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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[Fifth Element]

Then you are right by logic and not by formal logic? Or you are right above logic? You don't need to be logical to be right, isn't it?

Formal logic doesn't apply, since we're not constructing syllogisms or mathematical proofs. We're having a discussion. That's all.

Exactly. Romani = Kender is false. Period.

Never said otherwise. Interesting that in my last posts I spelled this out over and over, that it's not a simple kender = Romani that's the issue, and you're still harping on this. This is an irrelevant point. Kender and not directly based on Romani. But kender do have a negative racial trait that, in the real world, has been applied to Romani. That's not the same thing as one being based on the other.

Similarities can be totally incidental, you know? This connections you are talking about are a NONSENSE. Often the people that believe that similarities are a sign of something are conspiracy theories followers. It is a wrong way of thinking that leads to see monsters in the shadows.

You've already admitting that there are things that can be connections between HP goblins and real-world Jewish stereotypes. And what was based on only two similarities. Not only are the kender thieves, but they're also wanderers. Two similarities. Why is that enough for HP goblins but not kender?

LOL "chinese friendly author" does not means "author that is friend of chinese"? Is my poor english betraying me... maybe

It's a red herring. Rowling presumably does not have the same internalized societal perceptions of westerners that Chinese people do, since she lives in a different society. But this is irrelevant, since the "long nose" comment only reminded me of the issues of goblins in Harry Potter. It has absolutely nothing to do with Chinese perceptions of westerners.

And so you don't find useful to modify kenders? Right? It starts to twist my limited capacity brain.

I've already explained it explicitly multiple times. Once more, so please read carefully: although kender do not appear to be explicitly based on Romani, traditionally they have been given a negative cultural trait that in the real world is associated with Romani (plus one mostly-neutral trait in being wanderers). It would be better if they did not have this cultural trait, because it perpetuates real-world ideas that an entire race of people can be thieves. It's harmful for people to believe that people of an ethnic or racial group all have a negative trait.

because I mean disquieting. period.

"Finding something disquieting" is synonymous with "being offended" in many contexts. The difference tends to be that the former is used primarily by people describing their own reaction, while the latter is used by people describing someone else's reaction. The point is that your "feeling disquieted" is equivalent to the other peoples' "being offended" that you are decrying.

I don't care their motivations.

Then why did you ascribe motivations to them?

 

[Fifth Element]

And yet still rounder than many balls, which is the point of what he said.

I thought the point of what they said was to equate those who disagree with them with Flat-Earthers, in order to discredit.

 

[Fifth Element]

I wonder what Tolkien would think about the whole thing of biological limit suppression, giving the fact that he builts Hobbit folk around their biological limits to drive them toward their overcoming. A beautiful arc of narration and a strong moral teaching to be cancelled by his editor for the fear of offending somebody who resemble similarities between hobbits and himself.

Non-sequitur. You're talking about four individual hobbits overcoming a cultural tendency. That's not at all the same thing as an entire race of people all having a very negative trait.

Tolkien has issues, but that's not one of them. The biggest one is probably how all orcs are evil and savage and ugly and deserving of death (which carried through into D&D), and how he explicitly compared orcs to "Mongoloid" humans (i.e., Asians) in his personal writings. So forgive me if I'm not too concerned about Tolkien's views on biology and race, given some of the ugly beliefs he held about the subject.

 

[Nikosandros]

Even if a race of oblivious kleptomaniacs wasn't problematic (and it actually is), why defend it anyway? It's just terrible from a setting design point of view.

 

[Parmandur]

Even if a race of oblivious kleptomaniacs wasn't problematic (and it actually is), why defend it anyway? It's just terrible from a setting design point of view.

Because old mistakes can't be corrected, apparently.

 

[Maxperson]

There are a lot of balls.

And we live on one, even if it's not perfectly round.

 

[Vaalingrade]

'Logic' has somehow become what 'bad' did in the 80's. Used in the total opposite way than it's meant to be.

 

[Tales and Chronicles]

Edit: useless snark.

 

[James Gasik]

So here's the way I see it. Dragonlance was a beloved series (at least, for awhile, YMMV) that really felt like the epic D&D game most of us wanted to play, but probably weren't playing. There are a lot of things unique to that setting's early years, that some players are nostalgic for.

WotC is deciding to bring back Dragonlance, but obviously, if nostalgia is the reason people want this, then they have to cater to nostalgia, because that SELLS.

A few things about Dragonlance rub the wrong way, and one of those things is the way Kender are portrayed. Even if you were ok with it in the 80's, you might not be NOW.

So you have an impasse. Nostalgia wants things to be like how they were. But some of those things are not exactly ideal now. What do you do?

Well, if you're WotC, you try to halfway please both bases. Which inevitably pleases nobody.*

*Unless you are happy about all of this, in which case, have fun and game on!

 

[Remathilis]

Well, let's be honest for a minute: it's really not about kenders, right? It was Orcs, then Drows, then Goblins (IIRC) now its Kender.

Same arguments against any changes proposed, always.

No. With this fight, it IS Kender. They were written with a mix of cultural and racial traits that made them prone to being a problem at the table. The fact that this problematic behavior was literally part of their racial traits reinforced the issue. The problem with kender was threefold:

1. Provide them an identity beyond kleptomaniacs with sociopath tendencies.
2. Justify their most prevalent racial traits in a way that isn't cultural
3. Reduce the ability of the race to be used in an abusive manner while still keeping the whimsical elements.

The fact that a kender's reputation as thieves and liars coincides with the reputation of Romani is icing on the cake. Even if that wasn't an issue, kender still needed reworking to make them playable.