Explain your halfling-hate here.
They are an obvious Tolkienism, having no prior existence in mythology. Most of the time they serve no purpose, other than as an irritating indication that the author is mindlessly aping other sources.
I've heard of halflings being done well as cannibals or jungle-dwelling savages, but at that point the author ought to have just called them "pygmies."
If you want to see a radically different halfling, look at the D&D comic "Order of the stick" and check out Belkar.
He's quite a mold breaker when it comes to halfling stereotypes.
Their little carcasses take too much singeing.
Because everyone hates short people.
Well, bouncers do. "Hot women and short blokes - the cause of most fights in pubs. And both of them run away once the brawl starts, and leave someone else to finish it."
They cry a lot. Oh...Mr. Frodo, I can't bear to make the tea again...sob.
I don't despise them! They are right handy to set your drink on top of. Just the right height.
-mice
BIG....
HAIRY.....
FEET!!!!
UGH!
It's not halflings I hate, it's kender. Annoying little fuckers.
Oh! Ashtrays! Set an ashtray on a halfling's head and have him follow you around to catch the ash from your cigar!
Oh! Oh! And checking for traps! Nothing finds traps like tossing a halfling down the hallway...
-mice
Quote from: RPGPunditExplain your halfling-hate here.
Frodo and Tasslehoff. 'nuff said.
D&D is a mishmash of genre bits swiped from all sorts of places: old monster movies, the Bible, Jack Vance, the Lord of the Rings, R.E. Howard. That last one is the most important for me. I can imagine Conan adventuring alongside a tough-as-nails dwarf or a wolrd-weary and willowy elf or a nasty ass half-orc. But Bilbo and Conan go together like tuna salad and chocolate sauce.
I'm not going to go so far down the China Mieville path to suggest that Tolkein is a "wen on the arse of fantasy literature," but it's definitely the blatant Tolkein-ism of the halfling that bothers me. Of course, I feel the same way about Elves and Dwarves as well.
Come to think of it, I hate gnomes more than halflings... Maybe I just hate short races.
No, that couldn't be it, I adore kobolds.
I prefer fantasy that diverges from the standard D&D tropes. It's not that the tropes are necessarily bad, but after playing fantasy RPGs for almost thirty years, I'm tired of retreading pilfered hunks of Middle Earth whenever I play or run a game. Give me something different in my fantasy. Give me something other than tree-hugging elves, dour dwarves, and pickpocket halflings. Give me something other than orcs and half-orcs and goblins. But, by all means, keep the races playable.
Not to pimp any particular campaign setting, but I never paid much attention to halflings until Eberron. Dino riding little badasses.
Because they are no longer the plump little timid 11-meal-having Hobbits I grew to love.
Kender can just go to hell.
I thought I seen something on the history channel or something like that there were a race of "little people" @ one point in history.
It could have been the beer I was drinking @ the RAM that night, but I think that is what I saw.
Quote from: McrowI thought I seen something on the history channel or something like that there were a race of "little people" @ one point in history.
It could have been the beer I was drinking @ the RAM that night, but I think that is what I saw.
Dude, you have the RAM up there in Minneapolis, or was this at GC Indy?
Because that place ROCKS.
EDIT: Here's (http://news.nationalgeographic.com/news/2004/10/1027_041027_homo_floresiensis.html) that story.
Quote from: Zachary The FirstDude, you have the RAM up there in Minneapolis, or was this at GC Indy?
Because that place ROCKS.
EDIT: Here's (http://news.nationalgeographic.com/news/2004/10/1027_041027_homo_floresiensis.html) that story.
Nope, no RAM here in Minneapolis. When I got back from the RAM after helping setting up the booth Rafi and I went to the RAM for some beer.
Yup that is the think I saw, and what I would base halflings on.
they were agressive, Island hopping, and had some skill @ making tools.
I would streach that out to being somewhat Naval craftsmen, who are agressive towards other races.
I like Hobbits when they're in Middle-Earth. I do not like watered-down Hobbits (whatever you may call them) in other fantasy settings.
I just asked a friend the title of the thread. His response:
"I don't despise them! They're great after a long, slow cook with a little tobasco!" :D
In a friend's Arduin campaign, many moons ago, halflings were hunted down for sport, because everyone hated them. 'Tamed' halflings had the tendons of the Archilles' heel cut, so that they couldn't run properly, and were always hobbling along whenver they ventured out.
I have to say that the way hobbits are portrayed by Tolkien can be very off-putting. They seem very insular and naive and unaware of just how dangerous the outside world is. They only really seem appealing (besides the protagonists of the books) in The Scouring of the Shire, where they finally show they have backbone and can defend themselves. I especially liked how the head of the Tooks finally asserted his position as Thane of the Shire and closed off the Greenhill Country from Saruman's men and half-orcs. Add to that the way Merry and Pippin came into their own as tough and valiant warriors, even intimidating "Sharkey's Men" into backing down. That's the kind of halflings I like.
I think that people miss an important point re halflings in Tolkein's work: They were hard to corrupt and could resist corrupting powers like the ring much better than any other race.
Some people may consider halflings weak or lazy, but they have tremendous willpower, more than a lot of humans. Just ask Boromir....
I'm okay with them, but NOT when they're Kenderized or cannibals or otherwise gimmicky.
Better to just admit that they don't have any purpose except to invoke warm memories of The Hobbit and Lord of the Rings, so just step aside and let them get to it, already. :)
I find that overly slavish Tolkien-esque hobbits are more offputting that 'random short race X'. I rather LIKE the new directions halflings have been taken, making them more interesting and less 'same old, same old'.
Tolkien's hobbits were meant to represent the everyman, whereas his 'humans' were often far more mythic in scope. Works fine as a literary conceit. In fact, there is very little stopping one from considering halflings as 5-6 feet tall and everyone else as honest injun giants at 10-12 feet and up, if you really wanted to.
In D&D HUMANS are the everyman, the standard by which all other races are judged (better or worse), which is why they have no stat modifiers inherent to them. HUMANS are easier for most people to self identify with, and a game without humans in it is often doomed to a short shelf life. Make that, humans as protagonists.
Halflings, in that sense, are often 'human like', or far more so than most of the other fantasy races but can not properly speaking replace humans for the reason stated above. Thus they can seem superflous.
Again, there's nothing to stop anyone from running a "Belkar" type halfling, y'know.
Being small and good at stealth makes halflings suprisingly good at ambushes, assassinations, etc.
Quote from: SpikeI find that overly slavish Tolkien-esque hobbits are more offputting that 'random short race X'. I rather LIKE the new directions halflings have been taken, making them more interesting and less 'same old, same old'.
I guess I don't see it that way, at all. In my opinion, you put Hobbits (let's leave TSR's clumsy lawsuit dodge out of this, they're
Hobbits) in your world if you want Hobbits, otherwise you don't. Why? Because the players who want to play Hobbits want to play them because then they can have their Bilbo clone. It's that simple. It's the same reason you put barbarians in your setting: So that players can clone Conan. If you don't what to use the cliche, that's fine, but if you do elect to use the cliche, at least realize what it's useful for in the first place. Savage cannibal Hobbits are about as useful to players as effette, tea-sipping barbarians.
Ah, but if they really really want to recreate Bilbo, they've always got MERP...
Besides, really solid look at Conan suggests that the barbarian class is a piss poor interpretation of 'who he was'.
I like new halflings too. I also like hobbits though. I also like kender...Tasslehoff made me laugh. Who I got sick of was the whiney ass Raistlin....that character was like all of the WoD vampires and Drizzt all wrapped up into one.
IMO halflings don't need to come from myth, fable, or fiction to make them fun to play.
They're fat AND short.
You get to exercise two prejudices for the price of one.
Quote from: Dominus NoxI think that people miss an important point re halflings in Tolkein's work: They were hard to corrupt and could resist corrupting powers like the ring much better than any other race.
Some people may consider halflings weak or lazy, but they have tremendous willpower, more than a lot of humans. Just ask Boromir....
I wouldn't have characterized it as "tremendous willpower." In fact, I think it's that they were the "ultimate slackers."
Hobbits didn't have willpower, they simply didn't have any desires to be magnified by the Ring. (Which is really what the Ring did, it magnified the wearers personality and powers.)
While I agree with the idea that Hobbits could resist the corrupting influence better than other races, I see it not from some internal strength that they had, but rather from an internal
lack. Sort of like Bombadil. He couldn't be corrupted to such a degree that the Ring had
absolutely no effect on him. It wasn't that he had some great strength of will, it was simply that he didn't have anything the Ring could "latch onto" and magnify, in order to corrupt him.
I don't see Hobbits as great founts of massive willpower. They're
lazy. An "industrious" Hobbit might use the Ring to make a really great cask of ale or a garden of supreme magnificence (albeit, the ale is probably tainted with something and the garden harbors poisonous plants and insects).
If you want Hobbits they're fine, otherwise I don't see the point. I definitely don't see the point in reinventing them, they're hobbits. Deal with it.
Otherwise, in the words of Mr Randy Newman:
Short People got no reason
Short People got no reason
Short People got no reason
To live
They got little hands
Little eyes
They walk around
Tellin' great big lies
They got little noses
And tiny little teeth
They wear platform shoes
On their nasty little feet
Well, I don't want no Short People
Don't want no Short People
Don't want no Short People
`Round here
Short People are just the same
As you and I
(A Fool Such As I)
All men are brothers
Until the day they die
(It's A Wonderful World)
Short People got nobody
Short People got nobody
Short People got nobody
To love
They got little baby legs
That stand so low
You got to pick 'em up
Just to say hello
They got little cars
That go beep, beep, beep
They got little voices
Goin' peep, peep, peep
They got grubby little fingers
And dirty little minds
They're gonna get you every time
Well, I don't want no Short People
Don't want no Short People
Don't want no Short People
'Round here