Save the Gnomes!

[Warlocknthewind]

Why is it that they are such a fantastic pun?

At what point it is overdone?

I was casually reading through Lords of Madness, and in the Beholder's listed diet, it makes mention of Gnomes, and no other humanoids. This sort of thing tends to pop up all over the Monster Manuals, and indeed across other game systems. It got me thinking, and I can't think of a single setting that's taken Gnomes seriously, from Dragonlance to Warcraft.

Rich 's gaming article conveniently placed next to this post on the left was a good starting inspiration, but wouldn't really work in the diverse D&D worlds usually depicted by DM's, myself included.

No player of mine has ever played a Gnome seriously, and every silly character was a Gnome. My first warlock punted the gnome bard at the impending mob of ghouls and split. "At that very moment, it was both the inevitable and the most useful thing your character could do for the party. I just sped up the process to save total HP". There was a bit of chagrin at this, but the imagery won out, and the party moved on jovially, despite my obvious use of a sentient being as fodder.

This now leaves me with a sense of guilt (yes, I know they are fictional) from descriminating against, and sullying the name Gnome.

I want to re-integrate gnomes in my setting, with a more dignified undertone, but.. I can only think of them as slightly magic-y Hobbits with goatees & big noses, reading the SRD.

Do you take gnomes seriously? If you do, how have you represented them in your setting? I'm looking for some ideas to bounce around.

Please, with only a small contribution of your time, you can save the life of a Gnome, today, and tomorrow!

[WeaselGuy]

I've played Whisper Gnome Assassins and Ninjas, and Forest Gnome mounted combat Druids. I have another Whisper Gnome Swashbuckler on standby for one of the campaigns I'm in, and a Gnome Bard/Spymaster as a cohort for my Half-Elf Paladin of Tyranny for my other campaign.

In my first campaign, I played a Tiefling Monk, but our Rogue/Master Thrower in that party was a Gnome.

[Greenish]

In Eberron, you take gnomes seriously. They will know if you don't.

My avatar is a (whisper) gnome.

[Magic Myrmidon]

Pathfinder has some neat gnome stuff. Not necessarily goofy, but I guess it can be.

Cheerful doesn't have to be goofy, but I know that most gnome players to to be so.

[Afgncaap5]

I don't really see gnomes as silly. Many may be whimsical, I suppose, but not silly. Eberron probably helped with that.

Generally, in my campaigns I treat gnomes as being small fairy-people (with elves being taller fairy people) and halflings as being small humanoids. I think that helps to ground them a little; they'll have a serious distrust of people who work with iron, and a bitter mean streak if crossed.

[Karl Aegis]

They aren't as goofy as the elves. Most elf fluff makes them seem like Mary Sues while most elf crunch I've seen makes them look like they are the most incompetent race in the world. At least gnomes don't have a constitution penalty.

[Brookshw]

Nuts to the lil' buffers, running around in dey pointy hats, hugging foxes or whatever. Oooh, magic sounds! Sounds simply awful. Good at 'llusions? Prolly cause dey ain't gotz real worth.

On an actual note I'll completely admit to a perfectly irrational dislike of gnomes, probably due more to real world portrayal of them than anything in d&d. They default, based on major afterlives, to a very bland and rather one dimensional race in many editions, though their have been exceptions. Regardless though I do not wish to see them saved, I wish to see them exterminated.

[mythmonster2]

Nuts to the lil' buffers, running around in dey pointy hats, hugging foxes or whatever. Oooh, magic sounds! Sounds simply awful. Good at 'llusions? Prolly cause dey ain't gotz real worth.

On an actual note I'll completely admit to a perfectly irrational dislike of gnomes, probably due more to real world portrayal of them than anything in d&d. Regardless though I do not wish to see them saved, I wish to see them exterminated.

Amen to that. I never felt like gnomes had an appreciable niche. Magic-users? The elves are over there. Master craftsmen and inventors? Take a left for the dwarves, or stick around with the elves. Short people? The halflings are coming in tomorrow. The dwarves even serve as better rivals to kobolds, I always felt.

[Tommy2255]

The dwarves even serve as better rivals to kobolds, I always felt.

Well, the dwarves are already well practiced as rivals to orcs, giants, deep dwarves, sometimes elves, and everything else. They kind of have problems making friends.

[Hiro Quester]

In my previous game we had a gnome cleric PC. The rest of the party was rather racist towards gNomes. The players basically "tolerated" him as a gNome because he was useful to the party.

The word "gNome" was treated as kids me of equivalent to the N-word.

As I joined the game, this joke was already old history.

The player seemed to have fun playing indignantly offended all the time.

Full disclosure: I now play a forest gnome druid. And I've always wanted to play a Kobold with a righteous reason to hate gnomes.

[atemu1234]

Steampunk. It'll make them pretty much awesome.

[Doctor Awkward]

Why is it that they are such a fantastic pun?

At what point it is overdone?

I was casually reading through Lords of Madness, and in the Beholder's listed diet, it makes mention of Gnomes, and no other humanoids. This sort of thing tends to pop up all over the Monster Manuals, and indeed across other game systems. It got me thinking, and I can't think of a single setting that's taken Gnomes seriously, from Dragonlance to Warcraft.

Rich 's gaming article conveniently placed next to this post on the left was a good starting inspiration, but wouldn't really work in the diverse D&D worlds usually depicted by DM's, myself included.

No player of mine has ever played a Gnome seriously, and every silly character was a Gnome. My first warlock punted the gnome bard at the impending mob of ghouls and split. "At that very moment, it was both the inevitable and the most useful thing your character could do for the party. I just sped up the process to save total HP". There was a bit of chagrin at this, but the imagery won out, and the party moved on jovially, despite my obvious use of a sentient being as fodder.

This now leaves me with a sense of guilt (yes, I know they are fictional) from descriminating against, and sullying the name Gnome.

I want to re-integrate gnomes in my setting, with a more dignified undertone, but.. I can only think of them as slightly magic-y Hobbits with goatees & big noses, reading the SRD.

Do you take gnomes seriously? If you do, how have you represented them in your setting? I'm looking for some ideas to bounce around.

Please, with only a small contribution of your time, you can save the life of a Gnome, today, and tomorrow!

:biggrin:
I ran a one-shot for a group at a local comic shop one time that included a horrid mess of a helper NPC: a Vecna-blooded Dark Shadow human Factotum 9 named Azad. He was a brutally effective scout and stealth combatant, generally pleasant, but a little naive and ignorant of actually interacting with other people. The party liked him (or didn't want to piss him off) and had a generally good time and they asked me to run some more.

So I started building up a campaign idea around him. There was this huge prestigious wizarding academy (which one of the players attended) that was run by nine 18 to 20th level arcane spellcasters, each representing the pinnacle of a particular school of magic. They also were the functional government of the kingdom the adventure took place in. One of the members was a crotchety old frump of a gnome named Warlen Pallabar. He loved bad puns, poking fun at people's faults, and I made constant references to a pipe he always had with him during meetings that didn't smell like any tobacco you'd ever encountered before.

They found out that there were strange disturbances occurring all over the kingdom, and over the course of their investigation they learned that one of the members of the council was behind them. And all the signs pointed to extensive used of figments and illusions. The party had seen most of the council in combat up to this point and knew they were all pretty well optimized, and first realized, "Oh crap, Warlen is the council's illusionist" and then immediately realized, "Ohcrapohcrapohcrap he's a gnome. He's a Shadowcraft Mage."

After a few seconds of stunned silence, they decided they had to go track him down at his lair: An archive somewhere just outside the kingdom.

What they eventually found out was that Warlen had venerated Vecna and was attempting to bargain with him for the secret to becoming a deity. He ran a number of different experiments, each designed to study the God-blooded template, and Azad, whom the party had actually come to really like at this point, was the only one of them to actually succeed. His name (Az Ad) was derived from the gnomish words for "Sample Nine" scrawled on the side of his incubation tank. He was more than happy to lead the party to the location of Warlen's archive, and then promptly turn on them once they arrived. It then turns out that, realized the party was on to him, Warlen recalled all ten of his experiments, which were all shadow and dark themed creature builds for the party to fight their way through as a gauntlet while they tried to breech the caves beneath his sanctum.

They uncovered some pretty horrific stuff down there, and lost two of the five party members finally taking Warlen down. He remained constantly cheerful to them as he ordered his various shadow minions to rip them to shreds ("Oh I don't blame you. You did a marvelous job solving this mystery. Better than I anticipated you would, clearly. But I won't let you get in my way.") which only ratcheted up the creepiness of the whole situation.

After the game ended one of the players that died just shook his head and said, "I swear to god, I am never making fun of gnomes again."

[atemu1234]

:biggrin:
I ran a one-shot for a group at a local comic shop one time that included a horrid mess of a helper NPC: a Vecna-blooded Dark Shadow human Factotum 9 named Azad. He was a brutally effective scout and stealth combatant, generally pleasant, but a little naive and ignorant of actually interacting with other people. The party liked him (or didn't want to piss him off) and had a generally good time and they asked me to run some more.

So I started building up a campaign idea around him. There was this huge prestigious wizarding academy (which one of the players attended) that was run by nine 18 to 20th level arcane spellcasters, each representing the pinnacle of a particular school of magic. They also were the functional government of the kingdom the adventure took place in. One of the members was a crotchety old frump of a gnome named Warlen Pallabar. He loved bad puns, poking fun at people's faults, and I made constant references to a pipe he always had with him during meetings that didn't smell like any tobacco you'd ever encountered before.

They found out that there were strange disturbances occurring all over the kingdom, and over the course of their investigation they learned that one of the members of the council was behind them. And all the signs pointed to extensive used of figments and illusions. The party had seen most of the council in combat up to this point and knew they were all pretty well optimized, and first realized, "Oh crap, Warlen is the council's illusionist" and then immediately realized, "Ohcrapohcrapohcrap he's a gnome. He's a Shadowcraft Mage."

After a few seconds of stunned silence, they decided they had to go track him down at his lair: An archive somewhere just outside the kingdom.

What they eventually found out was that Warlen had venerated Vecna and was attempting to bargain with him for the secret to becoming a deity. He ran a number of different experiments, each designed to study the God-blooded template, and Azad, whom the party had actually come to really like at this point, was the only one of them to actually succeed. His name (Az Ad) was derived from the gnomish words for "Sample Nine" scrawled on the side of his incubation tank. He was more than happy to lead the party to the location of Warlen's archive, and then promptly turn on them once they arrived. It then turns out that, realized the party was on to him, Warlen recalled all ten of his experiments, which were all shadow and dark themed creature builds for the party to fight their way through as a gauntlet while they tried to breech the caves beneath his sanctum.

They uncovered some pretty horrific stuff down there, and lost two of the five party members finally taking Warlen down. He remained constantly cheerful to them as he ordered his various shadow minions to rip them to shreds ("Oh I don't blame you. You did a marvelous job solving this mystery. Better than I anticipated you would, clearly. But I won't let you get in my way.") which only ratcheted up the creepiness of the whole situation.

After the game ended one of the players that died just shook his head and said, "I swear to god, I am never making fun of gnomes again."

Fear the gnomes. FEAR THEM.

[Alent]

I want to re-integrate gnomes in my setting, with a more dignified undertone, but.. I can only think of them as slightly magic-y Hobbits with goatees & big noses, reading the SRD.

Do you take gnomes seriously? If you do, how have you represented them in your setting? I'm looking for some ideas to bounce around.

Please, with only a small contribution of your time, you can save the life of a Gnome, today, and tomorrow!

They look like slightly magic-y hobbits with evil advisor goatees and big noses because they are slightly magic-y hobbits with evil advisor goatees.

Consider: If the Hobbit represents the stereotypical common man of England, the gnome represents the engineers of Switzerland and Germany.

Alternatively, explore some of the mythologies they're kitbashed from: Classical (pre-tolkien) elves, Fairy Tale Elves, Russian Domovoy. They were effectively a western version of karma, and make for great druidic civilization. (Elves were the spirits of forests and valleys, Domovoy were the spirits of homes. If you roll with 2e style Druids that are meant to harmonize civilization and nature, this is a perfect junction point.)

[Blackhawk748]

KoK takes them fairly seriously, and while i have usually had a good laugh at gnomes, thats usually because the gnome is particularly silly. I have however seen what can only be described as a grizzled old badass of a gnome. He was an Ashworm Dragoon and dual wielded lances, easily one of the more frightening combatants i had seen in my early gaming career.

So ya gnomes are usually silly, but when they arent, watch out.

[daremetoidareyo]

I've always loved the silly gnomes. Expert craftsmen who are so confident in their abilities that they overshoot the logic of "why?" and jump right to "how?" This trope, probably due to dragonlance, makes for a society of amazing proportions plagued by a lack of common sense. This is exactly the stuff of adventurers.


The gnomes mastered the art of using an illusion to end a fight: rather than build the necessary tools to overpower the encounter like an orc, goblin, human, or elf, they decided to think about how the other party thinks to come to a conclusion of the maximally acceptable visual lie.

Gnomes are the paragon of the novel solution.
Prophecy says the world is going to wreathed in fire? King Gnome says Time to build an airship. Advisor Gnome rejoinders, "Why a ship? I mean we're going to be staying a while, why not an air country?" Messenger gnome reports "We're having trouble recruiting new inhabitants to the new air country, sir." King gnome thinks and suggests starting a brothel to attract some diversity. Advisor gnome points out that gnome women are sacred and that no other demi-human craves them. King gnome returns to library. A week later, King gnome has a plan to reproduce with a bunch of unseen servants and air elementals to generate the prostitutes for his brothels. Air country is off the ground, air brothel initiated, Country is doing well on a diet of geese and random djinni/efreeti patronage. Advisor suggests to recruit people on ground country to join them, that they legalize gambling and build giant institutions near the brothels devoted to gameplaying and gambling. Still, none of the other ground people are joining them in the sky to avoid the prophecy. King petitions for proposals for direct recruitment.
Proposal A: do nothing and wait
Proposal B: develop flying machines so common people could fly up here and get used to it.
Proposal C: Develop bombs, that when dropped on high, would remind people of the prophecy, so they realize how dangerous a world wreathed in fire is.

The King and advisor split the funds to get proposal B and C together. Gnome build little airjammers that operate on charcoal and magic. They build a little bomb that uses magic to dice ever smaller parts off of old mining wastes. Once it falls from a great height it is triggered and provides a massive concussive firey blast. With just a few prototype airjammers, teams of gnomes go to the ground kingdoms to offer free tranportation to skycountry. Ground countries immediately want airjammers for military use. Gnomes build raw material trade deals. Meanwhile, the king demands that sky country test a bomb over the sea. It was such a large explosion that it was seen for miles around. One gnome remarked that the smoke cloud shouldn't look like such a delicious fungal treat, and that he would work on changing that for the next bomb models. The merkingdoms attacked the groundkingdoms for their act of aggression against their capital. The gnome king said to his advisor, "that should put the fear of a firey planet into them." The ground kingdoms retreated away from the land/sea interface, which led to conflicts over land and resources.

On a trade run, one of the human pilots of an airjammer heard words about dropping incendiary devices to warn people about the prophecy and immediately requested a purchase of about 20 such devices. The gnomes, excited by the prospect of this profitable prosthelytization, gladly sell the bombs at a giant profit. This human pilot went strait to his king, explained the use of these powerful new weapons. Watching from above the land through a telescope, a gnomish scout muttered to his friend, I wish they hadn't clustered all those prophecy bombs so closely together, you are never going to maximize your impact that way.

The groundkingdom's king had apparently went on to fly over neighboring enemy kingdoms to firebomb them. Unfortunately, the warning devices contaminated the land with what became known as fire-sickness. Nothing could grow, and even people who only saw the smoke would come down with terrible disease.

Then, airjammers, chock full of people started arriving on the air country, where they could enjoy the brothels and casinos. But they didn't seem to be interested, which the gnome king thought was weird, seeing as how they totally avoided the prophecy.

[tadkins]

Gnomes are the best! I've played everything ranging from a silly, whimsical gnome, to a serious scholar gnome, to a morbid, frightening necromancer gnome. I plan on having a domineering fey-blooded gnome enchantress as a BBEG if I ever get around to DMing.

Just so much you can do with them, and the fact that people are less inclined to take them seriously makes their impact all the more powerful. :)

[ranagrande]

I'm playing a Gnome Cleric/Paladin/Hospitaler in a game now. Everyone takes him seriously.

[afroakuma]

Do you take gnomes seriously? If you do, how have you represented them in your setting? I'm looking for some ideas to bounce around.

I haven't done the full writeup I intend to yet, but here's the jot notes version:

• Gnomes, not elves, are the original masters of arcane magic, to an unparalleled degree. At their height, gnomes could wield spells we now only understand as illusions to make things that were more real than reality itself, hammered into being from the shadows of existence. The principles of gnomish magic, which included the functions of gold and gemstones, are still seen in the underpinnings of conventional arcane spellcraft to this day.

• Gnomes were originally imbued with strong natural magical abilities. They understood the secrets of transmuting the world and pushed still further.

• The ancient gnomes delved too far with their powers, tapping into the Far Realm and unleashing a being of terror and madness into their midst that nearly destroyed them. The gnomish goddesses built new protectors from sacred metal and sacrificed themselves to cast the beast into the Abyss, their last breath awakening their golems as the new gods of the gnomes.

• Because of what happened, the gnomes sealed away much of their power and turned toward more limited and creative pursuits. However, their potential has not waned and they secretly remain watchful over their worlds so that a similar calamity never transpires again.

[TheCrowing1432]

Gnomes secretly run the world in all fantasy settings, didnt you know?

They present an inncent unassuming face to the world, while being devious little you know whats.

[T.G. Oskar]

Zil Gnomes are fun. Especially corliganos.

Take a haughty low-level wizard, for one. He sleeps nicely, believing he's alone. Wakes up in the middle of the night, and he sees a gnome sitting on a chair, holding the wizard's spellbook and looking at it (intently, I might add). When the wizard attempts to threaten him...10 other gnomes, dual-wielding hand crossbows, emerge from the shadows and point them all, ready for the first wrong move. The wizard backs down, and listens to the gnome's proposal...which is simply admonishing him for being too greedy. The gnome, in the span of 5 minutes, explains all they know about the group (which is split because of...well, the same greedy reasons) and gives him pointers to make a good second negotiation.

Bit railroady, but it wasn't only worthwhile - the party actually thought that was an awesome move, and gained respect for Gnomes everywhere.

[Suteinu]

I once played in a game where gnomish culture somewhat resembled Medieval Jewish culture in Europe. They were industrious, inventive, clever, clannish, and typically devout in their religion. They also tended to be persecuted by the taller races, including dwarves, which made them rather insular. They were peaceful by nature, if for no other reason than they did not have the physical stature to be "mighty warriors," and they preferred illusory magic because it is non-violent, yet still very powerful if used wisely.

In short, good-natured, but under social hardship.

They wound-up being very important to saving Oerth, of course, "but that is another story ..."

[Invader]

I never really noticed gnomes being that downtrodden. Aside from the line about the beholder a I can't think of anywhere else they're particularly made fun of in any of the wotc books, can you point out some more examples?

[tadkins]

I never really noticed gnomes being that downtrodden. Aside from the line about the beholder a I can't think of anywhere else they're particularly made fun of in any of the wotc books, can you point out some more examples?

I'd imagine it is more of a player issue. My gnomes were picked on in just about every game I've played by the players.

[Afgncaap5]

Zil Gnomes are fun. Especially corliganos.

Take a haughty low-level wizard, for one. He sleeps nicely, believing he's alone. Wakes up in the middle of the night, and he sees a gnome sitting on a chair, holding the wizard's spellbook and looking at it (intently, I might add). When the wizard attempts to threaten him...10 other gnomes, dual-wielding hand crossbows, emerge from the shadows and point them all, ready for the first wrong move. The wizard backs down, and listens to the gnome's proposal...which is simply admonishing him for being too greedy. The gnome, in the span of 5 minutes, explains all they know about the group (which is split because of...well, the same greedy reasons) and gives him pointers to make a good second negotiation.

Bit railroady, but it wasn't only worthwhile - the party actually thought that was an awesome move, and gained respect for Gnomes everywhere.

I'm just gonna steal this scene, if you don't mind. I have one or two players that it's tough to convince to give Zilargo its due respect.

[T.G. Oskar]

I'm just gonna steal this scene, if you don't mind. I have one or two players that it's tough to convince to give Zilargo its due respect.

For added punch, attempt an accent mixing Russian and Italian. Mostly Italian. That added even more of a punch. Also, try to make it witty and deadpan, to deliver the message even better. The rest of the gnomes shouldn't speak a word, and work in unison, often reacting to the corligano and its actions: a whisk of the fingers, and they appear; another whisk, and they disappear.

In fact...think of how Batman would work, but had he spent time with the Mafia and the Vory. But...sure, go ahead. Used well, it can make gnomes respectable, a session memorable, and won't seem like railroading. The less hamfisted, the better.

[Spore]

Zil Gnomes are fun. Especially corliganos.

Take a haughty low-level wizard, for one. He sleeps nicely, believing he's alone. Wakes up in the middle of the night, and he sees a gnome sitting on a chair, holding the wizard's spellbook and looking at it (intently, I might add). When the wizard attempts to threaten him...10 other gnomes, dual-wielding hand crossbows, emerge from the shadows and point them all, ready for the first wrong move. The wizard backs down, and listens to the gnome's proposal...which is simply admonishing him for being too greedy. The gnome, in the span of 5 minutes, explains all they know about the group (which is split because of...well, the same greedy reasons) and gives him pointers to make a good second negotiation.

Bit railroady, but it wasn't only worthwhile - the party actually thought that was an awesome move, and gained respect for Gnomes everywhere.

Do you mean Alina Lyrris from the Dreaming Dark novels is a TYPICAL gnome of Eberron? *shudders*

[T.G. Oskar]

Do you mean Alina Lyrris from the Dreaming Dark novels is a TYPICAL gnome of Eberron? *shudders*

Can you believe I haven't read the novels, therefore that is a coincidence? Though, if you can give some pointers...maybe it can.

The thing is to understand the intentions behind the Trust ("wot? What's that about a trust? You givin' me some funds or something? Nah, lad, favors; favors is where it's at!") If you look at how Gnomes are portrayed in Player's Guide to Eberron, they are portrayed as a peaceful society of scholars and tinkers, capable of some of the greatest advancements in society, and also home to the best (and given the concept behind the Dragonmarked Houses, only) house of scribes in all of Khorvaire, so they project the idea of friendly intellectuals. Try to poke your nose in the ways of gnomes, and you'll notice it's true; crime may exist, but if it does, it's dealt with so well that you rarely hear about it. That's essentially the way of the Trust - they deal with threats to Zil society under wraps, as quietly as possible. An example? Straight from the Player's Guide to Eberron...


Agents of the Trust hold the full power of law in Zilargo, and their methods are ruthless. A would-be thief might be poisoned in a tavern even while planning a robbery.

The method is very cloak-and-dagger, but Zil society found it so effective, "the ends justify the means". With such an effective apparatchik, you can expect a secret police/intelligence group to have its members blend into society. That friendly gnome wench serving you a mug full of frothy ale? The friendly keeper of the general store? The scholar absorbed in tome? The elemental binder's assistant? Any of them could be part of the Trust. Pretty much the only people outside the Trust are those from House Sivis, and that's more due to family loyalty (you can't serve two masters...or can you?). The other, by definition, is that the Trust doesn't exist. Or, at least, that's what they'll make you think.

The problem is that all gnomes are inclined towards that. Read Races of Eberron and how the gnomes usually behave, and you end up with an entire society of potential backstabbers, only held by familial bonds (family IS all), friendship bonds (family first, friends are a distant second), and most likely the Trust. There's also the bit of being obsessed about information gathering. The section about roleplaying gnomes in Races of Eberron gives a good reason - all information has value.

So, in short: in other places, Gnomes are eccentric illusionists and tinkers. In Eberron, Zil Gnomes are a society of Magnificent Bastards playing Xanatos' Speed Chess while doing their daily tasks, but are still noble to a fault. Does it feel like I'm overselling them a bit too much?

[Xsatra]

Gnomes secretly run the world in all fantasy settings, didnt you know?

Arcanum is a pretty good example of this and of gnomes not being very goofy.

[Spore]

I just wanted to know if Gnomes are similar to Warcraft Goblins. Slightly less crazy, still very evil profiteurs. But your display has shown me that not all Gnomes are criminals in Eberron and it isn't a major theme. Then again, that's because my example gnome operates in Sharn.

[VariSami]

Steampunk. It'll make them pretty much awesome.

Quoted for truth.

While my personal point might not provide a general notion of how Gnomes could be saved from their reputation as silly merrymakers, I did at one point run a game world in which all sentient, playable races were small-sized (Goblins, Gnomes and Halflings). At some point, a major Gnome faction became racial supremacists who intended to deport all other sentient beings from the Plane. Oh, I had such fun with the knee-sized nazis, albeit they were far from silly from the players' as well as their characters' points of view.