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Message: <blockquote data-quote="Ruin Explorer" data-source="post: 8682379" data-attributes="member: 18">The simple answer is that in pop-culture, gnomes are, and have been, for decades, figures of fun (primarily via garden gnomes, but also just pretty much any time a "gnome" appears), with no real examples of more "serious" or "sexy" gnomes until, ironically, D&D via Critical Role and the like. Even in D&D gnomes have often been a joke, as with Tinker gnomes, a tradition continued in many D&D-inspired RPGs like World of Warcraft, where gnomes continue to be a joke (at least kind of a funny one at times).That's all it comes down to. Gnomes are a joke, literally.This is differentiated from Halflings/Hobbits who has two of the most influential and impactful fantasy stories absolutely centered around them, so have a ton of "serious" examples, and who inspired at least a moderate number of other "short people" in fantasy, who are also taken more seriously than gnomes. Even in a couple of cases where something quite close to a D&D gnome (i.e. closer to that than a dwarf or a hobbit) appears, they have different names and avoid gnome "tropes" like little floppy hats or cute little white beards.D&D's own attempts to give gnomes a more defined place have also not helped, frankly, by just making things awkward (the particular tendency to try and make at least one subspecies of gnomes into scientists or engineers just makes them a poor fit for some settings). Ironically 4E was kind of the least-worst of these attempts.I think if 3E had added kobolds to the PHB, then 4E had kept kobolds but left gnomes out of the PHB, and 5E had failed to put them back in, nobody would even really be discussing the issue outside the groggiest of grogs (5E wouldn't have failed to though, because 5E's initial target was very much to include the groggiest of grogs).</blockquote>

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