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Message: <blockquote data-quote="Lord Zardoz" data-source="post: 521413" data-attributes="member: 704">Short sightedness and bad precedentThere are two reasons that people tend to avoid Gnomes above all other player character races.  Shortsightedness of Players and DM's is one of the main reasons.  Poor fiction precedent is the other reason.Starting with the poor precedents, take a look at all of the existing races.  Humans are a non issue, and not really bound by any precedents.  In fiction, humans fill every role, from hero to villian, from warrior to wizard.  Nearly all of the other races fill an accepted role.  Elves are always the immortal, over proud elder race.  Half Elves tend to be nearly as flexible as humans, but often end up in a Tree hugger role (Druid or Ranger).  Dwarves are the taciturn, loyal, and steadfast fighters.  Half Orcs are the Strong Back and Weak Mind types.  Halflings have it almost as bad as Gnomes, but are accepted as capable theives.What Archetype does the Gnome fill?  Outside of Dragonlance and Spelljammer novels, no one really uses them.  Those that do use them often do so just to avoid using the word 'dwarf'.  I cannot think of one book that had one serious gnomish hero, but plenty of stories where they are background NPC's.The shortsightedness of Players and DM's is the result of the above.  When someone throws together a campaign world, if they have anything resembling the archtypical setup, you will have at least one token elven kingdom (reclusive, keeps to their selves, distrusts humans) and one token dwarven kingdom (One lost dwarven citidel with stories of great wealth, and a few isolated kingdoms beneath the mountains, limited trade with humans).  Its easy to just slam them in some odd part of the world.  If the world has Orcs, you then can have half orcs.  You have already justified every race in your campaign world except for Gnomes and Halflings.  In most worlds, there are no real halfling kingdoms, but the halflings tend to function mostly unimpeded within human society, so they become a non issue.But what to do with the gnomes?  Many DM's dont care, and will say they exist, but not elaborate beyond that (easy to do with Greyhawk and Forgotten Realms and Dragonlance).  In custom campaign worlds, they are often disallowed because they do not fit nicely in the DM's epic storyline (Too many DMs try to emulate either J.R.R. Tolkein or Robert Jordan).  In the campaign worlds that do have them, they tend to fill a non archtypical role (Gnome Druids, Gnome Sages, Gnome Bankers, or whatever).One last thought.  For newer players, or impatient players, a Warrior type is often the quickest character to create.  This rules out casual selection of Gnomes and Halflings (both take a Str penalty).  Theives are the secondary choice for a quick and easy character.  Once you get past skill selection, no spells to keep track of.  Players who take Theives will often take either Human (Extra Skill Points), or Halfling (Dex and Theif racial bonuses).  No one will take a Gnome on impulse.END COMMUNICATION</blockquote>

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