D&D 5E Next (3rd book of the year) endless speculation thread

[Faolyn]

Kender...the problem is mostly/entirely table dynamics. A paragraph or two of player guidance should suffice: "Your curiosity leads you to acquire things, although you tend to be a faithful companion and rarely take from friends and, on the rare occasion that you do, give it back." Or some such.

My personal problem with them is that they don't make sense as a people from a psychological standpoint:

A: They don't seem to understand the concept of personal property (despite being presumably made by the same gods that made other races that do understand that).

B: They aren't afraid of the consequences for their actions.

But then they lie about having taken stuff. "Oh, just holding on to this for you!" "I have no idea how it got there!" The only reason for them to lie is if they're aware that they did something wrong and don't want to get in trouble. If A and B are true, and they are truly creatures of innocence like the books claim, then they should have no problem owning up to their mischief. "Yes, I took it because it was pretty / shiny / matched something else I have / looked lonely / wanted to see if I could. Want it back? Here!"

In addition, if they truly have no concept of personal property, then what they really should be doing is taking stuff and giving it to people whom they think need it more, which is often not them. But--well, it's been absolute ages since I read any of the novels so maybe I'm just forgetting stuff; I mostly just know from the gaming books--I can't recall this being a major part of their characterization. They should have a reputation as Robin Hoods, not as kleptomaniacs.

And yet, (almost) everyone seems to like them. And those that don't like them tend to either be seen as curmudgeons or are considered to be part of an evil race.

So I'm kind of left with two opposing ideas when it comes to kender. Either they can't function competently in typical society (I used to work with developmentally disabled adults in a sheltered day program and knew numerous people who, due to low IQ and poor self-control, fit A and B above, and as such needed a great deal of supervision), or they are actually a species of sociopaths that have managed to fool everyone (possibly using hidden magic) into thinking they're just innocent and child-like.

The fact that kenders are also beloved of gamers who want to act like thieving dicks to the rest of their table is just icing on their highly disturbing cake.

Now, kender can be redeemed. Take away their lack of fear and just give them the halfling-like resistance to magical fear; make it so they can feel normal trepidation before doing stupid stuff. Make it so they either understand what personal property is, are willing to own up to their actions, or are willing to distribute their stolen goods as much as they are willing to take it.

 

[teitan]

The Que Shu don’t need changed because the whole setting is about the gods returning and everyone finding religion. The gods were gone, false gods installed and then the gods returned. All people. Not just white people or savages. Everyone thought they were myth.

 

[Mercurius]

My personal problem with them is that they don't make sense as a people from a psychological standpoint:

I think it is relatively simple: they are child-like. You could say this is a form of quasi-sociopathy, because children have to psychologically develop to have a sense of how their actions effect others or a real experience of empathy. But it only goes so far: they aren't sociopathic in terms of harming others, just the concept of "property." So maybe they are child-like communists .

 

[doctorbadwolf]

I don't think they need nostalgia for it to sell, though. Current D&D fans will take a good solid look at anything they publish. For example, my kids (teenagers) would be thrilled for Dragonlance, and they've never heard of it. All you need to say is "A war with Dragonriders and a dragon-slaying lance set in a particular D&D world with evil dragon-folk that explode when you kill them". And they are IN.

A lot of the audience would be happy to hear that it was popular back in the day and they'd check out the new product, without knowing what has been changed. As long as the new product is good and doesn't have anything offensive in it, they'd like it.

Heck, I read the books myself 30+ years ago, and I played a few games of it somewhere around then, but if they updated it the way we've been talking about, I wouldn't have known what was new and what wasn't without talking to people here about it. Updating it certainly wouldn't turn me off of it.

Hell yeah!

Also, DL is the Star Wars of classic fantasy. Just ask Joe Manganiello.

Joe Manganiello on why Dragonlance is the Star Wars of D&D - The Piazza

www.thepiazza.org.uk

 

[Faolyn]

I think it is relatively simple: they are child-like. You could say this is a form of quasi-sociopathy, because children have to psychologically develop to have a sense of how their actions effect others or a real experience of empathy. But it only goes so far: they aren't sociopathic in terms of harming others, just the concept of "property." So maybe they are child-like communists .

If they're that child-like, then they don't get to be adventurers.

But the sociopathy thing--while mostly a joke on mine--would be that they have conned everyone into thinking they're harmlessly innocent when in reality they know exactly what they're doing and who they're harming when they take things.

 

[Scribe]

Granted, it's been a super long time and I was young, but I absolutely saw Kender as having a child like innocence, and immunity to fear of consequences.

Societal norms as we saw them didn't apply, and everything in a kender village was up for grabs to whoever thought they needed it at the time.

It wasn't theft with malice, or to hurt someone, and the concept of ownership simply didn't apply.

You see some of this by the end of the novels meta plot, as Tasselhof (right?) no longer has that innocent world view. He's seen, done, and lost too much.

A culture of child like innocence and lack of personal ownership.

 

[LuisCarlos17f]

Kenders aren't kleptomaniacs, because they don't enjoy the morbid of forbidden actions, but more compulsive collectors, a softer version of Dyogenes' syndrome, and they don't understand well the concept of private proberty, almost a parody of communism. The streets in their towns are a total chaos, and that is totally intentional, to confuse invaders (some ancient temples or palaces from real life were built as true labyrinth as a defense against thiefs), but the commercial streets are easy to be found by traders from other communities.

Roleyplaying kenders as the D&D version of Daniel the menace may be fun, but many players try it and the effect is the opposite, creating a bad fame about kender PCs as annoying dumbs.

And I would change some detail about the origin of the gully dwarfs, as mixture of dwarfs and gnomes. I am afraid the authors was a racist against the crossbreeding. The origin of the gullys is the marriages between dwarfs and gnomes, and these survived a fatal epidemic, with some side effects. Later the survivor groups became the home of outcasts rejected by the rest of gnomes and dwarfs, almost as a no-official penal colony, as Australia in the past, something like the Dragonlance version of the valley of the lepers.

 

[Paul Farquhar]

Hell yeah!

Also, DL is the Star Wars of classic fantasy. Just ask Joe Manganiello.

Joe Manganiello on why Dragonlance is the Star Wars of D&D - The Piazza

www.thepiazza.org.uk

In other words, "DL is a Star Wars rip off".

 

[Paul Farquhar]

Yeah, but...semantics. I interpret "classic settings" to be anything published before WotC's tenure - so everything except Eberron, Magic, and Exandria. If they said legacy, I'd agree with your take.

How you interpret it is irrelevant when discussing what WotC mean. WotC don't use the word "legacy", they use the word "classic".

I really don't see the down-side of a full-blown FR setting book. /

The fork-lift truck required to shift it: FR is too big to fit into a single volume. SCAG is the "full blown FR book". One of the reasons for confining it to the north west (it covers a lot more than just the Sword Coast) was the need to keep the page count down.

Also, as a core rules setting it lacks crunch. WotC knows it's crunch as sells books.

Most importantly (for WotC) it would probably sell quite well, given that it is the default setting for most of the adventures./

All the setting information needed to run an adventure is in the adventure. That is how WotC are detailing the setting - through the adventure books.

I can't speak for the young 'uns, but I imagine they want to know more about the world they've been playing in.

Young 'uns know how to use Google.

It's not impossible that another FR book that isn't an adventure is published by WotC, but it would be something specialised like Acquisitions Inc. And hence not a "classic" setting. Unless it was "Oriental Adventures", and we know how likely that is...

 

[LuisCarlos17f]

WotC's strategy is not to publish rehush, in internet age you have to offer something enough new. Crunch needs time and playtesting to find the right balance power and fun gameplay, and the lore/background/fluff has to be enough flexible to allow a multimedia franchise. Today the metaplot of no-FR or M:tG franchises are totally frozen. WotC said the strategy about the old titles is like a music company selling a compilation of the superhits by a veteran band.

WotC has to offer something can't be imitated by 3PPs, and not only original brands.

And WotC needs a clear strategy about allowing fandom to publish fiction based in alternate timelines of famous settings.