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Message: <blockquote data-quote="(Psi)SeveredHead" data-source="post: 3731421" data-attributes="member: 1165">That kind of "high tech" stuff might be annoying people as it hardly fits into fantasy. (Yes there were real life chemists and people calling themselves alchemists in the Middle Ages, but the former were doing experiments we now teach in high school and the latter were often deluded.) It doesn't help that tinker gnomes weren't perceived as serious, which, along with kender and gully dwarves, probably explains why the small people of Dragonlance are so hated.Gnomes not being serious is a big problem. It's one thing if a human, dwarf or elf is a joker, it's quite another thing if the entire species is seen that way. (I think that's one reason why bards aren't treated seriously; for whatever reason no one can treat a singer seriously. If bards had more serious abilities that went with "singing the histories" I think they'd be more popular, rather than the "rock star with groupies" with "magical songs" they're treat like now.)Every race seems to need a little box it's supposed to start in. Often an elven character will be described as "more serious/morose/whatever than most elves" and so forth. As for elves themselves, I don't think they're in the "must be in a forest box", even though the race starts there. Virtually every setting I've seen has elves starting out in the wild, but they often end up with big cities and what not.Eberron came up with a cool box to start gnomes in, by they way, which even explains most of their non-sensical abilities. (What do illusions and singing have to do with talking to rats?)In Eberron, werefolk are an important part of the history's setting. Gnomes are, in effect, weak blooded wererats which were first seen in the jungle (which explains quite a few things, like why they can talk to rats). There's more info on "modern"* Eberron gnomes here: <a href="http://www.wizards.com/default.asp?x=dnd/ebds/20041129a" target="_blank">http://www.wizards.com/default.asp?x=dnd/ebds/20041129a</a>They're not treated as practical jokers with cannons there, and are about as funny as the KGB.*The time when the setting starts, that is. <img src="https://cdn.jsdelivr.net/joypixels/assets/8.0/png/unicode/64/1f642.png" class="smilie smilie--emoji" loading="lazy" width="64" height="64" alt=":)" title="Smile    :)"  data-smilie="1"data-shortname=":)" /></blockquote>

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