Justify Gnomes

I prefer to make my gnomes similar to flesh-toned Smurfs. A few inches high, live in oversized mushroom or stump houses, fastidiously wear specific hats based upon their trade.

i can't, i hate them, so I removed them from my campaign, forever

It seems obvious to me that Dwarves, Halflings and Gnomes all stem from the same folklore origins, but Dwarves and Halflings together already cover all the bases that gnomes stand to offer.

In a world with Dwarves and Halflings, why do Gnomes exist, other than "Because it's D&D"

If the only reason you include a race is because they're in the book, you're doing it for the wrong reasons.

Gnomes have a lineage of their own in fantasy literature. Just because you haven't read enough to run into them doesn't mean they don't have their own place.

gnomes have a longer history dude. As Elementals they kick ass. I would never want one as a PC though it's harder to justify them meddling out in the open

They're fae folk, you wouldn't run into one. And if you take Germanic fae legends, they're crazy

Hobbits have literally no attachment to the fey, at all. They do not pull from any part of old myths about small fairies or the fair folk of the barrows, or any of that. They are romanticized version of old english country folk, who were kinda short, and stuck in an out of the way nondescript pastoral region. They are Tolkien's self insert people.

Gnomes as they are conceived in D&D, and even more so in PF, are basically a slight reimagination of the romanticized version of gnomes from late 19th and early 20th century literature. While Paracelsus came up with the term of gnome for a type of earth spirit (and bastardizing the latin in the process, genomos), his use of the word was quickly supplanted by the Romanticists as basically another term for short slightly ugly chthonic fairy creatures, aka goblins. This is where current ideas on Gnomes come from, with D&Ds ideas of them as chthonic fey people. The ability to talk to animals, their living in burrows and earth works, and their illusion magic mimicking the glamours of fairies, all point to being based on these old descriptions.

In addition, much of what we think of when it comes to dwarves in myth has little to do with modern ideas of dwarves, where in some cases the D&D gnome better fits the description of these dwarves. In fact much of modern dwarves takes more from Tolkien's severe reinterpretation of old myths than from the old myths.

Halflings are really only extent in very certain myths of literal small or tiny humans. These can be found in cultures across the world, but you have to be careful with terminology as they are sometimes referred to as dwarves or gnomes.

Etymology is useless for trying to figure out what a word might mean in a modern context, you must have its actual history to do so. And very few people still use Paracelsus use of gnome to mean earth elementals unless they are being pretentious hipsters.

>And the fey part is covered full well by hobbits/halflings - once again if they are not completely flanderized, as D&D does, or turned into disgusting joke, like Kender.

Hobbit work better as gypsies tho, basically small humans with an insular culture and traditions that make them not well received but still tolerated because they can do things nobody else does. You could remove them and put in actual Romani or something, bu as classic fantasy tropes go, having them as a separate race works better.

In that hypothesis, the niche of gnome as fey still works. Consider that in a lot of european folklore you have short tricksters living innawoods, gnomes could be that. I would go full pointy hat, garden gnome variety, but that could be troublesome mechanicswise.

>And, most importantly, neither Dwarfs nor Halflings have ugly oversized heads.
5e PHB begs to differ.

>5e PHB begs to differ.
I meant in classic fantasy, not D&D travesties

Love you user

I think the more cogent criticism of gnomes is that they come from a different mythological tradition or system than dwarves/hobbits/elves/orcs and due to the presence of dwarves and hobbits they're redundant.

It's like you're making an animal predator game where you hunt animals.
Classes are wolf, tiger, lion, bear etc. Then some guy comes along and says
>hey, I want to be a deinonychus instead
>maybe next time, we're playing modern era animals this session
>but deinonychus was a real animal once
>how about you play a wolf, they have similar playstyles
>no I want to be a deinonychus
>ok fine, here's your stats. They're like a wolf's
>I want unique stats that make my deinonychus unique
>there isn't really a way
>make deinonychus fly and be able to use guns, to make them unique. Also make it so wolves aren't pack hunters anymore, they're diminishing the utility of my deinonychus

Halflings work as rogues, dwarves as fighters and gnomes as wizards. You can thank the DnD system itself that they need to differentiate between them.

One of the few things I think Pathfinder really nailed was sitting down and giving the gnomes a stronger identity then they had in DnD. Made them a race of former fey who have lived countless generations in the material realm fleeing from some long forgotten issue in the fey world.

And Halflings really were never meant to be fey either.

I never got the hang up on multiple small races. Why have multiple human sized races?

I'm stealing that

What are you basing your ideas about proportions on, then?

>One of the few things I think Pathfinder really nailed was sitting down and giving the gnomes a stronger identity then they had in DnD. Made them a race of former fey who have lived countless generations in the material realm fleeing from some long forgotten issue in the fey world.

4e did the same thing but better.

I think it's system over mythos. Orcs were demon like monsters. The etymology goes way back to Eurasia and reached into Beowulf mythos.

I like your analogy but it's missing something. It's like wanting to play a magical cat instead of a tiger/ lion. I like gnomes but not as a PC.

Why bother with human things? I have a region in my homebrew where the fae are threatened and need help.

Gnomes as non-playable folk-tale fae creatures works for me, but the usual expectations that warcraft has poisoned the well with are of shitty little purple-haired fruit-dwarves.

I am unashamedly a fan of gnomes with a bent toward intellectualism and technology, but if having three races of small folk feels awkward, why not make dwarves, halflings and gnomes three ethnicities of the same race with different cultures?

...

This whole thread had me singing the underpants gnome song. Those little guys is what I like to imagine but with potential to be crazy fae folk.

...

I stole the idea from a book and made gnomes an old dwarf kingdom conquered and made as slaves by the other dwarfs. They are forbidden to wear beards, work metals, have to shave their heads, and only a few old dwarf priests know that they used to be the same kind.

How is it that so many people seem to think all three of those races look the same when they look very different from each other.

Dwarves are rather tall for small folk, with wide frames, and thick bodies. Halflings are basically smaller humans with slightly more pointed ears. And gnomes are uncanny valley weirdos with slightly off proportions and anime colors.

Gnomes have pointy ears too

And I forgot my pic

>Dwarves and Hobbits were Tolkien's adaptation of the Fair Folk
Wow, you're stupid.