When did gnomes fall from grace?

[Olgar Shiverstone]

Gnomes never had grace to fall from.

Ding, ding. We have a winna!

Gnomes have no archetype, and no niche. If they were tiny, fey creatures (like the stereotypical red-capped gnomes) they might be better received. But in D&D terms, they're just short elves. This is particularly true now that halflings are skinny, shoe-wearing, wandering kleptomanics, rather than the fat hairfooted stay-at-home kleptomanic hobbits they were in earlier editions.

 

[Corinth]

I would like gnomes to be yanked from the core rules come 4th Edition and instead put in the relevant setting books, along with half-elves and half-orcs (which should be done as templates applied to men), thus reducing the PHB races to: Dwarves, Elves, Halflings and Men.

 

[Mouseferatu]

I would like gnomes to be yanked from the core rules come 4th Edition and instead put in the relevant setting books, along with half-elves and half-orcs (which should be done as templates applied to men), thus reducing the PHB races to: Dwarves, Elves, Halflings and Men.

Well, I can get behind the idea of the half-BLAH races being templates. And I can even get behind the notion of removing gnomes; I don't necessarily think it's the way to go, but I wouldn't be upset.

However, I don't agree that the four core races should be human, dwarf, elf, and halfling.

The fact is, as much Tolkien influenced and defined most modern conceptions of fantasy, he isn't the be-all and end-all of it. D&D, at least originally, drew as much from pulp sword & sorcery as from Tolkien. I would hate for the game to reach the point where it implied that Tolkien-esque fantasy was the only way to play.

I think at least one core race should come from a source other than Tolkien. Gnomes do that; it's just that they don't, in their current form, have a strong enough basis in other sources to make up for that. Something else, however, might. If gnomes are removed, they should be replaced by something equally foreign to the good Professor's works.

 

[Whizbang Dustyboots]

See, I'd go the other direction. Drop halflings from the core, and leave in gnomes. That allows gnomes' role to expand to cover rogues as well, and halflings, who have almost as much of an identity crisis, to be hobbits or semi-kender as appropriate to the setting.

If (a miracle occurs and) Mystara got an official treatment in 4E, the hin (which is where the name came from, Forgotten Realmsians!) be hobbits, without question. On the other hand, Eberron would have their dino-riding nomads. Heck, go ahead and tweak the stats more as appropriate -- the archetype isn't strong enough to merit one set of stats at this point, IMO.

But yes, make half-human a template and list what races it works with. Elves, orcs, hobgoblins and ogres would be a good list for players to cull from.

 

[Tonguez]

Dwarves, Elves, Halflings and Men.

*GAG*BLECH!!!* NO!!!

If your gonna go that route then you may as well cut the PHB down to: Human and 'Humanoid' Template

and do everything else with templates.
Want a elf = Human + Fey template
Want a Halfling = Human + Small-sized template
Want an Orc = Human + Feral Template
Want a Gnome = Human + Small-sized + Fey templates
Want a Gnoll = Hyaena + Humanoid template
Want a Goblin = Frog + Humanoid template (with Yoda-Jumping action)

 

[Jeff Wilder]

The Problem is that DnD gnomes are too tall and NOT Fey enough

I think this is a really good point. Instead of revamping halflings (while I don't hate the new halflings, I don't understand why they needed changing), 3E should have remolded gnomes as the only Tiny PC race. Arcana Unearthed has sprytes, which are the race in that game that appeals most to me; they are both smaller and "feyer" than gnomes. A Tiny race can definitely work.

 

[GuardianLurker]

Another vote for Mouseferatu as the Super-Genius (Wil E. Coyote, incumbent). 1E tried to set them up as the magical trickster (Gnome Illusionist/Thief, anyone?), which is partly where the Bard switch in 3.5 came from, but it never was a strong archetype.

I've tried to rehabilitate Gnomes in my homebrew, but my players left them alone.

Gnomes (IMC) are the race of specialists, the race of passion. And I don't mean the romantic Don-Juan passion, but the more general kind. The Passion that breeds fanatics, otaku fanboys, and geeks of every stripe. As the People of Passion, the gnomes can be played for laughs or more seriously, depending on what they obsess over, and how competent they are. They could even be used to play up an alienation theme - because the culture expects/values those gnomes who do find their life's passion, and the earlier the better. In some sense, gnomes are the inverse of the 3e human generalist.

But, as I said, no players ever played a gnome. Darn it.

 

[Droogie]

Really, there's no need for multiple benign little-people races. I wouldn't mind seeing halflings and gnomes rolled into one race -- and I wouldn't mind if it ended up being called gnome. But having both, with so little to distinguish them, is a waste.

Took the words right out of my mouth. The problem is the redundancy of having both of these races in the game. The whole point of halflings was to have a hobbit-like race to play. Now that they are not all that hobbit-y anymore in the RAW, I would just love to rip them out of the game and build up gnomes to be the true 'little person' race.

See, I'd go the other direction. Drop halflings from the core, and leave in gnomes. That allows gnomes' role to expand to cover rogues as well, and halflings, who have almost as much of an identity crisis, to be hobbits or semi-kender as appropriate to the setting.

Yup. Unfortunately, hell has to freeze over first.

I think at least one core race should come from a source other than Tolkien. Gnomes do that; it's just that they don't, in their current form, have a strong enough basis in other sources to make up for that. Something else, however, might. If gnomes are removed, they should be replaced by something equally foreign to the good Professor's works.

I vote for replacing halflings with Kobolds.

Anyway, apologies to all you Halfling lovers out there.

 

[HellHound]

Gnomes never had grace to fall from.

So true. From the day I started gaming in 1979 until the day I stopped playing 1e AD&D, there was never a gnome played by any player in any group I was in, nor as a major NPC by any DM I ran with.

Gnomes, in our games, never really existed.

 

[haiiro]

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.

I'll second that -- though my favorites remain the Taladas tinker gnomes, living in their spires on Hitehkel, the lake of lava, and building things that actually worked. They also had an intense quality to them, and sense of pathos -- like many of the Taladas races, come to think of it.

In any case, I've always liked gnomes.