When did gnomes fall from grace?

[Quasqueton]

When did gnomes become uncool?

They didn't have a bad rap in AD&D1. I don't remember them being hated in early Greyhawk. I remember lots of hate towards the DragonLance gnomes, but they were a different race, truly, anyway.

Quasqueton

 

[Mouseferatu]

Gnomes never had grace to fall from.

I know this has come up before, but it's worth repeating. Gnomes suffer greatly from the lack of an easily identifiable mainstream fantasy archetype. Even before they were hated, at least IME, they were never particularly well liked. They were just there.

Then tinker gnomes came along. If the gnomes had begun in a position of popularity, it's possible the tinkerers wouldn't have harmed them as much as they did. But gnomes started from a position of, at best, amiable neutrality in the minds of most players. (Again, IME, anecdotal evidence, etc.) So it was real easy for an ultimately goofy archetype to catch on, and refuse to let go.

To this day, I'm trying to reintroduce gnomes into some of my homebrew settings as a truly worthwhile race, but it's a struggle to get my players to accept them as such. And frankly, it's a struggle that I'm only half-heartedly fighting, because I'm still not all that enamored of them myself.

 

[Ryltar]

I have to agree with the Vampiric Mouse, there . Gnomes, IME, never held the appeal that all the other races held for players - other races that were at least somewhat present in fantasy literature, and to be used as inspiration or "role models".

For me, there's two recent examples of "gnomes done right" that changed my mind: Novags (from Red Spire's "Dark Legacies" Campaign Setting) and Whisper Gnomes (from Races of Stone, actually supplanting both halflings and gnomes). I'll take these two any day, but spare me the "classical" version, or the "jolly tinkers".

 

[Whizbang Dustyboots]

I agree about gnomes not having a niche. I've been playing since 1979, and it wasn't until Dragonlance that most people remembered they were in the PHB at all. Prior to tinkers, their niche was "they have big noses." No, really.

I like them, myself, but to give them any sort of profile, you have to kick someone else off the stage. I do it with the mutant 3E halflings myself, unless I'm running an all-hobbit game in Mystara. As the non-dwarf shorties, they've got a start. Then I make sure the imagery of them is closer to the Gnomes picture book that was so popular in the 1980s than to anything tinkery (which is odd, since I love the tinker gnome archetype in MMORPGs).

Little men in bark canoes paddling quietly along a forest stream, talking with the hedgehog sitting at the other end of the boat, is an image that feels very different than the other 3E races.

 

[VirgilCaine]

To this day, I'm trying to reintroduce gnomes into some of my homebrew settings as a truly worthwhile race, but it's a struggle to get my players to accept them as such. And frankly, it's a struggle that I'm only half-heartedly fighting, because I'm still not all that enamored of them myself.

As a player and DM, I like the tactical options of Rogues, Monks, or even Fighters having a bit of magic to screw with PCs.

IMC Gnomes are the inventors and explorers, while halflings are the businessmen, dwarves make it, and half-orcs guard it and move the boxes.

 

[Tonguez]

Little men in bark canoes paddling quietly along a forest stream, talking with the hedgehog sitting at the other end of the boat,.

nice image and exactly what gnomes ought to be. Sadly the DnD versions have been bland and have concealed the true nature of gnomes behind that veneer of banality

 

[Mouseferatu]

As a player and DM, I like the tactical options of Rogues, Monks, or even Fighters having a bit of magic to screw with PCs.

IMC Gnomes are the inventors and explorers, while halflings are the businessmen, dwarves make it, and half-orcs guard it and move the boxes.

In my primary homebrew campaign--and how scary is it that I have enough that I need to designate one as "primary"? --gnomes are the preeminant arcanists. Their favored classer are sorcerer and wizard*, and it was they who invented (well, "discovered" might be a better term) arcane magic. Sure, today the majority of wizards are human, but that's just because gnomes are relatively uncommon.

*All races have two favored classes in this setting. Except those, like humans, who can have any, of course.

(Elves, obviously, have less of a wizardly bent in this setting. The favored classes of Imperial elves are fighter and warlock, while the favored classes of the more traditional wood elves are druid or ranger.)

I try to stay away from gnomes as inventors, when it comes to anything beyond magic. Too many shades of tinkers. Shudder.

 

[BiggusGeekus]

I agree about gnomes not having a niche. I've been playing since 1979, and it wasn't until Dragonlance that most people remembered they were in the PHB at all. Prior to tinkers, their niche was "they have big noses." No, really.

That's my recollection as well. There was a nice Dragon magazine write up about them in the early 80s when they covered all the races issue by issue. But even then, the big noses were key.

Gnomes I do like:

Tinker Gnomes - yes, really. They were used as comic relief, but the notion of an obsessive people who researched trivalties and ignored the presence of magic in a magical world is kind of cool.

Gnecromancers - from Everquest. I don't know about the RPG, but the MMORPG handled these guys nicely. Of course those gnomes were pretty much tinker gnomes as well.

 

[GlassJaw]

Gnomes suffer greatly from the lack of an easily identifiable mainstream fantasy archetype.

What do you mean? They sit in your gardens and steal your car keys (and underpants).

 

[John Morrow]

What do you mean? They sit in your gardens and steal your car keys (and underpants).

Yeah, but D&D already has halflings for that...