# What's with the Gnome Hate?



## Sylrae (Jul 11, 2008)

Could someone explain to me all the gnome hate?
Alot of people seem to hate them, but I don't know why. I mean, I don't like the 2e gnomes or lawn gnomes, but I hate the 2e dwarves too. they just look like absurdly ridiculous little fat people.

I'm not a big fan of the 4e gnome art, but the 3e and pathfinder ones are pretty cool. I like the iconic gnome bard. On the cover of Complete swashbuckler his face looks alarmingly like my best friend's before he started getting shorter haircuts.

and Pathfinder gnomes look pretty cool too.

----------------3e stuff
I don't get what's not to like about them. They're like the short magical race. Theyre taken a little less seriously, but mechanic wise theyre ok, and I think overall they're pretty cool. I usually play FR games - (3e), or games where anything with the appropriate LA goes - (3e), but out of the core races(PHB), gnomes are my second favorite. my favorite out of those would be the elf. However, I rarely use the PHB for races.

If you're gonna rag on someone, shouldn't it be the orc or halfelf-(3e)?even the halfling is less interesting than a gnome. I know the halfling is supposedly a staple, but I've never seen anyone actually try to play one. Gnomes I've seen though. and nobody plays halforcs cause they got shafted so much statistically.If youre gonna play an orc everyone I know just uses the MM 3.5 orc cause they suck less and are still LA 0. and well, nobody plays helf elves cause they suck too.

So given the fact that out of the 7 core races, gnomes are in the 4 that don't suck mechanically(Human, Dwarf, Elf, Gnome), and they have a cool spellcaster bard niche which other races dont, why do people hate them.

---------back to 4e stuff
as far as 4e races are concerned, are there any you guys hate? I loathe the dragonborn. I'm not opposed to having a draconic race, I just don't like the artwork, or the idea that they are so numerous. Not a fan of the eladrin either, but that's because I like the 2e and to a lesser extent 3e eladrin, which were a kind of celestial and had a cool background with different abilities then they do in 4e, and the fact that they made the teleporting fey be called eladrin means they killed 'actual' eladrin. plus there's the practicality issue of if you ever capture the pcs, and the guards know one is eladrin (he didnt successfully pass himself off as an elf), the practical thing to do is just put out his eyes. 

what do you guys think? what's up with the 4e gnome art, what's up with the gnome hate, and why do people like those other races I listed issues with?


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## Ioreck_Thorinback (Jul 11, 2008)

So really you don't like the fluff of the Dragonborn and Eladrin.

For me it was Dragonborn and Tiefling.  I turned Dragonborn into a hidden race, unknown to the world, and tiefling into one of the underdark races, as feared as the drow.  Everything works out nicely.


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## Otterscrubber (Jul 11, 2008)

I don't recall to many folks hating on gnomes, in fact I seem to recall several people being very excited to have gnome stat blocks in the MM so they could play them as a PC if their DM allowed.  

Although in my experience I have to lump my gnome experience with your halfling one,  I don't really know anyone who played one consistently or as anything other than an experiment.

Also, I don't think dragonborn are all that numerous based on the description in the PHB.  Doesn't sound like there are any DB cities, only a few scattered communities of them.  I know what you mean, they seem to have the appearance of standard lizard men.  Why aren't they just lizard men?  Well i guess cuz they have a breath weapon?  Meh.  I play one, only because I had a concept for a 3.5v Half-Dragon ranger who dual-wielded a two-bladed sword.  Sadly, no more two bladed swords, although I'm sure we will figure something out for the campaign.


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## Shroomy (Jul 11, 2008)

Travelocity screwed me good....er...wait...seriously, the idea that gnomes are widely hated is overstated IMO, mainly stoked by their 4e "demotion" (even though the 4e gnome rocks) and bad reactions to the WoTC flash animation.  Which is ironic, since the gnome from that cartoon is probably one of the more iconic elements of 4e.

In any case, the gnome is coming out in PHBII (in what March?), so we don't have that long to wait for an official, full-blown 4e gnome.


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## MwaO (Jul 11, 2008)

Basically, a lot of players of Gnomes tend to think that Gnomes should be funny in a slightly annoying way.

Two big problems exist with this:
Funny is difficult. There are some gamers who pull this off effortlessly. There are other gamers who couldn't be funny if their life depended on it. Worse, there are some people who think simply playing a Gnome ought to be hilarious in and of itself - you know the kind of person who tells you a joke, you don't laugh, so they repeat it louder as if that will make it funny? You don't laugh at those Gnomes, they'll try to do it bigger as if that will make it more funny.

Annoying is easy. Combine an annoying player with a Gnome and you don't get slightly annoying. You get really annoying.

That's why people hate Gnomes.


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## Yaezakura (Jul 11, 2008)

Otterscrubber said:


> I know what you mean, they seem to have the appearance of standard lizard men.  Why aren't they just lizard men?



Dragonborn look nothing like Lizardmen.  In fact, about the only thing they have in common is scales. I don't know what art you're looking at, but a lizardman looks like a giant bipedal lizard, while a Dragonborn has distinctive draconic features.

As for the gnome hate... there's not really a lot of hate for gnomes. But there's also not a whole lot of support for them. Gnomes were just kind of there, and had no distinctive place in the world, outside of Eberron. Plus there was a lot of confusion over what role they were supposed to be playing. Were they supposed to be little tricksters, weaving illusions and playing pranks? Were they supposed to be tinker gnomes, always fiddling with mechanical gadgets? You ask two people what a gnome is supposed to be, you'll likely get two very different answers, about the only common element being "little". While I never liked gnomes, I'm glad they decided to take the time to make them unique and interesting as a race instead of just kicking out there and saying "Here's a gnome, you figure out what the hell they're supposed to be".


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## KarinsDad (Jul 11, 2008)

I don't hate Gnomes more than any other Monster with a lair in the MM that should be destroyed.

Protecting society (from stinky little monsters) is the ultimate goal. Gaining wealth comes in a close second. Killing things, a close third. Well, maybe wealth first, killing second, and protecting third. No, no. Killing first, wealth second, protecting third.

Yes, that definitely the order. Murder, loot, and justifying it.

Starting with any Monster (especially stinking little ones) in the MM.


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## Sylrae (Jul 11, 2008)

gnomes were never that hard to figure out. you have 2 real options:

1. Magical, and not very serious
2. Tinkering, and machine building

in most D&D games machines play little role, so 1 is the only option. in ones that have tech, or in FR, where gnomes are the ONLY ones with any real tech, then you have a pick.

not all gnomes are funny, but when roleplaying a gnome my advice is just dont take your actions as seriously as you normally do. dont actively try to be funny, it rarely works.

as for eberron, i honestly never gave it a chance. the warforged just make me want to kill things. I have no idea why either. but thats why i never tried the setting is my unexplicable hatred of warforged.

as for dragonborn: just a note - what the hell is up with lizards with boobs. seriously. female dragons dont have boobs. dragonborn arent mammals.

I liked dragonkin from 3.x better, but they werent a player race from what I remember.


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## DracoSuave (Jul 11, 2008)

I'm a MONSTER!!  RAWR!



In Eberron Gnomes were pretty dope, with their spying and intrigues.  They made them into a viable culture, which I thought was excellently done.  The baseline however left much to be desired, which is why it kept changing from edition to sub-edition.


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## Yaezakura (Jul 11, 2008)

Sylrae said:


> as for dragonborn: just a note - what the hell is up with lizards with boobs. seriously. female dragons dont have boobs. dragonborn arent mammals.
> 
> I liked dragonkin from 3.x better, but they werent a player race from what I remember.



If you read the newest Dragon article, "Dragonborn Ecology", it points out that Dragonborn are _not _reptiles. They are warm-blooded, and they _do _nurse their young in the first few months of life before their teeth grow in.

The Dragonborn _are_ draconic in nature, but they are _not_ full dragons. It's only natural for them to have some biological differences. And what with gods and such being real, and the Dragonborn being humanoid in shape, it's only natural for them to also share some basic elements with other humanoid creatures.


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## frankthedm (Jul 11, 2008)

Legion of the anti gnome.

Don't like em as PC races, don't like 'em more than 1' tall.


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## Danceofmasks (Jul 11, 2008)

3e gnomes were awesome. My favourite PHB race.
4e gnomes ... *sigh* ... they didn't make the cut 'cos they seem too similar to tieflings mechanically, and a decision was made.
Here's to PHB2


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## Talzar (Jul 11, 2008)

apearlma said:


> Basically, a lot of players of Gnomes tend to think that Gnomes should be funny in a slightly annoying way.
> 
> Two big problems exist with this:
> Funny is difficult. There are some gamers who pull this off effortlessly. There are other gamers who couldn't be funny if their life depended on it. Worse, there are some people who think simply playing a Gnome ought to be hilarious in and of itself - you know the kind of person who tells you a joke, you don't laugh, so they repeat it louder as if that will make it funny? You don't laugh at those Gnomes, they'll try to do it bigger as if that will make it more funny.
> ...



This is true for me. I do not dislike gnomes, so much as the way most people have played them. Same with halflings, to a greater extent. I blame Dragonlance for giving my friends strange ideas about how those two races should be played.


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## Danceofmasks (Jul 11, 2008)

Bad dragonlance. Bad.
I blame dragonlance for putting into a vast number of folks' heads the idea that deus ex machina is an acceptable plot device.


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## KingCrab (Jul 11, 2008)

2e Desert of Desolation:  Prit (the gnome) may be my favorite module NPC of all time.  That guy had class.


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## Whizbang Dustyboots (Jul 11, 2008)

There are fewer and fewer gnome haters all the time.

_Quickly hides the knife._

What?


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## small pumpkin man (Jul 11, 2008)

It's so much hate as disinterest. Why would I want to play a dorky looking 3 foot tall guy? Dwarves are tougher and humans are better magic users, there's no hook.


Sylrae said:


> gnomes were never that hard to figure out. you have 2 real options:
> 
> 1. Magical, and not very serious
> 2. Tinkering, and machine building



So the two major archetypes are "silly and mood breaking" and "likes to dabble with things which don't fit into most D&D settings". Is it that much of a shock the never got much love?


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## AllisterH (Jul 11, 2008)

*Shrug*

You got to understand the history of gnomes to understand why they weren't that popular.

In 1e/2e, the gnome "niche" was that it was a spellcasting dwarf. Basically, the fluff said they were a cousin race to dwarves (In Mystara for example, the lore was that they were designed by Moridin as an offshoot for example) and they basically had the same stats as a dwarf and culture as well. Now, this wouldn't be so bad but there's one thing that really turned gamers off. While Dwarves prided themselves on their beard, gnomes prided themselves on the size of the NOSE. Needless to say, you're not going to get many gamers running around wanting to play it.

Throw in the image of the gnomes weren't that hot. For example, I dare anyone to look at the 2E PHB and not wonder why the gnomes looks likes a mini Santa. Then you had TSR's own portrayal of gnomes. 2E produced a lot of campaign settings but let's look at how gnomes were portrayed.

1. Dragonlance gave the abominable tinkergnome schtick which Spelljammer followed up on.

2. Forgotten Realms used a toned down version of the tinker gnome but the only time you went to their homeland was if you wanted guns in your FR. Needless to say, that ain't exactly popular among fans.

3. Ravenloft and Planescape retty much ignored gnomes. I'm honestly blanking in trying to remember a gnome NPC from either Ravenloft or PS. 

4. Greyhawk and Mystara mentions them once or twice with regard to their connection to dwarves but after that, they just disappear from the setting.

1. Birthright and Darksun actually killed them off.

When 3E lifted the class race restriction, it actually helped kill off gnomes even faster. If you wanted a spellcasting dwarf, why play the gnome just play the real thing.

So later on, this "forest dwelling fey" niche seems to been latched on by WOTC but that itself started to horn in on the ELF niche (which the Eladrin represent). If you wanted to play said race, going back to 1E, elves were the "forest dwelling arcanist fey" race.

Again, the gnome was pretty much ignored in 2E, got screwed over by 3E and I think 4E finally said, "ok, let's go back to the drawing board and try to get it right"


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## Whizbang Dustyboots (Jul 11, 2008)

small pumpkin man said:


> So the two major archetypes are "silly and mood breaking"



You must have the only D&D game I've ever heard of that didn't dissolve into Monty Python quote fests, sophomoric humor involving bodily functions and stupid pranks pulled on other players.

"Mood breaking?" Based on most of the games I've participated in, most players are closer to gnomes than they are any other PHB race.


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## Whizbang Dustyboots (Jul 11, 2008)

AllisterH said:


> 4. Greyhawk and Mystara mentions them once or twice with regard to their connection to dwarves but after that, they just disappear from the setting.



Or not.


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## Kzach (Jul 11, 2008)

Gnomes are good for two things. Killing and punting.


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## icarusfallz (Jul 11, 2008)

Kzach said:


> Gnomes are good for two things. Killing and punting.





If you believe this, you should read the FR novel Soldiers of Ice.  I made a PC based on the Gnome Badger Fighter in that book.

Mine liked to sing at his enemies while fighting.  He sang badly, but the intent was to demoralize, so it worked.  

Well I went down to the Underdark
To see what I could see...
I must have known yer mother
'Cause you look Half-Gnome to me!

                  -Piotr Chillblade​


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## WhatGravitas (Jul 11, 2008)

Whizbang Dustyboots said:


> _Quickly hides the knife._
> 
> What?



Now, mean lean killing machines that stalk the world - that's something I can get behind.

The 4E gnomes to that well, and even fit Eberron well with their ability!

In general, I dislike gnomes, but in 4E + Eberron = Goodness!

Cheers, LT.


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## Fenes (Jul 11, 2008)

apearlma said:


> Annoying is easy. Combine an annoying player with a Gnome and you don't get slightly annoying. You get really annoying.
> 
> That's why people hate Gnomes.




I'd change "Annoying player" to "annoying character", and agree with that. Tinker gnomes ruined the race for me. And ever since some author introduced "gnomium" just so he could write a story about nukes in D&D they have become game killers for me.


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## Mustrum_Ridcully (Jul 11, 2008)

I think there was never a Gnome hate. The problem was there was no real Gnome love. Sure, there are some people that play them and want them back as Player Race for 4E now. But most of the people just never cared for them.

I can remember one Gnome character in 8 years of 3E. I also distinctively remember only one Gnome NPC I created myself, and I mostly used Gnome because I wanted a psionic psychopath and found that Gnome would be the most disconcerting. 

Gnomes had also the problems of having no class abilities that made them stand out. The Halfling seemed more fitting into the "small race" role. He had racial abilities that fit the idea of a small creature far better - +2 to Dex, bonus on Move Silently. The Gnome was a smaller Dwarf by comparison, and thus he lacked a role.

The 4E Gnome isn't bad and seems to have found a niche, but is he player material? With their reactive invisibility feature, they seem like creatures that exist in hiding, not as members of adventuring parties or presence in typical settlements.


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## Mustrum_Ridcully (Jul 11, 2008)

Whizbang Dustyboots said:


> There are fewer and fewer gnome haters all the time.
> 
> _Quickly hides the knife._
> 
> What?




Gnomish Freedom Fighter? Is that, like a spoiler? Gnomes win in the end?


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## Derro (Jul 11, 2008)

Back in my 1e days the most terrifying villain around was a gnome. And he was a PC! A deep gnome assassin named Bjorn. Even my minotaur killing machine was careful not to piss off that little bugger.

I can see why the gnome got the axe as a base race for 4e. He doesn't fill a niche that you can't get with a dwarf, elf, or halfling depending on your concept. With the delay of bards and druids there is no class for the gnome to dovetail with.

Personally I like Paizo's take on the gnome. There are complaints that they are too anime with their colored hair but what the heck. At least they occupy their own niche, the magical nature trickster, which the elf does not do nearly as well. 

I'm of the opinion that halflings could use a break. But they are an archetypal race even though their image is relatively new. They really are just less annoying kender. Halflings were originally fat guys with hairy feet.

There were some good gnomes in the Aquerra Story Hour, Out of the Frying Pan. I haven't read it in a while but I remember loving some of those characters. Let's just say half-fiends show up in the strangest places.

As far as gnome-hate is concerned I think that those who are most vocal about it are just piping up 'cause there's no gnomes around to hear it.

Cowards.


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## Steely Dan (Jul 11, 2008)

I love gnomes, especially when they have flat-heads and no teeth.

And the art and vibe of the 4th Ed gnome is rocking my free world.


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## Kzach (Jul 11, 2008)

icarusfallz said:


> If you believe this, you should read the FR novel Soldiers of Ice.  I made a PC based on the Gnome Badger Fighter in that book.
> 
> Mine liked to sing at his enemies while fighting.  He sang badly, but the intent was to demoralize, so it worked.




What the Hell has this got to do with me killing and/or punting gnomes? Aside from giving me even more reason to kill them over punting them.


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## icarusfallz (Jul 11, 2008)

Wow, Kzach, I bet you have this racist hatred against Gnomes no matter what PC you are playing.  How boring.  We once had a player that would have his character attempt to kill any elf he saw.  made roleplaying with him very difficult.

He no longer has a game to play.

I made a comment to try to show that ANY race (or class, or whatever) could be fun and interesting to play.  You respond with (in game) violence.

What a pity...  I'm bored with you now.


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## Fenes (Jul 11, 2008)

icarusfallz said:


> Wow, Kzach, I bet you have this racist hatred against Gnomes no matter what PC you are playing.  How boring.  We once had a player that would have his character attempt to kill any elf he saw.  made roleplaying with him very difficult.
> 
> He no longer has a game to play.
> 
> ...




Gnomes, munchkins, drizzt-clones, nymphomanic lesbian elven bladesigners, kleptomanic kenders - everything rubs someone the wrong way. That doesn't make them boring, or wrong, it just means they have different tastes.


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## Steely Dan (Jul 11, 2008)

Fenes said:


> nymphomanic lesbian elven bladesigners




I'm stealing that – fantastic.


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## Hussar (Jul 11, 2008)

I rarely saw gnome hate.

To hate something requires that you have to register it on your awareness radar.  

The only person I've ever played with who cared in the slightest about gnomes was myself.  And, heck, we were two years into a Scarred Lands campaign before anyone noticed that there were no gnomes.

In my last campaign, people played short arsed charismatic KOBOLD BARDS instead of trying out a gnome.  When I asked about it, the basic reaction was, "Gnome?  Oh yeah, there's a race in the PHB yeah?  Hrm ... naw, I'll stick with my character."


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## Wormwood (Jul 11, 2008)

Hate? No. Just indifference. 

If it weren't for the interweb complaints, I wouldn't have even noticed they were missing from the 4e PHB.


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## Psion (Jul 11, 2008)

Sylrae said:


> Could someone explain to me all the gnome hate?




Yes, yes I can. Or at least, I tried. I speculated as to the "why's" about the general indifference and disdain for gnomes as the topic of one of last week's blog posts. Check it out:
http://www.enworld.org/forum/blog.php?b=253


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## Nightchilde-2 (Jul 11, 2008)

Lord Tirian said:


> In general, I dislike gnomes, but in 4E + Eberron = Goodness!




Eberron gnomes are full of win and awesome.  The one time I actually saw a player pull out a gnome PC was in Eberron and the character was a right vicious little secret stilling bastich.

Other gnomes...eh...not so exciting.  And I rank tinker gnomes right up there with kender.


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## Steely Dan (Jul 11, 2008)

The _Companions of the Dead_ were some pretty interesting and tough gnomish hombres.


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## (Psi)SeveredHead (Jul 11, 2008)

Sylrae said:


> Could someone explain to me all the gnome hate?
> Alot of people seem to hate them, but I don't know why. I mean, I don't like the 2e gnomes or lawn gnomes, but I hate the 2e dwarves too. they just look like absurdly ridiculous little fat people.




I think a lot of people don't like them. The only gnomes I personally hate are tinker gnomes, as I think they wreck setting flavor, which is more damaging than just not being serious.

Gnomes don't have a cool or distinct niche. They seem like they're just a blend between dwarf and elf. I don't consider "short and magical" to be a distinct niche, either, which seemed the only reason behind gnomes in 2e. (IIRC, halflings couldn't be wizards, and of course, neither could dwarves.)

Since 3.x and 4e let anyone be wizards, even that last niche is gone.

It doesn't help that there were no gnomes in Tolkien. There's not a whole lot of racial fluff in the various PHs, but anyone who has read Lord of the Rings has a decent idea of how to play humans, elves, dwarves and "hobbitses".

There is one exception: Eberron. And even the ECS didn't make gnomes cool. Unless you read the first gnome Dragonshard, gnomes just came off as only slightly creepy. (They should reprint that Dragonshard, word-for-word, in the 4e ECS.)



> ----------------3e stuff
> I don't get what's not to like about them. They're like the short magical race. Theyre taken a little less seriously, but mechanic wise theyre ok, and I think overall they're pretty cool. I usually play FR games - (3e), or games where anything with the appropriate LA goes - (3e), but out of the core races(PHB), gnomes are my second favorite. my favorite out of those would be the elf. However, I rarely use the PHB for races.




I think people pick flavor over mechanics when choosing a race. I've played a gnome PC precisely once, and that was explicitly to be a mage with +2 Con. You couldn't tell my character was a gnome if he didn't tell you.



> If you're gonna rag on someone, shouldn't it be the orc or halfelf-(3e)?




People did!



> even the halfling is less interesting than a gnome. I know the halfling is supposedly a staple, but I've never seen anyone actually try to play one.




I think halflings were more often considered interested, and more often played, then gnomes in *most* groups.



> So given the fact that out of the 7 core races, gnomes are in the 4 that don't suck mechanically(Human, Dwarf, Elf, Gnome), and they have a cool spellcaster bard niche which other races dont, why do people hate them.




Anyone can be a bard. Even a short bard. There's nothing wrong with a halfling bard. And of course, bards are already seen as unserious, which is pretty bad considering that gnomes are also often viewed as unserious.



> ---------back to 4e stuff
> as far as 4e races are concerned, are there any you guys hate?




In 5e, I suspect some of the new 4e races will be exiled to the MM. Maybe they'll come up with a distinct niche for gnomes by then, but I doubt it.


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## Kzach (Jul 11, 2008)

icarusfallz said:


> What a pity...  I'm bored with you now.



All gnomes must die.

Why do you not see this?

I bet you're short. And ugly. Like a gnome.


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## Doug McCrae (Jul 11, 2008)

In all my time playing D&D, I've seen a total of two* gnome PCs. In my first session of 4e, there were two dragonborn.

Virtually no one wants to play gnomes. In 30 years, the creators of D&D haven't found a worthwhile niche for them. Elves got fey covered, halflings got shorty covered. Tinker gnomes are too videogame-y and don't really have a place in the default D&D world which is tech free. When something hasn't worked for 30 years, it's time to give up on the concept.

*Of those two, the first was the worst and most immature player I've ever gamed with. The trickster gnome was actually quite a good fit for his personality. The second time was a good character, a necromancer. The player riffed off the comedy value of evil eldritch power in a tiny body. But he could've done the exact same with a halfling.


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## Desdichado (Jul 11, 2008)

Tinker gnomes are widely hated.

Regular gnomes are widely met with apathy.

I just don't have any use for them whatsoever.  They play no obvious role in any campaign setting.  I've yet to see a setting where they don't feel shoe-horned in just because the PHB has them, so they've gotta be there somewhere.

I've seen a lot more halfling PCs than gnome PCs.

Your arguments in the OP are all about stats too, which is part of the problem.  The only time I _have_ seen gnome PC's was from people who played them for the stats.  They didn't play the PC's particularly "gnomish" partly because, who in the world knows that that means, and partly because obviously they just didn't care.  Gnomes were halflings with better CON, and therefore made better wizards and sorcerers statistics wise.


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## Steely Dan (Jul 11, 2008)

Hobo said:


> I've seen a lot more halfling PCs than gnome PCs.






Funnily enough, no one in my 20+ years that I have gamed with has ever wanted to play a stunted race (dwarf, gnome _or _halfling), that of course is just my experience, I know tons of people love their dwarves and what not.


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## Desdichado (Jul 11, 2008)

Steely Dan said:


> Funnily enough, no one in my 20+ years that I have gamed with has ever wanted to play a stunted race (dwarf, gnome _or _Halfling), that of course is just my experience, I know tons of people love their dwarves and what not.




Can I join your group?


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## Steely Dan (Jul 11, 2008)

Hobo said:


> Can I join your group?





Absolutely, we want a 4th player – I run a fortnightly _Planescape_ campaign, that we have just converted fully to 4th Ed, so if you live in the greater London (UK) area, or near enough to get to London every couple of weeks, you are more than welcome to join.


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## Wormwood (Jul 11, 2008)

Doug McCrae said:


> In all my time playing D&D, I've seen a total of two* gnome PCs.



And that's _double _the number I've seen.

Of course, he was played purely for comedy relief ("uncle Bignose" being his name. Great player, dumb character.)


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## Desdichado (Jul 11, 2008)

Steely Dan said:


> Absolutely, we want a 4th player – I run a fortnightly _Planescape_ campaign, that we have just converted fully to 4th Ed, so if you live in the greater London (UK) area, or near enough to get to London every couple of weeks, you are more than welcome to join.



Huh.  That's a bit of a commute for me (I live in Detroit.  Detroit-ish, anyway.)  I'll have to think about it.


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## Cadfan (Jul 11, 2008)

I don't like gnomes because they're pointless.  They're like halflings, except more lame.  I might consider liking gnomes in the future, if they ever obtain a purpose or a hook or something to make me think they're anything other than magical halflings.

I'd even accept "tinker gnome" as an archetype.  I don't care what the archetype IS, they just need to HAVE one.


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## Barastrondo (Jul 11, 2008)

As a thought experiment, I tried mucking around with core races to make them more than just one-note stereotypes; figuring out how to make multiple halfling cultures that felt different, giving them effectively almost as much versatility as humanity. I found that sufficiently versatile halflings and dwarves made gnomes a redundancy: there was no gnome concept that couldn't be done with a halfling or dwarf concept, save the one reliant on "gnome" as a concept.

Now, the more limited your baseline assumptions for the scope of a fantasy world, the more niche protection you get. For example, when we worked on Relics & Rituals: Excalibur and its Olympus sister volume, races fit into niches rather neatly because you weren't trying to make the setting truly multicultural. If everyone's a riff off of Greek myth, then there's definitely room for a race of philosopher-magicians that aren't the same thing as the more far-roaming, adventurer-trickster, beloved-of-Hermes halflings. But if you're going for a big multicultural world with multiple races who have multiple cultures, gnomes can get a bit too samey. 

Of course, that's mainly theory. Someone who had the best D&D game of their life next to someone playing a gnome well would probably see gnomes as essential, and someone who had to endure the gnome-as-vehicle-to-make-bad-geek-jokes-all-night model would feel exactly the opposite. And there's not much theory can do about that.


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## Steely Dan (Jul 11, 2008)

Hobo said:


> Huh. That's a bit of a commute for me (I live in Detroit. Detroit-ish, anyway.) I'll have to think about it.





That's an odd coincidence, my step-uncle lives there…maybe one day our paths will cross.


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## taliesin15 (Jul 11, 2008)

(responding to Sylrae's original post)
I've been gaming since the late 70s and seen numerous players use both halflings and gnomes successfully. In a campaign that concluded a year ago, one player was running a Halfling Druid, which was highly unusual to me, but I think he did a splendid job.

For me, this is a bit like the hating Elves thread. I just have never encountered it outside of ENWorld. I have seen hating Elves and Gnomes being played poorly, or say given a dorky name or something like that, but it has nothing inherent to do with the races.

I still don't understand the "logic" behind 3.5's Gnome favored class as Bard. All the other core races are more logical for that class save Half-Orc and Dwarf. Why not Illusionist as Gary Gygax and his associates designed it? The 1st edition Gnome paradigm is the most original race template, or, put another way, the only one that doesn't blatantly rip off Lord of the Rings. Well, it does rip off Western European fairy tales and suchlike, but that's way OK for me. Drawing from age old myths means you're using something that has inherent staying power, and not something that's going to obsolete in 4-5 years when the NEXT edition of D&D comes out, superseding the one that's only been out for a few weeks.


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## Desdichado (Jul 11, 2008)

Steely Dan said:


> That's an odd coincidence, my step-uncle lives there…maybe one day our paths will cross.



If they do, rest assured we shall play a game of tall characters.


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## taliesin15 (Jul 11, 2008)

apearlma said:


> Annoying is easy. Combine an annoying player with a Gnome and you don't get slightly annoying. You get really annoying.
> That's why people hate Gnomes.



I can see yr point here...thankfully, I've never been around this phenomenom, except for a one-off game in high school when the guy in my circle of friends with the worst (or no) sense of humor tried to play a gnome in a funny way. Actually in that case it was charming as the character was more a distracting fop and perennial screw-up--good for distracting the hoopleheads in the Tavern while the halfling was cutting purses or the wizard was making contact with the black marketeer agent.


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## Steely Dan (Jul 11, 2008)

Hobo said:


> If they do, rest assured we shall play a game of tall characters.




Absolutely, and my wife would approve, she's Masai (though she doesn't play).


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## DM_Jeff (Jul 11, 2008)

I don't think there's a lot of gnome hate, but whatever text went into them has, for nearly 30 years of my experience anyway, been like a liscence for a player to be annyoying to the group. "Because I'm a gnome!" as the excuse.

So that doesn't always immediately endear them to the group.

-DM Jeff


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## taliesin15 (Jul 11, 2008)

Yaezakura said:


> there's not really a lot of hate for gnomes. But there's also not a whole lot of support for them. Gnomes were just kind of there, and had no distinctive place in the world, outside of Eberron. Plus there was a lot of confusion over what role they were supposed to be playing. Were they supposed to be little tricksters, weaving illusions and playing pranks? Were they supposed to be tinker gnomes, always fiddling with mechanical gadgets?



I find this absolutely astonishing. I've never as much as looked at an Eberron product, and always thought of Gnomes as an integral part of a D&D milieu. How about tricksters, illusionists, tinkers AND master craftsmen? Have you ever considered why they are tricksters, and don't reveal their real names to outsiders? Some say that Gnomes have their own language they don't teach to others, a language that is not "Gnomish". IMC, they are miners of the richest gold mines (which they keep secretive), miners of many of the finest gems, master jewelers, the only ones running a bank on the major continent (itself heavily protected by Gnomish Illusionists), and, very key, the bridge between the other four core races. Most key in the latter is they are the diplomatic bridge between Elves and Dwarves.


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## taliesin15 (Jul 11, 2008)

Danceofmasks said:


> 4e gnomes ... *sigh* ... they didn't make the cut 'cos they seem too similar to tieflings mechanically, and a decision was made.



Which is one reason I'll never buy or play 4e. Tieflings? A completely useless not very imaginative throw-away forgettable race. One of the monsters in 3rd edition I've never used in part because they are so similar to a million other demonic/magical humanoid races. Why not pick something at random from the Fiend Folio or MM2 (1st edition)? A Flumph would have been a better choice.


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## taliesin15 (Jul 11, 2008)

Doug McCrae said:


> In 30 years, the creators of D&D haven't found a worthwhile niche for them.



Gnome Illusionists? Hello? Just like the Gnomes in Western European fairy tales? (am I one of the few that are familiar with fairy tales in this thread?)


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## Barastrondo (Jul 11, 2008)

taliesin15 said:


> Which is one reason I'll never buy or play 4e. Tieflings? A completely useless not very imaginative throw-away forgettable race. One of the monsters in 3rd edition I've never used in part because they are so similar to a million other demonic/magical humanoid races. Why not pick something at random from the Fiend Folio or MM2 (1st edition)? A Flumph would have been a better choice.




To be fair, tieflings are as written just as distinctly from other demonic/magical humanoid races as gnomes are from other fey/magical humanoid races. There's not really any charge you could levy against tieflings for being "useless" or "not very imaginative" that couldn't also be applied to gnomes from a completely neutral standpoint. 

Not that you get many completely neutral standpoints in a hate thread.


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## taliesin15 (Jul 11, 2008)

Barastrondo said:


> I found that sufficiently versatile halflings and dwarves made gnomes a redundancy: there was no gnome concept that couldn't be done with a halfling or dwarf concept, save the one reliant on "gnome" as a concept.



I'd wager one can do the same thing with any race, for example making dwarves or elves redundant if one wanted to. The last few years has demonstrated amply that an almost infinite amount of tweaking can and has been done to the core races so one can think of any possible variation.

However, playing the devil's advocate here, what race is traditionally (i.e. before 4-5 years ago when 3.5 came out) associated with the Magic School of Illusion?

And what race typically hides their communities using illusions?

Elves typically hide amongst the trees, though I think many people see that as much as using natural camouflage as magical.


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## AllisterH (Jul 11, 2008)

taliesin15 said:


> Gnome Illusionists? Hello? Just like the Gnomes in Western European fairy tales? (am I one of the few that are familiar with fairy tales in this thread?)




No, but you're also ignoring how TSR (note not just WOTC) treated them.

Both Birthright (arguably the most "medievalesque" campaign setting ever produced) AND Darksun (the first non-standard fantasy setting) killed off gnomes.

Dragonlance (and Spelljammer) used the atrocious Tinker gnome concept a.k.a "we blow ourselves up more than we blow the other guy up"

Planescape, Al-qadim and Ravenloft pretty much ignored them. I seriously can't even remember one gnomish NPC from those campaign settings (and yeah, I know someone is going to prove me wrong...)

Mystara and the Realms seem to use a toned down version of the tinker gnomes but frankly, unless you liked "tech" in your fantasy, the gnomes wouldn't be a big influence on your campaign design. And yes, I had forgot about Creature Crucible/Ballista

Taliesin15, I think you're going to have to show how TSR actually gave gnomes a niche at all. Remember, once 3E killed the race/class restrictions, the so-called gnome niche disappeared (as I pointed out, if you wanted to play a spellcasting dwarf, frankly, 3E allows that whereas in 1e/2e you had to play a gnome)


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## taliesin15 (Jul 11, 2008)

Barastrondo said:


> To be fair, tieflings are as written just as distinctly from other demonic/magical humanoid races as gnomes are from other fey/magical humanoid races. There's not really any charge you could levy against tieflings for being "useless" or "not very imaginative" that couldn't also be applied to gnomes from a completely neutral standpoint.
> 
> Not that you get many completely neutral standpoints in a hate thread.



Except for the fact that tieflings have only been around a handful of years, gnomes have been around D&D almost from the start, and gnomes have been a part of Western European myth and fairy tale for hundreds of years.

Besides, there's hardly a dime's worth of difference between a tiefling and a half-fiend or half-celestial.

Personally, I think the root of the problem is fewer and fewer are aware of the legacy of folklore, myth and fairy tale. Its a far cry from video games and anime.


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## Obryn (Jul 11, 2008)

I have no gnome hate.  I have plenty of gnome apathy.

One of my players, OTOH, loves gnomes for one reason or another.  He played a gnome necromancer in my 3e Wilderlands game, and he's playing a gnome ranger in my 4e game.  (FWIW, he thinks the 4e gnome is much cooler than the 3e gnome.)

-O


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## Nifft (Jul 11, 2008)

Obryn said:


> I have no gnome hate.  I have plenty of gnome apathy.



 Same here. I tried to make them more interesting in my campaign, but somehow never made a gnome NPC, and nobody was ever interested in playing a gnome PC.

Cheers, -- N


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## Barastrondo (Jul 11, 2008)

taliesin15 said:


> I'd wager one can do the same thing with any race, for example making dwarves or elves redundant if one wanted to. The last few years has demonstrated amply that an almost infinite amount of tweaking can and has been done to the core races so one can think of any possible variation.




Absolutely. I just noted that gnomes were the first to go. They seem to fit the niche between dwarves and halflings and perhaps even elves the way that half-elves and half-orcs also fit into between points.



> However, playing the devil's advocate here, what race is traditionally (i.e. before 4-5 years ago when 3.5 came out) associated with the Magic School of Illusion?




Rakshasas. Okay, wait, that's just me. (You ask me to think of a race traditionally associated with illusion, and bam, rakshasas: dark like thunderclouds with golden earrings, children of Golden Lanka, cunning and terrible.) 

The problem with such a limited niche is that it's not pre-supposed without the existence of gnomes. Remove gnomes from a game, and nobody asks, "Hey, where's the race that's associated with the school of Illusion?" After all, nobody is asking where the races are that are associated with Necromancy, Abjuration, Conjuration/Summoning, Divination, or whatnot. It's a niche created to give gnomes something to do, not a pre-existing niche that called out to be fulled.



> And what race typically hides their communities using illusions?




Same thing. It's sort of in the same lines as "What race is typically described as being the smaller and more magical kin of dwarves?", or, to reverse the devil's advocate position, "What race is described as the fallen remnants of a human race tainted with infernal evil?" It's added flavor to help make the race distinct, but it doesn't posit a vital role for the race that couldn't be used by others. If someone says "I want to have a community hidden by illusion" and there are no gnomes in the game, they can use elves or humans or really any other race: they don't have to invent gnomes to make an illusion-hidden community make sense.


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## Obryn (Jul 11, 2008)

Nifft said:


> Same here. I tried to make them more interesting in my campaign, but somehow never made a gnome NPC, and nobody was ever interested in playing a gnome PC.
> 
> Cheers, -- N



I think that's part of the problem - while some people cared about them in 1e, they were a distinct minority.  So, ever since, almost every new setting has either gotten rid of them or tried to make them somehow interesting.  It's like an admission...  "We know these guys are boring, but LOOK!  Look what they're doing now!"  They've been shoehorned into more crazy roles than any other race.

-O


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## Barastrondo (Jul 11, 2008)

taliesin15 said:


> Except for the fact that tieflings have only been around a handful of years, gnomes have been around D&D almost from the start, and gnomes have been a part of Western European myth and fairy tale for hundreds of years.




However, demons and devils have been around D&D from the start (missing only from the versions of D&D that also missed playable gnomes), and demons (used in the more general, non-D&D sense) are a part of Western European, Eastern European, Asian, African, even arguably American and Australian myth for millennia. The allure of the tiefling isn't the specific word "tiefling," it's getting to play with the trappings of one of the oldest and most universal myths there is. There are kids in the US who never heard the word "gnome" in the bedtime stories their grandmothers passed down, but who might have heard about the Devil hanging out at the crossroads or making wagers over fiddles and cards and dice. 

You may get hung up on specific details, but the gamble (and I think it's proving a successful one) is that lots of gamers won't. They'll gloss over the details and go for a character type that's tied to one of these huge myths. Same as the dragonborn. 



> Besides, there's hardly a dime's worth of difference between a tiefling and a half-fiend or half-celestial.




Again, I have to say you're applying a personal bias. There's hardly a dime's worth of difference between a gnome and a kobold or sprite or spriggan. Mythically, they overlap quite a bit. 



> Personally, I think the root of the problem is fewer and fewer are aware of the legacy of folklore, myth and fairy tale. Its a far cry from video games and anime.




Or maybe people just don't have much of a love for gnomes. Knowing about them doesn't mean that you will discover a love for them, and if somebody doesn't care for gnomes, that doesn't necessarily mean they're ignorant.


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## Doug McCrae (Jul 11, 2008)

taliesin15 said:


> How about tricksters, illusionists, tinkers AND master craftsmen?



Halflings got trickster covered, high elves/eladrin got glamour covered, dwarves got craftsmen covered.



> IMC, they are miners of the richest gold mines (which they keep secretive), miners of many of the finest gems, master jewelers, the only ones running a bank on the major continent (itself heavily protected by Gnomish Illusionists)



So you're saying gnomes are so uninteresting you had to give them the dwarves schtick?



> and, very key, the bridge between the other four core races.



And half-elves.


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## Agamon (Jul 11, 2008)

I had gnome apathy (1 npc, no PCs in 25 years of gaming) until NWN2.  The gnome in that was so annoying it grew to hate.  Then it became a monster (rawr!) and is a lot more nifty.


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## Sylrae (Jul 11, 2008)

Halflings don't cover trickster, they cover pickpocket. because we all know, in a game of D&D, all halflings take after bilbo baggins. unless you play in FR where there are 4 different races of halfling, and some of them make other options appealing. 

what about half elves? they fit no niche whatsoever. They arent versatile like humans, theyre not magical like elves, they arent nature oriented, and they get shafted in like every edition via stats


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## Desdichado (Jul 11, 2008)

Sylrae said:


> Halflings don't cover trickster, they cover pickpocket. because we all know, in a game of D&D, all halflings take after bilbo baggins. unless you play in FR where there are 4 different races of halfling, and some of them make other options appealing.



We do?  I thought we all knew that halfilngs were kender now, which very nicely embody the trickster archetype in a playable manner.


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## Logos7 (Jul 11, 2008)

but to echo what other's have said, 

because they compete with not one but two staples in the phb. 

They compete with halflings on the size and trickery factor
(and personally my halfing to gnome usage is about 5:1)

They compete with Elfs on the nature and magic factor
(and lack the subraces to really do it, which is not a dig at the gnomes so much as the sad truth about elves)

Unlike the half elf and the half orc who are both supported better in literature and role wise. (the half elf is the dilantee and diplomacy whore, the half orc is the bruiser )


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## Doug McCrae (Jul 11, 2008)

taliesin15 said:


> Just like the Gnomes in Western European fairy tales?



The short trickster spirit, which goes by lots of different names - brownie, hobgoblin, pixie, fairy, elf - is a common archetype in fairy tales, yes. But that doesn't make it a viable PC race. These creatures aren't protagonists, they are mostly obstacles for the hero to overcome.

The trickster probably works best as either a monster to be opposed or as an annoying NPC the PCs have to bargain with.


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## taliesin15 (Jul 11, 2008)

Barastrondo said:


> > Absolutely. I just noted that gnomes were the first to go.
> 
> 
> 
> ...


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## Whizbang Dustyboots (Jul 11, 2008)

taliesin15 said:


> (responding to Sylrae's original post)
> I've been gaming since the late 70s and seen numerous players use both halflings and gnomes successfully. In a campaign that concluded a year ago, one player was running a Halfling Druid, which was highly unusual to me, but I think he did a splendid job.



Halfling druids are a staple of EverQuest. He might have gotten that from there.



> I still don't understand the "logic" behind 3.5's Gnome favored class as Bard. All the other core races are more logical for that class save Half-Orc and Dwarf. Why not Illusionist as Gary Gygax and his associates designed it? The 1st edition Gnome paradigm is the most original race template, or, put another way, the only one that doesn't blatantly rip off Lord of the Rings. Well, it does rip off Western European fairy tales and suchlike, but that's way OK for me. Drawing from age old myths means you're using something that has inherent staying power, and not something that's going to obsolete in 4-5 years when the NEXT edition of D&D comes out, superseding the one that's only been out for a few weeks.



The theory was this:

1) Elves already had wizard as a favored class (instead of ranger, which they should have had, IMO), and having gnomes have a favored class that was a sub-set of the elves' favored class was a bad call for a PHB race.

2) The bard spell list has lots of illusions and charms on it.

3) Gnomes have always been portrayed in myth as being wise and bardic lore replicates that nicely.

The problem, though, is that they didn't really make bards more than troubadours in the PHB in a meaningful way, and a whole race of troubadours seems strange to people. I think they could have plumped up the gnomish racial description to talk about how important folk songs, folk dances and even work songs are to the gnomish people, but WotC didn't seem to get there would be an issue with players on this.


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## Whizbang Dustyboots (Jul 11, 2008)

Doug McCrae said:


> Halflings got trickster covered, high elves/eladrin got glamour covered, dwarves got craftsmen covered.



The 3E/4E halflings only have trickster covered because they're kender who pretend otherwise.


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## Vocenoctum (Jul 11, 2008)

AllisterH said:


> Dragonlance (and Spelljammer) used the atrocious Tinker gnome concept a.k.a "we blow ourselves up more than we blow the other guy up"




Actually, there were real gnomes in Spelljammer, and they hated Tinkers with a passion, IIRC. Nice aesthetic ships woven with magic and illusion and then some jackass thinks they're a tinker... I'm sure it led to plenty of murders cloaked in illusions.


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## Whizbang Dustyboots (Jul 11, 2008)

And this seems like a good time to link to the Unified Theory of Gnomes, which still works just fine in 4E, despite the current loss of illusions as a meaningful category of magic, since gnomes are just so darned good at hiding.


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## taliesin15 (Jul 11, 2008)

Doug McCrae said:


> > Halflings got trickster covered, high elves/eladrin got glamour covered, dwarves got craftsmen covered.
> 
> 
> 
> ...


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## Vocenoctum (Jul 11, 2008)

Doug McCrae said:


> Halflings got trickster covered, high elves/eladrin got glamour covered, dwarves got craftsmen covered.




Traditionally (in D&D) Gnomes have been the finer craftsman. The dwarves were blacksmith's and the gnomes were jewelers. All the dwarven craftsmen stuff kind of glosses over the uber-elf craftsman too though.


Elves tend to the "overpowered" side of magic, grand illusions and world altering magic, gnomes tend to the minimalist approach of things. They live in hills rather than grand tree cities or mountain fortresses. They rely on wit and intelligence to see them through rather than brute (physical or magical) force.

And they do it all with a sense of humor.

IMO, gnomes are about inspiration and quick wits. The "stats like dwarves" is a 3e conceit. Gnomes were smart (+ int) but not always the most careful thinkers (- wis).

Gnomes fell by the way side because:
1) they're small. People have a serious problem with a small race being useful in a fight. Sure they can work with a human plunging 3' of cold steel into a 300' dragon and that's fine, but a 3' race plunging 1 & 1/2' of cold steel into a human, that's "silly".
2) They don't have a niche in Tolkien. People came to D&D through pop culture, and tightly defined niches help them visualize. The fact half the people that play the game decry the limits of classes and alignments and other role-restrictions while lambasting gnomes for not having such a restriction... well that's just standard on the internet.
3) They are not well represented by the folks that run the game. Monte Cook said once that he wanted gnomes out of 3e but they caved. (He also made a comment for AU that he tossed the one race in as a nod to the fans that, for some reason, wanted a small race.) Greenwood never really integrated them into FR, and they were easy to fall by the way side.

Folks really didn't want to be bothered doing the work to understand their contribution and bring them through to the later editions, so after Greyhawk/1e, they languished. When "Illusionist" became a part of Wizard, it became even more redundant.


4e is designed with the idea that anything too difficult to adjudicate gets cut. Grapple wasn't ready for prime time, nor Shapechanging. Gnomes don't have a niche, so bump them. I am pretty sure halflings also would have gone bye bye if not for their protected status in the Tolkien Pact.


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## taliesin15 (Jul 11, 2008)

Doug McCrae said:


> > The short trickster spirit, which goes by lots of different names - brownie, hobgoblin, pixie, fairy, elf - is a common archetype in fairy tales, yes. But that doesn't make it a viable PC race.
> 
> 
> 
> This is a matter of opinion, and one could add dwarves to your list there. Conversely, there are giant-kind too, matter for another thread. If you are going to condemn gnomes by such an argument, you also condemn halflings, elves and dwarves. Which you can do in your own campaign. And that's kind of the point. Gnomes are a well-established Core Race in D&D (and in myth/folklore) and they aren't going away anytime soon.


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## Kzach (Jul 11, 2008)

Why are we arguing when we could be killing gnomes?

This subject shouldn't divide us, it should unite us! Unite us in the one, true goal of all noble and ignoble humanoids alike!

The extinction of the gnome race!

Let us gather and pray, for it is time for us to go forth, as one blood-thirsty horde, and destroy all that oppose our gnome hatred!

Once more, et tu gnome, dear friend, once more!


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## Vocenoctum (Jul 11, 2008)

Also, aside from Eberron, Midnight's gnomes were quite well represented. I also think they were very important to Greyhawk, but that's me.


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## AllisterH (Jul 11, 2008)

taliesin15 said:


> Personally, I think the real problem is WoTC messed up by making the Gnome's favored class the Bard, they arbitrarily changed the appearance of the Gnome, had pretty lame artistic depictions of the Gnome in the core rulebooks, probably had little familiarity with Gnomes of myth having been themselves grounded more on videogames than books, and are simply trying to whitewash the whole thing by excluding them in the new edition. It also erases one of the great contributions by Gygax & Co., thus further marking their territory.




That's a lod of revisionist thinking.

Just LOOK at the history of TSR with regard to gnomes.

Spelljammer and DL gave us tinker gnomes (yeah, that's a real incentive for the player)

Birthright and Darksun killed them off.

Al-qadim, PS and Ravenloft pretty much ignored them (of the 2E core races, even halflings got more mention in those books)

Mystara and FR toned the tinker aspect but again, they were a technologocial race (FR with Lantanese gnomes being responsible for guns and Mystara gnomes being aircraft)

Do gnomes even exist in OA?

So, how in the nine hells is this the fault of WOTC. Hell, I challenge anyone to look at the 2E PHB races picture and tell me that gnomes doesn't look like Santa and that it sticks out like a sore thumb (every other race has a serious/somber experession whereas the gnome has a ruddy complexion with a honking big nose to boot)

p.s. where's this fey angle coming from. In Mystara (and IIRC GH), gnomes' origin is tied directly with DWARVES.


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## Barastrondo (Jul 11, 2008)

taliesin15 said:


> That of course is consistent for a game of Indo-Asian flavor--or at least one in which Asian elements are present. As my game is mainly Euro-centric (if anything RW-based), elements such as Rakshasas don't come into play. In fact, I've never used one as a DM or seen one in a game as a player since I started with original D&D in 1979. As a monster. I might add, this is the first time I've heard someone suggesting a Rakshasa as a Core Race for PCs. Certainly more appealing to me than the wet-rag Tiefling.




The point that I'm trying to make is that to look at gnomes from a neutral enough standpoint to actually understand why people might not care for them, you have to be open to the idea of games that are not Eurocentric, players that didn't start in 1979, and the like. When you asked me what I thought of as a race associated with illusions and I didn't respond with "gnome," what I'm saying is that gnomes are not strongly associated enough with illusions in my head that I feel they're a vital component of the fantasy experience. In that same level, I also don't think that "a race associated with illusions" is a vital component of the fantasy experience; when you do see them, they tend to be villains anyway, like L. Frank Baum's Phanfasms. 

This is going to be true of other people.



> Largely because none of these were PC Classes in 1st Edition? Nor in myth and folklore?




See, that's exactly it. What classes were available for PCs in 1st edition does not matter. Myth and folklore doesn't have an Illusionist class, either; it has a lot of very hazily defined magicians, and "enchanters" or "transmuters" are probably far more common than "illusionists." There are plenty of players that don't think an illusionist is a core part of the D&D experience, so saying that gnomes have a vital role because they're illusionists isn't a winning argument there. 



> But again, that's the static point of view that completely ignores myth and folklore of gnomes.




It doesn't have to ignore them completely. It just has to attach importance to them below a certain threshold. Let's say that the minimum amount of "care" to want to play a race or have a race in your campaign world is 10 units. People can be aware of gnomes, both in video games and in folklore, and still have from 1-9 units of "care." It's faintly insulting to assume that someone is ignorant or poorly educated on a topic if they don't like it as much as you do. 

(For the record, my favorite mythic gnomes are Paracelsian.)



> Aren't there already about a dozen possible answers?




Not to that level of detail. The point is, though, that making the argument that the game invents a very specific description for a race does not necessarily make that race vital to a player.



> This is pure sophistry, I've given counter examples, and you aren't really arguing against my point. This sort of thing can be done with any race, any monster, possibly even animal. The association with Illusion (to give one example) is deeply grounded in myth going back hundreds (possibly thousands of years in oral tradition), and is well-established in the game, going back to almost the beginning.




But if people don't see the basic need for a race associated with Illusion, particularly capital-I, then the argument that gnomes fit that particular niche is not particularly compelling. It doesn't matter that the race exists in folklore. 

If you want to actually understand why people don't like gnomes, you should think about what people are looking for in a race, particularly if they don't already have longstanding opinions about the good old days of AD&D 1st edition. If you want to tell people who don't like gnomes why they're wrong, well, you certainly can, but you're not going to get very far with that.


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## The Little Raven (Jul 11, 2008)

> Gnomes are a well-established Core Race in D&D (and in myth/folklore) and they aren't going away anytime soon.




What's funny about this is that they are no longer a core race in D&D, so they did go somewhere.

And comic relief and the trickster archetype are not the same. Gnomes, with their traditional pointy hats, red rosy cheeks, and Santa beards, are comic relief, not the trickster archetype. Anansi would roll over in his grave if his mythological archetype was reduced to a cutesy gag like gnomes.


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## Desdichado (Jul 11, 2008)

taliesin15 said:


> Gnomes are a well-established Core Race in D&D (and in myth/folklore) and they aren't going away anytime soon.



No, they're not.  They're not well established in D&D (obviously not even showing up as a core race in 4e) or in folklore (where they represent generically smallish fairy creatures, not unlike leprechauns, brownies or non-Tolkien folkloric elves) and they most certainly have already gone away.

I don't follow your argument at all; it sounds more and more like "I really like gnomes, so everybody else is wrong for not liking them."


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## Barastrondo (Jul 11, 2008)

Mourn said:


> And comic relief and the trickster archetype are not the same. Gnomes, with their traditional pointy hats, red rosy cheeks, and Santa beards, are comic relief, not the trickster archetype. Anansi would roll over in his grave if his mythological archetype was reduced to a cutesy gag like gnomes.




On the other hand, a spider-totem African-looking gnome would be pretty neat — but then you're back into the same question of "do I need the gnome race in particular to do this, or could I make this work with, say, a halfling?"


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## I'm A Banana (Jul 11, 2008)

> "do I need the gnome race in particular to do this, or could I make this work with, say, a halfling?"




In my mind, it's really bizarre that the halflings have stolen the gnomes' schtick in so many places.

Gnomes are the fey. Gnomes are the tricksters. Gnomes are the earth-spirit druids. Gnomes are the lorekeepers, the SECRETKEEPERS. Gnomes are the laughing jester spirits of the world. They're shape-changers, illusion-masters, the uncanny and unknowable, the eternal ciphers.

Halflings are the rural Brittish. Halflings are the sturdy, the determined, the resilient. Halflings are the survivors, the cunning. Halflings are the rats of the world. They dwell in shadow only to leap out and take what they want, you cannot exterminate them, you cannot intimidated them, they are the eternal shadow-dwellers.

Those are both really cool and very distinct archetypes, each very close to their roots (laughing trickster-spirits of shape-changing faerie and tough survivors who dwell unseen at your feet). 

But halflings and gnomes, in D&D, both suffer from the horrible consequences of the Dragonlance series. There, both were comic relief, but the kender/halflings became a hero while gnomes/tinkers languished as pure comic relief NPC's. 

It is this burden which ultimately helped kill both the halfling's solid role and the gnome's solid role, because it became hopelessly muddied. The halfling wound up getting half of the gnome stuff attributed to it, while loosing a lot of the "halfling" stuff that was its legacy from Tolkein (which has now gone to kobolds and goblins and other such small evil guys). 

Instead of re-focusing the halfling and going back go the gnomes' roots, 4e decided to further distort the halfling and to ditch the gnome entirely as a race, using it only as a monster. 

Now we have insanely vague and unfocused halflings (mostly only focused because of their exclusive role in the PH), and gnomes who kind of kick ass, but who don't have much left of that trickster spirit of old. 

Halflings don't need 3/4ths of the junk that has been tacked onto them. They don't need to be LotR sticks-in-the-mud, but working with the idea of halflings as doughty survivors and "rat-like" (while keeping the idea of ticksters and nature-spirits from waffling too far into elf territory) would keep things fairly rewarding for me.

Until D&D figures out what the heck Halflings are actually supposed to be, they get the banhammer in my games. Gnomes are cool, though.


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## Barastrondo (Jul 11, 2008)

Something else that hasn't yet been touched on is the opening up of every class to every race. In a lot of old-school RPGs and particularly in the video games they inspired (even World of Warcraft), you had to pick from certain races if you wanted a certain class.

As a result, there isn't niche protection based on class access. The gnomes likely suffered worst from this because they had some specialized combinations of spellcaster and "little guy". Concepts that you had to do with a gnome because they were forbidden to other races (save human) suddenly weren't exclusively gnomish, and there wasn't really anything to replace them.

This is also probably where halflings flourished, because to many people they come across as the race most "like us," yet distinct enough thanks to their size that they merit a separate existence. When they had many classes opened up to them, they became even more accessible. 

(From a purely fluff benefit, halflings also had the benefit of strong female archetypes, such as having, you know, goddesses as well as gods. I wouldn't be surprised if gnomes looked like they were purely intended for goofy male characters until WoW finally unleashed pink-pigtailed squeakers on the public consciousness.)


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## AllisterH (Jul 11, 2008)

Where does this gnome = fey angle come from?

When I was playing 1e/2e, gnomes were tied with DWARVES and were most assuredly not fey/forest dwellers.


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## I'm A Banana (Jul 11, 2008)

AllisterH said:
			
		

> Where does this gnome = fey angle come from?
> 
> When I was playing 1e/2e, gnomes were tied with DWARVES and were most assuredly not fey/forest dwellers.




Mostly myth, I think. Gnomes and dwarves have quite close mythological roots, and while D&D dwarves have moved a bit more "germanic" in their style, and have become complexified in an interesting way, the gnomes were more of a harkening back to a spiritual world, sort of a "greek" way of looking at the natural environment. Gnomes have always been tricksters (like sprites and pixies and other fey), and they've always been illusionists (like...well...sprites and pixies and other fey. ), even in D&D, so it's not an entirely odd conclusion to draw. Then you have the whole "earth spirit" connection (with the fertility and beauty of the earth, which they share closely with dwarves) and the "wisdom" connection (gnosis), while the dwarves are "earth spirits" with strength and endurance. 

Halflings haven't been tricksters or illusionists or earth spirits or anything like that....until they started stealing some of the gnome's schtick because they couldn't rely on Tolkein's homebodies anymore.


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## Wormwood (Jul 11, 2008)

AllisterH said:


> Where does this gnome = fey angle come from?
> 
> When I was playing 1e/2e, gnomes were tied with DWARVES and were most assuredly not fey/forest dwellers.









I daresay that for many children of the 70's, this book is the _primary _reason why gnomes are not taken seriously. I mean, I've been playing D&D for well on 30 years, and I _still _think of that ****ing book whenever I hear the word, "gnome".


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## Desdichado (Jul 11, 2008)

AllisterH said:


> Where does this gnome = fey angle come from?
> 
> When I was playing 1e/2e, gnomes were tied with DWARVES and were most assuredly not fey/forest dwellers.



Where's this fey = forest dwellers angle coming from?  You realize that dwarves were fey creatures from way back in folklore right?


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## Desdichado (Jul 11, 2008)

Kamikaze Midget said:


> Mostly myth, I think. Gnomes and dwarves have quite close mythological roots, and while D&D dwarves have moved a bit more "germanic" in their style, and have become complexified in an interesting way, the gnomes were more of a harkening back to a spiritual world, sort of a "greek" way of looking at the natural environment. Gnomes have always been tricksters (like sprites and pixies and other fey), and they've always been illusionists (like...well...sprites and pixies and other fey. ), even in D&D, so it's not an entirely odd conclusion to draw. Then you have the whole "earth spirit" connection (with the fertility and beauty of the earth, which they share closely with dwarves) and the "wisdom" connection (gnosis), while the dwarves are "earth spirits" with strength and endurance.



Eh... I'd be very surprised if you could demonstrate that it was ever that clear cut.  The word gnome may come from the Greek word Gnosos (or it may not; the OED gives several alternatives) and they were simply small fairy-like nature folk.  Totally fey.

Also, totally just yet another word that described pretty much the same folkloric body that also gave us the words goblin, kobold, dwarf, brownie, etc.  The idea that all of these have individual and separate folkloric roots is patently false, even when the words go back into Classical time, they were simply different words (often reflections from different languages of the _same_ word, as a matter of fact) for the same body of folklore.

_Ergo_, even in mythology and folklore, gnomes were superfluous and redundant.  Their role in D&D has been the same; without Tolkien spelling out differences between them by tying certain characters from mythology specifically to the word and separating them out, he probably condemned them to the relative obscurity that they suffer in D&D.

Although, it's interesting that in his drafts of the First Age tales, he does use the word gnome to refer to the Noldor, based on the idea that gnome was probably derived from the Greek word gnosos and therefore implied that the Noldor were wise, knowledgeable and crafty.

This idea that gnomes have a strong correllation with some kind of trickster or illusionist archetype in folkore; I've certainly never heard of it, and I've done a fair bit of reading on fairy folklore.  I think whoever it was that was making that argument is completely incorrect.


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## I'm A Banana (Jul 11, 2008)

Hobo said:
			
		

> I'd be very surprised if you could demonstrate that it was ever that clear cut.



Clear-cut? Heck no. Nothing is, and that's doubly so with regards to the mythos/legend stuff. 



> The idea that all of these have individual and separate folkloric roots is patently false, even when the words go back into Classical time, they were simply different words (often reflections from different languages of the same word, as a matter of fact) for the same body of folklore.



Sure, I agree. I don't think I ever tried to argue that these words somehow were inherently diverse? In fact, I point out that the "gnome" and the "dwarf" are basically mythologically the same thing, but that D&D dwarves went in a particular direction and D&D gnomes went in a different direction.



> even in mythology and folklore, gnomes were superfluous and redundant



Sure.



> Their role in D&D has been the same;



I disagree. Or at least, my experience is vastly different. Maybe its because I played up the differences more than others, maybe I'm just some sort of horrible aberrant, but the gnomes were always able to be very distinct from halflings, from gnomes, and from elves, carving out their own archetypal niche as primordial faery trickster earth-spirits.



> without Tolkien spelling out differences between them by tying certain characters from mythology specifically to the word and separating them out, he probably condemned them to the relative obscurity that they suffer in D&D.




The only reason I brought up JRR was because that was obviously the inspiration for the D&D halfling, originally. They've come a long way since then, mostly at the expense of the gnomes, and they're still kind of a mish-mash of tropes (though they didn't have to be).



> This idea that gnomes have a strong correllation with some kind of trickster or illusionist archetype in folkore; I've certainly never heard of it, and I've done a fair bit of reading on fairy folklore. I think whoever it was that was making that argument is completely incorrect.




The trickster archetype comes from folklore. The gnomes were the best fit for this archetype in D&D -- better than the halflings. Halflings have become better at it as they have lost their Tolkein trappings, thus stealing the gnomes' shtick. 

Sorry if you misinterpreted my meaning.


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## Vocenoctum (Jul 11, 2008)

AllisterH said:


> Where does this gnome = fey angle come from?
> 
> When I was playing 1e/2e, gnomes were tied with DWARVES and were most assuredly not fey/forest dwellers.





Because dwarves are ALSO fey.

IMO:
Dwarves are the fey of the mountains. Solid built, fey of toil and sturdy construction.

Elves are the fey of the forests, grace and aloof. They live a long time and their products tend towards the slender and strong.

Gnomes are the fey of the hills, of inspiration and craftiness. They are the gemcutters and the craftsmen of fine works.

Halflings are the fey of cities, of anonymity and comfort. They don't make anything but cheeeeese and marijuana. They acclimate to whatever culture they're in. (Thus tallfellow=elf, stout=dwarf, hairfoot=human)

But, this is all "first edition" feel. Once the splintering came about and other imaginations came into it, the game regressed more to "hey, how does this fit with Tolkien?" and it built from there. Not knowing/ caring how the original works progressed, they built off of the basic stuff and so the gnomes lost their purpose.


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## Desdichado (Jul 11, 2008)

Kamikaze Midget said:


> I disagree. Or at least, my experience is vastly different. Maybe its because I played up the differences more than others, maybe I'm just some sort of horrible aberrant, but the gnomes were always able to be very distinct from halflings, from gnomes, and from elves, carving out their own archetypal niche as primordial faery trickster earth-spirits.



I'm not speaking of my own opinion here about gnomes, but my opinion about the place of gnomes in the broader player base.  Although my opinion is that the broader player base shares my opinion on gnomes, so the distinction is academic.

I think gnomes have lost their place in terms of having role that players relate to and know what to do with.  I don't think it's just me that has no use for them, I think that they were the least-played race by far because they lacked an easily identifiable "schtick".

Making bards (probably the least favorite class of the core classes) their favored class was just salt in the wounds during the 3.5 era.


			
				KM said:
			
		

> The trickster archetype comes from folklore. The gnomes were the best fit for this archetype in D&D -- better than the halflings. Halflings have become better at it as they have lost their Tolkein trappings, thus stealing the gnomes' shtick.
> 
> Sorry if you misinterpreted my meaning.



I did.  That's a pretty fair point, though.


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## I'm A Banana (Jul 11, 2008)

Hobo said:
			
		

> I don't think it's just me that has no use for them, I think that they were the least-played race by far because they lacked an easily identifiable "schtick".
> 
> Making bards (probably the least favorite class of the core classes) their favored class was just salt in the wounds during the 3.5 era.




I think you're on the right path, but it's a little simpler. The loss of the gnomes in 4e came from their encouragement of 3e's wearing away at the archetypes that they did well in. I mentioned that halflings effectively "stole" the gnomes' schtick in looking for their own post-Tolkein shtick. But there's also the lack of class association (which 3.5 was an attempt to remedy, though it didn't do it well): Halflings = Rogues. Because gnomes didn't have an overt link to druids (which would have suited them well, but might not have been 'canon' enough) or wizards (because Elves had that) or Illusionists (because those didn't really exist in any major way), all of which would have given them good archetypes, they lost more archetypal status.

Being relegated to the bard was an attempt to fix that, because the Bard was the closest thing 3e had to a "trickster." It made for a pretty awful trickster in most cases, though, not to mention its status as the weak class and a class that was, in its own way, searching for a schtick (am I a song-mage? am I a jack-of-all trades? am I a charm/illusion mage? _what the hell am I?_)

4e was out on the illusions, out on the druids, had re-crafted the elf so that wizard made some sense, and continued the halfling poaching of the trickster archetype. 

So the reason that the gnomes became the red-headed stepchild was because of a consistent pattern of sidelining the trickster archetype in 3.5, except for where a halfling could pull it off, leading to a gnome-less 4e under the (rather mis-lead) proposition that they _lacked_ a schtick.

They didn't, really. They had one. It just wasn't an important one in most ways for 4e, and it was one that halflings could half-fill when it was important (halflings = rogues! rogues = tricksters!). 

Gnome fans, of course, never had this problem, because they maintained the gnomes as a bastion for certain archetypes (mostly the trickster archetype, but also the nature-spirit archetype, the loremaster archetype, etc.). But obviously no one on the 4e team was much of a gnome fan.


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## Whizbang Dustyboots (Jul 11, 2008)

Mourn said:


> What's funny about this is that they are no longer a core race in D&D, so they did go somewhere.
> 
> And comic relief and the trickster archetype are not the same. Gnomes, with their traditional pointy hats, red rosy cheeks, and Santa beards, are comic relief, not the trickster archetype. Anansi would roll over in his grave if his mythological archetype was reduced to a cutesy gag like gnomes.



Again, this is criticizing gnomes for bad gnome players.

Only a halfwit gnome -- or one doing it to throw people off the scent of what he was really up to -- would be interested in _gags_.


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## Whizbang Dustyboots (Jul 11, 2008)

Wormwood said:


> I daresay that for many children of the 70's, this book is the _primary _reason why gnomes are not taken seriously. I mean, I've been playing D&D for well on 30 years, and I _still _think of that ****ing book whenever I hear the word, "gnome".



And what's the problem with that? Double them in size, and they're very close to D&D gnomes, except for those people who think that tinker gnomes are the only gnomes that exist in any edition.

If nothing else, the book gives a well-rounded view of a culture, belief system and even gnomish aesthetics. Of course, it's also a good argument for making gnomes as rangers or druids, but that's an interesting spot for them.


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## Whizbang Dustyboots (Jul 11, 2008)

Hobo said:


> without Tolkien spelling out differences between them by tying certain characters from mythology specifically to the word and separating them out, he probably condemned them to the relative obscurity that they suffer in D&D.
> 
> Although, it's interesting that in his drafts of the First Age tales, he does use the word gnome to refer to the Noldor, based on the idea that gnome was probably derived from the Greek word gnosos and therefore implied that the Noldor were wise, knowledgeable and crafty.



If he'd just done that, today we're be busy screaming about WotC cutting the half-orc from 4E instead.


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## Desdichado (Jul 11, 2008)

KM, I see that, but I wonder which came first... the sidelining of the gnomes leads to the loss of archetype, or the lack of strong archetype (or more specifically, lack of _popular_ archetype) leads to gradually sidelining them until they reach the point where they get relegated to the MM?


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## Whizbang Dustyboots (Jul 11, 2008)

Being in the MM in 4E hardly is predictive of the future. The bard, monk, half-orc and assassin have all jumped back and forth between editions. Sometimes they're core, sometimes they're optional. I suspect the gnome will be back in the PHB, and one of the two new races will be gone, in the 5E PHB in 2016 or so.


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## AllisterH (Jul 11, 2008)

Why all the blame for 3.x?

How come nobody comments on how gnomes were treated in 2E via the campaign settings by TSR?


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## Wormwood (Jul 11, 2008)

Whizbang Dustyboots said:


> And what's the problem with that? Double them in size, and they're very close to D&D gnomes, except for those people who think that tinker gnomes are the only gnomes that exist in any edition.
> 
> If nothing else, the book gives a well-rounded view of a culture, belief system and even gnomish aesthetics. Of course, it's also a good argument for making gnomes as rangers or druids, but that's an interesting spot for them.



Ironically, _Gnomes _is one of my all-time favorite books. In my life I've owned three copies, happily passing them down to succeeding generations.

The only problem I have is that association is so ingrained in me that I find it difficult to appreciate gnomes any other way---especially my admittedly narrow view of fantasy gaming. 

If Smurfs had spent the past 30 years in D&D books, I'd likely feel the same way.


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## Vocenoctum (Jul 11, 2008)

AllisterH said:


> Why all the blame for 3.x?
> 
> How come nobody comments on how gnomes were treated in 2E via the campaign settings by TSR?





I commented above that the sidelining of the gnomes was from late 1st edition on. The simple fact is, the Tolkien Bunch is "safe", but otherwise it comes down to the designers preferences. Obviously whoever liked half orcs and gnomes for 1e, wasn't there (or at least not influential) when it came time for further works to place gnomes.

When Eberron came out, it had the directive that "everything in D&D has a place in Eberron", and suddenly gnomes "needed" a niche. Most folks LIKE that niche, btw.

The design philosophy is different for 4e. If it doesn't fit, just cut it.


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## (Psi)SeveredHead (Jul 11, 2008)

taliesin15 said:


> How about tricksters, illusionists, tinkers AND master craftsmen?




Tricksters? Annoying.

Illusionists? Poorly supported by rules. (I was a veteran of 2e's incredibly terrible illusionary magic. How does the spell work? However the DM says it does. And 3.x ... stupid Will disbelief system!)

I've seen a gnome illusionist (and alchemist, talk about stereotyping) in a Drizzt book, but that's a book, not a game.

Tinkers? This is DnD, not Shadowrun. I don't allow guns in my DnD game, so why should I allow high technology? (Even Eberron, often derided for having "steampunk", doesn't actually have high technology in it.)

Master craftsmen? That's not a "racial" skillset, that's a "personal" or "character" skillset. (And if it is racial, it's already taken by dwarves.)



> Have you ever considered why they are tricksters, and don't reveal their real names to outsiders?




And where is the good flavor text (outside of Eberron) to support this? And this isn't new either. Plenty of dwarves won't give their real names. Plenty of *humans* won't give their real names.


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## The Little Raven (Jul 12, 2008)

Whizbang Dustyboots said:


> And what's the problem with that?




They belong on my lawn, not in a dragon's lair.


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## Sylrae (Jul 12, 2008)

Whizbang Dustyboots said:


> 1) Elves already had wizard as a favored class (instead of ranger, which they should have had, IMO), and having gnomes have a favored class that was a sub-set of the elves' favored class was a bad call for a PHB race.




I agree about the illusionist being a bad call as it's a subclass of wizard.

Flavor wise, Bards rock. they're alot of fun. unfortunately they have the big drawback of the fact that as a class, statistically, they still suck. 3.5 made them suck less with the ability to wear armor and whatnot, but they aren't particularly good at anything really except diplomacy. - and making money in a non-adventuring way.

Elves having Wizard as the favored class kindof works. They weren't supposed to be forest elves, they are the universal elves. Like Moonelves in FR. They're more magically oriented, not melee oriented (hence the -2 con). If you want rangers, you're looking at wood or wild elves. Wood elves are probably the strongest 0 LA race I can think of, cause theyre the only ones who dont get royally shafted for having +2 Str.

If you want a woodsy elf then the wood/wild eves should be the core elf race you use, in my opinion. Should they have been the core elf race in the PHBs instead of in the monster manual/FRCS? maybe.

I think the PHB should have had the high elf and wood elf as races, and put the standard elf in the MM. but then you'd have people bitching about 2 elves in the PHB. This is basically what 4e did, cept they called the high elves eladrin,(thus removing the eladrin monsters) and gave them a goofy teleport ability.

Human
Orc
Halfling
Wood Elf
High/Grey Elf
Dwarf
Gnome

would have been my ideal 'standard' setup.

Tieflings shouldnt be a core race, cause theyre anti-aasimar, and well, I think if you put in tieflings you have about 7 other planetouched you should add in - FR did this, and if youre gonna have all the different types of planetouched fine, but don't make one of them core and the others not, that just doesn't make much sense. Plus the teifling is poosly defined. With the big rift between Demons and Devils in D&D you really need 2 types of hellish races. And planetouched would make much more sense as a series of templates than races, because why is it so hard to imagine an outsider reproducing with a different type of humanoid? Planetouched races were poorly thought out in 3e in my opinion, and this holds in 4e as well.

Dragonborn, well, dragon people are not something i see as a player race. Halfogres seem more reasonable, even though dragonborn are powered down to player power levels.

I dont 'love' gnomes, I just wanted to know why there were gnome hate posts. they're a race that sees occasional use in my games, whereas halflings see less use. I see more goblin players than halflings. (though I made the goblins slightly more attractive by dropping their extra -2 they get).

I don't have a problem with steampunk. The game I'm running right now has 2 core races (Humans and Dwarves - the dwarves have been changed though)the rest are all non-standard, being either from a different source, modified, or wholly original. They live in flying mechanical cities powered by levitation spells in some cases and machines in others, and the general tech level is up to flintlock weapons. This is obviously not the 'standard' campaign, and this is the first time I've run a game with this much tech, but it's not bad. Actually, gnomes got cut from my steampunk setting, but so did most of the standard classes: cleric, paladin, monk, sorcerer, bard. I decided to run somethign really different this time. (classes come from other sources than the phb, obviously)

It's not hard to have gnomes without tech though as pointed out above.

but if they had to cut them, that's fine, I just think they picked bad things to replace them with. A rakshasa would have been much better than a tiefling. Hell, there are a bunch of really cool monsters that would make awesome player races:

If you want exotic- Dryad, Rakshasa, Centaur, Satyr, Githyanki/Githzerai

If you want something less exotic: Goblins, Hobgoblins, Bugbears, Kobolds, Troglodytes, Lizardfolk, Lizardfolk (Blackscale), Gnoll, Minotaur.

I think any of those would have been better player race additions than the Dragonborn or the teifling.


Favored classes never really made much of a difference in any ofthe games I played, we didn't use multiclassing penalties, cause the dms never gave just combat experience. experience is often just per session, and if thye think you did something extra above the other players then you get a little more. combat experience almost never happened, cause we foudn that made players have WAY unevern levels. like by the time one player got to level 9 the others would be at 6, and the rift would keep getting bigger. Cause the way the standard system works is you difide encounter xp by the party. what if the party splits up into pairs, or if one player runs off ahead and does stuff on their own? it was much easier to drop that method of experience distribution. So for a while "nobody had a favored class" until we found the variant on here where favored class gives you extra feats, which made the favored classes relevent again, but that was just recently...


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## Vocenoctum (Jul 12, 2008)

Mourn said:


> They belong on my lawn, not in a dragon's lair.




"You know, I really wish I had a garden where I could put a couple of human statues."


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## Desdichado (Jul 12, 2008)

Mourn said:


> They belong on my lawn, not in a dragon's lair.



I wish you would get off my lawn.


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## Korgoth (Jul 12, 2008)

I don't know what the problem is with the idea of little fey folk in colorful hats who live in the woods and can misdirect you with illusions. There's a problem with that?

I like the old legend just fine. Maybe it's not kung fu, anime or action movie enough for some people. I'll grant that the legendry of gnomes is a bit folksy and pedestrian. _That's why I like it._ The Otherworld should have its peasants, too.

Gnomes are fun. Though I don't need them to be player characters. They weren't in OD&D or Classic (they were monsters in those editions)... though you can just run a halfling and call it a "gnome". Works fine (unless you think they should all be able to cast illusions... but I don't see why a PC gnome should have to).


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## Bump2daWiza (Jul 12, 2008)

Just replace the word "Gnome" with the word "Black" and I think you have your answer.


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## Whizbang Dustyboots (Jul 12, 2008)

Bump2daWiza said:


> Just replace the word "Gnome" with the word "Black" and I think you have your answer.



/boggle


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## Vocenoctum (Jul 12, 2008)

Whizbang Dustyboots said:


> /boggle





Always tryin' to keep the gnome man down.

The world is full of anti-gnomites, you can recognize them by their elf-supremacy tattoos.


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## Kzach (Jul 12, 2008)

Anyone have a good recipe for gnome?

All I could find was this: Eating gnomes is very funny.


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## Psion (Jul 12, 2008)

Bump2daWiza said:


> Just replace the word "Gnome" with the word "Black" and I think you have your answer.




Man what?


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## Wormwood (Jul 12, 2008)

Whizbang Dustyboots said:


> /boggle



Finally, we're on the same page.

Bwah?


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## Mishihari Lord (Jul 12, 2008)

--Raises hand--

Hater over here ...

I hate 'm because there's no substance to them.  Humans, elves, dwarves, halflings, orcs, and so on all have volumes of literature including them.  The D&D gnome has nothing.   No mythology.  No history.  It's just flat.  The 3" forest gnomes with the red hats?  Those are cool, but they're not D&D gnomes.  

The image of the D&D gnome has changed so frequently because they've never found one with wide appeal.  I liked some of them, actually.  The 1E gnome illusionist/trickster?  Cool.  Tinker gnomes?  Cool.  Generic 2E and 3E gnomes?  Boring, boring, boring.  And silly.  I don't know which is worse.


----------



## Imperialus (Jul 12, 2008)

Bump2daWiza said:


> Just replace the word "Gnome" with the word "Black" and I think you have your answer.




 Ok... umm... I'm not sure where to go with this one...  I've occasionally modeled Gnomes on post diaspora Jews but wow...  Just wow...


----------



## Lurks-no-More (Jul 12, 2008)

taliesin15 said:


> Except for the fact that tieflings have only been around a handful of years,



Since 1994, IIRC, and they've been quite popular from the start.



> gnomes have been around D&D almost from the start,



And have never been particularly popular. Keeping something in the game just because it's always been there is not reasonable.

And yes, just like everyone else, I don't hate gnomes, I just don't care about them. Beyond the "spellcasting dwarf" thing, they did nothing that either elf, dwarf or halfling did better, and generally lacked an interesting niche entirely.


----------



## Hugh (Jul 12, 2008)

I don't hate gnomes at all. In fact, I had at least four gnome characters prior to 3rd edition.
I didn't care much for their artistic descriptions in 3rd edition...them and the halflings, well, they looked too similiar, and too different....and too serious. I thought gnomes and halflings were cuter in 1st and 2nd editions. (Well, perhaps not cuter, but just more to my liking). Gnomes were the comedy relief, and I liked it that way.


----------



## Hugh (Jul 12, 2008)

Oh, and as far as the Dragonborn are considered, I decided I liked them. I have been working on my own campaign, and was planning on introducing a reptilian-type race (I was considering a variation of the Firenewt, but oh look, here's a reptilian race already written up, and its a core race!) Saved me the work to write up and entire race, I simply needed to  add a little flavor to easily introduce them to my campaign. 

I already have a friend who wasn't that interested in playing, only to have that interest rekindled when I showed him the Dragonborn.


----------



## Desdichado (Jul 12, 2008)

Bump2daWiza said:


> Just replace the word "Gnome" with the word "Black" and I think you have your answer.



Whiskey Tango Foxtrot?


----------



## Doug McCrae (Jul 12, 2008)

1e gnomes weren't even particularly good illusionists. They couldn't go higher than 5th level unless they had really high stats, and 7th was maximum. Gnomes actually made better assassins (8th) and thieves (unlimited).

What they really were, primarily, was not magic tricksters but the race that lived in hills. Their racial abilities are mostly very similar to those of dwarves, though they have no attribute modifiers.

So they're kind of sub-dwarves in 1e. They were largely inspired by Hugi from Three Hearts & Three Lions, who looks just like a D&D gnome (three feet tall, big nose) but calls himself a hill dwarf. I guess the thinking was - forests got elves, mountains got dwarves, what do hills got? Not - we need a magical trickster race.

Magic trickster is probably the best way to go with them but it's a role they've never filled particularly well in the past. 1e gnomes were hill dwarves, 2e gnomes were mad scientists, 3.0 gnomes were part-time illusionists, 3.5e gnomes were part-time bards.


----------



## Bump2daWiza (Jul 12, 2008)

Imperialus said:


> Ok... umm... I'm not sure where to go with this one... I've occasionally modeled Gnomes on post diaspora Jews but wow... Just wow...




In the black community the gnome represents the oppression of our people. This comes out of the fact that garden gnomes are almost uniformly white and tended to be placed in suburban neighborhoods. For black people like me who are political aware, the removal of the gnome race from the PHB was a direct and virulent racist action.


----------



## Nifft (Jul 12, 2008)

Bump2daWiza said:


> In the black community the gnome represents the oppression of our people. This comes out of the fact that garden gnomes are almost uniformly white and tended to be placed in suburban neighborhoods.



 Gnomes represent black people because they are usually *white*? 



Bump2daWiza said:


> For black people like me who are political aware, the removal of the gnome race from the PHB was a direct and virulent racist action.



 Aw, c'mon.

 -- N


----------



## Bump2daWiza (Jul 12, 2008)

Nifft said:


> Gnomes represent black people because they are usually *white*?
> 
> Aw, c'mon.
> 
> -- N




No, they represent the oppression of black people, and have therefore become a symbol of our treatment by whites. Removing it from the PHB is like saying the oppression never happened my man.


----------



## Nifft (Jul 12, 2008)

Bump2daWiza said:


> No, they represent the oppression of black people, and have therefore become a symbol of our treatment by whites. Removing it from the PHB is like saying the oppression never happened my man.



 So you're against removing oppression?

"_Can't relate, I'm Chaotic Good_", -- N


----------



## Vocenoctum (Jul 12, 2008)

Imperialus said:


> Ok... umm... I'm not sure where to go with this one...  I've occasionally modeled Gnomes on post diaspora Jews but wow...  Just wow...




I think there are lots of analogies to past treatments of jews that could fit in easily with gnomes.

One thing I liked from Pact magic was the gnome from the ancient days when gnomes had huge cities and they were betrayed by, er... hobgoblins or gnolls, I always mix them up. It's easy to see others grow jealous of the polished gems of a gnomish city and destroy it out of a sense that the gnomes are hording/ secreting wealth and such.

Eberron's gnomes are the epitome of the zion conspiracy, except it's all true...


----------



## Vocenoctum (Jul 12, 2008)

Bump2daWiza said:


> In the black community the gnome represents the oppression of our people. This comes out of the fact that garden gnomes are almost uniformly white and tended to be placed in suburban neighborhoods. For black people like me who are political aware, the removal of the gnome race from the PHB was a direct and virulent racist action.




I can almost see the logic of it, but it's very far reaching to think of garden gnomes as a symbol of white oppression. I don't doubt that some folks think that way, but people can make anything out to be a symbol of something.

I seriously doubt the universal aspect that a lot of black people THINK that way though, and I think you're impressing your community/ circle onto the broader community where it's just not there.

(In florida, I rarely see garden gnomes, so what, are flamingo's the symbol of white oppression?)

All that aside, I can't see how it has anything to do with 4e. D&D is a game of creation and preference. In 1e, there was someone championing the gnome at TSR, and as time went on, others championed their own ideas. I think the problem with 4e is that there isn't enough diversity among the ideas. You've got a team that all think similarly and so you get this streamlined game that cut out a lot of the stuff that made D&D flavorful.


----------



## Vocenoctum (Jul 12, 2008)

Hugh said:


> (I was considering a variation of the Firenewt, but oh look, here's a reptilian race already written up, and its a core race!)




It's odd, I always liked reptilian races (I was going to use a 3.5 Dragonborn, had a Draconic human and a couple other things...) and tieflings were cool enough (though I prefered the old "variety").

But, 4e's versions really seem bland. I think it's just their presentation, but they just feel like "oh, and we have dragon guys and demon chicks also", rather than really feeling like they fit.

A lot of it could be the "implied setting" not being implied enough, (and tieflings being thinly veiled draenei in that horrid video certainly didn't help) but it just comes up lacking.


----------



## Bump2daWiza (Jul 12, 2008)

Nifft said:


> So you're against removing oppression?
> 
> "_Can't relate, I'm Chaotic Good_", -- N




The symbol of oppression becomes a stain and an albatross for the white man to bare. Removing it is the casting off of responsibility.


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## Psion (Jul 12, 2008)

Hobo said:


> Whiskey Tango Foxtrot?




Hey, macro re-re-poster!


----------



## Desdichado (Jul 13, 2008)

Bump2daWiza said:


> For black people like me who are political aware, the removal of the gnome race from the PHB was a direct and virulent racist action.



OK, no offense, but that's one of the most ridiculous things I have ever read on ENWorld.  And trust me; I read an awful lot of *really* ridiculous things on ENWorld.

I would say that was masterfully trolled, but I have a sneaking suspicion that you might actually be serious.


----------



## Bump2daWiza (Jul 13, 2008)

Hobo said:


> OK, no offense, but that's one of the most ridiculous things I have ever read on ENWorld. And trust me; I read an awful lot of *really* ridiculous things on ENWorld.
> 
> I would say that was masterfully trolled, but I have a sneaking suspicion that you might actually be serious.




No I am just fooling aroun y'all. I even edited the wikipedia page in case people googled it:



			
				wikipedia gnome entry said:
			
		

> Garden gnomes are often viewed as "kitsch" and in poor taste.[4] Gnomes have become controversial in serious gardening circles in the UK, and have been banned from the prestigious Chelsea Flower Show as the organisers claim that they detract from the garden designs. Gnome enthusiasts accuse the organisers of snobbery because they are popular in working class and suburban gardens.[7]
> In the USA garden gnomes are often associated with racism because they were almost always white and more common in suburban neighborhoods.


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## TarionzCousin (Jul 13, 2008)

Bump2daWiza said:


> No I am just fooling aroun y'all. I even edited the wikipedia page in case people googled it:



Aw, fun's over.

Personally, I hate flamingo gnomes; they killed my dog.


----------



## cdrcjsn (Jul 13, 2008)

Doug McCrae said:


> Magic trickster is probably the best way to go with them but it's a role they've never filled particularly well in the past. 1e gnomes were hill dwarves, 2e gnomes were mad scientists, 3.0 gnomes were part-time illusionists, 3.5e gnomes were part-time bards.




4e gnomes are paladins?

http://www.wizards.com/default.asp?x=rpga/news/20080711a


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## WayneLigon (Jul 13, 2008)

If WoTC or TSR before them had ever managed to give gnomes a distinct flavor as apart from dwarves or halflings, I think they'd have faired better. As it is, the only distinct things about them are the inherent magic use and the speaking to burrowing animals. Elves should have the former and halflings or hill dwarves the latter.

Now, if they had made gnomes cool.. I mean, look at the cool _look _Paizo's gnome iconic has:


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## fusangite (Jul 13, 2008)

Bump2daWiza, have you considered joining www.circvsmaximvs.com? You seem like our kind of guy.


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## TarionzCousin (Jul 13, 2008)

Some ladies love the gnomes.


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## Nifft (Jul 13, 2008)

Bump2daWiza said:


> The symbol of oppression becomes a stain and an albatross for the white man to bare. Removing it is the casting off of responsibility.



 When I bare my gnome, it's not men who get stained.

Cheers, -- N


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## Twiggly the Gnome (Jul 13, 2008)

WayneLigon said:


> Now, if they had made gnomes cool.. I mean, look at the cool _look _Paizo's gnome iconic has:




*meh* I've been thoroughly unimpressed with the Pathfinder take on gnomes. It's like they took every misstep the 3.5 core team took with the race and cranked it up to 11.

Now *this* is a cool looking gnome:


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## Ruin Explorer (Jul 13, 2008)

Twiggly the Gnome said:


> Now *this* is a cool looking gnome:




No, it's a moderately cool-looking human with slightly odd proportions or perhaps out-of-scale. There is absolutely nothing gnomish about it. Unless it was labelled "gnome" or in a chapter about gnomes, you wouldn't even guess. It could equally-well be a halfling, too.

This is precisely the problem. Gnome and halfling lovers all seem to hate any depiction of their beloved races which gives them any character whatsoever beyond "short human". Paizo's gnome is at least bizarre enough that you think "Wth is that?" and probably figure out gnome.


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## AllisterH (Jul 13, 2008)

Ruin Explorer said:


> No, it's a moderately cool-looking human with slightly odd proportions or perhaps out-of-scale. There is absolutely nothing gnomish about it. Unless it was labelled "gnome" or in a chapter about gnomes, you wouldn't even guess. It could equally-well be a halfling, too.
> 
> This is precisely the problem. Gnome and halfling lovers all seem to hate any depiction of their beloved races which gives them any character whatsoever beyond "short human". Paizo's gnome is at least bizarre enough that you think "Wth is that?" and probably figure out gnome.




Eh, I honestly thought that Paizo picture was a halfling.


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## Twiggly the Gnome (Jul 13, 2008)

Ruin Explorer said:


> Paizo's gnome is at least bizarre enough that you think "Wth is that?" and probably figure out gnome.




No, I wondered why Paizo was making Nixies into a PC race. 

But really, the look was only the tip of of the iceberg for me. I'm just not interested in a "gnome" whose culture revolves around schizophrenia, bestiality, and minstrel shows. Come March, and the release of PH2, it will be 4E for me.


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## Mr. Wilson (Jul 13, 2008)

Eberron "finally" gave gnomes an identity (which is kinda amusing since a DM had been running them close to that way in a campaign I was in at the time ECS came out), and it's a good one.

Still, every time I see a gnome in any other setting, especially pink pony-tailed gnomes, I want to punt them.


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## Whizbang Dustyboots (Jul 13, 2008)

Twiggly the Gnome said:


> No, I wondered why Paizo was making Nixies into a PC race.
> 
> But really, the look was only the tip of of the iceberg for me. I'm just not interested in a "gnome" whose culture revolves around schizophrenia, bestiality, and minstrel shows. Come March, and the release of PH2, it will be 4E for me.



Could someone copy and paste the relevant portions of the alpha document about gnome culture and lore?


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## Whizbang Dustyboots (Jul 13, 2008)

TarionzCousin said:


> Some ladies love the gnomes.



I never thought that picture from my college days would resurface.


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## Whizbang Dustyboots (Jul 13, 2008)

Ruin Explorer said:


> Gnome and halfling lovers all seem to hate any depiction of their beloved races which gives them any character whatsoever beyond "short human".



We do?

My gnome illusionist/bard/gnome paragon wears _lederhosen_. He's got character coming out his ears.

He also has a very sexy old school nose.


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## Mokona (Jul 13, 2008)

Put me in the anti-gnome camp.  I do not include (or allow) gnomes in my homebrew world.

Reasons *D&D* gnomes are no good?  Dragonlance, lawn gnomes, they're not like Narnia gnomes, and they don't have their own space.  One of the justification for cutting gnomes from the 4th edition _Player's Handbook_ is that they compete too much with the dwarf.  Gnomes are short industrious folk who live underground = dwarf-lite.  Plus gnomes have a hodge-podge of abilities with no grokkable unifying element.

In _Races of Stone_ the gnomes were basically made out to be a jewish stereotype in order to separate them from dwarves.  Short, big-nosed jewelers who celebrate weddings for an entire week.


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## Whizbang Dustyboots (Jul 13, 2008)

Mokona said:


> In _Races of Stone_ the gnomes were basically made out to be a jewish stereotype in order to separate them from dwarves.  Short, big-nosed jewelers who celebrate weddings for an entire week.



THAT was your takeaway from the chapter? I thought the whole "reality is an illusion" thing (which doesn't really make sense with the race's lore and crunch, IMO) was much more dominant.

And, out of curiosity, if it's OK for there to be dozens of races in the forests and the plains, why is it not OK if it's the hills and mountains?


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## Leatherhead (Jul 13, 2008)

Whizbang Dustyboots said:


> THAT was your takeaway from the chapter? I thought the whole "reality is an illusion" thing (which doesn't really make sense with the race's lore and crunch, IMO) was much more dominant?




Wait what? Gnomes are gnostic now?


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## Bump2daWiza (Jul 13, 2008)

I like gnomes because they are industrious and clever. I think halflings went south after their 3E makeover. Long live the gnomes!


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## evileeyore (Jul 13, 2008)

Bump2daWiza said:


> Just replace the word "Gnome" with the word "Black" and I think you have your answer.



When did Gnomes get a "History Month"?

That is about the only way I can see them at all being on par racially or ethnically...


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## Bump2daWiza (Jul 13, 2008)

evileeyore said:


> When did Gnomes get a "History Month"?
> 
> That is about the only way I can see them at all being on par racially or ethnically...




Don't even get me started on the subject of demihuman apartheid. "Pointless", "silly", "untrustworthy", "outcast", these are just some of insults gnomes must endure everyday. Now they are seperated from the other races in the PHB. I know, I know. They still appear in the monster manual. I guess seperate but equal is the way things are done at Wizards now.

FIGHT THE POWER:

http://www.freethegnomes.com/


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## Whizbang Dustyboots (Jul 13, 2008)

Leatherhead said:


> Wait what? Gnomes are gnostic now?



No, they mostly seemed to have audited a freshman philosophy class.


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## Whizbang Dustyboots (Jul 13, 2008)

evileeyore said:


> When did Gnomes get a "History Month"?



I'd say gnomes should get the shortest month of the year, but that's already been taken ...


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## Vocenoctum (Jul 13, 2008)

Bump2daWiza said:


> I like gnomes because they are industrious and clever. I think halflings went south after their 3E makeover. Long live the gnomes!





I had a whole theory once about how hobbits were drug runners and Saruman was the legal authority trying to stop them, while Gandalf was a drug addled ex-cop. Pipe weed indeed...


I think halflings have always been the lazy bums waiting for lunch and whining about their lives. I wouldn't exclude them from the game for it of course, but there's that.

In my decades of D&D, I've had almost every race in a game, and it's really about the players. We had a group once that was a centaur, an aaracokra, a half dryad and a kender. It worked amazingly well. (And, for those in the know, it showcases that we had too many dragon magazines!)

The thing comes to which are "core" races of a world for adventurers and which can fit the heroic image. Plenty of folks don't think gnomes fit that archtype, the problem is the folks at WotC also think that. So, we get their unified vision of boringness.


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## Hussar (Jul 14, 2008)

Vocenoctum said:


> I had a whole theory once about how hobbits were drug runners and Saruman was the legal authority trying to stop them, while Gandalf was a drug addled ex-cop. Pipe weed indeed...
> 
> 
> I think halflings have always been the lazy bums waiting for lunch and whining about their lives. I wouldn't exclude them from the game for it of course, but there's that.
> ...




Isn't it funny though that your "out there" campaign had a halfling variant, but still no gnome.

It's not a unified vision of boringness.  That's what I don't get.  It's not that people hated gnomes, its that gnomes were completely and utterly forgotten about in most games.  I'm sorry for both gnome fans, but, so few people EVER played them.  I did.  I played gnomes a couple of times.  But, I'm the only person I've ever played with who did.

It's not like they stepped back and said, "Oh, hey, here's this really interesting race that everyone likes to play, let's axe that."  It's far closer to say, "Oh hey, here's this race that's been taking up space in the PHB for thirty years that almost no one ever plays.  Let's axe that."

I would be willing to be dollars to donuts, that if you looked at the RPGA stats, you'd see that half orcs and gnomes place WAY at the bottom of the player barrel.

No one hates gnomes.  Or at least about as many people hate gnomes as like them.  The vast majority just plain out don't care.

Thirty years hasn't made gnomes interesting.  How much longer should they keep trying?


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## Whizbang Dustyboots (Jul 14, 2008)

It doesn't help that TSR, WotC and even Kenzer seem to hire people who don't seem to have any enthusiasm for gnomes to write their gnome supplements.

Companies: Don't do it until you find someone who can write (and on deadline and to a word count) that is pumped about them. Really, this is good advice for any topic, but it's especially glaring when you do it with gnomes.

Note: I can write (and on deadline and to a word count) and I am pumped about them. See my Unified Theory post for my take on them.


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## Vocenoctum (Jul 14, 2008)

Hussar said:


> Isn't it funny though that your "out there" campaign had a halfling variant, but still no gnome.




Uh, no, because gnomes are a normal part of D&D...?

There was no human either, so obviously they're rare. Or something. I'm not sure what point you were going for.



> It's not a unified vision of boringness.  That's what I don't get.  It's not that people hated gnomes, its that gnomes were completely and utterly forgotten about in most games.  I'm sorry for both gnome fans, but, so few people EVER played them.  I did.  I played gnomes a couple of times.  But, I'm the only person I've ever played with who did.




As I mentioned, gnomes had no one at WotC to champion their cause and were sort of left to the side. (In 3e) When they decided they needed "new races", rather than use them to fill a role they wanted filled, they felt safe to axe them.

And really, it's not even that most times. It's the dismissive part of it ("I'm sorry for both gnome fans") that aggravates the situation. "Common wisdom" says gnomes weren't popular, so when people complained to WotC about the lack of gnome figures in DDM, WotC felt safe in making their April Fools article. Did we get more gnomes in DDM? Not really, a few trickled here and there. (There are far more kobolds than gnomes. And since the "factions" are supposed to be balanced, it's not even an issue of "we need more monsters".)



> It's not like they stepped back and said, "Oh, hey, here's this really interesting race that everyone likes to play, let's axe that."  It's far closer to say, "Oh hey, here's this race that's been taking up space in the PHB for thirty years that almost no one ever plays.  Let's axe that."




I assume it was "okay, we can't kick elf, dwarf or halfling. Anyone care about the other races? No, okay, lets go with what we know."



> I would be willing to be dollars to donuts, that if you looked at the RPGA stats, you'd see that half orcs and gnomes place WAY at the bottom of the player barrel.




I always figured most of them just grab a pre-gen character and play, but it would be interesting to see the racial divide on long-running characters.



> No one hates gnomes.  Or at least about as many people hate gnomes as like them.  The vast majority just plain out don't care.
> 
> Thirty years hasn't made gnomes interesting.  How much longer should they keep trying?




The main thing with threads like this is that they serve no purpose. No one that disliked gnomes will read something I wrote and say "oh, now I get it, thanks". It certainly won't change WotC's mind.

"Thirty years", well they've been interesting in the original, and there were sparks here and there. It's more that gnomes don't get a good chance due to "conventional wisdom". "We don't need a gnome book, they're not popular enough". So one was never made, and there is no market research there. 15 elf books, sure, everyone loves elves... (or at least, they're championed at TSR/WotC)

Plus, most folks agree that Eberron did gnomes great.

WotC doesn't even try to throw gnome fans a bone. They basically ignore us, really. I fully expected there to be a gnome write up on the website when the PHB hit, but nothing. Perhaps the numbers are that insignificant, but I don't think it is.


----------



## The Grumpy Celt (Jul 14, 2008)

A series of poor decisions led gnomes to being like rabbits or sheep. Rabbits and sheep are not sexy. Foxes and wolves are sexy. Had gnomes been given an edge or sharp teeth (not evil or deadly, just not dull), they would have been kept around. But someone thought they needed to be made mostly helpless and hapless – and so in the hearts and minds of people they have been replaced by deadly things, sexy things.


----------



## Hussar (Jul 14, 2008)

Vocenoctum said:


> Uh, no, because gnomes are a normal part of D&D...?
> 
> There was no human either, so obviously they're rare. Or something. I'm not sure what point you were going for.




My point was that you consider Kender to be "out there" when they're just a variant halfling, but, no one played a variant gnome.  




> As I mentioned, gnomes had no one at WotC to champion their cause and were sort of left to the side. (In 3e) When they decided they needed "new races", rather than use them to fill a role they wanted filled, they felt safe to axe them.




This goes WAY before WOTC.  There's a reason B/E D&D had no gnomes.  How many 1e or 2e adventures featured gnomes?  How many books featured gnomes?  How many gnomes do you see in D&D fiction?  How many gnomes are there in Darksun?  On and on.



> And really, it's not even that most times. It's the dismissive part of it ("I'm sorry for both gnome fans") that aggravates the situation. "Common wisdom" says gnomes weren't popular, so when people complained to WotC about the lack of gnome figures in DDM, WotC felt safe in making their April Fools article. Did we get more gnomes in DDM? Not really, a few trickled here and there. (There are far more kobolds than gnomes. And since the "factions" are supposed to be balanced, it's not even an issue of "we need more monsters".)
> 
> 
> 
> I assume it was "okay, we can't kick elf, dwarf or halfling. Anyone care about the other races? No, okay, lets go with what we know."




Yup.  You got it.  It's all down to numbers.  People cared about the other races.  They feature heavily in most, if not all settings, fiction, adventures, video games, etc.  ((Note, I'm specifically referring to D&D here before you point to WOW))  



> I always figured most of them just grab a pre-gen character and play, but it would be interesting to see the racial divide on long-running characters.




Not for Living Campaign play.  No pregens.



> The main thing with threads like this is that they serve no purpose. No one that disliked gnomes will read something I wrote and say "oh, now I get it, thanks". It certainly won't change WotC's mind.
> 
> "Thirty years", well they've been interesting in the original, and there were sparks here and there. It's more that gnomes don't get a good chance due to "conventional wisdom". "We don't need a gnome book, they're not popular enough". So one was never made, and there is no market research there. 15 elf books, sure, everyone loves elves... (or at least, they're championed at TSR/WotC)
> 
> ...




That they didn't throw gnome fans a bone pretty much speaks to the numbers.


----------



## Whizbang Dustyboots (Jul 14, 2008)

The Grumpy Celt said:


> A series of poor decisions led gnomes to being like rabbits or sheep. Rabbits and sheep are not sexy. Foxes and wolves are sexy. Had gnomes been given an edge or sharp teeth (not evil or deadly, just not dull), they would have been kept around. But someone thought they needed to be made mostly helpless and hapless – and so in the hearts and minds of people they have been replaced by deadly things, sexy things.



The same thing, incidentally, that happened to the OD&D through 2E hobbit/halflings. What we have now has pretty much no resemblance to anything from Lord of the Rings, other than the name. Instead we have black clad dreadlock-considering super-thieves.

Truthfully, if they'd just merged gnomes and halflings and stuck with the gnome name, fans of both shorty races (and I count myself as a fan of the original D&D halflings -- I even ran an all-hobbit campaign set in Mystara once) would have been better served.


----------



## Whizbang Dustyboots (Jul 14, 2008)

Hussar said:


> This goes WAY before WOTC.  There's a reason B/E D&D had no gnomes.



Top Ballista!



> How many 1e or 2e adventures featured gnomes?



D2 springs immediately to mind.



> How many books featured gnomes?



Complete Book of Halflings & Gnomes and Races of Stone are all that I immediately think of.



> How many gnomes are there in Darksun?



Why is a niche setting inspired by E.R. Burroughs any sort of litmus test for standard D&D? Dark Sun didn't feature a lot of stuff from standard D&D.



> Yup.  You got it.  It's all down to numbers.  People cared about the other races.  They feature heavily in most, if not all settings, fiction, adventures, video games, etc.  ((Note, I'm specifically referring to D&D here before you point to WOW))



Of course, when you open the field up to other forms of media, pretty much all non-D&D fantasy games that feature traditional races feature gnomes. Heck, the latest EQ1 expansion is almost entirely gnome themed (with an extra helping of apocalyptic god-like unique dragon for good measure).

When EQ1 was at its height during the late 2E era, there were a quarter of a million people playing a game featuring techy, magical gnomes and their clockwork city. Was 2E pulling in those sorts of numbers? Obviously, not all of EQ1's success can be traced to the presence of gnomes, but how many computer games have to be released featuring gnomes before it suggests that, whatever the TSR/WotC powers that be might like, there's a bunch of gnome fans out there -- who are now less catered to than they were in previous incarnations of AD&D.



> That they didn't throw gnome fans a bone pretty much speaks to the numbers.



How is it that other WotC decisions can be quirky or even bone-headed, but gnome hating has an alleged basis in cold, hard facts?


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## Vocenoctum (Jul 14, 2008)

Hussar said:


> My point was that you consider Kender to be "out there" when they're just a variant halfling, but, no one played a variant gnome.



Nope, still no good.
I spoke of one group/one game, it didn't feature variant elves or dwarves either, and that doesn't speak to either race. I don't consider kender or half-dryads to be "out there", those are your words. And Kender were fine when played right, and served MUCH better when they and halflings were seperated.

We've played with variant gnomes, we've played drow, we've played almost everything. My point was simply that it depends more on the player and the group dynamic. 




> This goes WAY before WOTC.  There's a reason B/E D&D had no gnomes.



Yes, because the basic game was... basic. It reduced things to the simplest core in order to present an easy format. I noticed you stopped at B/E though. I forget, what "tier" did they introduce gnomes in? Masters?



> Yup.  You got it.  It's all down to numbers.  People cared about the other races.  They feature heavily in most, if not all settings, fiction, adventures, video games, etc.  ((Note, I'm specifically referring to D&D here before you point to WOW))



It's all down to the perception of numbers, sure. And the fact they were lacking in material serves as a point on why they are forgotten, not validation for forgetting them. "They were never popular enough to be popular."





> Not for Living Campaign play.  No pregens.



Then numbers would be interesting to see. Along with numbers for 4e, to see how many tieflings roll in.





> That they didn't throw gnome fans a bone pretty much speaks to the numbers.




It pretty much speaks to the bias of the creators. A gnome-pamphlet online would have taken little effort to appease some fans, instead they made... ::drumroll::
"I'm a monster, rawr"

The anti-gnome bias is easy to see. That doesn't mean there was marketing research to see if gnomes presence drew more than their absence. Gnomes are VERY popular in WoW. It's also "cool" to hate them. That doesn't diminish their popularity.


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## Whizbang Dustyboots (Jul 14, 2008)

Gnomes are one of the least popular races in WoW, which means there's probably only 1 or 2 million gnome players. I suspect that's still enough of an audience to try and play to, on WotC's side.


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## Kzach (Jul 14, 2008)

I like the cut of this guy's jib: http://gnomesarefood.com/


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## Thunderfoot (Jul 14, 2008)

Sylrae said:


> gnomes were never that hard to figure out. you have 2 real options:
> 
> 1. Magical, and not very serious
> 2. Tinkering, and machine building
> <SNIP>.




Except that in 1e they were magical, hill dwelling miners that were cousins to the dwarves, that enjoyed practical jokes, but were VERY serious in all other aspects of their lives.  My personal favorite and most often overlooked variant.

1e gnomes were very similar to 3e halflings.  When halflings became more like kender *shudder* and less like hobbits, the gnome became overshadowed, plain and simple.  However, since my hate of kender knows no limits, this whole dilemma has NEVER been a problem for me.  Gnomes rock! (get it)  And the only good kender is lightly toasted kender rotating on a spit for 2 hours and 45 minutes until golden brown and covered in a light honey glaze; preferably served with a cold stein of dwarven ale.


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## DrunkonDuty (Jul 14, 2008)

I love gnomes. But I couldn't eat a whole one.

But seriously, put me down for a bit of 'gnome hate.' Although hate is a strong word. As many folks have said: there's just not enough flavour to them. I don't hate pasta, but it goes much better with a rich sauce of tomato, olives and anchovies. Now gnome served with a rich tomato sauce... mmmm. 

Whizbang: Your gnomes do actually sound fun and interesting. I might have to steal the general vibe for my homebrews in future. And maybe if DnD in general had played up that hidden trickster style Gnomes would still be in the core races. End of the day I think Gnome 'hate' stems from them never being well developed as an interesting archetype by anyone. It might be your time to strike!



> Fenes wrote (all the way back on page 1 and I have had to read a lot of thread to get to the end in order to post this lame and very late joke):
> 
> Gnomes, munchkins, drizzt-clones, nymphomanic lesbian elven bladesigners, kleptomanic kenders - everything rubs someone the wrong way.




There's a bad way to be rubbed by nymphomaniac lesbian elven bladesingers? 
(God, I've been dying to get that out.)


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## DrunkonDuty (Jul 14, 2008)

> Kzach wrote:
> http://gnomesarefood.com/






> Thunderfoot wrote:
> And the only good kender is lightly toasted kender rotating on a spit for 2 hours and 45 minutes until golden brown and covered in a light honey glaze; preferably served with a cold stein of dwarven ale.




Now I'm hungry.


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## Orius (Jul 14, 2008)

Whizbang Dustyboots said:


> There are fewer and fewer gnome haters all the time.
> 
> _Quickly hides the knife._
> 
> What?




I knew it wouldn't take ENWorld's greatest gnome defender long to find this thread.  



AllisterH said:


> You got to understand the history of gnomes to understand why they weren't that popular.
> 
> In 1e/2e, the gnome "niche" was that it was a spellcasting dwarf. [snip] Now, this wouldn't be so bad but there's one thing that really turned gamers off. While Dwarves prided themselves on their beard, gnomes prided themselves on the size of the NOSE. Needless to say, you're not going to get many gamers running around wanting to play it.
> 
> ...




Yeah, I kind of agree with what you're saying.  Gnomes rarely had any place they really fit in the game, and most of the time they just looked like little dwarves.  Dropping class restrictions in 3e hurt them, and it didn't help that the old 1e illusionist had long since been supplanted by 2e's schools of magic.  Really, what could have worked was give wizard to the gnome, since theye're supposed to be magically inclined and scholarly, and give _sorcerer_ to the elf instead of wizard, since the inborn magic of the sorcerer works well with the innate magical-ness of the typical elf.

I never had a problem with the big-nosed gnomes.  I always thought it gave them character.  IMC, they still have huge noses.



Fenes said:


> Gnomes, munchkins, drizzt-clones, nymphomanic lesbian elven bladesigners, kleptomanic kenders - everything rubs someone the wrong way. That doesn't make them boring, or wrong, it just means they have different tastes.




How could gnomes be as bad as any of the rest?



AllisterH said:


> Dragonlance (and Spelljammer) used the atrocious Tinker gnome concept a.k.a "we blow ourselves up more than we blow the other guy up"
> 
> Planescape, Al-qadim and Ravenloft pretty much ignored them. I seriously can't even remember one gnomish NPC from those campaign settings (and yeah, I know someone is going to prove me wrong...)




Tinker gnomes were just a bad idea, unfortunately it was a bad idea that got out of hand.

As for gnomes in Planescape, none of the Tolkienesque races were standard PS races, though elf and dwarf NPCs started showing up as the setting developed. There was a gnomish bookseller NPC described in _Uncaged: Faces of Sigil_, but I can't remember any others.  Then again, PS had dozens of NPCs, and many of them were of very stranges races, including various fiends and celestials.


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## Urbannen (Jul 14, 2008)

Gnomes' problem is their name.  Gnomes should have been the creatures that are called elves in a lot of fairy tales.  That includes Santa's elves.  

Seriously, do you remember Herbie, the elf who wanted to be a dentist?  What race would he have been in D&D?  Dwarf, no, halfling, no, elf, no, gnome, yes!  All those elves in the Rudolph the Red-Nosed Reindeer Christmas special - D&D gnomes.  Santa's elves craft stuff, and in lots of movies and stories, they use magic to help them.  They are even the correct size.      

Also, there's the story of the Elves and the Shoemaker.  The shoemaker is visited by helpful, magical beings who pop into the shoemaker's home and craft stuff for him.         

I don't think gnomes should have been one of the base races, but as an additional race, they might have been OK.  They should be small race of beings who are comfortable with magic, particularly illusion magic such as invisibility, who are good at crafting items (as opposed to mining), who normally stay hidden, and who are naturally helpful, i.e. good.  Really, Basic D&D had them right.


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## Fenes (Jul 14, 2008)

The Gnomes are coming!


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## Maggan (Jul 14, 2008)

Vocenoctum said:


> A gnome-pamphlet online would have taken little effort to appease some fans, instead they made... ::drumroll::
> "I'm a monster, rawr".




While I'm aware of the fact that some gnome fans are very upset about that movie, for me, it made me look at gnomes as a viable race for the first time in my history of playing AD&D/D&D.

And if WotC marketing creating more gnome fans isn't appeasing some fans, than I'm sure they wouldn't be appeased by a mere online pamphlet either. 

/M


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## Vocenoctum (Jul 14, 2008)

Maggan said:


> While I'm aware of the fact that some gnome fans are very upset about that movie, for me, it made me look at gnomes as a viable race for the first time in my history of playing AD&D/D&D.
> 
> And if WotC marketing creating more gnome fans isn't appeasing some fans, than I'm sure they wouldn't be appeased by a mere online pamphlet either.
> 
> /M




Well, 4e has a habit of applying a name from previous editions onto something totally different. So, they made you a fan of Gnomeish, rather than true gnomes...


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## Vocenoctum (Jul 14, 2008)

Fenes said:


> The Gnomes are coming!




They'll be here soon:
http://www.dccomics.com/dcunlimited/wow/?dcd=8454


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## Maggan (Jul 14, 2008)

Vocenoctum said:


> Well, 4e has a habit of applying a name from previous editions onto something totally different. So, they made you a fan of Gnomeish, rather than true gnomes...




That's great by me! I don't really fancy the true gnome ... at least not the one from Swedish folk lore. It wouldn't make a particularly exciting PC for me. 

/M


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## Steely Dan (Jul 14, 2008)

AllisterH said:


> How come nobody comments on how gnomes were treated in 2E via the campaign settings by TSR?





I did earlier in this thread, I mentioned how bad-ass _The Companions of the Dead_ (gnome death commando type) were from Taladas – from The Dragonlance _Time of the Dragon_ boxed set (great 2nd Ed Dragonlance product).


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## Wormwood (Jul 14, 2008)

Whizbang Dustyboots said:


> Gnomes are one of the least popular races in WoW, which means there's probably only 1 or 2 million gnome players. I suspect that's still enough of an audience to try and play to, on WotC's side.



I would _love _it if WoW-style gnomes became the default 4e version. Eccentric mechanics are simply more interesting than 'guy who chats up voles' anyway.


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## (Psi)SeveredHead (Jul 14, 2008)

Wormwood said:


> I would _love _it if WoW-style gnomes became the default 4e version. Eccentric mechanics are simply more interesting than 'guy who chats up voles' anyway.




WotC/TSR tried that with Dragonlance, and it didn't go over very well.


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## Wormwood (Jul 14, 2008)

(Psi)SeveredHead said:


> WotC/TSR tried that with Dragonlance, and it didn't go over very well.



Hey, I'm not the one claiming that a million gnome fans are an untapped resource.

That said, for better or worse, the gnome as tinker meme is out there---thanks to EQ and Blizzard if nothing else. I see no reason not to embrace it aside from tradition. And I've never found _that _a compelling reason for . . . anything.


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## Whizbang Dustyboots (Jul 14, 2008)

(Psi)SeveredHead said:


> WotC/TSR tried that with Dragonlance, and it didn't go over very well.



Well, they half-heartedly tried something 25 years ago and it didn't set the world on fire. Clearly it shouldn't be given another shake, even if many of today's gamers weren't even alive the first time around.


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## Stoat (Jul 14, 2008)

Wormwood said:


> I would _love _it if WoW-style gnomes became the default 4e version. Eccentric mechanics are simply more interesting than 'guy who chats up voles' anyway.




Put my vote in for "eccentric mechanic" gnomes.  Not specifically Dragonlance Tinkers,  but less jokey version of the same.


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## Greylock (Jul 14, 2008)

Doug McCrae said:


> In all my time playing D&D, I've seen a total of two* gnome PCs. In my first session of 4e, there were two dragonborn.
> 
> Virtually no one wants to play gnomes. In 30 years, the creators of D&D haven't found a worthwhile niche for them...




So... The fact that almost every game I've been in has featured at least one Gnome the last few years, or that the other races have always been well represented, means nothing? I guess this goes hand-in-hand with the fact that I've never played in an all male group means that either A. My games groups exist only in my mind, or B. I'm gaming in some alternate universe.


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## Greylock (Jul 14, 2008)

Whizbang Dustyboots said:


> Halfling druids are a staple of EverQuest. He might have gotten that from there.




Holy Toledo! I didn't know that. My current character is a Halfling Druid. I sincerely hope no one is thinking I got it from some video game. By the way, the current party is currently Gnome-less, for the  time being at least. It's a party of halves. Besides one Human and one Elf, we are one Halfling, two Half-Elves and two Half-Orcs. And somehow or another we've ended up with two Bards, one Barbarian, and one Druid. Not a party that can be recreated in 4E I suppose.


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## Maggan (Jul 14, 2008)

Whizbang Dustyboots said:


> Well, they half-heartedly tried something 25 years ago and it didn't set the world on fire. Clearly it shouldn't be given another shake, even if many of today's gamers weren't even alive the first time around.




Damn straight! Get off the lawn, you gnomes!



/M


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## Whizbang Dustyboots (Jul 14, 2008)

Greylock said:


> Holy Toledo! I didn't know that. My current character is a Halfling Druid. I sincerely hope no one is thinking I got it from some video game.




Wouldn't be bad if you did, IMO. Rivervale is a well-realized part of Norrath, with its agrarian tone (EQ halflings are definitely hobbits, not Kender) and the nearby Misty Thicket farmland/newbie area, complete with mischievious fairies nearby and low level orc and goblin threats.

EQ druids can turn into wolves, teleport to various megalith circles around the world, heal, do various natural attack spells and so on. Other than -- when I played -- a reputation for attracting cheesier players, it's a pretty well done class.

The Advanced Players Guide druid from Necromancer Games is supposed to be more spellcasting oriented than the PHB2 shapechanging druid will be, and Ari could do worse than to take a lot of inspiration from EverQuest on this one, especially since I think the plan was to include hobbity halflings in APG as well.


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## Mustrum_Ridcully (Jul 14, 2008)

Greylock said:


> Holy Toledo! I didn't know that. My current character is a Halfling Druid. I sincerely hope no one is thinking I got it from some video game.



You're clearly video-gamey. And probably hallucinating!


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## The Grumpy Celt (Jul 14, 2008)

Whizbang Dustyboots said:


> The same thing, incidentally, that happened to the OD&D through 2E hobbit/halflings.




If you were going to rehab gnomes so as to make them interesting, what would you do?


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## Whizbang Dustyboots (Jul 14, 2008)

The Grumpy Celt said:


> If you were going to rehab gnomes so as to make them interesting, what would you do?



If I wasn't allowed to make my Unified Theory gnomes official -- although I think it's the most graceful way to build on what came before -- I would grab hobbits and grab traditional gnomes and go through both their pockets and take all their good stuff.

I appreciate that 4E characters have to KICK ASS, ALL THE TIME, so some of the more parochial stuff seems to not work with that, but there's plenty of good stuff from previous versions of both races in that regard that, put together in one pile, add up to one solid (maybe even overpowered) race.

The hybrid race should be the best at sneaking and hiding and trickery, especially when it comes to sneaking and sniping in the outside world. This also carries over to illusion magic, which are used to hide their homes, which are known as (fairy) mounds, along with clever uses of landscaping. They should make good rangers, rogues and illusionists. (This is not unknown in 4E: Both dwarves and dragonborn make good fighters, for instance.)

* Bonus to thrown objects and slings, illusion spells
* Resistant to fear, illusions
* _Speak with animals_ as the spell, not just burrowing animals
* Bonus to hiding and moving silently
* Cast several orisons or cantrips a day, but broaden the choices to include more druid flavor


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## Mokona (Jul 14, 2008)

Wormwood said:


> That said, for better or worse, the gnome as tinker meme is out there---thanks to EQ and Blizzard if nothing else. I see no reason not to embrace it aside from tradition. And I've never found _that _a compelling reason for . . . anything.




The tinker meme *is* the only successful identity that gnomes have or that has gained them traction.  I don’t play _World of Warcraft_ but looking at some art, the gnomes there look like techno-goblins (i.e. smart goblins that use machines and still love to destroy stuff).  Even the Santa Claus vide for gnomes works in concert with the engineer manufacturing aspect that is popularizing a “fantasy gnome”.

Rightly, or wrongly, *Wizards of the Coast* has decided to keep technology and non-magic machines _out_ of *Dungeons & Dragons*.  You may disagree with this decision but it is pointless to discuss the popularity of gnomes (which seems to always be associated with anachronistic feats of mechanics) without addressing it.

4th edition gnomes are going to be something entirely new*.  *Wizards* will try to redefine gnomes in a way that can be interesting without the use of inventions.  It appears that they’re trying to make gnomes more fae than Elves or even Eladrin.

* - let's call it a revised vision of gnomes


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## Vocenoctum (Jul 14, 2008)

(Psi)SeveredHead said:


> WotC/TSR tried that with Dragonlance, and it didn't go over very well.




You have to understand, Dragonlance as a literary setting worked, but failed on almost all counts on the RPG side.

Tinker Gnomes could be fun, if you used the "mad gnomes" rule variant so they weren't stupid.

Kender can work, if it's not just a sorry excuse of a player trying to be irritating.

Gully Dwarves... ow, why did they give stats for gully dwarves?

Elves never played like they read.

Only dwarves had any real sense of being what the media represented them as, and frankly it was such a focused one-trick pony, it wasn't hard to do.


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## I'm A Banana (Jul 14, 2008)

> If you were going to rehab gnomes so as to make them interesting, what would you do?




Step 1: Turn halflings back into farmers/survivors/tough little SOB's. Halfling fighters and barbarians and rangers and the like should outnumber halfling rogues. Bonuses to Wisdom and Constitution. This is the Halfling schtick. They're going a little bit back to Tolkein, but not far enough to be boring. 

Step 2: Re-monster-ize Eladrin. Unapproachable elite mystic fey should be off hiding in the woods, not drinking at taverns looking for Adventures. Elves remain purely the "wild" elves of 4e, and they're fine pretty much as they are.

Step 3: Make sure that Dwarves are the "engineering" race, with a massive Industrial Revolution vibe. Dwarves should use crossbows, have steam-powered shovels, and should be on the verge of steampunk sci-fi. There will be no tinker gnomes. Maybe adjust the Dwarf ability bonuses to Strength and Intelligence, or Constitution and Intelligence, to reflect this. This prevents them from treading too much on the halfling toes, and makes them good "magical crafters."

Step 4: Develop a good "illusionist" core class. Not a Wizard knock-off, but something like a magical rogue who is a master of stealth and deception. A little like the Duskblade from 3.5, for instance. This is now the class that gnomes will be good at, the class that the bard should have been. 

Step 5: The Gnome Itself. It's a Small race that is good at hiding and sneaking. Bonus to Intelligence and Dexterity. They make good arcane spellcasters, and good rogues, but they shouldn't be very good at the frontline fighting (the halfling should be okay at that, and okay at divine magic as well). The gnomes are the "fey" race, the race with links to the Unseen World, they are crafty and dangerous, but they're not engineers. Dwarves craft weapons and build statues and engineer subway systems. They have the big, heavy tech. Gnomes know valuables -- they make magic rings, gnomish clothing with enchantments, gold and gems and fine pelts. Gnomes are associated with luck, with the unseen hand, with the finer points of philosophy.

When you see a gnome, you will see a small, old creature dressed in fox fur holding a gnarled staff, but then you blink, and it's just a fox, and you forget why you ever thought that branch was a staff it was holding. When a gnome goes on an adventure, it is often quiet about the reasons, but it claims that the golden ring whispers to him. Meanwhile, the dwarf is concerned with the flaming magic sword, and the halfling just picks up an axe twice its size off of the ogre it just slew, and the elf makes some arrows out of its bones.

Halflings are warriors; tough and doughty and resilient, fighting for Hearth and Home.
Dwarves are scientists; engineering marvels deep below the surface of the earth to wage war smarter, not stronger.
Elves are hunters; the rustle of branches and the arrow out of nowhere.
Gnomes are wizards; the creature that changes shape before your eyes and makes you believe what is not true. 

*Possible Alternate Way (To Keep Dwarves Tough)*: To preserve the "dwarven berserker" and "clever halfling" angles, if you wanted, you could swap those archetypes, so that the dwarf is now "Mr. Small Tough Guy." and the halfling is now "Mr. Tough Clever Guy." You just need to be sure that Halflings are Wise and Gnomes are Intelligent as one of the big distinguishing features. Dwarves can stay as the strong little guys, but they should loose the cleric-y and paladin-y features that they have; those belong to halflings. Dwarves are about SCIENCE!

*Possible Alternate Way (To Not Re-Hash So Many Races)*: If you don't want to re-concept the Eladin, Elves, Dwarves, and Halflings all at once, the gnomes might have the Scientist archetype available to them. This means going the Tinker Gnome route and using the great engineering marvels that the dwarves currently don't have. The Dwarves make instruments of war: axes, swords, armor, digging tools, etc. the Gnomes make instruments of art: rings and statues and paintings and books. For this to work the best, you need a good "artificer" class to support the archetype, and you have to be comfortable with a "later-period" assumption than 4e D&D seems to want.


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## Vocenoctum (Jul 14, 2008)

The Grumpy Celt said:


> If you were going to rehab gnomes so as to make them interesting, what would you do?





Gnomes are all about Inspiration and cleverness, seeing the advantages to doing something "different". Dwarves build thick armor and warmachines, elves build magical tree dwellings and mythals. Gnomes build street lights, wands of magic hand, escalators.

In the world, gnomes stay low-key, they don't have the military might of the dwarves or personal magical power of the elves, but are still seperate from the humans. Halflings mostly survive in humanity's shadow.

Gnomes are the jewelcrafters and the fine metal workers, they're probably the ones that put the gold filigree in that ancient altar of evil you just found.

In the player group, they tend to Control, though they can certainly be a Leader. They can direct things from a vantage without getting dirty mixing it up. Magical Power doesn't depend on brute strength, and a warlord's brilliant strategy can be yelled from anywhere.

Once 4e gets shapechaning and illusions... maybe they can do more.


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## Desdichado (Jul 14, 2008)

Greylock said:


> So... The fact that almost every game I've been in has featured at least one Gnome the last few years, or that the other races have always been well represented, means nothing? I guess this goes hand-in-hand with the fact that I've never played in an all male group means that either A. My games groups exist only in my mind, or B. I'm gaming in some alternate universe.



C.  You don't understand how statistics work.  Of course nobody doesn't _literally_ mean nobody.


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## Ruin Explorer (Jul 14, 2008)

Whizbang Dustyboots said:


> Gnomes are one of the least popular races in WoW, which means there's probably only 1 or 2 million gnome players. I suspect that's still enough of an audience to try and play to, on WotC's side.




Less than that. Gnomes represent 6% of WoW's played characters, at all levels of play, so that's around 600-700k gnomes being played regularly (assuming they're played as much in the East, which seems plausible, given that I've seen them in Chinese raiding guilds).

What you're forgetting/ignoring, though, is the reason gnomes are played - because they're the only small/cute race. That's what you need. A small/cute race, and with D&D having halflings, it doesn't _need_ gnomes. Especially not when D&D's gnomes and halflings are so extremely similar in previous editions that often it's impossible to distinguish their females in the artwork, and males can only be distinguished by either shoelessness (pre-3E) or exact facial hair (post-3E).


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## Whizbang Dustyboots (Jul 14, 2008)

Ruin Explorer said:


> What you're forgetting/ignoring, though, is the reason gnomes are played - because they're the only small/cute race.



Please don't tell me why I play gnomes. Not only are you wrong, you're also presumptuous.



> That's what you need. A small/cute race, and with D&D having halflings, it doesn't _need_ gnomes. Especially not when D&D's gnomes and halflings are so extremely similar in previous editions that often it's impossible to distinguish their females in the artwork, and males can only be distinguished by either shoelessness (pre-3E) or exact facial hair (post-3E).



Unless your game play consists of flash cards made up of illustrations taken from the books, this is utterly irrelevant. The culture, flavor and play of gnomes is and remains different than those of halflings, especially since halflings have been gone since the end of 2E, and we've been given kender instead. If I wanted kender, I'd be using them.


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## Set (Jul 14, 2008)

The Grumpy Celt said:


> If you were going to rehab gnomes so as to make them interesting, what would you do?




In the launch of the Scarred Lands setting, Gnomes weren't a part of it, but I wanted to include them, so I envisioned them as a nomadic people called the Rus, who were very much based on cheesy stereotypes of the Romani. Brightly-painted wagons (that doubled as boats), garishly-clad entertainers and tinkers and handymen, wandering the roads (and rivers) of the lands. They would sometimes tell stories about their hidden kingdom, which is concealed by such powerful magics that they couldn't even lead others to it (or describe it's location) if they tried. Other times, they would speak of the wandering 'Invisible College' (inspired by the game Divine Right), a magically concealed cart containing an extradimensional space within it, where gnomes went to learn arcane magics, particularly those of illusion, studying from permanant illusions of books, as the real books themselves are stored away in their hidden lands.

The wandering folk would work with animals (to pull their carts), including some surprising beasties, some of whom would join them for their nightly carnival performances, such as dancing bears or trick-performing great cats (although they would be more likely to use dire badgers or wolverines than either of the aforementioned, for traditional reasons).

A little bit gypsy, a little bit rogue, a little bit bard, a little bit illusionist, a little bit tinkerer, a little bit circus-performer and a dash of fey. Nothing at all like Dwarves *or* Halflings.



(Psi)SeveredHead said:


> WotC/TSR tried that with Dragonlance, and it didn't go over very well.




And yet they've gone and rebooted the Draconians and kept the Kender-ized Halflings.  So in two out of three cases, the legacy of Dragonlance won out, regardless of the settings demise.


----------



## Lackhand (Jul 14, 2008)

Whizbang Dustyboots said:


> Please don't tell me why I play gnomes. Not only are you wrong, you're also presumptuous.
> 
> 
> Unless your game play consists of flash cards made up of illustrations taken from the books, this is utterly irrelevant. The culture, flavor and play of gnomes is and remains different than those of halflings, especially since halflings have been gone since the end of 2E, and we've been given kender instead. If I wanted kender, I'd be using them.




I think he meant "In WoW", where his point is a lot more relevant.


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## Desdichado (Jul 14, 2008)

Whizbang Dustyboots said:


> Please don't tell me why I play gnomes. Not only are you wrong, you're also presumptuous.



He didn't.  He was speaking generically.

In any case, I'm starting to dislike gnomes even more than before, because this thread seems to have settled into gnome fans telling us gnome-apathy people that everything we've experienced about gnomes is _wrong_.

It's all well and good if gnomes are integral to your game and people play them all the time, but don't presume that when I say gnomes have no definite place in D&D that they can call their own, and I don't know people who play them, trust me; that's been my experience.


----------



## Lackhand (Jul 14, 2008)

Munging the order of your post so that mine may be read.


Set said:


> A little bit gypsy, a little bit rogue, a little bit bard, a little bit illusionist, a little bit tinkerer, a little bit circus-performer and a dash of fey. Nothing at all like Dwarves *or* Halflings.



Wait, no. That _is_ Halflings, almost to a T. Er, H. Observe:


Set said:


> In the launch of the Scarred Lands setting, Gnomes weren't a part of it, but I wanted to include them, so I envisioned them as a nomadic people called the Rus, who were very much based on cheesy stereotypes of the Romani.



Cool! But, you'll find in the late 3.x artwork, they called these "Halflings". PHB II presents some of this in the affiliations -- just look at that illustration. It's a pretty nice illustration, too 


Set said:


> Brightly-painted wagons (that doubled as boats),






Set said:


> garishly-clad entertainers and tinkers and handymen, wandering the roads (and rivers) of the lands. They would sometimes tell stories about their hidden kingdom, which is concealed by such powerful magics that they couldn't even lead others to it (or describe it's location) if they tried.



That's pretty cool, though Birthright halflings had it too -- but yeah, I do see where that's more Gnome than classical Halfling. However, I don't see why it distinctifies the two races, to coin a useless word.


Set said:


> Other times, they would speak of the wandering 'Invisible College' (inspired by the game Divine Right), a magically concealed cart containing an extradimensional space within it, where gnomes went to learn arcane magics, particularly those of illusion, studying from permanant illusions of books, as the real books themselves are stored away in their hidden lands.



Sure. Again, though, the Vistani elements tie it more to 4e Halflings than gnomes. The magic elements are more gnomic, but that's a bit cart-before-the-horse, since halflings could and have eaten the rest of it whole -- a little different, but not _very_ different, and it's the same little-different above.







Set said:


> The wandering folk would work with animals (to pull their carts), including some surprising beasties, some of whom would join them for their nightly carnival performances, such as dancing bears or trick-performing great cats (although they would be more likely to use dire badgers or wolverines than either of the aforementioned, for traditional reasons).



 A great use of gnome's speak-with-animals. Also, something I can see halflings or gnomes doing with equal frequency; points for awesome setting design, but none for niche protection.

That said -- I'm stealing that for my 4e halflings. Thanks!


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## cignus_pfaccari (Jul 14, 2008)

AllisterH said:


> 1. Birthright and Darksun actually killed them off.




Interestingly, gnomes appeared in the GM's manual for Birthright on the monsters list.  Some might view that as incredibly lax editing, as typical for 2e.

In our 3e Birthright game, our DM made them (and elves) able to take Force-using classes.  The gnome jedi guardian dual-wielding a pair of +5 Vorpal Sithsteel Kukris was just mean.

Brad


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## Set (Jul 14, 2008)

Lackhand said:


> Wait, no. That _is_ Halflings, almost to a T. Er, H.




I'm glad the ideas will be working for your 4e halflings, but I gotta admit, I never pictured them as bards, illusionists, tinkers, fey, etc. so the Halflings in my various games have been *radically* different than yours!

Never read Birthright, so I'm not real familiar with these Vistani Halflings, but hey, if it was good enough for that setting to do with Halflings, it's good enough for me to use for Gnomes.


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## am181d (Jul 15, 2008)

My current campaign is "built for 4e." The backstory involves a human warrior who, about a century ago, unified humanity to wipe out the orcs and the goblins and the lizardfolk, etc. till they ran out of traditional monster races and started turning to traditional "friendly races." 

The gnomes got squashed first. Eventually the elves and dwarves got the dragons involved, and the dragons basically took over, creating the Dragonborn to run day-to-day.  (The Tieflings are a recent arrival from across the sea with mysterious goals of their own.)

Modern gnomes are paranoid, tweeked out little buggers, experts at hiding, and savage when backed into a corner. You may think it looks cute when it says "Rawr! I'm a monster!" but. it. will. kill. you. in. your. sleep.


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## Intense_Interest (Jul 15, 2008)

I liked my own homebrew Gnomes, in which I swapped the "speak with burrowing mammal" ability to a "speak with air-breathing water animal" ability, and turned them into Short Samoan/Pacific Islander types that would stab you with a poisoned dagger if you looked at them wrong.

But yeah, I hate the core skitzo Gnomes.  Glad they got booted from the PHB so that I could just spin my own Gnomes out of whole cloth instead of having to change to fit.


----------



## Whizbang Dustyboots (Jul 15, 2008)

Lackhand said:


> I think he meant "In WoW", where his point is a lot more relevant.



No, it's still presumptuous. I've been a gnome player in multiple MMOs, and saying "people only play them because they're short and cute" is inaccurate and, again, presumptuous, unless there's been a poll of hundreds of thousands of players that somehow missed me and my friends.

He can talk about why HE plays gnomes or DOESN'T play gnomes. He does not have the ability to talk about why other people do or do not. No one does, on either side of the issue.


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## Orius (Jul 15, 2008)

Vocenoctum said:


> You have to understand, Dragonlance as a literary setting worked, but failed on almost all counts on the RPG side.
> 
> Tinker Gnomes could be fun, if you used the "mad gnomes" rule variant so they weren't stupid.
> 
> ...




Yeah, the inventor gnome can work, just don't go full-on tinker with it.  Tinker gnomes were just silly with their compulsive behaviors.  It's ok if other races mistrust gnome tech, as long as said tech actually works or at least doesn't fail catastrophically like tinker gnome tech does.

And really, dwarves are nearly always the same no matter what D&D setting they're in.  But then the typical dwarf doesn't need work, it's successful, it's popular and people actually want to play it.


----------



## Mokona (Jul 15, 2008)

Isn't it a poorly kept secret that the *AD&D* 2nd edition complete books of gnomes and halflings sold very little compared with the separate books on elves and dwarves?  The memory of poor sales was what motivated *Wizards of the Coast* to shoehorn gnomes into _Races of Stone_, a book about dwarves (and to even more blatantly force halflings into a book about forests/elves).  Gnomes don't really have a stone connection, they live under hills (i.e. dirt) and hang out with burrowing animals.  Few real animals burrow through stone.


----------



## Leatherhead (Jul 15, 2008)

Mokona said:


> Isn't it a poorly kept secret that the *AD&D* 2nd edition complete books of gnomes and halflings sold very little compared with the separate books on elves and dwarves?  The memory of poor sales was what motivated *Wizards of the Coast* to shoehorn gnomes into _Races of Stone_, a book about dwarves (and to even more blatantly force halflings into a book about forests/elves).  Gnomes don't really have a stone connection, they live under hills (i.e. dirt) and hang out with burrowing animals.  Few real animals burrow through stone.




I blame that on halfings, how many people wanted to play a hobbit after all?


----------



## (Psi)SeveredHead (Jul 15, 2008)

Set said:


> And yet they've gone and rebooted the Draconians and kept the Kender-ized Halflings.  So in two out of three cases, the legacy of Dragonlance won out, regardless of the settings demise.




A criticism of tinker gnomes isn't necessarily a criticism of Dragonlance. Tinker gnomes are found elsewhere too.

Halflings aren't kenderized. They're not compulsive thieves, and they don't get bored easily. They're actually a flanderization of halflings being "naturally good burglars" in ''the Hobbit''.

Dragonborn are an attempt to remake half-dragons without the dragon rape, and I don't like them much. I think 5e might only have three or four races, actually, since so many race ideas fail.


----------



## Ruin Explorer (Jul 15, 2008)

Whizbang Dustyboots said:


> He can talk about why HE plays gnomes or DOESN'T play gnomes. He does not have the ability to talk about why other people do or do not. No one does, on either side of the issue.




Actually, I do, and I will continue doing so. People HAVE done surveys of hundreds or thousands of MMORPG players. See www.nickyee.com. Put that in your little gnome pipe and smoke it.

It's also no accident that in any given MMORPG where both gnomes and halflings are available, halflings are more popular (nearly said poopular, that too).

*(Psi)SeveredHead* - Whilst Dragonborn are much like a reboot of half-dragons (a races who combined retarded look and bizarre apparent popularity - I saw more of them in FR sourcebooks than Drow for god's sake - always confused me), I don't know if that's really accurate. They're clearly a "race for people who like Dragon", but they also appeal to the "race for people who like Klingons" crowd, and to some extent the "race for people who like wierd-ass races" crowd.

Also, if race concepts "failing" got races kicked out of WotC books, I'm pretty sure Half-Elves would never have come back.


----------



## (Psi)SeveredHead (Jul 15, 2008)

Ruin Explorer said:


> *(Psi)SeveredHead* - Whilst Dragonborn are much like a reboot of half-dragons (a races who combined retarded look and bizarre apparent popularity - I saw more of them in FR sourcebooks than Drow for god's sake - always confused me), I don't know if that's really accurate. They're clearly a "race for people who like Dragon", but they also appeal to the "race for people who like Klingons" crowd, and to some extent the "race for people who like wierd-ass races" crowd.
> 
> Also, if race concepts "failing" got races kicked out of WotC books, I'm pretty sure Half-Elves would never have come back.




Half-elves might get kicked out of 5e. But in the meantime, they have some (small) niche to cling to.

Also, there's at least a few cool half-elves. (Well, okay, maybe just Tanis.) I can't recall any cool gnomes except a supporting character in a single Drizzt book (and I can't recall his name) outside of Eberron.


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## Mustrum_Ridcully (Jul 15, 2008)

(Psi)SeveredHead said:


> A criticism of tinker gnomes isn't necessarily a criticism of Dragonlance. Tinker gnomes are found elsewhere too.
> 
> Halflings aren't kenderized. They're not compulsive thieves, and they don't get bored easily. They're actually a flanderization of halflings being "naturally good burglars" in ''the Hobbit''.
> 
> Dragonborn are an attempt to remake half-dragons without the dragon rape, and I don't like them much. I think 5e might only have three or four races, actually, since so many race ideas fail.



I am not sure that they really fail. When I look at the group compositions I've seen so far, all the 4E races seem to be well received. 

In fact, I think the two 4E campaigns we have currently running seem absent of humans. I think that never happened before in our campaigns. Maybe it's just testing out the new toys, or that the new races are mechanically over-powered, but maybe it's just because they are all appealing.


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## Nifft (Jul 15, 2008)

(Psi)SeveredHead said:


> Also, there's at least a few cool half-elves. (Well, okay, maybe just Tanis.) I can't recall any cool gnomes except a supporting character in a single Drizzt book (and I can't recall his name) outside of Eberron.



 Jahira and Jan would like a word with you.

Cheers, -- N


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## Set (Jul 15, 2008)

(Psi)SeveredHead said:


> Half-elves might get kicked out of 5e. But in the meantime, they have some (small) niche to cling to.
> 
> Also, there's at least a few cool half-elves. (Well, okay, maybe just Tanis.) I can't recall any cool gnomes except a supporting character in a single Drizzt book (and I can't recall his name) outside of Eberron.




Gnomes exist in the AD&D game only because of Hugi, from Three Hearts and Three Lions.  Half-Elves (and Hobbitses) exist in because of Elrond, from Tolkein.

Neither race is a staple of pre-D&D fantasy, really.

One fantasy race I see very little of is the idea of the elder human race, from Atlantis or Avalon or whatever, a member of a lost advanced utopian culture with an intellect far ahead of his peers.  It's pretty common in fantasy, but, other than EverQuest's Erudites, pretty rare in gaming.


----------



## Vocenoctum (Jul 15, 2008)

Orius said:


> Yeah, the inventor gnome can work, just don't go full-on tinker with it.  Tinker gnomes were just silly with their compulsive behaviors.  It's ok if other races mistrust gnome tech, as long as said tech actually works or at least doesn't fail catastrophically like tinker gnome tech does.




We once had a flashlight made with the dragonlance invention table. It malfunctioned and turned a large field into glass... we assume it was fusion powered.

Dragonlance was a wonderful example of a literary world, where folks tolerate each other for the simple reason that the books need those characters as comic relief or tension breakers, et cetera. They can work in some games of D&D, but Dragonlance as a campaign was geared towards a very specific kind of campaign. Greyhawk, FR, Eberron, they were broader based and better able to handle varying archetypes. Greyhawk with classic gnomes, FR with some tinkerish gnomes and some less detailed gnomes, Eberron with information brokers, but you could still make whatever type of gnome (or other character) you wanted.



> And really, dwarves are nearly always the same no matter what D&D setting they're in.  But then the typical dwarf doesn't need work, it's successful, it's popular and people actually want to play it.




Though from reading ENworld, my campaigns seem a minority, for me dwarves have always been the least played race. And even then, when someone played a dwarf they always played that same "dwarf:. Elves had variety, gnomes, halflings, humans... but dwarf is dwarf.

(Very few half-orcs also, but I'm talking over the course of 3 editions, and they were absent for part of that. The 3e half-orc was also hard to break mold with though.)

Part of why I don't like the new dragonborn is because they are constrained by a given culture without a reason I like. Sure you can ignore it, but I don't like depicting a race with a personality.


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## Storm-Bringer (Jul 15, 2008)

Wow.  Tinker Gnomes or Garden Gnomes?  That's it?

Here's a campaign concept:  Trader Gnomes.

They always seem to show up where the players need them with just what the players need.  For a price.  A steep price.  Reviled by other merchants, despised by common folk, they nonetheless are nearly ubiquitous where ever money changes hands.  Naturally, some of their wares have been obtained by less than honest means, but you still get a good price, right?  They are easy to find at any market, too, clad in garish colours and clashing patterns.  Experts at squeezing the last nickel out of a mark- errr...  customer, their only guiding principle is _caveat emptor_.  Because of this, their ability to appraise goods is unmatched in the known lands.  Second only to that skill is their ability to judge how much a person is willing or able to pay for their goods.

Old DM trick.  If you need a quirk to liven up a stale characterization, use a Star Trek race.  In this case, of course, Gnomes=Ferrengi.  The old DMG had a table for NPC attitudes, also.  Roll up a couple of those, apply them in general terms to the whole race, and bingo!  New twist for an old race.


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## Nifft (Jul 15, 2008)

Storm-Bringer said:


> Here's a campaign concept:  Trader Gnomes.



 Seen it before, but they were called "Halflings" back then.

(Seriously, "speak with burrowing mammals" does not a trader make.)

Cheers, -- N


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## (Psi)SeveredHead (Jul 16, 2008)

Nifft said:


> Jahira and Jan would like a word with you.
> 
> Cheers, -- N




I'd like a word with them too, because I have no clue who they are.



			
				Set said:
			
		

> One fantasy race I see very little of is the idea of the elder human race, from Atlantis or Avalon or whatever, a member of a lost advanced utopian culture with an intellect far ahead of his peers. It's pretty common in fantasy, but, other than EverQuest's Erudites, pretty rare in gaming.




It's just too easy to turn that into code for racism. Fantasy is too politically correct to have Numenoreans nowadays.


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## Alaric_Argent (Jul 16, 2008)

I once played a elf rogue raised by gnomes in a short-lived campaign--gem knowledge (appraisal/cutting/jewelry craft) was part of the schtick, as well as having a whole slew of names that could be selected from to meet the demands of the occasion (I think "Cab" --bestowed by an uncle for doing the job of polishing cabachons--was my personal favourite). Heavy on the trickster, of course. I can't claim my acting skills were quite up to the challenge, but the campaign ended early for unrelated reasons.

That said, I'm also partial to the mechanical expertise aspect of gnomes. Think catapault and ballista design, possibly some dabbling in architecture or other engineering. No need to introduce gunpowder or nukes. I also got a few laughs from the entry on gnomes in the _Book of Erotic Fantasy_. 

So, I guess I'm a vote in favour of gnomes.


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## Storm-Bringer (Jul 16, 2008)

Nifft said:


> Seen it before, but they were called "Halflings" back then.
> 
> (Seriously, "speak with burrowing mammals" does not a trader make.)
> 
> Cheers, -- N



That is why you drop that and give them a bonus to Diplomacy.


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## lutecius (Jul 16, 2008)

Set said:


> One fantasy race I see very little of is the idea of the elder human race, from Atlantis or Avalon or whatever, a member of a lost advanced utopian culture with an intellect far ahead of his peers.  It's pretty common in fantasy, but, other than EverQuest's Erudites, pretty rare in gaming.



I think that's what dnd races stand for, or at least that's how i understand them.

for example:
- the Sidhe or Tuatha De Danann (and other races preceding the Celts in the Book of Conquests) have a lot in common with Tolkien's elves.
- the duergar and alfar of Norse mythology are sometimes interpreted as the spirits of long dead people. Some authors think the myth of short people living underground arose from the remains of pre-germanic people whose bodies were hunched or sometimes chopped to fit in burial mounds (many dwarf names were actually related to death and corpses)
More generally, shorter pre-indoeuropean people like the Sami were considered by the Norse like a separate, magically gifted race.
- According to Hesiod, the men of the Golden Age died out and were reborn as daimones living in caves.

All these lost "human" civilisations and antediluvian "ages of man" in fantasy litterature have the same mythological sources as the ancient dwarven and elven empires in tolkien and dnd. dnd just added some pointy ears.


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## Trench (Jul 16, 2008)

*sigh* Did no one read the unified theory of gnomes?

Did anyone see The Prestige? Remember the twist for the Christian Bale character?

That's what a gnome is. They live the lie. Every second of their lives.

But again, that's just our games. Gnomes are huge, major portions for us.


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## The Grumpy Celt (Jul 16, 2008)

Trench said:


> Did anyone see The Prestige? Remember the twist for the Christian Bale character?




I agree. When I said they needed an edge, this is the kind of thing I was talking about. They are presented as too simple and passive. Passive is not the same thing as good. Passive is mostly dull.


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## Trench (Jul 16, 2008)

The Grumpy Celt said:


> I agree. When I said they needed an edge, this is the kind of thing I was talking about. They are presented as too simple and passive. Passive is not the same thing as good. Passive is mostly dull.




Yep. Tricksters aren't just people lighting matchsticks between someone's toes. Tricksters are also the bumbling idiot who _just happen_ to stumble into the lamp that tips over the flame onto the important war plans. They get charmed by the villain, and then while doing his bidding, always manages to mess up the orders somehow and wash the lich's phylacterum in acid. And no one suspects the idiot, because he's _always_ been an idiot. That glimmer you see in his eye? Just a trick of the light.

Live the lie. You're a gnome? What's your story? Forest gnome well versed in the art of hunting? He always makes situations worse because he doesn't understand money or strange city customs. Yet somehow he manages to lead the big heroes to the thieve's guild to get back the kidnap victim. They save the day and they say how lucky it was Dimfaddle got into an argument with that fence so loudly that the bodyguard peeked out the back to make sure things were okay and the fighter recognized him as the assassin from last night. Yes. Such a coincidence...


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## Hussar (Jul 16, 2008)

It's kinda funny that everyone points fingers at WOTC for the lack of gnome love.  What 3rd party publisher did anything with gnomes either?

Yes, I'm 110% sure that some people love gnomes.  But, unfortunately, too few.


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## The Grumpy Celt (Jul 16, 2008)

Hussar said:


> But, unfortunately, too few.




That is becuase for 10 years TSR and then WotC presented the gnomes as weak, small, passive and the white-bread of the player races. Had, at some point during those 10 years and who knows how many books, gnomes been made interesting by TSR and WotC, then there would be fans of the little guys.


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## The Little Raven (Jul 16, 2008)

The Grumpy Celt said:


> That is becuase for 10 years TSR and then WotC presented the gnomes as weak, small, passive and the white-bread of the player races. Had, at some point during those 10 years and who knows how many books, gnomes been made interesting by TSR and WotC, then there would be fans of the little guys.




It was longer than ten years. It was almost 30 years, and the gnome passed through the hand of multiple design and development teams. If gnomes weren't that popular from their initial concept, then that says something about the concept.


----------



## Hussar (Jul 16, 2008)

The Grumpy Celt said:


> That is becuase for 10 years TSR and then WotC presented the gnomes as weak, small, passive and the white-bread of the player races. Had, at some point during those 10 years and who knows how many books, gnomes been made interesting by TSR and WotC, then there would be fans of the little guys.




But, that's my point.  Why is everyone pointing fingers at TSR and WOTC?  I mean out of the thousands and thousands of pages of OGC out there, NO ONE did anything with gnomes?  That's not just WOTC or TSR.  That's a whole lot of everyone.

Look, I play a gnome.  I have played gnomes in every edition.  But, it's pretty abundantly clear that I'm in the minority here.  So gnomes get the kick.  Ok.  It happens.  I would have loved to see lots of races make the book personally.  I've been pushing for a reptile race since 2e, so, dragonborn do it for me.

For me, it hit me a few years back when a player came to me with a kobold bard with a high charisma and lots of social skills.  I asked her why not play a gnome and got a completely blank look back.  Never even occured to her to play a gnome.   That pretty much nailed it on the head for me.


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## Trench (Jul 16, 2008)

By the way, I'm not a gnome supremacist. People don't like gnomes in their game, no biggie. Heck, our original campaign didn't have elves because he didn't like them. No one is wrong for disliking gnomes. I'm just saying that gnomes, heck ANY race, can be made cool and playable if you have a decent hook and flavor about it. Saying the basic concept of the race itself is flawed and no fun is misleading.


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## The Grumpy Celt (Jul 16, 2008)

Mourn said:


> ...then that says something about the concept.




The basic concept of halflings has changed considerably. The basic concept of elves, dwarves, half-orcs and druids have all changed, less so than the halflings but they are not what they were. The gnomes could have adjusted, they were not.


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## Hussar (Jul 16, 2008)

The Grumpy Celt said:


> The basic concept of halflings has changed considerably. The basic concept of elves, dwarves, half-orcs and druids have all changed, less so than the halflings but they are not what they were. The gnomes could have adjusted, they were not.




Gnomes were adjusted.  And everyone hated them.  I've yet to hear anything good about the 3.5 gnomes.  Other than Zil gnomes, I've yet to hear anything good about D&D gnomes period.  

Can you make gnomes interesting?  Sure.  Were they?  Nope.  No one did it.  Not TSR, not WOTC, not any of the 3rd party publishers.

Think of it another way.  What race has been dropped more times from settings, both WOTC and 3rd party?

What does this tell us?


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## The Little Raven (Jul 16, 2008)

The Grumpy Celt said:


> The gnomes could have adjusted, they were not.




Gnomes have been adjusted. Neither the original, nor the adjusted versions have ever gained any real traction.


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## Dragonbait (Jul 16, 2008)

I just played in a game where the GM RPed a gnome with a high-pitch, nasaly whiney voice. It was very excessive.

If that's how gnomes are represented in most games, no wonder why they are hated.


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## Whizbang Dustyboots (Jul 16, 2008)

Dragonbait said:


> I just played in a game where the GM RPed a gnome with a high-pitch, nasaly whiney voice. It was very excessive.
> 
> If that's how gnomes are represented in most games, no wonder why they are hated.



Why would you assume that most people do anything of the sort?

I remember when these threads were always about paladins. I think the end result there was always "OK, don't let the annoying guy play a paladin any more; the class itself isn't inherently the problem."


----------



## Whizbang Dustyboots (Jul 16, 2008)

Hussar said:


> But, that's my point.  Why is everyone pointing fingers at TSR and WOTC?  I mean out of the thousands and thousands of pages of OGC out there, NO ONE did anything with gnomes?  That's not just WOTC or TSR.  That's a whole lot of everyone.



Mongoose, Green Ronin, a ton of smaller publishers all did gnome stuff.


----------



## Vocenoctum (Jul 16, 2008)

Hussar said:


> Gnomes were adjusted.  And everyone hated them.  I've yet to hear anything good about the 3.5 gnomes.  Other than Zil gnomes, I've yet to hear anything good about D&D gnomes period.




Gnomes were present in Greyhawk and highly represented in the setting. Moreso than dwarves in the actual adventuring area of the central flan. They faded after that. As for 3.5, I remember a lot of this same debate going on when they "became bards", so I don't think that's a good sign of "no interest". 



> Can you make gnomes interesting?  Sure.  Were they?  Nope.  No one did it.  Not TSR, not WOTC, not any of the 3rd party publishers.
> 
> Think of it another way.  What race has been dropped more times from settings, both WOTC and 3rd party?
> 
> What does this tell us?




That half orcs are not well liked?

Oh, right, you were trying to say gnomes...


----------



## Whizbang Dustyboots (Jul 16, 2008)

Leatherhead said:


> I blame that on halfings, how many people wanted to play a hobbit after all?



Halflings were the rogue/thief race until 3E. It's impossible to tell how many people wanted to play hobbits and how many just wanted to play the best race for that class.

In any case, they were hardly uncommon.


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## Dragonbait (Jul 16, 2008)

Whizbang Dustyboots said:


> Why would you assume that most people do anything of the sort?




Because I have trouble understand most hatred for races beyond some obnoxious player/GM portreyed a race a certain obnoxious way and the other people used that as their basis for understanding a race.


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## Whizbang Dustyboots (Jul 16, 2008)

Mokona said:


> Isn't it a poorly kept secret that the *AD&D* 2nd edition complete books of gnomes and halflings sold very little compared with the separate books on elves and dwarves?  The memory of poor sales was what motivated *Wizards of the Coast* to shoehorn gnomes into _Races of Stone_, a book about dwarves (and to even more blatantly force halflings into a book about forests/elves).



The 3E race books were based on environment. When you do a book about races that live in the mountains and hills, where would you put the gnomes?

Same goes for halflings: There was a book about the wilderness. They stuck in halflings as one of those races, since they didn't make as much sense in the mountain book and wouldn't fit into the upcoming city book (which they strangely insisted on calling "Races of Destiny.")


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## Dragonbait (Jul 16, 2008)

removed double post.


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## Whizbang Dustyboots (Jul 16, 2008)

Dragonbait said:


> Because I have trouble understand most hatred for races beyond some obnoxious player/GM portreyed a race a certain obnoxious way and the other people used that as their basis for understanding a race.



The Internet is _full_ of inexplicable opinions. 

And I'm glad to see I'm not the only one having double-post issues today.


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## Whizbang Dustyboots (Jul 16, 2008)

Set said:


> Gnomes exist in the AD&D game only because of Hugi, from Three Hearts and Three Lions.  Half-Elves (and Hobbitses) exist in because of Elrond, from Tolkein.




Wil Huygen's gnome books were insanely popular in the late 1970s, starting with the publication of the first one in 1977. Heck, I remember in my household, we had a great rip-off about dwarves that for years I assumed was part of AD&D canon, given how well-realized they were.

A lot of the early D&D influences are no longer as popular as they once were, from the Dying Earth books (which I've never encountered a non-D&D player who's even heard of them) to the never-quite-catches-fire-as-a-reissue Fafhrd and the Grey Mouser books.

Wil Huygen's gnome books are in that same category.



> Neither race is a staple of pre-D&D fantasy, really.



Unless you count folk tales, in which case gnomes are all over the place. Even Santa Claus employs little guys -- called elves, but clearly not D&D elves -- who most closely resemble gnomes.



> One fantasy race I see very little of is the idea of the elder human race, from Atlantis or Avalon or whatever, a member of a lost advanced utopian culture with an intellect far ahead of his peers.  It's pretty common in fantasy, but, other than EverQuest's Erudites, pretty rare in gaming.



Gray elves unfortunately occupy that position in most campaigns, but that's a topic for another thread.


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## Vocenoctum (Jul 16, 2008)

Whizbang Dustyboots said:


> The Internet is _full_ of inexplicable opinions.




I had a player that always played a dwarf, and he was a big guy with a red beard and he WAS a dwarf. He did great.

An ex-gf of my brothers was our resident kender. She played it to a tee without being obnoxious about it. (She was a Kender Barbarian and still packed a wallop...)

Some folks just get a warped view of a race and try to play it up, others just want to be obnoxious and use the race/ class/ alignment to justify their oddity.



> And I'm glad to see I'm not the only one having double-post issues today.




EN2 has been timing out/ unresponsive/ crashing on me a lot and these long threads are irritating in the best of times for keeping track of stuff said.


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## Umbran (Jul 16, 2008)

Hussar said:


> Gnomes were adjusted.  And everyone hated them.




Your use of absolutes is the downfall of your argument.   

If it were literally everyone, and literally never, we'd not be having this discussion.  There's enough gnome love around that this sort of topic comes up on these boards pretty frequently.  This very discussion exists because some folks do, and have, liked them.

So please, next time, leave off the dismissive absolutes, okay?


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## The Little Raven (Jul 16, 2008)

Umbran said:


> There's enough gnome love around that this sort of topic comes up on these boards pretty frequently.




This is true, but to be frank about it, the threads tend to come from the same, small group of gnome lovers. They may be vocal, but aren't necessarily a large and growing selection of the community.


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## Whizbang Dustyboots (Jul 16, 2008)

Mourn said:


> This is true, but to be frank about it, the threads tend to come from the same, small group of gnome lovers. They may be vocal, but aren't necessarily a large and growing selection of the community.



This is Sylrae's first such thread.

It's grown at least by one person.


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## Trench (Jul 16, 2008)

NO! YOU PEOPLE ARE MISSING THE POINT!

The gnomes STARTED this thread! We're spending all this time ARGUING!!  It's what they want!

Oh god... has... has anyone heard from the tieflings lately?

OMIGOD! IT'S HIDEOUS! I'VE NEVER SEEN A GNOMISH HOOKED HAMMER USED LIKE THAT!


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## Whizbang Dustyboots (Jul 16, 2008)

Ruin Explorer said:


> Actually, I do, and I will continue doing so. People HAVE done surveys of hundreds or thousands of MMORPG players. See www.nickyee.com.



I'm familiar with the Daedalus Project.

Nick Yee's 2005 paper on demographics in WoW looked at 1,000 players when the game was, at that point, above 5 million players. That's statistically worthless.

His paper is a collection of interesting anecdotes, not a basis for any sort of sweeping generalizations.

But you said that gnome players picked the race because it's tiny. So let's go off of Nick Yee's research, which you pointed to.



			
				Nick Yee said:
			
		

> Night-Elves and Gnomes significantly more likely to be played by a female player.





			
				Nick Yee said:
			
		

> What’s interesting is the repeated differences between the Gnome/Dwarf vs. the Undead/Tauren.





			
				Nick Yee said:
			
		

> Motivation Differences: Character Classes
> Low Advancement - Dwarf, Gnome
> High Role-Playing - Troll, Gnome
> Low Competition - Gnome, Dwarf
> ...



He should have said "character races" on that chart, obviously. But what we see is that, based on his anecdotal survey, gnome players tend to value roleplaying and being unique, and aren't that worried about playing a powerful race, being better than other players or even what the mechanics of the race are. (Which is ironic, since gnomes make excellent spellcasters in WoW, probably the best on the Alliance side.)

In other words, pretty much what gnome players on D&D threads tend to say.

And that's it for the 2005 study. There's no evidence that people pick gnomes because they want to be short in that one.

Looking at the comments he included in a later update of the PDF, you see people saying they play gnomes and dwarves exclusively (which the chart above also hints at).

Gnomes resurface in his Norrathan Scrolls survey (I couldn't find the date on it). Gnome beggars got more money than half-elf or ogre beggars, especially if they were female.

And that's about it. If Nick has any results that say "people play gnomes in MMOs because they're short," he hasn't posted it as far as my Google Fu shows.



> Put that in your little gnome pipe and smoke it.



Could you _please_ drop the hostility?


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## The Little Raven (Jul 16, 2008)

Whizbang Dustyboots said:


> Nick Yee's 2005 paper on demographics in WoW looked at 1,000 players when the game was, at that point, above 5 million players. That's statistically worthless.






> In other words, pretty much what gnome players on D&D threads tend to say.




If 1,000 people in the 5 million WoW players is statistically worthless, then the 1,000 people (or less) that participate in these gnome threads out of the 4-5 million that play D&D (if the last claims of population are to be believed) are statistically worthless as well... and it's even worse, because gnomes are only like... half a person (with twice the nose!). 



> Could you _please_ drop the hostility?




Agreed, there. I'm not a fan of gnomes as a core race myself, but I don't hate them or anything.

...but could you put something in your little gnome pipe and then pass it? Stressful day at the office so far, as one of our founders was just forced out of the company. Time to update the ol' resume and look for an environment that doesn't feel as hostile.


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## Whizbang Dustyboots (Jul 16, 2008)

Mourn said:


> If 1,000 people in the 5 million WoW players is statistically worthless, then the 1,000 people (or less) that participate in these gnome threads out of the 4-5 million that play D&D (if the last claims of population are to be believed) are statistically worthless as well...



I agree. 



> and it's even worse, because gnomes are only like... half a person (with twice the nose!).



Gnomes have precisely the right amount of nose. Everyone else has freakishly little.



> ...but could you put something in your little gnome pipe and then pass it? Stressful day at the office so far, as one of our founders was just forced out of the company. Time to update the ol' resume and look for an environment that doesn't feel as hostile.



Gnomes are all about passing the pipe.

And yeah, these are grim times in a lot of places of work.


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## I'm A Banana (Jul 16, 2008)

I still argue that the gnome is just the scapegoat for the halfling's flanderization problem.

But halflings have a big more D&D traction, so no one has had a real problem with it....except for gnome fans, of course.


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## Nifft (Jul 16, 2008)

Trench said:


> NO! YOU PEOPLE ARE MISSING THE POINT!
> 
> The gnomes STARTED this thread! We're spending all this time ARGUING!!  It's what they want!



 You're saying gnomes ... are little trolls? Sounds like that little dude in _Memory, Sorrow, Thorn_.

Cheers, -- N


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## Mokona (Jul 16, 2008)

Whizbang Dustyboots said:


> Nick Yee's 2005 paper on demographics in WoW looked at 1,000 players when the game was, at that point, above 5 million players. That's statistically worthless.



On what statistical theory do you base your analysis that a sample size of 1,000 is too small?  It might "feel" too small but it is, in fact, a valid quantity to sample out of a population.


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## Whizbang Dustyboots (Jul 16, 2008)

Mokona said:


> On what statistical theory do you base your analysis that a sample size of 1,000 is too small?  It might "feel" too small but it is, in fact, a valid quantity to sample out of a population.



You're right, I expressed myself poorly. I think his information is indicative without being anywhere near definitive.

Nick Yee's work is based on opt-in sampling. In the case of WoW in 2005, he heard from 1,000 people out of more than 5 million. My guess is that they were mostly older MMO players who were familiar with his EQ1 work.*

* Older meaning they played previous MMOs, and aren't new-to-MMOs with WoW.


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## Vocenoctum (Jul 16, 2008)

Trench said:


> OMIGOD! IT'S HIDEOUS! I'VE NEVER SEEN A GNOMISH HOOKED HAMMER USED LIKE THAT!




I'm sorry, Hooked Hammers weren't popular enough and are no longer D&D Compliant as of 4e. Any references to Hooked Hammers (Gnomish or Otherwise) can get the GSL police on you.

You've been warned!

(I once had a shadowrun gm that wanted to advance the game by timeline of when the books came out, for a more realistic feel of advancing technology. Thus, until we reached the timeline in the book where chainsaws were introduced, we couldn't own one... as I constantly reminded him. I may have driven him to drink...)


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## Vocenoctum (Jul 16, 2008)

Whizbang Dustyboots said:


> I(Which is ironic, since gnomes make excellent spellcasters in WoW, probably the best on the Alliance side.)




Except Warlocks, it seems 75% of the warlock's I meet are gnomes.

Also, 80% of female gnomes have those pink ponytails.


I bet your gnomes have pink ponytails!

I will admit that my gnome warrior was partly because of the height thing. It just amuses me that a little girl gnome tanks for a group of humans, most of whom can take maybe half the damage she can. Built Gnome Tough!


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## Whizbang Dustyboots (Jul 16, 2008)

One thing I'm sorry to see didn't make the transition from EQ1 to WoW were the cries of "GNOME POWER!" every time a gnome moved into a new zone in EQ. Very annoying to everyone not a gnome, true, but it was a nice solidarity thing among gnomekind.


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## Hussar (Jul 17, 2008)

Whizbang Dustyboots said:


> Mongoose, Green Ronin, a ton of smaller publishers all did gnome stuff.




Really?  I'm not a huge fan of either company, but I do have a number of books from both.  What gnome books did they do?

Umbran - sure, absolutes are bad, but, let's face it, it's not far off either.  The primary reason that gnomes got the chop is that they were never very popular.  Like I said WAY way up thread, WOTC has the stats from the various Living Campaigns.  I'll bet dollars to donuts that gnomes and half orcs rank at the bottom of the heap.  

Why does no one care about the poor half orc anyway?


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## racoffin (Jul 17, 2008)

Hussar said:


> Really?  I'm not a huge fan of either company, but I do have a number of books from both.  What gnome books did they do?




Mongoose - Quintessential Gnome
Dark Quest Games - Gnomes, Masters of Illusion
Green Ronin - Advanced Race Codex: Gnomes
Kenzer and Co - Friend and Foe: The Gnomes and Kobolds of Tellene
EN Publishing - EN Arsenal - Hooked Hammer

There may be a few others I am missing, but I think those are the big ones.


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## Hussar (Jul 17, 2008)

racoffin said:


> Mongoose - Quintessential Gnome
> Dark Quest Games - Gnomes, Masters of Illusion
> Green Ronin - Advanced Race Codex: Gnomes
> Kenzer and Co - Friend and Foe: The Gnomes and Kobolds of Tellene
> ...




Thankees.  Didn't gnow about those.  

As far as Greyhawk and original gnomes goes, I've been reading the Oerth Journal lately to prepare for my Savage Tide campaign.  I've played in Greyhawk but it was a very long time ago, so, I figured I'd brush up and look for some background goodies for my players.

Gnomes aren't mentioned.  Now, I'm only about halfway through, so, maybe there's something later on, but, gnomes aren't even mentioned so far.  The first couple of Oerth Journals deal specifically with the history and timelines of Greyhawk up to the Greyhawk Wars and gnomes aren't even given a paragraph as far as I can see.  Elves?  Feature prominently.  Dwarves?  All over the place.  Even Halflings get a bit of a blurb.  Nothing on gnomes.

So, I'm thinking that gnomes didn't register too high on the radar, even back then, with hard core Greyhawk fans.


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## Whizbang Dustyboots (Jul 17, 2008)

I love my character's gnome hooked hammer! (His has _continual flame_ cast on one end, for use as a torch and as a fake flaming weapon.)







I had forgotten about that ENWorld book. If he wasn't already working on class #4 in two levels (his first prestige class), I'd be tempted to pick up some hooked hammer specialist goodies from that.


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