why do folks hate gnomes?

[Femerus the Gnecro]

or do something wacky like make them death loving necromancers

Ooo! Ooo! I did that!

-F

 

[Turlogh]

As a player they just don't interest me, its not hatred but more of an indifference. This is not exclusive to gnomes I feel the sam about 1/2 orcs.

As a DM Gnomes would never be banned if a player wanted to play one. I just might have difficulty coming up with gnome specific hooks.

As a game like most other things there is going to be classes, races, heck even weapons and armours that just won't interest you. You should be encouraged to play what you have fun with.
Maybe someday you will try one that previously you "hated" and find its not so bad after all.

 

[alsih2o]

i think if looked at with a sympathetic eye many might see all these reasons for hating gnomes show an incredible versatility for a non-human race.

the gnome fighter, or rogue, or wizard, or cleric makes perfect sense. almost anything but barbarian.

comparitively, a half-orc wizard is most likely hard to imagine, and is always a finger-pointer.

they seem to have all the versatility of humans, with added bonuses.

i wonder how equally matched human-gnome conflict would go? the con bonus seems it would help more than the str penalty hurts...only tanks suffer when str goes down, but every class benefits from added con. add the sight bonuses, the cantrips and the ability to talk to certain kinds of animals and i think especially at low lvls ythe gnome blows away humans everytime

 

[Shard O'Glase]

Hate gnomes, nah its elves, yes elves I hate. And if you did a poll i bet you'd find the most loved and hated race was elves. I don't know maybe its the dumb names(see Dr. Forresters lecture) or maybe its flashback to 2nd ed twinkdom(revisted with the sub-race crap in FR) but dang I hate elves.

 

[Arnwyn]

While I don't *hate* gnomes, I don't really care for them, either. I don't see a role for them (as someone mentioned above), and they never really figured prominently (or at all) in any of the traditional fantasy literature that I have based my game on (Lord of the Rings being by far the main influence - always has been). My players feel the same way. Heck, it's 2002, and we still play our halflings as hobbits. The 3e version of halflings is right out.

I play in FR, so they're there, but I haven't seen a gnome PC in many many years.

 

[djrdjmsqrd]

Gnomes

I love Gnomes. I have played Gnomes, I have DM'ed Gnomes, Gnomes make very good NPCs...my player's hate Gnomes, they Know when they see one of my Gnomish Screamers to run...

...Gnomes are fun, evil, and insane...like me

Back to lurking with my legion of Gnomes...

 

[Dagger75]

It looks like I have to chime it on this.

Why I hate gnomes

The way they are protrayed. I never liked them as tricksters like they were protrayed in 1e and 2e. I guess it also has to do with the few players who play gnomes. They were always playing tricks on the party. Sneaking up to the evil mages to place Kick Me signs stuff like that. Granted we young but I never liked that. Then in RPGA, my friend played a gnome, a very annoying gnome. Players always seem to act stupid when they play gnomes.

I tried to play once. A gnome ranger. He was no trickster, practicle joker or tinker. I played hm like a bounty hunter, BUT other people expected the trickster so I had no fun.

Something needs to change the preception of the gnome. I like the picture of the gnome in the monster manuel. The picture of the gnome in the players handbook is stupid, glasses, funky headband telecope, microscope thingy. Bah. I don't know what I want gnomes to be. I want them to be a serious race. Something I want to play.

When most people see an elf- Probably a powerful mage.

Dwarf- Stout fighter

Halfling - The thief

Half Orc- a raging barbarian

Gnome- Is he going to cast some stupid illusion of a pokadot horse with butterfly wings and hope the evil necromancer is afraid of it. Is he going to put a whoopy cusion on my bar stool.

See gnomes are still freaking lame

I also hated tinker gnomes. Flying blimp ships, catapults instead of stairs. Thats just plain stupid.

And that is why I hate gnomes

 

[el-remmen]

Some gnome excerpts

Here are some excerpts from my story hour, when the party were the "guests" (read, captives) of a gnomish communtiy:

The following occured while the gnomish patrol and the party rested for one night on their way back to the gnomish village after first being "invited" to come along:

From Session #15

They settled down and the large dried mushrooms were passed around.

“I assume the humans of Gothanius do not know your community is here,” Kazrack said.

“No, and we want to keep it that way,” said the Captain.

“Yeah, the humans are greedy and settle in land and then claim it belongs to them alone. They try to make everyone follow their laws, and they rip up the trees and plant their own crops and drive out the animals. It is horrible,” said one of the other gnomes.

“Yeah, humans are terrible. They have no respect and think they can own everything,” added another gnome.
“And more and more of them are coming into the valley, and that is too close, I think,” another gnome said. Obviously, this was a point of contention because there were a few moments of heated discussion in gnomish, which ended with one gnome saying angrily, “I wouldn’t trust a human as far as I could throw him.”

“Excuse me, but some of us have feelings, you know. Can you keep it down over there?” Jeremy said between bites of the bitter mushroom.

“It’s not our fault you’re human,” said Obenhammer.

“But if the humans are taking a land where there is nothing, what harm does it do you?” Kazrack inquired.

“Nothing?” the gnome Captain raised his voice for the first time, and then composed himself. “I find that strange coming from you, a dwarf, because that is such a human perspective. A human can look at a beautiful field, alive with wild oats, and shrews and moles and gophers; he can look at a forest full of trees older than you or I, with squirrels and birds and all kinds of animals and see nothing. Nothing but a place to rip up for their own profit. Is the earth itself nothing? Humans tend to build against the world, and not with it. It makes no sense. They will hunt an animal to extinction. They will pluck every flower of a certain kind for miles around if they think it is pretty only to let it die in a vase in their house. It makes no sense.”

Also from Session #15 (when the party arrives at the gnomish village:

The sun was so low by the time they were told to halt, that through their blindfolds almost no light came through.
Around them, the party could hear the hushed tones of scores and scores of voices.

“You may remove your blindfolds,” the Captain said.

The party found themselves amid four hills situated in a diamond shape around them. The hills were scored with paths, stairways, doors, passageways and tiny round windows. Snow was deep in many places, but had been carefully cleared from paths and doorways.

But of course, what the party immediately noticed was that these paths and doorways and the greenway they stood on was filled with more gnomes than any of them had ever seen in their entire lives.

“Ah nevah sin sa many gnomes!” Chance said with a gasp.

The gnomes were dressed in woolen clothing died in bright yellows, greens, reds and orange. Many wore knitted long stocking caps and had white mustaches and an occasional beard beneath their prodigious noses.

“Cousins!” the Captain announced. “These are our new guests. They will be staying in our guest quarters with Distil. Please make them feel at home.”

He turned to the party, “Please step forward and introduce yourselves one by one, so that my people may know who you are.”

Martin stepped forward, “I am Martin the Green, Alumnus of the Academy of Wizardry.”

“Hello Martin!” the crowd of gnomes replied friendlily.

“Me name’s Chahnce,” Chance said.

“Hello Chance!” the crowd said, and Chance smiled broadly, filled with a welcome feeling.
Jana, Jeremy and Beorth took their turns, and when Kazrack announced his name the cheering “hello” had a few voices saying so in dwarven littered in the crowd.

Finally, Ratchis stepped forward and said, “I am Ratchis of Nephthys.”

“Oooooooh, It talks,” the gnome community said as one, and then after an awkward pause said, “Hi, Ratchis!”

“Obenhammer, Ashkenbach, take them to the guest quarters and tell your uncle I will come to see him shortly,” the Captain ordered two of his men.

 

[el-remmen]

It looks like I have to chime it on this.

Why I hate gnomes

The way they are protrayed. I never liked them as tricksters like they were protrayed in 1e and 2e. I guess it also has to do with the few players who play gnomes. They were always playing tricks on the party. Sneaking up to the evil mages to place Kick Me signs stuff like that. Granted we young but I never liked that. Then in RPGA, my friend played a gnome, a very annoying gnome. Players always seem to act stupid when they play gnomes.

I tried to play once. A gnome ranger. He was no trickster, practicle joker or tinker. I played hm like a bounty hunter, BUT other people expected the trickster so I had no fun.

Something needs to change the preception of the gnome. I like the picture of the gnome in the monster manuel. The picture of the gnome in the players handbook is stupid, glasses, funky headband telecope, microscope thingy. Bah. I don't know what I want gnomes to be. I want them to be a serious race. Something I want to play.

When most people see an elf- Probably a powerful mage.

Dwarf- Stout fighter

Halfling - The thief

Half Orc- a raging barbarian

Gnome- Is he going to cast some stupid illusion of a pokadot horse with butterfly wings and hope the evil necromancer is afraid of it. Is he going to put a whoopy cusion on my bar stool.

See gnomes are still freaking lame

I also hated tinker gnomes. Flying blimp ships, catapults instead of stairs. Thats just plain stupid.

And that is why I hate gnomes

Sounds to me like you hate the idiots who would be idiotic no matter what race or class they played - find yourself some mature and imaginative players and these concerns will go away.

 

[Psion]

so, why not eliminate elves, dwarves or halflings?

I do just that!

Well sort of. Halflings only hail from one region on my world... for some strange reason, my players still like playing the annoying little gits.

Incidentally, I have never seen dwarves as particularly mechanically inclined so much as "earthy and hardy." Gnomes fill the mechanically inclined niche much better, IMO. But I am more than happy to let the have the halfling's niche, too.