Again, we're getting caught up between "Does this character fit" and "Does this character evoke".
What are the defining characteristics of a Dragonlance gnome? Well, probably the biggest is the whole Rube Goldbergesque invention thing. You play a character that has never attempted anything like this. Additionally there are naming conventions and speech conventions as well.
What are the defining characteristics of a Dragonlance arcane caster? Again, the biggest is membership with the Wizards of High Sorcery and taking the Test of High Sorcery. You have done neither. Additionally, there is the effect of the moons on casters, which also hasn't been taken into account.
What's the one thing that all DL characters in canon share? A belief in the gods and that the gods are important and returning the gods to their rightful place is a big deal. You have a character that repudiates that belief, and espouses a point of view shared by exactly no one in the entire setting.
These all evoke DL for you, but for me they weren't the interesting part of the gnome or the wild sorcerer or the setting itself as the actual sourcebooks that I read described it. The verbal tic and the inventions were characteristic of a mindset, not definitive of it (like having a scottish accent and wielding an axe are dwarf stereotypes). Wild sorcery occurs due to the effects of primordial chaos, not the moons. All people in the setting after the cataclysm are explicitly said to turn away from the gods because of what they did.
The problem is that I tried to make an authentic DL character and, in your estimation,
failed, because the lore I was true to wasn't lore that you recognized as in the Dragonlance "genre" (despite the fact that the designers and authors who worked in that genre saw them as within that genre).
If the lore hadn't changed, that wouldn't be a problem.
Have you created a character that fits in the setting? Yup. No question there. You certainly have not contradicted any established lore. Have you created a fantastic character that is adding tons to the game? Again, absolutely yes and the game would be a lot different if you were playing a different character.
But, can you honestly say that this character, described to someone who isn't playing the campaign, would immediately evoke Dragonlance? That the first thing anyone hearing about this character would think of would be, "Yup, that's a DL character."?
That's the part I'm getting hung up on. Does he fit? Absolutely. Is he authentic to the setting? Not so much. At least, not by the definition of authenticity I'm using.
Genre definitions are personal. My character isn't inauthentic by some objective standard of authenticity, he just doesn't ring as authentic
to you, because your genre definition is slightly askew of what the setting says about itself in other published products. I appreciate the nuance and unique flavor to certain aspects of DL lore that don't match your own appreciations. I like Texas BBQ, you like 'bama BBQ, and think the Texas stuff isn't
real BBQ.
The issue is that we're getting two different flavors of Dragonlance when we're supposed to be having the
same one. If our expectations were the same when we picked this thing up, we'd both be enjoying authentic flavors of DL (whichever flavor that happened to be). As it sits, because they've used the same label on several different flavors, we can be having the SAME THING and not agree on what it really tastes like.
This is a major issue with canon changes.
