D&D (2024) How did I miss this about the Half races/ancestries

[Frozen_Heart]

Are they? I haven't read many fantasy books that heavily featured anything resembling the D&D gnome. For years I've wondered what purpose the gnome served that wouldn't be served by a dwarf or even a halfling. And now that we're decoupling traits like a penchent for mechanical shenanigans from race, er, species, I once again find myself asking the following question: Why do we need the gnome?

Maybe play into the effect of their culture being ran by tons of dangerous magical devices, by asking why their culture runs on all these dangerous devices. Maybe they evolved in areas with extremely high and dangerous levels of magic, making them innately imbued with its effects. Then when they go on to create magical devices which explode in their face, they survive magical feedback, while something like a human wouldn't.

In settings where things are made by the gods rather than evolution, maybe the original gnomes weren't made by a god. Maybe the magic levels in an area just got so high that gnomes popped into existence.

 

[Incenjucar]

Even something as simple as being able to reduce DCs on skill checks would be interesting. It means that a gnome can succeed at something despite not knowing what the hell they're doing, and nobody else can just follow the same steps to get the same result, yet the gnome can do it over and over.

 

[Minion X]

Chubby, pointy-hatted stand-ins for the Victorian garden hermit?

Exactly, by the time the word "gnome" was used in connection with folklore like "little people" or kobolds, they weren't really folklore anymore and had become kitsch decorations.

 

[Remathilis]

Maybe they need to move from steampunk to biotech. They could keep the mad science and technology but instead of using metal and steam power, they modify plants and possibly even animals through both magic and arbotecture. Or as another idea, they could go heavily into the gemstone aspect of their lore, using magical gems in wood or other organic material with minimal amounts of metal. These would tie into fey trickster, which would tie into their illusions--and their illusions could also tie into the gemstones (as sort of a refracted prism thing).

All good ideas.

If we are going to keep the duality of gnomes (and personally, I'd rather them be the science/tech bend over the fey whimsy one, but for sake of arguing, we have to keep both) I think I'd want gnomes to be the canny race. Always thinking, always observing, always figuring out a plan. Think more Doctor Who kind of clever. They make up for their lack of size and numbers with magic and tech. A gnome is equally happy to trick an opponent as to harm them, and while some gnomes put their minds into science, others prefer magic (and they view illusions as the most interesting type of magic due to its endless possibilities). They are also considered to be great artists and entertainers, finding that another way to express their cunning.

Ideally, I'd mix elements of a tinker gnome and Kender and dial it back 80 or 90 percent. A gnome is an expression of its curiosity, intellect and passion.

 

[AnotherGuy]

In the MM, I would include 1-2 page write-up for each humanoid species, which included the good, the bad, and the neutral for each of them, making them as three-dimensional as possible in the space allowed.

Ok so THIS is what I was after since our initial convo was about lazy design of the fluff and the racism, not to say that your template idea isn't a good one. It is! We could likely fill an entire book with templates for various tiers and I would certainly be interested in one.

But getting back to this - I actually like your idea of these 3 "alignment" variants, are you happy with the current technological depiction of orcs or would that also factor into these 3. For example, orcs are usually depicted with the barbaric slant and that has its own clichè trappings, if you know what I mean or is that not an issue anymore? Given that we are reflecting evil elves and halflings (evil pretty variants)

 

[Incenjucar]

Wood elves live in trees. There are balanced ways to depict cultures that are less prone to build cities.

 

[Frozen_Heart]

Think more Doctor Who kind of clever.

ffs

Doctor Who gnomes is all I will ever see from now on, and it's entirely your fault.

 

[AnotherGuy]

Wood elves live in trees. There are balanced ways to depict cultures that are less prone to build cities.

Sure, but the conversation before the focus drifted onto animal linguistics and the best PR for gnomes, the discussion was centred around the racism that existed specifically for orcs and that was tied to their raider-like culture.
If orcs were as tech (or magic) savvy as the agrarian Dutch then perhaps they would raid less is all I'm saying.

 

[Incenjucar]

Sure, but the conversation before the focus drifted onto animal linguistics and the best PR for gnomes, the discussion was centred around the racism that existed specifically for orcs and that was tied to their raider-like culture.
If orcs were as tech (or magic) savvy as the agrarian Dutch then perhaps they would raid less is all I'm saying.

Nordic peoples included farmers and traders, and not just vikings. Roman people included farmers and traders, and not just conquering armies. Orcs can have farmers and traders, and not just raiders.

 

[Frozen_Heart]

Nordic peoples included farmers and traders, and not just vikings. Roman people included farmers and traders, and not just conquering armies. Orcs can have farmers and traders, and not just raiders.

I could see the early DnD pre-playable orcs not having invented farming. But the current version of orcs is clearly an intelligent species with would be capable of farming and other advanced things like metalwork.