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View Full Version : An original idea for a non-annoying kender character



Ettina
2015-04-11, 07:09 PM
OK, here goes:

This kender, when he was a small child, he and his parents were off wandering through shops, looking at things and 'borrowing' stuff. His mother went to one of her favourite shops, while her husband and child went into the shop next door. However, the shopkeeper at his mother's favourite shop had had enough of her thieving, and when he accused her of stealing something he'd just barely seen her take and she indignantly denied it, he attacked her.

Hearing the commotion, the character's father told him to wait there and went next door to help his wife. However, the shopkeeper was a retired adventurer and the kender couple stood no chance. The police arrived moments after they were killed, and arrested the shopkeeper, who was convicted of two counts of murder. The shopkeeper argued he was justified because they'd stolen from him, but they pointed out that thieving did not carry a death sentence, and that it was up to the police, not random shopkeepers, to administer justice.

Of course, punishing the shopkeeper did not bring the character's parents back, and the orphaned kender child was taken in by an order of clerics, who raised him with kindness, compassion, and firm discipline. His early trauma and the clerics' influence did a lot to curb his chaotic tendencies. In particular, he has a phobia of stealing and of shopkeepers, and is paranoid about unintentionally taking something that isn't his. (I may even give him a flaw where he gets shaken whenever he's in a shop or marketplace.) Meanwhile, his clerics' teaching inspired him to follow in their footsteps, making him a Neutral Good kender cleric.

Keltest
2015-04-11, 07:28 PM
I mean, if you want to go that way, sure, but I think its against the spirit of the race to be traumatized or otherwise afraid of anything. Didn't it take an uberdragon to affect any of them to that degree? With pseudo-magical fear even.

Ettina
2015-04-11, 08:45 PM
I mean, if you want to go that way, sure, but I think its against the spirit of the race to be traumatized or otherwise afraid of anything. Didn't it take an uberdragon to affect any of them to that degree? With pseudo-magical fear even.

Adventuring as an adult is very different from losing your parents as a small child.

Keltest
2015-04-11, 08:57 PM
Adventuring as an adult is very different from losing your parents as a small child.

Well, for one thing, there are a number of kender that actually happened to in the books. Wanderlust + short attention span + child = inadvertently abandoned child.

But beyond that, its simply not in the nature of Kender to be affected like that. Furthermore, the OP didn't mention if the child was a witness to the murders. If he weren't, its even less likely that a kender of all people would develop a phobia of handling.

If you want a way to make him not "handle" everything, just give him relatively fat fingers or otherwise limit his dexterity, so that he would always get caught right away and eventually just get into the habit of asking for permission to handle things because its easier.

JAL_1138
2015-04-11, 09:09 PM
Even as children in source material they're supposed to be almost unnaturally immune to fear, if my memory is right. It may not be since I haven't looked at much Dragonlance-related besides tinker gnomes and Krynnspace from their Spelljammer versions in years.

LibraryOgre
2015-04-12, 03:14 PM
You can do that, but I might go with something simpler... like his upbringing among the clerics reduced his propensity for handling, so he doesn't do it often, but didn't dampen his kender spirit. He's still a kender, he doesn't get shaken from shopkeepers, but he's still curious and fearless. He picks things up in shops, but he puts them down where he found them.

Sith_Happens
2015-04-12, 05:51 PM
"Kender that had something so bad happen to him/her that he/she was actually jaded by it, and never quite gets over it" is an entire variant race.

Maglubiyet
2015-04-12, 08:44 PM
One question: Does this kender use a variety of clever gadgets to hunt criminals while dressed as a bat?

goto124
2015-04-13, 02:50 AM
For mechanics: don't steal from players. When walking into a town/city, roll on a table of items to see what you get. A couple of coins, or a +1 dagger, or a loaf of raisin bread?

Geddy2112
2015-04-13, 02:32 PM
I support breaking the "fearless" canon for Kender if it also means they are no longer happy go lucky kleptomaniac sociopathic pathoogical liars high on magic and crystal meth and trying to play such toxic BS off as cute and innocent, which is not only accepted but praised by the game.....

Actually, why even bother trying to save such an awful thing? Just play a halfling.

JAL_1138
2015-04-13, 04:43 PM
Actually, why even bother trying to save such an awful thing? Just play a halfling.

This. +1. Kender are irredeemable.

At least tinker gnomes are funny, even if utterly insane and useless.

LibraryOgre
2015-04-13, 04:59 PM
I've played with some great kender characters over the years. It mostly comes down to the player deciding not to be a jerk.

Keltest
2015-04-13, 05:24 PM
I've played with some great kender characters over the years. It mostly comes down to the player deciding not to be a jerk.

Perhaps unsurprisingly, ive found most games work better when players decide not to be jerks.

LibraryOgre
2015-04-13, 06:17 PM
Perhaps unsurprisingly, ive found most games work better when players decide not to be jerks.

I am now the color of absolute shock.

Eloel
2015-04-13, 06:18 PM
Perhaps unsurprisingly, ive found most games work better when players decide not to be jerks.

That doesn't sound right, are you sure you worded that correctly? Non-jerks at the table? What is this, 21st century?

Keltest
2015-04-13, 06:20 PM
That doesn't sound right, are you sure you worded that correctly? Non-jerks at the table? What is this, 21st century?

We are an enlightened subspecies pretending to be college students.

Vertharrad
2015-04-16, 07:09 PM
I've played with some great kender characters over the years. It mostly comes down to the player deciding not to be a jerk.

This would be terrible roleplaying from what I know of Kender...and indicate they weren't really playing a Kender. Kender don't ask they don't do anything reasonable they just pick up stuff and put it down randomly even if it's the wizards fireball wand or the clerics holy symbol. Whether a item is magical or not has no bearing on if it gets taken, but there are some items that look so intriguing they would be. I don't know about the rest of you but Kender need to die. Even though they don't let anyone know the whole race of klepto's get offended when they're called out on the matter. And seriously the guards should be giving the shopkeeper a medal for finally standing up for himself, his business, and maybe even the family not mentioned that he's supporting through his store's profits.

Take this phrase to heart, Frineds don't let friends play Kender.

LibraryOgre
2015-04-17, 03:51 PM
Yeah, a kender is likely to pick up a wizard's wand or a cleric's holy symbol. They're also likely to pick up the pretty glass beads that do absolutely nothing, or a feather that once looked really cool in the light.

Kender can be great fun in a game, provided the player isn't a jerk, and, IME, far less disruptive than a steal-everything rogue, or a kill-everything barbarian.

Keltest
2015-04-17, 03:57 PM
Yeah, a kender is likely to pick up a wizard's wand or a cleric's holy symbol. They're also likely to pick up the pretty glass beads that do absolutely nothing, or a feather that once looked really cool in the light.

Kender can be great fun in a game, provided the player isn't a jerk, and, IME, far less disruptive than a steal-everything rogue, or a kill-everything barbarian.

Indeed. Kender are neither more nor less difficult to play in a fun non-disruptive manner than any other race/class.

Lord Torath
2015-04-17, 04:08 PM
This would be terrible roleplaying from what I know of Kender...and indicate they weren't really playing a Kender. Kender don't ask they don't do anything reasonable they just pick up stuff and put it down randomly even if it's the wizards fireball wand or the clerics holy symbol. Whether a item is magical or not has no bearing on if it gets taken, but there are some items that look so intriguing they would be. I don't know about the rest of you but Kender need to die. Even though they don't let anyone know the whole race of klepto's get offended when they're called out on the matter. And seriously the guards should be giving the shopkeeper a medal for finally standing up for himself, his business, and maybe even the family not mentioned that he's supporting through his store's profits.

Take this phrase to heart, Frineds don't let friends play Kender.I will refer you to the way the creators of the race imagined it: Tasslehoff Burrfoot in the Dragonlance Chronicles, Legends, and Tales (also Kronin in "Lord Toede's Disastrous Hunt"). This is how the race was intended to be played. This is the Correct interpretation of the rules that make up the kender race. If you want to play it differently, that's up to you, but the creators of the race gave a pretty clear indication of the way they intended kender to be played.

ExLibrisMortis
2015-04-17, 05:34 PM
You could be an incarnate construct dustform kender, that way you get to reroll your personality :D.

coredump
2015-04-18, 06:27 PM
I will refer you to the way the creators of the race imagined it: Tasslehoff Burrfoot in the Dragonlance Chronicles, Legends, and Tales (also Kronin in "Lord Toede's Disastrous Hunt"). This is how the race was intended to be played. This is the Correct interpretation of the rules that make up the kender race. If you want to play it differently, that's up to you, but the creators of the race gave a pretty clear indication of the way they intended kender to be played.

Yeah, we've read the books too.... Kender are not morons... they are empathic and extremely loyal. Just because your friends chose to play them annoyingly..... is not our fault, nor anybody elses fault except those players.


You want an original idea for a non-annoying kender.... realize that *you* as the *player* are making all of the decisions.... don't make the annoying decisions... TA-DA!!!! Yes folks, it really is that simple.

coredump
2015-04-18, 06:30 PM
Kender don't ask they don't do anything reasonable they just pick up stuff and put it down randomly even if it's the wizards fireball wand or the clerics holy symbol.

Except nothing in the rules from previous editions, nor the novels themselves, support these 'facts'.

Lord Raziere
2015-04-18, 08:48 PM
ok. lets see the Kender racial traits:
*reads the dragonlance book*

everything else? fluff. sure, they lack concentration for magic and even in mechanics are completely fearless but the rest is fluff. There is no mechanical reason why a Kender can't learn to understand that stealing is wrong and such. everything fluffy is up for manipulation. since individual characters do not have to embody all the traits of their race, and in fact are better off NOT doing so as PC characters are often adventurers who are exceptions to their culture and whatnot, because people who go out into the world being heroes, fighting evil and saving people are generally not normal people at all.

therefore:
Merchant: Kender get away from my stall!
Kender: Oh, don't worry my friend! I don't do that thing. I only do that with other kender. I'm culturally sensitive don't you know! I may think it strange that you people talk about "private property" thing but if you guys consider everything you have that precious, well, I have to abide by that! Got to be tolerant of your viewpoint after all.
Merchant: Oh. well you still don't get anything unless you pay.
Kender: oh yes. That. I do keep a sizable amount of coins around! I'm not afraid of saying that it does help me deal with what you term "kleptomania" by thinking of these coins as borrow-circles. with these, as long as I talk to people before hand and they accept the borrow-circles, I can borrow anything I want forever! Really odd but thats cultural tolerance for you.
Merchant: oh while we're on the subject, what about the fear thing?
Kender: oh I know that you refer to some concept you call fear! I just don't really understand it. That thing that makes people freeze up when action needs to be done.
Merchant: yeah, but aren't there things you need to fear so that you know when to run away?
Kender: oh come now, I'm not stupid, I know that Kender + Under Dragon's Foot = Dead. I can put two and two together. Just because I stay away from the dragon's foot, doesn't mean I'm afraid of the dragon! I'm not afraid, but the world would be a far worse place without me around don't you agree? now if you'll excuse me, I need to go entertain people at a festival by juggling flaming axes while on a tricycle on a tightrope over a spiked pit so as to raise money for starving orphan children.
Merchant: wait what?
Kender: oh come now! I have compassion! You can't be good without it! Just because I don't feel fear, doesn't mean I don't feel the pain of others starving. Good day sir! *tips stylish feathered wide-brimmed hat*

Jay R
2015-04-18, 09:21 PM
I'm not sure I see the point of trying to produce a non-annoying Kender.

In what sense is the phrase "non-annoying Kender" any less self-contradictory than "pacifist Fighter", "evil Paladin", or "non-arcane Wizard"? Yes, in all cases, you could invent something that fits the description, but what for?

Talyn
2015-04-18, 09:58 PM
I'm pretty sure a non-annoying Kender is called a Halfling...

Edit: Or, I could actually read the thread properly and see that someone else has already said exactly that. Sorry. :smalleek:

Gritmonger
2015-04-18, 10:15 PM
The Kenderpedia fluff, written by people who really like kender, contains a lot of role playing advice that concerns more what all the rest of the players should do to keep themselves "safe" around a Kender. That doesn't sound like a race that is just like any other. Nor do many race descriptions include admonishments to never allow two in the same party.

goto124
2015-04-19, 05:12 AM
In what sense is the phrase "non-annoying Kender" any less self-contradictory than "pacifist Fighter", "evil Paladin", or "non-arcane Wizard"? Yes, in all cases, you could invent something that fits the description, but what for?

Pacifist adventurer?