When did gnomes fall from grace?

[The_Gneech]

For all that I've tweaked their gnoses, I do actually see gnomes as having a strong fantasy archetype, with a much longer pedigree than hobbits halflings, actually. Gnomes are those eccentric little rapid-patter whoosimawhatsits with squeaky voices and a kind of wooly-headedness about them ... think "Oxford Don meets Mork from Ork." They're all about whimsy and wordplay, which is a very different feel of fantasy than axe-bearing brutes and chainmail bikini babes, but a long-acknowledged and well-regarded branch of fantasy nonetheless.

Gnomes aren't "cool," and never were, but the thing of it is they're not ABOUT cool and therefore don't care. Gnomes are about cleverness, being brilliant but barking mad, and old-world charm. That is their archetype. As such, "bard" actually works pretty well.

-The Gneech

 

[Khayman]

In my Mystara game, they're a dwarf offshoot. Dwarves view them as a brother clan, the races are interfertile, and gnomes have a strong martial tradition... a very strong martial tradition. Cheerful buggers even have a death cult, sort of like the gnomes of Taladas.

The only difference is that the gnomes are more personable and engage in very well-regulated trade. They also like to wear goggles and leather caps and blow things up, which includes bedrock in mines but also applies to enemies in war.

But, I too have pretty much done away with the halflings.

 

[Nebulous]

I think Midnight gnomes are offshoots of dwarves too. They travel the waterways and canals and oceans though, and are otherwise sorta similar to default gnomes.

 

[radferth]

Kudos to Ace for bringing up Hugi from 3H3L. I have always liked gnomes, not as my favorite race, but they have a definite place it most words I run. If you look at Greyhawk, gnomes are quite important in many areas, where halflings look like more of an afterthought. In second edition I had a totally dominating gnome wizard. He would use enchantments outside of combat, and turn improved invisible and sling shadow evocations in a big fight. The fact that I had wizard saves with a con-based magic save bonus was huge. (From PC-power terms, the fact that dwarves can now be arcane casters and gnomes lost their cool save bonus was big shift.) I also ran a campaign with a svirfneblin PC (fighter-rogue) who fought with two blades and is the closest thing I have seen to Wolverine in D&D.

All that being said, gnomes don't work well as PCs in many campaigns. If a campaign is overly Tolkieny, or very urban, gnome really don't make sense as a PC race. Also, IIRC, gnomes and kobolds in literature are basically the same thing; so there goes about half of the potential gnome literature right there.

 

[KB9JMQ]

I am pretty neutral about gnomes because of my lack of use of them.
My players have never played one and I have never used one in an encounter.
I did like the DL Tinkergnomes though.

 

[JohnSnow]

I think Midnight gnomes are offshoots of dwarves too. They travel the waterways and canals and oceans though, and are otherwise sorta similar to default gnomes.

Actually, all of (the Midnight world of) Eredane's non-human races are offshoots of the elder fey, or elthedar. Gnomes are more closely related to dwarves than they are to elves or halflings, but not as closely related as, say, halflings and elves, or dwarves and orcs.

That said, Midnight did manage to make gnomes interesting, by making them wandering charismatic gypsy people (who use boats) and are tied quite closely to the Eren River. Interesting, but not exactly like D&D gnomes (or as described by Gygax).

The problem isn't gnomes, halflings, or what have you. The problem is that fantasy only has room for so many archetypes. If you start overloading the categories with extra archetypes, you create confusion. Now, I'm going to go out on a limb that will probably bother some people, but bear with me:

Traditional European myths and legends contain a few very solid archetypes: strong, brave warriors; cunning, dextrous rogues; wise wizards; pious crusaders; woodsy, mystical fey (alfar/sidhe); reclusive warrior craftsmen (dwarves); and the small fey race (whether you call them gnomes, brownies, pixies, hobbits, warrows, nelwyn or whatever). When Gygax was creating D&D, he was so conscious of this that the very first "classes" were DESIGNED this way. You could play a fighter, rogue, wizard, cleric, elf, dwarf, or halfling. Of these, the first 4 were all human by default and the latter 3 represented the "non-human" options. Interestingly enough, 3e's "Core 4" iconics even harken back to this early setup. You've got a cleric (human male - Jozan), an elf (female wizard - Mialee), a dwarf (male fighter - Tordek) and a halfling (female rogue - Lidda). So similar are they to the early iconics that the 4 main characters run through the exact same adventure set forth in the 1e DMG (which I believe goes back at least to the magenta boxed set) with almost no changes.

So why do gnomes have no niche? Because there aren't that many archetypes, and as soon as you start trying to include 2 "small fey races" you're subdividing the archetype. As a result of the Professor's work, halflings have more "name recognition" than gnomes. In fact, Tolkien's "hobbits" may well be closer to classical "gnomes." They live underground, in tune with the environment, and they're even miners. They're also inventive, tough, and like songs and stories. However, they don't talk to burrowing animals.

So that's why gnomes are hosed. Hobbits (i.e. halflings) were based (loosely) on classical myth "gnomes." Kinda makes separating them now difficult, no?

 

[The_Fan]

I really like the Eberron gnomes.

They're a friendly, welcoming, industrious people who are quick to laugh, philosophical, publish the newspaper, and love to get to know people.

...their society is also run by a secret police that makes East Germany look like happy hippie town, they live in constant fear of what other gnomes might be able to use as leverage against them, and they are constantly trying to find out the most intimate secrets of everyone around them.

 

[helium3]

Firstly, I'm not a big fan of the whole "character race X must fit into fantasy archetype Y" as I think that archetypes are for weenies. I understand why people like archetypes, but I think trying to recreate the same archetype over and over and over gets a wee bit boring.

Secondly, IMCW gnomes run the pre-eminant civilization on the planet at this time. Essentially, a lawful neutral benevolent theocracy that worships a god-empress and welcomes other races, as long as it's always understood that it's the gnomes that are in charge. They retain their tinkerish aspects in that they were the first of the races to really get it together and build a civilization and thus have a much better grasp on tech than other races and civs. I've de-emphasized their woodland aspect, but that's simply because of history and the fact that they were driven out of their last ancestral homeland by migrating orcs and forced to live above ground for a long period of time. Presumeably there are gnomes in other places that are a bit more standardly "gnomish."

 

[LordMelquiades]

Can you believe we're on to a third page of this discussion? Gnomes, for goodness sake, gnomes!

Lots of people have good takes on gnomes - I too like the Eberron approach - but my beef is still the disjunction between these new takes and their mechanics (I'm putting the fey-gnomes slant to one side, as it isn't for me).

That Eberron excerpt (thanks Claudio) is great, but I do feel there's a bit of revisionism at play here - Keith Baker (and his minoins) have worked hard to justify why gnomes can talk to sea cucumbers and meercats, when frankly the issue is that the ability is stoopid. Still, everything in the core rules needed to be in Eberron, so...

Going with the Eberron spin, what makes a good substitute for speaking with moles?

 

[LordMelquiades]

Plus they have stupid names. So there.