Cam Banks said:
No, they aren't. Nothing in their racial write-up holds with your contention that they are designed as party-ruining pilferers.
Possibly not in 3e, granted. But from what I recall from the first two trilogies- which I loved, btw- and the 1e gaming material that I looked at (the hardback, the early modules, etc), the idea that kender ought to be innocently picking stuff up from other pcs all the time was put forward pretty strongly.
Really, my biggest exposure to kenders was via a bunch of players who all wanted to be the obnoxious, pick your pal's pocket and get away with it type of character. Maybe you're right and it was a problem with all those players (I would estimate a good 12-15 different players); but certainly, at least the early DL novels and game books really pushed this kind of behavior as kender-appropriate.
My point is that most people with some level of exposure to DL, possibly excepting hard-core DL gamers, are likely to play a "kender" in a very different, and ime very annoying, manner than they will play a "halfling", even if they have almost identical racial write-ups. And the stereotypical kender character is the kind of pc that drives most other players mad. So while I will gracefully admit that you're prolly much more learned about the ins and outs of kender than I am, I will stand by my comments as well.
Edit: And all those kender players ranged from high school age to 40something fatbeards. I actually can only recall one time when I saw a kender in-game who didn't cause problems for the party. Granted, most of the time these were one-shots, tourney games or very short-lived groups, but still.
