D&D 5E Kender are a core race?

[Li Shenron]

I'd much rather not have setting-specific races in the Core Rulebooks, thanks. If I'm not playing in that setting, I don't want to use them and would rather the space be used for something else. If I am using the setting, then including just one of the races from the setting is of little value to me - what if I want a Shifter instead of a Warforged, or a Minotaur instead of a Kender?

I think they would be there in PHB or DMG (or in Basic) as mere examples of possible additional races to homebrews or undefined settings. But I agree it's not that useful, and probably won't be there after all.

Also because, the relevant Campaign Setting book will probably change the race anyway, rewriting it for a more faithful rendition.

 

[I'm A Banana]

Kender are a Dragonlance setting-specific Race. They belong in a Dragonlance setting-specific book.

Warforged are an Eberron setting-specific Race. They belong in an Eberron setting-specific book.

I disagree.

These are all D&D creatures, and belong in D&D. There is no such thing as setting-exclusive. If it's a good idea for your games, you crib it. If it's not, it's not hurting you by being there.

And since no one is making you play a kender, or use them at your table, it's not hurting you to let someone else play them.

Really, the attempts at pointless gatekeeping all over this thread are a little disheartening to me. Look, people are going to play this game in ways you don't approve of. Someone is going to have kender and drow casting spells from the Book of Erotic Fantasy on the gods to kill them. It's going to happen. Someone might have a lot of fun doing that. Why should you care?

Well, I'll still buy it, but I doubt that I'll ever play it. I swore, even before they became an official race (when they were previewed in Dragon) that if any character of mine ever saw a Kender, he'd kill it on sight. And I still hold to that promise I made to myself.

Great, your hatred of other peoples' fun is all-consuming, that sounds totally constructive and not all a waste of your time and energy.

Either we run public games in support of a game store, or we don't have enough players in our neighborhoods for us to be selective.

I think DMs in this position need to ask themselves if their hatred of a particular character option outweighs their love of the game. If so, please help me understand.

....let me take a step back for a sec.

This doesn't sound to me like hatred of the kender per se. It sounds more like a hatred of a certain kind of jerk player who uses kender (or Chaotic Neutral or paladins or whatever) as an excuse to be a jerk to the rest of the people at the table. So lets call a club a club and not blame the game element for the behavior of some jerk players. Yes, a player who constantly interrupts the game by causing trouble in the game world is kind of a problem, but that's a problem independent of a kender PC race. If so, lets talk about those players, and some strategies for dealing with them, because kender or not, people will have to deal with players like this.

 

[DMZ2112]

I think DMs in this position need to ask themselves if their hatred of a particular character option outweighs their love of the game. If so, please help me understand.

Well, the obvious explanation is that content dictates identity. If the inclusion of a particular character option makes it a different game, then it's not a matter of outweighing anything. It could just be a new game that you don't love.

In your mind, there is no such thing as setting exclusivity, and that's fine. But it is only one perspective.

....let me take a step back for a sec.

Certainly. As long as you take no other move actions this round, it does not provoke an attack of opportunity.

This doesn't sound to me like hatred of the kender per se. It sounds more like a hatred of a certain kind of jerk player who uses kender (or Chaotic Neutral or paladins or whatever) as an excuse to be a jerk to the rest of the people at the table.

This might be the issue for some, but it is not at all what it's about for me. I'll put up a straw man: for me, D&D will always be some combination of humans, elves, dwarves, and halflings, trained as fighters, clerics, rogues, and mages, exploring the unknown, beating down the barbaric primitives who call it home, and taking the loot they have amassed that in retrospect they really should have used against us in combat. It's not that everything outside that paradigm is "NOT D&D," necessarily, but the further you get from that Platonic ideal of D&D the greater the risk that you will trigger my "What's going on? What game is this? Where are my pants?" reflex.

The warforged are a huge part of why I never adopted Eberron, despite having the occasional ancient robot show up in my homebrew setting. The key difference is that the occasional ancient robot does not a character race make. Wizards said, "robot characters are Eberron," and I replied, "then Eberron is not D&D." We went our separate ways.

If I'm running D&D, and I am forced by circumstances to allow a player to play a warforged, suddenly we are not playing the game I want to play anymore. It's no different than the effect that me telling a player that he cannot play a warforged has on that player. When you're dungeon mastering, the world is your character. I don't force backstory onto my players' characters; why should they be allowed to force backstory onto mine?

The fact is that where a rule appears in the published material has a dramatic effect on players' sense of entitlement to the execution of that rule -- and this is by no means unreasonable! The essence of my argument is really that it is unfair to /players/ to incorporate things in their "core" books that many dungeon masters will prevent them from using. "Core" should represent the barest minimum -- the broadest possible appeal.

As an aside, I don't mind kender specifically; I didn't mind them in AD&D2 Dragonlance, I didn't mind them as a core race in D&D3 (that's right, I went there), and I don't mind them now. They're just a halfling subrace in the same way half-orcs are a human subrace. Warforged are a different story. Warforged require substantial explanation.

 

[1of3]

I find the notion to tell my fellow players what to play and what not rather arrogant.

 

[Cadence]

I find the notion to tell my fellow players what to play and what not rather arrogant.

So, a group member pitches a campaign idea they'd like to run to the rest of the group, and the group says "sure, go for it". Wouldn't it be a good thing if the potential DM had a reasonably strong picture in their head of the basics of the campaign world the story will be set-in? In that case, if the player suggests a race and rationale for them being in the world, and the DM still can't see it, is saying no arrogant on the part of the DM or just part of job they volunteered for? (e.g. a Kitsune ninja in an Egyptian themed game, a Dwarf Cleric in a human only world with a specified pantheon, ... )

These are all D&D creatures, and belong in D&D. There is no such thing as setting-exclusive. If it's a good idea for your games, you crib it. If it's not, it's not hurting you by being there.

And since no one is making you play a kender, or use them at your table, it's not hurting you to let someone else play them.

In a way, aren't all D&D creatures "setting-exclusive"?

If your campaign world doesn't have some race (humans? elves? dwarves?), I wonder if having them integrated throughout the core rule-book would be kind of annoying. As @DMZ2112 notes in post #33, the rule book sets up default expectations in the player's heads. With extra races you are in the position of having to tell them what limitations your world is operating under instead of presenting it from the positive side of all the wonderful opportunities they have. For me, having Tieflings and Dragonborn and whatnot in the 4E PHB's is part of what gave me a bad first impression of that edition... out of the gate it announced "we're not going to line up with traditional-D&D, get over it".

I'd like the traditional classic core races presented as being the standard ones that usually pop-up (but check out your DM's campaign notes!). Having one other race from each of several settings presented in the core book as "hey, look at these cool ideas to expand the basic world (and go buy some campaign books!)" would be fine by me too. And having all the extra ones from 4E listed as "other popular races that may be in many campaigns" seems reasonable to me for inter-edition harmony.

 

[I'm A Banana]

If I'm running D&D, and I am forced by circumstances to allow a player to play a warforged, suddenly we are not playing the game I want to play anymore.

There's two things about this short sentence I don't understand.

The first is that I don't understand how "circumstances" could "force" you into playing a game you don't want to play. If someone wants to play something, and you don't want them to play it, you can ask them not to play it, no? And, assuming that their fun doesn't hinge on one particular character choice, you're good. And if it DOES hinge on that one particular character choice, well, you'd never be able to play together happily anyway, because your styles are incompatible, so there's no big loss. Congrats, you avoided playing a game with someone you wouldn't have enjoyed playing the game with. It's win/win, and all you had to do was ask them if they could maybe not play a character that's incompatible with your preferred style. No one is forced to do anything, you have a talk about what you want, and if you want different things, you go your separate ways -- better to not play than to play something you're not having fun with!

The second is that I don't understand why someone who had such a high bar for the experience would go do something like participate in an event where they are not in control of what the experience is. If your D&D is defined quite rigidly by you, and that is all you like playing, why would you go somewhere that you know you wouldn't like to play it -- ie, somewhere where the definition isn't yours? That's just signing you and all of your players up to be disappointed, if you disagree with the framing of the scenario. If that's "all you can get," why would you get ANY, if it didn't meet your high standards?

I find the notion to tell my fellow players what to play and what not rather arrogant.

I wouldn't say it's arrogant to discuss some expectations. "There are only elves and dwarves and halflings and humans because this is a standard pseudo-medieval Tolkeinequery" is totally fair, because that defines a kind of feel you're going for, and reveals some of what to expect.

I would say it's kind of silly to be too inflexible, because then you wind up in a position where the only thing you want to play isn't something that anyone else is really interested in playing, but like I said above, that's kind of a problem that solves itself. If all you like to play isn't what anyone around you wants to play than no one plays with you, and so no one needs to suffer under the oppressive preferences of the other.

 

[Ed_Laprade]

This thread is just one big troll, right?

Hmm, I guess it is. But I know that I'm not alone in my hatred of Kender, and I was, and am, interested in what others think about what having them in core might mean. And I think its serving that purpose. (Actually, I don't know anyone who would run a game with Kender in it, so its not likely to be an issue anyway. But a little hyperbole tends to get the juices flowing!)

 

[DMZ2112]

I find the notion to tell my fellow players what to play and what not rather arrogant.

Well, your problem is that you're treating them like equals. I mean, come on. Rookie mistake.

 

[(Psi)SeveredHead]

It looks hard to have a PC like that in the group, I wonder how people managed to play Dragonlance. Or was it just more common to have no kender in the group?

I don't think kender were commonly played. I suspect kender (and gully dwarves and gnomes) were often banned, perhaps by gentleman's agreement.

 

[Nellisir]

If your campaign world doesn't have some race (humans? elves? dwarves?), I wonder if having them integrated throughout the core rule-book would be kind of annoying.

From experience, no, not really. I haven't allowed halflings in one of my campaigns in about twenty years. Zip, zero, nada. They're not just rare, they're not there. Anything halfling gets reskinned if I need it. And no, it's actually not a hassle.

I've always presented a mix of "core" and custom races in my campaigns. Dwarves (mountain & moulder dwarves), elves (fair elves), gnomes, humans, and troldfolk are my "core" races. In recent campaigns I've used with leshii (tree-folk), and jotunar (giant-blooded). In the past I've used domovii, fuah, roane, sidhe, and others I don't remember right now.

More than anything, people expect races that fill certain generic niches. They expect a sneaky race, a fighter race, a magical race, a brute race, a "gish" race, and so forth. New races allows you to try new combinations - troldfolk are both sneaks and brutes, for instance. Talvijotun (frost giant-blooded) are gish, but not in the same way as elves - they favor bargains & pacts over arcane learning (occult vs arcane magic in my campaign).

Kender are sneaks, but they're also a "personality" race - they are outgoing, talkative, and potentially charismatic. Could be a lot of fun to play. The "kender pockets" issue only has to be a hassle if the DM makes it one; the rules don't say where the items come from, so it's really up to the DM how much it affects the campaign (and if the DM is a jerk about it, then the DM shouldn't allow kender. But don't blame WotC for it - that's the DM.)