D&D 5E Kender a hafling subrace

[Horwath]

Either:

1) Your kender is really just an individual halfling with no respect for personal property. They are not a member of an entire culture that cannot grasp the concept of personal ownership of property. You are not protected from the consequences of your actions because you are "cute".

2) There's a culture of halflings that have a communal lifestyle, with no real need for personal property. They have enough sense to not walk off with random objects that have value and use when they don't need them, as while they don't think those items are personal, those items are of use to the community, and must be available to fulfill that use. They think all this concentration of personally owning things is kind of dumb, and dont tend to accumulate personal wealth. In the outer world, they may have a tendency of borrowing items without asking, out of habit, but only when they actually intend to use them, and they put them back when they are done, so the next person in the community can use them. You may be somewhat protected for taking items that you were hoping to use, because your people are known for borrowing, not stealing.

2nd one might be also described with modern day isolated monasteries.
Monks and/or nuns live more or less this communal life style. They all work what they Know best or what they were designated and all take what they need, mosly as little as possible.

 

[Coroc]

Either:

1) Your kender is really just an individual halfling with no respect for personal property. They are not a member of an entire culture that cannot grasp the concept of personal ownership of property. You are not protected from the consequences of your actions because you are "cute".

2) There's a culture of halflings that have a communal lifestyle, with no real need for personal property. They have enough sense to not walk off with random objects that have value and use when they don't need them, as while they don't think those items are personal, those items are of use to the community, and must be available to fulfill that use. They think all this concentration of personally owning things is kind of dumb, and dont tend to accumulate personal wealth. In the outer world, they may have a tendency of borrowing items without asking, out of habit, but only when they actually intend to use them, and they put them back when they are done, so the next person in the community can use them. You may be somewhat protected for taking items that you were hoping to use, because your people are known for borrowing, not stealing.

totally agree with 2nd. You do not have to dislike kender to go along with this definition which is also a very good explanation for those people who would regard the theft of a dirty handkerchief by a kender as a reason for intra party violence.
1. Otoh does not describe a race it is also not a definition but simply a individual character.

 

[Li Shenron]

I think Kenders are a prime example of how to design a race that is challenging and interesting to play for mature and experience players. The fact that they can cause problems at the table, is because their players aren't up to the challenge, and maybe they should stick to play creatures with pointy ears and funny accents.

I also think that the 5e version of the kender (during the "DnDNext" playtest period) had a brilliant ability, which gave the kender a % chance of already having any non-magical item that the group might need, as if the kender had previously picked up the item somewhere without anyone even noticing. That kind of ability can give you the feeling your kender is "stealin' all the time" (if that's what you want) without having to directly affect other PC's equipment.

 

[wicked cool]

No offense but it sounds like a lot of DM's aren't being DM'S

you "ban" player on player crime? You going to ban spells that force another player to tell the truth or say the charm spell? That sounds like player on player crime. If all the players suspect one player to be a doppleganger or have a background that is harmful to the party (Rime of Frostmaiden or Strahd are prime examples) are you going to allow that. This is much more of a crime than petty theft

This is a roleplaying game. Why? If it gets out of control you cant have a 1 on 1 with your player? Are these people you friends or strangers off the street. First time i've heard of a kender problem in 30 years

 

[Bacon Bits]

Either:

1) Your kender is really just an individual halfling with no respect for personal property. They are not a member of an entire culture that cannot grasp the concept of personal ownership of property. You are not protected from the consequences of your actions because you are "cute".

2) There's a culture of halflings that have a communal lifestyle, with no real need for personal property. They have enough sense to not walk off with random objects that have value and use when they don't need them, as while they don't think those items are personal, those items are of use to the community, and must be available to fulfill that use. They think all this concentration of personally owning things is kind of dumb, and dont tend to accumulate personal wealth. In the outer world, they may have a tendency of borrowing items without asking, out of habit, but only when they actually intend to use them, and they put them back when they are done, so the next person in the community can use them. You may be somewhat protected for taking items that you were hoping to use, because your people are known for borrowing, not stealing.

#2 is how the one successful Kender (who was actually a Halfling in Greyhawk and just based on Tas) was played. He didn't value personal property because he didn't perceive objects as having the inherent value that would necessitate a strong sense of ownership. Things were valuable for what they could do or for their beauty, but he didn't care about wealth and tried not to upset the bigger races by taking things they "owned". Coins and gems were neat because they were shiny, but that's it. It helped that the player was not a jerk and that the DM would lean into it by making things our party had mysteriously migrate to halfling's pack, but not to a level of annoyance or aggravation.

The other problem with Kender is that people do the same thing with "immune to fear" as they do with "doesn't understand personal property". They mistake it to mean "incapable of understanding danger or caution." I've seen people play Kender with an open bravado that gets the party into trouble whenever the Kender's thieving doesn't. It leaves you with the sense that many players believe the most Kender thing to do is kill yourself by jamming a stolen knife into a power outlet.

Overall I think the race is a problem at any table that has a player who thinks race + class = personality.

 

[Bacon Bits]

No offense but it sounds like a lot of DM's aren't being DM'S

you "ban" player on player crime? You going to ban spells that force another player to tell the truth or say the charm spell? That sounds like player on player crime. If all the players suspect one player to be a doppleganger or have a background that is harmful to the party (Rime of Frostmaiden or Strahd are prime examples) are you going to allow that. This is much more of a crime than petty theft

This is a roleplaying game. Why? If it gets out of control you cant have a 1 on 1 with your player? Are these people you friends or strangers off the street. First time i've heard of a kender problem in 30 years

Because I want to run an adventure. I want to referee fantastic situations of danger, excitement, action, and mystery. I don't want to referee players having an argument -- which is how these often devolve -- so I'm not interested in characters that encourage that behavior. Do that on your own time, not mine. If you just want to play a dice game of fake combat or pretend to have an argument, you don't need me to invent and referee a world of more interesting events to transpire around you. If you or your character are just interested in disrupting the progress of the game, you shouldn't be surprised if I'm not really happy for you to join the game. If I wanted to pretend to care about an imaginary argument all night I would call my ex girlfriend. She's great at running those.

The game is about cooperative adventuring. It's not unreasonable for me to ask that players create characters that are not only interested in cooperative adventuring, but interested in doing so with the other characters and players at the table. This is not a big ask. I'm not interested in roleplaying a constant, repeating argument between two players when at least one of them has chosen a selfish or immature character. I'm not interested in players running characters that are willing to do things at their companions' expense or derail the adventure that everyone else is interested in. That might make for fantastic literature, but it makes for a horrible game. That's a player choosing to have fun at the expense of the other players, including the DM. Everyone gets to choose their character, but you don't get to choose a character that makes other players miserable.

There's nothing inherently noble or virtuous about roleplaying a character in D&D that is toxic to other players. I see no reason to include classes or races that pander to the more disruptive styles of play. That's why people complain and restrict Kender, Gully Dwarves, 1e Cavaliers, 1e Barbarians, jerk Paladins, jerk Thieves, evil PCs, chaotic neutral PCs, and so on. Just because it's an interesting character doesn't mean it's automatically suitable for play in a campaign.

 

[wicked cool]

Its certainly your prerogative to ban all behavior you don't like and all class's etc you don't like but in my humble opinion its more than a cooperative boardgame. Players have their own agendas and you are taking out a lot of creativity out of the game. Are you banning warlocks that summon demons in battle? Doesnt your cleric have a problem with that or do the ends justify the means.

The kender is light comedy. they are not malicious imps with a goal to destroy your group

"1e Cavaliers, 1e Barbarians, jerk Paladins, jerk Thieves, evil PCs, chaotic neutral PCs" -don't remember these being a problem (barbarians were anti magic?

Its a game about having fun. I let my players do whatever they want but they have consequences to their actions. If my friend is a thief who wants to rob the local orphanage then have at it but if they get caught then its their problem (at the same time in not rigging the odds that they get caught).

I let my friends sometime talk about real world stuff during a game ( a few are pc programmers etc so sometime the game goes off on a tangent). These people are your friends and I would never tell my friend you cant play jerk dwarven cleric who roleplays or a cowardly Halfling who gets frightened and flees when things get bad.

I played Tas when the original dragonlance series came out. I was young and yes it could be annoying to take flints tinder box but at the same time my kender had real value in the game. I was the best sneak in the game. At the same time Raist had his own motivations which most mages have. He wanted power and was willing to challenge gods for it. As far as I know these were real people playing these characters and Hickman/Weis would have done us all a great disservice to discourage both as by many the companions of the lance are considered legendary

 

[DnD Warlord]

Once again if the answer was “every character Barb or Ross play is annoying and causes trouble at the table” then yes kicking them out solves it... the problem is “Ross and Barb have played 50+ characters in the last 30ish years and the ones that annoyed the table where kenders they tried to play like the books”

I will even raise you “Hey Chris is super annoying when he plays a magic user but super cool when he plays a non spell caster “ so okay telling that one player not to be spell casters might work... but when multi people see the same issue.

 

[jgsugden]

The key to playing NON-OFFENSIVE Kender is to remember that their tendency to pick things up is not really conscious. It is not planned. It is not impactful on the party in a negative way (outside of others not wanting to be near the kender for fear of losing something). It is something they just did and it should not be a problem. If they took something from a party member, it should be returned in a non-impactful manner.

In the 80s I ran a DL game with two kender in it at different times. One was an NPC that traveled with the party for a bit, and the other was a kender that a player made after his Knight fell off a cliff when the NPC kender had wandered off. The rest of the group enjoyed the kenders because I, the DM, allowed him to be a font of fun.

In one situation, the party's leader was captured and had his weapons taken. The kender snuck in to break him out. Once the kender found him, he asked the kender if the kender had a weapon for him. The kender player rolled a d100 (as was the practice in that game) to determine how useful his equipment was and rolled a 100. As the kender had snuck past a bad guy with a powerful magic weapon, I handed the player the index card with that magic item on it. He proceeded to read it for 30 seconds. Then, he smiled and said, "Not really. I just found this back scratcher you can use to bop people." "Scratch", as the weapon was known from that point on, was an iconic element of that campaign. It landed the final blow of the campaign and saved Krynn. It was not what I had planned when I put the weapon and the wielder into the game - but it was a lot of fun.

A lot of people will respond to that story by saying how it would ruin the game for them to just be given a powerful magic weapon rather than earn it … and to them, I say that you may wish to consider whether you're getting the most out of the role playing side of the game. This is a story game, not just a strategy game, and there are lots of way to tell great stories.

 

[Umbran]

Where on earth do people get the idea that kender are incapable of learning about property?

The basic example of Kender that we have (Tasslehoff) even with years of association with non-kender, did not learn it. We see his internal monologue, and he just doesn't ever get it.

As I recall, he says things that are actually factually untrue about his acquisitions to deflect the anger of people he's taken from. He is either lying, or is outright delusional.

It's cultural guys, and nothing in the setting has ever said otherwise.

They are described in setting materials as not having a concept of privacy or personal property. They are also described as spending the majority of their adult lives wandering among non-Kender. Do tell us how, while living among others for their entire adult lives, they can still fail to have the concept? To logically follow the setting materials, Occam's Razor suggests that they are generally incapable. Maybe it is a result of the magic that formed them, or something.

Or, let us say that they do acquire an understanding - even thought that is a direct contradiction of setting materials. Knowing that it is both aggravating and detrimental to non-kender, but doing it anyway, why should we not categorize them as insensitive jerks?

I don't want insensitive jerks around, do you?