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?

 

[Yora]

The older I get and the longer I'm playing fantasy RPGs, the more I am wondering why even bother with differentiating races in the first place.

 

[FrozenNorth]

Go with dwarfs. The book lore can be that they mine and craft and are clannish in nature. You can decide if your character is cheerful or surly or something else entirely.

Good point. The dwarves in Snow White are recognizably dwarves: they are short, bearded, clannish, enjoy mining, and use mining weapons in combat. They are also cheerful and enjoy whistling while they work. It would be weird to me for a DM to say that Grumpy was the only “valid” dwarf.

 

[Stormonu]

Fair enough. I support ASIs being on background (if they need to exist at all). I just think heritage write-ups are an important tool and should be kept.

I'd prefer ASIs at the class level instead of background, but I would still support modifiers at the race level. Being small has its own advantages, but there should be obvious drawbacks as well. 5E's tendancy of late to remove any and all outwardly negative consequences severely irks me.

 

[Micah Sweet]

I'd prefer ASIs at the class level instead of background, but I would still support modifiers at the race level. Being small has its own advantages, but there should be obvious drawbacks as well. 5E's tendancy of late to remove any and all outwardly negative consequences severely irks me.

I agree with that, but there are other ways of depicting size beyond a stat penalty. Stats affect so much of what your character can accomplish in the game, you're always going to get pushback.

 

[Mind of tempest]

The older I get and the longer I'm playing fantasy RPGs, the more I am wondering why even bother with differentiating races in the first place.

everyone has to start somewhere plus there are two groups with many subgroups
people who want all races to be human who look different and people who want the races to be non-human.
I find the stat penalties dull as they are not interesting weaknesses they do not promote ideas but cull them.
I want weaknesses that builds ideas that are interesting not just making my character weak, sickly or stupid.

 

[Cadence]

As a semi-aside. If you're in a 3d6 world and randomly pick someone from a fantasy species with a +2 ASI and someone from a species with no ASI, the one without the bonus would have a higher score around 28% of the time and have a tie another 8%. So, there is certainly a difference, but it hardly condemns everyone of the non-ASI species to be worse and certainly doesn't make everyone of the ASI species better on that stat.

(Which doesn't particularly argue that the ASI modifier based on race is good/bad, but some of the ways things were being phrased about its game world implications seemed off.)

 

[CreamCloud0]

I'd prefer ASIs at the class level instead of background, but I would still support modifiers at the race level. Being small has its own advantages, but there should be obvious drawbacks as well. 5E's tendancy of late to remove any and all outwardly negative consequences severely irks me.

While I prefer ASI in race due to what they were originally meant to represent I kind of like the idea of class, race and background each giving a choice of stats to place the ASI in for that respective character build choice, it prevents everything being loaded onto one of C/R/B and implying the other two didn’t have any influence on your character’s abilities, it’s not total freedom to place your ASI where you want but i think it strikes a nice balance between build choice and thematic-mechanical consistency.

Class provides three choices because they’re more conceptually MAD and race and background could provide two choices each.

So you chose a rogue? Put your class ASI in one of DEX, INT or CHA, Half orc? Racial ASI in STR or CON, Outlander background? That one goes in DEX or WIS.

 

[Faolyn]

Outright follow? Now necessarily. Trend toward? Of course; as that's the point.

If they trend to a certain personality, then their racial stats should all reflect that personality.

Seeing past the stereotypes is one thing. Somehow making average Hobbit strength the same as average Human strength, not so easy.

Ugh, this again.

A halfling with a -2 penalty to Strength is only 5% weaker than humans. An orc with a +2 bonus to Strength is only 5% stronger than humans. Neither of these actually do a good job of indicating that a halfling or orc is weaker or stronger than a human.

The fact that halflings get a penalty when using Heavy weapons and orcs can carry more than a human can does a better job showing those differences.

And the only time this matters is when it comes to player characters who are automatically exceptional. NPC halflings can be as weak as you want them to be. Why should players be forced to have a penalty?

And even if individuals get past the stereotypes, on a broad level they still exist.

Elves (all types) tend to have the physical attractiveness side going for them. And yes, snooty and-or haughty is another stereotype for Elves; though I tend to play mine more happy go lucky which is why that example leaped quickly to mind.

And this is the problem. You play elves as happy-go-lucky. Someone else plays elves as haughty. Why should they both have the same bonus or penalty?

You play dwarfs as naturally surly and gruff. I don't. Why should my dwarfs have a Charisma penalty because your do?

Appearance is part of it.

So, short and hairy = unattractive. Gotcha.

Persuasiveness is another, whether used in a leadership role or not. In my view, spiritual strength is a third.

So honest, hard-working dwarfs aren't as persuasive or spiritually strong as sadistic, demon-worshiping drow are. Gotcha.

A Cha 11 Elf is quite likely to be fairly attractive and rather boorish; while a Cha 11 Dwarf might be unattractive yet well-spoken. A Cha 11 Human could be the perfect spy - as bland and boring and forgettable-in-a-crowd as it gets.

Charisma 11 is completely average. A Charisma 11 human wouldn't be a perfect spy at all, because in order to be bland and boring and forgettable, you would also have to be good at hiding your actions and reactions and appearance so that you don't stand out. And that means (in 5e, at least) having a high skill in the Deception skill and disguise kit, both of which are dependent on Charisma. And if Charisma is "spiritual strength", then a spy would also need a high Charisma to maintain a sense of self when infiltrating enemy organizations.

In the Planescape book "Uncaged: Faces of Sigil," there was a character named Farrow (a Mystaran shadow elf) who was a "perfect spy" with a Charisma of 10. He had a ring of disguise that he used to infiltrate the other factions, under the orders of Shemeshka of the Marauder, that let him take on other appearances so he could act as members of those factions. Possibly due to that Charisma of 10, and definitely due to the power that belief has in Sigil, his mind broke and he developed multiple personalities, one for each of the factions he was infiltrating, and his original personality was completely suppressed.

 

[Faolyn]

Nevermind

 

[Faolyn]

Because it's a Halfling.

Because it's a Dwarf.

Because it's a Gnome.

These are pretty terrible reasons.

Humans are the baseline, and all others are compared to them.

And you're also conveniently forgetting (pre-floating ASIs):

Why are Halflings more capable of nimbly running along balance beams than humans?
Why are Dwarves more resiilent than humans when it comes to taking damage?

Which is why ASIs shouldn't be race-based in the first place.

Never mind the universal all-editions question:

Why do Gnomes even exist?

Because tradition, back when races were limited to what classes they could take.

No, but if Goblins were the baseline instead of Humans all Humans would have a pretty good strength bonus.

Again, Elves aren't the baseline. You might not get a dex penalty but odds are high you'll still be among the clumsiest in the room.

In your world, not mine. Heck, my friends and I just did some worldbuilding and in that world, humans are a recently-added, invasive species. Elves are the baseline in that world.

Same as if real-world me was to walk into a room full of NASA rocket scientists. I wouldn't in fact be any less intelligent than I was outside but I'd sure as hell feel like I was.

Feeling something isn't the same as having a stat penalty to it.