What is the "thing" for gnomes? Dwarves have stonework, mountains, blacksmithing, beards, ale, axes, hammers, and Scottish accents, elves have trees, magic, rapiers, longbows, blond hair, thinking they're better than you, and long lives, and halflings have being unadventurous, gluttonous, and not wearing shoes.
Ideally extinction.
Gadgets come to mind. If no that sometimes they're more overtly magical and nature-y than other races as well
>>46678066
I generally say cleverness, smart use of their capabilities and the likes.
Gnome armies are more inclined towards skirmishing and such, traps, use of tunnels in fortifications and, of course, gadgetry. Whether its repeating crossbows or magic powered tanks, they always seem to have cool military gadgets
> thinking they're better than you
What's with that unnecessary "thinking" you added there?
Anyway, gnomes have a thing for optimism/comedic relief, pranks (illusions), inventions (particularly odd and even impractical ones), and generally walking that thin line between endearing and annoying.
Gnomes typically have gadgetry, illusion magic and being sneakier/possessing more low-cunning than the average dwarf.
The goblin to the dwarf's orc, if you will.
>>46678066
If we escape the retarded boundaries of WoW and modern D&D, Gnomes are the shorter more fantasy stereotypical version of elves, like how Halflings are the shorter more stereotypical version of humans.
Essentially take any like baby's first fairy tale that has the word "elf" in it, and replace it with the word "gnome" and that's what tabletop gnomes are supposed to be set up as. Playable Fey that don't spend all their time smelling their own farts cause they get enough of smelling everyone else's whether they like it or not.
Gnomes have the tinkering thing, but do yourself a favor and have Dwarves take over the roles of Halflings and Gnomes. You don't need three little people and it will make Dwarves seem more varied or at least on par with elves in that sense.
Gnomes have two (Often mutually exclusive) "things". On the one hand illusions, peaceful isolationism, living with nature in a non-snobby way, and generally being homebodies.
On the other hand, illusions, tinkering, rampant curiosity, and a penchant for pranks and jokes.
They're halfling-elf-dwarves, or alternatively, the "it's silly to write small character rules for only one race" race. They aren't an iconic staple of generic fantasy and don't do anything terribly important in most settings.
>>46678066
Being fucking tiny, greedy, mischievous, and more often than not they're obnoxious as hell due to speaking in squeaky voices or being overly energetic or naive. Or sometimes they're just tiny little assholes who want money and know how to make trinkets.
>>46678066
>gnomes
I don't like having them in the same setting as the other little-people races. It makes things too crowded. One little-people player race is plenty in my opinion. Even having hobbits and dwarves together starts to push it.
I think I'd want to dump elves, dwarves and halflings (the latter two rarely impact a game setting anyway), then replace them all with gnomes. And then make those gnomes like the ones from David the Gnome. Humans almost never see them, they can all talk to animals (and often help animals out in exchange for favors), they tend to live in secluded families that live in harmony with nature, but most of them are really decent and chill.
>>46678066
They're pure evil.
Gnomish Half-Ogre conspiracy never forget ;_:
>>46678986
I never understood this logic.
Why do you only allow one short race and who knows how many human heighted races?
I mean, most settings have at least a few, and Dwarves are often counted among them due to width and mass.
So why can there only be one race below the median? Would there be a similar limit on taller races if there were any common ones?
>>46679087
Brilliant game.
>>46679095
>Why do you only allow one short race and who knows how many human heighted races?
The human-height races are more clearly differentiated, they don't step on each others' toes as much. Orcs are the green dumb strong guys. Elves are the beautiful vain quick guys. Drow are the black mean foreign guys. Tieflings are the demon-looking evil guys. And so on. You don't hear people complain that Drow are too similar to Orcs, for example. Although it can still lead to problems where you see humans crowded out of each niche, and you're left wondering where they're supposed to fit in.
The small races (by which I mean dwarves, gnomes, and halflings), however, all look pretty similar. They're all short, human-skinned (but almost always white as hell), and have human proportions. The only real visual distinction is that dwarves are supposed to have bigger beards. And we already covered the way their lore overlaps. In dnd, the distinction ultimately boils down to what stats you want.
>>46679326
>The only real visual distinction is that dwarves are supposed to have bigger beards.
Gnomes have big noses, and halflings have hairy feet. Gnomes are also meant to be thinner, I think.
>>46679326
Humans always included because Humans made the games and they're adaptable hurrf
Also nah man Dwarves have like enough going for them and since they aren't small sized they should be their own thing. Gnomes and Halflings are the ones that ape shit and are usually tossed in as extras because like you said stats.
Especially when you consider that Dwarves have actually developed long enough that they have their own subsect of shit like how Elves have Drow. And then the Gnomes suddenly also get fucking miner cousins for no particular reason!
Like honestly just take Halflings and Gnomes out and replace them with things that are more notably distinct as small races like Ratlings or Kobolds.
>>46679095
Personally it's subconsciously hard to imagine the little races as being equal to the other humanoid races and that makes things hard and uncomfortable. Being so tiny just makes you so much weaker it's a strain to imagine even one race as being credibly threatening let alone 3+, and they can't be smarter or they'll become OP aliens. At least Dwarves have their muskles even if they have no reach. You can say at least one of them is nimble to make up for the lack of strength, but you can only do that once without it getting redundant and really the common depiction of elves already makes this niche crowded.
The thing is that hobbits/halflings in Tolkien's orignal had a justifiably special places as being uniquely humble and pure hearted, which had great importance in the cosmology and conflict he was building in the books. When you wipe that out you got to struggle to give them a reason for existing and skulking small thieves is usually it.
But then you need to make a place for Gnomes too without falling into the suggestion that really they're just an inferior pygmy race that could get their shit stomped in by humans or orcs at any time because really they are the same or lesser intelligence and technologically developed but significantly less maritally able.
>>46679401
Gnomes sort of trade off between Jew Nose and being pixie faced depending on what theme they are.
Jew Gnomes are tinkerers and Pixie faces are like more magical and naturey.
>>46679442
Gnomes and halflings both fight smart or fight with friends. Halflings can usually count on humans to help them with their problems and gnomes use ubiquitous illusion magic and tunnel fighting to their advantage. Go ahead and invade the gnome holes. It's like going into a Vietcong tunnel with nothing but a knife while the cong can move freely because they're short little bastards. You will fucking die.
>>46678066
Monkey smuggling.
>>46678365
I figured gnomes and goblins are pretty interchangeable with regards to traditional folk tales
maybe gnomes are less cunty
>>46679549
Most of the stories I've heard use "goblin" as a generic term, like "monster". If it's not already defined as something else, it's a goblin. There's at least one story about an entire hill that is alive and eats anyone who gets near it, and that thing is called a goblin.
I don't know much about gnomes in folk tales though, so maybe they're similar.
>>46679495
>Gnomes and halflings both fight smart or fight with friends
To be frank, if someone fights like a dnd enemy, that pretty much automatically rules out 'fighting smart'.
>>46678066
Gnomes are basically super jews to dwarves regular strength jewry, with a weird obsession with shoes.
Also the big red hats aren't clothing but a part of their body.
>>46679601
In old stories I always just assume things like gnomes, dwarvs, etc are words used to describe short, magical guys with odd behavior similar to how giants, trolls, ogres, etc can be used interchangeably as "big scary humanish monster".
>>46678066
Gnomes have lawns and underwear.
>>46678066
Tiny, bearded, magical, woodland people.
> Tiny
Gnomes should be less than half the size of a Halfling - like a foot tall at most. This is the first step to meaningfully differentiating them from other races.
> Bearded
Dwarves have this market cornered in RPGs but gnomes are just as if not more legitimate claimants in common folklore. Both can be known as bearded races.
> Magical
Fuck tinkering and gadgets. Gnomes have a fairie tale mystique to them. They use magic. Like pint-size wizards with their beards and tall, pointy hats.
> Woodland
Gnomes live in nature in the same way that dwarves live in mountains or hobbits in shires. Gnomes commune with animals, they roam about the forest, they are so small that they can make civilization while maintaining environmental stability.
> People
Gnomes are mysterious due to their tiny, magical, woodland nature but they are not any less "humanlike" than dwarves or halflings. They have societies, economies, agriculture, technology, etc. It's just tiny.
At the end of the day, gnomes are included because it is known that they are common figures of folklore bit on the other hand they are not cut from the Tolkein cloth like Elves, Dwarves, Orcs, or Halflings so for some reason everyone gets confounded by them.
>>46679867
This is also basically true. Would be interesting to see a fantasy setting that runs with the idea that Elves, Dwarves, Gnomes, etc are more culturally divergent than racially.
>>46678066
Shorter, shittier, version of elves, humans, or dwarves, depending on the setting. Also they sometimes do illusions and/or steampunk.
>>46679601
>>46679549
Maybe it's a thing like "fiends" in planescape, only with "fairies"; same basic deal between Gnomes and Goblins, but with one, largely ideological difference that forever divides and makes them antagonists against each other.thus goes the eternal and unending "Tiny War" between the two groups that occasionally, and suddenly, overwhelms unsuspecting realms. First noticable by the sudden creation of vast in length (but tiny in depth and width) trenches across the lands, a rise in sitings of both goblins and gnomes who raid the pantries of the "big jobs" whose lands they fight on, before the erection of small but perfectly formed siege engines and battlements render farming or the day to day activities of entire kingdoms untenable, and the eldritch energies of their more sophisticated weaponry producing "fairy circles" that can leave fields fallow for centuries even after the battles end
I always thought it was strange to have both halflings and gnomes be the small races (in D&D) but there are no races besides fairies for tiny characters.
I think gnomes should be the tiny race similar to the fairy tale "The Elves and the Shoemakers" and work with other races to be craftsmen of clockwork machines and other fine works impossible for races with large, clumsy hands.
>>46680058
This makes me want to catalogue all the various fairies, giants, goblins, etc from folklore and mythology and then create a setting around them. Challenge: No fantasy genre influence.
>>46680376
Lorwyn/Shadowmoor is probably as close to this as we're going to get. Unfortunately, it wasn't "popular" enough.
Gnomes are Ukrainians mated with Syrians. They have Slavic accents and make ridiculous warmachines out of scrap.
Gnomes are elementals of earth developed by
Paracelsus the alchemist.
Anything else steals judiciously from other little folk tales and dwarves.
>>46678066
Usually either very tiny wise caretakers of nature, like David the Gnome, or gadgetry-oriented miniature madmen.
I'm not entirely sure where the inventor trope for gnomes comes from. Dragonlance's gnomes appear to be the main source for most of D&D's (and, through that, probably most of mainstream fantasy) technological gnomes, but I've always wondered if Weiss and Hickman got inspired by previous work on that.
Interesting bit: Mad Gnomes in Dragonlance are the ones whose inventions work efficiently, and live mainly in Taladas. Regular gnomes instead cannot fathom ever fully finishing an invention, as there's always room for yet another signal bell for when the signal bell that alerts of problems with the cranks that power the eleven other signal bells gets stuck with the chains that support the main signal bell.
>>46681180
>tiny wise caretakers of nature
I like this version. My Gnomes are one of the Fae species, and they look like miniaturized Dwarves.
