Faolyn]

Speaking of reading, you couldn't find a named teifling in Ghosts of Saltmarsh? Who owns the Iuz trading mission then? Could have sword that she was a tiefling.

And, AGAIN, you're focusing on ONE MODULE. Try looking at all the modules and come back and talk.

Okay, so this means you never actually read my previous post, where I pointed out all the halflings in fourteen different 5e published adventures.

I made a mistake with the tiefling: there is in fact one named tiefling in that entire adventure, as opposed to the four named halflings and the scads of halflings living in the area.

Are you willing to admit you made a mistake when you claimed that halflings were barely in any adventures?

Also, I'm not the one focusing on GoS. You're the one who keeps bringing that module up.

 

[Faolyn]

If by "frequently" you mean six, then, sure, I guess.

In comparison to other races in the adventures, yes, that's a lot.

Tell me, how many times would halflings have to be mentioned in an adventure before it was sufficient for you?