I know there have been discussions similar to this in the recent past on these forums, but I felt the need to explain things freshly from my point of view. Keep in mind, I'm not saying that halflings shouldn't be a part of D&D, or that people who play/like halflings are having badwrongfun, I'm merely explaining why I have always been turned off from halflings and tend to prefer other small races (gnomes, goblins, kobolds, even dwarves).

I should probably start out by giving some of my background in the hobby. As a few of you are probably aware, I am fairly new to the hobby, and younger than most of the active posters on this site (from my experience, anyway), being 19 years old (turning 20 in September). I have been playing D&D since just after my 15th birthday, so about 4.5 years now. D&D 5e was the first edition of D&D that I've ever played, and is still the only TTRPG that I have ever played/GMed for (although I know a bit about Pathfinder, Call of Cthulhu, Warhammer 40k, and Star Wars: Edge of the Empire). I have also researched a bit of how previous editions of D&D were different mechanically and lore-wise from 5e in order to understand its background, and consider myself fairly well versed in the lore of the Forgotten Realms, Eberron, Exandria, and decently knowledgeable on the lore of Dark Sun, Theros, Ravnica, Ravenloft Dragonlance, Greyhawk, and a few other settings. I also own every official D&D 5e book except Candlekeep Mysteries, and have read all of the books that I do own. I am a huge fan of the hobby (even though I am relatively new to the game), believe that D&D 5e is a great game, and cannot foresee myself ever stop playing D&D in any part of the near or distant future. I am heavily invested in the game and its future, and want to see the hobby that I love improve as much as it possibly can.

As I've shown above, I know quite a bit about D&D. I have dozens of playable races available in my homebrew world, and learn as much as I can about the lore of different worlds in order to improve my world by inspiration brought by that lore. I have created a ton of lore for tons of playable races for my world, and I find most of the lore that I've created for these to be fairly engaging and drawing concepts (and I do not mean to brag by this. I am a strong believer in "I just write the thing" mentality that some writers have, and find myself incredibly lucky and thoroughly surprised whenever my limited human brain comes up with something I find cool). I've created an intricate society of Vecna-worshipping death-touched, called the Vezyi. Their whole society revolves around the idea that life is a fleeting gift and that they must do whatever they can to preserve the lives of their people, having their culture being based off of worshipping the god of undeath in order to get "free" resurrections from clerics of Vecna (the price of these resurrections is having your body becoming a nameless member of Vecna's undead army, and quite possibly having your soul being devoured by Vecna's Mega-Phylactery). I've also created the Felshen, which are a psionic race of people descended from a flesh-golem race created by artificers and fleshmancers that had the goal of creating a fully-reproducing and sentient race of people, just to see if they could. They've had a centuries-long conflict with the magic-worshipping Yikkan Goblinoids, as the Yikkan Goblinoids view them as unnatural aberrations that's mere existence is actively hurting the universe, and the Felshen have an understandably negative opinion of a society of people that have systematically oppressed them for as long as their race has existed. Again, not to toot my own horn, but I think that both of these examples that I have given are good, compelling, and interesting races. They have a clear niche and purpose (the Felshen for being a psionic race, the Vezyi for being death-touched), are given in-depth and sensical lore-based reasons to exist, and are strongly rooted in the identity of the world. I feel the same way about Kalashtar and Warforged for Eberron, Thri-Kreen for Dark Sun, the Kryn Dynasty's races for Exandria/Wildemount, and so on. There are tons of examples, but these are the ones that come to mind at the moment.

And this takes me to halflings. What's their niche? Short-person. Are they the only race in that niche? Only if you don't gnomes, dwarves, kobolds, and goblins (and Fairies if you count UA, and I'm not even counting the Lineages/Races that can be small or medium, including Verdan). Are they strongly rooted in the identity of most worlds that they're included in? Not really. If you take Halflings out of the Forgotten Realms or Exandria, it doesn't really change anything important/major about the settings. If you remove them from Dark Sun you don't have cannibal halflings, which are a cool tidbit about the setting, but certainly not essential to its identity, IMO. Eberron probably changes the most noticeably of any of these listed settings, as it has Talenta Plains, Dragonmarked, and House Boromar Halflings, but even then, you could just as easily replace all halflings with Gnomes (or possibly even Goblins) and get practically the same outcome. What is their lore-based reason to exist in most D&D world's? There's rarely actually ever one of these, and even if there is, the explanation is lacking (cause this god I just came up with to create halflings created halflings), and/or could just be summed up by "Halflings are in this world because they exist in D&D". And why do Halflings exist in D&D as a whole? Because Tolkien's works (a huge part of the inspiration of D&D) included Hobbits.

And that's where the issue (for me) comes down to. Their existence is circular. They exist for no real narrative or plot-driving purposes, but because Lord of the Rings and the Hobbit had small-folk as a race for some of its most prominent characters. And that's not a "bad" reason to warrant their existence in a fantasy game where quite literally anything can exist, but it's just not a "good" one, either (and by "a good reason to warrant existing", I meant it as in a reason that empowers creative thought, drives/inspires plot points, and motivates players to think a bit more about the identity of their characters). Warforged exist for a good reason (to provoke discussion and tropes of "what measure is a non-human") and give a lot of inspiration for both character backstory and plot points. Felshen exist in my D&D world to create plot points about the Felyik Conflict (shorthand for Felshen-Yikkan Conflict/Wars), to give players ideas on how their character(s) feel about major parts of the world (the magical goblinoid and psionic humanoid societies), and to drive discussion on who the "good" and the "bad" in the conflict are (it's neither, all shades of gray, but some individuals and mindsets are more wrong or right than others). The Kryn Dynasty exists in Exandria to drive discussion on essentially the same issue as Paarthurnax's famous question of "What is better - to be born good, or to overcome your evil nature through great effort?" The Warforged, the Felshen, the Kryn Dynasty, (and endless further examples), all exist for what I define as "good" reasons. They exist for story-driving reasons, while Halflings just exist to be "short people that are humans . . . but short".

I guess this is one of the rare cases where I find "Humans in silly hats" to be a valid complaint about a player race. Warforged can't be replaced with humans, as their story is unique and specific to their physical nature and history. The Kryn Dynasty's story would be far less compelling if they weren't gnolls, orcs, and goblinoids and were just cursed humans. My world's stories for Felshen and Vezyi are highly dependent on how they came into existence and their inherent genetic and magical nature, even if they are roleplayed very similar to humans (because, you know, we humans are the ones that will be roleplaying these races). However, if Halfling villages were just replaced with bog-standard human peasant villages, the story wouldn't change at all. If the dinosaur riders of the Talenta Planes were just primitive gnomes, goblins, or even humans that ride just slightly larger dinos, would anyone really notice or care? If the Halfling cannibals of Dark Sun were just human or elven cannibals, would that really change anything important about the world? If the Kender were just Thanos-snapped out of existence, would the cries in response to this be more made in protest against removing the endlessly-annoying kleptomaniacs, or would they be in celebration of their ultimate demise?

tl;dr - Halflings don't fill any important narrative purposes in the game (and even the ones that they do fill heavily overlap with more story-driving races). They exist just to exist, mostly because people like Bilbo/Frodo Baggins, and just aren't an inspiring character race. They're just "short people", and even the settings that try to make them matter fail to do so in a way that couldn't be at least as easy to emulate with one of the other similar races in the game that actually have story connected to their existence (gnomes connected to fey, humans being humans, etc).

Thoughts? Who agrees with me? Who disagrees with me? If you agree with me, are your reasons for agreeing the same as mine, or are they different. If you disagree with me, why?

The fact that halflings are unobtrusive and prefer a quiet, comfortable life is kind of the point of halflings. If they’re not doers of great deeds, well, that’s the idea. In a world full of epic fantasy and ambitious conflicts, halflings are a point of normalcy and simplicity. They represent the kindly, earthy, constant side of humanity. Not trying to be special is what makes them special.

Quote from NaivaraArnuanna >>

The fact that halflings are unobtrusive and prefer a quiet, comfortable life is kind of the point of halflings. If they’re not doers of great deeds, well, that’s the idea. In a world full of epic fantasy and ambitious conflicts, halflings are a point of normalcy and simplicity. They represent the kindly, earthy, constant side of humanity. Not trying to be special is what makes them special.

. . . But isn't that why we have Humans in the game? To be the generic "human" part of fantasy that can cover most character niches, right? Why do you need halflings to be quiet, comfortable, simple and "normal" if you can literally just make Humans fill that niche just as well. To me, that seems a bit redundant, just as redundant as creating a whole fantasy race around people that like eating ice cream. Sure. Most people enjoy ice cream/peace and quiet, but we don't need a race that's whole shtick is liking ice cream/peace and quiet. That just seems kind of pointless. 

I like them mainly because I don't want to play a human but I love playing Halflings who are kind of like humans. 

Very interesting.

To start, I find that context is highly important. You used an example of races that you have made that are important because of their story. If they were replaced by humans, or orcs, or elves would that change the world? Probably not, because the race itself is not interesting but the history around them is. From what I understand it is the context that is what's important in your argument, not necessarily the race. If the halflings have a long and storied history of war within their clans that lead to them splitting up into the subraces that we now know would that make it more interesting? Mechanically they would be the same, "humans in silly hats". I'm not trying to undersell the importance of narrative justification. Nor am I trying to undermind your narrative reasoning for your homebrew races to exist within your world, it sounds like a really cool story that I would like to learn more about, I am just curious.

I would argue that having certain things that don't have a deep and storied history to them is a benefit to a race especially in a game designed to be written by the players and the DM. Obviously the DM can do whatever they want with their world but having a vast and detailed history of how something is supposed to be and how something has historically been can be pressuring for a storyteller. I know I have felt like I need to fit into the box that comes with the name "Elf" (or any other race). With Halflings, this box doesn't really exist. While the other races can be more like writing prompts, the history of the halflings is manipulatable to be whatever the DM could want without the need to worry about the expectations of how they are "suppose to be". I find that Dnd is a unique medium for storytelling. Whereas with traditional writing you are right in your Chekhov's Gun* approach to the races having a narrative purpose, within Dnd having something that is totally free and manipulatable built in the base of the game can be very helpful. Within Dnd, something can exist without needed a narrative reason. If the player wants to be something then that is more than enough of a reason for it to exist for me.

*Chekhov's Gun is the design philosophy that suggests that every detail should be important and affect the overall narrative. 

You mentioned a few D&D settings - Eberron, Dragonlance, Dark Sun. Halflings have a more specific culture and place in those settings. They're not just short people. Just looking at their PHB descriptions, I think I can reasonably argue elves are pretty much just pointy-eared people who live too long for their own good and dwarves are stocky, bearded people with a few cultural stigmas plastered over them. The basics of most races are pretty bland, it's the context of the setting that gives them colour. Half-elves and half-orcs are the inbetweeners, the ones that fall between their parents' societies; that's great, assuming there's actual meaningful differences between those and just the PHB blurbs aren't all that much in that regard. 

You don't see a real place for halflings in your D&D? I can understand that. I just think a lot of people can say the same thing about some of the other races. Races are what you make of them. If you (or the setting you choose to use) doesn't put any effort into that, most of them suck.

I think in other parts of your explanation, you kind of hit on something that's an important distinction. You talk about different groups and kingdoms and such. Their (really any race's) place in any world is going to be campaign dependent. Even if you use a published setting, if you have a party of all PC halflings, you can bet they will end up an indispensable part of the world. Maybe its not that there's not a place for halflings, but that you've just not played in a game world that has a reason for halflings. I mean, you said you have a homebrew world. Seems like you could just create a niche for them and, problem solved.

Beyond that, you can really say it about most of the races, save probably humans.

Personally I don't really like the published settings. So that might be part of the difference, is I really don't care if they have a "place" in the FR or anyplace else. In worlds I've made, they have as distinct a place as any of the other races.

Quote from ConalTheGreat>>

Very interesting.

To start, I find that context is highly important. You used an example of races that you have made that are important because of their story. If they were replaced by humans, or orcs, or elves would that change the world? Probably not, because the race itself is not interesting but the history around them is.

Actually, yeah, it would. If I were to just copy-paste Orcs, Elves, or Humans into the lore of my world's Vezyi or Felshen, that would actually change major parts of the setting. The main reason why the Goblinoid settlements in my world hate the Felshen is because they have innate psionic abilities, and the goblinoids worship magic and have their whole society based off of spellcasting. They see psionics as an aberration that is actively working to destroy the multiverse, which is the primary reason that they have attempted to commit genocide against the Felshen. If I used Humans, or Orcs, or Elves, the story wouldn't work. 

Similarly, the Vezyi couldn't be replaced with Humans, Orcs, or Elves, because a major part of their story is being touched by undead powers, making them harder to kill (basically having a Reborn's Deathless nature), and they're easier to raise from the dead (spells that raise them from the dead can be cast on them 10 times as long as they'd work on non-Vezyi, like Raise Dead working on them 100 days after they died, and so on). Without those important aspects of their racial features, their story wouldn't be the same. 

Their fluff matters a ton, but their mechanics also matter.

From what I understand it is the context that is what's important in your argument, not necessarily the race. If the halflings have a long and storied history of war within their clans that lead to them splitting up into the subraces that we now know would that make it more interesting? Mechanically they would be the same, "humans in silly hats". I'm not trying to undersell the importance of narrative justification. Nor am I trying to undermind your narrative reasoning for your homebrew races to exist within your world, it sounds like a really cool story that I would like to learn more about, I am just curious.

It depends. Their history doesn't have to be long or incredibly detailed story, it has to be engaging/inspiring. "Short humans that are lucky" doesn't inspire stories anywhere near the same way that "Mechanical soldier that is let go after the Last War ends" does. I'm fine with the Halflings mechanically, I just don't find them any more engaging than humans, and don't see the need for them to exist. I mean, in 6e, WotC could do what the Dhampir, Hexblood, Reborn, Owlfolk, and Rabbitfolk do, and just let you choose to be a Medium or Small Human, and then the whole concept of a small "basically human" race would be invalidated and just moved to the Human race. I'm of the opinion that if your whole race's identity can be dismantled by allowing another race to be 3 feet shorter (especially one that already can in real life), your identity is pretty flimsy and irrelevant. 

I would argue that having certain things that don't have a deep and storied history to them is a benefit to a race especially in a game designed to be written by the players and the DM. Obviously the DM can do whatever they want with their world but having a vast and detailed history of how something is supposed to be and how something has historically been can be pressuring for a storyteller. I know I have felt like I need to fit into the box that comes with the name "Elf" (or any other race). With Halflings, this box doesn't really exist. While the other races can be more like writing prompts, the history of the halflings is manipulatable to be whatever the DM could want without the need to worry about the expectations of how they are "suppose to be".

I don't think every race needs to have a deep and detailed story for them, I'm perfectly fine with Tortles just being turtle/tortoise people that eat fish and are typically loners. I'm also fine with Goliaths being Giant-related Sparta-style mountain dwellers. I'm absolutely okay with Dragonborn being Dragon-people and not much unique identity to them besides how they are related to dragons. Not much unique/compelling story to any of those, however, they fulfill a purpose, do it well, and don't have much overlap with other races. (Unless you consider Firbolg being tall as overlap, or Orcs being warlike as overlap, which are also very broad niches and the races have other lore and mechanical distinctions to justify their existences.)

I find that Dnd is a unique medium for storytelling. Whereas with traditional writing you are right in your Chekhov's Gun approach to the races having a narrative purpose, within Dnd having something that is totally free and manipulatable built in the base of the game can be very helpful. Within Dnd, something can exist without needed a narrative reason. If the player wants to be something then that is more than enough of a reason for it to exist for me.

(Yeah, I know Chekhov's Gun. I linked TV-Tropes a couple times in the OP. But thanks for explaining it for whomever in this thread didn't know yet.)

I agree that D&D is a unique way to tell stories, which is why a lot of us like it and like discussing it. My table and I have the most fun when we choose the characters we play based off of a mix of fluff (lore) and crunch (mechanics). Just like everyone wants to be able to use some of their racial features in the campaign as a player, you should also have options for your race's fluff to come into play in the campaign. This is part of the reason why Tieflings and Dragonborn are so popular, not because they're super awesome mechanically, but because it's interesting to play a character that is discriminated against based on fiendish blood and it's awesome to look like a dragon and be able to breath acid/cold/fire/lightning/poison. In my experience, players want their choice of race to matter for story-telling purposes, like who the parents of your Half-Elf character were and how you and your parent societies react to that, or who your Guardian Angel as an Aasimar is and how you interact with them. 

Obviously, the only necessary excuse for including something in D&D is that it's fun, as this is a game where the overall intent is to have fun, but there are better reasons to include stuff like that and ways to enhance the fun that a certain race gives. If I just plopped Vezyi and Felshen into my world with no explanation of their story, that would be perfectly fine and great if my players like/played them, but just because an excuse for including something is decent doesn't mean that it's good. IMO, it's better to give compelling fluff along with it that actually influences how you play the character enough for it to be notable. I just don't think halflings have any real niche/fluff that is compelling. I get that it's fun to be Bilbo Baggins and be a short, sneaky person, but is that really enough to justify them being one of the core races of the game? I just don't think it is, but your mileage may vary. 

Quote from Third_Sundering >>

Quote from NaivaraArnuanna >>

The fact that halflings are unobtrusive and prefer a quiet, comfortable life is kind of the point of halflings. If they’re not doers of great deeds, well, that’s the idea. In a world full of epic fantasy and ambitious conflicts, halflings are a point of normalcy and simplicity. They represent the kindly, earthy, constant side of humanity. Not trying to be special is what makes them special.

. . . But isn't that why we have Humans in the game? To be the generic "human" part of fantasy that can cover most character niches, right? Why do you need halflings to be quiet, comfortable, simple and "normal" if you can literally just make Humans fill that niche just as well. To me, that seems a bit redundant, just as redundant as creating a whole fantasy race around people that like eating ice cream. Sure. Most people enjoy ice cream/peace and quiet, but we don't need a race that's whole shtick is liking ice cream/peace and quiet. That just seems kind of pointless. 

Also, this is the right direction but not quite there. Hobbits aren't just inobtrusive, kindly, quiet people - hobbits are portrayed as absolutely not heroic, not adventurous people. Small of stature, small of ambition. The people most anyone else never heard of, because hobbits stay out of everyone else's drama. The Shire is the nothing-ever-happens-here-and-that's-how-we-like-it little nook of the world Middle-Earth (the Kingdoms of Men, Elves and Dwarves) forgot about, because that's what makes Bilbo the character he is - the accidental, almost against his will, kind of had to be tricked into it, eventual adventurer.  

That's what the FR (which doesn't do races all that well in general, in my opinion) forgot or overlooked or just doesn't illustrate well enough . Humans aren't the quiet, comfortable, simple race. Humans are the johnny come lately race that took over the world. Humans are the ones that arrive last at the party and expect everyone who showed up early to get up out of the best seats and step away from the bar to accommodate them. Halflings should be portrayed as the ones that don't make trouble, but step up and deal with it if trouble finds them; the ones that didn't start the fight, but will for sure end it. 

I have to admit... I feel like "Gnome" and "Halfling" are virtually inter-changeable in so many ways that it feels kind of odd to have them as separate races. I feel like you could just fold Halfling culture into Gnomish culture, maybe make them a sub-race and no one would notice.

It feels like they're basically a Legacy feature in the game at this point. Now, I might be a bit wrong on this and I don't feel like doing a lot of research for a forum post, but basically in the earliest versions of D&D they had Hobbits, until the Tolkien estate sued TSR and they just changed the name to "Halfling". But over time eventually Gnomes were introduced to be the short race representative, since they don't have all the baggage of Hobbits attached to them... but Halflings have been part of D&D from basically the very beginning. So now we have both.

Quote from pangurjan>>

Also, this is the right direction but not quite there. Hobbits aren't just inobtrusive, kindly, quiet people - hobbits are portrayed as absolutely not heroic, not adventurous people. Small of stature, small of ambition. The people most anyone else never heard of, because hobbits stay out of everyone else's drama. The Shire is the nothing-ever-happens-here-and-that's-how-we-like-it little nook of the world Middle-Earth (the Kingdoms of Men, Elves and Dwarves) forgot about, because that's what makes Bilbo the character he is - the accidental, almost against his will, kind of had to be tricked into it, eventual adventurer.  

And I get the "my race doesn't like adventuring" trope to make your character seem more like an individual member of your society, but most races don't like adventuring already, either. Most humans aren't adventurers, dwarves don't like leaving their strongholds for both safety and cultural reasons, Kobolds don't leave their dens because they're frail and much more deadly when fighting at home than out in the outside world, and so on. If their purpose is "unobtrusive people that don't like adventuring/travel and like to stay home", that's a relatively common human trait that not only can humans fill, but other races do as well. 

How many goblin characters are there start their adventuring career on their own free will compared to the amount that are adopted by an adventuring party? How many Gnomes leave their clans looking for trouble, when they're known for being antisocial and much more comfortable in their holes in the ground than out in the adventuring world? 

IMHO, this just isn't an important or solidified enough niche to warrant their existing. I repeat, if WotC were to publish 6e today with rules for Human characters being able to be between 3 and 6 feet in height, what would be the point of halflings? IMO, there wouldn't be one. Gnomes have enough identity and story to separate themselves from a 3-foot tall human adventurer, but Halflings don't. Put a halfling next to a human with dwarfism in a D&D world, and people are going to ask why those are different things. 

That's what the FR (which doesn't do races all that well in general, in my opinion) forgot or overlooked or just doesn't illustrate well enough . Humans aren't the quiet, comfortable, simple race. Humans are the johnny come lately race that took over the world. Humans are the ones that arrive last at the party and expect everyone who showed up early to get up out of the best seats and step away from the bar to accommodate them. Halflings should be portrayed as the ones that don't make trouble, but step up and deal with it if trouble finds them; the ones that didn't start the fight, but will for sure end it. 

Humans are also very diverse. There are people, societies, and communities that have similar cultural attitudes to what the halflings have, and there are/have been others that have attitudes more akin to Goliaths (Sparta, most notably). 

Quote from Third_Sundering

Gnomes have enough identity and story to separate themselves from a 3-foot tall human adventurer, but Halflings don't.

Is that so? What makes gnomes so different? Or for that matter, what makes elves or dwarves so different?  

Quote from TransmorpherDDS >>

I have to admit... I feel like "Gnome" and "Halfling" are virtually inter-changeable in so many ways that it feels kind of odd to have them as separate races. I feel like you could just fold Halfling culture into Gnomish culture, maybe make them a sub-race and no one would notice.

Nah, halflings are short humans, gnomes are short elves. They're completely different!

In this case I think I have to disagree with you, Third.  Not necessarily about halflings (typically) being boring, but about halflings being boring by default.  Others have talked to the point of different species being as boring, interesting, useful, or superfluous as one makes them, but while I have not spent the last several years inventing a homebrew world, I have been assembling bits of lore for a future idea.  One of them is, perhaps, an example of how even semi-conventional(ish) lore can be tweaked to set a species apart.

Goblins, in whatever world I end up creating in the future, are to humanity what humanity is to the elder species.  An elf or dwarf lives to two or three hundred (yes, I cut off most of an elf's ridiculous lifespan) and will generally produce three or four children in that time.  Elven and dwarven gestation takes close to five years, and a child of the elder species is not considered mature until their thirtieth or fortieth year, and until they complete a rite of adulthood.

Humans, of course, live for roughly a century, but a fecund human can produce ten to twelve children in this time.  Humans gestate in under a year, and their children are mature enough to contribute to human society in under two decades.  To the elder races, humanity breeds explosively and matures near instantly, they have no sense of purpose, rightness, or aesthetics, and...yadda yadda yadda.  You all know the tropes.

Goblins, in this world?  A goblin that lives to fifty is a most wise and aged gobbo indeed.  Most of them crap out in their forties, but a goblin woman can produce north of thirty children in her life.  She gestates in barely three months, often with multiple births, and goblin children are able to work in five years and considered fully adult and mature in ten.  Goblins breed truly explosively, they tend to live in tight-knit clans that resemble rat warrens to other species, and their standards are ever so much lower than humanity's.

Goblins, in my world, use the usual lore of goblins being weak, shifty, dirty little sewer rats to shine a light on humanity's position as the *same damn thing* from the perspective of the other species, and to dislodge 'HUMANITY, **** YEAH!' from its position as the masters of the world through ambition and Fast Fukkin'.  Goblins are vastly more fecund and can achieve incredible population density within a single human generation, and while an individual goblin often comes off as craven, self-serving, and pragmatic to a fault, the species as a whole is capable of great things when an entire goblin clan throws its weight of numbers behind an endeavor.  Humanity is left caught between the elder species, who have centuries to master talents humanity can never match, and the newer, smaller, greener species that outbreeds them as thoroughly as they outbreed the Elders and which they cannot crush no matter how hard they try.  I don't really change what goblins are (exempting the dumb lore about them being the sniveling, cowardly, stupid slaves of a bad evil god that got beat up by other bad evil gods who were better at being bad and evil), but I change how that essential nature is perceived and how it ties into the world.

Halflings could be made much more interesting and much more integral to the world without changing their essential nature through the same sort of perspective shift.  Perhaps halflings are the world's mediators - known for their hospitality, their lack of martial or imperial ambition, their generous grace and their easy contentment, halflings are natural mediators and professional Calmer Heads.  Many halflings are loremasters and lorekeepers, turning their warm, sleepy shires into repositories of tales far and wide, and any court without a halfling or three to counsel them and temper the rashness of other species is a poorer court, indeed.  Perhaps halfling communities are rocks of stability within violent nations, or perhaps halflings are actually the oldest species, even beyond elves or dwarves.  Their sleepy contentment comes from an almost genetic sense of experience and wisdom, the knowledge that they have endured and will endure, and for all the tempestuous ire and fire of the younger species?  They'll all eventually learn what the halflings already have - a hot meal, a warm fire, a good book, and a loving partner are all the treasure one needs in life.  They teach this lesson to those who would listen and are the Kindly Grampa of the species mix in any world they appear.

Or so it may go in one world, at least.

Quote from Third_Sundering >>

Quote from NaivaraArnuanna >>

The fact that halflings are unobtrusive and prefer a quiet, comfortable life is kind of the point of halflings. If they’re not doers of great deeds, well, that’s the idea. In a world full of epic fantasy and ambitious conflicts, halflings are a point of normalcy and simplicity. They represent the kindly, earthy, constant side of humanity. Not trying to be special is what makes them special.

. . . But isn't that why we have Humans in the game? To be the generic "human" part of fantasy that can cover most character niches, right? Why do you need halflings to be quiet, comfortable, simple and "normal" if you can literally just make Humans fill that niche just as well. To me, that seems a bit redundant, just as redundant as creating a whole fantasy race around people that like eating ice cream. Sure. Most people enjoy ice cream/peace and quiet, but we don't need a race that's whole shtick is liking ice cream/peace and quiet. That just seems kind of pointless. 

 Definitely not. Humans are the race least content with where they are: we’re always trying to get something, whether gold or justice or a legacy or whatever. It’s why human societies are so big and important in fantasy. Halflings just are. The years pass them by as they watch, and they don’t try to change them, or themselves. They’re the opposite of innovators, farming and making friends in their shires just like they did a thousand years ago, and they’ll be doing the same a thousand years from now. And if the world lets them alone, they’re happy to let it alone in return: it’s just more comfortable that way.

In short, humans are by nature doers and changers, but halflings are the exact opposite. They plant, plow, and stay the same, now and for always.

Quick edit: I’d also say Halflings are good for the game because they’re a fantasy race with a feel that every new player recognizes from LotR. It’s a game after all, and sometimes ripping off something everyone knows (with a lot of depth of its own) makes for a more fleshed-out race than any lore a DM can come up with.

If you do not see the difference between dwarves and halflings, you're missing the point, both in Tolkien and D&D. On one hand, you have a race that's

- short

- great miners

- stoic

- loves ale

On the other hand, you have a race that's

- short

- great gardeners

- epicurean

- loves beer

They have different story roles, not vastly different body types. You're more likely to find a halfling in a small town tavern and a dwarf in an ancient ruin.

In the real world, we are, all of us, Human.  It's hardly surprising then that when playing a game people want some variation on Humans that changes them in a mechanical way and makes them more fun and interesting to play.  A brief search reveals "Variant Human" to exist in the game, and there's quite a few varieties of them.

Elves really only came into the game because of Tolkien, just as Halflings did.  The game now has a plethora of varieties of Elves.  In fact, people complain quite a lot about about that.  Why don't other, more interesting races get the same amount of attention?  Where are the 47 different kinds of Dwarves?  Gruff, tough guys with big beards who are rather short do exist, are called "Dwarves" and they are pretty proud of being so.

Halflings have six sub-types; Ghostwise, Lightfoot, Lotusden, Mark of Healing, Mark of Hospitality, and Stout.  That seems to work pretty well.  Gnomes only have four sub-types; Deep, Forest, Mark of Scribing and Rock.  They seem to be fine as well.  I personally don't use the "Mark Of" types, but there's no reason why you shouldn't.

The Halflings of Dark Sun are a wonderful example.  According to the lore, they were the first race to be created, had a grand and high civilization that was destroyed by magic, and now all that remains are Land Piranha.  Can you swap in any other race?  Sure!  This begs the question.  Why bother to have races in the first place?  If they are all interchangeable, then all that matters is the lore, and hey!  We have that!  We have a race for which there is an elaborate lore and history called "Halflings".  Are you able to tell Dark Sun Halflings from the various kinds in any other setting?  I think so.

The Player's Handbook Halflings are fine as is.  The are Small and Practical, Kind and Curious, they Blend into a Crowd, they enjoy Pastoral Pleasantries, and enjoy Exploring Opportunities.  That's what it says in the book.  They get Lucky, Brave, and Halfling Nimbleness.  They seem pretty much ideal for adventuring, being just a touch away from being Human, but they can't really be mistaken for one with all the things about them that make them different.  Half-Human, Halfling, a mixture of both and neither, that doesn't quite fit in anywhere, but can be found pretty much everywhere...  Does this remind you of Half-Elfs and Half-Orcs?  They ought to get cool names too.  Elflings, Orclings, Halflings...  Add in Gelflings from "The Dark Crystal" as one of the Fey races...

To be honest, once you start digging at the tropes of the different sentient species of D&D all you find is legacy tropes that are around because of tradition. 5E has never set out to be brave about their tropes and literary devices, it was pretty obviously meant to recapture a traditionalist audience that they lost with 4E.

When you get right down to it, the sentient species in fantasy stories are there to answer the questions of "What if there were people, but unlike us they X?" with X being things like "lived longer" or "are supernaturally beautiful and graceful" or "can speak to animals." What have you.

But consumerist fantasy doesn't tend to ask questions that are quite as weird as say .. science fiction does, so you don't get peoples who are too far off from human. To be honest the roots of a lot of traditional fantasy stories are probably from old depictions of foreign human cultures twisted through time and retelling into outright different species. Whiiiich is where the racist tropes sneak in.

I have ideas all the time where I redesign a world to have people who are not just humans in hats, but I feel like it can lose the audience. So let's have stock standard humans, right? then let's have your typical longer lived species, but instead of elves let's have something not humanoid. How about ... dragons? Let's make them non organic elemental creatures, to boot. So now we have a functionally immortal species, probably doesn't have a lot of need for society so they're basically loners. If they can reproduce by concentrating their essence into eggs or if they just naturally arise from magically potent sources of their element they don't even need to pair up to mate.

In the other direction, if we want a r-type species (makes more offspring to play the numbers game) let's do goblins. But what if our goblins were a ... I dunno, eusocial hivemind species? Ooh I know, let's make something like a naked mole rat, but green, and with six legs! Get some tardigrade action in there. The queen goblin is the heart of the colony, but they're not the leader, they just make the babies. Each goblin is born the same, but through a process that involve pheromones, some latent psionics, and a mutagenic physiology each goblin starts developing into different castes. The ones most likely to be adventurers are the ones who have developed higher thinking and communication. They take on whatever gender expression is useful for dealing with outsiders, but really don't have sexes like humans. They live short lives, but they learn at a ferocious rate and pick up skills in a fraction of the time a human could because they are physiologically adaptable to the point where their bodies change rapidly to adjust for new situations.

So you get your typical yoda looking goblins because the talky ones start to take on the characteristics of humans because they subconsciously adjust their bodies to mirror their task and humans are just more comfortable with a more humanoid body type. Do this long enough and you start getting hobgoblins, maybe orcs? They might still have a vestigial pair of arms, or they might atrophy away. Maybe they start losing their green coloration and start taking on more human hues, who knows? The smarter ones can condition their own bodies to develop in certain ways.

But you know... then it wouldn't be Tolkien. *shrug*

I think you miss the point with halflings being "small humans".  In most fantasy, humans have always been the newest race, and one that represents the most danger to other races.  While elves, dwarves, giants, orcs, etc. are mostly consistent across their ethos, humans represent the widest degree of difference in alignment, temperament, etc.  Humans are capable of great good, or great evil, as a race or a kingdom.  Dwarves, elves an all the others tend to be more aligned in their actions, apart from the obvious outliers.

In that vein, the halflings fit right in.  They are by and large rural, simple, happy folk with small ambitions.  Having a nice garden, 2nd breakfast, a nice mug of beer and a comfy home are all they need.  But they have the ability to be mostly unseen and they are unusually agile.  Why would they have these features as a race if they are lazy, bucolic and sedentary?  To me, that is a survival trait to avoid the notice of bigger, more aggressive creatures. That is why they make great thieves if they are inclined to adventure.

Quote from pangurjan >>

Quote from Third_Sundering

Gnomes have enough identity and story to separate themselves from a 3-foot tall human adventurer, but Halflings don't.

Is that so? What makes gnomes so different? Or for that matter, what makes elves or dwarves so different?  

For one, gnomes have feyish origins. Even if D&D elves were suddenly 3 feet tall, you could distinguish between Elves and Gnomes, as Elves are typically more war-like/martial, and Gnomes are typically more curious, antisocial, and artificer-y/illusion-y. If Halflings were gone, Humans could be 3 feet tall, and Gnomes still existed, the fey nature of gnomes and their base lore would be enough to warrant keeping them, IMO. They're not just "short people", they're "fey-ish short people that master tinkering/illusion magic and hide in dens". 

There's a notable difference between a large niche that any character of any race can be a part of (not liking adventuring, being short, being pastoral), and a smaller niche that a race is built around to tell a story/drive plot (being fey-touched and tricksy, being adept at artifice/illusions, being good miners/tree-dwelling hunters, etc). Humans are diverse enough that they can cover most tropes that typical humanoid races include, but that doesn't mean that certain races can't exist because humans can fulfill that, but it also doesn't mean that any trope is specific enough to warrant building a character race around it.