Dragonlance Would you allow Kender outside of Dragonlance?

[GameOgre]

Haters got to Hate!

Live Free Kender! Live Free!

 

[I'm A Banana]

I think if I ever play a kender (it's next on my list if my gnome ever bites the dust!), I think I'll be a....self-aware...kender.

Like, he's a kender merchant who discovered the concept of personal property and absolutely exploits it, using the supposed innocence and adorability of kender as sort of obfuscating trickery - "I'm adowable and cyute and I charge 5 gp per day!"

....maybe he's a warlock whose fiend pact is something his patron is trying to get out of: "Sorry, Mephistopheles, but you still owe me back rent for that time you spent in my head and you're going to keep giving me this power until you've paid back every cent of it, with interest!"

....maybe he's a Battle Master who uses a bow and who is trained in Stealth whose motif is to shout out orders and then run and hide. *plink* "Okay, you kill that thing now, RUN AWAY!"

My inspiration will be the nopon from Xenoblade, or the tarutaru from FFXI - all adorable/creepy/manipulative in roughly equal proportions.

 

[diaglo]

I'm just wondering. For me allowing something so incredibly tied to a particular setting to be played outside of it just jarring and not appealing at all (as DM or a player at the table of a DM doing so). I'm getting the impression that some others feel differently, so I want to see where most are at.

if that is what the player wants to play and it doesn't disrupt the others enjoyment. i would work with the player for ways to make it work with the campaign as the referee.

 

[Shadowdweller00]

My answer is no. Not so much because I have any issues or qualms about stealing or adapting ideas from particular settings but because I am of the opinion that the archetypical kender is one of the most unpleasant and annoying character concepts ever to have been devised.

 

[ProphetSword]

I already allow it. I've been running a Forgotten Realms campaign since the early 1990s, and at one point during the course of that campaign a dimensional rift opened between Faerun and Krynn, albeit temporarily. Curious kender slipped through and started breeding in one part of the world.

Most people don't know them from halflings; because they don't pay enough attention. The kender themselves are having a ball exploring a new world and playing with everything.

I've had two different players over the years play a kender during the campaign. One played a kender in the traditional manner, but as a responsible player, he never let his antics destroy the mood unless it was appropriate. The other one played a kender who had been born in Faerun who was an intimidating warrior who used his taunt to bait people. He still picked things up and put them in his bag, but he had lost most of the annoying traits of the Krynn kender, due to being exposed to people in Faerun his whole life.

So, it really comes down to a player's ability to play one well.

 

[SirAntoine]

Yes. I let the players choose a race from anywhere.

 

[AverageCitizen]

I am not so sure I'd allow them *inside* Dragonlance, much less outside it.
The, "I don't believe in personal property," thing can be okay, as a philosophy. But it seems that everyone else on the planet understands that different cultures have different mores, and one occasionally has to adjust behavior to get by. Kender, apparently, are too bloody stupid to understand this even when they are exposed to it, and that just doesn't make any sense.

Sorry to drag you back in here.

I am not going to name the cultures, but I have had experience with several undeveloped* cultures where they have a hard time grasping the idea of personal property. I think it is because they view ownership in terms of need and want. If an individual wants or needs something he possesses, he would protect it. So if it is unprotected, and you want or need it, then you should take it, and if the current owner gets mad he or she is being miserly.

So when they experience cultures of ownership it seems to them that everyone is really particular and selfish about their things, and either they stop taking things or learn to hide it better. Even so, in my experience, they tended to view it as a shortcoming in American culture.

If you add a fantasy-level helping of "very absent minded" to that culture, I don't think Kender are that far off.


*Edit: I should note that by "undeveloped" I basically mean relatively un-globalized.

 

[Sword of Spirit]

Sorry to drag you back in here.

I am not going to name the cultures, but I have had experience with several undeveloped cultures where they have a hard time grasping the idea of personal property. I think it is because they view ownership in terms of need and want. If an individual wants or needs something he possesses, he would protect it. So if it is unprotected, and you want or need it, then you should take it, and if the current owner gets mad he or she is being miserly.

So when they experience cultures of ownership it seems to them that everyone is really particular and selfish about their things, and either they stop taking things or learn to hide it better. Even so, in my experience, they tended to view it as a shortcoming in American culture.

If you add a fantasy-level helping of "very absent minded" to that culture, I don't think Kender are that far off.

Interesting perspective! Thanks for the info.

 

[GMforPowergamers]

Sorry to drag you back in here.

I am not going to name the cultures, but I have had experience with several undeveloped cultures where they have a hard time grasping the idea of personal property. I think it is because they view ownership in terms of need and want. If an individual wants or needs something he possesses, he would protect it. So if it is unprotected, and you want or need it, then you should take it, and if the current owner gets mad he or she is being miserly.

So when they experience cultures of ownership it seems to them that everyone is really particular and selfish about their things, and either they stop taking things or learn to hide it better. Even so, in my experience, they tended to view it as a shortcoming in American culture.

If you add a fantasy-level helping of "very absent minded" to that culture, I don't think Kender are that far off.

Great... Now take a smarter then average (aka 13+) member of that society and have them live in America for 2 years... See if they can start to grasp the concept... Or if the society of America would except him or her without said learning...


18 int kender wizard living in a city for years and int 10 kender just in his first mixed group are by the rules equal unable to learn the concept... And society as a whole not only excepts this but boo hi is people who are not understanding

 

[SirAntoine]

Sorry to drag you back in here.

I am not going to name the cultures, but I have had experience with several undeveloped cultures where they have a hard time grasping the idea of personal property. I think it is because they view ownership in terms of need and want. If an individual wants or needs something he possesses, he would protect it. So if it is unprotected, and you want or need it, then you should take it, and if the current owner gets mad he or she is being miserly.

So when they experience cultures of ownership it seems to them that everyone is really particular and selfish about their things, and either they stop taking things or learn to hide it better. Even so, in my experience, they tended to view it as a shortcoming in American culture.

If you add a fantasy-level helping of "very absent minded" to that culture, I don't think Kender are that far off.

Not only that, Kender are immune to fear.