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

[Fifth Element]

All this outrage against their demotion is, dare I say it, disingenuous.

QFT, FTW, etc, etc.

 

[Dausuul]

Elfgasm!

*shrug* Elves have been hugely popular since the inception of the game. They have actually cut the number of elf and elf-oid races way, way down in 4E. 3E has high elves, grey elves, aquatic elves, wild elves, wood elves, dark elves, half-elves, winged elves, ghost elves, painted elves, and killoren. And I'm pretty sure I missed a bunch. Previous editions were also elf-tastic. This is nothing new.

 

[Wolfspider]

Amongst gamers and D&D fiction fans, sure. But 4E is going for broader appeal. If you don't read D&D fiction, your gnome archetype involves the Travelocity spokes-gnome, lawn-gnomes, and short fairy tale creatures with pointy red hats.

According to that logic, WotC should have designed the 4e elves so that they live in trees and bake cookies, since that is the popular archetype (I daresay more popular than the psuedo-LotR one that D&D usually uses).

 

[Kaffis]

To be honest, you don't need two seperate races to do that. Same way as you can have a barbaric human culture and a technological "knightly" human culture, without needing to make two human races.

I think WotC just like elves too much.

That would be true, if you weren't trying to build mechanical bonuses based on the culture and image of the race into the race's stats.

You can overlook this with humans because the mechanical bonus for humans is "they are really diverse and adaptable." Thus, they have room for a barbaric culture here, and a technological culture there, and get racial feats and abilities that let you take whatever you want.

When you declare that a race is not merely adaptable, but inherently magical, or not merely adaptable, but intrinsically connected to nature, you don't have the luxury of saying "well, some cultures run with that, others don't." If something is core to your very being, it will affect all of your subcultures' racial identities. So, take a 3.x edition elf. Now, tell me, sir, why the ranger (and elven rangers are a deeply ingrained and very iconic archetype amongst D&D and fantasy of all kinds, so they should be sensibly represented) doesn't practice arcane magic, because he's innately connected to magic. That's like a dwarf who eschews stonework and metalcraft, it makes no sense and dilutes the character of the race as a whole. And now, turn ye to the elven wizard who builds his majestic and graceful tower... out of stone. Why? Isn't it a scar upon the forest?

There's plenty of call for dividing the race to account for the different archetypes that D&D is meant to draw upon and account for.

Gnomes have their niche, too, to be sure. However, it's a matter of popularity when it comes to what you make core as a playable race with PHB real estate. It's not a matter of "Are X and Y more compelling than Z? Okay, let's put X and Y in the PHB instead of Z." It's "Will players use and demand X and Y more than Z? Okay, then we need to make sure they're accessible to them." And having distinct, focussed, and differentiated X's and Y's is far preferable than making a clumsy, less-cohesive, and disjointed amalgamation, XY.

I mean, how would you feel if we combined the halfling and the gnome? After all, who's to say that some cultures of gnomelings don't just like to farm, steal, and make boats, and other cultures like to practice magic and invent things? Isn't that what you just said about the merged elf?

 

[tsadkiel]

But no one actually likes gnomes. And if they're truly that into gnomes, against all my expectations, they're in the MM, which comes out simultaneously with the PHB. All this outrage against their demotion is, dare I say it, disingenuous.

I actually like gnomes. Quite a bit. And I'm perfectly fine with them being in the Monster Manual.

 

[TerraDave]

Elf love: there is no denying how popular they are. Setting aside anything else, they are really, really popular. And I don't think it is just LotR fans (I know of several exceptsion, at least personally). You present the races to someone with even a vague knowledge of fantasy, who has not read the LotR (and before those movies came out), and their is a good chance they will pick some elf varient. Its truly sad, but its true.

Elf what?: the great irony of this is that its elves don't have such a well defined niche. Its elves that have been all over the place in the game, and this has led to the several variants. This may even be part of the appeal: they are like humans, but better in ways x, y, and z. The split in for 4thed makes sense, again at least based on my own experience. I had players making Eladrin type elves many, many years ago, basically on their own initiative.

Gnome feelings: You know, gnomes are not actually that unpopular. They are not like elves, but then again what is (answer: humans without mechanical penalties). They have their fans, along with their haters. (and what is with that hate, its just sort of pathetic).

Gnome reality: WotC punted. But the Gnome will be back, it will be the major selling point of some future book, and then they will be the greatest thing since sliced bread.

Klaus: you rock. I am looking forward to my 4th ed counters.

 

[HeavenShallBurn]

One way or another the gnomes don't really bother me. But I'm sick of the
ELVES, ELVES, AND MORE ELVES, COME GET YOUR ELVES

Tieflings and Dragonborn were the right idea, throw in more unique PHB races instead of rolling in needless elflove.

The PHB should have one elf race, humans are necessary I guess even though I'm thoroughly bored with them , dwarves are of course vital, and I guess halflings add spice. But beyond those four they should have used the opportunity to interject something new, not just add an extra type of elf. The half-races should either be a feat or a template. Use the space to put in something interesting like Kobolds or Kenku. Hell even lobsterfolk, just do something more than short human, brawny human, pretty human, ugly human.

 

[Mad Mac]

Regardless...
The game designers had an opportunity to refine and define gnomes and their relationships with other races -- "niches" and all -- on a totally clean slate with the introduction of 4th edition. Whatever they write in the new books will become canon. In the same way that they developed new core races from scratch, they could have done the same with gnomes. Instead, they chose not to, and then justified that decision on itself -- i.e. "We couldn't design a niche because we didn't have a niche to design."

Just saying they could have redone the race from scratch doesn't cut it. If it was that easy, than all they'd have to do is post this in the new gnome race write-up.

Attention!!

Gnomes are now cool. All the people who are cooler than you play gnomes. Roll up a gnome character now or be a loser forever!

If the core concept of the race just isn't selling, than it isn't easy to do a redesign. How far do they go?

Gnomes! Gnockturnal Gninjas from the Gnertherworld

Gnomes are best described as blending the most striking features of Dwarves, Elves, Tigers, and Ninjas. They have been known to gun down hapless Orc Warbands from ambush using their magical machine guns, and then raising their bodies to serve as eternal undead thespians. Gnomes are hardcore awesome.

That said, gnomes will be in the Monster Manual, and it will probably provide at least a glimpse of what flavor direction they plan to develop them towards. Will be interesting to see.

 

[HeinorNY]

Put some WoW juice into D&D gnomes and more people will like them and want to play them.

 

[Wormwood]

Put some WoW juice into D&D gnomes and more people will like them and want to play them.

I know I would.

Which is a testament to how boring I think standard D&D gnomes are.