Logical Fallacies for RPGs

[Red_Rob]

They work in Forgotten Realms (even getting their own PrC)]

That doesn't mean anything. They got their own sourcebook in 2nd edition and they still ended up being poorly defined. I mean the first page of their own sourcebook was all about how they weren't dwarves, alright?.

When your own sourcebook has start out by pointing out your nothing like these other guys you know you have a problem.

Dragonlance

In Dragonlance they are Tinker Gnomes. This is an archetype I said could work. Also, they're played for laughs like in WoW.

and Eberron.

I don't know enough about Eberron to dispute this.

The only mainstream campaign setting where steampunk gnomes don't fit in is... Greyhawk, which is unfortunately the default campaign setting. But Greyhawk eats a bag of smegma-encrusted foreskins so I'm perfectly okay with Greyhawk getting replaced by anything. Even fucking Dragonlance.

If the default DnD World was altered to be more steampunk, if the equipment list had clockwork helpers and travel was flying via DaVinci-style Aerial Screws then sure, Gnomes fit fine as the source of these contraptions. But in the more traditional fantasy settings it seems out of place to have a race whose schtick is making wierd inventions. And without that schtick they don't have an archetypal society or hook to define them.

Dwarves drink beer, live a long time, hate Orcs, live underground, love gold, fight with Axes, bear grudges and are short.
Elves drink wine, live an incredibly long time, live in forests, love nature, are wise, are masters of the bow and are graceful and beautiful.

What are Gnomes?

[Lago PARANOIA]

Gnomes are obsessive-compulsive whiskey drinkers engaged in constant guerilla warfare with other short races and use burrowing animals, illusions, and technology to become the unheralded master race of the shorties.

When your own sourcebook has start out by pointing out your nothing like these other guys you know you have a problem.

Okay, but that has nothing to do with the fact that Forgotten Realms actually does have steampunk gnomes running around in ridiculous machines.

f the default DnD World was altered to be more steampunk, if the equipment list had clockwork helpers and travel was flying via DaVinci-style Aerial Screws then sure,

Sorry, RR, but the default DnD world does have personal flyers (even the 4E Adventurer's Vault has them), Apparatus of Kwalishes, Rods of Wonder, and ridiculous rube goldberg traps. Hell, Complete Warrior had rules for clockwork helpers. And 3.5E tried pushing effigies as an alternative to golems.

6E jackasses have tried very hard to scrub all traces of the fantastic from the DnD world so they could have their generic LotR clone game, but those things ARE there and you can't ignore them.

[Orion]

If you changed Elves to Favored Class: Ranger you could give Gnomes their own niche just by giving them Favored Class: Wizard

[tzor]

The problem with gnomes was that they got hit with multiple definition disorder. Consider the elf. The elf has always been an elf from the basics of D&D through the generations of AD&D and back into D&D. You know what an elf is; you can find the same elf (more or less) in all the editions.

Gnomes don’t have that luxury. They started out in D&D as what would later be called a “gully dwarf.” Then they became a PC race in AD&D with the specialty of illusion (back when the illusionist was its own kick ass class). Then they got switched over into the pseudo-technology stuff. It got worse when lines of separation between gnome and halfling got too close for comfort because of similar problems with that race. Since neither the tinker gnome nor the illusionist gnome fits within the 4E base model set he was cast out. (Reviving the old illusionist gnome just wasn’t in the cards; no fat races are allowed anymore. Even dwarves have to live on a diet of slim fast.)

[shadzar]

The designers of the game know what they are doing.

Just an appeal to authority, actually.

My problem is who they should be appealing to to make a quality product. The accountants, or the existing player-base with a slant towards new players?

In a corporation we all know who the authority is...

It should be an appeal to the consumer, because THEY are the ones that pay the designer's salaries in the long run.

[Red_Rob]

When your own sourcebook has start out by pointing out your nothing like these other guys you know you have a problem.

Okay, but that has nothing to do with the fact that Forgotten Realms actually does have steampunk gnomes running around in ridiculous machines.

Looking on here: http://forgottenrealms.wikia.com/wiki/Gnome there are approximately 2 lines stating they are "known for their engineering prowess" and there was once a land "dominated by gnomish engineers". Thats not a lot given the entry is about 4 pages long. It also states the have had "few overt influences on the worlds history", they have a "famed shyness and lack of ambition" and "an aversion to becoming part of anything too big", they "stay out of others affairs" and that "dwarves are often counted as friends, due in part to the two races’ physical and cultural similarities".

Wow, seems like a race I'd really miss. And it even states they're very similar to Dwarves.

Sorry, RR, but the default DnD world does have personal flyers (even the 4E Adventurer's Vault has them), Apparatus of Kwalishes, Rods of Wonder, and ridiculous rube goldberg traps. Hell, Complete Warrior had rules for clockwork helpers. And 3.5E tried pushing effigies as an alternative to golems.

Yes, DnD includes the Apparatus, Rods of Wonder and traps. But the artifacts are always stated to be made by Wizards or Gods, not Gnomes. The Gnomish write-up never mentions these things.

Elves being very alert and all training with the bow is reflected in their increased spot skill and automatic bow proficiency. Gnomes get Dancing Lights and +2 on Alchemy rolls?

WoW has the products of Gnomish invention clearly visible as you walk around the world, therefore Gnomes seem cool and fit into the setting. DnD has never wanted to go the "Flying machines and steam trains" route, so Gnomes never really fitted.

I'm not saying Gnomes couldn't work in DnD, I'm just saying that at the moment they don't have a niche. They're short and live underground, like Dwarves, they're sneaky and tricky, like Halflings, and they're good with magic, like Elves. They just don't have anything unique at the moment, so you have to either find them something or take them out. So they took them out.

[NineInchNall]

What, you mean you've never cracked open Magic of Faerun?

[Crissa]

And yet, D&D had gnomes with machines before Warcraft was 'Humans vs Orcs'.

-Crissa

[Lago PARANOIA]

In the 3E Forgotten Realms, gnomes have two specific PrCs tailor-made for their engineeringness.

There's the Techsmith in Faiths and Pantheons (PrC of Gond, specifically worshipped by gnomes in portfolio--you build steampunk buddies) and the Gnome Artificer (PrC of Magic of Faerun). In Complete Adventurer there's the Effigy Master.

I don't even need to go into Eberron. Eberron gave us the damn Artificer, for god's sake.

If you don't believe that the popular D&D settings err towards having some degree of steampunk into the game then you need to open your eyes.

Elves being very alert and all training with the bow is reflected in their increased spot skill and automatic bow proficiency. Gnomes get Dancing Lights and +2 on Alchemy rolls?

I like how you selectively picked and chose your examples. Gnomes also get the ability to create spooky sounds and speak to burrowing animals, which automatically makes them more interesting from a story standpoint than any of the other core 3E races--who only have abilities that manipulate a d20 roll.

I'm just saying that at the moment they don't have a niche.

Probably because you deliberately ignore examples people give; you've ignored the steampunk elements inserted into the other games and you've downplayed their abilities while inflating similarly boring abilities of other races. I gave you Dragonlance, Eberron, and Forgotten Realms examples. If you're still going to maintain this shit, then this conversation is over.

[Username17]

Like a lot before Orcs vs. Humans.



Hell, we had Rock Gnomes back in 1987:


Let's face it: in the original writeup, short people got basically one class each. Halflings were essentially Thieves, Dwarves were essentially Fighters, and Gnomes were essentially Magic Users. There was no short heal-bot, although there obviously could have been. The very moment Gnomes were given a schtick other than "these are the short characters who can cast spells" they went for comedic steam punk gadgetry. In every major AD&D setting.

-Username17

[Red_Rob]

Okay. I will admit I hadn't read the PrC examples you gave. They are pretty much the exact Steampunk thing I was referring to. They have given Gnomes steampunk magi-tech options that are cool and flavourful.

However, the point raised by Frank was that Gnomes are more popular as characters than Dwarves in WoW, therefore there was no reason they couldn't be this popular in D&D. I still stand by my other observation, that the established worlds of Faerun, Greyhawk and Dragonlance are pretty much High Fantasy, and any Gnomish tech is downplayed and rarely mentioned except when played for laughs.

In WoW you get about in helicopters and trains as a standard travel method. There is a steam powered motorcycle as a standard mount. Gnomes are popular in WoW because their crazy inventions are integrated into the setting, they don't contradict it.

DnD Gnomes never appealed to me or to anyone in any of the groups I have gamed with. Whilst I don't claim this is a completely representative sample I am not surprised they were taken out of 4e. The options seem to be to go the WoW route to making Gnomes cool and make the weird tech part of the setting, or to get rid of gnomes and keep it more high fantasy. They chose the high fantasy route.

[Lago PARANOIA]

Gnomes are popular in WoW because their crazy inventions are integrated into the setting, they don't contradict it.

But it's not even very hard to integrate gnomes. The technology and steampunk is already all there; all you have to do is just say that the majority of engineering comes from gnomes. No, it's not as pronounced as in Warcraft, but things like portable walking crabs and classes where you load up on magitek armor (even in 4E) are part of the major settings already. If someone sees a steam-powered blimp sitting outside of a city and complains about 'genre violations', you're supposed to smack them upside the head and tell them to quit bitching.

So let's get to the integration. Nothing would change if there was some statement of 'gnomes make most of the steampunky things you see' repeated two or three times in the PHB or setting books. It'd be no different than the whinging of dwarves making exquisite sets of armor or elves making pretty pretty bows and arrows. Gnomes would become instantly relevant just by adding about three to four paragraphs' worth of text to the established books.

Therefore your complaint makes no sense to me.

[RandomCasualty2]

My main beef with tinker gnomes is that there's no rules for them. Dragonlance 1E was the only book that had any actual rules for making inventions, and they basically just amounted to your invention continually failing in terrible ways.

Besides that, there are rules for specific devices in later rules, but no actual mechanics about designing your own, which is pretty much what being a tinker gnome was all about. The other problem is that honestly, tinker gnomes just aren't very useful adventurers.

You never really play an adventuring tinker gnome. You may play a gnome driving a steam tank... but you're not really going to be actively building shit. And then it's just about getting your big invention smashed and having to go back to town to rebuild it. I just can't see how you'd adequately make them PCs.

[Username17]

Tinker Gnomes were the artificer problem long before there was an artificer class. Integrating them into the game system shouldn't be that big of a deal, because magic users basically already spend a significant amount of time researching and preparing tricks and then use them for adventuring. But so far it's always gone badly, because people insist on doing them up in some way that's retarded. When they include a designing your own gadgets rules section, that's usually all there is. Which is like writing the researching new spells section without actually including a spell list. And when it's just a list of gizmos, there's usually no attempt to make them anything like level appropriate.

So instead of charging up steam bombs and shit, you just get to spend arbitrary amounts of downtime to make titanic things that are either grotesquely overpowered or not worth making. And that's a shame.

Because the basic concept is pretty much identical with that of the Wizard, so it's pretty clear that D&D could handle it.

-Username17

[Crissa]

The motorcycle isn't a standard mount in WoW, but instead the most expensive land mount which requires participation between multiple players to create!

Still, you see them rather commonly.

-Crissa

[Red Archon]

I wonder if the Tomes could actually create a worthwhile and mechanically interesting, unique gnome artificier type of set of abilities. None of that "they can sort of imitate wizards" bullshit, but actual, personable inventions. Hell, mechanics for inventing stuff shouldn't be impossible to make, as long as you reach beyond "your character rolls an INT check of 16, and you invent how to give your steam golem/jetski/vacuum cleaner bot +2 to AC." And no, I'm not shoving the responsibility on Frank and K, I'd love to partake in the task, what I mean is that someone has to develop viable mechanics for being a loony mechanic/inventor type of character.

[Username17]

Adding artificing to 3e is pretty difficult for the same reason that adding psionics is: the major casting classes are all incredibly incestuous and reuse each others' spell effects left right and center. Ad they get extra spells in just about every supplement worthy of the name (of all the "Completes", I think only Warrior managed to forgo the temptation to write a new Wizard spell). The result of this is that if you're playing a Wizard, Cleric, Druid, or even a Bard you have access to over a thousand spells. When you make a new power system, it will necessarily feel paltry and small - even if it gets a third of a large book like Incarnum or Warlock Invocation; frankly even if it gets 2 or three whole books to itself like Psionics.

Magic in 3e, especially preparation magic, is basically too useful to have much of a place left over for other power sources. A Wizard can already do "anything" including read minds and make robots, so what purpose is there in being a Psionic or Clockwork guy instead? This is part of (although by no means the only part) the body of evidence that leads us to discount Fighters and Paladins as guys who can play the same game once the prep casters get access to enough stuff.

But that's a problem of the main casters being too widely defined. And it's a well examined and understood problem. What if instead we were comparing them to the narrow casters like Dread Necromancer, or Warmage; or one of the 4e classes for that matter? Those classes only have like 70 things on their whole list. That's something that you could totally fit complete into one sourcebook, or even the core books if you were so inclined.

There's no real excuse for the 4e Artificer to be so uninteresting. I mean, he's more uninteresting than the Warlock! The entire separation between Encounter powers and Daily powers is a clear indicator of a position for clockwork and explosives. Clockwork devices can be rewound during a short rest, while steam packs, unstable potions, and the like can be recharged or rebrewed during a long rest. How fucking hard is that?

They could have just given you a list of powers where you got to "prepare" an Encounter power at each level each day (in the way that a 4e Wizard gets to prepare a Daily at each level), and then those are the clockwork gizmos you have up and running during the day. And you can use each of those clockwork gizmos once per encounter, because at the end of the encounter you can pick them up and rewind them. Since this is 4e, and stats re so very important, you'd make all the Artificer powers be Int based. And then most of them would be secondary Wisdom because the assumed character would be a Gnome with a Crossbow. But you'd leave open the possibility of being a Strength/Intelligence Artificer with a Wrench and that would be generally filled by a valve cranking Genasai.

If I had the manpower to put together a whole new edition of D&D, I would scrap all the basic casters. And I would bring in the specialty casters as the new standard (Dread Necromancer, Beguiler, Summoner, Elementalist, Warmage, Paladin). And that would free up so much space that you would have room for additional specialists like the Artificer, the Telepath, the Totemist, and the Warlock.

-Username17

[Red_Rob]

Nothing would change if there was some statement of 'gnomes make most of the steampunky things you see' repeated two or three times in the PHB or setting books. It'd be no different than the whinging of dwarves making exquisite sets of armor or elves making pretty pretty bows and arrows. Gnomes would become instantly relevant just by adding about three to four paragraphs' worth of text to the established books.

Therefore your complaint makes no sense to me.

The odd Steampunky Artifact or weapon doesn't change the fact the focus of the main DnD worlds is "High Fantasy". People live in a pseudo-medieval world and use technology straight out of Lord of the Rings. Hell, until the Tomes I hadn't even seen anyone give any serious thought to how high-level magic would affect the world, and that's been a setting constant since the beginning.

Contrast this with WoW. Travel by Steam Vehicle is the norm. One of the larger towns has an airstrip because of all the flying machines. There is a dungeon accessible to everyone which is entirely filled with mechanical monsters.

I think it is obvious that WoW has more of a steampunk vibe to it than D&D, therefore Steam-Tech Tinker Gnomes will be popular in WoW and a minor race that doesn't quite fit in D&D.

I attribute the dearth of Gnome hooks to the fact they are pretty much the only original player race that weren't in Middle Earth. The other races all have a resonance built up through repeated presentation through various sources, but Gnomes are much rarer in fantasy gaming.

Please note, I'm not saying Gnomes can't work in a setting. I'm saying they don't work particularly well in D&D and I can see why they took them out.

If I had the manpower to put together a whole new edition of D&D, I would scrap all the basic casters. And I would bring in the specialty casters as the new standard (Dread Necromancer, Beguiler, Summoner, Elementalist, Warmage, Paladin). And that would free up so much space that you would have room for additional specialists like the Artificer, the Telepath, the Totemist, and the Warlock.

Would this need a new edition of DnD? Perhaps a similar effect might be obtained by limiting caster classes to only some schools of magic rather than all of them.

What about if all casting classes chose 3 Schools of Magic when they start, and can only cast spells from these schools? Perhaps they could pick an additonal School at lvl 10? If there are certain schools that will be cherry picked due to power concerns, perhaps if the schools are ranked into Major and Minor, and the caster chooses 1 major and 2 minor?

It doesn't seem like the kind of thing that would need a new edition, and it might restrict the utility of the full casters somewhat, allowing other classes to fill roles currently monopolised by the casters.

[souran]

I hate to break it to people but part of the reason why gnomes are so common in wow is because gnomes are not just tinker gnomes in wow but basically a magical merger of:

Tinker Gnome
Kinder
D&D Halfling

Basically they took all the "cool short people things" except "grumpy dwarf with axe, or grumpy religious dwarf" and made them into the gnomes.

To act like if you made D&D gnomes like wow gnomes they would be popular or that by reverting the gnomes back they would be better is silly.

If you just talk out the halfling and called him the gnome you might discvoer that everythign was fine. Gnome players woudl get their name and halfling players don't care as long as they get to be kid people.

Honestly, there are really only two kinds of people wanting to play dwarves, gnomes and halflings.

There are the people who want to play tiny vikings. They will play dwarves. Then there are the people who want to play adult children and they will play whatever the hell you call the short, cute, ADHD race that gets to act like a 6 year old in once scene and a 35 year old in the next.

[Ganbare Gincun]

I would argue that the popularity of the gnome in WoW is because the world has a very strong Comedy-Steampunk focus - it includes submarines and heavier-than-air flying machines for example.

Gnomes are popular in WoW because they have a great racial ability that breaks Snares, a ton of Intellect, and a very small profile. They have a number of very good mechanical advantages that even players that hate Gnomes have to consider (especially on a PvP realm).

[A Man In Black]

Gnomes are popular in WoW because they have a great racial ability that breaks Snares, a ton of Intellect, and a very small profile. They have a number of very good mechanical advantages that even players that hate Gnomes have to consider (especially on a PvP realm).

Dwarves (and, of late, humans) have a more-powerful snarebreak for most classes and gnomes can't be any of the classes that actually stack intellect, so I wouldn't really overrate the mechanical advantages of being a gnome.