Some thoughts on 4e getting long in the tooth.

[Desdichado]

Regardless of the provenance of the word gnome, to get back on track, is anyone seriously suggesting that 5e needs to re-include gnomes back into the core PHB because to do otherwise establishes a barrier to entry to new players? If so, I wouldn't mind talking about why you would think that.

 

[Viking Bastard]

I love me some D&D gnomes. Probably around one fourth of my D&D PCs have been gnomes. Gnomes have a prominent place in most of my campaigns. Love me teh gnome.

Nonetheless... there are nits to be picked!

Draupnir ("Dripping") Odin's magic arm-ring, which every 9th night, dropped eight new bracelets, was created by the gnome Sindri. As I recall, they were master craftsmen who create much of the other magic of the Asgardians- Sif's hair and possibly Mjolnir as well.

I have never heard of Sindri or his kin described as gnomes. It's duergar ("dwarves", modern spelling "dvergar") or it's svartálfar ("blackelves" or "darkelves"), depending on the source. I don't doubt that it's been translated to gnome sometime, but only as an alternate term for the Norse dwarf.

[...] Foddenskkmaend is their name in Iceland. [...]

That's not Icelandic. I mean, it could be a horrible mangling of some obscure spelling, but no matter how I try to read it or sound it out, it never even vaguely sound Icelandic. That term only seems to pop up again and again in identical bodies of text about gnomes, that seem to have propagated around the internet. I found one link that suggested that the term was Faroean, but it doesn't look very Faroean to me either.

There is no gnome in Icelandic folklore. There are dwarves, elves, trolls and all kinds of critters, monsters and undead, but the closest we have to a gnome is the "búálfur" ("house elf"), which is a trickster elf that hoards all the stuff you lose around the house (like socks or your keys--that kind of thing). Every household is supposed to have one.

We have adapted the word gnome to "gnómur", but only in recent years. I think it originates from a translated/dubbed cartoon about gnomes that was shown here in the 90s.

--

EDIT: Whoah, that conversation moved fast!

 

[Bedrockgames]

Personally I don't care how far back these things go in western myth. I just know i like gnomed and prefer the standard core races to the ones laid out in 4e. This is a preference thing but stuff like dragonborn was a big turn off for me flavorwise.

 

[Crazy Jerome]

I don't care for tieflings, personally, though dragonborn are ok. But whether liked or disliked, I think any problems with newer races is less about individual races and more about proportion. This is also true whether you get crafty with redundant races or work to get rid of them. That is, even liking dragonborn, I don't care for it as one of 8 PHB 1 races. As one of a larger number, however, and I've got no complaint. (This obviously goes double for races that I don't much care for.)

The same thing can be said, to a lesser degree, for classes. For a new edition, WotC could do a lot worse than to take all the races and classes from PHB 1 and 2 as a starting place, eliminate some redundant stuff, and polish off some rough edges. If that ends up with, say, 11 races and 12 classes, fine. (I'm assuming a better presentation of class powers that doesn't need a unique list for each class.) That might not be the best long-term sales approach (with the idea of parsing out the "good stuff"), but it is a pretty darn good marketing "big splash" launch of giving people what they want in the core. If you have a race or class or three you don't like, you can cut those out and still have more than a "full" complement to play with.

 

[Crazy Jerome]

How I'd pick the races to include is ask development and outside commentary on the best presentation for that race when a given society of that race is generally: Benevolent, Standard, or Sinister. Any race that doesn't have a compelling case made for it in all three is out. Any race that has a compelling case in any category that is too close to another race in that same category is at a severe disadvantage.

For example: Benevolent elves: Just start cribbing from Elrond and Galadriel, and supplement from there. This one is easy. Standard Elves: Easy again, as with Mirkwood elves and in number of later derivatives. Sinister Elves: Draw on the Sidhe, and steal a few of the less outright evil stuff from the drow. Or go full xenophobic, eco-terrorist mix.

Benevolent gnomes: Burrowing fey short creatures with an affinity for animals, gem working, and illusion, but generally helpful and reserved. Standard: The whole trickerster thing. Sinister: Steal from the tiefling backstory, which works even better with slightly horned gnomes that talk like Robin Williams in the villain role.

See, gnomes as an extreme works. Its the standard gnomes that are tough to justify. You get a similar problem with trying to make sinister halfings. So while there is a strong temptation to make gnomes the drow version of halflings, I've always found that a bit of cop out. (Why can't all the elves just be elves and have different societies?) I wouldn't mind blending gnomes and haflings on this scale, but I'd probably call the result "gnome" over "halfling", even if the standard "gnome" was functionally a halfling. They can always have nicknames, some derogatory. (And we can call standard elves gone bad, "drow".)

 

[Viking Bastard]

I always see gnomes as kin to the dwarves; the elves to their eladrin, so to speak.

I miss the gnomes in both the original PHB and the Essentials series, but their exclusion wouldn't stop me from picking up 5e.

 

[Argyle King]

Honestly, I'd be 100% fine with a gnome-less D&D. While I like how gnomes are presented in a lot of other games, I do not think they're are portrayed consistently or consistently well in D&D. (Though, that being said, I honestly feel that the 4E version is probably my favorite as it pertains to D&D.)

I thought Dragonborn were cool. However, I would have liked to see a more creative way of portraying sexual dimorphism. I like how The Elder Scrolls series portrays the male and female versions of their lizard folk; horns, frills, and things of that nature (I feel) are more interesting and more creative than "dragon-boobs."

I'm not a fan of 4E Tieflings at all. I'm really not even sure why; they just didn't appeal to me. I think it might be that they seemed too similar to the other (by now cliche) bad-turned-good races such as D&D Drow. Too many races were fighting for that niche in 4E. It didn't help that they had a somewhat poor racial encounter power out of the gate. ...oddly, I found Divas to be interesting; I say "oddly" because in 3rd Edition I found Tieflings cool and Aasimars lame.

I'd like to see Tieflings replaced by something else as a core race. Since I'm arguing for a a gnome-less 5E, I'll suggest Grippli as a core race to fill the Tiefling spot as well as fill the little folk quota.

Alternatively; while I don't currently find them interesting, I think more could be done to make Shifters worthy of being a core race. Perhaps embrace their Lycanthropy fluff more and allow them to more fully shift. Base them around some Native American mythology.

 

[Anselyn]

But this is in fact a common feature of D&D; they take one concept, and then look at every cognate from every language for the same thing, every entry in the thesaurus for the same thing, and then make separate creatures out of all of them.

There is a lot of truth in this. But also, for someone somewhere those cognates will have some sort of mythic resonance. Shardmind does not do this. Dragonborn - I can make a guess at.

 

[Anselyn]

I love me some D&D gnomes. Probably around one fourth of my D&D PCs have been gnomes. Gnomes have a prominent place in most of my campaigns. Love me teh gnome.

To me, gnome has always brought this to mind:

We don't do gnomes.

 

[Hussar]

Honestly, I'd be 100% fine with a gnome-less D&D. While I like how gnomes are presented in a lot of other games, I do not think they're are portrayed consistently or consistently well in D&D. (Though, that being said, I honestly feel that the 4E version is probably my favorite as it pertains to D&D.)

I thought Dragonborn were cool. However, I would have liked to see a more creative way of portraying sexual dimorphism. I like how The Elder Scrolls series portrays the male and female versions of their lizard folk; horns, frills, and things of that nature (I feel) are more interesting and more creative than "dragon-boobs."

Now this I totally agree with. "Dragon-boobs" were just lazy. Adding in some fairly believable sexual dimorphism would go a LONG way to making Dragonborn a lot more interesting. Males are pretty colors and females are drab, or vice versa, size difference, anything. It's not like it's a niche that's already been filled. No one else has this sort of thing.

I'm not a fan of 4E Tieflings at all. I'm really not even sure why; they just didn't appeal to me. I think it might be that they seemed too similar to the other (by now cliche) bad-turned-good races such as D&D Drow. Too many races were fighting for that niche in 4E. It didn't help that they had a somewhat poor racial encounter power out of the gate. ...oddly, I found Divas to be interesting; I say "oddly" because in 3rd Edition I found Tieflings cool and Aasimars lame.

Given my druthers, I'd bring back the Diaboli from Basic/Expert. They were very cool and much more flavorful, IMO, than Tieflings. Creatures from the land of Nightmares that look like demons? YEAH BABY. Gimme more of that.

I'd like to see Tieflings replaced by something else as a core race. Since I'm arguing for a a gnome-less 5E, I'll suggest Grippli as a core race to fill the Tiefling spot as well as fill the little folk quota.

Alternatively; while I don't currently find them interesting, I think more could be done to make Shifters worthy of being a core race. Perhaps embrace their Lycanthropy fluff more and allow them to more fully shift. Base them around some Native American mythology.

If you wanted another short arsed race, I'd go with kobold personally. I've seen way more kobold love going on from players over the past decade or so than any other short race.