D&D General Why Do People Hate Gnomes?

[Chaosmancer]

I don't think rock gnomes need to be a joke, but I don't think being an engineer is a sensible defining characteristic for a species or a subspecies. An engineer is a profession, and it is represented in the game by a class called artificer. We are not in the red box era anymore, race and class are separate things!

But Smith is?

Farmer is?

Ranger is?

Because that is Dwarves, halflings and Wood elves, which are fine. But Rock gnomes are a problem?

 

[Mind of tempest]

I knew reading this thread would be a mistake, but seeing so many times the idea that "Rock Gnomes are a joke" I just have to make a commentary

This?

This is a mechanical orchestra meant to play songs for the ruler of a nation while he was on a party boat. This was built by Al-Jazari, referred to as the "Father of Robotics" because he was building robots.

In the 1200's!

Is that a joke to people? Is the Prague Astronomical Clock built in 1410 a joke?

Yes, Dragonlance made them stupid and everything blow up and it was played for laughs, because Science is stupid. But nothing, NOTHING in 5e is geared towards making Rock Gnomes a joke. And it is incredibly irritating to see people continually bring it up like it is a fact that these can't be taken seriously, because somehow building complex machinery that has lasted for centuries is worthy or mockery.

I think what we need is for a more serious take on gnomes to be made.

 

[FrozenNorth]

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.

This is an interesting point. In another thread, I pointed out one value of keeping half-orcs: for people like me, that are children of two worlds, half-orcs do a good job of representation (better than half-elves, where the theme seems to be “everyone thinks you are super extra awesome”).

Definitely consider it a positive if neuro-atypical gamers identify with gnomes.

 

[Crimson Longinus]

But Smith is?

Farmer is?

Ranger is?

Because that is Dwarves, halflings and Wood elves, which are fine. But Rock gnomes are a problem?

I really don't think associations in any of your example cases are nearly as strong as with rock gnomes, but yes, in general I would prefer a lesser number of conceptually broader yet thematically coherent races over the current situation of insane amount of stupidly narrowly flanderised races which still manage to thematically overlap with each other.

 

[billd91]

Eh, people have their preferences. That's the main root of why people don't like gnomes.
But then we add on the fact that D&D players are generally nerds who can't give up beating a dead horse of a meme (or Monty Python quote, or favorite pun, or Han Solo quote, etc) to save their lives. This thread has not disabused me of that notion.

 

[Nebulous]

I don't mind them personally, but I think the dislike is that they are too similar to halflings and dwarves. Fantasy Flight had a version of them for 3e that amped the magic aspect, which I thought worked well. It gave them a better identity.

 

[Nebulous]

I'm using gnomes in my Midgard campaign as villains. These particular gnomes worshipped devil patrons and effectively became evil. They're all a little crazy and mostly warlocks.

 

[Levistus's_Leviathan]

The request was for personalities. That's why I have looked for personalities, and not other things...

Okay. Since you're deciding that those listed examples weren't good enough, I'll give you two very different gnomish characters with personalities based on what the 5e guidelines around them describe common traits gnomes have.

Spoiler: Blid Beren

Blid Beren - A rock gnome alchemist trained from a young age to become the High Archaeologian of the Gnomish city Boondoggle. Even though he was quite skilled at archaeology, he hated it and ran away from Boondoggle when he was only a teen. Lost in the wilderness, he stumbled into the lair of an Annis Hag, whom he bargained with in order to learn alchemy. This granted him the powers of an Archfey Warlock and Alchemist Artificer. While apprenticed by the Hag, he was forced to do tasks that he found morally repulsive, such as kidnapping children and killing defenseless animals to harvest alchemical ingredients. Eventually, his debt to the Hag was completely paid, and Blid left to the nearest village to use his skills in alchemy to make up for the evil acts he was forced to do under his servitude to the Hag.

Main Personality Traits: Blid is obsessed with alchemy, so much that he is constantly keeping an eye out for plants and animals that he could use in his potions.

Main Ideal: Redemption. Blid has dedicated his life to helping the common folk with his alchemical skills in order to make up for the terrible things he did while serving the Hag.

Main Bond: Blid has grown attached to the people of the village he now lives in, and plans on spending the rest of his life living amongst them.

Main Flaw: Blid also believes that the ends justify the means, as he constantly used this excuse while indentured to the Hag to justify the terrible things he was forced to do, believing that the skills he gained would benefit more people in the long run than the harm he did while learning them.

Spoiler: Virra Gimlen

Captain Virra "Crusty" Gimlen - Unlike most forest gnomes, Virra's family lived on the coast, living in a small hut built on a cliff above the beach and living off of seafood they gathered on their fishing boat. Due to living near the beach, Virra grew attached to the animal life there and earned the nickname "Crusty" due to her love of crustaceans, which were her closest friends outside of her family.

One day while fishing with her parents, they were captured by pirates and used as ransom against a navy ship that was pursuing them. In the negotiation process, her father was killed, her mother was kept captive by pirates, and Virra was given to a navy ship. Virra was then raised in an orphanage in the closest city. Virra vowed from a young age to rid the ocean of pirates like the ones that took her parents from her.

Eventually, Virra was able to become a sailor and climbed the social ladder of the ship all the way to Captain, where she took it upon herself to take down as many pirates as she could, becoming an outcast just as much as the pirates she began to hunt. Soon, pirates everywhere began to fear the name "Captain Crusty", the ship captain that was overly fond of crabs and lobsters and used them to kill pirates.

Main Personality Traits: Virra is a quirky-yet-serious ship captain that hunts down pirates with the help of sea creatures, particularly crustaceans like crabs, lobsters, and shrimp.

Main Ideal: Virra wishes to rid the seas of pirates, so that no child has to go through what she did ever again.

Main Bond: Virra loves crustaceans, so much that she has formed a symbiotic relationship with a swarm of them.

Main Flaw: Virra is vengeful, often weaponizing her swarm of crustaceans to torture pirates that she takes captive.

There. Does that work? A friendly rock gnome alchemist-warlock with a dark past and a vicious forest gnome pirate-hunter. They both have very different personalities. And both are rooted in 5e's guidelines on building gnomish personalities. Blid was so obsessed with alchemy that he willingly became a slave for a powerful Hag in order to learn how to become an alchemist, and Virra loved her family so much that she uses the animals that gave her her nickname in order to take revenge against pirates. Both could easily be adventurers in the same party and have very different personalities (Blid trying to redeem himself for the terrible things he's done, Virra trying to take out her pain on people tangentially connected to those that hurt her).

Case closed? Gnomes can easily have very different personalities, just like every other race in the game. Unless you're going to claim that the crab-loving, pirate-killing vigilante somehow has the same personality as the Machiavellian-friendly-neighborhood-apothecary.

 

[Snarf Zagyg]

you are clearly wrong on halflings as they survive off being mechanically busted and cottegecore vibes.

Never underestimate the appeal of hygge!

If halflings have cornered the hygge market, maybe gnomes need to monopolize normcore.

GNORMCORE!

That's right- 6e will have gnomes come equipped with khakis and polos (subdued colors only). Bards might have cutting words, but Gnomes will get Dad Jokes.

 

[Vaalingrade]

Do we seriously have two threads where we're somehow debating whether or not a specific player can RP a character against the type presented in the PH and acting like the fact that players have no regard for the default flavor (or lack thereof) absolves the default flavor (or lack thereof)?