D&D General Does Your Fantasy Race Really Matter In Game? (The Gnome Problem)

MGibster · Jul 15, 2019

I want you to step in the way back machine and think about all the Dungeons & Dragons games you've participate in. Did it really matter what fantasy race a player chose for his or her character? Obviously there were mechanical reasons to chose one race over another for attribute bonuses, special abilities, and access to kits or prestige classes but what difference did it make in the campaign? Would there be a noticeable difference in the campaign had your human Fighter been a goliath, an elf, or a dragonborn? At the risk of sounding presumptuous I'll bet the answer is probably no.

I recently came across what I call the Gnome Problem. I was creating my own campaign setting and since we have rules for all these races the only reasonable thing to do was to shoehorn them into my setting. "Why would you do this, MGibster? I can hear you ask. It's just kind of expected, isn't it? If I invited you over to play some D&D it would not be unreasonable of you to expect to play any one of the races from the Player's Handbook.

As I was figuring out the broad strokes behind my setting I had humans, various elfs, dwarfs, halfings, orcs, and even tieflings figured out but then I got to gnomes. I couldn't think of any reason to add them to the setting beyond that they should just be in a D&D setting. (I ended up making them near extinct having been the victims of the big bad evil empire of the setting.) It got me to thinking about whether or not I really needed drow, halfings, or orcs at all.

Not every fantasy race works for every campaign setting. Personally I think dragonborn and half-orcs don't belong anywhere near Ravenloft. If you've got a setting where demons don't mate with demi-humans then tieflings probably won't work. At least not as written and then why bother having tieflings in the first place?

I just don't think having a plethora of available races necessarily adds much of anything to the setting. Anyone with me or am I out on a limb here?

doctorbadwolf · Jul 15, 2019

I’m always flummoxed by folks having a hard time seeing a place for Gnomes.

I’m curious. What is your general conception of the identity of the Gnome race?

im also curious about your conception of the races in
general. Do you simply view halflings as “the game’s main short race?” And half-orcs as “the big tough/‘savage’ race”? Ie, do you view them primarily as a what niche they fill narratively?

jgsugden · Jul 15, 2019

A setting may have "primary" races around which most of your civilizations are built, but if you have a player that wants to play a race that isn't amongst your primary races, there is usually a lot of great ways to work them into your setting in a small role, such as you did with your gnomes. To that end, I would not call it a problem... just a configuration.

Charlaquin · Jul 15, 2019

I’m with you all the way. It can feel a little wrong not to offer options that are in the PHB in your home brew setting, but at the same time, having to shoehorn a race into a setting just because they’re in the PHB is pretty limiting. I strongly believe that when creating a new setting, all elements - races, classes, subclasses, gods, monsters, whatever - should be opt-in, not opt-out.

Charlaquin · Jul 15, 2019

doctorbadwolf said:
I’m always flummoxed by folks having a hard time seeing a place for Gnomes.

I’m curious. What is your general conception of the identity of the Gnome race?

Which Gnome race? I have my own version of Gnomes that has a clear, consistent identity, which I’m quite fond of. But until I basically rewrote them myself, I was on the gnome hate train because I couldn’t tell what the heck they were supposed to be. Are they shorter dwarves that specialize in engineering? Halflings who live in the woods and do illusion magic? Both? Neither? D&D couldn’t seem to make up its mind about what the heck Gnomes were supposed to be, so I did it myself. Now I like them, but they’re not really any of the many disparate things D&D calls “gnomes.”

doctorbadwolf · Jul 15, 2019

T answer your questions more directly, yes. The race of my characters is generally pretty impactful on the experience. My Gnomish Swashbuckler/Bladesinger alchemist cannot be the same person as a human. Full stop.

As for world building, I find that having all the races, and figuring out where they fit not only creates a more interesting game, but a more interesting world because I have had a good think about much more of the world, and done so from many very different perspectives. I’ve thought about how human lowland animists view the Goliath tradition of Dawn Calling, wherein they believe (and spirits seem to agree) that they literally call the dawn, and without them the sun literally wouldn’t rise. That makes a more satisfying and engaging world than if I hadn’t thought about those things.

MNblockhead · Jul 15, 2019

As a DM, create the world you want to run and find players who want to play in it. If you are not stuck running games for organized play, there is no right or wrong decision here as a long as everyone is having fun.

I've run games where races were limited, because of the history and worldbuilding for that campaign. In my home-brew campaign, you can only select from human, dwarf, halfling, or gnome. Half-orc or half-elf may be allowed, but only if it is not obvious that your character is either.

I've run other games where not only all the PHB races were allowed, but also all of the Volo's monstrous races.

But I've always had gnomes. They've always been an important part in every campaign I've run, whether home-brew, WotC, or third-party publisher.

The races matter very much in the campaigns I run. Choosing which race is not a matter of just the mechanical effects, but it will greatly affect how you are treated in the world, where your centers of support are, and your freedom of movement--both physical and social. I discuss all this with players before the campaign begins and I'll often make changes to the setting to help fit in character choices I hadn't originally given much thought to.

cbwjm · Jul 15, 2019

Charlaquin said:
Which Gnome race? I have my own version of Gnomes that has a clear, consistent identity, which I’m quite fond of. But until I basically rewrote them myself, I was on the gnome hate train because I couldn’t tell what the heck they were supposed to be. Are they shorter dwarves that specialize in engineering? Halflings who live in the woods and do illusion magic? Both? Neither? D&D couldn’t seem to make up its mind about what the heck Gnomes were supposed to be, so I did it myself. Now I like them, but they’re not really any of the many disparate things D&D calls “gnomes.”

Could you have a quick run down on the identity you've given gnomes? I like to play up the Feywild angle (can't remember if they are from the Feywild in 5e or if I'm thinking of pathfinder) but I like to have them from there. In the game I will be running a secretive gnome village is nearby built around a fairy ring allowing movement between Feywild and the prime. These gnomes are secretive and skilled with illusions generally keeping the big races out. Sometimes the thought that they're Smurfs creeps into my mind and I have to keep pushing that thought away.

Charlaquin · Jul 15, 2019

cbwjm said:
Could you have a quick run down on the identity you've given gnomes? I like to play up the Feywild angle (can't remember if they are from the Feywild in 5e or if I'm thinking of pathfinder)

They are in 4e and Pathfinder. 5e is a bit more cagey about their origin. Forest gnomes seem to exist to cover the Fae gnome concept, and rock gnomes to cover the smaller, zanier dwarves concept.

cbwjm said:
but I like to have them from there. In the game I will be running a secretive gnome village is nearby built around a fairy ring allowing movement between Feywild and the prime. These gnomes are secretive and skilled with illusions generally keeping the big races out. Sometimes the thought that they're Smurfs creeps into my mind and I have to keep pushing that thought away.

I like Fae gnomes, but it’s not what I went with for my home brew setting. My feywild was getting a bit crowded with goblins (and by extension orcs, though more distantly) having their origins there, and with a lot of in-universe ambiguity between the faewild and the shadowfell. So I tied my gnomes In with dwarves, trolls, and ~~goliaths~~Jotun. They are informed by Scandinavian folklore, as opposed to the Irish and English folklore that informs most fae creatures in D&D.

Tony Vargas · Jul 15, 2019

MGibster said:
Did it really matter what fantasy race a player chose for his or her character?

Sure. Anything other than human and race tended to loom large.

Iwas creating my own campaign setting and since we have rules for all these races the only reasonable thing to do was to shoehorn them into my setting. ... I got to gnomes. I couldn't think of any reason to add them to the setting beyond that they should just be in a D&D setting.

You could always shunt elves & gnomes and the like into some fey Otherworld....

cbwjm said:
I like to play up the Feywild angle (can't remember if they are from the Feywild in 5e or if I'm thinking of pathfinder)

Yes, like 4e which made gnomes fey (and, briefly, monsters) and introduced the Feywild (IMHO, it replaced the classic Ethereal, or you could say the Shadowfell merged it with the plane of shadow).

MGibster said:
Not every fantasy race works for every campaign setting. ..
I just don't think having a plethora of available races necessarily adds much of anything to the setting. Anyone with me or am I out on a limb here?

The game presents tons of races, but unless you were writing Eberron, you're under no obligation to use all of em - nor all the classes, spells, or anything else, even if it is in the PH and not explicitly optional.

Precisely because race can matter, it can make a lot of sense to exclude (or add) certain races, to help paint your vision of the setting.