Editing Hobbits (section)

==So, why are they on here?==
Beyond the fact that Tolkien is generally held up as the grandfather of modern fantasy gaming? It all goes back to [[Dungeons & Dragons]]. See, in the first edition, even before then, back when D&D was still little more than a warband game with some leveling up mechanics attached like a trailer, [[Gary Gygax]] and crew started to add non-human races to the game. Since Tolkien was really super huge in their kind of circle in those days, naturally, they stole most of their ideas for demihumans directly from him. And that included taking hobbits as one of the options, alongside the [[dwarf]] and [[elf]] races.

Of course, Tolkien's estate wouldn't stand for it under copyright laws and threatened to slap Gygax in the face with a lawsuit. So, Gygax changed the name of D&D's hobbits to "[[halflings]]", after an alternate name used by humans to refer to them throughout the trilogy, and then changed... nothing else. And, somehow, it worked. Tolkien's family couldn't/didn't sue, and D&D went on to be a huge success.

After [[Wizards of the Coast]] took over though, the Halflings slowly became less and less Hobbit-like, under the not-unjustified presumption that "simple Countryfolk with a penchant for napping and stuffing their face being shanghaied into adventuring" was kind of a one-trick deal.

[[Games Workshop]] did a [[Lord of the Rings]] warband game to cash in on Peter Jackson's Lord of the Rings film trilogy, which was subsequently revived when The Hobbit came out. This is pretty meta when you consider the D&D connection Hobbits have.

In [[Warhammer Fantasy]], the local halflings of The Moot are basically a [[grimdark]] take on Hobbits, taking all of the standard traits and using them with a coarser touch. Unlike their 40k cousins the Ratlings, Warhammer halflings got an army list of their own. Unfortunately for them, it was a solitary article in Citadel Journal #36 printed back in 2000, and their only official models were a Dogs of War regiment made in the late '90s. As time passed and GW became less fun, they've been gradually forgotten and/or written out of the lore until [[Age Of Sigmar]] killed them off, except not really because members of their species appeared as hostages of the Kunnin' Krew Kruleboyz in Harrowdeep. [[Warhammer Fantasy Roleplay]], on the other hand, gave them plenty of time in limelight, as they are one of four playable races and there's a good chance that any given party will include the little shite with a sling. 

The [[Ratlings]] of [[Warhammer 40,000]] are literally Warhammer's halflings in space, though they get more credit from writers and fans than their fantasy counterparts because Ratling snipers are an option you can take in Imperial Guard armies. It's not an army list, but at least they have models and get updates from the creators. There are even two ratling characters in [[Blackstone Fortress]]!