D&D 4E Rich Baker on Gnomes in 4E

[Lonely Tylenol]

Or how about...

"Hey, I like Dwarves. Do you like Dwarves?"
"Dwarves rule!"
"Totally."
"I like how they're sneaky."
"Yeah, and how they've been shoehorned into being gypsies."
"And they're hella short!"
"But the best thing about Dwarves is that they're kenders with the serial numbers filed off."
"Duuuude....."
"What? What!"
"Just don't go there. "
"...Yeah...Sorry"

I still haven't seen a compelling argument for halflings.

 

[Lackhand]

Or how about...

"Hey, I like Dwarves. Do you like Dwarves?"
"Dwarves rule!"
"Totally."
"I like how they're sneaky."
"Yeah, and how they've been shoehorned into being gypsies."
"And they're hella short!"
"But the best thing about Dwarves is that they're kenders with the serial numbers filed off."
"Duuuude....."
"What? What!"
"Just don't go there. "
"...Yeah...Sorry"

Yes, but those really were all the same archetype, which weakens your point a bit, I feel.
If I had come across the Other Dwarf Post outside the context of this discussion, I'd actually have to scratch my head for a bit to come up with Gnome (Master of Illusion? Oh, right, what they're supposed to be! Cowards -- like kobolds or goblins? -- and so on).

This really does scream Halflobbit* to me. YMMV

* Would not a pipsqueak by any other name be as furry-footed, childish, and irritating?

 

[Piratecat]

I prefer a campaign that has a set of races a bit more believable than what a 13 year old would come up with. Let's face it the dragonblooded were created only for one reason, so players could have an even more powered up PC than in previous versions of the game. . . Gnomes may be labelled a marginal race but dragonblooded are clearly a race for marginal role playing.

A word.

The above statement is a good example of what isn't okay to do in a discussion here. It effectively says "anyone who likes dragonborn is a 13 year old for people who can't role play." In doing so, it manages to state someone's opinion as a fact, insult a whole lot of people at once, and break several EN world rules in the process.

I sympathize with people who like gnomes. This doesn't permit me to be rude to people who like dragonborn. It's possible to state one's opinion without blanket insults or hyperbole.

So please work as hard as you can to avoid this. Email me with any questions.

 

[Pale]

I would just like to ask why the rudeness towards people who like gnomes is, then, ignored.

I'd name names but, hey, I ain't supposed to do that.

 

[Lackhand]

I'm not sure what people are worked up about. It doesn't bother me a bit that gnomes don't appeal to the lowest common denominator. It makes perfect sense to me that WotC's first pass would focus on picking the low hanging fruit.

Teehee. +1 Comment of Entertaining Lackhand. Well played, sir/madam.

 

[Piratecat]

I would just like to ask why the rudeness towards people who like gnomes is, then, ignored.

I'd name names but, hey, I ain't supposed to do that.

Please don't discuss moderation in-thread. You should always feel free to shoot the moderator an email, or to report the post (triangular "!" at the bottom left of every post) and put your comments there.

Speaking of which, if you're seeing rudeness, have you reported the problem? If you haven't, then the answer to your question is likely "because we didn't see it yet." Letting us know when problems spring up is tremendously helpful. The days when I was able to read every single thread in the main forums are several years behind us.

Obviously, people shouldn't be rude, period. I don't care whether someone likes gnomes or dragonborn. Heck, I like both. But feeling strongly about your opinion is no excuse for being a jerk to someone else. We all need to get along here, and being respectful of other folks is the first step.

Please drop me an email if you want to chat about this further.

 

[The Ubbergeek]

I must say, I like the idea of both too - never played much nothing else than humans, though.

I will try the gnome one day, as the dragonborn...

 

[Traycor]

True, but they surely are being marginalized by the 4e dev team. In the extent that you have to wait 1 year for a full pc write up when they exist in every major dnd setting that was published to date.

If they are in the MM and have rules presented to play them, I wouldn't call that marginal. After all, as much as I like Avariel, I doubt they will even be in the MM. They probably won't even appear in the FR stuff during 08 either. That's a marginal race.

 

[Dannyalcatraz]

It's not Wizards of the Coast's fault that you've encountered a lot of arbitrarily dickish DMs, though.

Its not arbitrary of dickish if said races don't fit the campaign setting as PC races.

"Gnomes will likely get a "full" PC race writeup in 2009". Not removed. Not backshelved.

Perhaps not removed, but definitely backshelved.

Lets just say that were my current groups intending to update to 4Ed, several players would be sans their main PCs.

I'm not too bothered by gnomes not being in PHI, there's a lot of baseline options being left out of the mark one core books.

and

Honestly, I'm more bummed about seeing the loss of a playable brutish goblinoid race from the PHB -- half-orcs, than I am about losing gnomes.

Both of which concern me. Besides the loss of gnomes & half-orcs, some of the other 4Ed simplifying changes make me think that with the initial release, we're getting Portal instead of M:tG.

Re Gnomes marginalized by whom:

IMHO, the designers bear the brunt of the blame here: they designed the gnome in the first place, and have consistently failed to draft a decent version of the gnome post 1Ed.

Like Whizbang Dustyboots, I'm well aware of some nice legends dealing with gnomes, and bemoan that somehow nobody came up with one of those to capture in the D&D gnome writeup.

Given the watered down version we got in 3Ed, its no wonder many (but clearly not all) players didn't want to play them.

 

[Dannyalcatraz]

Rich Baker on Half-Orcs (
http://forums.gleemax.com/showpost.php?p=14765059&postcount=2101 )
Well, they're not in the Player's Handbook. I'd hope to have them available on DDi pretty soon after the PH hits, though, since players out there with half-orc characters are going to want to be able to convert or re-create their character concept, as the case may be.

This makes me wonder if gnome players of the Realms will get such a bone thrown their way...