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.