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?

 

[Oofta]

Are you saying that no one reads the race descriptions? They just make it up from the aether or ask their DM?

Either you have some grounding and basis of a species identity or you don't. If everyone just makes everything up with no starting point I don't see the point. Just give up on the idea of predefined races and have build-a-race system with different options.

Having defined races with defined characteristics gives me a starting point, a basis to build from. It doesn't totally identify any individual whether PC or NPC of course, that's not the point. But it gives the game concepts grounding something people can identify with across DMs and campaigns even when, especially when, that grounding is deviated from.

Or just say the heck with it and hand out the rubber masks and have generic bland sameness for every species.

Most DMs (and players) simply don't have the skills to do much better than what we already have and they shouldn't have to.

 

[Faolyn]

Either you have some grounding and basis of a species identity or you don't. If everyone just makes everything up with no starting point I don't see the point. Just give up on the idea of predefined races and have build-a-race system with different options.

Having defined races with defined characteristics gives me a starting point, a basis to build from. It doesn't totally identify any individual whether PC or NPC of course, that's not the point. But it gives the game concepts grounding something people can identify with across DMs and campaigns even when, especially when, that grounding is deviated from.

Or just say the heck with it and hand out the rubber masks and have generic bland sameness for every species.

Most DMs (and players) simply don't have the skills to do much better than what we already have and they shouldn't have to.

There's a huge difference between this and "dwarfs should have a penalty to Charisma because otherwise they're just short humans."

 

[Lanefan]

So all species not only have stereotypes, but nearly all members of those species follow those stereotypes--

Outright follow? Now necessarily. Trend toward? Of course; as that's the point.

and even those who subvert have the same penalties as the rest do (which means that, mechanically, they don't subvert the stereotype), and there is no way for species to learn how to communicate with each other fully or to see past those stereotypes.

Seeing past the stereotypes is one thing. Somehow making average Hobbit strength the same as average Human strength, not so easy.

And even if individuals get past the stereotypes, on a broad level they still exist.

Yeah, no. That sounds terrible.

Elves are happy-go-lucky? How does that mesh with the stereotype of elves as haughty and standofffish who look down at the shorter-lived races, all of which are also common elf stereotypes and all of which are far more deserving of a Charisma penalty than gruff and surly. Instead, many of them in 5e get a Charisma bonus--including the murderous drow. And in earlier editions, drow never got a Charisma penalty.

Elves (all types) tend to have the physical attractiveness side going for them. And yes, snooty and-or haughty is another stereotype for Elves; though I tend to play mine more happy go lucky which is why that example leaped quickly to mind.

So what is it that Charisma is supposed to mean exactly? Are we saying Charisma is primarily appearance, so it doesn't matter that elves are snots and drow are outright evil because they're pretty and both of them are descendants of alien fey, but dwarfs are short and hairy and not too attractive so give them the penalty?

Appearance is part of it. Persuasiveness is another, whether used in a leadership role or not. In my view, spiritual strength is a third.

A Cha 11 Elf is quite likely to be fairly attractive and rather boorish; while a Cha 11 Dwarf might be unattractive yet well-spoken. A Cha 11 Human could be the perfect spy - as bland and boring and forgettable-in-a-crowd as it gets.

 

[Lanefan]

We play by different rules, I guess. I want the players to be a team.

Quite different, in that I want the players to play what they want to play and how they want to play it, and it's not my problem if those characters are or are not a good team. Eventually, in-character they figure it out, and if there's some rough patches along the way then so be it.

If the group had to resort to any of the methods above*, I'd rather just not allow the character at all in the first place. I've got finite time and patience, and I'd rather not waste either my time or my group's time on something none of us enjoy in the first place.

In a role-playing game, I take it as a given that sometimes other players are going to role-play something I-as-player (or I-as-DM) don't like. But if I react as a player rather than as my character would, I'm flat-out doing it wrong. And as a DM, it's not my place to police what players play, other than making sure the rules are followed. As a DM my job is to provide the setting, lay down some adventure hooks (and have adventures ready behind each), and drop the puck; and if their characters want to ignore the puck and instead fight each other, then it's my duty to DM that and leave the adventures on the back burner until they've got it out of their systems.

In the example above, I worked with the player pre-game to sort out the in-game effects of being mute so that the player could enjoy it without either dragging the game down to a crawl or frustrating the other players.

* The Heal could be an eventual goal, but not where the character is ineffective until it's been cast.

So the front-line war-cleric PC I once DMed who started out with a phobia of wearing metal armour wouldn't fly, then?

Too bad, as that one went on to be one of the more successful and longer-serving characters in that game.

 

[Lanefan]

Why do you feel it is the job of the game and game designers to define your character? Because that's essentially what you're saying.

Not quite.

What's being said is that the designers should design some clear and specific strengths and weaknesses into each non-Human species.

It's then on the player to decide whether or not to play that species.

You're saying that it's better that the game and the game designers tell everyone who plays this game that the expected way to play X race is to do it in this specific way and anything else is playing against type.

In broad terms, yes; and if you want the generic species that comes with no expectations attached you play a Human.

Wouldn't it be FAR better to let players decide that?

They can and do, at the point where they look at all the pros and cons of each species during char-gen and decide which one to play. If you want gruff, surly, strong and tough then play a Dwarf. If you want nimble, weak, cheerful and tough then play a Hobbit. If you want smart, attractive, spindly and haughty then play an Elf. And remember these are merely trends, not absolutes.

The probems come - every damn time! - when players insist on strong AND tough AND nimble AND smart AND attractive and won't accept any corresponding drawbacks or penalties in order to get just two of those.

 

[Lanefan]

Why are Halflings less capable of having deep faith than humans?

Because it's a Halfling.

Why are dwarves less capable of speaking words of power than humans?

Because it's a Dwarf.

Why is a Gnome's Oath to bring light and laughter to the world weaker and more fragile than a humans?

Because it's a Gnome.

Humans are the baseline, and all others are compared to them.

And you're also conveniently forgetting (pre-floating ASIs):

Why are Halflings more capable of nimbly running along balance beams than humans?
Why are Dwarves more resiilent than humans when it comes to taking damage?

Never mind the universal all-editions question:

Why do Gnomes even exist?

See, but that isn't how the game actually works or is actually presented. You don't get a bonus to strength when you enter a goblin village.

No, but if Goblins were the baseline instead of Humans all Humans would have a pretty good strength bonus.

You don't get a subtraction to your dexterity when you go into an Elven Temple.

Again, Elves aren't the baseline. You might not get a dex penalty but odds are high you'll still be among the clumsiest in the room.

Same as if real-world me was to walk into a room full of NASA rocket scientists. I wouldn't in fact be any less intelligent than I was outside but I'd sure as hell feel like I was.

 

[Lanefan]

There's a huge difference between this and "dwarfs should have a penalty to Charisma because otherwise they're just short humans."

Not really, as one is simply a mechanical reflection of the other.

Further, on the meta balance level Dwarves need a penalty to something to cancel off their bonus to Strength and-or Con.

 

[Micah Sweet]

There's a huge difference between this and "dwarfs should have a penalty to Charisma because otherwise they're just short humans."

Fair enough. I support ASIs being on background (if they need to exist at all). I just think heritage write-ups are an important tool and should be kept.

 

[Hussar]

Are you saying that no one reads the race descriptions? They just make it up from the aether or ask their DM?

There’s a considerable difference between a -2 cha and an actual race description.

 

[Paul Farquhar]

Are you saying that no one reads the race descriptions? They just make it up from the aether or ask their DM?

I wouldn't go so far as to say "no one" reads them, but I find players are more likely to go by what they have seen in movies, TV and video games.