D&D General Why Do People Hate Gnomes?

[Bolares]

1 Eccentric absentminded elder,
2 quick, stealthy watcher
3. Boisterous, obsessive tinkerer
4 licentious lurking caliban

Case.... reopened?

 

[Vaalingrade]

I always liked it in Near Dark mode

Apropos of nothing, this sounds like something Dante would be able to enter in Devil May Cry and I love it.

 

[Faolyn]

I know this is an unpopular opinion, but, I rather hope that the revised PHB drops gnomes in favor of another small race like kobolds. Just to give something else a chance to gain some traction. Don't make it impossible to be a gnome PC, of course. Keep the shorter race write up somewhere, but, I don't think it needs to be in the PHB. If gnomes haven't gained traction after fifty years in the PHB, maybe it's time to give something else a chance.

ducks and hides since the last time I floated this idea, I got massively dog piled on.

I would love for kobolds to be a core race! Realistically, though, it would be more likely for goblins to be used instead of kobolds.

 

[Celebrim]

1 Eccentric absentminded elder,
2 quick, stealthy watcher
3. Boisterous, obsessive tinkerer
4 licentious lurking caliban

Eh. #1 Ok, that's stereotypical gnome gear nerd only older, #2 is that even a personality?, #3 isn't that just the younger version of #1?, #4.... cool and original take but isn't that a goblin?

 

[Bolares]

okay, I have no idea if it's open or closed anymore... case ajar?

 

[jmartkdr2]

For myself, if I’m playing with someone new to me and they announce a gnome character, I am not enthusiastic. That’s because every gnome I’ve played with has been a painfully unfunny joke character.

There might be some that I just forgot were gnomes, and of course gnomes don’t have to be joke characters at all - but my experience tells me it’s not going to be good.

 

[Tonguez]

Eh. #1 Ok, that's stereotypical gnome gear nerd only older, #2 is that even a personality?, #3 isn't that just the younger version of #1?, #4.... cool and original take but isn't that a goblin?

1 is an alchemist possibly an illusionist
2 yes quick and stealthy is a personality, watchful maybe a better term than watcher
3 sure, its typical young gear head, for good measure
4 goblins may be lurking but mine are more malicious than licentious

 

[Zardnaar]

At least they're not Kender.

 

[Mind of tempest]

I think it's really hard for us humans to write anything ither then ourselves. True inhumanity is a hard concept to grasp...

given I can't play a convincing human if you paid me I am fairly certain that point is not true if only because we can barely play ourselves.

You seem to be resenting something I didn't say.

All I did was explain what I think makes popular races popular. They are either alluring or else they make for powerful builds. If they are neither alluring nor do they make for powerful builds, I typically do not find that players are very interested in playing them. If they are both alluring and make for powerful builds, then they will be enormously popular.



You'll have to give me more to go on than that. Like, for example could I interest you in a catfolk race?



You are not making this easy on me though because "mystic" is a very stereotypical "pick me" sort of class - loner, individualistic, self-powered, flexible, and like a wizard but not nerdy or constrained to do uncool things like chant, read books, and wave his hands around in a silly fashion. No, this is a being of pure reified ego, darn it, and he's cool!

why did you not just use alluring before that seems to work much better?
alluring is how ever multifaceted some like the look, some like their place in the world and so on.

no, as I do not know the answer or I would have picked one or made it by now.
not catfolk I do not quite get on with animals, nor do anthropomorphic animals interest me as I find them uninteresting and unambitious.

I see them as more by what their power selection is which is far more to my taste and why would you not want to have flexibility?
It is not the nerdiness that I object to as I am born to nerdiness, I simply prefer psionics to wizardry as wizardry thematically feels math heavy?

wizardly and people who love to play wizards tend to view it like formulas or programing or equations things my parents are good at but I have only the basic ability, psionics lacks that baggage.
in essence I see arcane wizards as people who work in STEM and I will never be able to do that, plus I like the psionic subfields more as they are what I find thematically interesting.

 

[Ralif Redhammer]

Ironically, early in Tolkien's Middle-Earth writings, the Noldor were explicitly called gnomes. Hence, Galadriel is a gnome.

Because even though they will vehemently deny it they are caught in the Western Tolkienic Hegemony of Elf-Human-Dwarf-Hobbit from which the only allowable variations are Furry or Monsters.

Gnomes fit an idealised liminal space of not-Tolkien, not-Monster which their minds can not comprehend.

That said even I who loves gnomes think they are easy targets for jokes…

I dig gnomes quite a bit. I've rarely gone for the hatred of this or that PC race. I've seen people play awesome kobolds and boring dwarves. It's all in the players that bring them to life. I might have some that I don't have an interest in playing myself, and there are some I don't get the appeal of, but I'm not about to write any of them off wholesale.