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

[grimslade]

I never liked gnomes as a distinct race in D&D. They were either portrayed as thin dwarves or furrier halflings. Even Whizbangs excellent dissertation on gnomes is more like wood elves in my campaign.
That said, I really like the theme of gnomes as being a Shadowfell fey servitor race. It conjures up a much darker illusiony fey more like the ShadowCraft mage in 3.5. I will actually be waiting for the full gnome write up with an unusual eagerness.

 

[Dannyalcatraz]

In general, we're not going to provide a lot of support for marginal races in our printed product. We might be able to give them some more attention on D&D Insider.

Taking this and above responses into account, I'm not exactly happy.

1) I am not now nor will I ever be a supporter of D&D Insider (for a variety of reasons that needn't be reprinted here). If it isn't in print, its a 99% probability I won't be able to use it, and I know from other discussions on this board, I'm not alone.

Thats a problem not just for gnomes (which I do like to play), but for anything exotic that doesn't get the "PC" treatment (like the drow & minotaurs I played back in 1Ed that weren't supported until late 2Ed and 3Ed).

2) There are a lot of people who play in games/groups in which the only races DMs allow for PCs are those in the PHB- in fact most of the DMs in my group are like that (not me, though). Their presence in the MM alone is as good as telling those people to forget playing them. This is especially true if the MM-only races don't get the additional info Whizbang points out.

3) Spreading out this kind of info across setting books and other post-Core releases is going to get very expensive very fast. Not exactly consumer friendly, and again, it limits the info's utility. Like the MM-only races, many DMs of my acquaintence don't miscegenate races across campaigns- no FR Orc variants in Ebberon, no Warforged in Greyhawk, etc.

It also will potentially slow sales in the sense of people not wanting to commit to 4Ed until their pet race, class, or mechanic has been published. (See below.)

What's I'm saying, based on the current CORE races is that I don't expect what WoTC employees think of as marginal races to be what I consider to be marginal races.

Agreed, 100%

This is making it look to me like I won't be buying much if any 4Ed beyond the Core I've already preordered. Gnomes are out until some unspecified later date & product, as are specialist wizards and a host of other things I really enjoy in 3.5.

 

[Mistwell]

Taking this and above responses into account, I'm not exactly happy.

1) I am not now nor will I ever be a supporter of D&D Insider (for a variety of reasons that needn't be reprinted here). If it isn't in print, its a 99% probability I won't be able to use it, and I know from other discussions on this board, I'm not alone.

Thats a problem not just for gnomes (which I do like to play), but for anything exotic that doesn't get the "PC" treatment (like the drow & minotaurs I played back in 1Ed that weren't supported until late 2Ed and 3Ed).

2) There are a lot of people who play in games/groups in which the only races DMs allow for PCs are those in the PHB- in fact most of the DMs in my group are like that (not me, though). Their presence in the MM alone is as good as telling those people to forget playing them. This is especially true if the MM-only races don't get the additional info Whizbang points out.

3) Spreading out this kind of info across setting books and other post-Core releases is going to get very expensive very fast. Not exactly consumer friendly, and again, it limits the info's utility. Like the MM-only races, many DMs of my acquaintence don't miscegenate races across campaigns- no FR Orc variants in Ebberon, no Warforged in Greyhawk, etc.

It also will potentially slow sales in the sense of people not wanting to commit to 4Ed until their pet race, class, or mechanic has been published. (See below.)



Agreed, 100%

This is making it look to me like I won't be buying much if any 4Ed beyond the Core I've already preordered. Gnomes are out until some unspecified later date & product, as are specialist wizards and a host of other things I really enjoy in 3.5.

The response in question did not appear to be a reference to gnomes, but to truly marginal races like sea elves. In no edition for D&D did sea elves get a first-year priority for extensive extra stuff.

 

[glass]

I would also defend my grammatical choice by comparing "margin race" to the commonly used "back cover text" but that's not really the point here, I suppose...

Did you mean it in the same sense that 'back cover text' (which should by hyphenated BTW) is meant? 'Cause if you did, then that would be grammatically correct but doesn't mean the same as 'marginal'. From the context, 'marginal' makes a lot more sense AFAICT.


glass.

 

[glass]

Taking this and above responses into account, I'm not exactly happy.
This is making it look to me like I won't be buying much if any 4Ed beyond the Core I've already preordered. Gnomes are out until some unspecified later date & product, as are specialist wizards and a host of other things I really enjoy in 3.5.

I was going to write a point-by-point rebuttal of your post, but I found myself getting annoyed so decided it was safer not to bother. Instead I will say just the following:

Wizards cannot put a full PC write-up for every race everyone might want to play in the PHB1. Therefore some things have to be left out. Wizards cannot cater to any individual; they have to look to the market as a whole, and there market research had told them that gnomes are not PHB1-worthy.

Plus which, its not like they will be unplayable out of the MM1; they just won't have racial feats and the like. No big deal, as there won't be any shortage of non-racial feat choices.


glass.

 

[Another Gnome]

Did you mean it in the same sense that 'back cover text' (which should by hyphenated BTW) is meant? 'Cause if you did, then that would be grammatically correct but doesn't mean the same as 'marginal'. From the context, 'marginal' makes a lot more sense AFAICT.

The usage was similar to how people don't say "back-covering text" when they mean text that resides on the back cover. Since we are actually talking about books, I believe the context allows for calling something "margin races" instead of "marginal races" to emphasize how they are pushed to the margin not only figuratively but almost literally... a far more suitable comparison would have been "margin notes" obviously, but I didn't think of that until now. So there.

Anyway, I don't like gnomes getting pushed aside. I do see them as marginal because of what they are going to be, not because I think they should be, but at least what Rich said about them getting full write-up in '09 is better than nothing. As for the other races I asked about, it was mostly curiosity about the design philosophy, in particular when it comes to the "less is more" approach to subraces and how many old creatures are getting their names being taken by unrelated newcomers.

 

[JoeGKushner]

But the point is that a WotC employee didn't come up with the term. All he did was acknowledge it based on a poster's use of the phrase "margin races" in one paragraph of a post specifically asking about avariel and aquatic elves. He then used it in one paragraph of his own post, again specifically mentioning avariel and aquatic elves.

So if instead he bullet pointed a list like goliath, minotaur, etc... you'd find that more in terms with what I'm asking?

IMO, anybody who can't understand this based on what was asked and what Rich wrote is just looking for a reason to be offended. Rich absolutely did NOT say "marginal races like gnomes" and he didn't even coin the stupid term (other than to correct its grammar).

IMO, anyone who can't understand that we don't know what WoTC considers minor races and may not agree with that and continues to defend WoTC based on that, isn't understanding what's being written here here.

Now, I know a lot of people are looking for reasons to be offended. But just because WotC has decided gnomes aren't popular enough to be in the first PHB doesn't mean they consider them a "marginal race."

Not arguing that. However, WHAT IS A MARGINAL RACE? I don't know. I freely admit I don't know. However, WoTC has some ideas about that including saurials and sea elves (not that I'm disagree that they ARE marginal) but seeing Dragonborn and Tielfings in the PHB already means that WoTC and I (and apparently many others), are seeing core/supplemental/marginal in a completely different light already.

But hey, whatever, think what you want. I was just pointing out the logical result of looking at it from the standpoint of a post that asked a question and one that answered it.

Tell me - would you view it differently if Rich had numbered his paragraphs 1, 2, 3?

And hey, I'm just pointing out the logical result of taking the answer and forwarding it to other races.

And no, I wouldn't have viewed it differently if it had been numbered because it doesn't answer questions about others races like say, the half orc, minotaur, goliath, half-giant, etc... etc... etc....

 

[Dannyalcatraz]

Mistwell
The response in question did not appear to be a reference to gnomes, but to truly marginal races like sea elves.

Yeah, I got that- sorry if I wasn't clear.

However, the point remains that despite 30 years of history, gnomes were considered "marginal" enough to be excised from the 4Ed PHB- a decision I'm not fond of.

And the second point stands as well: what WotC considers "marginal" may not be the case for many of their installed base as several posts in this thread illustrate. Many campaigns and player choices are going to be affected by this attitude.

This is especially the case if, as he says, that 4Ed won't include full hardcopy treatments of those races. 3.5 does just fine- a simple perusal of the various MMs, "Races of" books etc. have all kinds of variant races that one could call "marginal" and nobody complains about it.

4Ed's minimizing the hardcopy info on those races gimps player choice right out of the starting gate, plain & simple.

glass
Wizards cannot put a full PC write-up for every race everyone might want to play in the PHB1.

Didn't ask 'em to.

Didn't ask 'em to excise gnomes, either.

I know WotC did research, I also know that market research can sometimes be skewed by accidentally getting a non-representative sample. It's also very difficult to guage the actual quality of research that suggests that something that is a known quantity (gnomes) be discarded in favor of an unknown quantity (dragonborn), but many could easily interpret it as suspect.

(Not that I'm knocking the dragonborn- they seem to be pretty decent so far- superior to many of the racial variants for elves, dwarves & orcs that have come down the pipe in the past few decades.)

glass

Plus which, its not like they will be unplayable out of the MM1; they just won't have racial feats and the like. No big deal, as there won't be any shortage of non-racial feat choices.

Considering:

1) the number of DMs I've encountered in 30 years of gaming (experience, not evidence- YMMV) who bar PCs of any race not in the PHB, making them de facto unplayable for some players, and

2) what an absence of racial feats could mean in the as-yet-unseen system as a whole,

I can't give your response much creedence at this time.

Those Racial feats could be marginal and largely flavorful, or they could be "must have" gold. Right now, We don't know which they are. If its the latter, you could see the virtual disappearance of players playing "suboptimal" races who lack them.

Consider me an 'apprehensive wait-and-see" consumer.

 

[Shimrath]

I think his "marginal" comment is directed at the question about Sauriels and Sea Elves.

I too believe that Mr. Baker was not referring to Gnomes as a "marginal" race.

 

[mhacdebhandia]

1) the number of DMs I've encountered in 30 years of gaming (experience, not evidence- YMMV) who bar PCs of any race not in the PHB, making them de facto unplayable for some players

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