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]

The basic complaint with halflings seems to be that they're "just short people with a couple of traits". That's it? Are any races in D&D anything other than people with a handful of minor traits that emphasize some aspect of human nature? For that matter, is it really that different in the vast majority of fantasy or sci-fi?

We're human. We humanize the motivations and thought patterns of practically every living creature to one degree or other. From Star Trek to Star Wars to Babylon Five to D&D, alien species are fundamentally just humans with rubber masks. They have tendencies toward some aspect of culture so they have a common identity that certain special individuals or small groups can fight back against.

I know this comes up every single time, but I really think this misses the mark. Sure, everything written is just a human in a funny mask with funny powers. The Martian Manhunter, the psychic shape and density shifting alien from mars is just a human with a funny face.

But, let's take a moment and focus in on DnD and what people are actually saying the problem is. Let us take Gnomes and other small races for a second. Because one big difference between halflings and humans is size, but as I pointed out there are 16 other small races, so this can't be defining for the halflings anymore.

Forest gnomes are inquistive and shy, don't like outsiders. Okay, that could be any human community sure, but they also have an innate skill in illusion magic that the entire race shares and they can communicate with beasts. Now, sure, you could make a human community that has illusion magic and talks to animals, but that isn't what human communities typically look like in DnD, is it? So, this gives us a vector to explore different community organizations. Things like having the birds of the forest act as spies and a warning system for the people, having digging work done by friendly badgers, or treating the animals as neighbors. This would look nothing like your typical human settlement.

What about Rock Gnomes? They are inquisitive and inventive, and they build things using clockwork and technology. This is kind of just straight human right? In fact, historically, there were a lot of humans who did this and it is easy to have a tech-heavy human settlement... but do we? DnD does not typically have tech-heavy places. You rarely see humans involved with a lot of industrial processes or making clockwork figures or items. IT happens, but it isn't common. Notably in Eberron the Rock Gnomes tend to fade out of sight, because the entire setting is very tech heavy, while the Forest Gnome is used as their baseline. But outside of Eberron, the Rock Gnome rises to be the more prominent, because their approach to living with technology and using technology to improve and shape their lives is so different from what everyone else in the setting is doing.

Then you have Kobolds and Goblins, and the first thing to note here is that the lore for these races varies wildly, because in a lot of settings, they are the evil bad guys. They are the enemies of the good races, and associated with many of the threats out in the dark woods. This also makes them incredibly malleable, because they are different in every setting and every edition. Add on to that, they look nothing like humans, and they have a biology that would offer hooks to expand into non-human concepts. It is almost hard to talk about these races, because they are so vastly different. The Dhaakani of Eberron are practically a eusocial hive mind. Other settings have goblins as the vicious slaves of a dark god. Other settings have them as the larval form of hobgoblins, giving a distinctly non-human life cycle. It takes no effort at all to make them different from a typical human settlement in DnD.

But what about halflings? They, like gnomes, look like humans. They live simple pastoral lives. Which... describes the typical human settlement in DnD. Being brave is something that can be applied to any race, especially any small race. Sure, they have mechanics to back it up, but just as a storytelling hook "and the community was brave" doesn't give you anything to make them different. Same with lucky, they can't really do anything with that to really differentiate themselves while just living simple pastoral lives of ease. Especially since, living those lives is explained by being lucky. So... what makes them different from any other peaceful human settlement? They are depicted in the exact same manner you would depict a peaceful human farming community, with really no differences... except that they are small.


The point of the "rubber mask" as we like to to call it is giving the writer something interesting to work with. "What if humans, but they photosynthesize and don't need to eat or prepare food?" "What if humans, but they reincarnate and have memories of their past lives, and live for hundreds of years?" "What if humans, but they can alter their physical body in any way they want, and look like anyone?" These hooks provide something, they provide a way to restructure the expected and explore new and interesting things. "What if humans but short?" really doesn't provide the same level of hook, especially if you can do "what if humans but short AND...." like the other small races provide.

 

[Vaalingrade]

If only game designers and writers tapped into their vast experience with all the other sapient species we share the planet with to create truly non-human species.

Seriously, how are we expecting a species that can't bother to stop ascribing human personalities and motivations to our pets to come up with a completely alien mindset. Even the deepest xenofiction is colored by humanity.

 

[Oofta]

I know this comes up every single time, but I really think this misses the mark. Sure, everything written is just a human in a funny mask with funny powers. The Martian Manhunter, the psychic shape and density shifting alien from mars is just a human with a funny face.

But, let's take a moment and focus in on DnD and what people are actually saying the problem is. Let us take Gnomes and other small races for a second. Because one big difference between halflings and humans is size, but as I pointed out there are 16 other small races, so this can't be defining for the halflings anymore.

Forest gnomes are inquistive and shy, don't like outsiders. Okay, that could be any human community sure, but they also have an innate skill in illusion magic that the entire race shares and they can communicate with beasts. Now, sure, you could make a human community that has illusion magic and talks to animals, but that isn't what human communities typically look like in DnD, is it? So, this gives us a vector to explore different community organizations. Things like having the birds of the forest act as spies and a warning system for the people, having digging work done by friendly badgers, or treating the animals as neighbors. This would look nothing like your typical human settlement.

What about Rock Gnomes? They are inquisitive and inventive, and they build things using clockwork and technology. This is kind of just straight human right? In fact, historically, there were a lot of humans who did this and it is easy to have a tech-heavy human settlement... but do we? DnD does not typically have tech-heavy places. You rarely see humans involved with a lot of industrial processes or making clockwork figures or items. IT happens, but it isn't common. Notably in Eberron the Rock Gnomes tend to fade out of sight, because the entire setting is very tech heavy, while the Forest Gnome is used as their baseline. But outside of Eberron, the Rock Gnome rises to be the more prominent, because their approach to living with technology and using technology to improve and shape their lives is so different from what everyone else in the setting is doing.

Then you have Kobolds and Goblins, and the first thing to note here is that the lore for these races varies wildly, because in a lot of settings, they are the evil bad guys. They are the enemies of the good races, and associated with many of the threats out in the dark woods. This also makes them incredibly malleable, because they are different in every setting and every edition. Add on to that, they look nothing like humans, and they have a biology that would offer hooks to expand into non-human concepts. It is almost hard to talk about these races, because they are so vastly different. The Dhaakani of Eberron are practically a eusocial hive mind. Other settings have goblins as the vicious slaves of a dark god. Other settings have them as the larval form of hobgoblins, giving a distinctly non-human life cycle. It takes no effort at all to make them different from a typical human settlement in DnD.

But what about halflings? They, like gnomes, look like humans. They live simple pastoral lives. Which... describes the typical human settlement in DnD. Being brave is something that can be applied to any race, especially any small race. Sure, they have mechanics to back it up, but just as a storytelling hook "and the community was brave" doesn't give you anything to make them different. Same with lucky, they can't really do anything with that to really differentiate themselves while just living simple pastoral lives of ease. Especially since, living those lives is explained by being lucky. So... what makes them different from any other peaceful human settlement? They are depicted in the exact same manner you would depict a peaceful human farming community, with really no differences... except that they are small.


The point of the "rubber mask" as we like to to call it is giving the writer something interesting to work with. "What if humans, but they photosynthesize and don't need to eat or prepare food?" "What if humans, but they reincarnate and have memories of their past lives, and live for hundreds of years?" "What if humans, but they can alter their physical body in any way they want, and look like anyone?" These hooks provide something, they provide a way to restructure the expected and explore new and interesting things. "What if humans but short?" really doesn't provide the same level of hook, especially if you can do "what if humans but short AND...." like the other small races provide.

There's only so much design space available. I don't think you need obvious supernatural capabilities to make a race unique. Take lucky as an example. You think it doesn't have much impact, but everyone at the table tends to cheer when one of our halfling PCs uses it. It comes up a lot if the player takes the feat to share their luck with everyone at the table. Brave? That primarily applies to standing up against a threat from something bigger and badder, which for halflings is most things.

In other words I think lucky (and brave) are just as impactful as being able to talk to small animals, probably mores so in games I've player. YMMV.

 

[Gammadoodler]

That is because you are taking the effect of the ability and using it as proof of the narrative, which cannot exist without that ability. And in fact, you are literally saying "both are brave but in different ways" Which also applies to the fighter who made their save and ISN'T debilitated by fear.

So, now we have a character who is brave for fighting despite the fear.
We have a character who is brave for not being afraid against something scary

And we have a character who is brave because they will roll twice and take the better result, which may leave them to be brave by fighting on despite the fear or brave because they are not afraid against something scary

Which.... is exactly like the first two? Halflings don't create a third type of bravery. They just have a dice mechanic. And there are a lot of dice mechanics that can help with saves against fear.



So, wood elf has a similar feature. Has anyone ever put forth that Elves are particularly stealthy and sneaky? Is that a defining feature of the elves, how unobtrusive they are? No, that isn't really something we talk about with elves. It comes up if you want to talk about Wood Elves in specific in the forests in specific, generally with respect to specifically being rangers, but it isn't anything more than that.

And yeah. five out of the six halfling subraces aren't stealthy, so why say halflings are stealthy? The majority of "types" aren't, even if the lightfoot happens to dominate the others in terms of population (which we have zero way to confirm)



And played experience tells me it isn't a fine narrative, because it never actually comes up in anyway at the table. And unless you drastically changed the mechanic, that won't change.

So in one case a mechanic isn't a trait because it is a mechanic. In another a trait isn't a trait because you've never seen it operate effectively as a mechanic. Heads you win tails I lose I guess.

And in the third, yes stealthiness is something frequently attributed to elves despite not all subraces getting a specific stealth ability. This is likely due to the fact, that like halflings, their racial ASI bump was to dex..which governs stealth (Others where this is true, goblin, kobold, kenku..but perhaps they aren't classically stealthy either). Wood elves and lightfoots are the "even stealthier" versions of stealthy races. Not really sure why this is controversial.

 

[FrozenNorth]

So within the base class (no heritages), they have the same base hp and dex bump, but nothing else in common including either size or move speed and you find this..indistinct?

I do find this indistinct. We were comparing universal ancestry traits (i.e. traits shared by all members of the ancestry).

By way of comparison, elves in 5e also have the size difference with halflings, but get Fey Ancestry, training in Perception, they trance rather than sleep, and Darkvision. Halflings get Lucky, Halfling Nimbleness, Brave and the slightly lower walking speed.

But let’s include subraces/heritages. Your heritage in PF2 grants you one additional trait. In 5e, a Wood elf would get Wood elf Weapon Training, Fleet of Foot and Mask of the Wild. Lightfoots just get Naturally Stealthy.

However, that ignores the fact that 5e racial traits tend to be “bigger” than PF2 ancestry feats. Fey Ancestry is the equivalent of 2 or 3 PF2 feats, and if you want to keep using Elf Weapons at higher levels, you need both Elf Weapon Familiarity and Elf Weapon Expertise.

(Note: a lack of Elf Lore does not impact the history skill at all, which elves are better at by virtue of having a higher INT.)

Except Dwarves don’t have a bonus to Int, and also aren’t natively proficient in Dwarf Lore, nor are Halflings in Halflings Lore, nor any race proficient in the lore of its people.

 

[FrozenNorth]

Seriously, how are we expecting a species that can't bother to stop ascribing human personalities and motivations to our pets to come up with a completely alien mindset. Even the deepest xenofiction is colored by humanity.

“Can’t succeed, don’t try” is a pretty pessimistic outlook snd makes perfect the enemy of the good.

Most people on this board would argue that at least some of the 5e races have enough to distinguish them from humans.

If you believe halflings do as well, argue that, but arguing that all races are just humans in rubber masks is just conceding the argument (and guaranteeing that you won’t convince anyone who believes that at least one race isn’t just a human in a funny mask).

 

[Vaalingrade]

“Can’t succeed, don’t try” is a pretty pessimistic outlook snd makes perfect the enemy of the good.

Most people on this board would argue that at least some of the 5e races have enough to distinguish them from humans.

It's not a question of 'don't try'; it's the fact that they do try and it's never good enough for some people who want elves to be China Melville creatures or something instead of anything near approachable by normal players.

Also, the refrain of 'humans in funny hats' is usually reserved to defend metagame elements that don't reflect the in universe reality at all anyway and is just a stalking horse.

 

[Minigiant]

One of things that the "new school" races do well and easily is both distinguish themselves from being a human in a hat and being malleable enough to incorporate themselves into settings without losing their original aspects.

A dragonborn can be a proud draconic race with elemental resistances and dragonbreath. And you can make them nomads, mercenaries, bureaucrats, or a stereotypical medieval kingdom layout and still feel like a dragonborn.

 

[abirdcall]

Halflings make really good paladins esp. nature but not so much vengeance.

They may have wanted a quiet life but then something happens and they rise to the challenge and find their calling to protect others like they protected their community.

Halflings fit in D&D they just need something to kick them in the butt to get adventuring.

 

[Mind of tempest]

Halflings make really good paladins esp. nature but not so much vengeance.

They may have wanted a quiet life but then something happens and they rise to the challenge and find their calling to protect others like they protected their community.

Halflings fit in D&D they just need something to kick them in the butt to get adventuring.

that is the basic heroic narrative of half of all characters, the other half having no parents.
what sets the halfling above the rank and file?
plus they just need to be worked over properly if they are supposed to be a big four race.