Question for DL fans about tinker gnomes

[CruelSummerLord]

Depending on the accuracy of Wikipedia, of course, there you have both sides of what's been said above. They're like that not because of any grand plan or huge far-reaching worldbuilding consideration or anything, they're like that because it's funnier for them to be like that. The curse thing gives them a bit of pathos, but really they're just there to be funny comedy relief. After all, something had to be done to them to differentiate them from dwarves.

Aaarrrggghhh!

This is why I absolutely DESPISE camp humor in my fantasy games and settings-they bring the versimilitude and believability of the world to a screeching halt.

Making gnomes into one large running gag was what bothered me so much about tinker gnomes in the first place, and gave me the negative impression in the first place.

Granted, I suppose I should expect no less from Jeff Grubb, the creative genius who:

-Had his halflings talk like sassy 1990s pre-teens rather than what a person in a pseudo-medeival setting might actually say:

"Big Mo"?

"Boogers"?

"The little halfling's room"?

Gag me.

-Almost destroyed the Greyhawk setting when he suggested TSR "blow it up", totally violating the spirit of the setting by imposing a massive amount of unalienable canon that the players were powerless to affect;

-And turned tinker gnomes into a joke without any thought on the ramifications for worldbuilding, rather than making them a meaningful part of the setting. In doing so, he left people with actual creative talent, like Cam Banks, to clean up the mess. Worse, he gave people like me the wrong impression, left scratching my head on how the gnomes manage to get anything accomplished.

I hate camp.

I really, really do.

It nearly ruined the integrity of Batman, and it's poison to believable, credible fantasy, at least from my point of view.

 

[jonesy]

Worse, he gave people like me the wrong impression, left scratching my head on how the gnomes manage to get anything accomplished.

Well, what have they accomplished on Krynn? They have a mountain where they live, and...umm...some of them become adventurers (mostly the player character ones) who do stuff, and...sometimes they help the Solamnics, and...eh...they had a submarine that sank...and...they've been to the moon and back, and...

You know what I think would happen if they were all competent inventors? Top Ballista on a massive scale. They'd take over the whole place and there would be nothing anyone could do to stop them (hey, nice campaing idea, I have to think about that).

 

[Tinker Gnome]

CruelSummerLord: I will have to disagree with you a bit in disliking Jeff Grub's sense of humor. I liked how he wrote, and had characters talk. It helped show that the world was not Medieval Europe and instead its own world.

I understand how you can be upset about Tinker Gnomes, but you do not have to go with Grubb's presentation of them. I think they do have a fairly good amount of highter tech that works fine. They have geothermal power in Mt. Nevermind according to the War of the Lance sourcebook. That is something that would require a bit of advanced knowledge and tech to pull off.

 

[CruelSummerLord]

CruelSummerLord: I will have to disagree with you a bit in disliking Jeff Grub's sense of humor. I liked how he wrote, and had characters talk. It helped show that the world was not Medieval Europe and instead its own world.

Yes, I know, but I prefer to take these things seriously. I'm one of those uptight stuffed shirts who gets cranky if the game isn't set up as an intense, serious, grim, Shakespearean drama.



In all seriousness, I don't mind humor, but I don't want it to be campy or silly. The kind of humor you might see in the comedies of Shakespeare or Aristophanes is the kind I'd enjoy including in the game to lighten the mood. The latter's play Lysistrata, which I read in university, genuinely had me laughing even though it was a few thousand years old. The witty bantering of Commedia de l'Arte, the Shakespearean comedies or some of the Arthurian legends is to my mind far more appropriate than having your halflings say "Boogers".

Olive's talking simply ruined whatever kind of atmosphere Grubb was trying to create, and made the whole thing seem terribly artificial and contrived. Any believability in the story came to a screeching halt.

 

[Vocenoctum]

That's one possible outcome, yes. A gnome invention could also misfire in a bad way (i.e. exploding and blowing the gnome's arm off), or just not work at all. Or it could produce some totally different and unexpected result.

In an old campaign, a thinker gnome "perfected" a flashlight. It was wand sized, projected light 95% of the time and was quite useful.

One time, when flying somewhere the gnome drew his flashlight to check the map. We rolled on a table or three, and the result was a suddenly vibrating flashlight, which he tossed overboard. The result turned the land into a field of glass.

We can only assume that he somehow created a flashlight built around an unstable nuclear reaction.


There was also a mech, which had some of the most efficient systems imaginable, except for the "control unit" which malfunctioned wildly on occasion.