don't insult the purpose of a door by locking it

[Mycanid]

I have been taking all kinds of online tests for many years now and have never had one that told me I was anything other than an elf race-wise. Class wise I have only been labeled as a druid and a monk! (Edit: recent tests also suggested a bard ... hmm.)

I don't remember seeing any entry for a "kender" race wise no that I think about it ... hmm.

 

[SorvahrSpahr]

i always end up as a human or dwarf in those tests, and as a rogue or fighter

 

[Moon-Lancer]

Kender are a good way to weed out good and bad players. A well played kender is fun for the group while a player picking kender for the wrong reasons is painfully obveus.

 

[SorvahrSpahr]

true, and I think it's easy to join the party when you're a kender, they can be a pain sometimes, with the arresting and the stealing, but at least they'll never stab you in the back

 

[DM-Rocco]

I tried. Once. In a dragonlance game.

I even annoyed myself. Never again. Never, ever again.

LMAO

Kenders are great to read about. A very humorous character, great for comedic relief. However, all Kender must die!!!

Back in the hay day of AD&D when Dragon Lance was the greatest thing since sliced bread, every rogue had a twinge of Kender in them and if you allowed the actual Kender race to be played, eventually that player found out the hard way, usually burned at a spit, that PCs don't like being constantly pick pocketed.

Great for reading about, very bad idea to have in a party, unless you are an Epic Level Kender and can take the party single handedly. Otherwise, the party will kill you, if given the right amount of time.

 

[SorvahrSpahr]

lol, or use it to check for traps in a room, kender-toss

 

[reanjr]

I don't think Weis and Hickman were thinking of gaming when they wrote out stuff about Tas.

Roger Moore invented the Kender personality in the short story "A Stone's Throw Away", published some time before the Chronicles.

As to gaming, I highly doubt that anyone during that period wasn't thinking about gaming while writing Dragonlance. The setting was created for the purpose of epic stories to be told in novel and gaming form.

 

[reanjr]

This animosity comes from bad players, not kender. If a kender player is "stealing" from their party members they are NOT playing in character. It is not a conscious action in any way. Leave it up to your DM what you handle and what you don't. It's pretty simple. The DM should just occasionally say "you don't find it in your pouch where you think you left it". At that point, they look at the kender and ask for their stuff back.

I've both played as a kender and DMed them and both situations found the kender a very liked and respected party member... who you had to keep an eye on... and never let take watch... or tell a secret to.

Kender players are also great as DM aids. If the party forgot to pick up something important for a quest, the DM can just add that in to the kender's pouch.

 

[Sejs]

What it really boils down to is as others have said - they're better to read about than to actually play.

By their nature, they're constantly A) stealing from their companions, B) getting themselves into danger which the other PCs are obligated to get them out of, and C) doing things that put both them AND the other PCs in danger. Even though these problems arn't intentional, arn't malicious, doesn't excuse the fact that they happen. Regularly.

Adventuring's dangerous stuff, and trust in your companions is a huge deal, because your life is very likely to come to depend on it at some point. Kender, whether they mean it or not, cannot be trusted in that way. They're flakey and they steal from you.

If there was a human character that was flakey, stole from everyone, and kept landing everyone in hot water time and again, nobody in their right mind would tolerate them in the group. But for some reason some folks expect people to put up with that behavior from kender just because oh, that's just their quirky nature.

No, nothing doing. Doesn't matter who's doing it. Intolerable is intolerable, period. *nod*

 

[SorvahrSpahr]

This animosity comes from bad players, not kender. If a kender player is "stealing" from their party members they are NOT playing in character. It is not a conscious action in any way. Leave it up to your DM what you handle and what you don't. It's pretty simple. The DM should just occasionally say "you don't find it in your pouch where you think you left it". At that point, they look at the kender and ask for their stuff back.

I've both played as a kender and DMed them and both situations found the kender a very liked and respected party member... who you had to keep an eye on... and never let take watch... or tell a secret to.

Kender players are also great as DM aids. If the party forgot to pick up something important for a quest, the DM can just add that in to the kender's pouch.

true. besides, the kender wouldn't "steal" the companions unless they had something interesting, like....let's say a magic ring.

If there was a human character that was flakey, stole from everyone, and kept landing everyone in hot water time and again, nobody in their right mind would tolerate them in the group. But for some reason some folks expect people to put up with that behavior from kender just because oh, that's just their quirky nature.

true and not true. no one will forgive a kender for stealing or by getting everyone into the dragon's lair just because he saw something interesting in there, but that's not why they should hang him in the next chance they have. a kender is a useful member, with good rogue skills, all you have to do is try to keep him under control