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?

 

[James Gasik]

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.

This is true, but it doesn't really alter the fact that humans are mechanically uninspired and bland as a playable race. But hey, at least they have mechanics now, right? As opposed to "dual class if you have really good rolls and xp on a drip feed" or "hey you can theoretically get to some super high level most people have never even seen", lol!

 

[James Gasik]

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.

You mean, besides Humans, right?

 

[Crimson Longinus]

You mean, besides Humans, right?

No. Fantasy humans by default are badasses. They're Conan, Aragorn etc.

 

[James Gasik]

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".

This is a consistent problem with Lidda's art. The best pictures they produced of her don't have other characters nearby to give you a height comparison. The ones that do...kind of skimp on her.

But anything is better than Mialee's art (the iconic Elf Wizard) which is usually just....shudders.

 

[James Gasik]

No. Fantasy humans by default are badasses. They're Conan, Aragorn etc.

Interesting. So because we can compared them to legendary figures, they are badass, even if the race mechanics are completely blah?

Seems like we just need better Halfling heroes in the zeitgeist and all problems are solved!

 

[Crimson Longinus]

Interesting. So because we can compared them to legendary figures, they are badass, even if the race mechanics are completely blah?

Yes. Badass human heroes are not surprising, they're the expectation.

Seems like we just need better Halfling heroes in the zeitgeist and all problems are solved!

I don't even know what the problem is! But it is not that halflings are not badass enough, because their point is not to be badasses. Granted, some people think that it is a problem, as they don't get that halflings being overlooked and metaphorically small is the point!

 

[Chaosmancer]

I have never noticed this at the table while playing the game.
My players interact with the creatures and peoples through play. When they meet a family of goliaths in a rough land the characters learn a bit about that land and the habits of that family. When they meet a goliath coffee roaster with two axebeaks that draw a cart, they interact with that character, who worships the god of rivers, mountains and life in my world.

What does it matter what planar beings they are connected to?

This is similar to the complaints about halflings. What they are as a peoples doesn't necessarily mean that's what they are as individuals. The most common complaint, so often thrown here, is "why would they ever adventure?" Because that's what that one person does!

It matters not that most are agrarian homebodies. Because my halfling, Kellamon Sqoques joined his friends on a journey. I'm telling his story, not the story of an ur-Halfling.

Would you say there are some differences between a woman from France and a Woman from Vietnam?

Sure, the individual matters for the immediate story, but the context that individual comes from informs what that story is. I have a player currently playing a Kobold who went and demanded of his Dragon Mistress that he be given command of half the tribe and be recognized as her equal, because he's that awesome. He fled for his life (Yes, obviously he should have died but "my character died in my backstory" doesn't work for 99% of backstory concepts) and is set on revenge against her. This story doesn't work nearly as well without the context that Kobolds are seen as disposable minions and servants by dragons.

So, "where do goliaths come from and what do they believe" helps inform what that family is doing and if they are traditional or not. It helps inform whether or not that Coffee trader is bizarrely out of place, or perfectly normal. If Goliaths don't believe in money, then a Goliath who is a trader may not accept coin, or maybe they do and that is strange and leads to questions.

The same thing could happen if you run into an elf with a massive, full beard. Most people are going to pause and go "wait... what?" because elves are almost always clean-shaven. It is a very easy way to signal "something is strange here" by knowing that the individual is going against the common path.

 

[Chaosmancer]

You can't ignore the fear. The rules are both the frightened condition, which does not let you ignore it and the cause of the condition, which only lets you ignore it if you make the save. You can attack anyway, but again it's akin to the guy in the horror flick shooting over the top of the thing he's hiding behind and hoping he's going to hit. Firing a bow at the thing you are terrified of and hoping you get a lucky shot isn't brave. Brave is turning and moving towards it despite the feat and attacking anyway. You get to see that in horror movies when the frightened hero turns and faces the fear, attacking forward despite being afraid.


Two things. First, they have no disadvantage because they aren't really frightened anymore, even though the condition is still on them. They are only suffering the effects of the condition(being scared) while they can see the source of their terror. So no, they aren't ignoring it, because if said banshee spent 60 feet of movement moving 5 feet through a wall back and forth, they would be scared every time the bashee came back into sight. Same if the banshee comes back 2 rounds later and they haven't successfully made a save yet.

It can only count as ignoring the fear if you can ignore it(and you can't) while the thing causing the fear is in sight.

So, continuing to fight despite fear isn't bravery. Only charging forward is bravery. You can't ignore fear if you are frightened, because acting in spite of fear isn't ignoring it. Still being under the condition of fear isn't still being afraid, because the condition isn't doing anything. Just like you aren't charmed anymore if the creature that charmed you isn't in the room making charisma checks at you, right?

You just have to narrow it down so that only a single course of action is bravery, just because of halflings. And yet people are baffled why I think halflings being shoved into this "we are braver" space is bad for the narrative of the game. This sort of twisting of a concept as fundamental as bravery is just wrong, on top of the fact that is makes no sense.

As someone who has arachnaphobia, acrophobia and claustrophobia and , I can tell you that they can be controlled(within reason).

I have had times when startled by a spider and jumped halfway across the room. Once I have distance, though, I know the capabilities of spiders and can walk up to them and get close. If I absolutely had to, I could touch one. The whole time, though, I have the willies and still occasionally shudder involuntarily. Same with heights. I can use a ladder to climb onto the roof when. When climb back down onto the ladder, it's more risky and I generally have to pause and steel myself, then move more slowly than is necessary to get back onto the ladder.

So, you have an involuntary physical response. Something you can't control. Then, after a few moments, maybe about 6 to 12 seconds after that response, you can act in spite of the fear.

I wonder if you could represent that as taking a turn or two and making a wisdom saving throw. You know, like the game already does.

That's a good start, but I don't think the mechanic matches up entirely with the name. Someone who is unshakeable is also going to be able to advance on something causing the frightened condition. I'd actually rather see a limited immunity, like the 3x day auto save vs. frightened, or if that's too much, ignoring the requirement to not be able to move towards the source of fear and keep the disadvantage. Or drop disadvantage and impose a flat -2.

Flat negatives aren't great as a design space, they end up stacking too much. Better to limit them when you can.

I made the name as a bit of a pun, "unshakeable" because they do not shake when frightened. Personally, I think the idea of X times per day is leaning into it being a magical ability, so I don't like that. You could give them straight immunity, but the problem I have with that is that roleplaying a truly "fearless" individual is not only an incredible challenge as a player, but it encourages behavior which would be massively detrimental to the group as a whole. You could see that in some of the references to Kender, where being without fear made them charge into danger, which caused problems for the other party members.

Personally, if you must absolutely be able to move forward, I'd say ignore the disadvantage and treat moving toward the source of the frightened condition as difficult terrain. But while I know some people see the "not being able to advance" as the "best" part of fear, that is usually in response to spells which casters use to protect themselves, it doesn't matter as much for melee, the disadvantage is the toothier part of the ability in general.

I'm not arguing that inspiration isn't drawn in both directions. The D&D movie, TV shows, and comics all draw inspiration from D&D. D&D in turn draws inspiration from myths, fantasy books, movies, etc. Drawing such inspiration, though, doesn't make one into the other.

No matter how much inspiration was drawn by that comic to add in a dragon and halfling luck, the healthy dragon dying from a falling rock isn't something that is in D&D the game. It was a simple power of plot device for the comic book medium and has no bearing whatsoever on how a DM should run halfling luck in D&D.

So, depictions of halfling luck written by people for a DnD setting, shouldn't inform how we think about halfling luck in a DnD setting? Because I'm not saying one medium is the same as the other, and while people are obsessing over dragons being immune to falling spikes, they are ignoring the part that actually matters.

Let's say the dragon had 50 hp left. That's enough that a critical from a thrown boulder can kill it. Then people can be happy that a rock killed a dragon.

Now, what happened?

The halfling finds a gemstone while circling the fight. The halfling ignores the fight, and goes for the gemstone. The halfling pries free the gemstone, only to fall off the statue and hit an stalactite. This stalactite then falls and kills the dragon, that the halfling was unaware of, right before it killed the human fighter.

This is not uncommon in the trope of the small, lucky person. Knocking out or defeating a powerful enemy that they were not aware of by accident is a very common outcome. The monster is about to stab the helpless main character, the lucky sidekick opens a door and smashes the monster in the face, being completely unaware of what is happening, allowing everyone to escape. This happens again and again and again. This is the trope halfling luck is pulling on in the narrative. This is not something that happens in the game at the table, and it isn't something we would WANT to happen at the table. No mechanical ability that allowed the halfling to immediately interrupt and/or defeat an enemy with 50 or less hp by accident would be acceptable to anyone.

This isn't about how comics and books are different than the game, this is about how the tropes and narratives are presented and how they are integrated into the game.

Fair enough. He should probably still take the lucky feat, which matches changelings, elves and even an old human paladin.

He did for a while, burnt through the entire feat in a single combat. Started thinking it really wasn't worth it since he still failed every time he used lucky.

Can we be done judging my friend about how he should build characters? I guarantee that after Seven years of thinking about and struggling with it, he's thought about it more than you have from your armchair.

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.

If I was talking about adding those numbers together, you would be correct. But I wasn't. So you aren't correct, you are misunderstanding my post.

Yes, the average player will get 21 more often than note. But, statistically, someone has rolled 2/3/4/1/5/6 on 6d6. This means that, statistically, someone has rolled 1/1/1/1/1/1 on 6d6. Expand this out, over the course of someone's life, they will roll a distinct and unique set of numbers on all dice. That set of numbers is 100% unique to them, and statistically, someone's set of numbers will have more low numbers than other peoples.

Trying to dismiss someone's set of numbers because "luck isn't real" ignores that someone, somewhere, at some time, has to be the person who is at the bottom end of the bell curve. Otherwise it wouldn't be a bell curve, it would be a straight line.

Again, it's not "brave" it's "braver." That applies to height. If you have a race that averages 7 feet tall and no other race gets taller than an average of 6'2", then that race is taller than other races, even though there are other races that are tall. Halflings as a race are braver than any other race out there.

But again, if you are playing a race whose supposed to be uniquely tall, and everyone else is tall, then you aren't uniquely tall. No one is going to comment on your character being tall, because everyone in the party is tall. You won't need special treatment for being tall, because everyone will need that treatment for being tall.

Halflings as a race could possibly be braver in an objective sense, but once they are in a party full of people who are incredibly brave... then it is kind of not worth mentioning, because they aren't braver than everyone else in a way that makes them notable. You get told of the terrifying monster of the woods, and you shouting "I'm not scared" doesn't matter, because no one else is scared either. You aren't braver in the narrative, because you cannot possibly be braver in the narrative. Which means it is kind of a waste to say that you are.

 

[Chaosmancer]

No. Fantasy humans by default are badasses. They're Conan, Aragorn etc.

Every player character in the game is a bad-ass. It is a bit weird to constantly try and say "but no one expects ME to be a bad-ass". Of course they do.

Look, why is a halfling not a badass? Because they are small, right? No one expects small creatures to be dangerous.

Well, except goblins. They are vicious and able to wipe out a town, and they are small.
And Kobolds, incredibly dangerous depsite being small.
Plus you can't discount gnomes, because magic makes even a small creature dangerous, and kobolds and goblins are also known for having spellcasters
And fairies and Pixies can be quite dangerous despite being tiny.
Derro are small and super dangerous.
There are also devils and demons that are small.
Mephits are small or tiny, those things are incredibly dangerous.
Can't forget many tiny creatures like stirges are incredibly dangerous, despite being very small.
ectectectectectectectect

And, of course, this is a world where adventurers exist, and halfling adventurers are known. I mean, Mordenkainen's states that halfling retired adventurers come back to their homes. Mearls even talked about those adventurers leaving powerful magic items behind to defend their homes.

So... why would anyone look at a halfling in leather armor, carrying a well-used weapon, and standing beside a group of adventurers and think "Well, I never expected to see a halfling adventurer, those don't really exist. I mean, halflings aren't badasses like every other race in the entire world." Of course they've heard of halfling adventurers before!

 

[Faolyn]

I don't know why I'm doing this, but...

@Chaosmancer, please understand that fear and the Frightened condition are different things.

A character who is afraid of something can move towards the source of their fear. This is being brave.

A character who is subjected to the Frightened condition can't move towards the source of their fear. This isn't being brave or being not brave or being cowardly; it's being under the effects of a game condition that has its own rules that supersede player agency.

If Bob the human fighter comes across an otherwise completely normal mouse that for whatever reason has the ability to cause people to make a Wisdom save or be Frightened, it doesn't mean that Bob isn't brave if he fails his roll. It means that in this instance, Bob can't approach that mouse and will have disadvantage on ability checks and attack rolls while he can see the mouse. Bob can't choose to be brave and approach anyway, because the rules of the game say he can't. If he breaks those rules, then he's cheating.

If Bob happens to be musophobic and sees a normal mouse, he's afraid. However, because he's afraid and not Frightened, he can choose to be brave and approach the mouse, and this doesn't break the rules. He will suffer no penalties while fighting even if the mouse is right there in front of him, watching his every move with its beady little eyes, no matter how terrified he is, because he's afraid, not Frightened.

(This is an example. Please do not try to bring up anything as to why this mouse can or cannot inflict the Frightened condition.)

And also, please understand that there is a difference between a game, which has specific rules as to how things must work, and any other form of media, which does not. It doesn't matter how halflings are shown to be lucky in a comic. The game has rules in order to keep things fair and working in a specific way, while media mostly has to concern itself with telling a good story.

The comic you posted from would not be good if all the main characters got horribly eaten a dragon in the first book, because the point of that comic was to follow these heroes around while they go around doing hero stuff and making quips. And that combat also had a page count limit, which means that didn't have space show a combat that is as involved and that takes as long as real D&D combat can, unless that combat was the main point of the issue--which it was not. The point of that issue was to get the characters together. Combat was secondary. The writer brought in a dragon to show how dangerous the world can be and to establish some character traits, and then killed it off so they could move on the next plot point.

Likewise, a book or movie can show a character being as brave or as cowardly as the writer wants because that's what's needed for the script that they are writing, because the writer has full control over the characters they create. And a game book can set up basic expectations for the races. But the DM doesn't write the PC's actions and can't force the players to adhere to any particular tropes or to act in any particular way (except when the PCs are under the effects of a condition, but even then, the forced actions have to conform to the rules).