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

[Chaosmancer]

You keep bouncing back and forth between two arguments that are related but not identical.

Your argument that halflings should have more official support/inclusion I agree with 100%. I think there is plenty of room on the table to spread around the fiction amongst all the different groups and come up with interesting stories involving them all.

Your argument that halflings make for poor PCs or PHB fodder because of their lack of inclusion or because of some perceived (by you) gap in lore that makes them nonsensical I disagree with 100%. I have included halflings in my campaign and players have played halflings without any trouble.

Wonderful.

I never once made that claim so we are in perfect agreement.

I would like to see more lore for them (agree with you) but do not find the amount of lore they have by default at all a problem (disagree with you).

Okay, well if we are both okay with more then that seems like a really moot point.

I do not have to have official adventures or appearances by halflings for my game because.....I don't use prepublished campaign settings or adventures at all. I do steal bits and pieces from different settings, such as the Faerun Pantheon and warforged from Ebberon, but even in those cases I use what is written as a base from which to create my worlds reality.

I (and many on this thread I suspect) don't view the different races lore as monolithic as you do. Saying halflings are happy farmers is a generality, not a baseline. This doesn't preclude halfling evil cultists, muggers, clergy, inventors, wizards, or anything else a thinking being could pursue. There might be a halfling village who figured out how to make electricity from a dam....if that's what the story calls for. They could be at war with a keep of halflings who have decided to make a halfling kingdom by force who are in league with dwarven druids living in the woods and artificer tinker elves who hate the outdoors but build awesome runic plate armor.

See, here is a problem. And you'll forgive me if I roll my eyes as I say that because I expect nothing but another thrashing from the thread in response.

I don't view halflings as naturally monolithic. What I am noting is that halflings are never (to my knowledge in any product I have seen) explored in any manner beyond happy farmers except for the occasional evil rogue.

A halfling kingdom? Would be neat. FR had one for about as long as it took to write "and it no longer exists" and writing it out of existence.

One of the issues I have is that halflings aren't being explored in any real manner. All of these potential other takes that would make them less monolithic? They are almost exclusively the realm of homebrew. And I just wish that there was more being done in the game.

 

[Bardic Dave]

No, that is not how I started this conversation.

And I never said that any person was part of the problem. I said the position put forth, and the viewpoint that came with it was part of the problem. I am getting very awfully tired of people making up things I said because they want to sweep aside what I am actually saying in favor of making me appear irrational.



Nope, completely wrong. I acknowledge that people like halfings. I have never said anyone is wrong for liking halfings. Never attacked people for liking halflings. I have actually asked people if they can go beyond "I like them because they are the overlooked and underestimated quiet person" and give me reasons they are overlooked and underestimated. The very fact I asked is recognizing there is likely a "rational basis" for that opinion.

Of course, in response I've recieved nothing but derision because I'm unwilling to accept that my views are absolute fact. A thing I don't think I've ever claimed, and that asking for other people to support other views would run counter to.



There are principles of good design. They exist. Just because you might not like those principles or you don't like that they may be critical of something you like doesn't mean they don't exist.

I have had many properties that I love lampooned for poor design or story or characterizations or dozens of other things. I've watched many a critic come down on something I love. I try very hard to always try and see if they have a point, and a lot of the time I've had to grimace, hold my nose and say "yeaaah, they have a point. That's pretty bad actually."

I don't think that I am some ultimate authority with perfect knowledge of objective truth, like you all keep trying to paint me as. But when I put forth a criticism and it is met, not with thoughtful discussion but with personal attacks to my character and declarations that I just hate the subject matter and couldn't understand it even if you explained.. when the explanations are so shallow that any follow up question is met with derision of how I can't accept any evidence... yeah. I get a little annoyed.

People are happy with hobbits? Fine. You are perfectly fine with having a preference. But, you aren't the only people with preferences, and some of us aren't satisified with hobbits. And in fact, feel like just continuing to copy Hobbits and never letting the concept grow is just boring and lazy.

Alright, so on what specific “principles of good design” are you basing your critique? What specific “principles of good design” does the PHB halfling violate? And where are you getting your principles from?

 

[Chaosmancer]

The PHB even gives us two other halfling cultures! There are city halflings and nomadic Halflings. The “classic” halfling may be hospitable but somewhat reclusive agrarians, but the thing that ties them all together is that they don’t ever build or take over the “shining city on the hill” or the “great hall full of wealth and grand history”, and they don’t have blood feuds with other cultures, so while great events effect them, they aren’t the focus of them.

Does it?

Tell me about these Nomadic halflings. How are they different from the Agrarian halflings?

 

[Chaosmancer]

You interpret a sea hag's "Horrific Appearance" or a dragon's "Frightful Presence" as a magical effect?

Like, a dragon is no longer scary if it's inside an anti-magic field? Weird...

Edit: Sorry for delving back into posts from days ago, but this really is one of the things I especially like about halflings that really does have an effect on game play.

To tack onto this (though you will likely see this point being put forth in my other posts) the issue for me personally is player autonomy in regards to an emotional response.

If I tell a player that they run away from the dragon because they are scared, then that (to me) is taking away their ability to decide what scares their character. If it is instead magical, then I can feel much more comfortable, because it wasn't that their character was scared, it was that they were magically overwhelmed with fear. That's a completely different thing.

 

[Bardic Dave]

Does it?

Tell me about these Nomadic halflings. How are they different from the Agrarian halflings?

Read the PHB my friend. You’re just going to say it’s too bare-bones or boring or whatever to count, but that doesn’t mean it isn’t there.

 

[Chaosmancer]

Alright, so on what specific “principles of good design” are you basing your critique? What specific “principles of good design” does the PHB halfling violate? And where are you getting your principles from?

I've already listed them quite a few times. As for where I have gotten them? Multiple years of study under literature and other media. Mutliple years of studying the basics of film theory, and mutliple years of discussions of what makes for a well-built world and good world design on forums like this.

Of course, all of that is clearly going to be inadequate,

 

[Chaosmancer]

Read the PHB my friend. You’re just going to say it’s too bare-bones or boring or whatever to count, but that doesn’t mean it isn’t there.

I did. It said nomadic halflings exist. Is there a particular paragraph you feel applies exclusively to nomadic halflings?

 

[carkl3000]

To tack onto this (though you will likely see this point being put forth in my other posts) the issue for me personally is player autonomy in regards to an emotional response.

If I tell a player that they run away from the dragon because they are scared, then that (to me) is taking away their ability to decide what scares their character. If it is instead magical, then I can feel much more comfortable, because it wasn't that their character was scared, it was that they were magically overwhelmed with fear. That's a completely different thing.

Be that as it may, the game gives some monsters an explicit ability to cause the frightened condition in PCs that fail a save. Sometimes it's described as a magical effect but often it's pretty clear that it is not intended to be magical. Halflings are explicitly given a better chance at resisting the frightened effect whether it's magical or not, so by making the ruling the way you do, you're nerfing their ability relative to races that have general magic resistance. That's not very nice.

EDIT: And what's more you're making the ruling to save the feelings of the big beefy fighter player who doesn't want their character to look like a big peepee pants baby, but they're going to fail the save anyway because they decided to dump WIS.

 

[Bardic Dave]

I've already listed them quite a few times. As for where I have gotten them? Multiple years of study under literature and other media. Mutliple years of studying the basics of film theory, and mutliple years of discussions of what makes for a well-built world and good world design on forums like this.

Of course, all of that is clearly going to be inadequate,

Let me phrase it like this: do I find your arguments persuasive? Not really, because you’re basing them in concepts like “realism” that don’t particularly resonate with me and which are not particularly important for creating an engaging and entertaining fantasy game.

I don’t see how your critique is based on design principles; your whole critique boils down to disliking the particular aesthetic choices the designers made for halflings, which is fair enough but it’s not “bad design”.

IMO, the designers hit all the right notes for halflings. Where’s the “bad” design?

 

[Bardic Dave]

Wonderful.

I never once made that claim so we are in perfect agreement.



Okay, well if we are both okay with more then that seems like a really moot point.



See, here is a problem. And you'll forgive me if I roll my eyes as I say that because I expect nothing but another thrashing from the thread in response.

I don't view halflings as naturally monolithic. What I am noting is that halflings are never (to my knowledge in any product I have seen) explored in any manner beyond happy farmers except for the occasional evil rogue.

A halfling kingdom? Would be neat. FR had one for about as long as it took to write "and it no longer exists" and writing it out of existence.

One of the issues I have is that halflings aren't being explored in any real manner. All of these potential other takes that would make them less monolithic? They are almost exclusively the realm of homebrew. And I just wish that there was more being done in the game.

So you never said the phb lore is inadequate? Cause I’m pretty sure you did...