D&D General Why Do People Hate Gnomes?

[beta-ray]

*Same thing happened with Star Trek's Ferengi. They were supposed to be a major new antagonist, but the guy who produced the episode they were introduced in turned them into cartoonish clowns.

Though the Ferengi did not turn out to be threatening force originally envisioned in TNG (though the Marauder almost kicked the D's ass) they turned out to be a pretty interesting culture by the end of DS9. I rather enjoyed the Ferengi inclusion in Trek in the post TNG timeline.

As for why people hate Gnomes? I have gnome idea.

 

[EzekielRaiden]

Didn't we have a thread with exactly the same title half a year ago?

Not that I can find. There was, however, this thread:

D&D General - why do we have halflings and gnomes?

why do we have halflings and gnomes? I get that they are classic and all that but I can't for the life of me figure out the appeal of them or what to do with them in a setting? I know why Tolkien used hobbits but I do not see who the use them in a non-story setting (gaming settings are...

www.enworld.org

It is somewhat ironic that it was started by @Mind of tempest, who seems to have had a massive change of heart about gnomes in the past 18 months!

 

[Snarf Zagyg]

Why do people hate gnomes?


Hey, Snarf, whaddya hating on today?

Whaddya got?

 

[Lidgar]

Recommend reading this to find out why:

No Country for Old Gnomes

 

[Levistus's_Leviathan]

I think its because, for some reason, the gnomish traits arent passive facts, they are always cranked up to 11.

Really? Because the only place in D&D that I've seen their traits cranked up to 11 is Dragonlance, where their names contain their entire family history and all of their inventions always fail. This is absolutely not true for Eberron, Exandria, or the version of them from Mordenkainen's Tome of Foes. In 5e, they mainly just seem to be quirky, perpetually curious and happy short people that are occasionally tinkerers/alchemists, use illusions, and like small animals.

 

[gamerprinter]

I couldn't tell you why people like/dislike/or do anything really, as regarding your question. While I don't hate gnomes, I cannot remember ever having played a gnome in 40+ years playing D&D, but then I can only remember playing a halfling once in all that time. I've never played an elf nor a dwarf, actually. I would say 99% of my characters were human or half elf, but then I've always preferred to run the game vs. playing it. Why do you like fictional races at all, let alone gnomes, might be my question? I don't give gnomes a thought, is my answer.

 

[Tales and Chronicles]

n 5e, they mainly just seem to be quirky, perpetually curious and happy short people that are occasionally tinkerers/alchemists, use illusions, and like small animals.

Well, most of the ones I saw at the actual table, not in a book description, are exactly like that....which is ok for one character...but a whole race?

When the first descriptor of a whole race is ''quirky'', its a bad start to make a believable race, IMHO.

Even Eberron's Zilargo is just one trait of the gnomes (their talent with illusions, which is left unexplained as to why they are naturally gifted with this type of magic.) and push it to 11 to create a secret police state. And that's one of the better use of Gnome in published settings.

Midgard's diabolist gnomes are cool, but that's more of a society thing than a race thing (which could be said of Zilargo, now that I think of it)

 

[Levistus's_Leviathan]

I don't see these as even slightly incompatible, so I'm confused here.

"All Gnomes are the same" and "Gnomes don't even know what they want to be" are contradictory statements. If all gnomes have the same personality (a statement that I don't agree with), then they clearly have a core concept, just like Hobbits'/Halflings' and Dwarves' core concepts in D&D tend to be rip-offs of Bilbo/Frodo Baggins and Gimli from the Lord of the Rings.

The reason gnomes only have one or two actually distinct personalities IS that they struggle to find broadly-appealing resonant concepts so that they can have multiple distinct personalities under one umbrella. Tieflings' core schtick is being inherent outsiders and quite literally demonized because of their heritage, but that resonant concept manifests in multiple ways: the "stop being so stereotypical" version, the "we name our children after virtues to defy stereotype" version, the "learn about who my dark ancestor was" version, the "I have this dark power and don't know what to do with it" version, etc. Elves as we know them today were basically singlehandedly invented by Tolkien, but that means we have actual personality archetypes in Elrond, Galadriel, Feanor and his sons, Arwen, Luthien, Cirdan, etc., and we can combine that in various ways with the sidhe of Gaelic myth to produce a wide variety of options while still retaining authenticity with these classic stories.

Gnomes are quirky. In 5e at least, most of their quirks are more-or-less just taken from ADHD and Autism Spectrum Disorder. They have hyper-fixations (which is why they often love small animals, tinkering, alchemy, and other hobbies), are socially awkward introverts, and are fascinated by the world they were born in.

That's a core concept as major as "Human, but short", or "humans, but immortal tree-huggers", and "humans, but with extraplanar ancestry". And just as open to different personality types.

Gnomes are short humans with fey-ish magic and quirks.

Gnomes have minimal to nonexistent representation in basically all widely-known myth and folklore. They have little to no representation outside of D&D and its creative descendants like World of Warcraft...where they are heavily typecast in a Flanderized version of their Dragonlance tinker gnome version. In theory there SHOULD be more to them (they can tap into the same fae concepts as elves, after all), but in practice there isn't, leaving them stuck without either of the usual avenues of escape: they don't have a Tolkien-equivalent to give us distinct individual personality archetypes to intermix and explore, and they don't have broad thematic concepts they can riff off of that aren't already covered by other, more popular options.

Who cares if they're not a major/well-represented part of other pop culture? There are dozens of popular and iconic races and monsters in the game that aren't a part of any other popular culture. Tieflings, Dragonborn, Aasimar, Warforged, Kalasthar, all of the animalfolk, Genasi, Bugbears, and so on. And there are plenty of D&D creatures that are a part of other popular culture that are completely different from those representations. Being portrayed well (or at all) in other popular culture is definitely not necessary for people to like that race.

 

[Tonguez]

I hope you can see why I don't consider B and C actually full-fledged personalities, and in particular don't care for the notion that being a sexual harasser is an archetypal gnome personality!

Sure they’re not full fledged personalities, theyre single short phrases (off the top of my head) that might conceivably be applied to decribe a gnomes character and which go to respond to the assertion that two gnomes cant be concived with different personalities

C was the ‘non-good’ gnome option obviously, and nothing was said about them being archetypal - just possible
Quick is still used where I’m from to refer to quickwitted, so perhaps sneaky or furtive are better synonyms for quick and stealthy

Also I do see the older eccentric absentminded professor to be a distinct type to the young boisterous tinkerer - its continuum but so is everything.

 

[Snarf Zagyg]

Who cares if they're not a major/well-represented part of other pop culture?

… Let me run with gnomes tonight
They'll take me on a moonlight ride

… There's races that I used to see
But those warforged don't give a damn for me

… But let's drop the third degree, let's roll another PC
And pick a gnome, it's time to come home
And you don't know how it feels
You don't know how it feels to play gnome

… Races come, races go
Half orcs show up, now they are the status quo

… I woke up in between
A tiefling and a dream

....But let's drop the third degree, let's roll another PC
And pick a gnome, it's time to come home
There's a PC I gotta gnome
And you don't know how it feels
You don't know how it feels to play a gnome

… The svirfneblin was born to rock
He deoesn't understand why the tinker gnomes they do mock
… Think of gnomes what you will
I've got a little space to fill

....But let's drop the third degree, let's roll another PC
And pick a gnome, it's time to come home
There's a PC I gotta gnome
And you don't know how it feels
You don't know how it feels to play a gnome...