I really do think that a Kercpa campaign would be a double helping of Awesome Salad, but part of the reason for it is the lack of intolerable ridiculum built into the race that would sour me on an all-hobbit campaign.

Come to think, maybe it's all that English mythology that did it. The OD&D and some AD&D illustrations of elves were more of the Santa's Little Helper variety than the Tragic Tolkien Immortal, but I'm not sure if that was the Gygaxo-Arnesonian intention or whether that was just artists lacking a design document, such as with the pumpkin-headed bugbears.

If it was intentional that would fit with the nixies, pixies, dryads, druids, grigs, and so on. Even so, though, it doesn't explain why this one race of the Little People got to be a PC race.

(Aside, am I the only one that thought a Kercpa campaign would be a lot of fun?)

You seem to enjoy games that have a very strong component of "cute" or "folksy" or "quaint" or "comical" or maybe "Disney-esque". I tend to prefer mine where the stronger thread is "gritty" or "serious" or "tragic" or something else along those lines. While there may be a moment of tragedy now and then in your games, or an occasional bit of gritty "realism" (within the context of the game world, that is), the folksy feel (or whatever it is) takes precedence; while there can certainly be a bit of humor now and then in the games I prefer to play, it's sparingly used, with the main focus being on the grit, et cetera. The only time I'm really inclined to play a comedy is when I'm specifically in the mood for comedy (very rarely), and in such cases it's pretty much all comedy all the time, and is over quickly.

While you guys seem to want to play The Hobbit, I'm more interested in playing The Black Company or The Elric Saga. Perhaps, in terms of the Amagi model of roleplaying motivations, you're more focused on Humour or Paida, while I'm more focused on Kenosis.

Patently ridiculous PC races aren't really compatible with the way I generally prefer to play the game, I'm afraid. If I was playing a rare (for me) "all comedy, all the time" game game, though, I might call it "Shorties" rather than "D&D", and only include races such as dwarves with clan names like Tösser and Reddish and Oompa-Loompa, lawn gnomes, kobolds remarkably similar to Jar Jar Binks, and rotund hobbits with hairy feet and ludicrously domestic habits.

Comic relief is a serious character concept.

Sure, it can be — but that doesn't mean a PC race should be comic relief, unless of course you're playing a strictly comedy-focused game.

Old-school halflings are simply hobbits without the name, and a very viable fantasy race.

Hobbits were pretty damned ridiculous, too.

Mythical archetypes have always had the weird, wizened sage, whose trope is what the classic gnome race fills.

. . . except it's a two foot tall weird, wizened sage who talks too fast, waddles when he walks, looks like an alcoholic who has been punched in the face a few times, and can't possibly be taken seriously, at least in D&D editions before 3E.

An example of the power that character can wield is when Yoda tells Luke Skywalker that he will be afraid when he goes into the dark cave on Dagobah – he goes from the silly, trickster-type to serious, and clearly spoken when he says, "You will be" and everyone gets goosebumps.

That's a matter of Yoda (the character) playing a role, and conforming to some extent to the idea of the "foolish sage" that is so central to some Taoist and Buddhist contexts. It's not a result of looking like D&D dwarves as rendered by The Onion.

Don't dismiss the power of appropriate silliness

I don't. It's the inappropriate silliness that annoys the crap out of me.

MJ Harnish:

much of what you describe in #3 is due to the influence of the Dragonlance setting on many people's images of gnomes.

That was part of what made it popular, but that's hardly the only place it has occurred in D&D. In fact, the 2E Player's Handbook description of gnomes lends itself to such an interpretation anyway.

In the late 1980's & early 1990's, that's the type of gnome everyone wanted to play.

Not everyone. I was an exception, as were several of the people who gamed with me.

As for the newest versions I'm not sure who stole who's idea but fey gnomes certainly aren't unique to Pathfinder – they're part of 4E as well.

I'm aware they're like that in 4E too. Notice I haven't been referring to 4E in my complaints about D&D versions of gnomes.

Unless there was some corporate espionage going on, though, Paizo definitely didn't get the idea from Wizards of the Coast. The first public playtest version of PRPG became available in March 2008, and the fourth edition of D&D wasn't released until several months later. WotC was being remarkably secretive about much of what was coming in 4E before its actual release date.

Mythical archetypes have always had the weird, wizened sage, whose trope is what the classic gnome race fills. A little silly, very eccentric, but played right there's a disturbing depth of reality in them. An example of the power that character can wield is when Yoda tells Luke Skywalker that he will be afraid when he goes into the dark cave on Dagobah – he goes from the silly, trickster-type to serious, and clearly spoken when he says, "You will be" and everyone gets goosebumps.

Don't dismiss the power of appropriate silliness, as long as the underlying layer of deep conviction is still there. It's a powerful thing.