Niche

[gizmo33]

"No niche", IME, is just the short and rather mislabeled form of "I can't use gnomes in the fantasy world I like to play in", instead of referring to their cultural / mythological roots or something.

But what mythological roots? Gnome as earth elemental? Garden gnomes? I don't think there is a lot of mythological material for gnomes. And even if you had the kind of material that exists for elves and dwarves, you still would be at a disadvantage for one huge reason IMO: Tolkien. IMO Tolkien put a huge amount of pure creativity in taking the bare bones of mythological information about dwarves, elves, etc. and fleshing it out/changing it into the stereotypes we know today in DnD. There's no equivalent effort for gnomes, and I'm not sure there ever will be something truly generic. Tolkien got to be considered "generic fantasy" because he was the first. But now IMO it's too late, so attempts to put more detail into the gnome as a character (example - Dragonlance) will probably always be seen as world specific.

 

[The Shaman]

And what about the dog's niche? (Okay, only a French will understand the idiotic pun...)

C'est fin!

 

[Kae'Yoss]

That would be a certain famous German Philosopher's younger, gamer, brother.

"That which does not kill you, makes you a level"

"The DM who laughs best today, will also laugh last"

"If you gaze long into an abyss, a balor will grab you"

"God is at -10 HP"?

 

[Whimsical]

Gnomes are at home in Dragonstar, which happily mixes D&D fantasy and sci-fi. They are not the mad tinkerers of silly inventions. They are the engineers, computer programmers, and magical artificers that forms the technological/magical basis of the galaxy-spanning dragon-ruled campaign setting. The first off-planet exploreres were gnomes.

Eberron also has a great take on gnomes.

 

[Dannyalcatraz]

Actually, there are lots of books about gnomes- the recent stuff is usually light fiction/art stuff dealing with what we call "Garden Gnomes"... You can also find the term in a wide variety of European mythologies, sometimes as a synonym of "Dwarf" sometimes as a subvariety of faerie, sometimes as a cousin to things like brownies or boggarts or gremlins.

However, the D&D Gnome is kind of an amalgam of a variety of legends.