A recurring opinion I hear from time to time is that the gnome race is "superfluous" or "a stupid option." is that really the dominant view? Why are gnomes unpopular in some circles? I've always liked them. They're silly, inventive, and usually have some sort of innate magical ability, which is cool. I'm genuinely curious-- what's so bad about them? I just want to understand why some people dislike them so much. I'm not out to argue with them about whether gnomes are good or not, since trying to convince someone they ought to have a different opinion of something is kinda pointless and never ends well( or at all).
So yeah. Why come no gnomes?
Gnomes can feel superfluous because you have two flavors of gnome, forest and rock, that are rather similar to the elf and dwarf, respectively.
Don't get me wrong; I like gnomes (specifically, I only like the Tinker gnomes), but I can certainly see how gnomes are somewhat redundant when you have elves and dwarves.
Edit: It also doesn't help that I've never been particularly fond of how small races' size are handled.
I like gnomes. I prefer them to halflings, honestly.
But Mecha's right that, outside Dragonlance, they really don't have a schtick of their own. They're interesting combinations of schticks (and, again, more interesting to me than halflings have been, outside 4e which did a good job giving halflings their own thing), but nothing is really unique to them.
TiaNadiezja wrote:
TiaNadiezja wrote:
The one race that is overused and cliche are elfs.
Yeah, I think a combo of them being depicted as "that other race" being either a lot like the elves or a lot like the dwarves doesn't help.
I was doing some research into them for my custom pantheon I built and I did learn some interesting things.
Not interesting but important to the discussion is that Gnomes are also presented as a very insular community. They hide their communities form outsiders, generally don't leave their communities and basically just keep to themselves. Really other than the magic and inventing they are a lot like halflings, which further exacerbates the issue
Neat thing I learned though? Gnomes pantheon is a series of male gods, seen as a band of brothers. There are rumors though that in the ancient past there was at least one sister goddess, no one knows what happens but the gods betray an "ancient sadness" if asked about it, even though they don't respond or give any indication what this is all about. So one of the reasons Gnomes give for leaving their communities is to "look for the lost sisters"
I took that and ran with it in my pantheon, but it makes me wonder if Gnomes and their gods have been the focus of some modules that reveal this hidden history. I don't want to know what the real history is (I'm making up my own) but if they haven't this is an oversight that needs correcting I bet
I can go with either gnomes or halflings, but it's hard to reconcile both. Usually I make the decision based on player preference....if I have a PC gnome, I go with gnomes, if I have a PC halfling, I go with halflings.
the one time I had both a halfling a gnome in the party, everyon hated dwarves, so I eliminated dwarves as a race and let the gnomes fill in (player wanted a rock gnome).
i appreciate gnomes personallly, and I have considered a campaign where gnomes are the only "fairy folk" taking the role of dwarves elves and halflings and of course gnomes.
i tend to do the same thing with monsters and npcs. I can't really reconcile goblins and kobolds, so I'll use one or the other. I find orcs are overdone (though I like them) so of late I am goblinoid heavy in my thinking. But really I just think of ecological niches, and halflings and gnomes sort of occupy the same niche.
there are of course easy ways around this. . . Maybe one continent on the world has gnomes and Anothe has halflings ...sor of parallel evolution. This could justify a gnome PC in a halfling heavy region , and of course it makes it easy to distinguish cosmopolitan cities...the players know they are in the fabled trade city of al-Shiraz when they encounter actual dwarves, and orcs bartering in Shalahara square. This stands out in games where they mostly deal with gnomes.
Halflings are cuter. Cute always wins.
If gnomes want to play, they need to invent some funny hats to up their cute.
Id rather play gnomes over elves any day of the weak. I feel that there are way too many elves and subelves. When you have more than one type of aquetic elves, you have gone too far. Gnomes are alot funner to play. 5th edition gnomes look awesome by the way(perfect arcane tricksters as they should be).
About gameplay, I don´t want little humanoids to be only rogue PCs or another stealth class. I don´t want a gnome only can be rogue, illusionist or bard..(if you choose another class you are wasting the racial traits).
About background... I use the background I want, for example my gnome would be a D&D Tyrion Lannister.
MechaPilot wrote:
Luis_Carlos wrote:
A lot of the problem of gnomes stems back to 2e where yeah, they were basically dwarves. They lived underground, had long beards, were short, and built stuff. They tried to give them a niche by making them illusionists, but since everyone knew that gnomes were illusionists, you always disbelieved everything they did and so that never worked.
In 3e they tried to make them bards, which didn't make any sense.
Then finally in 4e they give them some unique identity by making them fey creatures, which was actually pretty cool, but by then everyone had more or less written them off.
All Gnomes should be considered NPC, evil monsters. I am creating an adventure series that starts with "Death of the Gnomes", followed by "Destruction of the Gnomes", and ends with "Annihilation of the Gnomes". I might throw in a bonus adventure called "Castration of the Gnomes" too.
Eric888 wrote:
The anti-gnome bias may stem more from their realization in previous editions. In 1e, IIRC, they were basically dwarves with a Con bonus. In 3e, their signature abilities were very corner-case useful, like a small bonus to alchemy, speaking with small, burrowing mammals only, and an Illusion spell once per day. They were otherwise dwarves with a Con bonus. 5e has given them more generally useful and distinct abilities, in any case.
I've never had a problem with Gnomes. Dragonborn, on the other hand, can go die in a fire.
Kalani wrote:
Yes exactly... The Tinker Gnomes of Dragonlance build Rube Goldberg machines compulsively...They think you have a mental disorder (truth, the 1e Dragonlance Adventures campaign setting calls such characters mad gnomes) if you don't build an ACME device worthy of Wile-E-Coyotee....The bigger the better.
At the end of Summer Flame however, Reorx lifted his curse from some of the gnomes. Such gnomes are now known as thinker gnomes. These gnomes build intricate clockwork devices (typically small), and are like hyper-focused inventors, rather than insane Rube Goldberg whack-jobs. The 5E gnome borrows heavily from the thinker gnome concept - although you can still use the same mechanics to go all tinker gnome if you choose....To your parties chagrin.
Regarding Tinkers Tools: These are gnome specific tools. They probably cobble the toolset together from a variety of (modified) artisans tools, combined with several tools of their own invention... Think the ikea tool for example. A piece of wierdly bent metal with a hole in it that is required to make ikea furniture, but serves no purpose making anything else.
Gnomes do not pay for tinkers tools. They start with them. If they lose the tools, you could probably approximate their price to a set of blacksmiths or jewellers tools, keeping in mind that the tinker's tools will be unique to the individual.
Regarding Weird properties
The Dragonlance 5th Age SAGA system had rules for this as did the 3.5 Races of Ansalon book, which introduced the Gnomish Tinker PrC (detailed, in part below).
Gnomish Tinker
Kitbash (1st): You can make a DC20 craft (tinkering) check to improve the performance of an item, granting it an enhancement bonus to relevant skill checks, attack rolls, etc. All other characters must make a DC15 craft (tinkering) or DC 20 Disable Device check to figure out how to make the device work (including other gnomes). This feature uses tool points as described in the Gnome Toolbelt sidebar. Such items have quirks and mishaps unless you roll +10 on your craft check.
Other class features include:
- Consultant
- MacGuffin: Outlandish tools, gadgets or devices which duplicate the effects of low-level spells (0 and 1st level spells).
- Toolbelt (see excerpt below)
- Remarkable Discovery (bonus feats)
- Patent Pending
- In Development
- Grand Design
Leafar wrote:
I'm afraid lots of people imagine D&D gnomes like the steapunk tinkers from Dragonlance and ones from World of Warcraft.
Fighter little humanoids could be possible for archetypes without heavy armour, for example the swashbuckler or the hexblade. Smaller means weaker. The real world chimpanzee is as strong as two humans (and gorilla as eight men).
I would wish the option some racial trait I don´t like very much could be replaced with a racial treat.
Fralex wrote:
Luis_Carlos wrote:
Kalani wrote:
Kalani wrote:
IMO 4e made gnomes more interesting than they had been in the past. That said, I've always preferred their flavor as a small race over the flavor of halflings (who can't even get a proper name for heaven's sake.)
You are correct, I was speaking in respect to Rock Gnomes.... In respect to Forest gnomes, I am grateful they have finally found their identity (in 4E actually)... Instead of being hybrid elf-dwarves, the forest gnome is very much a Sidhe creature. A mischievous woodland spirit you don't want to cross.
I disagree however in respect to people misidentifying gnomes. It was not a misconception with garden gnomes that caused a problem. It was the fact that Gygax and co gave the original gnomes a hodgepodge of wildly different features and no racial identity, combined with an image reminiscent of a garden gnome. Lacking any defining trait that set them apart from elves and dwarves, it is perfectly understandable that they were painted with the garden-gnome mythology, as that was all the players had to work with.
Hold on, I will clarify by quoting the 1E gnome racial statistics (I have my book in front of me)..Emphasis mine.
1E Players Handbook wrote:
In my world, gnomes are based on their 4E background. They're escapees from the Feywild, where their imprisonment and enslavement at the hands of the fomorians created something of a ... disconnect with the way things actually are. Gnomes really aren't all there. They seem perfectly sane normally, and they can function just fine in society. But, given enough stress, gnomes simply break. It's not uncommon for a gnome to fly into a murderous rampage in an attempt to get rid of the stressor and then completely forget everything that happened during that time.
Gnomes are the greatest friends. They really want to help. With anything. It might be lending money or doing research or helping with farm chores, or whatever (including running some crazy practical jokes). They simply want to improve their lives and those of their friends and families (which can be quite sizable). But they can be extremely vicious to those they deem enemies.
To me, Halflings are the ones that are superfluous. Gnomes rule the Shorty space.
I have no problem with the 4E description. It finally gave them a racial identity, which had been sorely lacking for some 30 odd years. Here are the gnome racial descriptions over the years, emphasis and parenthetical statements mine.
1E Gnome (as described above)
Dragonlance Gnomes (my description) - In dragonlance Lore, Gnomes decend from a race called the "builders" (believed to be the first humans). They were haughty and self-involved, and were cursed by Reorx into a race of tinkers. At a later point, exposure to the greygem of Gargath caused some gnomes to split along ideological lines.... Half of the gnomes present in the incident transformed into the first dwarves, while the remaining half became the first Kender. Dwarves however deny any kinship with gnomes, and especially Kender and believe themselves to be the true creations of Reorx.
Even the Dragonlance gnomes (the first Dnd gnome with a true racial identity) could not divorce themselves of their relationship with Dwarves.
2E Gnome, phb p22 wrote:
Eberron was the first setting that for me treated the gnomes as something more than skinny dwarves or comedy relief. That love of knowledge, affinity with illusions, and ability to speak to small creatures turned to blackmail, intrigue and spying - all in the friendliest and most well-meaning way possible. Most of the time.
It becamea running joke that in a setting with eldritch horrors, dragons, immortal undead elves and a subterranean realm formed from primordial evil full of monsters, the gnomes were the scariest nation out there.
Eberron also did a fairly good job of making them culturally distinct from halflings, which is something that some other settings struggle with.
First, before I get into this list of reasons, I want to say that I actually prefer Gnomes to Halflings which I think lack any flavor at all. But, there are a number of reasons people dislike Gnomes.
1) At first their existence seemed solely so that there could be Dwarven Wizards without having Dwarfs be wizards. They were just Dwarfs who weren't exactly Dwarfs, but weren't really different enough to stand on their own as something really unique.
2) They are defined by too many all too specific personality quirks. They all have big noses, they all wear pointy hats, they all keep burrowing animals as pets, they all have great senses of humor, they are obsessed with gemstones and are always looking to crack a joke. There are many more. Maybe one could argue in favor of the first of those, but all in all these seem more like individual character traits than things that ought to be ascribed to a whole culture and certainly not a whole species. It certainly begins to feel like that if one were to create a Gnomish PC, you are left with damn little creative space by which to make the character unique.
3) They often exist for the purpose of comedy that breaks the consistent understanding of how things in the world work. They live for a very long time, but readily witlessly expose themselves to great danger without consideration. They use magic or technology to created ridiculously overcomplicated and broken solutions to very simple problems.
4) Their stats are either useless or really break the consistency of the game. You can look at 3rd edition for an example of "these racial stats really add up to a character who isn't good at anything meaningful." In the current edition, look at the Rock Gnome's Tinker ability. Does it in any way make sense that every single member of the species universally has the skill to build these four very specific devices? No. Not at all. That really looks like something that ought to be a class skill. It is one thing for a race to be slightly better at a skill or have access to a spell, I mean those are things all characters can accumulate with a bit of multiclassing or such. But this is nearly the sole example of something that isn't accessible to any other character and since it isn't an inherent physical or metaphysical aspect of the race, it is strikingly out-of-place as a racial ability.
What this all generally adds up to is a race that if one creates one and plays one as ascribed by the plain text reading of their descriptions, then you have a character whose whole racial identity seems to be to break the adventure path, harrass his party members, poke the monsters you are trying to sneak past with a big stick, get sidetracked with nonsense, break the mood and tone of the game to do something totally gamist out of left field destroying all narrative and immersive elements and in generally just endanger the party while ruining all the enjoyment of the game by the GM and every other player at the table.
They are basically the go-to race of one of the worst kind of players to have at your table. Granted, the anti-social diva Elf players who want their character to be the best at everything everyone else at the table can do and solo the adventure while turning every other player into their supporting cast to be dragged from location to location, the Dwarf player who sees everything as a black-and-white 8-bit dungeon crawl and will otherwise spend the rest of their time constantly yammering about consuming more alcohol than is possible and the (Half-)Orc player who wants to turn every situation you encounter into a melee combat can be just as disruptive, but somehow they just don't get on people's nerves nearly as much.
Kalani wrote:
I really like 5e gnomes. theyre the tiny guys of the forest, or the tinkerers. they've got a niche now, distinct from elves and dwarves and halflings in my view. I like halflings the least, who I consider little (lucky) humans. On the other hand I very much like kender halflngs. If I played one, it would be kender like.
Tinkergnomesareawesome. Theyareoneofthemostinterestingracesintheentiredragonlancesetting. Noneoftheotherracesspeakcommoninquitethesamewaythatgnomesdo. Thisisaresultoftheirhyperfocusedattempttoconveyasmuchinformationintheshortestamountoftimepossible. Theirnamesarealsounique,beginningwiththefirstgnomeintheirclananddescribingalltheirgeneologicalhistoryinasinglewordorphrase.
I am not exaggerating here. That is a good example of how Tinker Gnomes communicate. Its no wonder that other races think they are speaking an entirely different language.
Psikerlord wrote:
I have to say that I love 5e gnomes. I was delighted when I saw the presentation. The two pieces of art are so evocative that you should be able to tell what a forest gnome and rock gnome are supposed to be like (and how different they are) without any text at all. As far as I'm concerned, this would have already been my favorite implentation (of a race I have usually disliked) if they had just put those two pictures and replaced the text with "Any questions?" And you can't even see the rock gnome's face! Then go ahead and read the actual text and you'll see that they have new and improved personalities also. Win!
So I'm coming from finding gnomes superfluous and unappealing in 1e-2e, to something that I wanted to like (but couldn't) in 3e, to something that I felt was really good at expressing the forest gnome side of the spectrum in 4e, to 5e gnomes that just scream "Play me!"
The only problem I have with gnomes and halflings in 5E - is their topheavy artstyle. That is an issue with the artist, more than the race itself though, and I don't hold it against the race as a result....
In our game no one has yet played a gnome. I attribute this to recent cinema having films which portrayed heroic humans, a dwarf, an (insert colourful metaphor) elf, and a few halflings.
draegn wrote:
Fralex wrote:
Yeah, somewhere along the way, 3rd edition's little braided chick to be precise, gnomes became hobbits and halflings became fearless ninjas.
I like gnomes in that they are the magical wee folk. The gnomes in 5e are the best gnomes yet, because the two subraces each capture a seperate aspect of gnomes that are not really compatible with one another. Forest gnomes are the more elusive, fey-like race, where rock gnomes are the technological tinkers. Both races are cool in my book.
There are a couple of gnome characters that I would like to run-- a forest gnome arcane trickster who is operating in human lands as a spy for the fey folk, and rock gnome diviner wizard who seeks to construct an orrary that predicts the future.
Saelorn wrote:
In short they seem silly and I wager most people that don't like them are not super keen on halflings and perhaps even dragonborn.
I have no no problem with one being in my group, they are just not likely choices in my group, at all.
Fralex wrote:
Brightmantle wrote:
Einlanzer wrote:
I have had very little experience with Gnomes before the 5th Edition, but I find them to be a quite delightful race after reading the description of them in the PHB. 
I do find that I much prefer the Forest Gnome sub-race over the Rock Gnome one though.
I am actually in the process of creating a female Gnome character (Forest Gnome sub-race) right now...and I truly believe that this is going to be one awesome (and very fun) character to play. 
The more I think about the tinkering, the more I'm intrigued.
Captain_Kobold wrote:
Saelorn wrote:
Kalani wrote:
I can't really give a good reason for not liking gnomes. They just feels a little too childish and whimsical. (I know it sounds weird when talking about a game of pretend.) I think many might find a whimsical character interesting, but "whimsical" isn't an adjective everyone wants associated with their character.
Mecheon wrote:
I think the main bias against gnomes comes in fiction, literature, and their origins.
Most people are familiar with elves, dwarves, and halflings via fantasy fiction -- and now movies and (ugg) computer games. If you read Tolkien or most epic fantasy books, each of these races is flashed out, given a variety of attributes, personality, etc. Such creatures aren't one-dimensional. Gnomes aren't in that many fantasy settings. Most of their beginnings and literature comes from Celtic fey-like traditions which is extremely vague. They tend to be though of as silly... because they are portrayed as silly. Few books, movies, etc. explore how micheivious sprite/fey-like creatures actually function in society -- where they live, how they treat family, how they work, etc. As such, most players don't have a good guideline on how to not play them as annoying, silly, friviolous, etc. Many campaign settings don't even allow them.
If a player wants to play a non-silly gnome, they need to put in a lot more work -- research, thought, backstory, etc. -- rather than fall into the default 'silly' category. Many players don't like doing that.
I haven't read the whole thread but here are some guesses. I don't hate gnomes but I do consider them an optional race so I don't include them in every campaign as a rule.
1. They are not a Tolkien race and thus don't have the depth that others do.
2. The depth they do have is often that of a capricious fairy tale like race that doesn't fit the seriousness of some DM's campaigns.
3. They do overlap the dwarf and elf functionally at times.
4. They have often looked silly in the art.
I reflavor a lot so I have plenty of room to toss gnomes into the campaign brew on occasion. I tend to reflavor racial histories and background a lot from campaign to campaign so I will reflavor anything I don't like. I do the same often for the other races.
IMO, gnomes should look more like those depicted in the Taladas boxed set. I really hate what 3e+ (WotC) has done to them. It's true that 2e had Forest Gnomes, but you still needed the Gnomes & Halflings guide for that. I'm not sure why Fey gnomes had to take over because that completely ruined everyones image of the race IMO.
I don't care if they used to look similar to dwarves in the past because the same argument can be made for humans and elves. Hide the ears and an elf would simply be a slender human with delicate features.
btw, Taladas had a version of the gnome that were once humans cursed by Reorx. I now use that concept in all my games.
dmgorgon wrote:
dmgorgon wrote:
Saelorn wrote:
Mecheon wrote:
Mecheon wrote:
Sailing_Pirate_Ryan wrote:
Gnome PC race wasn´t created to be the best fighter, spellcaster or rogue, but they need a place, his own style. The tinker or steampunk inventor is one of the marks of identity could be used. My suggestion for the forest gnome is the monster rider/tamer.
I like the idea for background about fay ex-slaves who suffered by giants. Those are people who learnt to be hard in a fantasy world of monsters and they notice they can´t be the happy forest fay friends. They are the Davids in a land of Goliahts, and they must play well their cards to survive. They are nice company, because they know they need the highest number of friends and loyal allies.
Gnome spellcasters allways has been linked to illusory magic... but I don´t like only that cliché. Why not the speciality could be another magic school (abjuration, conjuration, divination and enchantment)? Or some racial trait could be replaced with a psionic feat to play a psionic manifester gnome.
* If in Dark Sun a mul (half-dwarf) and a half-elf marry... would be the son a gnome?
Luis_Carlos wrote:
Chaosmancer wrote:
Fralex wrote:
Kalani wrote: