But so far, no one has indicated that they felt mocked or insulted by « I’m a monster, Rawr! ».
It’s not even clear HOW someone could get insulted by that comment.
Cheese.
I had friends at the time who liked gnomes and did not appreciate the "joke". Personally I don't care about gnomes mostly, though I like tinker gnomes.
Please, elaborate on how they found putting gnomes in the monster manual (with jokes about them getting a lair, badgers minions, and treasure) as offensive. Was it that they were upset that they were reduced to a creature in the monster book that is only designed to kill and take their stuff alongside orcs and drow? Perhaps they were upset that they were being considered the butt of a joke like they are in Dragonlance or Warcraft? Maybe they were upset they weren't playable (like in BECMI) or they were relegated to monsters and had to wait and get another book to play them (like dozens of other humanoids)?
As I recall, they were unhappy to not see gnomes as a playable race in 4e and thought the ad was making fun of people who thought they were as valid a PC race as any other, by reducing them to a monster statblock and advertising that fact in an irreverent, "funny" fashion.
Yup. They were upset that gnomes had been reduced to "orc" status.
Yes, and that that fact was being made light of, like it didn't matter. It clearly mattered to those folks.
It was widely assumed if not outright stated. They and half-orc were not in PHB 1, along with half the PHB classes. It was obvious that they were going to be back.
