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?

 

[Stormonu]

You don't think humans are monsters?

Trick question, but you gotta hang the rest of the PHB off something. As often as the "humans in funny suits" gets trotted out, All non-humans in the MM seems an easy out.

 

[Lanefan]

I will agree that the way the term is used in the mechanics doesn't translate to the common usage, that is a big part of the problem.

I disagree that mechanical fear effects should make you a coward, and I will go as far as to say that mechanical fear effects cannot make the character a coward. There are far far too many instances of people in real life, who face horrors, who find themselves barely able to function, frozen, or forced to retreat by that horror... who turn around and face it again.

That "turn around and face it again" piece maps directly to the fear-causing effect wearing off and the player making an in-character choice shortly thereafter.

I have never once seen a Player character who was not forced to fall back due to fear, doing so. They always choose to keep fighting.

If there is in fact a choice. Having someone in your face means you have to keep fighting if you can, fear or not, out of simple self-preservation.

And I've seen loads of characters fall back or bail out on a fight, whether fear effects are involved or not, again out of self-preservation.

I have never seen a player character, whose character was forced to flee because of a fear effect, not turn around and re-enter the fight after that effect was over.

A character who flees is pretty much always, where possible, going to return to the party once the fear subsides (unless said character has the wisdom of a shoe); as the party provides safety in numbers. If the party is still involved in combat, whether or not said character rejoins the fighting (if still ongoing) is another question: I've at times seen wise characters hold off rejoining the fray until whatever caused their fear is dealt with, so as not to risk running away again and perhaps getting lost or running itno a hazard e.g. off a cliff or into quicksand.

 

[Gammadoodler]

The gnome's silly powers are strong.

No one with gonna mess with the buff clown.

This is why wizards are eccentric. They become powerful enough to stop caring about must and stop fighting the arcane madness.

He was pretty strong for a monk but we had a mystic in the party. My monk was mostly there to hold his beer..which was agreeable for my character.

 

[Gammadoodler]

Trick question, but you gotta hang the rest of the PHB off something. As often as the "humans in funny suits" gets trotted out, All non-humans in the MM seems an easy out.

I suppose..
At least the elves would be where they belong.

 

[Lanefan]

Things like racial weapons or proficiencies, however, are reflective of culture, not racial traits. Unless every Mountain Dwarf is born knowing how to wear Medium Armor.

Not quite.

They are in fact born already wearing the Medium Armour.

Dwarven women are hella tough!

 

[Maxperson]

Not quite.

They are in fact born already wearing the Medium Armour.

Dwarven women are hella tough!

And I thought being born with a silver spoon was hard on the mother!

 

[Lanefan]

Maybe that's the only fair way to do races - put humans in the PHB and every other race is in the MM, and the DM can specify which ones fit their campaign world.

Ya know, there's days when I could almost get behind that: a Humans-only game without any other PC-playable species.

I'm used to Elves and Dwarves and Hobbits and kinda like all three, but I guess I could live without them and all the others if it came to that.

 

[Hussar]

/snip
In a game with over forty species it is not.

But, there aren't really forty species. There are like 5-8 species and then everyone else.

It is crazy to me have a bizarre vendetta against imaginary little people and twist statistics concoct arbitrary mathematical requirements to justify getting rid of them.

Please stop trying to ascribe motives. It's rude and very much against board rules.

For the THOUSANDTH TIME. I DO NOT HATE HALFLINGS OR GNOMES. I HAVE PLAYED AND CONTINUE TO PLAY BOTH.

But, I also don't let my personal preferences try to dictate to other people. Just because I might like gnomes (I can take or leave halflings to be honest) doesn't mean that they must be included in the core of the game. I'm just being realistic. Gnomes barely get played and halflings only get played because they are given every possible advantage and are still barely played. So, instead of insisting that my personal preferences are somehow proof of why halflings should be in the game, I instead would rather the game actually reflect what players want to play.

 

[Hussar]

4.7% of how many million? That's not no-one.

Yes, it really is. 4.7% five years ago, before Tasha's removed the primary reason to play halflings - the Dex bonus.

Does anyone think that in the past five years, halflings have become MORE commonly played?

Sorry, yes, I feel no shame in ignoring 1 in 20 players in favor of improving the game by actually including things that more people will want to play. In the same way that Tieflings and Dragonborn have both proven that new races are very popular - with Goliaths also in the running despite not even being included in the PHB. Hell, Genasi are being played as often.

 

[doctorbadwolf]

Maybe you need to go and read again, because you clearly have no idea what the conversation was about.

Charlaquin was asking "why is this a thing, why do people act like this" and I tried to explain it. In the course of that, I used an example of a race concept I am trying to work on, and that partially has the issue I was talking about.

So... no, I don't expect WotC to do anything about my homebrew race I'm trying to make. Then it wouldn't be homebrew.

Except you’re also making very general statements about how the game is written.

If you are asking "is overdesigning multiple races into the same niche a concern WotC should have" ummm.... yes? It seems like a design problem is something the design team should be aware of and consider.

It isn’t a design problem. It’s a thing you don’t personally prefer, and nothing more than that.

Whether they consider they haven't run into an issue yet or not is up to them. But, personally, I would note that there are quite a few races that have effectively died on the vine, because they are either too specific to a setting, or redundant with other options. For Example, Feral Tieflings and Hellfire Tieflings. No one uses them, no one thinks about them, because the Archedevil variants have completely overtaken them and given people what they wanted with the Tieflings.

Are gnomes and halflings filling the same niche to a level it is a problem? Probably not.

Are gnomes, halflings, goblins, Kobolds, fairies, Aasimar, Changelings, Dhampir, Genasi, Harengon, Hexblood, Kenku, Owling, Reborn, Tabaxi, Tortle and Yuan-Ti are starting to crowd into a single niche starting to become a problem? That's more likely, isn't it.

No.

Right, because obviously my concerns are purely mechanical, and can therefore be dismissed.

Directly and unmistakeably not what I said.

Yeah, almost like deciding which way to go is difficult. Kind of like it is easy to look at someone else saying "I'm struggling with this" and saying "I don't see why, this is easy" without anyone asking for their opinion.

But it’s not like, difficult on a design level. Choosing between Paladin and Fighter levels to portray my swashbuckler rogue’s training as a swordsman was also difficult. That doesn’t mean I’d come across a design issue.

So, do you have Maxperson blocked? He responded that my non-halfling (to use his formating) "Brave" adventurer would spend more time (to quote) Cowering and running away in fear than the halflings, so the halfling is braver, because they will make those saves.

So, yes, it seems someone is making those claims.

Now, was he making those claims before I pointed out the problem? No, I wasn't talking to him when I laid out the problem. Because it is a problem I've seen and talked to people about before trying to bring it up in this forum. And instead of discussing the narrative, everyone just keeps pointing to the trait and trying to explain to me how mechanics work.

And the thing is, you keep making the same assumption time and time again. You keep assuming that succeeding the check is because of bravery. You keep making bravery a binary state. Are you frightened or not? But, as we all know, being frightened does not prevent you from being brave. I keep repeating this, but everyone keeps just saying " but the trait is called bravery and it allows brave halflings to fight through and not be affected by fear because they are brave" But not suffering from fear IS NOT BRAVERY.

You know who else isn't afraid? Frenzy Barbarian while they are raging. They charge, screaming blood and froth and are so blinded by fury they cannot be afraid. Are they brave? Is being enraged to the point of seeing red a sign of bravery?

Real life, you know who else isn't affected by fear? People drunk or high. They get enough drugs in them, and they aren't affected by fear either. Is that bravery?

No. Because "not affected by fear" =/= Bravery. That isn't what the term means, that isn't why we use it, that isn't the concept. But because they keep using that narrative and tying it to this mechanic... that's the message people are getting. The bravery = "not being affected by fear" and that is a problem in my opinion, because it ignores what bravery actually is.

Youre completely misrepresenting both what I’ve said, and what Maxperson has said.