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Message: <blockquote data-quote="James Gasik" data-source="post: 8823445" data-attributes="member: 6877472">What I will say about Small races is that they often aren't optimal, and won't likely be chosen by a player who is thinking about mechanical advantages; they'll be chosen by players who think they are fun.  This is especially true for the Halfling, as they are a "common" race (a lot of players seem to prefer playing something exotic, in my experience), and their racial traits aren't super exciting like resistances, free spells, abilities to fly, climb, or swim, teleportation, and so on tend to be.This is one of the things that I really liked about Eberron as a setting; alongside fantastic, exotic races, all the PHB races still existed.  Why would you play one?  Because Dragonmarks (or a riding dinosaur, lol)!  There's no way that Halflings can ever be as popular as Tieflings, because Tieflings are exotic, nearly have tragic backstories built-in, and have flashy special abilities; Halflings are many things, but flashy is not one of them.  And to change that, would fundamentally change what Halflings are, to the point that some people would reject them outright.Heck, as of Monsters of the Multiverse, if you really like the idea of playing a Small character, for whatever reason, you can now play a Small Aasimar!  So what's better than a Halfling?  A Halfling who is part angel, I suppose.This is why Eberron's example is so important; to make the common races interesting, you have to make them interesting in the setting.  The Gnomes of Eberron basically being the postal service, and thus, the spymasters and information brokers, was brilliant.  As was making Dwarves the bankers, and so on.  By giving races access to a unique ability that reinforced their role in the setting, a good reason to choose to play one can materialize.It's not the job of the PHB to make races interesting, or give them a role in the campaign.  After all, the DM might decide "no dragon-men or elves" in their campaign, and if those races seem too interesting, then some players will chafe at not being allowed to play one.  One could argue that the 5e PHB (and 4e before it) fundamentally failed, because they had exciting, non-bland races in them; if the game tells me I can now play a Drow, Tiefling, or Dragon-Man, all of which sound cool, it's gong to be annoying when the DM starts going on about how "there is no place for these races in my game".  Cool races should be in supplemental materials, so there's no expectation that you should be entitled to play them.Ok, I'm not being entirely serious about the PHB being a fail state, because of the race options, but I think there is something to this point of view.  I've certainly seen players sigh when they're told they can't play the shiny cool thing, and must settle for the "same old boring races".I can certainly understand why a DM wouldn't want a party full of exotic weirdos running around their setting, but I think it's also the DM's job to make players excited for the roleplaying opportunities of playing any race in their custom setting (just as it's the job of the setting designer to do so for premade settings).</blockquote>

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