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Message: <blockquote data-quote="toddlock" data-source="post: 2827381" data-attributes="member: 40372">Regarding the rescuing of GnomesI've enjoyed reading this thread!Here's the whole story, as I remember it (it has been a few years):The gnomes were headed toward oblivion, precisely because the game designers didn't know what to do with them. They didn't like that they were just smaller, cuter dwarves, but had only the "illusionist trickster" concept in mind for them. Sam and I were talking about them, and about how the Tinker idea was sort of fun but mostly useless, because they were generally inept at it. We imagined that there might be a useful and fun niche for characters who liked to invent stuff--and not necessarily steampunk, by the way--that for the most part only they would be able to keep functioning well, but which would open up a character to wild exploration. When we trotted out that drawing and our thinking, the large majority of the designers loved it. "*I* wouild play that character!" was commonly heard.The problem was that it came very late in the developmental process, and there simply wasn't time to develop the rules to support the idea. So what did they do? Illusionist trickster. What can I say? I never liked gnomes either, for a lot of the same reasons I didn't like earlier dwarves: comic relief, not cool enough to play. You can agree or disagree with that as much as you want--I like what we did with the dwarves, visually. We had hoped the gnomes would find a way to be cool, in a way unique to them. It sounds ike the Eberron gnomes may have satisfied the need for some.So I won't apologize for saving the gnomes, only for not doing it in time to make them cool . . .Todd Lockwood</blockquote>

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