Honestly, how often have you used gnomes?

[monboesen]

Once as an pc for 3-4 game sessions. Thats in 20 years of gaming.

 

[Odhanan]

How often I used gnomes? Quite often actually. It would be hard for me to pin down an actual frequency, but I used them more than Half Elves for sure.

 

[Wormwood]

Give me a gnome who can build himself a steam powered hammer and wears high tech goggles and boots, and I'll be a happy gnome player.

Tinker/tech gnomes get plenty of hate, but they are a great example of a recent fantasy archetype that has gone mainstream---and I personally love 'em.

 

[Daniel D. Fox]

I've never used Gnomes, outside of when we played 1st edition DnD.

 

[el-remmen]

Gnomes are the 2nd most populous of the PC races in my homebrew (behind humans) and they featured rather prominently in my "Out of the Frying Pan" campaign (see story hour).

I got several compliments in the story hour about the society/culture/outlook I gave them.

I have also had a handful of people play them as PCs.

 

[EricNoah]

I routinely use gnomes in place of halflings in published adventures.

 

[Cam Banks]

One of the main characters in my upcoming Dragonlance novel The Sellsword is a gnome. Theodenes kicks ass all over the place. Granted, his kinsgnomes think he's mad, and he spends one or two chapters paralyzed by a ghoul, but hey. That's drama, or something.

Cheers,
Cam

 

[Qualidar]

In 24 years of gaming, I've seen only one Gnome PC.

 

[sjmiller]

So please tell me whether you even actually used them in a major way, be it through a character (as a player) or as a society (as a DM).

Let's see, where to begin. In my current campaign (homebrew world) the gaming group is based in the city of Napradic, a gnomish city that is part of a technocratic confederation of city states on an island off of the main continent. Think Madagascar in size. The gnomes are actively involved in running an underground railroad operation in the dwarven xenophobic, monotheistic, theocratic empire.

The previous campaign my players were in (2nd ed) had at least one gnome illusionist in it.

My first 3e campaign had a couple of gnomes as PCs and NPCs.

Going all the way back to AD&D 1e, I loved playing my gnome illusionist armed with a wand of frost and a wand of wonder.

If one of my players comes through and runs the D&D campaign he promised, I have plans to play a gnome druid, because I think it would make an interesting character.

I've always liked gnomes for D&D, and I am saddened that WotC can't think outside their current narrow focus on gnomes. I guess they are not flashy and "cool" enough for them.

 

[Mark Chance]

One more QFT:

If you don't like elves, it's a campaign choice and a matter of personal preference.

If you don't like dwarves, it's a campaign choice and a matter of personal preference.

If you don't like half-elves, it's a campaign choice and a matter of personal preference.

If you don't like half-orcs, it's a campaign choice and a matter of personal preference.

If you don't like halflings, it's a campaign choice and a matter of personal preference.

If you don't like gnomes, clearly WotC should remove them from the PHB.

After three pages, every objection to gnomes boils down to some version of, "I don't like them because...." The exact same sort of objection could be applied to every race. IOW, there really isn't any reason to not include gnomes in the PH except that they aren't being included.