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

[Set]

I've played only a few Gnomes. I could play in a game without them, if I wanted to.

But I'd *much* rather play in a setting without any Dwarves or Halflings. Nobody ever plays them anyway.

With the new 4.0 concept of monsters using different 'easier' rules than player characters, the gnomes in the MM seem very unlikely to be easily adapted to play. PC gnomes, whether they come out in 2009 or whatever, will have completely different abilities than 'monster' gnomes, with racial abilities scaling by level, etc.

 

[Hussar]

Didn't hear about Druids being kicked out...yet another reason for members of my group not to buy into the new system. :\

3.XEd, while not transparent to 2Ed, tossed out no class, race or magic style- the basics of character creation. That enabled our (then) 5 year old group to convert active campaigns to the new system. While I was convinced of 3.XEd's quality early on, convincing the others took time- but only a month or so passed after the initial release before the other players were at least buying the Core.

Even in my other main group (running since 1987 or so), the 1Ed/2Ed hybrid campaign was having its characters slowly but surely updated to the 3.XEd regime.
*snip*

Your own situation pretty much answers why the new edition isn't aimed at you. You have groups that have lasted for several years. Even back when 3e was being released, we found that campaigns had a half life of under two years and groups had similar lifespans.

If the majority of people's campaigns are not multi-year investments, then switching to a new one isn't all that much of a chore. Nor is wrapping up the current one for the summer and starting a new one with 4e. You're an outlier. Why should WOTC cater to you?

How many of you are going to be giving crap to people who play gnomes now and want to up date them to 4E? How many of you are going to be giving crap to people who play gnomes in 4E in general?

Be honest - most of you doubters and haters.

For that matter, did you doubt and hate before gnomes were killed, before it was fashionable and trendy to hate and doubt gnomes?

It isn't about hating gnomes. It's about a race that has seen almost no air time and wasted space in the core books. Half orcs got dumped for exactly the same reason and there's been nary a whimper. I'd never give crap to someone for playing a gnome, but, I'd be pretty shocked to see it.

Look, you want a telling site? Take a look at the D20 NPC wiki The link takes you to NPC's by race. There are exactly TEN gnomes NPC's. Ten. That's it. In comparison, there's 26 drow NPC's. Of the 1300 stat blocks on DM tools.org there's 14 gnomes compared to 35 halflings and 36 dwarves. Give's you an idea of how popular the race really is.

 

[Corinth]

There's room for only one race of human-like midgets, and Halflings got there first in the tabletop RPG medium.

 

[Guacamole]

I'll use dwarf or halfling crunch with gnomy fluff to approximate gnomes until phbii. Half-orcs can use human fluff. Unless your dm is total jerk, it shouldn't be a problem. Granted, druids might be harder (a nature fluffed wizard or warlock should probably be easy, on second thought) but a little creativity clears the air.

 

[Dannyalcatraz]

Your own situation pretty much answers why the new edition isn't aimed at you. You have groups that have lasted for several years. Even back when 3e was being released, we found that campaigns had a half life of under two years and groups had similar lifespans.

If the majority of people's campaigns are not multi-year investments, then switching to a new one isn't all that much of a chore. Nor is wrapping up the current one for the summer and starting a new one with 4e. You're an outlier. Why should WOTC cater to you?

Yep. I'm an outlier.

I'm an outlier who has upgraded to each successive edition, usually updating & overhauling campaigns with each new version. Some of my 3.X PCs are old enough to drink alcohol.

I'm an outlier who is a DM, not only for established players, but also one who brings new blood to the hobby. My purchase decisions ripple.

I'm an outlier who has lots of disposable income and who is in a big gaming group (10 players) and in more than one group at any one time, meaning I'm one of the reasons why books sell. I'm usually one of the first to purchase a book, sometimes I buy multiples for group use. Again, decisions I make ripple- a book I buy (esp. one I actually use) passes through the hands of another 20 or so gamers.

Here's where your group/campaign stat gets you in trouble: group & campaign aren't the same thing. That group of 10 has been playing together (+- a few members) for more than a decade- but there have been many campaigns in that group. In addition, there have been at least 8 other groups composed of some members of that group and other gamers in that time. Membership in those groups looks like a mess of Venn diagram circles centered around one group- Jupiter's system of moons is less complex. These were mainly long-time gamers (many of whom knew each other), but there were also a good number of novices brought into the hobby at the time.

Besides, even when you're the new guy to the group, your game choices & playstyle will influence those around you. Once upon a time, I was the invitee to that large group mentioned above. If it weren't for my spearheading the foray into 3Ed (first to purchase, first to try converting PCs, helping others convert theirs), its quite possible they'd still be playing 2Ed.

It's about a race that has seen almost no air time and wasted space in the core books.

For which I blame the designers.

Both Whizbang Dustyboots and I have pointed out that there are plenty of nice gnomish archetypes in story, myth & legend...some of which got folded into the writeups of Dwarves, Elves and Goblins.

As for Half-Orcs...they have less of a background than gnomes, but I know a LOT of Half-Orc players besides myself. And there is no reason why the full-blooded Orc couldn't have replaced it in the PHB.

 

[The Little Raven]

For which I blame the designers.

So, it's the 4e designers fault that no previous design team at TSR/WotC could make gnomes popular enough for more than a few players to like them. Right.

 

[Dannyalcatraz]

So, it's the 4e designers fault that no previous design team at TSR/WotC could make gnomes popular enough for more than a few players to like them. Right.

That is not what I'm saying. Each design team had opportunities, and must take their blame in turn.

1Ed Gnomes were essentially short Dwarves. They did some things better but most things worse. Main advantages- they spoke to burrowing critters at will and were able to cast MU [Illusionist] spells. (1Ed PHB p15-17)

2Ed Gnomes were much the same. (2Ed PHB p20-22) Some racial variants could do things like ID potions by scent or had skills in making gizmos.

3Ed Gnomes continued the trend of being lesser Dwarves with a knack for Illusion, and had their communicative abilities reduced from at will to 1/day. They also lost the saving throw bonuses they shared with Dwarves

3.5Ed Gnomes had their favored class changed to Bard, considered by some to be among the weakest of the 3.X classes (esp. in comparison to the 1Ed bard who was something to be feared).

Each of those is a design choice that could have been done differently.

I knew a lot of 1Ed gnome players, not a lot of 1/2 Orcs. In 2Ed, 1/2 Orcs got a little popularity boost. In 3Ed, there was a modest decline in both, which for Gnomes accellerated with the 3.5 revision making Bard the Gnomes' favored class (this is all personal experience, not evidence).

Gnomes have always suffered in comparison to other races for the reasons stated above, not the least of which is that certain things attributable to gnomes of legend were allocated to other races. This is especially true of attributes from legends in which gnome was but a synonym for dwarf, elf, goblin, or other mythological creature. Sometimes all of those names were interchangable. You may respond that obviously gnomes had no real identity then. That's not so- that just means that none of those races had a discernable identity until the game designers allocated some abilities to Elves, some to Dwarves, some to Goblins, etc., leaving gnomes with little to call their own...and that little bit got whittled away in successive revisions. (In a sense, its analogous to the Corellan/Grummsh myth...)

Bottom line - the designers of each edition had a chance to design cool gnomes and routinely failed. The 4Ed designers had their chance and instead chucked them in favor of new races.

 

[Hussar]

I'm an outlier who has upgraded to each successive edition, usually updating & overhauling campaigns with each new version. Some of my 3.X PCs are old enough to drink alcohol.

Yup.

Put it simpler, you don't matter. There just aren't enough of you, or me for that matter since I'm not so different, to have any significant impact. We are far and away dwarfed numerically by casual gamers.

It think it has to do with the fact that I game online, so I see a lot of new gamers. All the time. In my campaigns over the past few years, I've easily played with a hundred people. Now, these are all gamers who were interested, and invested, enough into the hobby to try it online instead of more traditional play.

Yet, for the most part, they buy one or two books a year and that's it.

They are the bread and butter of the hobby, not us. There simply isn't enough of us to matter. For every group that lasts for a decade, for every gamer with 20 years of gaming experience, there's hundreds that don't.

 

[Dannyalcatraz]

Put it simpler, you don't matter.

Early adopters always matter- that's a simple principle of marketing.

 

[Hussar]

I knew a lot of 1Ed gnome players, not a lot of 1/2 Orcs. In 2Ed, 1/2 Orcs got a little popularity boost. In 3Ed, there was a modest decline in both, which for Gnomes accellerated with the 3.5 revision making Bard the Gnomes' favored class (this is all personal experience, not evidence).

How did 1/2 orcs get a boost in 2e when they were removed from core? If that's true, then maybe gnomes will get a boost in the same way in 4e?

Bottom line - the designers of each edition had a chance to design cool gnomes and routinely failed. The 4Ed designers had their chance and instead chucked them in favor of new races.

You have to stop and ask why though? Why did all those bits get given away to other races? Is there some grand anti-gnome conspiracy, or is it because gnomes were never a popular race? They were always the red headed step child and few people played them. And, you're right, it's a circle. No one played them, so they got no support and so no one played them even more.

However, we're talking about 30 years of no one playing them. I've said it elsewhere. Keeping something to make minorities of gamers happy is a bad idea. Chuck it in the bin, bring it back later IF there's enough interest and try something else.

Instead, we got stuck in every edition with a race that was the least liked (or easily in the bottom two or three) and we could never have any new core races.