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?

 

[Irlo]

so what do they other a setting that humans do not? why make a shopkeeper a halfling if humans will fill just as well or anything else would be more interesting?

PHB: Halflings are adept at fitting into a community of humans, dwarves, or elves, making themselves valuable and welcome.

So, this particular halfling shopkeeper in this mostly human city has contacts with other halfling merchants in the Dwarven Citadel, so if you want a reliable supply of diamond dust for your greater restoration spell, she's the one you want to go to. None of the human merchants will have what you're looking for most of the time.

It's easy to fit halflings into a setting and to finda reason why a halfling merchant might be more interesting than a human one.

 

[Faolyn]

so what do they other a setting that humans do not? why make a shopkeeper a halfling if humans will fill just as well or anything else would be more interesting?

Since the typical gamer is a human, they know what a human shopkeeper will do.

Since a halfling isn't a human, you can actually have them do something inhuman, if you want them to, and it makes sense in-context.

 

[Crimson Longinus]

I kinda feel 'small humans' is underselling it. Being small humans is actually a big deal! (Pun intended.) I'd imagine world seemed rather different to homo floresiensis than it does to us. Imagine an entire culture of humans that are half the size of usual, interacting with the world of the big people. Imagine if most people and things around you were twice the size they're now. Wouldn't it feel pretty different? Or imagine as human visiting a halfling village, where everything is half the usual size. Or mixed settlements, where halflings are living in the rafters of humans houses or some houses have some floors that are divided in two height wise. To me all this is cool, so halflings are cool.

 

[James Gasik]

You follow the directions given to you, finding yourself in an odd, seemingly forgotten corner of the trade district. The buildings are solidly built, but seem a little dusty, and there is little foot traffic. A man sits, perched on an old crate, his hat brim covering his eyes as he takes an early afternoon nap, and he only barely seems to notice your passing.

There it is, a simple, nondescript shop. It has no name, and the wooden sign hanging above the door simply has a carving showing a mortar and pestle. You enter, and a small bell attached to the door rings, announcing your arrival.

The scent of strange herbs tickles your nose as you look around the apothecary's shop. You hear a young sounding voice from the back, stating that they will be right with you.

What you first mistook for a small girl comes out from the back of the shop. She carefully moves a crate behind the counter, then stands on it, when you realize she's no child at all, but a Halfling. Though her features are still youthful, you can see a touch of grey in her hair. She puts on a pair of spectacles a little too large for her face and smiles. "Well, as I live and breathe, custom! How can I be of service to you?"

You explain that you heard that your sources told you that this shop deals in...exotic goods as well as medicines. The shopkeeper smiles at you. "It's true, though you can understand why I don't advertise."

You remark that you weren't expecting her to be a Halfling, and she just smiles. "Oh because other races have a monopoly on Wizardry, I suppose?"

You quickly backpedal, hoping you hadn't offended her, but she laughs. "No one expects a Halfling to be anything other than a farmer or perhaps a knight of the cross-trade, my boy. And that's just fine by me."

 

[Neonchameleon]

I believe the only data we have is pre-Tasha's so while likely true it is not applicable here.
The other thing that half-elf has is the "I want to care more about who my parents are than who my character really is" which is somehow a stereotype with the new school of players.

So what you're saying is that half-elves better fit the tropes that people now want to play than elves do.

so what do they other a setting that humans do not? why make a shopkeeper a halfling if humans will fill just as well or anything else would be more interesting?

From this school of thought comes the idea that we should kick almost 100% of elves whose story is not about being really old out. Because that's about the only thing they do better than humans.

Syndrome was talking out of his hat when he said that "When everyone is super then no one is". But when every background NPC is explicitly deliberately interesting and, worse yet, interesting because of their race you are spending a ridiculous amount of time forcing people to look at your worldbuilding rather than getting on with things as you describe each new race.

And when you make an NPC a halfling you are in general providing one piece of information that you are not providing when you make them human. You are essentially telling the players that this is almost certainly not a retired adventurer who took an arrow to the knee. They may be interesting in other ways (and probably are). And because halfling conveys information that human doesn't it's in some ways actively superior to human as a choice so human doesn't fill the role just as well.

true but it needs things to connect to it for it to work, the halflings lack the other half, they are overlooked why?

Is the notion of metaphor alien to you? Halflings are overlooked because they are small and because other than in exceptionally rare cases they do not try not to be overlooked. Partly because it is a defence mechanism. Halflings are so easily overlooked that mechanically lightfoot halflings can hide behind normal sized people despite them being only one size category larger.

It is a metaphor made manifest. And a metaphor that works. It does not need a deeper reason.

 

[Hussar]

Question - ((Sorry, I know I've stepped away from this thread, but, I just cannot resist ))

If halflings are stay-at-homes per the lore and rarely travel, how exactly are they maintaining trade networks? Who is carrying their goods from A to B? How do the merchants in Human City A have any ties to Dwarven City B when halflings don't leave any of their locations by and large?

At least Kender had the idea of wanderlust and it would make sense, but, halflings? They don't travel. They are famous for not traveling or getting involved in adventure. That's the main point of the race, isn't it? So, exactly how are they maintaining these trade networks between locations?

And, since halfling communities are supposed to be extremely difficult to find, how are other traders finding them in order make these halfling communities into trading concerns?

 

[Gammadoodler]

so halfling could be just Thanos dusted in most settings and it might be years before anyone in the setting noticed?
do they even trade?
they feel like the absence of a people, which could be cool but would require both a radical redesign and massive talent to pull off?

This last bit is a strange argument. Is the world, our world richer or poorer if a creature most people are unaware of goes extinct?

That said, per what little lore there is, halflings are embedded within their communities, communities for which, they care very deeply. Communities they work to make better and protect.

 

[Irlo]

Question - ((Sorry, I know I've stepped away from this thread, but, I just cannot resist ))

If halflings are stay-at-homes per the lore and rarely travel, how exactly are they maintaining trade networks?

And, since halfling communities are supposed to be extremely difficult to find, how are other traders finding them in order make these halfling communities into trading concerns?

That's not the lore. I won't bother to quote the PHB again. Everyone can read it for themselves.

 

[Gammadoodler]

Question - ((Sorry, I know I've stepped away from this thread, but, I just cannot resist ))

If halflings are stay-at-homes per the lore and rarely travel, how exactly are they maintaining trade networks? Who is carrying their goods from A to B? How do the merchants in Human City A have any ties to Dwarven City B when halflings don't leave any of their locations by and large?

At least Kender had the idea of wanderlust and it would make sense, but, halflings? They don't travel. They are famous for not traveling or getting involved in adventure. That's the main point of the race, isn't it? So, exactly how are they maintaining these trade networks between locations?

And, since halfling communities are supposed to be extremely difficult to find, how are other traders finding them in order make these halfling communities into trading concerns?

I could answer this, but at some point I'd have to start making comparisons to gnomes and protections from gnolls. If that starts heaven knows what other silent-letter monstrosities may come about..not willing to risk it. Refer to previous threads.

 

[Gammadoodler]

Well, I'd say you need to tackle it in two separate questions.

1) Why are halflings hard to fit into the story of adventure?

And to this, we can acknowledge the trope that halflings cling to the hardest, which is the reluctant adventurer. They don't WANT to go on adventures. Now, this isn't to say that we don't deal with this all the time, because it is also one of the most common tropes in literature. But, it makes them harder to push out the door, so to speak, because you can't just assume they wanted to leave home.

This is where the follow-up halfling trope of "fancy feet" comes in, which is a direct contradiction to the earlier halfling lore, and I think a clear sign that this was a problem for DMs. Essentially, Fancy Feet says that Halflings DO want to leave home, and you have a completely legitimate reason to send them on adventures, ignore that earlier part about them not wanting to go on adventures. Which... leads to a contradiction that could be interesting, except "wants to stay home" is the default state of most people. So if halflings were more homebodies than "dwarves who seal themselves in their mountain homes" or "elves that never leave the forest" then they were extreme in a way that can cause that problem again.


2) Why are halflings hard to fit into the world?

And this is where I think I can say @bedir than absolutely points out the problem. Halflings are "the forgotten folk" in a lot of their descriptions.

Halfling homes, which are incredibly important to them as we pointed out in #1, are both everywhere and nowhere. They are all over human kingdoms, but the lore says that no one knows where a given halfling village is. What do halflings do in your setting? Nothing. Per the lore halflings never go out and do anything important.

Now, this may sound like it is a really easy thing to work into the world, after all they are just there. But that's like saying it is very easy to include the white of the canvas in your painting. The thing you have to do is nothing, and as you do nothing, it becomes easy to write in such a way as to squeeze the halfling out of existence.

I worked in Kobolds in my world by considering how they related to dragons and the things I'm doing with dragons.

I worked Goblins into my world by considering how goblins work as a species, leading to very cool stories and a very interesting life cycle.

But to put in halflings, per the lore, I have to do nothing. They just exist. They never do anything, they aren't involved in any meta plots in the setting, they don't have any deep history to explore, they don't have any connections to any interesting threats. They just... are there.

And that is really hard to actually make feel like they are part of the setting instead of just... tacked on to the end.

The simplest way to respond to your concerns regarding point number 1 is to acknowledge that neither players, nor character races are monolithic. Otherwise, a million drow ranger PCs would have died in the womb or egg or mold.. or however drow procreate..and no players would be playing enthusiastically adventurous halflings. Adventurers who are a bit of a contradiction is kind of the way its expected to work.

As for point 2, to put halflings in the lore requires the same amount of effort as any other common race. They may not make empires, and they may be pretty content, but they still do stuff. They care for and contribute to their communities, some of which are isolated, and some of which are embedded within a mixed-race environment. So instead of thinking in terms of empires and armies, think in terms of social capital. What things would a race that feels more keenly for their homes than the other races bring to their homes.

Humans make plans and money, Elves make art and arrows, Dwarves make weapons and armor, Halflings make friends and lunch.