Gnomes! (HUH) What are they good for? Absolutely nothing!

Gnomes. Let's talk about gnomes. I don't get the appeal.

First of all, what niche are they supposed to fill? They live underground and they make stuff, like dwarves. But I guess they're thinner? And more annoying? Or maybe they're just halflings that live underground. Regardless, they don't seem to have a well-defined place in the small races ecosystem.

Is there some fantasy literature tradition they are supposed to reference? If there is I'm not familiar with it. When someone says 'gnome', I think of this guy:



That's right ladies! He's single!

Don't get me wrong, I have players that like to play gnomes. Interestingly they almost always play gnome rogues. That may be just for mechanical reasons. Although to me halfling is a perfectly good alternative.

Why do people like to play gnomes? And how did a lawn ornament get to be a core race in D&D?!?

They're the only race I have considered banning at my table. Somehow I feel like having gnomes in the game automatically makes the whole game sillier. Anyone else feel this way?

They're a race with no real identity.

But I like them.

Silly?

Sure.

But the game could use a good dash of silly.

I'm with you, don't have much use for gnomes. I won' ban them, but they really don't seem to have a good place.

Is there some fantasy literature tradition they are supposed to reference?

Click to expand...

Well, in many mythic traditions, dwarf, elf, gnome, kobold, pixie, goblin and other terms are used somewhat interchangeably as kinds of fey creatures. It's not until you get into late 19th and early 20th century writings that you start seeing harder distinctions. Modern fiction and RPG writers just latched onto particular ones they liked and ran with them...or made their own.

With D&D in particular, the problem wasn't so much that gnomes couldn't have a niche, it was that the designers made an elf for every ecosystem.

Dwarves are gold-loving miners with staunch traditions of fighting.

Halflings are- well, it depends on the game. Talk about no identity! Are they hobbits, 1e style? Kender? Are they 3e style wagon-traveling Gypsie types? For the sake of argument, let's say that they fit all of these molds: basically, they're homey, but kind of rapscallions.

Gnomes are the tricksters, using illusion and enchantment to hide themselves, conceal their homes and mislead enemies. Many people who run afoul of gnomes never even know that they have done so; they "end up" stumbling upon a group of monsters or something that leads them away. Gnomes are the illuminati, working behind the scenes, controlling the money supply, manipulating political factions and religious hierarchies.

Once you make gnomes non-silly and don't use dwarves in the setting, gnomes become an interesting race to populate the world. The problem with dwarves is that they are just so terribly boring and so incredibly stereotyped that nobody has any clue how to freshen them up in any way.
Dwarves are always the scotish-viking, racist, alcoholic miners. Always have been, and most probably ever will be. There are so many settings that tried new and different things with all the races, but dwarves are always 100% identical. Even Eberron, which really subverted everything with it's Orc druids, halfling barbarians riding dinosaurs, and necromantic jungle elves, still has dwarves that are the same as always.
One could argue that Dark Sun dwarves are different, but they seem to have lost every single aspect of dwarves except being a bit short and called dwarves. Is that even still a dwarf?

But once you got rid of the dwarves, there's an interesting niche to fill into which gnomes just fit in perfectly. Without being racist alcoholics.

I agree that gnomes are a bit redundant in a world with dwarves and halflings.

On the other hand, they make pretty good dragon appetizers!

To be fair, D&D is fuuuuuuuuull of redundancy.

Don't just blame gnomes.

Gnomes, in my opinion, are suppose to represent mortal's connection to the mystical, and nature.

Now, I could be wrong, and if I am, tell me, but Gnomes are free-spirited, and are the only race who don't let fear stop them from experiencing new things, and at the end of the day, basically any and all other races will care what there neighboring nations, and races think of them, gnomes do not. To use a quote as an example...

Gnomes can have the same concerns and motivations as members of other races, but just as often they are driven by passions and desires that non-gnomes see as eccentric at best, and nonsensical at worst. A gnome may risk his life to taste the food at a giant's table, to reach the bottom of a pit just because it would be the lowest place he's ever been, or to tell jokes to a dragon—and to the gnome those goals are as worthy as researching a new spell, gaining vast wealth, or putting down a powerful evil force.

Gnomes, in turn, are often amazed how alike other common, civilized races are. It seems stranger to a gnome that humans and elves share so many similarities than that the gnomes do not. Indeed, gnomes often confound their allies by treating everyone who is not a gnome as part of a single, vast non-gnome collective race.

Click to expand...

That was gotten from the Pathfinder description for Gnome, on the d20pfsrd site. Gnomes do what they want, when they want, without care for consequences. They have deep love of art, and music, over humans. They know more of magic and nature then Elves. They understand machinery and history better then dwarves... and at the end of the day, they only want to learn more. That is what drives most to adventure, and travel. That promise of knowledge they don't yet possess.

On top of that, they are open with what they know, usually. You see, the greatest dwarf secrets are usually hidden in the deepest caverns, and mines. The most powerful of magics are kept by elves in there forest cities. But a gnomes understanding for things are usually expressed in every word they speak, though most don't understand it, because they're different.

Now, if your talking about Gnomes from a "What class fits them best"... usually something like sorcerer, alchemist, gunslinger, and druid...

Hope that helped. (FYI: Gnome = favorite race)

[MENTION=91777]Dungeoneer[/MENTION] What's the difference between a gnome and your momma? Yeah, I don't know either

I had two players run gnomes in a large party; one played a trickster type bard and the other a mad scientist with a crossbow artificer. And those two archetypes capture the gist of the D&D gnome distinct from dwarves and hobbits well enough. What more do you want?