D&D 3E/3.5 Gnome Poll

[Turlogh]

While I voted no, I personally don't have much use for Gnomes and have never played one, but I would not stop somebody else from playing one in a game I ran.

 

[Darklone]

Well... I never had NO gnomes in my settings... Though sometimes they just were .... existant. The few times I had gnomes in my groups till now... Well. The first gnome we had died an unhonourable death at the hands of the other group members as they hung him for stealing

The gnome we have now always saves the group. Mostly cause he's the most intelligent character. The others are more the dumb hacker type.

 

[Terwox]

No way!
The campaign I'm currently playing in, though, has house-ruled gnomes out of existance. Much to my chagrin.
Oh well. Otherwise, I'd probably be playing a gnome, and I typically include them when I DM.

 

[Vanuslux]

I had to vote yes. I have house ruled them out. Not from any particular dislike for them. I'm rather apathetic towards them, for the most part. It was just that they simply didn't live in the area that the campaign was set. Of course, I ended up breaking my own rule for the sake of introducing a gnomish necromancer villian who lasted for all of 2 minutes of game time before becoming a crispy gnomish corpse.

They're back in now, and in the new rendition of my setting for 3e they recieve a significant boost in status as the masters of arcane magic.

I do, however, harbor a great deal of loathing for the "tinker gnome" concept.

 

[CapnZapp]

I'm pretty sure they're not overpowered, that's not why i'm asking. Me, and my friend (who comprise 2 of the 3 DMs of our group) seem to have an unreasonable dislike of Gnomes. We both disallow them in any games we run, but neither of us can really explain quite why. I just don't like them.

I voted "No" - as long as they're played straight and serious I see no reason to remove them. (Just like I don't like kender nonsense I don't feel obliged to humor the "garden gnome" joke). I do feel, however, that Gnomes (and other forest creatures, including Elves, should have low-light vision and not darkvision).

There are other races that I would take out from a "core" set of options long before Gnomes:

Primarily Dragonborn (replace with Lizardmen or Kobold) and Monks (always a mismatch in otherwise Western fantasy).

 

[DammitVictor]

No. I love Gnomes. I'd much rather ban Halflings.

Gnomes are crappy comic relief in one setting (and the metasetting), while Halflings are crappy comic relief in most settings. They have no identity of their own except being short Humans with authorial permission to have an Alignment of "LG on my sheet, CN in the street". They don't even have a proper name for themselves and are only referred to by their insulting Human nickname, except in Realmspace.

 

[zztong]

My feelings about Gnomes are weird. I've largely looked at them as goofy and worthy of being an NPC. Yet, when D&D 4 made them monsters, I thought that was dumb and refused to go along with it. There's been a number of memorable Gnome characters over the years.

The designer races that are part-Dragon, part-Demon, yadda, yadda -- now those are monsters to me. That's just my opinion, of course. No offense intended for those who like that kind of thing.

 

[DammitVictor]

The designer races that are part-Dragon, part-Demon, yadda, yadda -- now those are monsters to me. That's just my opinion, of course. No offense intended for those who like that kind of thing.

I liked Tieflings in AD&D, in Planescape, when they were all unique individuals and orphans of unknown lineage. I like them a lot less now that they have been rigidly defined, homogenized, given a homeland and shoehorned into every other setting.

I don't mind monster PCs in my games, and I'm bored to death of the Tolkien Trio, but the important thing-- to my way of thinking-- is that whatever races are playable in a setting belong to that setting and have an intentional place in it.

For instance, I'm a Spelljammer guy. When I run Spelljammer, like I'm running it now, I use all of the standard PHB races-- even though I haaate the ones with "half" in their name-- plus the Gith races, Thri-Kreen/Xixchil, the Giff, either Lizardfolk or Tortle, plus I'm pretty flexible about anything else from Complete Humanoids or Complete Spacefarer's that players are keen on. All of them have a purpose, and there's deliberately a whole bunch of them because there's a whole bunch of planets for them to come from.

My Shroompunk setting? The only PHB race is Human. Again, I have a bunch of races-- again, they're from a bunch of Worlds-- but the main races are "Tortles", "Warforged", Vanaras, Kobolds, Dromites, Ratfolk/Mouselings, maybe Scyleens (psychic octopus women from Fat Goblin), maybe Hobgoblin/Ogre Magi, maybe some kind of fairied up Elfs. Because my Appendix N isn't Tolkien and Howard, it's Nintendo and Mattel.

 

[dave2008]

I voted "No" - as long as they're played straight and serious I see no reason to remove them. (Just like I don't like kender nonsense I don't feel obliged to humor the "garden gnome" joke). I do feel, however, that Gnomes (and other forest creatures, including Elves, should have low-light vision and not darkvision).

There are other races that I would take out from a "core" set of options long before Gnomes:

Primarily Dragonborn (replace with Lizardmen or Kobold) and Monks (always a mismatch in otherwise Western fantasy).

So not just an observer, but a necro user too! And on a poll to boot - well played sir! 18 years is pretty good.

 

[Son of the Serpent]

I house rule TRUE gnomes (a type of earth elemental) and their 3 elemental counterparts INTO the game. I love the OG concept. Its so unusual.