Gnome haters? It's Lockwood's fault!

[Drowbane]

As another poster mentioned, Athas had the best gnomes!

Edit* I need to lay off the Warcraft III... everytime I see Athas I think of that annoyingly whiny PaladinDeathknight.

 

[der_kluge]

It was either '98 or '99 I attended a seminar at Gen Con held by some of the senior WoTC staff - Monte Cook, Rich Baker, Skip Williams, among others to sort of get informal feedback from people about what they wanted to see or didn't want to see in a new edition of the game. All of it was "hypothetical, of course".

Over the course of the seminar, the panel tried to gauge which things were or were not sacred cows to people. During this, the topic of gnomes came up, and the question was asked "do you want to see gnomes in the new edition? Or could we just drop them entirely?"

The room erupted - about half of the people said they didn't care, but the other half was very adamant that they should stay "Don't take away gnomes!"

I think the panel was kind of surprised by the reaction, actually. I think they must have all felt - at least personally, the gnomes added little value. They didn't expect the positive reaction that they received in that seminar.

Thus, gnomes stayed. But it does seem that, at least at some point in the development, they were definitely on the chopping block.

 

[ForceUser]

Same here. I'd never made any real use of gnomes until I saw the Eberron take on them and now I love them. They're the scariest PHB race there, bar none.

Thirded. Eberron is what made me like gnomes for the first time ever.

 

[Nyaricus]

Eh? lol...poignant as in emotionally moving? *chuckle* I have no idea what you mean

well, erm, me neither!

What I mean is that there's a big difference between a gnome that tinkers and a tinker gnome. I don't really care for DL tinker gnomes, but I like D&D gnomes that can muck around in stuff and figure it out from the inside out.

Make any more (less?!) sense?

 

[Nyaricus]

Thirded. Eberron is what made me like gnomes for the first time ever.

What's their story? Never read that much about them.

 

[demiurge1138]

What's their story? Never read that much about them.

The gnomes of Zilargo are kind, friendly people who love to tell tales and hear them told. All the streets are clean, and there's hardly any crime.

That's because the secret police are everywhere in Zilargo. And there are backstabbing, opportunistic spies in every Zil embassy across the continent. They're masters of illusion, have keen senses, and even rats and badgers are potential sources of information to them.

Be afraid of the gnomes. Be very, very afraid.

Demiurge out.

 

[mkb152]

Gnomes rock!

I dislike gnomes in almost all their incarnations, and I've can't recall a single person ever even being interested in playing one.

Maybe I'm weird, but I have played ALOT of gnomes. Almost always a gnome illusionist, but I have played many gnomes. I've gone more with the dragonlance style personality, myself. But I think that they get the shaft because they aren't a powergamer's choice for anything. But they make great illusionists, and good bards (though I'm not thrilled with the change in favored class).

And I have seen three times as many gnomes in games as say, half-elves...

 

[Imruphel]

Does anyone know where I can find the stats for a dire mole as I feel the urge to stat up a gnome weremole assassin after reading this thread?

 

[Jdvn1]

I prefer eberron-ish gnomes. It meshes well with their abilities and they fill a niche no other race fills.

That's how I always used Gnomes. They're similar to the Rassimel race in World Tree. I love seeing Gnomes played.

 

[Whizbang Dustyboots]

Yes. Now, think about the parties that they must throw. Picture, if you will, a gnome wedding feast... Magnificent!

The gnome cleric in my campaign is ad-libbing a lot of funny stuff about the worship of Garl Glittergold. A fair portion of the holy scripture is written in the form of knock-knock jokes, for instance.

I'll be redoing my post-crash Midwood story hour in a more traditional format starting this week. Look for a lot of fun gnomishness in it. (The only player races in the setting are humans, dwarves and gnomes, although a feytouched will be joining this spring.)