What's with the Gnome Hate?

[Desdichado]

That's an odd coincidence, my step-uncle lives there…maybe one day our paths will cross.

If they do, rest assured we shall play a game of tall characters.

 

[taliesin15]

Annoying is easy. Combine an annoying player with a Gnome and you don't get slightly annoying. You get really annoying.
That's why people hate Gnomes.

I can see yr point here...thankfully, I've never been around this phenomenom, except for a one-off game in high school when the guy in my circle of friends with the worst (or no) sense of humor tried to play a gnome in a funny way. Actually in that case it was charming as the character was more a distracting fop and perennial screw-up--good for distracting the hoopleheads in the Tavern while the halfling was cutting purses or the wizard was making contact with the black marketeer agent.

 

[Steely Dan]

If they do, rest assured we shall play a game of tall characters.

Absolutely, and my wife would approve, she's Masai (though she doesn't play).

 

[DM_Jeff]

I don't think there's a lot of gnome hate, but whatever text went into them has, for nearly 30 years of my experience anyway, been like a liscence for a player to be annyoying to the group. "Because I'm a gnome!" as the excuse.

So that doesn't always immediately endear them to the group.

-DM Jeff

 

[taliesin15]

there's not really a lot of hate for gnomes. But there's also not a whole lot of support for them. Gnomes were just kind of there, and had no distinctive place in the world, outside of Eberron. Plus there was a lot of confusion over what role they were supposed to be playing. Were they supposed to be little tricksters, weaving illusions and playing pranks? Were they supposed to be tinker gnomes, always fiddling with mechanical gadgets?

I find this absolutely astonishing. I've never as much as looked at an Eberron product, and always thought of Gnomes as an integral part of a D&D milieu. How about tricksters, illusionists, tinkers AND master craftsmen? Have you ever considered why they are tricksters, and don't reveal their real names to outsiders? Some say that Gnomes have their own language they don't teach to others, a language that is not "Gnomish". IMC, they are miners of the richest gold mines (which they keep secretive), miners of many of the finest gems, master jewelers, the only ones running a bank on the major continent (itself heavily protected by Gnomish Illusionists), and, very key, the bridge between the other four core races. Most key in the latter is they are the diplomatic bridge between Elves and Dwarves.

 

[taliesin15]

4e gnomes ... *sigh* ... they didn't make the cut 'cos they seem too similar to tieflings mechanically, and a decision was made.

Which is one reason I'll never buy or play 4e. Tieflings? A completely useless not very imaginative throw-away forgettable race. One of the monsters in 3rd edition I've never used in part because they are so similar to a million other demonic/magical humanoid races. Why not pick something at random from the Fiend Folio or MM2 (1st edition)? A Flumph would have been a better choice.

 

[taliesin15]

In 30 years, the creators of D&D haven't found a worthwhile niche for them.

Gnome Illusionists? Hello? Just like the Gnomes in Western European fairy tales? (am I one of the few that are familiar with fairy tales in this thread?)

 

[Barastrondo]

Which is one reason I'll never buy or play 4e. Tieflings? A completely useless not very imaginative throw-away forgettable race. One of the monsters in 3rd edition I've never used in part because they are so similar to a million other demonic/magical humanoid races. Why not pick something at random from the Fiend Folio or MM2 (1st edition)? A Flumph would have been a better choice.

To be fair, tieflings are as written just as distinctly from other demonic/magical humanoid races as gnomes are from other fey/magical humanoid races. There's not really any charge you could levy against tieflings for being "useless" or "not very imaginative" that couldn't also be applied to gnomes from a completely neutral standpoint.

Not that you get many completely neutral standpoints in a hate thread.

 

[taliesin15]

I found that sufficiently versatile halflings and dwarves made gnomes a redundancy: there was no gnome concept that couldn't be done with a halfling or dwarf concept, save the one reliant on "gnome" as a concept.

I'd wager one can do the same thing with any race, for example making dwarves or elves redundant if one wanted to. The last few years has demonstrated amply that an almost infinite amount of tweaking can and has been done to the core races so one can think of any possible variation.

However, playing the devil's advocate here, what race is traditionally (i.e. before 4-5 years ago when 3.5 came out) associated with the Magic School of Illusion?

And what race typically hides their communities using illusions?

Elves typically hide amongst the trees, though I think many people see that as much as using natural camouflage as magical.

 

[AllisterH]

Gnome Illusionists? Hello? Just like the Gnomes in Western European fairy tales? (am I one of the few that are familiar with fairy tales in this thread?)

No, but you're also ignoring how TSR (note not just WOTC) treated them.

Both Birthright (arguably the most "medievalesque" campaign setting ever produced) AND Darksun (the first non-standard fantasy setting) killed off gnomes.

Dragonlance (and Spelljammer) used the atrocious Tinker gnome concept a.k.a "we blow ourselves up more than we blow the other guy up"

Planescape, Al-qadim and Ravenloft pretty much ignored them. I seriously can't even remember one gnomish NPC from those campaign settings (and yeah, I know someone is going to prove me wrong...)

Mystara and the Realms seem to use a toned down version of the tinker gnomes but frankly, unless you liked "tech" in your fantasy, the gnomes wouldn't be a big influence on your campaign design. And yes, I had forgot about Creature Crucible/Ballista

Taliesin15, I think you're going to have to show how TSR actually gave gnomes a niche at all. Remember, once 3E killed the race/class restrictions, the so-called gnome niche disappeared (as I pointed out, if you wanted to play a spellcasting dwarf, frankly, 3E allows that whereas in 1e/2e you had to play a gnome)