Dragonlance DRAGONLANCE LIVES! Unearthed Arcana Explores Heroes of Krynn!

The latest Unearthed Arcana has arrived and the 6-page document contains rules for kender, lunar magic, Knights of Solamnia, and Mages of High Sorcery.

In today’s Unearthed Arcana, we explore character options from the Dragonlance setting. This playtest document presents the kender race, the Lunar Magic sorcerer subclass, the Knight of Solamnia and Mage of High Sorcery backgrounds, and a collection of new feats, all for use in Dungeons & Dragons.

Kender have a (surprisingly magical) ability to pull things out of a bag, and a supernatural taunt feature. This magical ability appears to replace the older 'kleptomania' description -- "Unknown to most mortals, a magical phenomenon surrounds a kender. Spurred by their curiosity and love for trinkets, curios, and keepsakes, a kender’s pouches or pockets will be magically filled with these objects. No one knows where these objects come from, not even the kender. This has led many kender to be mislabeled as thieves when they fish these items out of their pockets."

Lunar Magic is a sorcerer subclass which draws power from the moon(s); there are notes for using it in Eberron.

Also included are feats such as Adepts of the Black, White, and Red Robes, and Knights of the Sword, Rose, and Crown.

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[Remathilis]

The page you link is a good example of identification between REAL and FICTIONAL. The fact that Gipsies are identified with thieves could be considered a REAL ISSUE.
Viceversa the fact that Gipsy Bard have a particular trait in common with Kender is not sufficient to say that Kender are inspired nor by Gipsies or even more by Romani people.
You report a good example of what is a real issue and what is a misinterpretation, a faulty logic jump.
In China, western people are called "Long Nose". Do you think that a chinese is so naive to believe that every person with a long nose comes from the west? You can't jump from Particular to General.

I don't think you need to show that kenders were inspired by Romani (or more accurately, the gypsy stereotype) but only that they share the same conceptual space strong enough that the attitudes of one group can be implied onto the other. The issue is that many of the same kind of prejudices can be applied, which makes the kender act like stand-ins for those stereotypes. Kenders are wanderers, have child-like brains, do not understand personal property, lie as easy as breathing, in tune with nature, and are viewed as "other" by those people who live in "civilized society". You don't need tambourines and head scarves to draw a parallel. And the fact that most people (in and out of game) react to kender as thieves, liars and vermin (often invoking the notion of violence against them for their disruptive behavior) isn't a connection that is lost on some.

The issue isn't that, unlike the Vistani who were clear Romani parallels, kender are a race whose culture includes some of the same hurtful stereotyping that hurts Romani. The question really becomes "should a fantasy races be defined by negative traits that have been ascribed to RW peoples, including the negative reactions to said traits?"

 

[Fifth Element]

Maybe you miss that we are talking of the association of Kender with Romani. Not the association of Romani with Thievery. Who jumps from Kender to Romani do a false logic assumption.

Romani are a people who have traditionally been associated with thievery. Kender are a people wholly associated with thievery. The connection is obvious. Even if it was not intentional, the connection is there, and pretending that it isn't is a bad thing. As such, it is better to err on the side of not including negative real-world associations in your published game, because people are more important that a game.

Complain about logic all you like - the reasoning has been laid out explicitly. "You're not being logical" is not a rebuttal.

All Romani are thieves, Kender are all thieves, Kender are Romani? NO
All Drow are black, all drow are evil, Black people are evil? NO

Again, you're missing it. Black people have been strongly associated with evil in the past. As such, making the black-skinned race an evil race is a bad idea.

Moreover, having "evil" races at all is really a bad idea, because the idea that all (or nearly all) people of a certain race will share a personality trait is in itself a racist idea.

These are wrong logic conclusion.

You can keep talking about logic all you want, but we're not discussing a syllogism here. Associating whole races of people with personality traits - especially negative ones, and especially ones that have been associated with certain ethnic groups in reality - is a bad idea. It perpetuates a racist way of thinking, even if you personally can't see the connection between the fictional people and a particular group of people in reality.

The evidence I have is that now Pubishers cut everything: anti inclusive content (for good reasons) AND everything that can be considered anti inclusive if broken logic is applied (for marketing reasons).

Of course, you have no way of determining which is which, unless you were involved in the design discussions. Claiming that "they just did this to be woke" (which is essentially what you're saying about 'broken logic' and marketing) is easy, but you're assuming what the intent was for each particular change without having evidence of the actual reason behind the change. You're just making assumptions. One might say they're false logic assumptions.

 

[DarkCrisis]

This is not true. Here is the stats for the Heroes of the Lance:

View attachment 153335
Caramon, and Riverwind both had percentile strengths. Raistin had an average Constitution. And whoever said that Druids don't exist in Krynn really had no idea what they were talking about.

I love the old school art so much.

1E Krynn has Paladins but later on there are no Paladins or are super duper rare.

 

[Fifth Element]

Viceversa the fact that Gipsy Bard have a particular trait in common with Kender is not sufficient to say that Kender are inspired nor by Gipsies or even more by Romani people.

It's the association with the negative trait that is a trait associated with a real-world people that's the problem. It doesn't matter one little bit if the kender are directly modeled on Romani. It's the result that matters. You should not ignore reality when designing your mass-market game. As I stated explicitly before, it sucks that the Romani have been associated with thievery. But ignoring the fact that they have doesn't help anything, and actually hurts. You can't just pretend the association isn't there.

You report a good example of what is a real issue and what is a misinterpretation, a faulty logic jump.
In China, western people are called "Long Nose". Do you think that a chinese is so naive to believe that every person with a long nose comes from the west? You can't jump from Particular to General.

This brings to mind the issues that goblins have in Harry Potter. Goblins in Harry Potter do have long noses....which is a trait traditionally associated (in the west) with Jewish people. Oh and they happen to be greedy bankers too. So even if these goblins were not actually based on Jewish people, the associations are still there, and they suck.

 

[darjr]

So when M&W wrote for later editions did they do the same? Did the cleave closer to the ruleset of the time? 2nd edition D&D and then later other rules?

 

[Stefano Rinaldelli]

Romani are a people who have traditionally been associated with thievery. Kender are a people wholly associated with thievery. The connection is obvious. Even if it was not intentional, the connection is there, and pretending that it isn't is a bad thing. As such, it is better to err on the side of not including negative real-world associations in your published game, because people are more important that a game.

Complain about logic all you like - the reasoning has been laid out explicitly. "You're not being logical" is not a rebuttal.


Again, you're missing it. Black people have been strongly associated with evil in the past. As such, making the black-skinned race an evil race is a bad idea.

Moreover, having "evil" races at all is really a bad idea, because the idea that all (or nearly all) people of a certain race will share a personality trait is in itself a racist idea.


You can keep talking about logic all you want, but we're not discussing a syllogism here. Associating whole races of people with personality traits - especially negative ones, and especially ones that have been associated with certain ethnic groups in reality - is a bad idea. It perpetuates a racist way of thinking, even if you personally can't see the connection between the fictional people and a particular group of people in reality.


Of course, you have no way of determining which is which, unless you were involved in the design discussions. Claiming that "they just did this to be woke" (which is essentially what you're saying about 'broken logic' and marketing) is easy, but you're assuming what the intent was for each particular change without having evidence of the actual reason behind the change. You're just making assumptions. One might say they're false logic assumptions.

Logic have rules. Sorry. Jump to Romani from Kender is wrong. It is not an opinion, is a fact. I'm not interested in arguing with you about this point as I'm not interested in demonstrate that the Earth is a sphere. Really sorry but I have better things to do.

 

[Paul Farquhar]

I'm not interested in demonstrate that the Earth is a sphere

It's not.

 

[Stefano Rinaldelli]

I don't think you need to show that kenders were inspired by Romani (or more accurately, the gypsy stereotype) but only that they share the same conceptual space strong enough that the attitudes of one group can be implied onto the other. The issue is that many of the same kind of prejudices can be applied, which makes the kender act like stand-ins for those stereotypes. Kenders are wanderers, have child-like brains, do not understand personal property, lie as easy as breathing, in tune with nature, and are viewed as "other" by those people who live in "civilized society". You don't need tambourines and head scarves to draw a parallel. And the fact that most people (in and out of game) react to kender as thieves, liars and vermin (often invoking the notion of violence against them for their disruptive behavior) isn't a connection that is lost on some.

The issue isn't that, unlike the Vistani who were clear Romani parallels, kender are a race whose culture includes some of the same hurtful stereotyping that hurts Romani. The question really becomes "should a fantasy races be defined by negative traits that have been ascribed to RW peoples, including the negative reactions to said traits?"

You are shifting the topic. But ok, trying to respond to your question: absolutely yes: until the negative trait is the only thing in common between fictional and rw people no legitim identification can be performed.
If you do identify kender with romani you are assuming bad faith of the writer and your claim is an accusation that deserve more evidence before can be considered true.

 

[Stefano Rinaldelli]

It's not.

I'm absolutely overwhelmed by your wit

 

[Parmandur]

It's the association with the negative trait that is a trait associated with a real-world people that's the problem. It doesn't matter one little bit if the kender are directly modeled on Romani. It's the result that matters. You should not ignore reality when designing your mass-market game. As I stated explicitly before, it sucks that the Romani have been associated with thievery. But ignoring the fact that they have doesn't help anything, and actually hurts. You can't just pretend the association isn't there.


This brings to mind the issues that goblins have in Harry Potter. Goblins in Harry Potter do have long noses....which is a trait traditionally associated (in the west) with Jewish people. Oh and they happen to be greedy bankers too. So even if these goblins were not actually based on Jewish people, the associations are still there, and they suck.

Harry Potter Goblins, to be fair, are far worse on this score than Kender, and not quite as excuseable.