So, about those halflings...

[Dragonhelm]

Why bother if they're going to be 3' tall gardeners?

Why bother with 6' tall human gardeners?

Point is, while most hobbits act a certain way, adventuring hobbits are the exception to the rule. For that matter, most specimens of any given race are rather normal, living lives as gardeners, coopers, blacksmiths, and so on.

Any member of any race can be boring. It's the excpetions to the norm that are exciting! Look no further than Bilbo, Frodo, Drizzt, and Kaz the minotaur for examples.

3e Halflings made better PC's than previous editions' hobbits/halflings/kender,

I disagree with this assessment, especially with the kender inspiration for 3e's halflings. Where hobbits hide from adventure, kender are drawn to it. If anything, kender are the ultimate adventuring halfling race.

To me, a good portion of what makes a good adventuring race is the fluff and background, a topic which you touched upon in your post...

They've got no Crunch kicks ass, and they've got no Fluff that inspires cool stories.

See, what kills the 3e halfling for me is that there is no cool fluff to them. What intrigues me about playing a particular race isn't always the crunch. It's the psychology, the background, the unique elements.

I play minotaurs for their honor and warrior/mariner side. I play kender because I think they're fun (and no, I don't go around stealing everybody's stuff). I play half-giants (Dark Sun AD&D 2e style) because I think the shifting alignment is an interesting role-playing challenge. And so on and so forth.

While the PHB should, to a degree, provide a bit of a generic feel, it should at least have some basic flavor to it. I want dwarves who mine, elves who live in forests, etc. etc. The 4e halfling doesn't have to be a hobbit. What it should do, IMO, is give a baseline to the race so that when someone is playing it, you know right away that it's a halfling. It should be discernable from other races, both in terms of personality and appearance.

 

[exile]

I think in my next campaign, I'm going to try an entirely new bit of fluff for my halflings. They'll still be short, but some will be pudgy, and some will be lithe. They'll all have oversized hairy feet with leathery soles. Halflings in this world will be something of a penal/servitor race, created long ago by the gods (or a powerful group of wizards) from transformed humans, elves, and dwarves. Why transform members of these other races? As punishment for stealing something of some import. This would of course explain the unusually high number of rogues in the halfling population- thievery is in their blood.

Chad

 

[Whizbang Dustyboots]

As longtime MML members might remember, I got sick of hearing how the Five Shires had to be totally transformed in order for it to be a viable adventuring location. So, in the waning days of 2E, I ran an all-hobbit campaign there and you know what? It's perfectly possible to have hobbits running around a hobbity locale and have plenty of options for adventures.

If settled and happy lands were incompatible with adventures, much of the Forgotten Realms would be a lot less popular than it's always been. Heck, in the World of Greyhawk, it's the civilized areas that seem most popular with many of groups as well.

Hobbits and adventures aren't incompatible. Why, I suspect one could write a series of best-selling fantasy novels showing how cool they are, especially contrasting their normally sunny worldview with the more world-weary attitudes aroudn them.

 

[Irda Ranger]

I disagree with this assessment, especially with the kender inspiration for 3e's halflings. Where hobbits hide from adventure, kender are drawn to it. If anything, kender are the ultimate adventuring halfling race.

Agreed. Kenders had a coherant "core story", and fit the setting well.

But I said that 3e halflings make better PC's. And they do. Kender, played "by the book", are a P.I.T.A. for the rest of the party. No one likes them. It's almost meta-gaming to not kick them out of the group.

You can play your Kender in such a way that he's not stealing all the other PC's stuff, but then you're just playing a 3e halfling in Dragonlance. See what I mean?

I think in my next campaign, I'm going to try an entirely new bit of fluff for my halflings. They'll still be short, but some will be pudgy, and some will be lithe. They'll all have oversized hairy feet with leathery soles. Halflings in this world will be something of a penal/servitor race, created long ago by the gods (or a powerful group of wizards) from transformed humans, elves, and dwarves. Why transform members of these other races? As punishment for stealing something of some import. This would of course explain the unusually high number of rogues in the halfling population- thievery is in their blood.

I'll give you the benefit of the doubt and assume that you haven't read the racial history of the Kender of Krynn, and aren't plagiarizing it, per se. Because except for the hairy feet, it's word-for-word the same.

Some pudgy, some lithe? Check.
Servitor race? Check (at some points in the timeline)
Transformed from another race by the Gods long ago? Check.
Stole something of import? Check
Unusally high number of thieves (it's in their blood)? Check.

Yup. All there.

 

[Whizbang Dustyboots]

I'll give you the benefit of the doubt and assume that you haven't read the racial history of the Kender of Krynn, and aren't plagiarizing it, per se. Because except for the hairy feet, it's word-for-word the same.

What's the alternative to giving him the benefit of the doubt? It's all a sinister anti-kender conspiracy?

 

[Brennin Magalus]

Don't like 'em; don't want 'em.

 

[RFisher]

As for 1e halflings being pudgy:

That's been my favorite halfling pic since I first saw it. (In the Expert booklet, not a 1e book.)

 

[Kmart Kommando]

The picture of the whisper gnome in Races of Stone should be what a halfling looks like.

 

[Baby Samurai]

They are as popular a choice of race for players in my 20 years of experience as they have always been – in other words, never.

In my experience, people don't seem to play the stunted races much, except for the odd dwarf.

I would keep gnomes over halflings any day…

 

[WhatGravitas]

Well, I don't mind halflings either way. They're there - and I'm mostly ignoring them. However, I wonder, why a CCG like Magic can have well-defined Halflings (called Kithkins), that evoke the Hobbit/Halfling feel, while the D&D halflings drift around between Mini-Elves, Hobbits, and Kender (even in 3.5).

Cheers, LT.