RPG Evolution: The Trouble with Halflings

Over the decades I've developed my campaign world to match the archetypes my players wanted to play. In all those years, nobody's ever played a halfling.

Over the decades I've developed my campaign world to match the archetypes my players wanted to play. In all those years, nobody's ever played a halfling.

the-land-of-the-hobbits-6314749_960_720.jpg

Picture courtesy of Pixabay.

So What's the Problem?​

Halflings, derived from hobbits, have been a curious nod to Tolkien's influence on fantasy. While dwarves and elves have deep mythological roots, hobbits are more modern inventions. And their inclusion was very much a response to the adventurous life that the agrarian homebodies considered an aberration. In short, most hobbits didn't want to be adventurers, and Bilbo, Frodo, and the others were forever changed by their experiences, such that it was difficult for them to reintegrate when they returned home. You don't hear much about elves and dwarves having difficulty returning home after being adventurers, and for good reason. Tolkien was making a point about the human condition and the nature of war by using hobbits as proxies.

As a literary construct, hobbits serve a specific purpose. In The Hobbit, they are proxies for children. In The Lord of the Rings, they are proxies for farmers and other folk who were thrust into the industrialized nightmare of mass warfare. In both cases, hobbits were a positioned in contrast to the violent lifestyle of adventurers who live and die by the sword.

Which is at least in part why they're challenging to integrate into a campaign world. And yet, we have strong hobbit archetypes in Dungeons & Dragons, thanks to Dragonlance.

Kender. Kender Are the Problem​

I did know one player who loved to play kender. We never played together in a campaign, at least in part because kender are an integral part of the Dragonlance setting and we weren't playing in Dragonlance. But he would play a kender in every game he played, including in massive multiplayers like Ultima Online. And he was eye-rollingly aggravating, as he loved "borrowing" things from everyone (a trait established by Tasselhoff Burrfoot).

Part of the issue with kender is that they aren't thieves, per se, but have a child-like curiosity that causes them to "borrow" things without understanding that borrowing said things without permission is tantamount to stealing in most cultures. In essence, it results in a character who steals but doesn't admit to stealing, which can be problematic for inter-party harmony. Worse, kender have a very broad idea of what to "borrow" (which is not limited to just valuables) and have always been positioned as being offended by accusations of thievery. It sets up a scenario where either the party is very tolerant of the kender or conflict ensues. This aspect of kender has been significantly minimized in the latest draft for Unearthed Arcana.

Big Heads, Little Bodies​

The latest incarnation of halflings brings them back to the fun-loving roots. Their appearance is decidedly not "little children" or "overweight short people." Rather, they appear more like political cartoons of eras past, where exaggerated features were used as caricatures, adding further to their comical qualities. But this doesn't solve the outstanding problem that, for a game that is often about conflict, the original prototypes for halflings avoided it. They were heroes precisely because they were thrust into difficult situations and had to rise to the challenge. That requires significant work in a campaign to encourage a player to play a halfling character who would rather just stay home.

There's also the simple matter of integrating halflings into societies where they aren't necessarily living apart. Presumably, most human campaigns have farmers; dwarves and elves occupy less civilized niches, where halflings are a working class who lives right alongside the rest of humanity in plain sight. Figuring out how to accommodate them matters a lot. Do humans just treat them like children? Would halflings want to be anywhere near a larger humanoids' dwellings as a result? Or are halflings given mythical status like fey? Or are they more like inveterate pranksters and tricksters, treating them more like gnomes? And if halflings are more like gnomes, then why have gnomes?

There are opportunities to integrate halflings into a world, but they aren't quite so easy to plop down into a setting as dwarves and elves. I still haven't quite figured out how to make them work in my campaign that doesn't feel like a one-off rather than a separate species. But I did finally find a space for gnomes, which I'll discuss in another article.

Your Turn: How have you integrated halflings into your campaign world?
 

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Michael Tresca

Michael Tresca


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bedir than

Full Moon Storyteller
look this might be my null-culture ness talking but I doubt it really matters people everywhere and nearly every when are nearly identical only the details differ and details die off every minute of every day from the way our world is built.
If I were to accept this, it would mean that there need be no races in D&D, or even classes, or backgrounds, or really anything, because all stories are the same
 

I never said they were. But any character can go on an adventure because goblins killed their grandmother.

It is a very dwarvish thing to go out on an adventure to reclaim the hammer used to forge your ancestral clan's magical axe, to repair it and restore your honor.

It is a very elvish thing to go out into the world to expand upon your practice of bladesinging.

Halflings don't really have "halfling" reasons to go on adventures. The closest we get is that they enjoy exoctic spices, but that makes them merchants, not adventurers. They'd be more likely to hire an adventuring party to go into the deep desert to find the spices than they would go themselves.

I'm not saying "haflling adventurers are impossible!" because they clearly aren't, but none of their adventuring hooks seem tied into their essential halflingness, and many of them are IN SPITE of their halflingness.



How do they value friendship more than the other races? Dwarves will literally go to war for their friends. Befriend a dwarf and you may well have the aid of their entire clan. How are halflings more than that? What kind of examples do we bring?

Now, follow that up, how does that help us world-build? Halfings make great friends of the people who did the important things doesn't help us do anything with them on the world stage.



Really? "Never have I seen this building before, a tah-vern you call it? Fascinating, no one has ever done this before" has said no one in DnD ever.

This is literally the problem. You are either saying that halflings are the only reason things like taverns and bakeries and town halls exist, or you are somehow trying to claim that the fact halflings would appreciate these things makes them somehow viable on the world stage. When I am writing the history of the continent, the fact that the town of hobknob has a town hall is just a fact, because of course they do. The fact that halfling towns are nice doesn't matter, every town that I want to be nice is nice. "Is a nice town" doesn't help me in world-building.



That seems to be because of this blockage we seem to have between the point being made and people's understanding of it. Lawrence Woolweaver was a nice man. That does nothing to tell us anything about the world and his place in it. But that's what you guys keep insisting for the halflings, "they are nice, and they love their community, isn't that enough?" No, it isn't. Because that is the default state of a group of people. That is the baseline we start from, so having that being the endpoint makes them practically invisible, which makes them hard to utilize.
So, we agree that there are plenty of reasons for halflings to be adventurers. Cool. Problem solved. Time to retire point 1.

They value friends more in the same way that dwarves values craftsmanship more and elves value art more. When given a choice between
  • a pile of gold,
  • a master crafted weapon,
  • a chance for self expression, and
  • the friends we met along the way
The halfings are the ones most likely to choose the last option.

As for how that helps you in worldbuilding. Having a race interested in the public good is a good thing. It forces you to think about more than dungeons and castles. It gives you a starting place for factions that have reasons for doing things beyond "more power" or "my god told me to do it". They can be viable on the world stage in the same way that Doctors Without Borders, the Girl Scouts, and the Peace Corps are viable on the world stage.

I'm not saying that halflings are the only ones that can do this. In the same way, I assume, that you aren't saying that dwarves are the only ones that make hammers. But a race more motivated to pursue it is likely to be better at it. Halfling taverns may not be the only taverns, but they should be the best taverns. Similarly with the other institutions noted.

As for the remainder of your post, it seems we disagree on the comparative baseline states of characters in the world. 🤷‍♂️
 


Mind of tempest

(he/him)advocate for 5e psionics
There are also plenty of halfling reasons to go adventuring. The idea that there are elf, dwarf and orc reasons, but not halfling reasons is wrong.

Halfling reason #1: I want to discover new recipes. I'll bet that there are many of them waiting to be rediscovered in ancient tombs. The ancients liked to eat, too!

Halfling reason #2: I want to test my luck against dangerous monsters. If I come back, I was luckier than they were. If not, I wasn't.

Halfling reason #3: I'm bored.

Halfling reason #4: I'm curious about what's out there to discover.

Halfling reason #5: I received a vision from my god.

Halfling reason #6: I want to go out and make many new and strange friends!

Halfling reason #7: My name is Indigo Furtoeya, you killed my father, prepare to die!

Halfling reason #8: I'm one of the halfling bad apples and got sent out of the village.

Halfling reason #9: I have halfling wanderlust.
1 is not a reason to go anywhere near the danger adventurers deal with.
2 that is called being too dumb to live.
3 litterally anything else would also work.
4 every player race has that
5 ditto
6ditto
7 ditto
8most groups bad evil characters
9 that get bred out of you fast in a world of dragons and giants.
"Gods drop their stuff in to watch what happens." "Basic realism." Okay?
just because it is fantasy does not mean it has no grounding as without it their would be only an unplayable game, and a weak, small non-magic race of apathetic little weaklings never get found by a god they just get eaten.
Very dismissive of you. If we give you a million dollars and remove the halflings from the PHB, will you still ask for more?
well, I might ask for more but no from you as I know how my bread would be buttered and I would see it as an absolute win.
If I were to accept this, it would mean that there need be no races in D&D, or even classes, or backgrounds, or really anything, because all stories are the same
given humans can never build a society underground dwarves would still have a role, there are what only 8 stories and honestly that might be pushing it.
your final point is countered by that fact you can change my mind, I went from hating the idea of short races to only disliking the execution which is change is it not?
So, we agree that there are plenty of reasons for halflings to be adventurers. Cool. Problem solved. Time to retire point 1.

They value friends more in the same way that dwarves values craftsmanship more and elves value art more. When given a choice between
  • a pile of gold,
  • a master crafted weapon,
  • a chance for self expression, and
  • the friends we met along the way
The halfings are the ones most likely to choose the last option.

As for how that helps you in worldbuilding. Having a race interested in the public good is a good thing. It forces you to think about more than dungeons and castles. It gives you a starting place for factions that have reasons for doing things beyond "more power" or "my god told me to do it". They can be viable on the world stage in the same way that Doctors Without Borders, the Girl Scouts, and the Peace Corps are viable on the world stage.

I'm not saying that halflings are the only ones that can do this. In the same way, I assume, that you aren't saying that dwarves are the only ones that make hammers. But a race more motivated to pursue it is likely to be better at it. Halfling taverns may not be the only taverns, but they should be the best taverns. Similarly with the other institutions noted.

As for the remainder of your post, it seems we disagree on the comparative baseline states of characters in the world. 🤷‍♂️
Halflings do not found faction as they basically care only about them and thiers they are sloth and apathy personified good has to be active and halflings are reactionary by nature.
also, all your faction examples are likely to die off with the century so enduring good is not a trait they have and they are either ineffective or currupt or both so not really good.
Even if "halflings are just humans, but smaller", that makes their success and adventures twice as incredible, no? Because they have greater odds to overcome.

I would consider Willow Ufgood a Halfling- if he was just a human, I don't think his adventure would be as amazing.
after a certain point odds do not matter what is the difference between a billion to one or a trillion to one to most people?
who is this willow person?
 

Halflings do not found faction as they basically care only about them and thiers they are sloth and apathy personified good has to be active and halflings are reactionary by nature.
also, all your faction examples are likely to die off with the century so enduring good is not a trait they have and they are either ineffective or currupt or both so not really good.
1. False.

2. Even assuming you're right about the future trajectories of these organizations, it neither cancels out the good they have done nor has any reflection on analogous fantasy organizations.
 

James Gasik

We don't talk about Pun-Pun
1 is not a reason to go anywhere near the danger adventurers deal with.
2 that is called being too dumb to live.
3 litterally anything else would also work.
4 every player race has that
5 ditto
6ditto
7 ditto
8most groups bad evil characters
9 that get bred out of you fast in a world of dragons and giants.

just because it is fantasy does not mean it has no grounding as without it their would be only an unplayable game, and a weak, small non-magic race of apathetic little weaklings never get found by a god they just get eaten.

well, I might ask for more but no from you as I know how my bread would be buttered and I would see it as an absolute win.

given humans can never build a society underground dwarves would still have a role, there are what only 8 stories and honestly that might be pushing it.
your final point is countered by that fact you can change my mind, I went from hating the idea of short races to only disliking the execution which is change is it not?

Halflings do not found faction as they basically care only about them and thiers they are sloth and apathy personified good has to be active and halflings are reactionary by nature.
also, all your faction examples are likely to die off with the century so enduring good is not a trait they have and they are either ineffective or currupt or both so not really good.

after a certain point odds do not matter what is the difference between a billion to one or a trillion to one to most people?
who is this willow person?
 

Mind of tempest

(he/him)advocate for 5e psionics
1. False.

2. Even assuming you're right about the future trajectories of these organizations, it neither cancels out the good they have done nor has any reflection on analogous fantasy organizations.
1 name a halfling faction? not a village, an organisation with goals.
2 fair point.
okay other than being portrayed by a man with dwarfism how is that a halfling he seems well like any other man just suffering from a genetic disorder.
 



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