How do you like your gnomes best?

[Matafuego]

IMC they were obsessed with illusion and the Arts. Most Gnomic cities are based on an Italian city such as Venice or Florence and Gnomes are the perfect painters, sculptors and musicians.
That was until they were almost all slaughtered when their kingdom was conquered first by ancient dragons and then by Orcus himself.

 

[viscounteric]

In my campaign world, a mixutre of everything (tinkerers, illusionists, merchants). Mix in the Gnome Titans (Spartans on steroids) and Gnomelings (gnome/halfling kin who demonstrate the worst traits of both races) and the culture is pretty well fleshed out. It's their wuss god pantheon that leaves much to be desired.

 

[Dragonhelm]

Tinker gnomes are my favorite. To me, this is a unique identity that no other race has. How many times have gnomes been compared to dwarves or halflings? With tinkers, this isn't an issue.

I don't care for the gnome illusionist as a baseline stereotype. After all, any race can be an illusionist, and any one individual can have a talent for illusion magic. Also, it doesn't give them an identity that's unique to them.

The 3.5 bard version isn't bad at all for a generic game.

Underdark pseudo-dwarves - If you describe one race by comparing it to another, then perhaps you should just play the other to begin with.

 

[molonel]

Lightly fried in garlic butter with a dash of salt.

 

[Vocenoctum]

I also like that gnomes have lots of room for development being one of the only races that isn't based on "Tolken" type stories.

I think that's part of why gnomes are generally disliked. They're not stereotyped like elves & dwarves, even halflings. What I always found odd was that the anti-gnomites often want gnomes removed from the game. I don't like dwarves, but I never argued they should be removed from the game.

I prefer gnome illusionists, but I think that carries a bit of the Eberron concept and many other things with it, so can't really vote in the poll.

 

[Ceresco]

I voted other.

In the world of Arcanis gnomes are the twisted, malformed get of dwarves (cursed celestial giants) and humans. They are the bottom rung of society, no homeland, mistrusted by all and forced to live in ghettos when allowed to stay in a civilized lands.

Edward Kopp: Arcaniac at Large

 

[Aeric]

I checked both Forest--hard to spot/wannabe fey and Other. The Other being that they really are fey, and are tiny creatures living under logs and stones deep in the forest.

And in no way available or appropriate as a player-character race.

 

[MonkeyDragon]

After looking at my race list, I decided to cut the gnomes. I have a lot of other races and figured that halflings filled the small niche. I decided to turn gnomes into an NPC race.

My idea was a cross between tinkers, garden gnomes and the creatures in faerie tales described as brownies or house elves. Tiny fey creatures who loved to build things, spoke to woodland creatures, and might break into your house and make you some shoes, if you were a good person who happened to leave some leather out.

Well, I described the idea to one of my players, who practically begged me to make it a player race. So I did. I call them Tinker Gnomes, and they're basically souped up regular gnomes with added abilities and a few drawbacks. I don't really know how playable they are, since they had originally been planned for flavor and not mechanical balance, but when my friend is done with her current character, she's all keen to try them out.

 

[Vocenoctum]

I checked both Forest--hard to spot/wannabe fey and Other. The Other being that they really are fey, and are tiny creatures living under logs and stones deep in the forest.

And in no way available or appropriate as a player-character race.

Names aren't a big deal, but why bother replacing the PC race with a fey race when there are already plenty of fey races that meet those criteria?

 

[shilsen]

Eberron gnomes. I love those scary little creeps with all of my body, including hong's pee-pee.