Elves are in many things

Dwarves get to love underground and are much stockier.

I don’t get the point in differentiating between halflings and gnomes though.

I despise the people who went and ruined Kender. Kender were fun and great characters when done with some flair but not sperg-level autism and 'hurrdurr stealin' from tha party!'.

Fucking autists.

Halflings have been nomads since they turned into gypsies in 3.5

Then I’m surprised they aren’t more popular, because that’s a good gimmick.

Apparently it isn't

copyright

elves, humans, dwarves, and orcs are in the public domain
also dwarves are already the "small" race and fairies are already the "small whimsical" race so some authors find them redundant.

Because they're just hobbits with enough differences to squeak by under legal scrutiny and "everyman forced into adventure" is an archetype that both gets old fast and can easily be done with literally every other race.

>there will never be media that features a ghostwise halfling prominently.

>think cannibal bosmer, except tiny.

They're manlets who eat a lot but aren't as interesting as the dwarves

If by "since 3.5" you mean "just in Eberron" then yeah, since 3.5.

Huh. Wouldn't think that

>Scrawny manlets
When will they learn?

No, gnomes overlap with halflings and dwarves

Gnomes are shit

Gnomes are thematically MUCH better[Originally alchemic earth spirit], and outside of tolkien's shit, are synonymous with dwarves/svartalfar.

They are supposed to represent the spirits of the earth, while Elves the spirits of the forest.

The fuck up really came again with tolkien's rendition, and even further peter jackson's rendition which has cemented a standard archetype which is really low-magic, which reflects his setting.

Gnomes and Dwarves should REALLY be the same thing. Earth spirits that have DEEP KNOWLEDGE. They know about the hidden things, the dark, and they are constantly at war with ugly, ancient things that surface worlders don't even understand.

And they shouldn't be THAT small, or disproportionate. Or rather, should be able to shapeshift to meet the demands of space, but massive underground citadels is where it's at.

Elves are too plain, and dwarf/gnomes are WAY too plain. That's why they are boring. That whole scottish midget thing is fucking lame imo.
Halfling/hobbits are simply the worst creatures. They are pygmies, and naturally, no one would really WANT to play a pygmy.

>In short, they don't gain enough innate abilities to be considered as anything more flavorful than a change to primary ability score

Eberron halflings are tiny mongols.
3.5 gave them a default adventurous wanderers flavor and 4e outright said they were river nomads. 5e sets them back to vaguely pastoral but keeps the happy go lucky adventurous part, because 5e doesn't care about making sense.
Also halflings were nomads in 2e darksun too.

underrated

they suck at fighting. In most media you want your main hero to be good at fighting. Hobbits were designed to not be that.

replace humans with halflings

your setting will be instantly 45% more exciting

Isn’t it an interesting concept to have to work around your inherent disadvantages to succeed against superior foes?

Like we all dig it when a human is able to slay a dragon despite being so outmatched. Therefore shouldn’t it be even cooler if a halfling could slay a dragon?

Halflings dont slay dragons.

>Gnomes and Dwarves should REALLY be the same thing
totaly agree.
Warhammer does a good job.

In my country there is only one word for both. And it fucking annoys me having 2 separate races of short people running around.

when was your last time you enjoyed a story about a girl without a leg saving a kingdom?

Reader must identify with the character. They should have a disadvantage they both share. Readers are ok with with adding advatages since it makes them feel powerful (until mary sue levels are reached).

Japan is a country of repressed rapists and degenerates who literally kill themselves rather than losing their job

Because they're uninspired and ripetitive. They're literally midget gypsies. There isn't a niche they can occupy without seeming unnecessary

>when was your last time you enjoyed a story about a girl without a leg saving a kingdom?
Shit that sounds great someone should right that. Also
>implying amputee characters are unrelatable
>*autistic screeching*

What niche do dwarves occupy?

That guys got a disadvatage midstory.
And then he got a fucking metal arm and he is as good as new. He can do everything he did befor ewith that arm.
Sure that author added a chapter or two about how this hand is less then the original, not being able to hold casca or feeling but it never really mattered.

Like fullmetal Alchemist. We look at him and think: that bastard has got a badass metal arm!

Strong gruff and no-nonsense fighters, crafters, miners and dwellers of ancient underground cities with a shitton of gold

Alternatively strong silent types with a generous attitude but flawed by greed, just like elves are flawed by vanity

So if an entire race can fill one personality archetype. what's the issue with halflings filling the happy go lucky wandering rogues and traders niche?

because players like to be protagonists and what you describe is essentially a comedic sidekick. Once his antics run out, people get tired of him

Sounds a lot like a shonen protag to me

too bad shonen protags are shit an never harmless midgets whose only shtick is to spot hidden things and avoid danger

>rogues
>harmless
Next thing you'll tell me is elf wizards are pussies only capable of making sparkly lights

Well they should start. It would earn them some street cred.
What he said, that sounds awesome.
That sounds more like a guild hero than a comedic sidekick to me.

Although again I support dragon slaying halfling Paladins, preferably weilding claymores.

Sneaking around to stab people in the back is not what the protagonist of an adventure would do regularly.
Also the happy go lucky attitude is not really suited for people who slit your throat in your sleep. it creates discordance and makes the character feel either unnatural or deranged, neither of those are thing suited for a "protagonist" of your average fantasy adventure.
Halflings are the natural comedic sidekicks of any setting they're in, as i said, once their antics run out, people get tired of him

I don’t know, amicable psychopath as protagonist sounds interesting at the very least.

Because with the main 4 (humans, elfs, dwarves and orcs) you can already make an interesting fantasy world without making it feel “crowded” (rarely people want a setting with docen of races that are like human “BUT!...”).

Elves = Bretons, hippies, etc. The old race that is in tune with nature and/or magic.
Dwarves = Germanic tribes, Jews, etc. Alcoholic, live under grown. Usually bad at magic and good at blacksmithing and tech.
Orcs = Mongols, Turks, etc. The angry nomadic people that live to fight and conquer.
Humans = Everything else.

If you add Halflings, you steal the “happy peasants living a humble happy life” from humans and a part of the main physic characteristic of dwarves.
If you add gnomes, you make dwarves really boring (because without tech and without magic, they look weak in comparison with all the others).

Of course this is just working with standard stuff. If you make halflings the Chinese/Indians/Aztecs/Incas of the settings, it would work. Its just that the standard is kind of “weak” and boring for a main race.

Play a campaign with one and record how much time it takes before you stop finding him funny or interesting. I'll wait

I still get splitting the short race between halflings and dwarves. I don’t get splitting it between halflings, dwarves and gnomes.

Halflings are original to Tolkien and positioned as the main protagonists to convey the simplicity, innocence and unlikelihood of becoming world class heroes in rural Brits. The other races are taken from folklore as a way of flavoring the setting, so anyone seeking to create a Tolkien-esque world to roleplay in really has no reason to introduce halflings: they're not Tolkien and a game is different from a story.

That's the kind answer. The harsh answer is that they're boring. You can create a similar but more novel race with barely any effort. In fact, D&D already did: gnomes.

That's not really fair, though. Shonen (as a genre, not a demographic) is martial arts. Their protagonists are all good guys, but they live in worlds where people use magic kung fu to beat each other up. If you don't, you'll get killed instead. Also, most of them don't kill people, they just incapacitate them so they stop being stop causing trouble. It's really easy for a halfling to sit on his high horse and judge them when in their stories they surround themselves with wizards and armies of soldiers and fucking ents to do their killing for them.

How about we stop to examine halflings as an archetype? Because they show up a lot more as an archetype than as halflings.

For instance- Klingons are essentially orcs- tough honor-bound warrior race, hates the good guys.

As per tvtropes, halflings take up the cute slot in the five races trope, and you see a lot more halfling knockoff types in JRPGs, where they must find some success.

Tolkein estate.

Also Tolkein kinda gave halflings the big focus in his two books, so focusing on other races rather than trying to rehash halflings again makes sense.

If you look at it in a very low resolution like that, then sure, halflings are everywhere, but the OP was obviously not looking at it that way because then he wouldn't have made the thread; so as per OP's question, that perspective of, "Well, small races are in everything," is not actually an answer.

I also think the five race paradigm is sort of misleading. It didn't exist in Tolkien or D&D, but people always talk about it like it's this common sense thing.

I’m looking at in the lense of everything with multiple races. Again most sci-fi have an elf archetype or orc archetype (though to be fair as time goes on they become their own thing) and my main point being ‘small race that isn’t dwarves’ often does work, just coincidentally hardly when they have the name halfling. So to the OPs point he’s right in that there should be more halflings around, because there are halfling archetypes around that do work.

Does Star Trek have halflings?

Not off the top of my head, but then, I never was that interested in Star Trek. I suppose Jawas in Star Wars are kind of halfling like...

Ewoks dude.

>ya know those little fuckers people put in their gardens that live in mushrooms and shit?
>let's make them the OPPOSITE of druids!

Gnomes, everybody.