THREE elven races, plus half-elves ... but they say gnomes have no niche?!

[Reaper Steve]

The Dragonlance gnome was a 50 page joke in a novel. It wasn't iconic to anything, except a poor sense of humor.

To honor 'truth in reporting' and all that...

R&C states "Dragonlance presented AN iconic image of the gnome..." (emphasis mine.)

So, they aren't saying that the DL gnome was THE D&D gnome. I think they did a good job with the 3E iconic Nebin as THE iconic. Obviously not iconic enough. (FWIW, I agree that the gnome didn't have a real place.)

 

[WayneLigon]

So the designers feel they can justify teensy little differences between elves and "feywild" elves, and even evil dark-skinned drow elves, just enough to toss them into the PHB as iconic classes -- with comments that half-elves will still be around, too -- but they can't come up with enough of a creative spark to maintain gnomes?! How the heck does that work?

They've explained it a dozen or more times by now.
Eladrin: Magic focus
Elf: Martial focus
Drow: Evil and not a PHB race anyway.
Gnome: Underground dweller? Filled by Dwarf. Crafter? Filled by Dwarf. Magic ability? Filled by Elf. No clear focus, in any incarnation of the game. They don't do something that another race doesn't do better.

 

[small pumpkin man]

Unless of course you play WoW.

Everyone I know treats Gnomes in WoW as the gag race, the one you make into a warrior just to annoy people, the one that get gets ganked because they're silly looking and annoying, and that's how they get treated in the D&D games I've played too (with the exception of Eberron games).

To the OP, the problem is people play magicy elves as they are, people play woodsy elves as they are, people even play half-elves, despite the crappy stats, as they are, yet, if anything I've seen on the boards is true, Gnomes are the most house-ruled out race in 3e, and even if not, don't actually get played by most people. (I don't remember seeing anyone say "I house rule out elves" unless they're playing humans only).

Now I'm not saying "Your favorite race is bad and you should feel bad" or anything like that, I'm saying the designer team is likely stuck to change Gnomes to get out of that whole "gag race" mentality, and make people actually want to play Gnomes, thus making it worth putting them in a PHB, but until they do, you'll just have to stick with either 3E or a perfectly playable writeup in the MM.

 

[Orius]

I think fantasy gaming fans just like elves too much.

Fixed it fer ya.

It's not WotC's fault, there's tons and tons of elf fanboys out there. They've been around ever since the publication of LoTR. D&D and lots of fantasy games only keep them popular. WotC would have to be on drugs to lessen the importance of elves in the game.

 

[Orius]

You would have been dragged in the street and beaten with dicebags, given the way people react around here.

Yeah, and I'd probably want to break out a dicebag.

I'm not a fan of elves, but the eldarin/elf/drow distinction works particularly well for my campaign, so I'm fine with it. Not happy with gnomes getting the boot, but it probably won't matter.

Dragonborn are going to have to be shoehorned in somewhere, because it's a totally new concept, but since it's supposed to be a desert race, I have room to squeeze them in. Now the big thing is developing the fluff; elves, like dwarves, halfings, and even gnomes have 3 editions of fluff already for me to build on and adapt. Dragonborn got zilch, so I have to figure out how they play in the larger scheme of things. Same thing with tieflings; honestly, unless I'm playing Planescape, I preferred tieflings as NPCs, and I liked the way they were more individualized in the past. Still, there is room for them.

But warforged? That's Eberron, that's not my campaign. They make sense given the long war in Eberron's background, but I don't see them as an easy-to-port race. I don't want to squeeze something into my campaign that doesn't belong there and doesn't fit.

 

[PeterWeller]

If you bother reading R&C, you see that the problem with Gnomes was that the developers weren't satisfied with any of the niches they came up with for Gnomes because either those niches were too comedy focused or they didn't fit their vision for "core" D&D (tech Gnomes) or they simply did something worse than someone else. In essence, they chose to hold Gnomes back not because they dislike them, but because they like them enough to not slap together some half assed job and call it a day.

 

[Voss]

If, of course, you accept what is essentially a publicity statement at face value. I don't do it with politicians, and I don't do it with people who want to sell me something.

 

[Hussar]

Meh, it does come down to art direction as well.

Put an elf on the cover of something and it will sell. Put a gnome on the cover and it won't. It's as simple as that. People have voted with their wallets. Gnomes are not wanted. Full stop. Every product devoted to gnomes has failed - WOTC and others have said as such.

It's not hard to see why elves get the loving and gnomes get the shoving.

 

[PeterWeller]

If someone says, "the reason why we're not doing A is because we're not satisfied with our approach to A yet," you can generally take the statement at face value.

 

[FireLance]

If, of course, you accept what is essentially a publicity statement at face value. I don't do it with politicians, and I don't do it with people who want to sell me something.

Well, don't just leave that sentence hanging. After thinking it through (which I presume is what is involved in not accepting a publicity statement at face value), what's your conclusion? Do you agree with the developers or not? Do you think that they are being honest with you or not? Or are we supposed to be left with the implication that the developers are wrong or dishonest?