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Message: <blockquote data-quote="Ruin Explorer" data-source="post: 4000509" data-attributes="member: 18">I've actually never seen a player ever play a halfling for any reason other than that it allowed them to take a specific class combination (1E/2E) or that they liked the bonuses it gave them (3E), so I dunno about that. I've also seen people, on many occasions, refuse to play halflings specifically on the grounds that they are "Hobbits" (even in 3E). These are mostly English people mind, so I guess there's a special hatred for Hobbits here amongst the sort of people who don't vote Tory.So, for my money, and based on my experiences, I'd like to see halflings either gone entirely or done in some kind of interesting way.I get the feeling, really, though, that this is what happened at WotC:1) They dump gnomes because no-one plays them (you heard me!).2) They realize that people do occasionally play "little people", so they should probably keep halflings or face nerd-riots.3) They put them on the list of 4E races.4) They go make all the other 4E races really cool and distinct.5) A few months ago, they realize that halflings are neither cool nor distinct. Someone schedules a meeting to work out how to make them cool and distinct.6) No-one attends said meeting, including the one who scheduled it.7) The PHB gets released.I'm pretty sure something similar happened in 3E. Sure, they took out the "hobbit-rip-off" stuff, but they didn't put anything back in it's place.Edit - Oh, on Elves and Dwarves, that's because they're drawing on fairly well-established mythological sources. I agree that, if anything the new Elves resemble Tolkien's Wood Elves a bit MORE than old Elves did (albeit with vastly shorter lifespans leading to, presumably different attitudes/behaviour), but the Dwarves with their new non-underground cities and near-art-deco visual style seem pretty distinct from conventional Tolkien-esque Dwarves (again, noting that Dwarves exist pretty extensively in European myth). There's also Eladrin, who don't seem to bear much relation to Tolkien's High Elves, indeed, seem an intentional distancing, and retaining/modifying the whole D&D Elf origin deal seems to keep a degree of distance from Tolkien - You should also note that these races were already considerably more distinct from Tolkien's races than Halflings were from Hobbits in 1E/2E.</blockquote>

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