How do you make halflings interesting?
>>93902929By putting them in a game
How do (you) make this stale spam template interesting
walking onaholes, thick eyebrows optional
>>93902929The secret is in their name, just field two of them for every one other race in your party. With ywo halflings you can either have a Frodo-Sam bromance unfold (interesting) or stack them on top of each other in a big trenchcoat (VERY interesting).
>>93902929Removing them.
>>93902929By making them compelling.Making races "interesting" is overrated, you want them to have a purpose in the setting and in the system, and offer some kind of powerfantasy to the player.
>>93902929make them unable to use magic by normal means.
>>93902929Explosions are pretty interesting.
>>93903013That's what I did.
Religiously agrarian crusades for farm land
>>93902929Prostution and hardcore pornography. No, seriously, this would be their main profession in any fantasy setting and something they would excel at.
>>93902929By not making threads about them.
>>93902929It isn't all halflings, but halflings in my setting run the "Little Peoples Mutual Aid Society" which is more or less the Mafia. The level of Italian stereotype varies but it isn't absent.
>>93905838So it's like some kind of Lollipop Guild?
>>93902929Make them look like something other than small humans.
>>93905987They are usually bakers as opposed to candy makers, but you're not far off.
conflict with the dwarves mushroom, LOLDUDE pipeweed, meat packing and processing and high proof spirits cartels vs the halflings equivalents. cattle rustling on both sidestheft of cheeses and smoked/preserved meatsthese are unironically what led to tribal warfare in various places. the olive oil war
>>93902929>>93902985>>93905081These anons are completely correct. Since they don't breed with humans they don't even need to pay ongoing contraceptive costs. Way more convenient to hire.
>>93902929Magical evolutionary adaption.They are Dwarves who have lived above ground and around Humans to change physically and culturally. They loose some of the magical nature of their cousins but (insert whatever special bullshit about Humans here.)
>>93902929Depends on the game system. What system are you talking about?
>>93902929Games?
>>93902985>>93905081>>93906417Why is halflings being prostitutes and walking onaholes "interesting"?
>>93907808Are you stupid or just castrated?
>>93902929>How do you make halflings interesting?You don't. Halflings are already "interesting". If you try to reinterpret halflings, you're not really using halflings anyway, and might as well do whatever other shit you want to do and create a new race.You've been told this same thing over and over again. Please kill yourself.
>>93907868Who decides what halflings are?
>>93902929Make them sexy
>>93908294who the fuck do you think lol
>>93902929Make half of them hobbits and half gypsies.
Make em sketchy
>>93907808It is if you're addicted to porn.
>>93902929call the girls loli, the boys shota, and the race pedo (comes from foot or so I heard).
>>93902929Use the stronghearts / tallfellows. miniature human/dwarfs and miniature elves.
>>93902929make them batshit insane canibal-murderer-rapiststiny reavers/crossed stalking throught the dark forest looking for new victims, calling each other with cute squeaky voices and child-like laughs
>>93910050>just copy dark sunLame.
>>93907808NTA but it's actually a pretty brilliant idea. Halflings already have an intrinsic association with rogues/thieves and stuggled to break free of kender stereotypes. Turning them into paid onaholes preserves this association with chaos and a difficult relationship with more puritan lawful good cities while still allowing them to exists in places with stricter laws where thievery wouldn't be tolerated. Divided Yondalla is very much a boring hobbit god so unless you're making a 'fling to play as a hobbit it'd give you a lot more options if they were more associated with vice. Halflings are already organized crime families in many settings because of their association with thieves guilds and smuggling so expanding it to prostitution only makes sense.>>93908668That's pede (from pode from pod)
>>93910082dark sun did it right, why shouldnt copy it?
>>93910097forgot our level 3000 temple raider
>>93910111Then why don't play Dark Sun? Oh yeah, because you're lame!
>>93910124because i wanna play my own setting, you retard
>>93902929Magic coffee mug that can't be spilled and summons marshmellow elementals.
>>93910151>because i wanna play a lame copy of dark sunThat's literally mi point, retardbro.
>>93905081>>93906417i wanna FUCK Halflings.
>>93902929In Final Fantasy Crystal Chronicles the halfling-like Lilties are the most dominant and warlike race on the continent with a historic mercantile empire and the most disciplined military culture. FFXIV is sort of similar in its depiction of Lalafells, who are not warlike but are a wealthy merchant race with a cosmopolitan yet closely knit society. I always found these worlds where halflings are more associated with wealth, power, and prestige to be fun reinterpretations of the typical archetypes of innocent tinkerers and wily rogues.
>>93911294I don't know if I could be down with a Halfling Hanseatic League.
>>93902929Merge halflings and gnomes together into one race. We don't need two separate little people races. Make their split cultural, not racial.
>>93902929the same way you do with any other race or with what Tolkien did. you don't make them as humdrum as every other race, make them generally good at something (for a trade and economy presence).then, and this is the important bit, just like every other race, give them a few heroes. a few geniuses, a pirate captain or a ruthless industrialist, etc. let the interest come not from the mere origin "halfling" let it shine like a diamond ring in a sewer drain with the edge cases, strange exceptions and more bombastic characters.there, easy.
>>93912574Nah. It's good for there to be multiple races with some of the same traits.
>>93902929Shorter lifespan. None of this Bilbo/Frodo living at 60 and looking like you're in your 20s still horse shit.
>>93902929Funny stereotypes who all talk like Pippin
>>93912935Bilbo is not representative sample, his lifespan was altered by the Ring's influence.But you can kind of have both, shorter lifespan with no aging. They just look "young adult" until 40s, and then straight up drop dead. Which also supports their hedonistic lifestyle people suggested earlier.
>>93902929I made mine cute bunnyfolk.
>>93902929They are not supposed to be interesting, it's their whole point.Special rule : mostly harmless. NPC never chose to attack them first
>>93910082Tolkien also did it first
>>93902929make them rabbit people
>>93913434Ah yes, the psionic jungle cannibals of LotR, how could I forget.
>>93913465Pretty much Druedain (or what Men think the Druedain are)
>>93913506Except that they aren't psionic, nor insane, have deep voices instead of squeaky are men nor hobbits/halflings and live in the forest not in the jungle they're exactly the same. Retard.
>>93905081But why? Seriously?
>>93902929You really can't. They kinda corned themselves since the very start by adding boring "totally not hobbits" to D&D, same with the dwarves retarded cousins know as gnomes. They aren't fit to make good adventurers and the only way to "fix" them is completely chance them for your setting, but at that point the aren't halflings anymore.They "fixed" gnomes by making them "le kirky tinkers" which is lame and gay but, guess for that reason, the lame and gay community from 3e onward liked that. They also "kenderized" the halflings but that only made them annoying and retard magnets.
>>93913338>>93913453I made mine cats.
>>93913616See>>93910097Halflings are already the unscrupulous sort. Prostitution drives this point home further while also elaborating on them in a way which makes sense but is not intuitive. Also people like >>93910208 exists, so they are also JRHNBR
>>93912634That sounds like hard work. I'd rather have no work and the solutions provided for me by a company.
>>93902929Make them a seafaring race. Island dwarfism explains why they're just "humans, but small" and making their homeland a chain of islands off the coast of your setting gives them a very distinct identity from "the bigfolk". They weigh a quarter of what bigfolk do, which means they need 1/4 as many resources to maintain them while they sail around. They can move much MUCH faster in their tiny boats, so Halfling pirates are almost impossible to out maneuver or flee from. A cargo ship of comparable size to a bigfolk ship can haul twice as much cargo because a halfling crew doesn't need nearly as much space as a bigfolk crew, so Halflings are better at shipping than bigfolk. Sailors also go around barefoot to give them better grip on wet wooden decking, so you get to keep that aspect if you want.
Literally halflings are meant to be uninteresting as a core concept. It's the one D&D fantasy race that the players make interesting through play, not the setting making interesting through lore or the system making it interesting through mechanics.
>>93915971That's cute but smaller animals have to drink more water and eat more food proportionally, as well as more frequently. Size is a benefit to homeostasis and long-term storage.
>>93913616He's just assuming everyone else is also pedophiles. He's too stupid to know everyone else on Earth wants him dead.
>>93916747More frequently, yes, but in smaller volumes. In the end, a 6' human will eat and drink more than a 3' halfling. Resource scarcity results in in an evolutionary pressure to consume less, so they grow less, which creates island dwarfism.
>>93913025It can also increase it. Funny thing is shorter lifespan honestly separates the boys from the men in terms of life choices.You can be a hedonist and live life to the fullest as an adventurer or you can live within your means and be humble. Gives an actual reason for that weird flip flop nature they want to give halflings/hobbits. In my opinion at least.>>93913338There is temptation to just replace them with Harengon a lot for me as well.
>>93902929Them not being interesting is the point.
>>93913465>>93913434Aren't Dark Sun halflings basically if Gollum was an entire race instead of a single diseased individual?
>>93912574What is it with /tg/ and acting like “small” is the one defining trait of gnomes and halflings? They’re more different than they are alike, and if anything halflings have more in common with humans than gnomes.
>>93916740b-But I need a flanderized race that gives a me standard personality!
>>93918066"Small" is the most endearing quality of gnomes. There isn't much else to like about them.
>>93902929Why would you make halflings interesting? The majority of hobbits are happy to be clerks, shopkeeps, farmers, or other humble work, and your campaign needs NPCs
>>93921805Why include them at all if you're making them boring on purpose? The real question is about distinguishing small races from each other, since "being small" only works as a distinguishing trait when there's only one small race.
>>93902929What about ratcheting their luckiness to bullshit levels?Make them probability warping anomalies, Good luck supermagnets.Have that be the explanation for their jolly, carefree demeanor. Everything just tends to go their way so they never developed anxiety responses to stress.They'd basically be fantasy Quokkas.You can add some conflict to the worldbuilding by saying that the luck they unconsciously hoard comes from the world around them, causing misfortune for others. If many halflings live in close proximity their passive luck-attracting properties are amplified by each other, making their home a utopia of peace and plenty while a miasma of doom that sweeps the surrounding country-side bringing tragedy and ruin to all in its wake.
>>93926199So you mean Kender?
