Honestly, how often have you used gnomes?

[The Little Raven]

[Half-Life 2: Episode 2 Spoiler]

The only time I've ever used a gnome was when

Spoiler

I carried him throughout Episode 2 in order to get the Little Rocket Man achievement

and I'm not even sure that counts.

 

[Lucius Drake]

Personally I'm rather fond of gnomes. The mechanics for them don't bother me muchly to be honest, but I just find that I like them.

 

[Nellisir]

Umm. Actually, several quite reasonable, mechanical objections have been made.

1: Being small and burrowing isn't enough to support a full race, and overlaps with halflings and dwarfs.

This isn't mechanical, it's thematic. Having an evil grandparent isn't enough to support a race either, but we've still got tieflings. Or if you really want to talk about overlap, lets look at the half-elf.

2: Illusion magic isn't enough to support a race.

Says more about illusion than gnomes.

3: "Likes to be bards" isn't enough to support a race.

Again, not really mechanical. I'd say "Likes to be naughty" isn't enough to support a race, but we've -still- got tieflings. And "my parents were naughty" is -really- not enough for a whole race, but half-elves are still in.

4: "Natural artificers" IS enough to support a race, but you'd need a whole new power source and character class to put artifice-ing into the PHB.

This might be getting somewhere, but....there are only 3 "power sources" in the PHB, and yet there are 7? 8? 9? races? Clearly exclusivity is not a priority.

 

[KrazyHades]

It's cool. I was feeling a wee bit cranky when I read your post.

Honestly, I've gotten pretty tired of the number of posts I've been running into on ENWorld lately that effectively boil down to

"This is my opinion. It is true. You should think it's true too. If you don't, there's something wrong with you. Feel free to disagree with me. You will still be wrong. *fakefriendlyemoticon* kthxbye!!"

*shrug*

Maybe I should stop reading these forums.

My opinion is that you shouldn't stop. This is true. If you don't, there's something wrong with you. Feel free to disagree with me. You will still be wrong. kthxbye!!


Nah, don't abandon ENWorld just because some people are very defensive of their positions. To deal with the towering ramparts of self-righteousness, just get the siege-weapon of all online arguments added to your arsenal: Force them to fall victim to Godwin's Law and the corollary that makes them lose the thread.

Also, some very interesting opinions being stated here. I like this thread, even though (or perhaps because) it is a bit rambling.

 

[Brennin Magalus]

Gnomes are great in Eberron.

Of course, Eberron added a lot of cool to most of the "weak" PHB races. Half-elves, gnomes and half-orcs have compelling stories and people in my game want to play them (OK, no half-orcs, but because they wanted a full orc).

I think Eberron shows that they can be interesting. IMO, it's just a flaw of the other settings that they weren't made interesting.

If they killed Eberron gnomes and gave their stuff to dwarves it would work just as well, if not better.

 

[Brennin Magalus]

Gnomes have no place in a fantasy world? Are you high, or just utterly out of touch with reality

You are aware that Gnomes have held a place in folklore and fairy takes in the west that spans centuries right?

In which they are essentially indistinguishable from dwarves.

Gnomes under 1st and second edition filled outstanding roles. Mainly they flesh out thief, illusionist, and cleric roles. They were well suited for the game and their abilities as illusionists (until they were seriously nerfed in 3rd edition) were outstanding.

That third edition screwed up is simply an indication that 3rd edition is not perfect, and should be ignored and fixed by the GM where appropriate.

If the game rules would have been properly done illusionist spells would have not had their effectiveness damaged and the gnomes would have continued to be a respected and well used character race.

That WotC screwed up 3rd edition on that score should not be held against the gnomes

I thought gnomes were lame before 3rd edition.

Have I used them? Yep... more than once. Particularly a couple Gnome thief characters in a Greyhawk campaign starting in and near the Kron hills.

The thing is... if they kill gnomes off completely... what happens to Greyhawk?

The Kron Hills (Flann-aerich in the old Flan tongue) are a range of mineral-rich hills spilling from the eastern side of the Lortmil Mountains and onward into the western Gnarley. The Kron Hills form the northern border of Celene, and the southern border of Verbobonc.

The northern region of the hills form a gnomish realm known as the Free Assembly of the Kron Hills, ruled by Urthgan the Eldest of Tulvar.

It's simple, really. They could populate the Kron Hills with hill dwarves.

 

[Psychotic Jim]

I've used gnomes pretty extensively, two PCs (one a cleric of Tymora and the other a bard) in a mostly dungeon game. The gnome bard really worked well with the party, both for mechanically (boosting and illusions) and flavor wise. One comedic lecture (inspire courage) he did in combat about not messing with drunk dwarves got labeled the best inspiration in the group ever. Gnomish bards really seem to be my thing as far as PCs go, go fig.

I've also used gnomes extensively in plots. One intro adventure I did for a Forgotten Realms/Nevermore crossover game involved the tinker gnomes of Lantan. Heavy steamtech development there (promoted by Gond) resulted in a Marxist type labor conflict between the rich artificers/mages and the lowly workers. A disciple of Kambranax (from Kambranax's mechanizations, from dungeon magazine) who was a LN gnome tried to solve the conflict by integrating and brainwashing everybody into a collective hive mind via the half-machine template. It was a fun adventure with some horror elements thrown in for good measure, the gnomes really enhanced it. Another NPC gnome later in that campaign was a curious but grouchy Gnome junk dealer.

I can understand why 4e is giving the gnome the axe in the PHB if they’re not popular, but it does sadden me somewhat. They were one of my favorite D&D races from both a DM and a player standpoint. I liked the compartive versatility as well as the oddball factor that could be played.

 

[Faraer]

I think Gary's original gnome concept is strong. Some of the reasons it wasn't taken to heart as much as elves, dwarves and halflings are that it didn't have their recognizable base in Tolkien, northern myth, folklore and Shakespeare; it wasn't dwelt on by Gary (except a nice section of S4) or other TSR designers; Jeff Grubb's tinker gnomes and succeeding high-concept novelties further complicated/diffused/distracted from their original identity; and of course our society's admiration of the tall, youthful and mostly hairless.

I also like the gnomes -- the Forgotten Folk -- of the Realms, and again, they never got the attention that imbedded elves and dwarves in people's loyalties. Chicken and egg. Then, gnomes being a non-core race matches their secrecy in the Realms rather well.

I think if Wizards made a little of their market research public we would trust their decisions more. I wonder what questions established the greater popularity of theoretical dragon people, or eladrins which most players (unless the fraction who buy supplements has multiplied since the 90s) probably haven't heard of.

I've DMed two gnome PCs -- one good, the other a 'look, I'm different' attention grab -- and made decent use of them as NPCs.

 

[Greg K]

I've had two gnome PC's in my pre-3.x campaigns. Nobody in my current group has played a gnome, but then again the only non human was an elf. Then again, over the past year, we had been primarily playing Mutants and Masterminds and Rolemaster so there hasn't been a chance to see what the groups new additions would play. This may change depending on whether they want me to resume my M&M campaign or my DND campaign now that it is my time to run again.

 

[Ahnehnois]

I played a gnome cleric PC briefly, and I've run plenty of gnome NPCs. For whatever reason, I use them fairly often, probably more than elves and definitely more than the half-races. They don't have great cities or kingdoms IMC as elves, humans, and dwarves might, but they still see plenty of use.

Mechanically, they're pretty good, and I like their culture as per RoS. They seem to have a place in every classic D&D world. I see them as being a much more useful "core" race than, say, tielflings.