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?

 

[Hussar]

This feels like a reason to have either no races in the PHB or just humans if one wants creativity in the various worlds, so that a standard flotilla of races aren't forced into every book and setting no matter what.

No, not at all.

After all, the other races actually ARE being played. And being played more regularly by considerably more people. So, it makes sense that the setting guides and whatnot feature these races regularly. If, say (and I'm picking a totally random number here, not meant as a actual real number) 10% of players play a given race, then having that particular race show up in adventures and in player facing books like Tasha's makes a lot of sense. You are speaking to a larger segment of the audience.

But, halflings, and especially gnomes, don't actually do that. Despite featuring in books, despite being part of the SRD, despite having the backing of Grandpappy Tolkien himself, halflings are and always have been scraping the bottom of the barrel. And gnomes are even less relevant.

My point is that the PHB should be relevant to the most number of players it can be given size restraints. So, if a race (and I don't actually care which race - if humans were scraping the bottom of the barrel, I'd be just as quick to give them the heave) is not actually being played, and other races ARE, then those other, more played races, should be what is featured in the PHB regardless of whether or not I personally like them. This has never, ever been about personal preference. If it was, I'd be advocating booting elves LONG before any other race. But, no, it's about making the PHB relevant to the most number of players. Like I said earlier, it was great that we had polearm descriptions, but, since most players are never actually going to use a polearm, then maybe we don't need pages of polearm descriptions in the PHB.

 

[James Gasik]

Some might argue adventurers are also foolhardy.

 

[bedir than]

before Tasha's removed the primary reason to play halflings - the Dex bonus.

No, the Dex bonus wasn't the primary reason to play halflings. There are other races that get Dex bonuses.

Story remains the most common reason for players to play things. That's why there was no post-Tasha's explosion of Mountain Dwarves.

 

[Cadence]

Some might argue adventurers are also foolhardy.

“Sorry! I don’t want any adventures, thank you. Not Today. Good morning! But please come to tea – any time you like! Why not tomorrow? Good bye!”

or

“We are plain quiet folk and have no use for adventures. Nasty disturbing uncomfortable things! Make you late for dinner! I can’t think what anybody sees in them.”

 

[Cadence]

. I have another player who rolls 1's more often than he rolls above a 10. But he doesn't play halflings.

You should video the one player every time they roll. Now that it's been called it in advance we can see if they truly do have remarkable powers of unluck or not - or at least statistically implausible ones.

I wonder if that is a common term used for all adventurers, along the lines of Brave Adventurers. Because, you know, all Adventurers are brave or intrepid or courageous. It is kind of the point. Which is why having one race that is "the brave race" doesn't work in the context of the party.

For better or worse, it feels like the authors of the PhB use it more sparingly. The Heroism Spell make one brave or the Bard exhot his companions to bravery and heroism. The fighter sample fighter is described as courageous while the rogue, cleric, and wizard are skulking, fervent, and flamboyant respectively. It is the dwarfs courage (along with endurance) that makes them a match for larger folk. Similarly it is the barbarians courage in the face of danger that makes them perfectly suited for adventuring. etc... Do any of those usages have a point if all adventurers are equally brave?

 

[Maxperson]

So, you are going to just change the narrative. "Fear" from artillery, or gunfire, or whatever else isn't supernatural, because we don't have supernatural things in our world. So you can dismiss the entire thing because it isn't MAGICAL fear.

It isn't the same kind of fear that you get in the game, because you can choose to ignore it. 5e fear is impossible to ignore unless you make your save.

And now you can't be brave if you are mind controlled, because nothing says "define my character's personality" like removing control over that character.

That's what mind control spells do. Your character didn't get to choose to be frightened. His mind was controlled in some manner and it was forced on him.

"Halflings aren't braver than other races"

Because they objectively are. I'm not going to say they aren't when they are.

and figure out a better way to represent the mechanics? Like that halfling's fear response doesn't cause them to shake, a halfling's hands are always steady, no matter what. Give them immunity to disadvantage caused by the fear condition.

See, now THIS is constructive. Halflings are objectively braver than other races as it stands, but the current mechanic may not be the best way to represent it. Personally I prefer the Kender immunity to fear, but maybe give them 3 points a day and they can expend one to automatically make any save against a fear type ability if immunity is too much.

Right. Nothing in DnD is pulled from comics and novels. Invisiblility Rings? Small plucky farmers? Dragons? All of them came from the mechanics of the game, nothing at all to do with novels. How could I possibly get the idea that storytelling might be involved in a game about telling a story anyways? It's a ludicrous idea. Pure numbers and math this game is.

It doesn't matter what is pulled from where. Novels and comics just aren't going to be the game and vice versa. Or can you show me where in 5e the mechanics of a rock falling on a big ole healthy dragon will kill it, rather than just irritating it a little bit.

Right, braindead is it. I mean, how could you not notice and care about the single time it happens in a game, and you end up failing anyways. Because, you know, that happened. Clearly, a character defining moment of luck to see there single time using an ability not change a thing.

And yes, I know you said someone would have to be braindead not to notice them taking the 1 and rolling a success, but you still aren't getting how rare that is to actually happen. Maybe your players roll a lot of 1's, but many of mine don't and the ones that do, don't play halflings. So, even if it does happen once or twice a campaign... it still isn't that impactful. I mean, it could happen on their roll against getting drunk. A scene no one will really care about by the end of the campaign. Did they notice it? Sure. Did it matter? No, it didn't matter.

It happens 1 roll in 20 on average, so unless you're rolling only a couple times a session, you're going to hit those ones fairly regularly. I've been playing the game since 1983 and I've yet to meet anyone who can go an entire campaign and not roll a good number of 1s. Maybe they all play at your table.

 

[Maxperson]

However, that doesn't mean that a specific player, in a specific game has ever rolled a 1. And in fact, I've had a lot of players who during a campaign, rarely or never rolled 1's. I have another player who rolls 1's more often than he rolls above a 10. But he doesn't play halflings.

That seems................................short sighted. If I rolled that badly that consistently, halfling with the lucky feat would be my go to.

 

[Cadence]

 

[Maxperson]

You should video the one player every time they roll. Now that it's been called it in advance we can see if they truly do have remarkable powers of unluck or not - or at least statistically implausible ones.

Weird luck happens. I played in a weekly game for many years and the DM called for rolls at the beginning of the session as a sort of luck roll. For close to a year my very first roll would be a 1. At first nobody really noticed, but after 5 or 6 weeks in a row, we started watching my first roll. I picked different d20s. I used other people's d20s. It didn't matter. It got to the point where I'd sit down and people would say, "Time for X to roll a 1!" Fortunately a 1 was fate and fate could be good or bad in that game, and I had good luck a lot more than bad. I don't remember when that streak stopped, but once it was broken it was shattered and my first rolls of the night would be as varied as anyone else's.

 

[Cadence]

Weird luck happens. I played in a weekly game for many years and the DM called for rolls at the beginning of the session as a sort of luck roll. For close to a year my very first roll would be a 1. At first nobody really noticed, but after 5 or 6 weeks in a row, we started watching my first roll. I picked different d20s. I used other people's d20s. It didn't matter. It got to the point where I'd sit down and people would say, "Time for X to roll a 1!" Fortunately a 1 was fate and fate could be good or bad in that game, and I had good luck a lot more than bad. I don't remember when that streak stopped, but once it was broken it was shattered and my first rolls of the night would be as varied as anyone else's.

Coincidences happen all the time in retrospect (like noticing several session starting ones in a row in the past), it's when it's called out (like you did) and keeps happening that makes it cool I think.