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New Unearthed Arcana: Heroes of Krynn Revisited
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<blockquote data-quote="Hussar" data-source="post: 8619133" data-attributes="member: 22779"><p>See, here's the thing.</p><p></p><p>I LIKE Kender. I do. For all that I'm pretty vocal criticizing what they did at the table, I do understand why they were popular. At the time, they were very different and original. D&D never had anything like Kender before. The issues with kender were more to do with the flavor of how they were presented - the whole handling thing and the "easily bored" thing were often interpreted as tacit permission to players to be asshats. </p><p></p><p>I'm not saying that the way the race was written mandated that. It didn't. But, that's often how it was interpreted and kender became a problem for a lot of tables, with all sorts of horror stories and then pretty much blanket banned. </p><p></p><p>But the concept is really cool.</p><p></p><p>It's funny. In that other thread about halflings <a href="https://www.enworld.org/threads/my-problem-s-with-halflings-and-how-to-create-engaging-interesting-fantasy-races.680617/" target="_blank">D&D General - My Problem(s) With Halflings, and How To Create Engaging/Interesting Fantasy Races</a> - at the tail end of the thread, I posted a picture with a bunch of pictures of PC's and asked people to identify the halflings because, IMO, halflings lack distinguishing characteristics. A number of posters went postal and got very annoyed with me for cutting off the feet of the pictures. "That's as much a distinguishing characteristic of halflings as elf ears are to elves. "</p><p></p><p>Thing is, halflings haven't had hairy feet in D&D for over twenty years. Since the arrival of 3e, D&D halflings haven't had hairy feet. But all these people arguing that hairy feet are a distinguishing characteristic of halflings didn't even register that. Halflings are so totally bland that people haven't realized that halflings haven't been hobbits in D&D for longer than a lot of gamers have been alive.</p><p></p><p>So, yeah, I want kender to stand out from halflings. A halfling with taunt. Whoopee. Kender just got relegated to the same dustbin that halflings have inhabited for years. Does anyone think that adding taunt to a halfling is suddenly going to make players want to play one? Halflings are one of the least played races in the PHB. There might be a few others at the bottom of the barrel, but, halflings aren't far off. Tying kender to halflings just means that no one will play kender either.</p><p></p><p>But, hey, maybe I'm wrong. Maybe adding taunt to halflings will suddenly make them interesting to players. Stranger things have happened. I have pretty strong doubts, but, we'll just have to wait and see. My prediction is that even if this Dragonlance becomes popular, kender will just take up space in the book and will pretty much never get played. Think about it this way. Think about your group. Your players have the choice of playing dragonborn (draconians) based on a "Bad Batch" sort of vibe, or playing a kender. </p><p></p><p>Which one do you think will see play more often?</p></blockquote><p></p>
[QUOTE="Hussar, post: 8619133, member: 22779"] See, here's the thing. I LIKE Kender. I do. For all that I'm pretty vocal criticizing what they did at the table, I do understand why they were popular. At the time, they were very different and original. D&D never had anything like Kender before. The issues with kender were more to do with the flavor of how they were presented - the whole handling thing and the "easily bored" thing were often interpreted as tacit permission to players to be asshats. I'm not saying that the way the race was written mandated that. It didn't. But, that's often how it was interpreted and kender became a problem for a lot of tables, with all sorts of horror stories and then pretty much blanket banned. But the concept is really cool. It's funny. In that other thread about halflings [URL='https://www.enworld.org/threads/my-problem-s-with-halflings-and-how-to-create-engaging-interesting-fantasy-races.680617/']D&D General - My Problem(s) With Halflings, and How To Create Engaging/Interesting Fantasy Races[/URL] - at the tail end of the thread, I posted a picture with a bunch of pictures of PC's and asked people to identify the halflings because, IMO, halflings lack distinguishing characteristics. A number of posters went postal and got very annoyed with me for cutting off the feet of the pictures. "That's as much a distinguishing characteristic of halflings as elf ears are to elves. " Thing is, halflings haven't had hairy feet in D&D for over twenty years. Since the arrival of 3e, D&D halflings haven't had hairy feet. But all these people arguing that hairy feet are a distinguishing characteristic of halflings didn't even register that. Halflings are so totally bland that people haven't realized that halflings haven't been hobbits in D&D for longer than a lot of gamers have been alive. So, yeah, I want kender to stand out from halflings. A halfling with taunt. Whoopee. Kender just got relegated to the same dustbin that halflings have inhabited for years. Does anyone think that adding taunt to a halfling is suddenly going to make players want to play one? Halflings are one of the least played races in the PHB. There might be a few others at the bottom of the barrel, but, halflings aren't far off. Tying kender to halflings just means that no one will play kender either. But, hey, maybe I'm wrong. Maybe adding taunt to halflings will suddenly make them interesting to players. Stranger things have happened. I have pretty strong doubts, but, we'll just have to wait and see. My prediction is that even if this Dragonlance becomes popular, kender will just take up space in the book and will pretty much never get played. Think about it this way. Think about your group. Your players have the choice of playing dragonborn (draconians) based on a "Bad Batch" sort of vibe, or playing a kender. Which one do you think will see play more often? [/QUOTE]
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