D&D General Kender in AD&D

[eyeheartawk]

i would so buy Katra peanut butter.... but can i also get Adora Jelly? they go together perfectly...

tree fiddy

 

[Snarf Zagyg]

Yeah, to follow the whole Naked Lunch thing, I figure, if you're going to merge everyone into one being, you're gonna get ground really smooth, you know?

So you're saying it's not peanuts they are grounding up, but centipedes?

Mmmmm.... I'm in! Those aquatic Brazilian centipedes are getting downright arrogant. It's time grind 'em up into a little .... mmmm.... bug powder.

 

[(Psi)SeveredHead]

My third is mor problmatic... why can't they learn the concept of personal property? I can understand THEY don't use it in there communities, but when traveling through OTHER communities even for decaids they CANNOT learn 'people don't want you to borrow without asking'

It's because they're suffering from a fantasy version of ADHD, a fantasy version of unconscious kleptomania, and a fantasy version of Urbach-Wiethe disease, all incurable in-game (except for afflicted kender). We shouldn't be making fun of the mentally ill, and I don't think saying they have a fantasy version of a mental illness excuses this.

And it can get even worse. While a kender joining an adventuring party is presumably an adult, they look and act like children. An elderly kender adventurer is essentially a mentally ill child soldier.

 

[eyeheartawk]

It's because they're suffering from a fantasy version of ADHD, a fantasy version of unconscious kleptomania, and a fantasy version of Urbach-Wiethe disease, all incurable in-game (except for afflicted kender). We shouldn't be making fun of the mentally ill, and I don't think saying they have a fantasy version of a mental illness excuses this.

Whosawhatnow

That's a new one. Complaining about the logical fallacies of Kender culture is ableist now?

I want off this ride.

 

[(Psi)SeveredHead]

Whosawhatnow

That's a new one. Complaining about the logical fallacies of Kender culture is ableist now?

I want off this ride.

I hope you noticed I mentioned the fantasy version of the condition. Also, I did not say complaining about kender is ableist. Rather, the way they're portrayed could be considered ableist.

 

[Ruin Explorer]

People who have an issue with the way Kender are played due to some bad apple they played with is because that player was already an awful player. Someone who wanted to cause grief.

No. You're ignoring the consistent portrayal and descriptions of Kender in official DL fiction, and you even cut out all the cultural description in your screenshot.

Everything about them is basically "a terrible spoiled child from the perspective of the parent who thinks the terrible spoiled child is lovely and refuses to discipline them".

 

[eyeheartawk]

I hope you noticed I mentioned the fantasy version of the condition. Also, I did not say complaining about kender is ableist. Rather, the way they're portrayed could be considered ableist.

Is it though?

I don't remember it ever being described that way. It always seemed cultural to me.

 

[(Psi)SeveredHead]

Is it though?

I don't remember it ever being described that way. It always seemed cultural to me.

Kender cannot stop these things. There's nothing cultural about being "immune to fear". There's a reason afflicted kender are so different. They aren't just kender raised apart from other kender.

 

[Ruin Explorer]

I don't remember it ever being described that way. It always seemed cultural to me.

There's zero evidence that it's a "mental illness" on intended to mock RL kleptomaniacs.

It also doesn't resemble RL kleptomania. At all. And indeed @(Psi)SeveredHead implying it does is itself rather problematic! Psi you really want to roll with that? Kender behaviour is clearly meant to be like that of the sort of bratty and undisciplined (euphemistically or alternatively "innocent") children who just take things without asking or telling anyone - who, let's be real, where common as children of the children of the '60s, because there was a whole "anti-parenting" movement, let your children run wild and free and so on (not entirely without merit, I'm sure).

You gotta see the cultural context here.

 

[eyeheartawk]

Kender cannot stop these things. There's nothing cultural about being "immune to fear".

Barbarians would like a word.

That aside though, this really is a stretch. By this logic Flame Elementals are offensive to Pyromaniacs because they can't help it, you know?