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]

If things were objectively measured across the infinity of time? Sure.

But statistically someone has to be rolling worse at dice than someone else. 6d6 showing up 6/6/6/6/6/6 has the exact same likelihood as 1/1/1/1/1/1 and 2/3/4/1/5/6 after all.

Except that's not exactly how it works. Because 3/3/3/1/5/6, 1/1/4/4/5/6, 6/6/4/2/2/1, and so on all have the same chance to show up as 2/3/4/1/5/6, 1/1/1/1/1/1 and 6/6/6/6/6/6. That means that while there is only one combination that equals 6 and one combination that equals 36, there are a whole lot of combinations of 6d6 that equal 21, making 21 much more likely to show up when rolling 6d6.

You aren't going to get a perfect average from players when they roll, but over time it will be for the vast majority of players, somewhat near average.

 

[LuisCarlos17f]

Maybe halflings and gnomes aren't among the most popular PC races, but they are iconic for the new players. They aren't too strange or exotic.

Maybe halflings become more popular in the next years because some adults have found a new idea as gifts for the children of the family, OC art, or customited miniatures (or action figures) with the scanned faces of these children. Then using halflings with the faces of the sons or nephews.

Or a 3PP creates a magitek exosuit and these are used by gnomes and halflings in a way close to the "iron spider armor" from Marvel studios, and the players start to create the halfling version of Peter Parker's clones, or some "module" about "monster allies", and the halfling becomes the rider of a (subrace) mini-dragon.

Halflings and gnomes are perfect as main characters if Hasbro wants an animated production more focused into the comedy than the epic fantasy and action.

Maybe some halfling started being other humanoid race in a previous life, but after the death the resurecction spell was too expensive, and choosing the halfling race as option in the reincarnation spell was safer than random.

 

[Lanefan]

Given the sheer amount of races available, I would say that any one race is irrelevant to the hobby at large, with the exception of humans, which are, IMO, the most boring and bland of races.

I mean, stop to think about it, what is the place of humans in a fantasy world? They aren't the most magical. They don't have special abilities. They aren't long lived. They're just...there.

Oh we're told they're the most prevalent and ambitious, etc.,etc., but their mechanics certainly don't reflect anything other than a minor buff to all stats which really doesn't matter.

Humans do have one thing going for them that no other species in the game can claim, and it's this: every player at every table has - one hopes - at least a vague idea as to how to play one.

 

[Neonchameleon]

Again, half-orcs are likely getting the boot. I wonder if we'll see all this hand wringing and loud proclamations when that happens.

Probably not as long as we replace half-orcs with either half-orcs, goliaths, minotaurs, or some other physically powerful and imposing race (probably orcs) while at the same time keeping half elves in the game.

Halflings are the only race in the game that emphasises being mundane and not being a badass by the standards of the world. There is precisely no replacement for this in any other race I can think of in D&D.

After all, by your argument there should never, EVER be any race removed from the PHB.

When have I ever said that? I've after all suggested that gnomes should be made a subrace of halflings.

What I have said, will say, and will repeat is that halflings should not be removed from the PHB because there is no race that covers their niches nearly as well as they do in the whole of D&D - and the more you load a race down with Kewl Powerz the worse they get at it.

Nope. It's purely arbitrary.

Thank you for admitting that you are posting masses of comments saying that halflings should be removed based on your entirely and completely arbitrary threshold. And that you have nothing but an arbitrary standard set by you to want a race removed.

I picked two because two is a nice number for experimenting with new race options. We got two new races in 4e (carried over into 5e) that have proven very popular, so, just carrying on with that number.

So we should have two in and none out because that proved popular.

Could be one. Could be 4. You seem to think that I care which races are removed. I really, really don't.

Actions speak louder than words. You have made literally dozens of posts saying that halflings should be removed. Which means that for some reason you believe that this is worth posting. Why do you bother to post if you don't care?

My argument has ALWAYS been the bottom two. Mostly because 2 is what was added and that seemed to work fantastically well.

Even this very comment shows this claim to be a falsehood.

You have openly said in this comment "Again, half-orcs are likely getting the boot." If it's actually two races getting the boot that you care about and half-orcs are one of them then using your own logic halflings should be safe unless you somehow are saying that halflings should be booted and the far less popular and more easily replaceable gnomes should be kept.

Three or four is probably a bit too much because it would impact too many other things.

OK. So gnomes and half-orcs. Three would be too many. So why, in defiance of your own arguments, do you want to gratuitously boot halflings?

But, remember, I've always argued for REPLACE, not remove. Drop the bottom two and ADD two new options to make sure that niche's are covered. Kobolds largely cover both the tech/clockwork aspect of gnomes and the sneaky/size schtick for halflings, so, I could easily see kobolds replacing both nicely. Which leaves room for a new option, like, say, goliaths, since big PC's are a niche that it wouldn't hurt to cover.

And here is the second problem (beyond the two most obviously on the chopping block being gnomes and half-orcs). There is not one single race in D&D that covers the halfling "easy to overlook harmless everyman" schtick nearly as well as halflings. Kobolds and goblins alike are seen as hostile rather than harmless.

But again, I'm not wedded to any particular option. I did mention a small/medium fey anthro race. Someone mentioned Hengiyokai - they'd actually be a pretty cool concept that fills pretty much all the niche's for gnomes and halflings as well. Again, I'm not terribly picky. Whatever works is whatever works.

Find me a less exotic and more easily dismissed option than halflings. Humans don't qualify because humans are known as badasses in D&D and a plurality of countries in most D&D settings are human dominated. As for the Hengiyokai, please. You are trying to replace a race known for being mundane with a race of natural shapeshifters. Not. Even. Close. For that matter fey is a problem for a halfling replacement - it's too exotic to cover the niche halflings have complete dominance of.

What works is halflings. You claim to be not picky and "whatever works" while failing to offer a replacement for halflings. You also claim that two races should be removed - and there are gnomes, which are far less popular than halflings and halflings could cover most of already - and half-orcs which we both think are leaving. So if three is too many and half-orcs are probably leaving do you agree that by your own logic halflings should stay?

 

[Lanefan]

Again, half-orcs are likely getting the boot. I wonder if we'll see all this hand wringing and loud proclamations when that happens. After all, by your argument there should never, EVER be any race removed from the PHB.

If they're to be replaced with full Orcs, which other than moving Orcs from "monster" to "kindred", it ends up as pretty much the same thing in a way.

Replacing Hobbits with, say, Dragonborn isn't nearly as close a match.

 

[Lanefan]

Heh, if we're going by personal anecdotes, I haven't had a human PC in a game in a few years now. And, honestly, even going back all the way to 1e, I was often the only human PC or maybe one of two. Most of the PC's were demi-humans or various other options. So, I dunno who's playing all these humans, other than me (typically), but, someone apparently is.

In my current game there's no Human PCs; the previous party I was running was nearly all Human. These things come and go.

 

[Irlo]

Right, but here's the thing. Those outside media help inform the narrative people want at the table.
....
And the lore for the halflings gives them supernatural luck.

I understand completely what you're saying. It doesn't resonate for me because in my experience it doesn't matter. No player in any game I've been in has come to the table with the idea that halflings are supernaturally lucky, beyond the Lucky trait described in the PHB. Halfling lore in D&D-adjacent fiction is not consistent either with other fictions or with the in-game narratives at various tables, and I wouldn't expect it to be.

 

[Lanefan]

Big head? Lidda? I never thought that.

Seems a pretty normal head to me.

Absent context, if someone put that picture in front of me and asked me what it is, I'd say "Elf" without a second thought.

Then on second look I'd notice the ears, while pointed, resemble neither the sails nor antennae that Elven ears have these days become, and so I'd modify my statement to "Half-Elf" and stop there.

There is nothing at all in that picture that says either "Hobbit" or "Halfling".

 

[Lanefan]

I don't think a cosmology/pantheon is necessary. That's world lore, not race lore.

It's both, if each species has its own pantheon (which I've always kinda taken to be the default).

And as a pantheon comes to both define and be defined by its followers, it's hard to build a cultural lore without taking it into consideration.

 

[Irlo]

but what makes them anything other than oddly not tall humans.

Not much. Halflings in my games are very human-like. A little more adaptable, more accepting, and more accepted by others without needing to be overtly assimilated into the larger society. The adventurous ones are seen to be pluckier and than their larger neighbors.