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.

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?

 

[Maxperson]

The FR Wiki says they were wererats.

Shard Shunners

The Shard Shunners were a gang of halfling wererats operating in Waterdeep in the late 15th century DR. Their name came from their refusal to deal in silver, called shards in Waterdeep, because of their wererat nature. The Shard Shunners committed petty crimes around the city. Around 1492 DR...

forgottenrealms.fandom.com

I think he was saying that group wasn't them and he would have to look up what the group he encountered was called.

 

[James Gasik]

I think he was saying that group wasn't them and he would have to look up what the group he encountered was called.

But sadly, I've gone over all the LFR mods set in Waterdeep I have access to, so I guess I'll never know.

 

[Maxperson]

But sadly, I've gone over all the LFR mods set in Waterdeep I have access to, so I guess I'll never know.

That sucks! I hate half remembering something and then never finding out the rest.

 

[Gammadoodler]

I am out of the loop why are you considered too grim?

It was toward the end of the post I'd originally replied to, which, in fairness, was quite long.

 

[Mind of tempest]

That sucks! I hate half remembering something and then never finding out the rest.

gods that is with the top ten of mundane banes of life.

It was toward the end of the post I'd originally replied to, which, in fairness, was quite long.

a link, please?

 

[James Gasik]

Indeed, Oldmanitis (or Oldpersonitis, if you prefer) is a terrifying ailment that affects older gamers, where you can tell people the tale of the time your 2nd level Paladin killed a Vrock in great detail, 30 years later, but about last week....uh, what was I talking about again?

Oh yeah right! Darn Halflings, always stealing from my garden, darned whippersnappers!

 

[Gammadoodler]

gods that is with the top ten of mundane banes of life.

a link, please?

Link

 

[Chaosmancer]

In the game I play in we're regularly dealing with just this, in that much of the world's history comes from ancient Hobgoblins and their doings; and those guys had six-fingered hands. Which means, every now and then we find ourselves having to decipher base-6 or base-12 numbers. It also means I've seen firsthand in play what differences using a non-base-10 number system can make to a fantasy society; and yes, it's quite interesting (if at times also bloody frustrating!).

Is having six-fingered hands the only thing that makes ancient hobgoblins different from everyone else?

Thanks, but I put a bit more thought into my world-building than that.

In my current setting, among the kindred species Humans are pretty dominant while Dwarves, Elves*, and Hobbits have small often-isolated countries or city-states, and Gnomes don't even have that: the entire species are scattered wanderers as their one big homeland was wiped out several centuries back. That said, by overall area there's more wild land than there is settled so it can be argued nobody really has all that much.

* - Elves, however, are expanding rapidly and aggressively and pushing all before them. It's a long story, still being told.

If you did more world-building than that, it wasn't present in your post. And in this post all you've added is that hobbits have small, isolated countries and/or city-states, just like dwarves. Which, again, doesn't tell me anything. And many of your previous posts have described hobbits as... just about the same as everyone else. They are good chefs, that's about all I can recall from your descriptions that could be unique to them.

I think some people in this thread have tried doing exactly this. Example: the idea of using them as underdogs, as the "little guys", as someone to cheer for when they make good - but this gets rejected on the claim underdogs are boring. No. They're only boring if-when they stay underdogs and can't rise above that; but adventuring Hobbits potentially can and do rise above that, against the odds, and that's what makes them fun: seeing if that potential can be made real.

A Dwarf or an Elf becoming a big-shot adventurer is kind of so-what Those guys live long enough they could each have ten adventuring careers in their lives - ho hum, I've made 10th-level for the fifth century in a row.

A Human becoming a big-shot adventurer is noteworthy, but Humans have various cultural advantages to get them started - they're good at almost everything, they fight each other a lot thus many of them become warriors, etc.

But a Hobbit becoming a big-shot adventurer? That's worth celebrating. Their culture fights aginst it, their stature fights against it, often their ethos and outlook fight against it - the odds are against them and yet some make it to the top anyway. Bravo! This is what I mean by their being underdogs.

And that's just one idea on how to use/view them.

Who is the underdog in a street fight, the 200 lb ripped man with a biker chain, or the 90 lb girl with a shotgun?

Magic exists. Everyone, even goblins, use magic. Halflings have access to magic, not just "halflings can be wizards" but they have gods so they have paladins and clerics. Halflings also have no unique penalties in fighting with 29 out of 37 weapons (78%), they have no penalties to wearing armor or using shields. The common guard in the MM using a spear, shield and armor? A halfling can use that exact same equipment if they needed to.

I don't reject halflings being underdogs because it is boring, I don't reject it because they can never rise above it, I reject it because the premise is fundamentally nonsensical. If goblins with rusted equipment can terrorize a human village while being short, then halflings being short does not make them underdogs.

 

[Chaosmancer]

So there is no innate "Halfling" reason to go adventuring. This concept boggles me, because there are lots of races that have no innate reason to go adventuring. I'll go to my current favorite target to pick on, the Lizardfolk.

Cracking open my Volo's Guide, I see we open with a warning: "If you're considering taking a scaled one on an adventure, remember this important fact. The strange, inhuman glint in it's eyes as it looks you over is the same look you might give a freshly grilled steak." -Tordek, dwarf fighter and adventurer (hey Tordek, glad to see you're still around, 2 editions later!).

Then it goes on to accentuate that they live in dismal swamps that may be hundreds of miles away from civilization, and that their way of thinking is alien to us warm blooded folks. It then goes on to say "some lizardfolk make an effort to understand and, in their own manner, befriend people of other races. Such lizardfolk make faithful and skilled allies." Hm, let's go back to that.

The next section really tries to drive home the alien minds thing, in case we somehow missed it. They have limited emotions, basically: fear, aggression, and pleasure. In fact, they don't experience fear at all (despite not being Brave, heh)!

We're next told that lizardfolk assess everyone and everything in terms of utility, and have little use for art and beauty. And this fun gem, "Lizardfolk see little need to plan more than a season or so into the future....Lizardfolk have no interest in developing writing, making long-term plans, or cultivating other methods to progress beyond their simple existence as hunters and gatherers". Starting to notice a trend here.

We're also told that lizardfolk see other races as weak, soft, and, at best deserving of pity. Oh and previously, they mention that lizardfolk only stop from turning dwarf into steak because he might be useful, and that tends to upset other non-lizardfolk.

So in summary, lizardfolk have no innate reason to adventure based on their race and culture, and many reasons not to. Even if you're one of the small segment of weirdos that does travel to civilized lands, and make an effort, why on earth anyone would give your lizardfolk the time of day is beyond me, when it's quite clear that you are a sociopathic Darwinist who thinks nothing about eating sentient humanoids.

But this does bring up the real answer to all of this: adventurers are not the norm in 5e. Few take up the mantle, and those who do are often considered dangerous troublemakers and radicals by society at large- there may be a need for mercenaries who will kill monsters out there, but you wouldn't let one marry your daughter!

Yes, you have helped lay out some of the reasons Lizardfolk need a rewrite if they are going to be a common PC race. This and the fact that "savage humanoid" is such an overstocked area of the game for enemies is part of why I've wondered about writing them out and not using them. Especially since their deep lore involves utterly rejecting the idea of intelligence and venerating stupidity. I hate that for my games, so I need to either completely rewrite them, or eject them. And since I have yet to think of a good reason to have them, I lean towards the latter.

Now, if we are done with the "whataboutism" can we go back to considering that halflings might need a rewrite as well?

Many no doubt think that adventurers cause more problems than they solve, by riling up monsters and plundering the dead in order to overburden the economy with the excess wealth they acquire (and rarely sit still long enough to be fairly taxed!). So the average Halfling isn't an adventurer. Neither is the average (just about any other race)!

I mean, look at Tieflings. In D&D, Evil is a real, defined force. Everyone knows evil gods exist, that there are demons and devils and Hells to go if you're wicked, and that the good gods are real, and they have Heavens for the righteous (that there are evil people at all in this reality makes zero sense to me, but eh, whatever).

So then there's this guy. Thanks to the Retcon of Asmodeus, almost every Tiefling is readily identifiable as such. They got horns, tails, hooves! They are literally part fiend!

The average person should be making the sign of Pelor (or Lathander, or Pholtus) upon seeing one, and avoiding them like the plague...but nope! In fact, despite some possible emo backstories, Tieflings are a popular race found in many adventuring groups, and since, by default, they're running around with +2 Charisma, you should like them better than Joe Human!

And some games focus on them being rejected for their devilish heritage, and others focus on the fact that tieflings have existed for centuries and it is pretty commonly known that they didn't do anything evil themselves, and that they don't want to write a story about how an entire race is punished for "the sins of the father"

Does that make sense? Well, considering we'd think it is pretty heinous to execute the great-grandchildren of Nazi war criminals.... yes, I'd say that makes a lot of sense.

Now, if we are done with the second round of "whataboutism" can we go back to considering halflings and how we can address them?

D&D races don't make a whole lot of sense. Their reasons for existing don't make sense. Their reasons for adventuring often make less sense.

That is not why races exist in D&D. Races exist in D&D so players and DM's can make their game worlds more vibrant, with more options than the same-old, same-old. And if you do decide to have Dragonborn or Tabaxi in your campaign, it is up to you and your players to figure out how that works- not the blurbs of lore the WotC staff wrote down.

And halflings fail to make the game world more vibrant and exciting. So they are failing their reason to exist. So we might want to fix that.

If you're creative, it's trivial to make any race an all-star in the setting. But it's going to, ultimately, only matter if your players like playing that race. You could crow about how great Dwarves are, for example, and how advanced their culture is, but if all your players turn up their noses at grubby bearded drunkards with bad attitudes (...sounds more like Wolverine if you ask me) to go play Devil babes or totally hot Angel dudes, it doesn't really matter.

"If you are creative" is just a cop-out, in my opinion. It tells us that those of us complaining and trying to fix the thing are just bad at being creative, which is insulting without giving anything to the conversation.

Halflings do not give us the tools that many other races do to help make them interesting. That says nothing about our lack of creativity, it says something about how halflings were written. And blaming us and saying there isn't a problem doesn't help address how halflings are written.

 

[Minigiant]

Why would you separate lore and mechanics as if mechanics aren't part of lore?

I'm doing the opposite.

Neither the lore nor mechanics suggest a halfling crime family would set up their base to maximize their own stealth and bravery.

It's the opposite. Because halfling are fearless, lucky, carefree, and gregarious with other races, their base would look like a standard one... made for medium sized creatures so their friends would feel comfortable. And it would be barely hidden. Everyone would know where the hideout is ecause it would be an inn, restaurant, or tavern.