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.

the-land-of-the-hobbits-6314749_960_720.jpg

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?
 
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Michael Tresca

Michael Tresca

Oofta

Legend
Yeah, I know you think "the underdog everyone underestimates because they forget magic is real" is the niche you think halflings belong in. I'm not trying to even have that conversation with you.

But you made a claim that removing halflings would fundamentally alter DnD, because they are an iconic part of the brand. You then failed to support that, and instead want to just accuse me of hyperbole because you can't support your claim beyond "they exist" and "they have existed for a long time".

Seriously, do you just have fun making these things up? Because I never said removing halflings would "fundamentally alter DnD". I think they are one of many creatures and tropes that are part of the D&D genre. Your posts about them not being in other representations of fantasy are not relevant. Beholders are pretty unheard of outside of D&D outside of an homage in Big Trouble in Little China but we're not getting rid of those either.

There is no "fantasy standards committee" that decides what races are allowed or not. It's all make believe fiction, stuff authors have pulled from lore (i.e. little people) and their imagination. If that fiction was written for a rulebook, fiction based on the game or just stories at the game table its all just stories we tell ourselves about impossible worlds. Halflings are part of those stories for D&D and will continue to be a part.
 

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Mecheon

Sacabambaspis
1. How did we get to this sad state of affairs?
2. What must be done to reverse course, to get halflings back to their core-four status?
1: Frankly, I'd argue halflings were never popular enough to really be part of the 'core four' even back in the day. They were just there because they were an option, and the query is, were they more or less popular than just, rolling a thief?
2: Halflings need somethign to them to make them appealing. Removing other options isn't the solution, you need to add something to them. Being small isn't enough, because dwarves are small as well, but have their own thing going on. Halfling's entire thing is they're just, small everymen, so as long as humans are in the game and also bumping into that everyman niche, halflings will be overshadowed

(I've been of the 'They're stealthy to an absurd degree' or 'They're obnoxiously resilient against corruption' drums personally)
I don't even know what Avatar the Last Air Bender is, though I've heard the name a few times.
An exceedingly popular animated property from 2005 that also had a sequel series that was, fairly well received, and a terrible movie
 

James Gasik

Pandion Knight
Supporter
There's also Tildi Summerbee from Jodi Lynn Nye's An Unexpected Apprentice.
9ecfc094879247e2abf14a1ade996cf559117622.jpg

Chris Claremont and George Lucas wrote a sequel series to Willow, the first book being called Shadow Moon, though I don't know if it's any good. Halflings are apparently popular in Japan, though they are often called other things, like "Porklu" in Wizardry Renaissance, or the Pallum of Dan Machi (aka, Is it wrong to pick up girls in a dungeon?). The Pallum, like Kender, can interbreed with Humans apparently.

Early computer games based on D&D, had Hobbits and Halflings...or Bobbits, as they were called in Ultima. And speaking of D&D Halflings, what about the infamous R̶o̶g̶u̶e̶ Bard, Olive Ruskettle, from the Azure Bonds novels?
 





Chaosmancer

Legend
I didn't say any of these things. Please actually respond to what I wrote instead of making a straw man, thank you.

Obviously you didn't say that. That's the point I'm trying to make. No one thinks that no fantasy has been written since Tolkien. Yet, when we go to discuss what DnD should be what comes up as the definitive answer?

Tolkien and Howard.

What is a Ranger? Tolkien. What is a Barbarian? Howard. What Races should be included? Tolkien. How magical should people be? Tolkien and Howard.

Any time we try and bring up something more modern in the fantasy genre, we are told that that "isn't DnD" and that we should do things more like... Tolkien or Howard.

Eastern Influences? Nope, they don't count.
World of Warcraft? Nope, doesn't count.
Animated content? Nope, doesn't count.

The ONLY things brought up outside of Tolkien and Howard with regularity is Moorcock or Vance. ALSO multiple decades old.


I know you personally are not making this claim right now, in this thread, but seriously, think about how often Tolkien, Howard, Moorcock and Vance come up compared to literally anything else on these forums.
 

I thought it was a series? How is it only an hour long?
each episode is about an hour long. each week they get about a billion minutes.

While you continue to insist that Tolkien isn't that popular more people are watching it than all of your shows combined. The second most popular fantasy right now is House of the Dragon, which is even less fantastical. The third most popular is Wheel of Time, which ended back in February. It still gets hundreds of millions of minutes of viewing a week.

Yes, anime is more popular than ever. It doesn't even chart.
 

I can understand the risk of the creation of too cute female halflings and gnomes, but that type of things happen even with the characters of "My Little Pony" or even "Transformers".

Not all lolita characters have to be always linked with dirty things. Maybe a player wants to create a gnome version of Sakura Cardcaptor and her intentions are totally innocent.

* The cultural influences of the new generations of D&D players aren't the same than ones from the old-school, and this is not wrong.

* If "House of Dragon" works although it was a GoT spin-off without previous book, then Paramount could dare to produce an action-live serie based in Birthright.
 


Lanefan

Victoria Rules
Obviously you didn't say that. That's the point I'm trying to make. No one thinks that no fantasy has been written since Tolkien. Yet, when we go to discuss what DnD should be what comes up as the definitive answer?

Tolkien and Howard.
Part of the reason for that is that so much fantasy written since their day has been more or less derivative of one or both of them; so might as well go straight to the original rather than a derivation...and in the case of Tolkein, to the tales and myths he based his own works on.
What is a Ranger? Tolkien. What is a Barbarian? Howard. What Races should be included? Tolkien. How magical should people be? Tolkien and Howard.

Any time we try and bring up something more modern in the fantasy genre, we are told that that "isn't DnD" and that we should do things more like... Tolkien or Howard.

Eastern Influences? Nope, they don't count.
World of Warcraft? Nope, doesn't count.
Animated content? Nope, doesn't count.
It seems odd to suggest D&D should be more like WoW given that WoW seems to be very much derived from D&D.
The ONLY things brought up outside of Tolkien and Howard with regularity is Moorcock or Vance. ALSO multiple decades old.
And, more importantly, much more original in their work than are many fantasy authors since. Note that this is not in any way intended as a slight against latter-day fantasy authors, but more as a pointing-out of how they are building their works on the same foundations as does D&D: a few highly-influential fantasy authors from the mid 20th century.

Now, a very good case can be made that there's some other pre-1974 fantasy authors who could be - and maybe should be - just as influential; but that's a whole other discussion for another time.

Further, anything written since about 1978 may well have D&D itself as an influence; which just makes the whole thing self-referential if D&D is then supposed to allow itself to be influenced in return.
 

I can name 2 wookies, Chewbacca and Lowbacca, off the top of my head

I can name one D&D halfling, Lidda, and she didn't really play any sort of important role in any setting or adventure, she was just there because they needed an example of a halfling
I can name quite a few of each, but you have to be a geek of the appropriate media to know this stuff.

Wookiees: Black Krrsantan (Comics, Book of Boba Fett), Gungi (The Clone Wars), Zaalbar (KotOR), Hanharr (KotOR2).

D&D halflings: Regis, Tasslehoff Burrfoot (kender), Pawldo (Dalkwalker on Moonshae), Monteron, Alora (both Baldur's Gate), Mazzy Fentan (Baldur's Gate 2), Gatekeeper Raashid (Call of the Netherdeep), Nimsy Huddle (Rime of the Frostmaiden), Linzi (Pathfinder).
 

Seriously, do you just have fun making these things up? Because I never said removing halflings would "fundamentally alter DnD". I think they are one of many creatures and tropes that are part of the D&D genre. Your posts about them not being in other representations of fantasy are not relevant. Beholders are pretty unheard of outside of D&D outside of an homage in Big Trouble in Little China but we're not getting rid of those either.

They're also sort of in the game Dungeons of Dredmor, where they're reimagined as evil flying potatoes that are covered in eyes
 




Cadence

Legend
Supporter
MtG has only had Halflings in the Forgotten Realms products (eight cards total) and four of them are named:

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Mazzy has been fun to use to help a Voltron EDH deck (she's the only Halfling in it, and enchantments don't seem particularly on flavor for Halflings to me, but I guess they go with Paladins buffing folks): Mazzy Aura Smash (EDH / Commander)

The Halfling role in MtG has kind of been filled by Kithkin before, and I'm curious to see if they make a new type for the Hobbits in the upcoming LotR set or use Halfling.
 
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James Gasik

Pandion Knight
Supporter
MtG has only had Halflings in the Forgotten Realms set (eight cards total) and four of them are named:

View attachment 265117View attachment 265118View attachment 265119View attachment 265120

Mazzy has been fun to use to help a Voltron EDH deck (she's the only Halfling in it, and enchantments don't seem particularly on flavor for Halflings to me); Mazzy Aura Smash (EDH / Commander)

The Halfling role in MtG has kind of been filled by Kithkin before, and I'm curious to see if they make a knew type for the Hobbits in the upcoming LotR set or use Halfling.
That having been said, I would say Kithkin totally count as an example of Halflings. They're certainly not Gnomes, as Gnomes also exist in MtG.
 

Cadence

Legend
Supporter
That having been said, I would say Kithkin totally count as an example of Halflings.
I think I like the Kithkin name better than Halfling. In any case, it sounds like they were originally supposed to be Hobbit-esque, so feels like they should definitely count.

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Quote from: Kithkin


They're certainly not Gnomes, as Gnomes also exist in MtG.

For those wanting to see the MtG Gnomes...

Looks like the MtG type includes both D&D Gnomes and Autognomes (all but one of them being the later, until the FR sets).
 
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