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

[Chaosmancer]

You should not let the strangers you disagree with on the internet dictate how you play the game. No one here cares how you run your game nor will anyone take offense to how it is run.

But the moment I want to talk about something beyond my table, then people care about my opinions. And then they tell me that I am wrong, and I shouldn't be putting forth those opinions. I should only be concerned with the table in front of me, and nothing else.

 

[Chaosmancer]

It would make sense to drop Stoutfellows and leave the three small lineages as Lightfoot, Forest gnome and Rock gnome.

Yeah, I've noticed people tend to forget Stoutfellows even exist. Everyone who talks about halflings talk about Lightfoot.

Which make for the better rogues between the two, because of their mechanics.

 

[Neonchameleon]

But, the point I keep making all the way along is that halfling numbers are artificially inflated due to their presence in the Basic rules. If halflings were actually popular, actually being played by so many players, why is no one catering to these players? I mean,I can buy fifteen different elf supplements from any edition. Halflings couldn't even get their own race book in 2e. EVERYTHING got it's own book in 2e.

And the counter-point is that the halfling numbers are artificially deflated by the way the Realms in particular deemphasise them. And yet they are still up there, far more consistent than the red headed stepchild of D&D, the gnome.

So there's clear demand to play halflings despite the way they are deemphasised. The big question is that if halflings had been given the same love as dwarves would we even be having this conversation.

But, yeah, it's probably time for me to go back to lurking. We simply aren't going to agree on this. I look at 5% for a race, and the fact that two of the most banned races - tieflings and dragonborn, both have managed to beat that number, despite dragonborn being associated with 4e.

If we're looking at races that are less popular than tieflings and dragonborn let's ban dwarfs. They get positively fellated by writers of 5e adventures compared to halflings and are still behind them. And they're only sitting just above 6%

Some new options that might actually be able to pull from humans or elves or dwarves players and actually be an option in the game that's seeing use instead of largely just taking up space pointlessly.

So why start with halflings? Rather than a less popular race that takes a very similar space (gnomes) or even a race that's only slightly more popular despite having been showered with love from writers for decades (dwarfs)? Why single out halflings?

 

[Minigiant]

What Crimson meant is, their interracial relationships and things like that are setting lore, not base lore.

My point is that.
That WOTC creates and continues a base lore AND multiple setting lores where halflings and their gods have weak relationships.

Only a few settings bring halfling in the mix and those are the more "wackier on purpose" settings. Eberron and Dark Sun.

What's really funny is that those are pretty much 5e traits, and weren't present in the earliest editions where they really were hobbit knock-offs.

I mean, do the LotR elves' ability to see the entire world or whatever it was they could do really comparable to 60' darkvision--or even 60' infravision?

However hobbit lore and structure is how halflings are set up in many settings.

In FR, they start as tribal nomads, then they have a civil war, then they become hobbits.
In other settings, they are just hobbits with no Dunedain covering their collective little butts.

You mean, where he'd be a sorcerer or monk and you'd replace the Force with the Weave or ki?

The Weave and Ki wishes it was as cool as the Force.
Shadow Weave doesn't even exist anymore.

 

[Neonchameleon]

and the fact that two of the most banned races - tieflings and dragonborn, both have managed to beat that number, despite dragonborn being associated with 4e.

While on this subject in 2020 dragonborn and tieflings didn't just beat halfings, but beat both dwarves and elves. Oh, and tieflings are also associated with 4e - it put them in the PHB after all.

If your case is "fresh blood is good" I'm not remotely disagreeing. However I'd suggest that "behind tieflings and dragonborn" is a pretty incredible bar.

 

[Minigiant]

So there's clear demand to play halflings despite the way they are deemphasised. The big question is that if halflings had been given the same love as dwarves would we even be having this conversation.

That's whole point of this thread.

Halflings are popular but TSR and now WOTC won't do jack for them and give them copypasta and basic lore

 

[Mind of tempest]

That's whole point of this thread.

Halflings are popular but TSR and now WOTC won't do jack for them and give them copypasta and basic lore

it has taken 157 pages just to restate the starting question.

 

[Gammadoodler]

No, I wouldn't say that. It is almost like Tolkien was trying to emulate something closer to the loss of innocence when going through war, rather than leveling up to be more like a bad-ass sword swinging hero.

Curious. I wonder why he did that?

So all of them are more better able to handle the trials they face at the end of the story than at the beginning, and all that changed was a singular wound to their delicate halfling hearts..

Sure, that makes sense.

No, it is not irrelevant. The point you are showing where Merry and Pippin grew so much, level up so much... is the same spot I'd expect a level 1 character to end up. And they don't "question" the risk vs reward, they flatly ignore the reward because no amount of money is worth risking their life. That is actually a fairly normal reaction from normal people. Unless pushed by extraordinary circumstances, most people avoid rushing towards dangerous ares where they could be killed by other sentients.

Cool. We're assigning levels to our protagonists. Sounds like D&D.

She didn't send it so they could fight a giant spider. If memory serves me Sam asked, and was given something magical from the angel-elf lady

There is a difference between how magical items are treated in stories like LoTR and things like DnD.

So, in D&D, is most loot given to serve an extremely specific narrative purpose, or is it maybe (and I'm just spitballing here) given because the person giving it thinks it might be useful or valuable?

Because it sounds like you're trying to make the case that Galadriel knew the perils they were about to face and chose to give them stuff she did not think they'd have any use for...which is again, a hilarious way to view her as a character.

It might. But considering that a lot of the adventurers from the Hobbit end up in a bad way, it seems he might have been making a point. (Out of the Thirteen dwarves, 3 of them die before the end of the Hobbit. 3 more die in Moria. 1 gets so fat he has to be carried by others and four more are just never mentioned. So.. two seem to be doing okay.)

Wait, are we running stats for how adventurers fare while they are still adventuring? Because it's a hazardous profession in D&D too. Like, where do you think all that loot you keep harping on comes from?

Nevermind that throwing out 4 of the dwarves for lack of an epilogue is a fairly misleading thing to do. We don't know how they fared, but those results would have a significant impact on the rate you're trying to show.

I also notice that you've tried no such exercise with D&D adventurers. Why might that be?

A) Something I've stated multiple times

B) No, but since this seems to happen in most DnD games I think it is fair to say that part of DnD is collecting more magic items than ever appeared in the LoTR books.

A) So you've established that you don't run an LoTR-type setting in your play by post game.. hooray..so what?

B) So even without those items it'd still be D&D. Cool.. we agree.. I think we're done discussing this particular anecdote.

Just because a point has more than one facet, doesn't mean you are abandoning the point entirely. Merry and Pippin end up more like men than hobbits by the end, and likely would not have had the moral character to reject the ring like Sam and Frodo did.

Also, even if we somehow want to get into a discussion on Merry and Pippin, the point has always been more about the wider races than it has about individuals and their personalities.

So I assume at some point the plan was to show how the arguments for factual thematic suitability based on your critical readings of Tolkien and D&D and setting practicality within D&D are related. I haven't seen it yet, but I'm sure you'll get there.

I do like the self-proving argument you included though. That's a fun new trick.

"Hobbit's reject power"
"But Merry and Pippin didn't"
"Then they're not really Hobbits"

I believe this is known as the "No true Scotsman.." defense.

 

[Cadence]

So all of them are more better able to handle the trials they face at the end of the story than at the beginning, and all that changed was a singular wound to their delicate halfling hearts..

Sure, that makes sense.

Cool. We're assigning levels to our protagonists. Sounds like D&D.

So, in D&D, is most loot given to serve an extremely specific narrative purpose, or is it maybe (and I'm just spitballing here) given because the person giving it thinks it might be useful or valuable?

Because it sounds like you're trying to make the case that Galadriel knew the perils they were about to face and chose to give them stuff she did not think they'd have any use for...which is again, a hilarious way to view her as a character.


Wait, are we running stats for how adventurers fare while they are still adventuring? Because it's a hazardous profession in D&D too. Like, where do you think all that loot you keep harping on comes from?

Nevermind that throwing out 4 of the dwarves for lack of an epilogue is a fairly misleading thing to do. We don't know how they fared, but those results would have a significant impact on the rate you're trying to show.

I also notice that you've tried no such exercise with D&D adventurers. Why might that be?

A) So you've established that you don't run an LoTR-type setting in your play by post game.. hooray..so what?

B) So even without those items it'd still be D&D. Cool.. we agree.. I think we're done discussing this particular anecdote.

So I assume at some point the plan was to show how the arguments for factual thematic suitability based on your critical readings of Tolkien and D&D and setting practicality within D&D are related. I haven't seen it yet, but I'm sure you'll get there.

I do like the self-proving argument you included though. That's a fun new trick.

"Hobbit's reject power"
"But Merry and Pippin didn't"
"Then they're not really Hobbits"

I believe this is known as the "No true Scotsman.." defense.

Well, if LotR was D&D it feels like not 5e from what I hear. I mean, one of the higher level PCs died against just orcs!

 

[Faolyn]

My point is that.
That WOTC creates and continues a base lore AND multiple setting lores where halflings and their gods have weak relationships.

There should be no lore about their gods in the base books.

Only a few settings bring halfling in the mix and those are the more "wackier on purpose" settings. Eberron and Dark Sun.

Neither of those settings are even remotely wacky. What they did is actually decide to include halflings in an important way. Which is what you want, right?

However hobbit lore and structure is how halflings are set up in many settings.

In FR, they start as tribal nomads, then they have a civil war, then they become hobbits.
In other settings, they are just hobbits with no Dunedain covering their collective little butts.

So they have a different history than in LotR.

The Weave and Ki wishes it was as cool as the Force.

This would be the same Force they decided was the result of microscopic organisms, right?

Shadow Weave doesn't even exist anymore.

I have no idea what that means, and don't really care. I don't even use the Weave in my settings.