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

[evileeyore]

Can Yiddish gnomes be a thing? 'Cause I could totally see that.

Dwarves in my fantasy games are always basically Yiddish (with a minor variation).

My Gnomes are always cthonic murder fairies. My Redcaps are Gnomes who've taken over abandoned forts or homesteads.

 

[Umbran]

The truth is that I find the gnome to be inherently ridiculous.

Yes. But no more than anyone else. You see, the gnome has enough of a sense of humor to recognize his innate absurdity - something dwarves and elves can't manage.

That said, there is a serious, historical side to this discussion....

THE EVOLUTION OF THE GNOME IN DUNGEONS & DRAGONS[/B]

1974 - The gnome makes his first appearance in the original edition of D&D.

1975 - The gnome shows up in the Blackmoor supplement.

1977 - The gnome makes his first appearance in the Monster Manual. Gnomes are described (and illustrated) as smaller 'cousins of the dwarves', complete with beards and armor. They can see in the dark, they are described as 'resistant to poison and magic' and they are miners who live in clans. In short, they have nothing in common with the modern day gnome.

1978 - Gnomes appear in the first Player's Handbook as a playable race. They are just as described in the Monster Manual and they can take Illusionist as a class.

1987 - Gnomes appear in Dragonlance Adventures substantially reworked as 'Tinker Gnomes', a brown, clever race which are the ancestors of both dwarves and kender. This seems to be the first appearance of the tradition of gnomes having long names.

1989 - The second edition of AD&D is released, and the PHB contains gnomes. In addition to their previous attributes, they are now associated with trickery and said to inhabit uninhabited hills and forests(a self-contradictory concept that the gnome is perfectly at home with). Various monster manuals introduce several gnomish sub-races.

Whoa, there, partner! You missed a major bit a couple steps back. 1980 - Deities and Demigods. Garl Glittergold - Greater god, leader of the gnomish pantheon, is a trickster. This, and the rest of the pantheon, establish much of the character of the intended culture.

 

[TarionzCousin]

I don't like a playable race to be defined too narrowly. In my games, gnomes are more akin to Eberron's version: clever, learned, and dedicated to doing their work behind the scenes--but I'm open to anything my players want to do.

So far, in over 20 years of gaming, I haven't had one player choose to be a gnome.

 

[Hussar]

I had a player some years ago who made a short race charismatic bard. And then made it a kobold...

When I asked her why she didn't go with gnome, she honestly said it never even occurred to her.

In an earlier campaign, we'd been playing Scarred Lands for nearly two years before anyone noticed that there are no gnomes in Scarred lands (until you get to another continent anyway).

It was at that point I realised that gnomes really weren't speaking to anyone I played with.

 

[billd91]

Part of that is because even 3E couldn't make up its mind about gnomes. In 3.0 their favored class was illusionist (remember Nebin?); in 3.5 it became bard.

One of 3.5's many mistakes, if you ask me. 3.5 made some important fixes but feature creep led to a lot more changes that were utterly unnecessary - like this one.

 

[HobbitFan]

I've never had any problem with gnomes in my D&D games. My brother proudly played an illusionist back in the 1E/2E days and he played one in 3E/3.5. That was all in the Forgotten Realms. And I used gnomes all the time alongside dwarves and halflings and we never got the three races mixed up or confused. The idea that gnomes have no racial identity is an exaggeration and misunderstanding of things.

Back when I played my very first D&D campaign set in Middle-Earth we had gnomes there too. Look up Petty Dwarves in Tolkien lore and you'll see how we made it work.

There's a lot of variety there in the sub-races and other cultures. Deep Gnomes (which 1 of you mentioned in thread previous) and the Tinker Gnomes (also mentioned before) are very different takes on Gnomes that give you a pretty broad range when taken with the default D&D gnome.

If someone doesn't like gnomes, that's their opinion. They shouldn't dog on other people's choice to play and enjoy playing gnomes.

 

[zoroaster100]

I think gnomes do have a place in the D&D world distinct from dwarves or halflings. In a lot of recent campaign settings and aventures they've been defined as either little fey beings who are magical and quirky, or as tinkerers. Either vision of them tends to show them as an odd bunch, often quirky and surprising, sometimes funny, sometimes dangerous, sometimes mysterious and secretive, sometimes all of the above. They can be the player's chance to play a faery tale fey being with magic and connection to tricky magic, more so than an elf. They can be the Illuminati of the world, presenting a false comic face to other races while having a clever and mysterious spy network and secret plans to influence the course of history from behind the scenes. They can be the source of magic-tech in the world. I've had players play gnomes in my campaigns, including one player who loves playing gnomes all the time, and does a great job creating interesting gnome characters. We played a third edition campaign from first to 20th level in which he played a female gnome wizard/thief/arcane trickster to great effect, both roleplay-wise and in terms of contributions to the group's success.

 

[hatecraft]

I'm not a fan of gnomes. They're either stereotyped quirky little inventors or quirky little dudes who hang out with badgers. It just seems like it's extra difficult to make a complex gnome character--or at least I haven't seen one.

 

[Umbran]

I'm not a fan of gnomes. They're either stereotyped quirky little inventors or quirky little dudes who hang out with badgers.

And dwarves are not stereotyped staid little dudes with axes?

 

[the Jester]

Whoa, there, partner! You missed a major bit a couple steps back. 1980 - Deities and Demigods. Garl Glittergold - Greater god, leader of the gnomish pantheon, is a trickster. This, and the rest of the pantheon, establish much of the character of the intended culture.

And don't forget the Gnomish Point of View article by Roger E. Moore, published in Dragon back in the day. That series of articles was amongst the best expansion of D&D races' cultures that we've ever seen, up to and including the one on humanoids.