How do you differentiate Gnomes from Dwarves and Halflings?

[Malin Genie]

Gnomes tend to have a sweet, almost nutty flavour, while halflings are strong and gamey. Dwarf is aceptable, but only after long stewing, as it's tough and not particularly flavoursome.

 

[BiggusGeekus]

I differentiated Gnomes by making them extinct.

But if I were to do it over again I'd make them servants of the undead. More because I like saying "Gnecromancer" than anything else.

 

[Tcheb]

In my campaign, we prejudice races with cultures. For example, the dwarves are Russian, halflings are cannibal pigmies who live in harsh environments, and the gnomes are a seafaring Spanish type peoples. Short, sweet, and just enough color to be different.

That and the only accents I can do are Russian, Spanish, and pygmy gibbersih.

Tcheb

 

[Desdichado]

I developed a campaign setting where all non-human races were considered Fae, and were divided into Seelie and Unseelie races. The Gnomes were Seelie and were much like hobbits: the +2 CON was appropriate. I eliminated the favored class, though. The halflings were Unseelie, and much darker in personality. They were often used by the Unseelie courts as spies and assassins.

However, I'm revamping the campaign (since I never played it anyway) and making it more "d20" rather than D&D, incorporating a bunch of Star Wars and Wheel of Time rules. In that campaign, I only have one race of small people. They are still somewhat hobbit-like, only even more rustic and pastoral.

 

[gamecat]

Seriously! Halflings fly well when kicked!

 

[Deedlit]

The Krynn tinker gnomes I have used have
+2 Int(They invent so much)
-2 Wis(This should be obvious, Gnomes never have common sense)
+2 Dex(For dodging explosions)
-2 Str(They are small and weak)

 

[Davelozzi]

One of the things that Birthright did well was to differentiate between the various short races and rework some humanoid races well.

I agree, I've always preferred the Birthright take on the races.

...Gnomes were an NPC race that resided in the hills and forests,very bucolic and fey.

Where is this from? I always thought that Birthright simply didn't have gnomes.

At any rate, in the past I have generally used gnomes pretty much the way that kenjib described them and probably would do so again if I was to include them in another campaign at all. I dislike the technognomes that were spawned by Dragonlance.

In my current campaign, gnomes don't exist, dwarves are fairly standard (but no subraces), halflings are hobbitlike (although in the past there was a halfling culture that was very much like the ancient Greeks), elves are divided into high and wood subraces (but my high elves are more like standard grey elves, and both are fairly isolationist), and humanoids are done Birthright style as Xylarthan described.

 

[Hattersai]

Okay every person i s different but here are some gudielines I go by...

A Dwarf is grizzled.
A Halfing is sneaky.
A Gnome is in the middle.


I have been no help I think but I like beards so..
GO DWARVES!!!

 

[Kichwas]

In Fahla Halflings were created by the gods in an attempt to create a race that would wipe out humanity by filling the same niche yet being smaller and more able to avoid the very large predators the gods tossed down to eat all the humans...
(this was before the humans invented religion and thus won the gods favor... humanity is the only race not created by the gods and thus why they wished to destroy it)
So they are quite literally just 'little people' and in the end the task backfired to the point that they joined with humanity and together the two built the first civilizations.

Dwarves are creatures of the earth. Born of the Earth mother's womb and kept secret from the world for many ages deep within their mother. They are similar to the DnD paradigm on them but colored to match stone and very 'mother-based' matriarchal.

Gnomes are a reflection of the drwarves from the Spirit world (where the faerie races come from) that have crossed over. They reside within the earth but are not truly of it. I haven't gotten a very angle on them yet as the question of 'what do you do with gnomes' has been one I've never truly answered well.

 

[Dark Helmet]

Tinkering? Heh! Pranks? Heh! A Gnome craves not these things.

Gnomes=Yoda

Halflings=Willow

Dwarves=Yosemite Sam