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?

 

[Chaosmancer]

This reads as not understanding the thing as a rhetorical device.

They’re brave because they are described as such. The Brave trait then represents that by making them meaningfully less likely to be frightened. It’s that simple.

"They are brave because we say that they are brave" doesn't really help though, does it?

Orcs, gnolls, dwarves, and dragonborn are all described as some variation of "fearless" but they aren't trotted out as being particularly fearless. Especially because, to keep repeating myself, nearly all adventurers are brave. My elf ranger is brave, my half-orc samurai is brave, my gnome cleric is brave, my tielfing artificer... isn't brave but he is vicious, my human barbarian is brave, my half-elf paladin is brave.

How do I know they are brave? Do they have the Brave Trait? No. they are brave because they went out and fought monsters that would rip them limb from limb to protect the innocent who could not protect themselves. They delved deep into caves and ruins, seeking what was lost. They are brave because of what they choose to do.

The only way people seem to have to claim halflings are more brave than the other races... is that they have advantage on the save against fear. But, as established, FAILING that check does not mean your character is not brave. So... halflings are brave because we say they are, and that is not represented in any possible way at the table, because they are just as brave as everyone else sitting at the table.

 

[Gammadoodler]

You'd conceded it, then brought it back up to try and support your position. And you agree that class plays a bigger role, yet you insist on arguing with me, when that is my main point.

shrug Really confusing me here why you are pushing forth ideas you don't seem to agree with.



Actually, this is a perfect example of what I am talking about.

If someone came up to me and said "Dwarves are the race that wear armor" I would respond to them exactly as I have been responding to "halflings are the stealthy race"

First I would point out that it is not all dwarves, just like it is not all halflings that are particularly stealthy.
Then I would point out that your class determines your armor wearing ability, just as your class determines how stealthy you are.
Finally, I would point out that there are other races that get armor proficiency and therefore even if I conceded the previous two points, it still wouldn't make them "particularly dwarvish" to wear armor. Just while if I accept +2 dex = stealthy that doesn't make being stealthy "particularly halfling"


Am I denying that Mountain dwarves have a trait that allows them to wear armor? No. In fact, that has nothing to do with my points at all.

So your position is that where multiple source may provide an advantage for a given skilll only the strongest source of advantage gets any credit for that contribution? That is an odd position to take.

Commenting on how the initial design process for the phb races contributes to the perception of those races feels relevant to me. You disagree

As to your conclusion with respect to the dwarf, that seems completely backwards to me, like your conclusion is that no racial feature indicates any kind of racial predilection if there is any intersection with class abilities..it's bananas.

 

[Chaosmancer]

Sorry, I misunderstood. I didn't realize you were moving the goalposts she set up from the race to an individual and thought the catastrophe was the king being killed. Sure, an individual might be present and accused. How is that a catastrophe to the halfling race?

Oh, sorry. I didn't realize "the halfling is too lucky to have something catastrophic happen to them" was now "the halfling race is too lucky to have something befall the entire race"

It also doesn't affect the incredibly lucky races of the Gnomes, Dwarves, Elves, Goliaths, Firbolgs, Centaurs, Satyrs. Man, there sure are a lot of races that are lucky huh?

Oh wait, you don't mean that either. Weird. So, since we are still talking about a single halfling in a party of adventurers like we have been this entire time, as a representative of their race... maybe don't go shifting the goalposts?

Well, no. Failing isn't the same as bad luck. Bad luck is failure plus more. Rolling a 2 for a death save is failure. Rolling a 1 and missing two saves is bad luck. It worse than a normal failure. Your human fails that 1 time in 20. My halfling fails it 1 time in 400, because I'm luckier than you are.

Interesting. Failure isn't bad luck. But success is good luck? So, halflings have good luck because they succeed more often, but failure isn't bad luck it is just.... what? After all, my X% more likely to succeed was met with "luck is luck"

Because, you know, if I was laying on the ground bleeding to death... I'd say that I must have had some pretty bad luck to end up in that position. Normally, if I had good luck, I wouldn't be laying on the ground bleeding to death. Whether or not a particular six seconds gets me closer faster doesn't matter as much as being in that position. After all, you've now defined failure as both rolling a 2 and as rolling a 1.

See, the human fails 45% of time (anything lower than a 10) and the halfling fails 47.25% of the time (Anything lower than a 10, with a reroll). Sure, the halfling is very unlikely to roll a 1... but that isn't failure. Failure is failing the roll.

This translates into, "Halflings aren't luckier than other people in the narrative, they are just luckier than other people narrative." Those rolls are for actions that happen in the narrative, which halflings will objectively make more often due to their good luck. So yes, other than being luckier than everyone else, they are exactly as lucky as everyone else.

Really? So, when my Fighter reaches level 3 and gains proficiency in the Arcana skill, he has become 10% luckier than he was before? Because, succeeding on the action = Luck.

Bards hand out luck. Clerics cast luck spells on everyone. Magical swords are all lucky. Because succeeding on an action is luck.

Wait no. You don't mean that. You mean that halflings succeeding on rolls is because of luck. Not because of their proficiencies, ability score modifiers, class features, and everything else.

Wait wait, no. You don't mean that. You mean that the lucky feature means that they will probably succeed at an action about 3% more often than everyone else, because they are lucky. Which, by the way, is such a small percentage it will not be noticed at a particular table. Survey's and such used to gather information generally have a 3% margin of error, which this falls into. So, this is quite literally a margin of error.

So, unless the DM enforces this... which we will discuss in a moment, huh?

Adventurers are not a race, so it doesn't matter if every PC is brave or not. It can have no bearing on the fact that halflings as a race are braver than any other race that also does not have some sort of bravery mechanic to support it.

There are also levels of bravery. One can be braver than another. So even if adventurers are brave. A halfling will almost always be braver. That halfling PC will have the adventurer bravery you mention, plus will make more saves and spend less time cowering than the others due to the racial ability.

Braver. Not brave. Braver. That have a racial bravery that isn't matched by any other race.

Actually, the adventurers and PCs being brave matters a lot. In fact, it could be the only thing that does matter. Because who does your character get compared to? The other PCs. I'm reminded of the Worf effect. I'm sure you've heard about it. Is Worf a bad-ass warrior? Sure, we are told he is, but if you watch the show you see him... lose. Constantly. He could fold the vast majority of humans on Earth into a pretzel, but that doesn't really matter because we never see him do it. He's the guy that always loses the fight, so it doesn't matter how much you tell us he is a great warrior.

Sure, the common peasants are running in fear... but your companions aren't. Most fear effects don't include "cowering", in fact, I think only a single fear effect in the game changes your stated actions at all. So the halfling will in fact not be cowering less than his companions, because his companions will generally not be cowering.

And, again, if we are going to measure bravery as "succeeds on saving throws vs fear" then the Monk, Druid and Cleric are even braver than most halflings. Being high wisdom classes. Some Ranger's too. Because, they are going to succeed on those fear saves, so they must be even braver. Except, again, we don't define bravery by whether or not you feel magical fear.

It's not my position.

Interesting. It is not your position that a DM who goes out of their way to narrate the halfling as being luckier than his companions is a bad DM. And yet

Then the DM is acting in bad faith and deliberately ruining part of the halfling's story. Bad DMs are bad, yes. Bad DMs don't make halflings as a game race unlucky in the narrative. They can only ruin their own games.

You speak about Bad DMs ruining the game by not doing exactly that. So, what gives? If I don't go out of my way to describe lucky things happening to halfling because of their luck... I'm a bad DM? That is a level of care for the race that no other race gets. I'm not a bad DM for not narrating the Kenku's voice as particularly strange. I'm not a bad DM for not narrating that the Goliath is particularly tough. I'm not a bad DM for narrating that the Firbolg is soft-spoken and doesn't understand names.

But I'm a Bad DM if I don't make sure to narrate how lucky the halfling is.

Ah, wait, I think I see what is going on here.

How is narrating what happens "twisting the story and giving the halfling special attention?" That's literally the DM's job. The halfling has an ability that is in fact in the narrative and if the DM doesn't narrate it, he's acting in as much bad faith as if I declared I'm trying to climb a wall and he said, "No you aren't."

From page 6 of the PHB

"3. The DM narrates the results of the adventurers' actions. Describing the results often leads to another decision point, which brings the flow of the game right back to step 1."

So the halfling declares an action to climb the wall and rolls a 1. Halfling luck kicks in and he re-rolls and gets a 17. Success! The result of that action is, "The halfling gets lucky and climbs the wall." The DM is obligated by RAW to narrate that. There's no "twisting" going on. There's no "giving the halfling special attention" going on. It's simply how the game is played and the DM refusing to do that is acting in bad faith.

You aren't understanding my position. At all.

To roll this back. Let's take your example of climbing that wall (which shouldn't be a roll, but that is neither here nor there)

So the halfling declares an action to climb the wall and rolls a... 5! How does halfling luck apply to this situation? It doesn't. Maybe the halfling is searching a room and rolls a.... 15! How does halfling luck apply to this situation? It doesn't.

In fact, I have seen a halfling character go an entire campaign without rolling a 1 on a d20 check. There is, after all, only a 5% chance of rolling a 1. So, in that situation... is the halfling lucky? No. Their "luck" never manifests...

Unless when the gnoll fires an arrow at the halfling and misses the halflings armor class, the DM says it is because of halfling luck. Unless when they are walking through town, and the party is hit by a gang of pickpockets, they ignore the halfling because of halfling luck. Unless the DM twists the story around and makes sure to add to their narration "the halfling is lucky" in times when THE HALFLING ISN'T ROLLING. Because other than that? We will say 97% of the time, the halfling isn't any luckier than anyone else. They may roll a 1, get that stroke of good fortune... and still fail. So, they don't get that narration of being lucky. Or they succeeded, and the DM attributes it to their luck, where for any other character it would be because of their skill.

And, if I take you at your own words. You think that a DM who doesn't do that, who doesn't change the narrative to reflect how special the halfling is when they aren't rolling, is a Bad DM. Or you think that the halfling will roll enough 1's that re-roll into successes that anyone will remember and appreciate how lucky halflings are.

 

[Chaosmancer]

If you want players to be able to play nearly any animal as beastfolk, you need a freeform build-you-own-beast setup. Like, "pick 3 features off the following list:"

I think it's quite doable, although you end up with low-flavor races (kenku are just bird people). Short of that, you need a number of separate races, probably a dozen or more.

I know. Again, I've been trying not to just make a new race, but it would be easier.

But this is more meant to highlight to Charlaquin how having too many overlapping races can be a problem.

 

[Chaosmancer]

So your position is that where multiple source may provide an advantage for a given skilll only the strongest source of advantage gets any credit for that contribution? That is an odd position to take.

Commenting on how the initial design process for the phb races contributes to the perception of those races feels relevant to me. You disagree

As to your conclusion with respect to the dwarf, that seems completely backwards to me, like your conclusion is that no racial feature indicates any kind of racial predilection if there is any intersection with class abilities..it's bananas.

So, you have often heard people describe dwarves as "the armor wearing race?"

Me? I've heard them as the underground, smithing, stubborn as stone, long-lived, bearded with a resistance to poison and high alcohol tolerance race. "wears armor" doesn't even make the list.

I also never spoke about advantage at all, so I have no idea where you pulled that from. And sure, I wasn't going to bring up the change in Tashas and the PHB, you did. Because it came down to the only way to show halflings were "the stealthy race" was to go to ability score improvements. And then you had to go to specifically +2 to dexterity and ignoring everything else. And, personally, when you are talking about a skill and you have to compete with proficiency (which is twice as impactful at level 1) and expertise (which is twice as impactful at level 1), then I think it is fair to say that it isn't the race that is mattering.

The reason why halflings are seen as particularly stealthy? It is because they are shoe-horned as Burglars. The vast majority of halfling characters I have ever seen are meant to be rogues, so they have the rogue's trope, which include high stealth. But if you break that away, if you look at just the race, and not the race/class combo... it becomes pretty obvious that nothing about halflings really is about them being incredibly stealthy.

 

[Vaalingrade]

At the risk of saying words and thereby proving someone else's point or agreeing with them when I am no way doing so...

Are dwarves really the species we want to use as an example of species design here? Dwarves are as ISO standard as they come. Beards, axes, hammers and being John Rhys Davis.

 

[Stormonu]

Dragonborn breath fire.
Tiefling have infernal magic
Goliaths lift like ogres
Genasi have elemental resistances and features
Aaracroka fly

"Halflings reroll if they roll very bad"

Halflings are adult children (note this is different from childish adults!)

<EDIT> Or, if you want to go mechanical: Halflings are unseen (they're good at stealth or otherwise not being noticed).

 

[Minigiant]

"Not impactful" is exactly what halflings are meant to be. They were designed as observers, and a good observer has a minimal impact on the system.

Adventurers, as always, are the exception.

That's the point.

The mechanics are for adventurers.

 

[Paul Farquhar]

To me, the only problem here is that Sea Elves are yet another elf subrace. If there were just two non-elf races with similar aquaman themes, I wouldn’t be bothered.

That really doesn't matter though. If you look at the natural world, it is full of organisms that seem very similar to each other. Some are related and some arn't, but there is no rule in nature that says "this slot is already taken, find your own". In fact, in nature ideas repeat themselves over and over.

 

[Cadence]

That really doesn't matter though. If you look at the natural world, it is full of organisms that seem very similar to each other. Some are related and some arn't, but there is no rule in nature that says "this slot is already taken, find your own". In fact, in nature ideas repeat themselves over and over.

Does "having a slot filled" somewhere makes it less likely in that place yhat something will evolve to compete against the thing that's already there? (As opposed to, say, different things evolving to do the same things on separate continents?)