Quirky

Sep. 16th, 2017 08:21 am
tegyrius: (Default)
[personal profile] tegyrius
Bad week. Not gonna talk about it here and now.

More important topic. Gnomes. What the fuck?

D&D gnomes, specifically. Why are they necessary? What role do they serve? What is supposed to be their unique schtick? 'cause as far as I can tell, they're basically comic relief for people who don't think halflings go far enough out on the "wacky jolly small people" axis.

Now, I have seen halflings played straight, and played downright unnerving (looking at you, Kulik). But that's rare in my experience. Gnomes... seem to have taken too many cues from their counterparts in World of Warcraft, what with the slapstick pranks and anime hair and woo-woo anachronistic tinkering. (Not being an old-school D&D player, I am uncertain if they were like that before WoW came on the scene.)

Date: 2017-09-17 08:04 pm (UTC)
tracker7: (Default)
From: [personal profile] tracker7
In AD&D 1, gnomes were tinkerers and had some mechanical goings-on. The archetype gnome adventurer was a thief or an illusionist; gnomes were just better at illusion magic than any other kind.

This was writ large in the Dragonlance novels (original 3 or 6, anyway). Gnome cities were filled with elaborate clockwork devices of variable utility and reliability, and gnomes were depicted as both quite scatterbrained and incredibly focused.

(Also, have you seen Volo's Guide to Monsters? Pretty good stuff.)
Edited Date: 2017-09-17 08:08 pm (UTC)

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